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Cheap compared to what? Not having them as an option?
Tv cost have come down substantially but the number per HH has risen dramatically and people tend to upgrade before ending of life
You have misapplied. Can you give me data that shows only boomers have cable? It would probably be a shock to the cable services that currently are delivering said service
Well you did a **** poor job of countering here. Surely everyone knows if we have a single earner it’s easier to have a single car. You also failed to address the size increase of new houses or seemingly ignored the quality of life delta over the last few decades. You argue tech but failed to acknowledge 30 years ago most families didn’t have a computer let alone 3+ tablets per hh
What I pay for all the house's electronics over time is less per month than my dad paid for long-distance phone service alone.
Millennials aren't buying homes of ANY size!
Their rate of home-ownership is 20% less than the two preceding generations. Gen Z will be even lower I bet.
I like how you're blaming TV subscriptions and cell phone service for young people's problems, as if savings on that could equal the cost of a house, college education, or health insurance. That is on its face ridiculous. I could completely cut myself off from all things electronic, and maybe over a lifetime, the savings might equal the cost of one year of college.
I’m still not sure what you positioning is. At first you tried to label me as a boomer, then as a under appreciated purchaser but given my 500k+ home value that doesn’t work
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Yes, cable TV and live TV are much more popular among older people than younger, who watch on-demand far more.
I like how you're blaming TV subscriptions and cell phone service for young people's problems, as if savings on that could equal the cost of a house, college education, or health insurance. That is on its face ridiculous. I could completely cut myself off from all things electronic, and maybe over a lifetime, the savings might equal the cost of one year of college.
You like how I’m blaming anything on what? You have entirely fabricated said scenario.
My home is worth north of 550k but I’m not sure what your point is here
No offense, but you can't ask one poster to provide "stats" and then also try to provide your "anecdote" as "stats," as anecdote does not equal statistics.
I mean, just the second paragraph of your first link backs up what redguard was saying about millennial home ownership.
I’d like to compare home ownership rates of millennials 30-37 to boomers in the same age range. Comparing 25 yr old boomers to 25 yr old millennials isn’t apples to apples because the majority of boomers that could afford homes had been in the workforce for 5-6 years by 25 compared to millennials where it’s closer to 2-3. This is just an anecdote but my dad had been working for 6 years when he was 25. Me and all of my siblings were still in school at 25. I bet boomers 25-30 also were more likely to have kids too. We need to stop assuming society sits still on these things. Education naturally pushes full time employment back and over 50% of millennials attended college. My guess is that boomers were closer to 30%.
I’d like to compare home ownership rates of millennials 30-37 to boomers in the same age range. Comparing 25 yr old boomers to 25 yr old millennials isn’t apples to apples because the majority of boomers that could afford homes had been in the workforce for 5-6 years by 25 compared to millennials where it’s closer to 2-3. This is just an anecdote but my dad had been working for 6 years when he was 25. Me and all of my siblings were still in school at 25. I bet boomers 25-30 also were more likely to have kids too. We need to stop assuming society sits still on these things. Education naturally pushes full time employment back and over 50% of millennials attended college. My guess is that boomers were closer to 30%.
Well, the OP is about how the overall level of basic middle class "life" things has risen faster than wages. But, if one wanted to explain that in a change in your bolded situation, we should still expect things to look at least rather similar to those that are non-college educated, aka immediately entering the workforce upon adulthood. Instead, from lowexpectations first link above, we're seeing the exact opposite:
"Less-educated young adults are falling further behind in homeownership. For millennials, the gap in homeownership rates between college graduates and high school–graduates has grown significantly compared with previous generations. The difference in the homeownership rate between the two groups increased from 3 to 10 percentage points between 1990 and 2015. Though college-educated millennials contend with high student debt, it is the less-educated millennials who are falling further behind in homeownership. This may be a result of unstable incomes and rising rents, which make it harder to save for a down payment."
I’m still not sure what you positioning is. At first you tried to label me as a boomer, then as a under appreciated purchaser but given my 500k+ home value that doesn’t work
You like how I’m blaming anything on what? You have entirely fabricated said scenario.
Your position was that if Millennials stopped buying tablets and 50 inch TVs, they'd be in better financial shape. Was it not? That seemed to be your bugbear.
If you are a Millennial with a home worth 550k, you are in the top 5% of your age group at least. Tell me, how many tablets did you forego purchasing in order to afford that?
Your position was that if Millennials stopped buying tablets and 50 inch TVs, they'd be in better financial shape. Was it not? That seemed to be your bugbear.
If you are a Millennial with a home worth 550k, you are in the top 5% of your age group at least. Tell me, how many tablets did you forego purchasing in order to afford that?
I think his argument is that people expect a higher standard of living that, yes, is more expensive. It doesn't mean you have to live like that. I bought my first home while in my 20s in 1999. It cost $106K and it was in a crappy neighborhood in a smaller city. Of course, it didn't have granite countertops, open floor plan, or high ceilings. In fact it didn't have a washer/dryer or a dishwasher. It would cost about $250K today, and even at that price, would be affordable to many families.
I'm just saying that if you lower your standards, you actually can buy a house, but it will not look like the Kardashians. I just don't trust averages like that because they are not comparing apples to apples. That first house was identical to a 1950s house and was very affordable. I have a feeling the homes they are comparing on a chart like this for housing costs would be comparative mansions to the homes of prior generations.
Buying that home and sucking it up for a while was a great investment.
You seem to have no idea how Millennials live. You're engaging in your own fantasies about how they live.
Huh, I'm 37, so I'm a Millennial, and my wife is 25, so she is too, and all of her friends are, and I can tell you from experience that is exactly how it is. A huge number of her former classmates fit that to a T, same with her co-workers in the past, most of whom complained about finances even when one had a trust fund to pay for essentials "but not my weed, makeup, eyelashes, or nails" so she had to work, "which really sucks." Her former classmates constantly post pictures on Instagram of traveling to exotic locations, and yet most of them are basically socialists who think the world is unfair. My description is entirely accurate, thanks though!
PS: To the person saying "these things are cheap" of all electronics, yeah, if you have zero standards and don't do professional work with any of them, sure. You can buy cheap anything. TVs aren't "cheap." I paid $3,500 for my 85" TV that was last year's model, $3,000 for a 75", $2,000 for an older 75" that goes in the gym, my MacBook Pro was $3,700, my iMac Pro was $7,700, and my phone was $1,000+. You can always buy the crappy version of anything for cheap, but it just shows how little you understand about the technology whatsoever. If you're paying $500 for a TV, it's either not very big or not very good, or both. You're not going to get great blacks, fantastic contrast ratios, little motion blur, and true color performance out of a low end TV. You're going to get what you pay for. If you can't afford better, you make do with what you can afford, I'm not saying otherwise, but don't make blanket statements that these things are the prices they are, because you say so. Top of the line technology costs top of the line prices, and to some people like me, it's well worth the price.
Huh, I'm 37, so I'm a Millennial, and my wife is 25, so she is too, and all of her friends are, and I can tell you from experience that is exactly how it is. A huge number of her former classmates fit that to a T, same with her co-workers in the past, most of whom complained about finances even when one had a trust fund to pay for essentials "but not my weed, makeup, eyelashes, or nails" so she had to work, "which really sucks." Her former classmates constantly post pictures on Instagram of traveling to exotic locations, and yet most of them are basically socialists who think the world is unfair. My description is entirely accurate, thanks though!
PS: To the person saying "these things are cheap" of all electronics, yeah, if you have zero standards and don't do professional work with any of them, sure. You can buy cheap anything. TVs aren't "cheap." I paid $3,500 for my 85" TV that was last year's model, $3,000 for a 75", $2,000 for an older 75" that goes in the gym, my MacBook Pro was $3,700, my iMac Pro was $7,700, and my phone was $1,000+. You can always buy the crappy version of anything for cheap, but it just shows how little you understand about the technology whatsoever. If you're paying $500 for a TV, it's either not very big or not very good, or both. You're not going to get great blacks, fantastic contrast ratios, little motion blur, and true color performance out of a low end TV. You're going to get what you pay for. If you can't afford better, you make do with what you can afford, I'm not saying otherwise, but don't make blanket statements that these things are the prices they are, because you say so. Top of the line technology costs top of the line prices, and to some people like me, it's well worth the price.
Wow, you really know how average people live! Says someone who paid as much for his accumulated electronics as I did for my car. One of which TVs goes into a home gym!
I'm sure your social media is very representative of the general population of your age group.
At the local level you're correct Democrats basically use your taxes to pay themselves lavish pensions in some places retiring as young as 50. Local governments basically get away with outright fraud as the oversight for them is much lower than the federal government. Here in CA have absurd hidden fees here for building permits that go right back in to feed the monster. Then people complain about cost of housing and homelessness...
I think you nailed it on this one...except about the oversight issue. Do you really think we have better oversight of what the federal government is doing? If anything, it's gotta be worse, not better. It seems axiomatic to me that the bigger the organization, and the more distance it has from the ordinary person, the more corrupt it is.
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Originally Posted by njbiodude
At the federal level it's harder to say. Republicans fight student loan bankruptcy protections, science funding, education and helping the poor but end up running huge deficits with their shady pork/slush fund projects with military contractors. Pharmaceutical companies, hospitals etc likewise gauge consumers partially due to laws passed by Republicans that prohibit Medicare/Medicaid from negotiating prices. And then there's big agriculture subsidies.
I'd still say the dems are more corrupt, but I'll agree that it's pretty horrible on both sides.
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Originally Posted by njbiodude
I have lived abroad before and suggest you consider trying it. It's nice when your taxes actually pay for useful things like affordable healthcare, college, public transit etc. Accomplishing such things with the greed of the US populace and the 2 party system (as opposed to a multi-party parliamentary system for the people) seems impossible.
That's just it. The U.S. is corrupt. Just to use health care as an example. What we spend on Medicare/Medicaid as a % of GDP should be enough to give us universal health coverage (as other countries have) already without spending another dime of tax money. Yet Medicare/Medicaid only cover half the population. Yet what do dems want? More tax money to spend on a health care system rife with waste, inefficiency, and corruption. Why would I want to pay more in taxes for a failing system? At what point do we admit that adding more tax money to an inefficient system just makes it even more inefficient?
We have to admit you have to fix the corrupt systems, not just add more money to them.
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