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So true. And college students are lining up to take those unpaid internships.
We're shooting ourselves in the foot by succumbing to lowered expectations.
In some of these high-competition internships, like say a job in television in NYC, this process really is just filtering out all the middle class and working class people. This is probably why many media outlets are so clueless, they're all staffed with rich kids.
However, for jobs that actually require high-skills, workers generally don't accept unpaid internships. I know I was offered one and I laughed in their face. I was insulted.
Location: Just transplanted to FL from the N GA mountains
3,997 posts, read 4,143,759 times
Reputation: 2677
Quote:
Originally Posted by le roi
From a purely self-interested perspective, sure, that'd work fine for me. Eliminate SS/Medicare, and just write a check from the treasury that refunds a lifetime of everyone's FICA taxes. Add that cost to the deficit.
But realistically that will never happen. The reason it won't is because of elderly healthcare. An average retiree would receive a check for $80,000 in lieu of Medicare, and $350k in lieu of social security.
The $350k for social security would maybe be adequate for retirement, I don't know. The problem is with the $80k in healthcare. $80k doesn't go very far in today's hospitals, and you'd see seniors immediately burn through their Medicare contributions, and their social security nugget would be used to provide healthcare.
Then you really WOULD see old folks eating alpo and dying on the street.
So what's the answer?
I find it ironic, that the thread about starting out hard has circled its way around to the fact that it's also hard and expensive to die these days.
From a purely self-interested perspective, sure, that'd work fine for me. Eliminate SS/Medicare, and just write a check from the treasury that refunds a lifetime of everyone's FICA taxes. Add that cost to the deficit.
But realistically that will never happen. The reason it won't is because of elderly healthcare. An average retiree would receive a check for $80,000 in lieu of Medicare, and $350k in lieu of social security.
The $350k for social security would maybe be adequate for retirement, I don't know. The problem is with the $80k in healthcare. $80k doesn't go very far in today's hospitals, and you'd see seniors immediately burn through their Medicare contributions, and their social security nugget would be used to provide healthcare.
Then you really WOULD see old folks eating alpo and dying on the street.
It's too bad we can't get some smart people in D.C. that would reform our medical system.
Location: Just transplanted to FL from the N GA mountains
3,997 posts, read 4,143,759 times
Reputation: 2677
Quote:
Originally Posted by pknopp
It's too bad we can't get some smart people in D.C. that would reform our medical system.
I agree with this statement completely. It's what we needed all along. Not the so-called reform we are going to get shoved at us now. Which is nothing but forced insurance which is already making costs rise and services go down... Don't even get me started on that one. I just got a taste of it with my parents already.. and ya'll think SS is a mess now... Wait till this one jumps on us all fast and furious....
This is the government you wanted. Now adjust and adapt.
You can't expect government to take care of you and not have to pay for it, do you ?
I don't think that Generation Y was voting these jokers into office during the previous 40 years, which is about how long these problems have been accumulating. The damage was done long ago. I'm not sure how the government is "taking care" of any young twenty-something or anyone who isn't getting ready for retirement who isn't so poor they're making $10,000 a year or less.
The Obamacare plan is really the only significant benefit that is for people who aren't the very poorest of the non-working poor. Other than Medicare, which is a major sop to senior citizens, and Social Security, which theoretically should be able to support itself - and still does - but won't be able to much longer as baby boomers draw on it after underfunding it for the past 30 years. Most of the tax benefits, etc., are designed for people of higher income than most 22 year olds, so to say "This is the government you wanted. Now adjust and adapt. You can't expect government to take care of you and not have to pay for it, do you?" is highly incorrect.
In some of these high-competition internships, like say a job in television in NYC, this process really is just filtering out all the middle class and working class people. This is probably why many media outlets are so clueless, they're all staffed with rich kids.
However, for jobs that actually require high-skills, workers generally don't accept unpaid internships. I know I was offered one and I laughed in their face. I was insulted.
Unpaid internships aren't all that uncommon. In demand fields usually pay interns better than salary employees though. A person majoring in marketing would probably need to take an unpaid internship, but an accounting intern would not.
In some of these high-competition internships, like say a job in television in NYC, this process really is just filtering out all the middle class and working class people. This is probably why many media outlets are so clueless, they're all staffed with rich kids.
However, for jobs that actually require high-skills, workers generally don't accept unpaid internships. I know I was offered one and I laughed in their face. I was insulted.
Didn't used to be that way. Companies came to college campuses and recruited for internships.
All paid. It was a pretty big deal and to land an internship for a semester or two was like getting your foot in the door.
That's what I've had to do. It's tough trying to balance all of the different schedules and be efficient at multiple jobs, but it can be done. We used to call it "shoveling the sh*t" in sales school ha ha.
I guess I can understand the Boomers who are trying to tell our generation to try harder, be more innovative, etc, but sometimes I believe it just comes off as so condescending. I don't believe our generation is "better" than the Boomers. We just come from a different time. We have a different perspective.
The thing that I wish the older generation would do though is rally behind those in our generation who are saying that the system is broken. It is broken. What we need is real insight into how we increase wages or lower the cost of living. We can't keep going on according to our current trend. Nobody is doing anything of substance to steer us in a different direction.
Figure it out like every generation has had to do.
Do you think we have answers?
Really, you wouldn't listen anyway.
If we could fix it, don't you think we would?
Then take your special perspective and fix your problems.
In my opinion? Eliminate FICA. Run a deficit to pay for Social Security. Run a deficit to pay for Medicare. Expand Medicare to cover the entire population, not just the elderly. The U.S. public sector is too small to create dangerous inflation at the rate we're going; anyone who thinks deficits matter has not looked at the amount of debt in the private sector lately.
It's a bit of a paradox caused by the inherent ineptness of politicians -- as long as politicians continue to believe the deficit matters, then they will be hesitant to spend and run deficits, and the deficit won't matter.
But as soon as they understand the reality of the moment -- that the deficit can grow without consequences -- then they'll abuse that power and that'll no longer remain true. The deficit really CAN go out of control, but we aren't anywhere close to that point yet.
Quote:
I find it ironic, that the thread about starting out hard has circled its way around to the fact that it's also hard and expensive to die these days.
I simplify it like this:
There are rich boomers, who own the vast majority of the country's wealth.
Then there are the majority of boomers, who desperately need social security/Medicare, but (A) cannot afford to pay for it themselves (B) are ideologically opposed to taking from other rich boomers.
However, these folks are, for some reason, not ideologically opposed to taking from the working-class and middle-class members of younger generations. They seem to idolize their fellow "rich boomers", and loathe their children's cohorts who are struggling just to pay rent every month.
In short, they'd rather screw over the young than tax the rich.
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