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Perfect storm of financial factors besetting millennials

WFcatamount22 said:
Yeah, Keep using dope and blaming other people for your problems.
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i'm just not that familiar with you as a poster so i didn't know, i had thought you were pretty nuanced/measured. so you honestly just believe people of the millennial generation think fundamentally differently than their parents or their parent's parents, and that they therefore have chosen to be lazy or unemployed? It's true that millennials may seem (are?) more coddled than previous generations but that has to do with elemental advances in communications technologies; every generation that follows will be more connected to the one before it from now on barring major societal disruption.

talking about white people, you don't find the limitless land when our ancestors first got here as the main reason for their generation's success? And their children after them, using slave labor to build wealth, you don't see that as having a lot to do with why that generation may have done well for themselves? You don't see how the industrial revolution that followed that period may have provided the engine for growth for the people living in that time frame? Then the war that followed in Europe due to the rapid socio-politico-economic changes from the industrial revolution, you don't see how that brought the U.S. out of depression and largely accounts for why our grandparents didn't remain trapped in the economic stagnation of the 30s? Then you don't see how after the next Eurasian war the geopolitical situation in the U.S. vis-a-vis the rest of the increasingly globalized world may have had a lot to do with baby boomer successes? And then, lastly--the internet will be an even bigger game changer than the industrial revolution was--you don't see how that fueled the 90's boom which benefited generation X and is causing explosive growth in places like India today?

Your explanation does not pass the sniff test, because it's too simple and too easy to really address the complexities of the world as it is today.
 
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dmcheatw said:
i'm just not that familiar with you as a poster so i didn't know, i had thought you were pretty nuanced/measured. so you honestly just believe people of the millennial generation think fundamentally differently than their parents or their parent's parents, and that they therefore have chosen to be lazy or unemployed? It's true that millennials may seem (are?) more coddled than previous generations but that has to do with elemental advances in communications technologies; every generation that follows will be more connected to the one before it from now on barring major societal disruption.

talking about white people, you don't find the limitless land when our ancestors first got here as the main reason for their generation's success? And their children after them, using slave labor to build wealth, you don't see that as having a lot to do with why that generation may have done well for themselves? You don't see how the industrial revolution that followed that period may have provided the engine for growth for the people living in that time frame? Then the war that followed in Europe due to the rapid socio-politico-economic changes from the industrial revolution, you don't see how that brought the U.S. out of depression and largely accounts for why our grandparents didn't remain trapped in the economic stagnation of the 30s? Then you don't see how after the next Eurasian war the geopolitical situation in the U.S. vis-a-vis the rest of the increasingly globalized world may have had a lot to do with baby boomer successes? And then, lastly--the internet will be an even bigger game changer than the industrial revolution was--you don't see how that fueled the 90's boom which benefited generation X and is causing explosive growth in places like India today?

Your explanation does not pass the sniff test, because it's too simple and too easy to really address the complexities of the world as it is today.
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So the internet, which you admit is even more revolutionary than the Industrial Revolution, just stopped with Generation X? Millennials should be the ones crushing it right now because of technology. The barriers to entry are relatively minimal, especially when compared to the industrial revolution. Some are obviously doing very well, but it seems like the majority is content to sit back and let India and China do all the work for them and then complain that they aren't getting doze phat cheques.
 
2&2 Slider To Leyritz said:
So the internet, which you admit is even more revolutionary than the Industrial Revolution, just stopped with Generation X? Millennials should be the ones crushing it right now because of technology. The barriers to entry are relatively minimal, especially when compared to the industrial revolution. Some are obviously doing very well, but it seems like the majority is content to sit back and let India and China do all the work for them and then complain that they aren't getting doze phat cheques.
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there are some living, breathing barriers to entry in my office right now in the form of aged, refusing to retire elderly employees
 
Those elderly employees are inhibiting your ability to develop and capitalize on technology? On what, their TI-86s? Their Windows 95 is kicking your ass? Doubtful.
 
ImTheCaptain said:
there are some living, breathing barriers to entry in my office right now in the form of aged, refusing to retire elderly employees
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Maybe you should consider a career in sales. You don't have to wait for anyone to retire to increase your income in a sales career. And if you are selling a quality product which your prospect clearly needs at a fair price, there is no more honorable profession anywhere than sales. This statement from an unknown author whom Zig Ziglar often quoted probably says it best:

I Am A Salesman

I am proud to be a salesman, because more than any other man, I and millions of others like me, built America.

The man who builds a better mouse trap — or a better anything — would starve to death if he waited for people to beat a pathway to his door. Regardless of how good or how needed the product or service might be, it has to be sold.

Eli Whitney was laughed at when he showed his cotton gin. Edison had to install his electric light free of charge in an office building before anyone would even look at it. The first sewing machine was smashed to pieces by a Boston mob. People scoffed at the idea of railroads. They thought that traveling even thirty miles an hour would stop the circulation of the blood! McCormick strived for 14 years to get people to use his reaper. Westinghouse was considered a fool for stating he could stop a train with wind. Morse had to plead before 10 Congresses before they would even look at his telegraph.

The public didn’t go around demanding these things; they had to be sold!!

They needed thousands of salesmen, trailblazers and pioneers – people who could persuade with the same effectiveness as the inventor could invent. Salesmen took these inventions, sold the public on what these products could do, taught customers how to use them, and then taught businessmen how to make a profit from them.

As a salesman, I’ve done more to make America what it is today than any other person you know. I was just as vital in your great-great-grandfather’s day as I am in yours, and I will be just as vital in your great-great-grandson’s day. I have educated more people, created more jobs, taken more drudgery from the laborer’s work, given more profits to businessmen, and have given more people a fuller and richer life than anyone in history. I’ve dragged prices down, pushed quality up, and made it possible for you to enjoy the comforts and luxuries of automobiles, radios, electric refrigerators, televisions, and air conditioned homes and buildings. I’ve healed the sick, given security to the aged, and put thousands of young men and women through college. I’ve made it possible for inventors to invent, for factories to hum, and for ships to sail the seven seas.

How much money you find in your pay envelope next week, and whether in the future you will enjoy the luxuries of prefabricated homes, stratospheric flying of airplanes, and new world of jet propulsion and atomic power, depends on me. The loaf of bread you bought today was on a baker’s shelf because I made sure that a farmer’s wheat got to a mill, that the mill made wheat into flour, and that the flour was delivered to your baker.

Without me, the wheels of industry would come to a grinding halt. And with that, jobs, marriages, politics and freedom of thought would be a thing of the past. I AM A SALESMAN and I’m proud and grateful that as such, I serve my family, my fellow man and my country.
 
There has been much talk of millennials on this board lately, so I wonder how everyone actually defines the term. Having worked on market research projects on the subject, there is absolutely zero consensus on who actually constitutes a "millennial."

I've seen everything from "born between 1980-2000" to "born between 1985-1998" to "younger than high school age on September 11, 2001" to other vague descriptors.

The fact is that generations are, at best, extremely broad swaths of birth years. You can have people who are 15 years apart be considered as part of the same generation, but it's no surprise that someone who is 33 would have a completely different worldview than someone who is 18 (or 48).

So, legitimate question for those of you debating the topic: how do you define "millennial"?
 
i see it as the '85-'98 cohort. my sister is in that group and is 100% stereotypical millennial.

i was born in '83 and do not feel at all a part of it
 
Most likely the last college graduating class before the financial crisis really took hold in 2007. So if you were 84 or older you got your job before getting fucked.
 
BobStackFan4Life said:
What happened to them that made them like they are? You had the same parents- why did you not turn out to be a millennial and she did?
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i have considered this question many times without finding a great answer. She is the second kid; maybe that played a role
 
Step #1 of being a millennial: deny being a millennial. It's just like how hipsters will never refer to themselves as such.
 
2&2 Slider To Leyritz said:
So the internet, which you admit is even more revolutionary than the Industrial Revolution, just stopped with Generation X? Millennials should be the ones crushing it right now because of technology. The barriers to entry are relatively minimal, especially when compared to the industrial revolution. Some are obviously doing very well, but it seems like the majority is content to sit back and let India and China do all the work for them and then complain that they aren't getting doze phat cheques.
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it's just kind of how economic cycles go...and what i meant was the internet's effect on humanity will end up being greater than the IR, but the immediate "gold rush" has subsided here (but continues in nations that typically lag behind the U.S. technologically and, therefore, economically). That said, the national economy and especially global economy, is still very much rapidly growing due to this continuing technological revolution, but to the benefit of fewer and fewer people. So no it didn't just magically end.

the overarching point though, is that there are larger macro factors in the success or failure of a cohort of people at a given time. The same is true for the rise of any society, civilization, or nation, and the U.S. is no exception, which is what I was trying to touch on in the quoted post. when factors become less favorable, these nations eventually succumb, which means (almost) every individual in every living generation in that society at that time failed. this happens to every type of human social organization without exception, and in this way mimics the experience of the individual just as reliably. Some people, or in this case groups of people--like some societies--will have a harder time forging ahead than their recent predecessors due to adverse (and increasingly rapid) large-scale changes.

For some nations/groups/individuals these external factors are so harsh they result in no way ahead from the outset. I think of it like a bell curve.

Crediting the success or failure of an individual or a society to internal factors (hard work or good leadership respectively) is very similar to fundamental attribution error, and fails to account for the power of the situation.
 
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