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First off, I'm 33 years old, at the very tail-end of Gen X or the beginning of Y, depending on who's classification system you're using. I am getting sick of reading thread after thread of my generation and younger whining and complaining about how it is impossible for them to get ahead (or even going) in today's word.
They whine about how it's impossible to go to school without becoming a debt-slave, impossible to buy a house, impossible to raise a family, impossible to even get a job, ect, ect...
WTF is wrong with you people? I worked my way up in my job field from 11 dollars an hour to 24 now, put myself through college without taking out a loan, own a house that is worth more than 200K, have 2 cars (one paid for) 3 kids, no debt besides the mortage and car loan, a bunch of toys and my wife is even a stay at home mom. It wasn't hard.
Here's how: I did a good work and progressed in my job. I bought a fixer-upper house and restored it myself. I kept good credit so I get the best rates on loans. I lived within my means and didn't overextend myself early, so I would have more later. I budget.
Why is this "impossible" for so many people? Did your mommies not teach you how to be an adult? Are you unable to plan more than a week ahead? Stop whining! It's always been challenging to get a life started no matter what generation a person finds themselves in. If chango can do it, you are a sure bet!!!! Get out there and get to work!!!!!
Man, your post is nauseating. What year did you graduate from college? What year did you buy that fixer upper house? The answers to those questions are very important, since the economy changed drastically in the periods between 1995, 2000, 2005, and 2010, respectively.
I started college in '01. Houses were about $125k, starting salaries were about $35k.
I finished college in '06. Houses were about $200k, starting salaries were about $35k -- so buying a house was out of the question, but the labor market was still okay.
I busted my ass, worked my way up into a position I was happy with, got a big raise, by early 2008.
Guess what happened in 2008? Everything shut down. No more hiring for my organization. Pay cuts for everybody who didn't get fired. In September 08 some of the older workers were joking that I was the "luckiest guy in the world," for getting a secure, well paying job when I did.
So for me, I am not so pompous-ass arrogant as to think that the people who are coming along today, with a horrible labor market, are all "lazy whiners." I understand that the challenges they face are much greater than the challenges I faced just a few years before they came along. Even if you are out of touch with the labor market, just looking at housing ... comparing prices of fixer uppers between 2000 and 2010 is apples and oranges.
This entire thread is laughable. Weren't hundreds of thousands of Baby Boomers self-described "Hippies". Y'know people that outright refused to work and whined about "social ills" for a living. Instead Hippies did Olympic gold medal style mental gymnastics and fooled themselves into believing that they were "changing the world" through sitting on their behinds and smoking absurd amounts of weed and "experimenting" with mental health threatening lab-made drugs like Acid while laying around and sleeping with everyone in Haight-Ashbury, Golden Gate Park and Woodstock. Ironically, these former brain-fried smelly acid-tripping mostly White Hippies cut their hair and run America today.
The difference between Hippies and the current generation of kids is that fresh college grads and high school students want to work. Unless you have next zero real work experience and are under 30 years old and have no connections, your opinions about Generation Y are completely invalid and insulting to say the least. Kids today have to compete for jobs with illegals and BABY BOOMERS who are working for entry level salaries and are refusing to retire. Also, I don't know what planet you ancient White people live on where gas being nearly $5 at the pump doesn't effect you at all. Not to mention every new graduating class of college graduates continues to set a new student loan debt record every year.
The same people condemning Generation Y are the same types of sheltered Baby Boomers on their multiple extended cigarette/coffee/lunch/stretch breaks at their butt-growing internet porn surfing government "jobs" who scream "GET A JOB!" at homeless mentally-ill war veterans who are missing limbs and panhandling on the street to survive in generic downtown Big City America. If anything, the Baby Boomers are by FAR the most spoiled generation. Boomers grew up in the anomaly of an ever-expanding economy when wages were adjusted for inflation. College was 400% cheaper back in your day and you could buy a house and live comfortably working in an assembly line.
While the Titanic known as the U.S.A. is sinking, Baby Boomers have been hustled into life rafts while Generation Y has been left to drown in the sinking ship that was "too big to fail". Instead, Boomers are yelling from their secure life rafts and telling us to build our own ships out of the scraps of a ship that is sinking into the ocean at an unprecedented rate.
Last edited by goldenchild08; 06-01-2011 at 01:27 PM..
So they are good soldiers as long as they are assigned the task at hand. What about creativity and innovation? Do they have the ability to self-motivate and think independently? Suppose they don't have a pack or a boomer around to give them support or praise. This is not a generation of leaders or free thinkers.
What an absurd generalization to make about a group of millions of people.
Man, your post is nauseating. What year did you graduate from college? What year did you buy that fixer upper house? The answers to those questions are very important, since the economy changed drastically in the periods between 1995, 2000, 2005, and 2010, respectively.
I started college in '01. Houses were about $125k, starting salaries were about $35k.
I finished college in '06. Houses were about $200k, starting salaries were about $35k -- so buying a house was out of the question, but the labor market was still okay.
I busted my ass, worked my way up into a position I was happy with, got a big raise, by early 2008.
Guess what happened in 2008? Everything shut down. No more hiring for my organization. Pay cuts for everybody who didn't get fired. In September 08 some of the older workers were joking that I was the "luckiest guy in the world," for getting a secure, well paying job when I did.
So for me, I am not so pompous-ass arrogant as to think that the people who are coming along today, with a horrible labor market, are all "lazy whiners." I understand that the challenges they face are much greater than the challenges I faced just a few years before they came along. Even if you are out of touch with the labor market, just looking at housing ... comparing prices of fixer uppers between 2000 and 2010 is apples and oranges.
I graduated in 09 from the University of Utah, after 5 years of part time attendance and really did pay as I went.
I bought my second house in 2006, first in 2001. I started my career in 2000 and current job in 2005. And I hereby wave my pompus ass in your direction, because being average income with an average home in an average job is just so damn snooty.
I graduated in 09 from the University of Utah, after 5 years of part time attendance and really did pay as I went.
I bought my second house in 2006, first in 2001. I started my career in 2000 and current job in 2005. And I hereby wave my pompus ass in your direction, because being average income with an average home in an average job is just so damn snooty.
So you bought a house in 2001, before the bubble, and you can't understand why it is difficult to buy a house today.
You started your career in 2000, before the labor market collapsed, and you can't figure out why it is difficult to start a career today.
seriously? are you that out of touch with reality?
This entire thread is laughable. Weren't hundreds of thousands of Baby Boomers self-described "Hippies". Y'know people that outright refused to work and whined about "social ills" for a living. Instead Hippies did Olympic gold medal style mental gymnastics and fooled themselves into believing that they were "changing the world" through sitting on their behinds and smoking absurd amounts of weed and "experimenting" with mental health threatening lab-made drugs like Acid while laying around and sleeping with everyone in Haight-Ashbury, Golden Gate Park and Woodstock. Ironically, these former brain-fried smelly acid-tripping mostly White Hippies cut their hair and run America today.
The same people condemning Generation Y are the same types of sheltered Baby Boomers on their multiple extended cigarette/coffee/lunch/stretch breaks at their butt-growing internet porn surfing government "jobs" who scream "GET A JOB!" at homeless mentally-ill war veterans who are missing limbs and panhandling on the street to survive in generic downtown Big City America. If anything, the Baby Boomers are by FAR the most spoiled generation. Boomers grew up in the anomaly of an ever-expanding economy when wages were adjusted for inflation. College was 400% cheaper back in your day and you could buy a house and live comfortably working in an assembly line.
While the Titanic known as the U.S.A. is sinking, Baby Boomers have been hustled into life rafts while Generation Y has been left to drown in the sinking ship that was "too big to fail". Instead, Boomers are yelling from their secure life rafts and telling us to build our own ships out of the scraps of a ship that is sinking into the ocean at an unprecedented rate.
To Goldenchild08: I really and truly enjoyed that, even though I don't entirely agree with all of it. What a great, in-your-face style, coupled with some real substance! I am 67 years old, was never a hippie, and shared then and continue to share now your contempt for the "hippie philosophy" that you have so delightfully skewered.
I would rather imagine that for the most part, those Boomers who "run America today" are the ones who never were hippies and who always adhered to a good work ethic. The exceptions are there (the ones who cut their hair and changed their tune) and for them, you are correct to point out the irony.
I don't know what percentage of us would have been considered hippies back in the day (that would be a really interesting statistic if it were possible to produce) but it sure wasn't a majority or the country would have imploded at the time. So while there is a whole lot of truth in your post, it is also true that you are painting millions of people with the same brush, most of whom don't deserve it.
Do I correctly assume you are a Generation-Y? I ask that more out of curiosity, because you could be any age and still have come up with your conclusions - no age group has a lock on the truth. Thanks for your post. It's been long enough ago since the hippie era that a lot of us have almost forgotten about it, even as destructive as it was.
Man, your post is nauseating. What year did you graduate from college? What year did you buy that fixer upper house? The answers to those questions are very important, since the economy changed drastically in the periods between 1995, 2000, 2005, and 2010, respectively.
I started college in '01. Houses were about $125k, starting salaries were about $35k.
I finished college in '06. Houses were about $200k, starting salaries were about $35k -- so buying a house was out of the question, but the labor market was still okay.
I busted my ass, worked my way up into a position I was happy with, got a big raise, by early 2008.
Guess what happened in 2008? Everything shut down. No more hiring for my organization. Pay cuts for everybody who didn't get fired. In September 08 some of the older workers were joking that I was the "luckiest guy in the world," for getting a secure, well paying job when I did.
So for me, I am not so pompous-ass arrogant as to think that the people who are coming along today, with a horrible labor market, are all "lazy whiners." I understand that the challenges they face are much greater than the challenges I faced just a few years before they came along. Even if you are out of touch with the labor market, just looking at housing ... comparing prices of fixer uppers between 2000 and 2010 is apples and oranges.
Real estate prices have plummeted since their peak in about 07. Housing is now quite affordable for those getting into the market and great buys can be found if one is willing to look into bank owned and foreclosure properties. Interest rates are very low - now is a good time for first time buyers. I don't see many GenY taking the initiative to seek out the good deals or having patience to deal with red tape, just complaining about high rents and higher home prices than ten years ago.
Good for any of them that are willing to push forward and do what it takes and don't give up because something seems hard.
Real estate prices have plummeted since their peak in about 07. Housing is now quite affordable for those getting into the market and great buys can be found....
depends on your location.
Quote:
I don't see many GenY taking the initiative to seek out the good deals or having patience to deal with red tape, just complaining about high rents and higher home prices than ten years ago.
yeah you're right. it's not like i've been sitting on the fence looking at the market for 3 years.
Quote:
Good for any of them that are willing to push forward and do what it takes and don't give up because something seems hard.
for me, the big obstacle i run into is not that it is difficult to buy, but that it is stupid to buy.
How are 20-somethings supposed to service a mortgage and all their student loan payments at the same time, though?
We seem to keep overlooking the trillion-dollar student debt bomb that has bubbled into existence over the past decade.
I think some of the generational animosity comes from the fact that this particular bubble was indeed created by Boomer-aged university administrators. While few Boomers are university administrators (a cushy job if you can snag it), most university administrators are indeed Boomers.
So a sense develops that "the Boomers" are conspiring to siphon wealth out of the hands of the younger generation via instruments like student debt.
Meanwhile, other Boomers who are unaware of the situation are taken aback at the level of anger, and don't know what to make of it, or where it comes from.
If "the Boomers" as a whole made one big cultural mistake, it would probably be the cultural fetishization of quarterly results over steady long-term gains. When you are constantly obsessed with quarter-on-quarter growth, you become willing to make damaging short-term decisions in order to pump up today's profits, even if the long-term effects are going to hurt later on.
I had a roommate after college that went to Vanderbilt. She paid off her student loans in 10 years. I went to a state school, got a partial scholarship, worked 60 hours a week in the summer and 30 hours a week during school, and lived like a pauper so I could minimize my student loans. I spent about $6 per week on "fun" money (that was 2 pitchers of beer at the Dixie Chicken) and did little else that cost money. These days I see students taking loans to cover every one of their expenses and still going to Starbucks 3-4 times a week, the movies with friends, unlimited talk and text on their cell phones, and eating out a lot. If they work, they use the money for more fun and not to help pay basic bills that would reduce the need for loans. Thus $70K or more student loans when they graduate. It's just a different mindset.
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It's always been challenging to get a life started no matter what generation a person finds themselves in. If chango can do it, you are a sure bet!!!! Get out there and get to work!!!!! 
What a wonderful, energetic, hyperbolic rant!
