You want change in your society? Piss off the young.
Tell them they don't belong. Make it tough for them to get a job and prosper. Tell them they can't own a home. Steal their money in the form of social security wage taxes that they know won't be paid back. Send them to die in a mistaken war. Pollute the environment and warm the earth that they'll have to live with.
At what point will these slackers realize they've been had by the self-centered, greed-infested Gen-X and boomer generations, and take matters into their own hands?
Young college grads are taking it on the chin. That's what the new data from the government show -- and it's not a pretty sight.
On Tuesday, Aug. 29, the statisticians at the Census Bureau released the latest numbers on income and poverty, for 2005. There were plenty of meaty figures, both good and bad, to chew on.
Median earnings of young college grads, adjusted for inflation, fell by an astonishing 3.3% in 2005. That's on top of similar declines in 2004 and 2003. All told, the earnings of young college grads are down by almost 8% since 2002.
What they've experienced over the past several years is an unrelenting downdraft in wages, probably the first sustained decline for college grads since the 1970s.
What's more, many of them have also been stuck on the wrong side of the housing boom. Just coming out of college, they didn't have the savings or the income to buy a house. And with home prices rising faster than their incomes, it's been very hard for them to catch up.
September 07, 2006
Society to graduates: No, you cannot buy a house. No, you cannot have job security. No, those retirement withholdings will not be paid back to you.
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37 comments:
Don't lump the GenX generation with the Baby Boomers......they are worlds apart. Gen X is paying for the Baby Boomer greed......
Gen X is paying for the Boomer's greed? And how is that. The Boomers have been paying FICA taxes longer than they and will probably never see a dime or that or Medicaire!
gen y and whatever the kids are called today (millenials?) are gonna lump genx and the boomers together.
Go to Pottery Barn today and look who's shopping for crap with their maxed out credit cards or housing atm loot - it's gen x as much as it's the baby boomers
As a Gen X all I can say is that Im happy to have parents that were born during the great depression. I save and don't put my neck out too far when dealing with money. My other friends just can't save any money and all have CC with balances on them. My father-in-law and I go round and round about money, he spends more then he makes and owes tons of money on his POS shack in Northern San Deigo. I told him the best way to save money is not to spend it, oh he laughed and laughed. Most Gen X have no money sense and are going to get hit hard when their house doesnt go up and no one will buy their BMW and Hummers.
Gen X isn't perfect, but the baby boomers are the worst of the worst when it comes to excesses. They think the whole world revolves around them, and are hopelessly optimistic. At least Gen X will adapt better when things change, although I think we (GenXers) will feel the worst of the impact.
Bottom line - the selfishness and greed of many generations of political leaders threatens to pit generation against generation. This isn't supposed to happen.
JUST STOP STEALING FROM ME THROUGH FICA! Give me back MY MONEY so that I can invest it wisely. THANKS!
:JUST STOP STEALING FROM ME THROUGH FICA! Give me back MY MONEY so that I can invest it wisely. THANKS!
Boomers are currently retiring so the Xers are footing the SS checks.
In 25 years, the govt will simply declare the system insolvent when most of the boomers have passed away.
At that point, the Xers will feel what getting screwed means (15% withholdings for an entire career for nada) but at least it'll be a clean slate moving forward.
THIS IS WHY I'M PISSED!
Boomers are not retiring. A Boomer is someone born between 1946 and 1964. I'm 52 and having been supporting the SS system since 1971. In 1993 Reagan and Greenspan increased the deduction from my paycheck "to insure there would be plenty when someone my age retires." Yeah. Right. Unfortunately, there was no way to say, "I don't think so, just give me my money and let me out of this scheme."
Boomers have been paying through the nose for this thing and will likely get very little, or zip. Reduced or no SS, and no Medicaire. Boomers are the screwed generation.
The young know that social security is a scam, but the politicians are all too busy pandering to the older folks, claiming that they will SAVE soc sec. Something needs to be done to end this unconstitutional program.
I always said it and ill say it to this day,
I will take actual field experiance over a kid just coming out of collage with his new degree.
Many years of field experiance, is worth more to me than some piece of paper that says you can do it.
It is a lot more different out on an actual jobs site than it is in some text book.
Am I saying dont go to collage and get a degree no i am not..all i am saying is for the money, hands on is worth more to me. Besides that great 4 years $100,000 in student loans and a great job at Walmart, you see where i am going with this.
"What's more, many of them have also been stuck on the wrong side of the housing boom. Just coming out of college, they didn't have the savings or the income to buy a house."
Boo frickin hoo, when I got out of college my dinners consisted of Ramen Noodles and frozen pizza just so I could afford the rent on my 5th floor studio walk up in NYC.
I am so sick of this sense of entitlement that these young kids today have. Whatever happened to paying your dues? As one gets older one realizes that it is the process and/or the journey NOT the destination.
And one more thing: When you are in your 20's your focus needs to be on starting a career you love and going out and getting drunk or laid. If you do it right your 20's will be a blur - not a time spent worrying about what China pattern or furniture set defines you as a human being.
Once again I emphasize that the majority of these people will NEVER be able to retire. They already owe a ton of $ in loans for college tuition. The smartest thing to do is to go into public service right out of high school. County or city job with state retirement. Work on a college degree while in the job and THEY pay for it. Most of the people here have been here since high school and a lot get to retire before 60. They already have 30-40 years in and will receive a ton of $ including all the sick time they accumulated since hire. That is paid in 1 lump sum. Fired? You got to be one of the biggest losers in life to get fired from one of these jobs. Just show up daily and you can't.
I completely agree with this point, Keith. Where were you 15 years ago when I graduated from college into a 1991 Recession?
The climb to prosperity seems to get steeper and steeper for new entrants into the working world. Seems like everyone under 30 just mocks success these days rather than even pursue it. Good thing we have a huge appetite for French Fries in the USA :-)
Once again I emphasize that the majority of these people will NEVER be able to retire. They already owe a ton of $ in loans for college tuition. The smartest thing to do is to go into public service right out of high school. County or city job with state retirement. Work on a college degree while in the job and THEY pay for it. Most of the people here have been here since high school and a lot get to retire before 60. They already have 30-40 years in and will receive a ton of $ including all the sick time they accumulated since hire. That is paid in 1 lump sum. Fired? You got to be one of the biggest losers in life to get fired from one of these jobs. Just show up daily and you can't.
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Nice work if you can get it. Where the hell do you think your paycheck comes from? It comes from robbing everyone else. Should we all work for the state. ould that be the ultimate plan. Who the hell is going to pay for it if everyone works for the state. How about we totally eliminate state jobs and give people back the 50% of their pay that the welfare state robs from actual workers. That would be a good start to solving the other problems. If I didn't have to pay FICA my house would have been paid for by now plus I'd have more in savings. A paid off house at 35 plus even more savings I have than now would be an excellent launching pad for tithing for the remainder of my working years to save up for my own retirement. If my house was paid for that would be another $1,100/month I could put towards retirement. Or I could parlay that into buying some rental properties that would be paid off by the time I was 55 and generate a full paycheck instead of some cheezy watered down SS check.
For many years my main regret was that I never had any kids. Actually, I agonized about it.
But, I took a good look around the world. I have concluded that it is a mistake to bring kids into this shitty world and subject them to what the US has turned into.
if you want to feel sorry for someone, feel sorry for those kids who couldn't afford college and who are over in Iraq risking their lives because their only hope for socio-economic advancement is vis a vis the military
kinda puts things in perspective when a 20 something complains that the 3000 sq ft home they fell in love with is out of their reach
The public service, should become as efficient as the private sector . No public service employee should have extra priviledges etc.
Generally the public service is a burdon......especially when it becomes heavily beuracratic (which it has in the country I live in).
Who the hell thinks that a snotty nosed kid just out of college should be able to buy any thing? They have floated thru 22 years and think that they deserve any thing that they want. My wife and I lived in a rented leanto on the side of a garage while I was in the USMC. I retired at 55 and live in a 2400 sf best built(by me) on 77 acres in the country. Work, save, and stop bitching about how bad life is.
Yep you can blame the Leaders of Big Business for all the Problems - I hate Unions but if you look at Incomes and Manufacturing the bigest the Middle class ever got was when we had strong Unions to fight for the Little guy even though the bastards were crooks they still raised up the little guy ever since Reagan busted the Unions in the 80's the middle class has shrunk - pretty soon all we will have is the Very Rich and Serfs which will service the needs of the Super Rich - No Middle class because the Very Rich sent most paying jobs overseas so we had better learn how to push vacume cleansers and Cook because that is all the rich will need.
Yep you can blame the Leaders of Big Business for all the Problems - I hate Unions but if you look at Incomes and Manufacturing the bigest the Middle class ever got was when we had strong Unions to fight for the Little guy even though the bastards were crooks they still raised up the little guy ever since Reagan busted the Unions in the 80's the middle class has shrunk - pretty soon all we will have is the Very Rich and Serfs which will service the needs of the Super Rich - No Middle class because the Very Rich sent most paying jobs overseas so we had better learn how to push vacume cleansers and Cook because that is all the rich will need.
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I totally agree with this too. The truth is we live in a society like it or not. The best interests of that society is for everyday people to at least have some comforts and securities, we don't we welfare to the extent that it's gotten, but we definitely need a fully functioning economy instead of this globalization shit, which is basically set up to allow rich people to get richer and at the same time briefly allows the middle-class to think they're getting a good deal through inexpensive products and exported inflation. That's not a long term recipe for success though, but it does allow the rich to accumalte more wealth. There should be some steep tariffs on imported goods. This is one area that I totally don't agree with Libertarians on. They think there should be no tariffs because then it penalizes businesses. The truth is the 'US' businesses that it basically penalizes are actually foreign businesses, just because the CEO is an American doesn't make it a US business when everything else about it is foreign and outsourced. These guys want to have their cake and eat it too. Hey, it might be a little fairer if every US citizen was able to contract with a sell directly to the Chinese without getting on an airplane and flying there, but even so, we had a good thing going here collectively and diving into that shitpot of globalization really just lowers our wages and raises theirs til they're equal. Where's the collective good in that for the US. We don't own the rest of the world a living. Globalization is reversing 200 years worth of nation building the US did. If anything it's high treason, period, and these politicians should be hung from the telephone poles in Washington. I'd love to see an uprising like that, several million Americans March on DC to drag these fuckers out of there posh offices, read the constitution to them, beat the living shit out of them, then drag them through the streets and hang their bodies from the trees on Capital Hill. "Hey, there's what you get when you don't uphold the Constition by the people, for the people, fuckers."
I remember back in '91, '92 getting out of college and finding nothing but shit jobs, and here at the same time Clinton's signing NAFTA and I'm thinking to myself, "What the fuck is this? Hard enough to find a job and this fucking asshole is contracting to give even more jobs away to wetbacks and chinks so some CEO can get an even bigger piece of the pie. This is bullshit."
Clinton is a treasonous motherfucker. Then again, it doesn't matter what party they are, Republicrats are two sides of the same coin.
Perot was right (and I voted for him), we're now hearing that large sucking sound.
Fellows, retiring Boomers get some $1200-$2200 per month from SSA.
With that, many can move to Baja California or Costa Rica and live very nicely. This will go on for at least another decade or two.
As time goes by, however, with dollar devaluation, etc, these overseas retirement places will lose their arbitrage value so the Gen Yers, who're probably going to retire in 40-50 years, first of all, won't have an SSA program and second, won't be able to go to Costa Rica or Phillipines because those places will cost the same as anywhere else with devalued US dollars.
While I do not blame individual boomers for the current problems and am sure that many have worked hard throughout their lives, the simple fact remains that they collectively manipulated policy for their benefit to the detriment of others.
and the only generation to outdo them will be their very own offspring!
To andy ...
Go to hell you racist asshole !!!
At least you have been raised with high self-esteem. Let your inflated self-esteem see you through the Middle Eastern Nuclear Wars and Economic Depression that the future holds.
Gen-X was on the wrong side of the boomer generation to profit and we were not even raised with inflated self-esteem! How will we survive?
keith..
why are you putting the black american picture? are you a racist? i am not surprised as you are from england...
Feel sorry for the kids who couldn't afford college and are in Iraq?
You obviously dislike the war, as do I but your analysis is WRONG!!!
I am one of those people who "couldn't afford college" but somehow managed to work three jobs and often times 60 hours a week or more and was still able to graduate in 4.5 years with a college degree from a highly accredited university.
If you want something you'll find a way.
Just like now, I want a house so I trade options and build my reserves so that I can afford a house when the RE market crashes.
SittinpattinSanDiego:
I sold my portion-I said portion- of a house in San Diego and have a little money from this wack housing boom.
After reading your blog, I realize how hard it must be to be talentless in any job market. You're obviously not a hot chick or you could have gotten an easy office job so the rich fellows could look at your boobs and ass like they do around here. People like to hire people they want to sleep with and no one who was hiring wanted to sleep with you. Boo-Hoo
If you are ugly, talentless, and male, then you will have to work hard for your money. That's the only reason people will hire you. Even if you are an ugly chick, some guy will still want to sleep with you and may even give you a job just to raise his odds of getting in your pants. :)
chink said...
To andy ...
Go to hell you racist asshole !!!
Thursday, September 07, 2006 6:51:51 PM
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Dude, I really don't care. I guess that's supposed to hurt my feelings. Guess what? It doesn't. I guess that's a common shaming tactic I (and collectively everyone else) is suppose to cave into rather than having pride in my home country. All that being equal, chinese people living in the US as US citizens are more than welcome to contribute to the US GDP, but Chinese living abroad and being allowed to parasitically drain our resources is a no no. What do you want, People Republic of China friendly laws drafted in the US? Is that goal. Because last I checked our borders and boundaries were supposed to work in our favor. Sorry if PC brainwashing hasn't worked on me. I'm allowed to have opinions. If a chinese person called me a black person called me a honky, hey you know what, I really don't care. What's with all the backlash from non-whites if a white person doesn't buy the PC mantra? Why is that such a big deal that it causes others to have such a backlash? I don't get it. Why do people have to be forced to accept everyone and everything, and why is racist such a bad thing. Being white, I'd prefer to live in a white neighborhood. There's some black neighborhoods near me that I know for a fact are not white friendly, and you know what, I don't care. I don't care that they'd prefer to live amongst their own. Ever seen the new "Look who's coming to dinner?" Now it's a black family and a white guy, and basically it could be labeled as racist in the other direction, but I haven't seen whites getting up in arms about it, because they don't give a crap. Doesn't matter one wit to me that the black father doesn't like the honky dating his daughter. Nor do I feel personally slighted or diminished. That's because I have intact self-esteem. Maybe you need to work on that yourself.
I am so sick of this sense of entitlement that these young kids today have. Whatever happened to paying your dues? As one gets older one realizes that it is the process and/or the journey NOT the destination.
If you pay "Dues" you are supposed to get some "Benefit".
This is just BS guilt-tripping.
But now the companies want you exactly in that period between 26 years old and 36 years old. After that, you're fucked. You pay your dues, and you get the shaft.
When did people value experience more than new graduates? Oh about forever. What's different now? Nothing.
Hey you boomers---when oh when did college graduate wages go DOWN by 8 percent IN AN ECONOMIC EXPANSION?
Oh wait, never. Those days the US was getting more prosperous.
How much were all your student loans compared to your first year salary? Bet it was enormously less. And, many state schools were free then.
Cut the guilt-tripping crap. We're all screwed, but GenX and beyond are screwed way more than you.
:I sent to college and got a degree in engineering. I had no problem getting multiple offers for employment after graduating.
Even that's becoming a thing of the past with all the offsourcing.
"For many years my main regret was that I never had any kids. Actually, I agonized about it.
But, I took a good look around the world. I have concluded that it is a mistake to bring kids into this shitty world and subject them to what the US has turned into."
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++++Wow! You've been reading my mind! This is EXACTLY what I have come to believe. With WWIII and/or the Great Depression waiting in the wings, I am so THANKFUL now that I never had children....
Do not pass go!
Do not collect $200
Go directly to jail!
Its going to be fun. The last time neocon Skull and Bones evil doers warlords took over America resulted in the 60s!
I'm looking to buy a Van next weekend and head out to San Fransico with all the unemployed disenfranchised youth for the fun and free love.
Thank you George Bush.
But according to the democrats our Social Security program is fine.
....mmmm hhmmmm.
I'd like our liberal friends to please defend defeating Social security reform.
SS was never designed to be a permanent "retirement fund" entitlement program.
The worse the consequences for behaving stupidly and making bad decisions, the less likely people will make stupid decisions.
Entitlement programs stand in direct opposition to that concept.
Why should I be taxed for ever-expanding government. Why should MY retirement savings go to someone else (thru SS entitlement transfer/robbery)? It makes no sense and isn't at all fair. But you know what they say.
A democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what to have for dinner.
The young should have a nice standard of living, but keep in mind that Americans consume more per capita than anywhere else in the world. What we think of as a nice standard of living is not sustainable in present form. Maybe the next generation will help solve the environmental and energy crises so the Age of Plenty can continue? Or maybe we will discover that scaling back has its rewards.
Also, is there a shame in bagging college and becoming a master artisan or farmer or starting a small business? Maybe too many people are getting grade-inflated college degrees and becoming office drones anyway.
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