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Fairfaxian -
I appreciate your posts. It is about time we heard some reality instead of more propaganda. You guys really are stuck between depressions and more debts. When I graduated, using the GI Bill I EARNED in ‘Nam, I owed about $800 for school loans. As my first job paid about $6,000 per year even the $800 was noticeable. For our first 10 years together my wife and I lived in "dog patch" because we could not afford anything better. Eventually we moved to NYC to make some money and it worked out fairly well. I missed a great job in New Mexico at the Los Alamos Lab because the Raygun administration canceled a "green" energy project. He wanted to build bombs and scare the Soviets while Ollie North stole our honor by using the CIA to smuggle dope.
Now I am getting close to retiring. I do not expect to live on just a pension and SS but I could if I had to. If we moved to New Mexico, where the COL is 40% less than here, we could live materially better. Maybe?
I have heard ALL of the “work your ASS OFF YOU are an INDIVIDUAL” conservative comments. Some people are just too dense to see a structural impediment. It is like watching a salmon run. Some of the salmon work their tails off and get to mate but a lot wind up as bear food. These neocons blame the salmon and not the bears.
In any case the list of hard working individuals from Edison to Iacocca did indeed work hard. They also worked SMART and had no compunctions about using every bit of money and power they had to thwart ANY and EVERY one that got in their way. I would not want to live that way and have not had to.
You do have a point. Your generation, except for the annuity hippies, is pretty much stuck. This was not an accident but a result of a deliberate set of policies designed to eliminate an upwardly mobile middle class from contaminating the playgrounds of the almost wealthy. The hyper wealthy live in their own world and hardly notice the rest of us exist except as servants and whores.
In the end Gen Y will pick up the pieces, build a green economy, create a liberal, progressive, open and tolerant society. Our lives will not be dominated by the work a day attitude that has drown our parents into debt, boredom, and depression.
We might even cure cancer in the process.
As a member of the post boomer generation I want to issue an apology for what members of my generation and older generations did to f**k up this country. Some of us tried to do the right thing as far as, building a more tolerant nation, advocating for alternative energy, and suggesting more sound government fiscal policy. But others wanted to use bigotry to secure their place in the social totem pole, were driven by their greed, didn’t have the foresight to set a sound energy policy for this country, and pursued a war of choice in Iraq while cutting taxes that benefited the richest Americans the most and flooded this country with unnecessary debt.
The biggest mistake is so many of us made was chasing the “American Dream” so hard we didn’t give a damn about less fortunate Americans or our nation’s future. Please learn from our mistakes and don’t make the same ones. We owe you a debt of gratitude for your optimism and will to make America a better place in the future.
Um, kids haven't been 'well behaved" since about the 40's or perhaps early 50's. Really, I hear about the things my parents and their friends did, and some of that I would NEVER dream about doing. The major difference between Gen Y & Gen X is that us Gen Y-er's are either super mature, well-behaved, and overachieving or super immature & doing drugs and getting in trouble. That's it. There's no in between.
Also, Gen Y gave rise to the whole idea of "emo" kids, ie, whiny, shy, dressing in drab clothes, listening to loud emotional music, artsy; this came about as a form of rebellion against the "popular" kids (watch or google Jersey Shore to see what I mean). And then you have the over-achieving kids who are actually MUCH more studious, bright, and hard working than the "overachievers" of the past. Twenty years ago you could have gotten a 3.0, been in marching band, and that would be enough to get you some pretty good scholarships. Now getting a 3.0 would get you into a community college. 3.5+ is the target.
Also Generation Y is the generation that will utterly wipe out racism, sexism, and homophobia. We are tolerant and accepting, even if it makes us somewhat apathetic and dispassionate about certain issues.
Fairfaxian -
I appreciate your posts. It is about time we heard some reality instead of more propaganda. You guys really are stuck between depressions and more debts. When I graduated, using the GI Bill I EARNED in ‘Nam, I owed about $800 for school loans. As my first job paid about $6,000 per year even the $800 was noticeable. For our first 10 years together my wife and I lived in "dog patch" because we could not afford anything better. Eventually we moved to NYC to make some money and it worked out fairly well. I missed a great job in New Mexico at the Los Alamos Lab because the Raygun administration canceled a "green" energy project. He wanted to build bombs and scare the Soviets while Ollie North stole our honor by using the CIA to smuggle dope.
Now I am getting close to retiring. I do not expect to live on just a pension and SS but I could if I had to. If we moved to New Mexico, where the COL is 40% less than here, we could live materially better. Maybe?
I have heard ALL of the “work your ASS OFF YOU are an INDIVIDUAL” conservative comments. Some people are just too dense to see a structural impediment. It is like watching a salmon run. Some of the salmon work their tails off and get to mate but a lot wind up as bear food. These neocons blame the salmon and not the bears.
In any case the list of hard working individuals from Edison to Iacocca did indeed work hard. They also worked SMART and had no compunctions about using every bit of money and power they had to thwart ANY and EVERY one that got in their way. I would not want to live that way and have not had to.
You do have a point. Your generation, except for the annuity hippies, is pretty much stuck. This was not an accident but a result of a deliberate set of policies designed to eliminate an upwardly mobile middle class from contaminating the playgrounds of the almost wealthy. The hyper wealthy live in their own world and hardly notice the rest of us exist except as servants and whores.
What a crock!!
Bears and salmon!!
It's always been survival of the fittest/smartest/dedicated that makes the wheels of success turn, not some conspiracy theory that some blame for this generation's shortcomings.
Wallowing in self-pity will only get you wrinkle clothes.
Our generation is screwed, thanks to our parents and grandparents generations who basically turned America into some greed, money hording pseudo-oligarchy in the name of capitalism.
Our generation will inherit more debt [from both parties] then perhaps any government since the fall of Rome.
We saw the ineptitude of governement and of the adult generations to handle crisises such as 9/11 and Katrina, and the current financial crisis.
They turned our society into a bunch of live by the minute-media whores, where we are suppose to focus more on celebrities and thei troubles more than our own.
They denied us the American dream they received due to greed, selfishness, and a wanton desire for more stuff. Bigger houses, bigger cars....and didn't give two ****s about the consequences.
In the end Gen Y will pick up the pieces, build a green economy, create a liberal, progressive, open and tolerant society. Our lives will not be dominated by the work a day attitude that has drown our parents into debt, boredom, and depression.
We might even cure cancer in the process.
Keep dreaming. Your utopia is only going to create more laziness and poor people. Youth today is lazier than ever and don't want to work hard for a living. It's your attitude that sucks, not the generations before you.
You do have a point. Your generation, except for the annuity hippies, is pretty much stuck.
You have a point as well. I don't envy anyone getting out of college today being tens of thousands of dollars in debt, and faced with iffy employment prospects.
There were shaky job prospects when I graduated, to be sure, but I was lucky enough not only to graduate before tuition skyrocketed in the early 80s, but also to have parents who saved every penny possible (on one income) to help me pay for my education. I earned enough over the summer to pay for books and beer, housing and food, and borrowed for the last two semesters of tuition.
I usually agree with your posts, but I think you're off here. For what it's worth, I'm 23, so not one of the older people commenting here. However, as bad as things are now, they were just as bad, if not worse at other points in our history. The Great Depression saw people starving to death, becoming migrant workers (American citizens, not immigrants), standing in bread lines. The 40s saw people being shot up in Germany and Japan to stop tyrannical dictators from taking over the world. The 1960s and 70s had young people being drafter to fight (and lose) some pointless war with a third-world country. Thousands of young American men died in Vietnam for no reason, and the ones who came back were scarred for life by what they saw and were treated like trash by society. Nixon was every bit as bad as Bush (if not worse), and Carter was every bit as ineffective as Obama. The 1980s started off with a deep recession (almost as bad as today's) before turning into a boom cycle. The 1990s had another pointless war (Gulf War) in which more young Americans lost their lives, two major terrorist attacks on U.S. soil, and a mild recession. Things have always been "bad." There have always been tough times. This is a fallen world and it will always have trouble. You have to trust God and make the best of this bad situation.
Makes a lot of logical sense when you put it like that.
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I think a big problem is your location. I'd rather be hit by a bus than live in D.C. A lot of people in Washington are either slimeball politicians, rich yuppies or ghetto thugs. I would suggest saving up for a move. Up here in rural Minnesota, there is a LOT less of what you describe (rich kids, ghetto people, celebrities, etc.) You'd like it up here - things are a lot simpler and people are much more down to earth. Anywhere in the Upper Midwest (the Dakotas, Wisconsin, northern Michigan) is much the same.
I'll admit that me being a city like Washington DC (and more of the case of not being able to get out of the city) has made me very cynical and pessimistic. The last time I remember being completely happy and content with little worries was when I went to school in Pittsburgh, along with my visits with friends I made while being there even after I transferred back to the DC area. And a fair amount of anger I have stems from not being able to just leave the area and being assured that I'll have a job wherever I go. I have a few thousand saved up, and planning to continue to save, but the main reason why I'm still in the DC area is because I have a secure job, which even though I don't like too much and has nothing to do with my major, was hard enough to obtain, and I want to use this job to become marketable enough to transfer to a job I like and in a place where I want to live.
The things I originally complained about about just seems to be more amplified in this region in most parts of the country considering the social nature of Washington (and for that matter, DC as well), the lack of respect for middle class earners, and the upbringing I had, which while not as rough as a person raised in the Great Depression, wasn't anything reminiscent of the MTV life of "getting everything I wanted," like some people want to believe.
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Originally Posted by UntamedOhioan
Um, kids haven't been 'well behaved" since about the 40's or perhaps early 50's. Really, I hear about the things my parents and their friends did, and some of that I would NEVER dream about doing. The major difference between Gen Y & Gen X is that us Gen Y-er's are either super mature, well-behaved, and overachieving or super immature & doing drugs and getting in trouble. That's it. There's no in between.
This seems to be very much the case. Most people from my generation are either kids who were well behaved but only because they came from dictator-style homes where "being s kid" was a sin, or a household where kids were out of control because parents were either careless of their kids or wanted the kids to be their best friend. I came from the former, and I guess this is a reason why I can't say I personally enjoyed my childhood, and do envy those who actually were able to live a childhood, even if it was at the expense of having a healthy dose of discipline.
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Also, Gen Y gave rise to the whole idea of "emo" kids, ie, whiny, shy, dressing in drab clothes, listening to loud emotional music, artsy; this came about as a form of rebellion against the "popular" kids (watch or google Jersey Shore to see what I mean).
And to add to this, it's the popular kids who are the ones who are constantly getting what they want despite not lifting a finger while continually whining about never having enough materials.
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And then you have the over-achieving kids who are actually MUCH more studious, bright, and hard working than the "overachievers" of the past. Twenty years ago you could have gotten a 3.0, been in marching band, and that would be enough to get you some pretty good scholarships. Now getting a 3.0 would get you into a community college. 3.5+ is the target.
And I was one of those students who was very overachieving in high school and college, and majoring in a degree that isn't some walk-in-the-park liberal arts degree. And for what, a paper-pushing job that has nothing identical with my major? All the while competing with privileged kids who came from Ivy League schools?
I'll admit that this is one of the main reasons that lead me to making this thread. As time has gone by, I have felt as if my effort in school was constantly undermined. I originally wanted to go to college for a degree in Accounting, but when I arrived at the university, all of a sudden, the school raises their requirements from just having a certain minimum GPA (which I had) to having additional undefined "requirements," to get in the program. And I was constantly persuaded to not even try to apply to the university's business school, even by the administration. Ended up getting a degree in Economics, which I figured was the next best thing, but when I graduated, the unemployment rate was over 10 percent nationwide, and a lot of the related budgeting and analyst jobs that were previously available for entry level dried up. Ended up in the "procurement and acquisition" field, and even though people brag about how much opportunities one has with this career/job, for me, all I've seen is just a job doing paper-pushing. Maybe it's the department I work for that isn't that good, but I'm at the point of wondering if hard work really pays off, or am I just being a tool for the system and wondering even more why I can't even be a tool doing something I like and something related to my major.
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Also Generation Y is the generation that will utterly wipe out racism, sexism, and homophobia. We are tolerant and accepting, even if it makes us somewhat apathetic and dispassionate about certain issues.
But there are a lot of factors making that unlikely:
-People are living longer, and for some reason, it tends to be the bigots who are living longer (or at least those who are making the most noise out of the past generations).
-Most of the older bigots live longer to influence the minds of the current young generations, along with putting pressure on younger people to keep up the bigoted views popular in the past in the guise of being on the good graces of the family, the threat of being ostracized by one's own family and community, or "keeping with tradition!"
-Most of the older bigots seem to be the ones who are running many of the media outlets. From MTV to Fox News, most of these old cronies are doing their damnedest to perpetuate their bigoted views on younger generations. This ranges from showing stereotypes of minorities on TV constantly (which is definitely more of a problem now than in the 80s and 90s) to promoting techniques of covert racism. And the only ones they're going to give their position to are those who are just as bigoted as they are.
Last edited by Do a Barrel Roll; 08-26-2010 at 01:49 PM..
If you want your generation to wipe out intolerance, racism, sexism, and homophobia, your efforts won't be worth squat unless you wipe out ageism as well.
Stop cranking about "old cronies" (a bigoted term in itself) and look in the mirror before you set off to save the world.
Fairfaxian, I think you should be glad you have a job in the first place, and a cushy government job at that. You shouldn't be whining and complaining that you don't have what you want, or have enough compared to your neighbors, when you have millions of Americans that have nothing at all because they lost their job in the recession. What my parents always taught me, think of the situation you are in. 9 times out of ten, someone is one a worse position than you. Sorry but I sense an air of entitlement mentality coming from you
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