from the would-you-like-fries-with-that? dept.
More than half of American millennials, the generation of people born between 1981 and 1996, believe that they will one day be millionaires; one in five think they will get there by the age of 40. These are the findings from a survey conducted in 2018 by TD Ameritrade, a financial-services company.
But a working paper by the Brookings Institution, a think-tank, offers a sobering antidote to this youthful optimism. It finds that millennials are less wealthy than people of a similar age were in any year from 1989 to 2007. The economic crisis of 2008-09 hit millennials particularly hard. Median household wealth in 2016 for 20- to 35-year-olds was about 25% lower than it was for the similar-aged cohort in 2007.
[...] But all is not lost. Millennials are living longer and are the best-educated generation in history. Taken together, this could yet mean that the youngest millennials, who have been less scarred by the crisis, could contribute towards their retirement pots for longer. Then there is mum and dad: even if they don’t become millionaires, millennials will one day inherit from their parents, and that may help redress their relative poverty.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by RandomFactor on Tuesday April 23 2019, @12:38PM (25 children)
would be the equivalent of what....a boomer with a few hundred K?
A million of anything (except Bolivars) tends to be pretty substantial, but millionaire is not what it used to be even today. Retiring with $1 million in 30 or 40 more years is not where I would put the bar for 'rich' in the US (all assuming no major changes in trajectory of the economy)
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 3, Insightful) by isostatic on Tuesday April 23 2019, @12:58PM (16 children)
Easy
If you want to be a millionaire, you should have bought a typical house back in 1996 on a 25 year interest only mortgage.
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/house-prices/detailMatching.html?prop=75946340&sale=9103366&country=england [rightmove.co.uk]
£158k back then would have been a stretch for people on average income at 8 times average salary, but now 30 years later that house is worth £1.8 million. Over the last 30 years you'll have paid about £200k in interest to live there. Sell the house, pay off the mortgage, and you're left with £1.6m
The poor sucker who couldn't find that £16k deposit in 1996 will likely have spent more on rent, and have £0 to show for it.
Boomers have made a fortune from the housing market over the last 30 years, and on the whole (at least in the UK) haven't been taxed a penny.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday April 23 2019, @01:07PM (7 children)
Factually true but don't forget 30 years of 3% property tax, at least one maybe two roofs (about one new car in cost), all major appliances at least twice, remodeling, extensive maint costs, etc.
At least in the US its hard to spend more than $30/month on utilities in an apartment unless you're mining bitcoin or growing weed, but just the gas bill alone starts at $300 in the winter. So there's ancillary expenses.
Yeah yeah your point in general stands but it might be more like 1M than 1.6M.
Houses are also very expensive in terms of time; apartment dwellers spend saturday "at the big game" or concert or party or whatever, home owners spend saturday doing peasant yard work or plunging toilets.
(Score: 2, Offtopic) by PiMuNu on Tuesday April 23 2019, @01:21PM (1 child)
In the UK tenants pay council tax and uitilities, which I guess is equivalent to US property tax. I think maintenance costs are orders of magnitude below the price growth in the UK (speaking as a homeowner). Typical rent prices are approximately the same as a mortgage payment, because rental market is driven by "buy to let" i.e. put down a mortgage, buy up a nice place, tenants pay off the mortgage. Landlord takes profit from natural house price growth.
UK is an interesting case because:
1. there is a significant population boom (driven significantly from 1st through 3rd generation immigrants).
2. housing stock is limited by government regulation - motivated by the desire to maintain rural environments.
3. UK doesn't have the same culture of apartment living that is common in e.g. Europe. Everyone wants to own a 3 bedroom semi detached house in the suburbs.
I believe that this has driven big price growth especially around London.
(Score: 2) by Dr Spin on Tuesday April 23 2019, @06:45PM
motivated by the desire to maintain rural environments.
No:
The conservatives want a housing shortage so house prices will rise and home owners will vote conservative
Labour want a housing shortage so people will vote Labour because they cant afford to buy and want social housing.
Other parties are irrelevant (UKIP wouldn't know a housing policy if it fell on them from 30,000 feet).
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Tuesday April 23 2019, @01:25PM (4 children)
Factually true but don't forget 30 years of 3% property tax
Not in the UK. It would be 30 years of council tax, but you pay that whether you rent or own. £40k in total.
at least one maybe two roofs (about one new car in cost)
Not in the UK, I've never heard of roofs having to be replaced (except for thatched or flat ones). Occasional loose/cracked tile after a storm sure, and I expect they probably are after 100-150 years or so, vast majority of houses in UK are under 100 years old though.
all major appliances at least twice, remodeling, extensive maint costs, etc.
Aside from oven, fridge, maybe washer, those costs would be born by a rentee anyway. £200 a year, or £5k.
The cost of owning a house in the UK is negligable.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @04:57PM
Houses in the US are covered with layers of flat asphalt shingles, some newer more expensive roofs are metal plate, some older expensive ones are slate shingles. European style tile is expensive unobtanium, unless you live out west.
The cheap regular asphalt roofs have a lifetime of maybe 20 years or so, and cost around $10k to redo. Most people don't plan on staying in the same home for 20 years, so that is what they install. When buying a house you ask when the previous owners replaced the roof, and you do a mental calculation of value for remaining expected life.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Tuesday April 23 2019, @06:04PM (2 children)
Angling for "Funny" votes? I recently had my tile roof replaced costing £15k, probably about 80 years old. Replaced central heating boiler and hot water tank two years ago at £2500. Minor maintenance probably runs around £100 per month - like replacing fences recently that were blown down in the high winds. I own my house but these are things a landlord would need to do (I'm not sayiing they would).
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Wednesday April 24 2019, @03:11AM (1 child)
An 80 year old house? Hardly typical.
What type of tiles did you have on the roof? I know that slate roofs can take a lot of maintenance, but those are quite rare these days.
I own two houses in the UK and I don't pay anything like £100 per month for minor maintenance. Of course the houses are not mansions.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Wednesday April 24 2019, @01:57PM
The roof was of tiles made from some clay/asbestos fired mix, slate-like but orange in colour, common enough for the time. The tiles were crumbling at the edges and infested with moss. As for 80 years old not being typical, there were millions of houses built in the 1920s and 30s, all those London middling boring suburbs 10-20 miles from the centre, for a start. Every house I have ever lived in has been from that era.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by driverless on Tuesday April 23 2019, @01:22PM (3 children)
Of course they do, they've been repeatedly told they'll be winning so much, at every level, they'll get tired of winning [youtube.com].
Come to think of it, after the current presidency comes to an end and the chickens come home to roost, everyone may well be millionaires, taking their weekly paycheck home in the form of a wheelbarrow full of money [wordpress.com]. Now that's winning!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @03:21PM
itym whining
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Tuesday April 23 2019, @04:26PM
At least for me this has been nonstop winning for my retirement and ability to buy a home. Retirement has nearly tripped and I was able to buy my first home at 3.85%. Feelin like a 29 year old boomer.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 4, Funny) by etherscythe on Tuesday April 23 2019, @09:05PM
You'll need that phablet to have a screen big enough to display all the 0's. Stylin'.
"Fake News: anything reported outside of my own personally chosen echo chamber"
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday April 23 2019, @05:43PM (3 children)
Is there no property tax in the UK?
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Tuesday April 23 2019, @06:10PM (2 children)
GP is bull-shitting. In the UK you pay Council Tax, roughly related to house value, but variable in different areas too. I pay £200 per month. You also pay a considerable "Stamp Duty" when you buy a house. If you rent out a house to a tenant you will pay income tax on the rent you receive.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Tuesday April 23 2019, @09:58PM
Council tax is paid for by the person in the house / rent or buy you pay the same. It tops out at £3k a year, which on a million pound house is 0.3%. Typically it’s about 1500 a year for a £250k house or about 0.6%. In expensive areas it’s a lot cheaper.
It’s far higher on cheap flats, 1% or more, but nowhere near 3%. There’s a lot of exceptions to it too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 24 2019, @12:15AM
consider the possibility that capital gains on a primary residence might be taxed differently (or even not at all) in other jurisdictions.
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Tuesday April 23 2019, @12:59PM
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Whoever on Tuesday April 23 2019, @04:03PM (6 children)
This is the biggest lie in American life.
This is the lie that is used to justify not taxing the wealthy: "some day you will be wealthy and you don't want to pay those taxes".
This is a lie that it promulgated by some of the wealthy. It increases wealth concentration amongst the already wealthy.
This is the most pernicious lie because it makes it more difficult to fix the structural problems in society.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @04:41PM
Get frothing red in the face defending it. And not just the republicans you expect, but many moderates/democrats as well.
One of the most curious questions I ask is: Where is all the money going? At the turn of the 20th century no taxes in the US were above.... 1%?
And yet that America had enough money to send a flotilla halfway around the world to perform the 'Opening of Japan', fight the barbary pirates, cause all sorts of chaos in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean (Mexican American, Spanish American, and other wars, as well as the many 'friendly governments' including the one that lead to the Cuban Revolution.)
Modern America seems to be getting a lot less bang for its buck just on the military spending in comparison to then, and yet the populace is paying how much more in taxes to fund the government? How much better are our services today, adjusting for technological gains? Is the cost and benefit of the manpower greater? Does the average person feel safer? How many people can afford to have a family at home without both partners working?
There is a lot of introspection to be had, a lot of history to be remembered, and a lot of questions to be asked if Americans are going to dig themselves out of this morass they find themselves in. (I personally have given up hope, but would rather my homeland right itself after I have left than never right itself at all.)
(Score: 4, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday April 23 2019, @04:48PM (4 children)
Back in 2002, one of my fellow $96K/yr peons actually quoted that to me as his reason for voting for the Bush agenda...
His wife later ran for and sat on the local schoolboard, after which he came to realize the truth of: "If building a football stadium just keeps one kid every couple of years from getting into trouble with the law, it pays for itself many times over (vs the cost of incarceration alone, nevermind the actual damages the kid might do or money he might make by being productive)"
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by RedIsNotGreen on Tuesday April 23 2019, @11:01PM (1 child)
But what if you end up owning stock in a company that operates prisons?
There goes your retirement fund!
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday April 24 2019, @12:12AM
Prisons, lawyers, politicians... there are some things that just shouldn't be funded.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Wednesday April 24 2019, @10:50PM (1 child)
I wish they'd make that argument with backing data, and then collect funds voluntarily rather than via taxes to fund the stadium.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday April 25 2019, @01:56AM
They do make that argument with backing data, and in the Houston area there are independent school districts, some of which are very well funded (our property taxes on a $160K house were $5K per year, most of it for schools), and others are poor as dirt, and it shows in the quality of the graduating classes, and every other grade, for that matter.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Tuesday April 23 2019, @12:48PM (18 children)
The concepts in the article are problematic
Careful avoidance of discussing seemingly inevitable inflation. Plenty of millionaires, for awhile, in Weimar Germany a century ago. Those days are coming back again.
Political indoctrination and vocational training for jobs that will never exist will not increase IQ or performance or wealth. My favorite waitress having crushing student loan debt to get an unusable education degree doesn't make her a better waitress; it just makes her poorer than a coworker who wisely didn't go to uni. I don't think she's going to indoctrinate her kids with propaganda to "spend as much as possible on a uni degree", assuming she can afford kids; not much money left over for her and her kids after paying taxes to flood the country with very expensive invaders who hate her for her race. "Work Will Set You Free"
Boomers are crashing this plane with no survivors, as Bane would say, so X-ers as a group are not going to have anything to give to their kids.
Pretty much living this now, WW2 gen grandparents had all their equity sucked out by the medical industrial complex; that process is literally the purpose of an entire industry. A couple cascading generations of medical bills and millennials are getting nothing.
"How much money do Americans Inherit" google search is instructive; Its exponential much like how much money you make from playing sports as a profession; about half the population will inherit $50K or less. A little visual numerical integration indicates 75% will get less than $200K. And this is in "good" times, which are ending.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday April 23 2019, @01:02PM (11 children)
My boomer parents were '60s free love parents, and so are only 20 years older than me - I expect this is pretty common. With life expectancy in the high 80s, divorce and re-marry to younger spouses, I'm not looking forward to inheritance anytime soon.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday April 23 2019, @01:37PM (10 children)
When my mom died my inheritance was like -20k.
Protip, if you are going to move sick or elderly parents in to your house to care for them, don't have their address be your address. Get them a PO Box and have all official correspondence there. Otherwise when the die with tens of thousands in medical bills, you don't get your ass sued.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday April 23 2019, @01:43PM (8 children)
My wife's parents passed recently, the late stage caregivers all seemed to expect non-payment of the final items - they were prepared to take whatever Medicaid would give.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Informative) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday April 23 2019, @03:25PM (7 children)
Yeah, I don't even know how the Hospice stays in business. She was too young for Medicaid and got fired from her job when she got sick and lost insurance. They didn't even ask about payment.
A financial worker local hospital that did some post-insurance work basically told me that they would bill but just to ignore it. I never even saw a bill from them. (this was before she moved in with me, so who knows then)
The ones that got me were drug companies. Never sent any bills, just showed up with a Sheriff and a court order to reposes my vehicles and everything in my house if I didn't pay 10k by next week. I explained that the stuff at the house belongs to me and me alone. Talked to a lawyer and he suggested it was cheaper to just pay up. Fuck drug companies and fuck our legal system.
And funeral costs, can't really escape those if you care about the person.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @04:11PM
Protips: don't personally cosign for sick parents, don't ignore court summonses, hire a decent lawyer, let the estate go bankrupt.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday April 23 2019, @04:45PM
Ouch, and I bet the $10K amount was calculated to be cheaper to pay than fight.
I had an expensive (like $20K billed) round of antibiotics for osteomyletis once, managed to settle everything with the office at the end of treatment, got a Paid in Full agreement signed by them. 18 months later, we had moved houses, and a bill for $5K shows up in the mailbox... apparently they had transferred their accounting to a new company, the new company was reviewing old accounts and missed that ours was Paid in Full and so, decided to re-bill us for all the bogus crap that we had straightened out over a year prior. While we were discussing it the first time on the phone, they immediately agreed to write off the most bogus $4K of the bill, but pitched another attempt to collect something like $800 unless we produced our copy of the Paid In Full... calculated to be easier to pay than fight, I suspect. We talked it through with the actual office and it went away, no Sheriff at the door yet 5 years later.
As for the wife's parents, yeah, the whole family is savvy enough, nobody co-signed or co-addressed nothin'.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @06:38PM (3 children)
Where I used to live, my telephone number was one digit off from the number for a local hospice. Apparently at some point a list had gone out to the local medical community with the incorrect phone number (that is, mine) for the hospice.
Every few months I'd get a late night phone call from a harried nurse, looking for a hospice bed for a terminal patient. I'd calmly explain that they had the wrong number, and give them the right number. They'd always be so apologetic, but I'd tell them it was no problem and they had far more important things to worry about than waking me up.
One time I came home from work, and found on my answering machine a heartbreaking series of increasingly desperate calls from a daughter looking for a bed for her father, and pleading with the hospice to call her back. I had to call her and explain she'd been given the wrong number, and that's why no one had called her. I spent about five minutes just listening to her; she obviously needed to vent to a non-medical person right then. I'd want someone to listen to me.
The last year I lived there I didn't get any calls like that; I guess a corrected list eventually got sent around. I'd kept the number, even though it was a little annoying, because I didn't want anyone in that situation to get some rampaging asshole on the line instead of me.
I know this is a boring post and no one will care.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @08:43PM
I do, people like you make the world a little better
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday April 24 2019, @05:57PM
Often happens to caregivers of the dying - they just need somebody to listen, whether trained or not. Thanks for being a human being about it, and if we cared more about things like this we'd be able to care less about so many other seemingly important things.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday April 24 2019, @05:58PM
Addendum - wish you could get +10 for this, +6 isn't enough.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday April 23 2019, @09:06PM
Just cheaper to pay up?!? Get another lawyer! That you were never billed sounds like a major violation of due process. And there's also a provision in the Constitution that children shall not be held liable for the crimes of their parents.
I wonder if the viral video route would have been the answer. A recording of all these officials committing robbery in the name of Big Pharma would at the least be highly embarrassing.
> And funeral costs, can't really escape those if you care about the person.
Yes, you can. You just have to put aside those social expectations that you have to pay for disposal of the body in a manner deemed respectful. Even cremation is fairly expensive. Donate your dearly departed one to science. That's free. And why should that mean you don't love them? It sure did not mean that to us! It's what we did with my father, and we are sure he would have liked that, though all he ever said on that subject was that after he's dead he won't care any more what happens to his body or possessions. He was a big admirer and follower of science, and also very frugal. The donation was a final service, that with our help, he could do towards progress. Apparently so few people go that route that they are far from overwhelmed with offers. I don't know how long that state of affairs will last. I fully expect donating to science won't be free if lots more people start doing it, and they may. But in the meantime, as long as most people feel that's disrespectful or cheap or whatever, and let the funeral industry sucker them into showing their respect and love by throwing lots of cold hard cash away on funeral arrangements, well, that's their problem. We held a memorial at his favorite restaurant, and the hell with those bandits in the mortuary biz. Paying for everyone's food at the restaurant was much less costly than merely renting space at a funeral home for an hour, their prices are so high.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @01:44PM
Protip: immigrate in a coutry with proper health care (as opposed to extortion masquerading as health care).
You're welcome,
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @01:32PM (2 children)
She'll stay a waitress forever only in your imagination.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @11:30PM (1 child)
> She'll stay a waitress forever only in your imagination.
If restaurant work is important.enough to hire people to do, why shouldn't it pay a livable wage and include health care, dental care, and pension?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 24 2019, @01:58AM
It shouldn't include health care, dental care and pension because those should be independent of your employment.
Tying them to your job is just another way the system is designed to make it hard for you to quit. The harder it is to quit, the closer your job is to slavery.
Freelance - Those three are all your responsibility and you automatically quit at the end of each project.
Salary / Wage - System ties them to your job to make it hard to quit but still legal.
Slave - Don't have the right to quit.
Decoupling healthcare and pensions from your job is a step towards freedom, which is why it is resisted by the entrenched powers.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Tuesday April 23 2019, @02:12PM
Disregarding the IQ and race nonsense, education might not prove beneficial for them directly but it should for their children. After all, a humanities major that can't find a job is far more likely to direct their children at least towards a more viable professional vocation if not STEM/engineering than an uneducated day-laborer that will only fill their minds with excuses on how this minority or that foreigner stole their jobs and how they should follow their footsteps into a dead end job.
Though I admit, as automation becomes more pervasive, everyone's future prospects are becoming increasingly dim and we're not too far off from the day where the ability to pay off one's student loans even when aiming at BS/Engineering degree won't be acceptable. But that's more of an argument in favor of free higher-education than an argument against education.
compiling...
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday April 23 2019, @05:48PM (1 child)
How does a college degree improve graduates’ employment and earnings potential? [aplu.org]
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Wednesday April 24 2019, @02:13AM
It is difficult to find exact figures, but some sites give the range of $90,000 to $180,000 as the cost of a typical US college degree.
That seems reasonable for someone who is ambivalent about attending college, they are not going to be brainiacs getting free rides at Caltech.
If they just stuck that money in an index fund how much would it be worth 40 years later? More than the million their degree would have earned?
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday April 23 2019, @01:00PM (1 child)
A fairly red pilled paper, it makes the point that dividing the population by age results in minimal single digit percentage differences but in a general sense "kids will live like their parents although slightly poorer" However the real difference is race where lifestyles are essentially different countries, like 1st vs 3rd world, living on the same dirt. The paper is extremely race oriented, which is interesting.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @03:50PM
No it isn't, you are just a racist jackass.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @01:15PM
Bingo
Assuming they haven’t reverse mortgaged the house, that could be a million dollars right there. Just hope you came from a small family, have seen a few fights over the inheritance booty and it is not pretty!
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @01:50PM
Millenials believe the US gov will hyperinflate away its debt, and they are probably right.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by looorg on Tuesday April 23 2019, @02:01PM (7 children)
Isn't that part of the American Dream (TM)? Some belief that you will become RICH RICH RICH beyond your wildest dreams and all the other suckers are there to serve you? In reality tho not so much. It also seem somewhat optimistic that they would be millionaires by age 40 -- sort of like prime in their life when they are no longer new on the job market but they probably still have a family to take care of and their house (if they have one) is not yet paid off but at the same time they want millions in the bank? Back to the dream part -- I guess they all now believe that they will be superstars or celebrities of some sort and that will rake in the cash. Nobody seem to have realistic dreams when younger about what they will actually be or become.
I doubt I'll be a millionaire, even after I inherit my parents properties -- plus if I could chose I would rather have them around then owning what they own. After all if we live in fantasy-land that dream is just as realistic, even when not. If I become one I'm fairly sure a million might just not be that rare anymore but instead fairly common so the goalpost have moved. Now you need several millions to be all fancy. But still being a millionaire at age 40 seem somewhat unrealistic, personally the ship already sailed. But then it was never really a goal of mine.
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Tuesday April 23 2019, @02:30PM
US government made sure all the country income and revenue for an entire year and then some is in red (public-debt/GDP ratio 105.4% in 2017).
If Xi-the-Pooh gets upset - e,g, over the Iranian oil [nytimes.com]) - and starts trashing US treasury bonds, the "American dream™" ends into an nightmarish awakening. Particularly if the Europeans join in [apnews.com] and arrange for an euro-based petrol market [theguardian.com] and a clearing house [theguardian.com] for the same.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday April 23 2019, @03:22PM (2 children)
Depends on whom you ask. For most Greatest Generation adults/parents who were white, coming out of the depression and World Wars, an American dream was to have a home, a job, and not be in a war zone. Live comfortably (not necessarily "richly" although for those who lived through the depression "rich" might mean one knows one is not going to starve). Have 2.5 kids, educated, whom you know will do better than you did because the opportunities are there. Having the opportunity to fulfill just that was fine. To people of that generation, that dream was achievable.
For minorities, the American dream might have meant equality of property ownership, voting rights, and generally things that white America by and large took as natural rights. Are we there yet? Somewhat, certainly not entirely. But it was possible for some, and it doesn't take an act of absolute bravery for a citizen of color to excercise the franchise today. (Again mostly). I invite correction.
Enter the Boomers, post 70s. Enter Madison Avenue. Enter Wall Street. When the American Dream became entangled with Consumerism, all of a sudden nothing would ever be quite good enough. There was always another rung on the consumerist ladder to try and reach for. Take that down past the X'ers who got cynical about it but nevertheless had both hands out to try and be better than average.
Why should Millennials now not expect the American Dream to mean "we're gonna all be better than average and rich!" It's what makes propaganda like "Make America Great Again" sell - we can't recognize the places we started from were pretty great already because we're afraid that other person who talks funny and doesn't look like us will take our place away from us. We see Greatness as equivalent to fulfilling our Greed, rather than looking at making others satisfied.
Sooner or later, likely sooner, there shall be another worldwide crisis. We barely avoided one recently - which doesn't mean we're free and clear for a few decades but rather that the next crash will likely be harder. The Millenials will repeat the Lost Generation/Greatest Generation, be taken down several pegs, and have to start building again. (And if not Millenials, then post-Millenial).
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday April 23 2019, @03:34PM (1 child)
That's not even dreaming, that's painful stupidity.
And not all millennials are stupid; I'd rather wage the majority are not.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday April 24 2019, @08:48PM
No, not all are stupid. Distribution I don't know, as it varies highly on how you qualify "stupid" and how that applies.
But I do think most people accept the world as it is presented to them, and it may well be that a majority is not equipped to understand that one cannot have everybody as "above average". One thing I did miss on, the internalized thought may not be, "we are all going to be better than average and rich!" Rather it is, "I am better than average, and therefore I am going to be rich." The problem occurs when a supermajority starts thinking this way. Unless one has complete equality in such a way that everybody has the same amount... in which case rich and poor loses distinction - but humanity is a long ways from needing to worry about that problem IMNSHO.
It's just Dunning-Kruger writ large. And since I'm susceptible to Dunning-Kruger as well I won't go further with what my opinions are on other generations.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by srobert on Tuesday April 23 2019, @04:25PM
If the "American Dream" is to get obscenely rich while other people starve, then Americans are dreaming about the wrong thing. I'd much rather be merely well-to-do in a nation where no one starves.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday April 23 2019, @05:44PM (1 child)
I always liked George Carlin's formulation about it: "It's called the American Dream because you have be asleep to believe it."
Even as one of the older Millennials who got his career started before the 2008 crash, with significant inheritance, no student loan debt, an in-demand profession, and no kids to drain my money away, my net worth is about $150K, and I highly doubt it will get above $500K in today's dollars. That puts me far better off than the average American, but I don't expect to be a millionaire.
Another classic quote attributed to John Steinbeck but quite possibly not him: "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." That's how important the myth of the American Dream is to the social control mechanisms in the US.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 24 2019, @12:54AM
> career started before the 2008 crash, with significant inheritance, no student loan debt, an in-demand profession, and no kids to drain my money away, my net worth is about $150K, ...
So in the last 10+ years you've managed to squirrel away something around $10K-15K per year. You couldn't have lost too much in the 2008 crash, since you had just started working at that time. What do you spend all your money on? Hope at least some of it is spent having fun.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by ants_in_pants on Tuesday April 23 2019, @02:51PM (3 children)
I know literally nobody who thinks they will be rich, most people joke about how poor they are and how impossible it is to crawl out of debt.
-Love, ants_in_pants
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @03:12PM
dude, didn't you know that asking a few people that aren't in the group you're writing about, and then making up the rest, is common?
It's not like science, where you just pay some company to publish papers and positive reviews. These guys just have to make it up enough to profit from advertising this month until the next article about millenials being upset that gas shortages and border fences are causing avacados to over-ripen on the truck coming in from Mexico because it was filled with legal stuff and it caused a bunch of PR issues that there were no caravans of militant welfare mothers strapped inside giving birth due to being over-ripened themselves.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @06:19PM
Just more divisive propaganda to radicalize the young/old voting blocks.
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday April 23 2019, @08:40PM
I bet kids of rich parents think they will be rich. Hell, most of them will until they piss their trust funds away.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by realDonaldTrump on Tuesday April 23 2019, @04:21PM (11 children)
Janrinok says "oh, we don't want stories where the US members of our community throw political mud at each other." But, he wants them, he's from E.U. and he wants to divide us( & Conquer). So he sends them in under a Fake Name -- Arthur P. Knickerboobies. So interesting that this very old and often told story went through INSTANTLY. While the ones about the tremendously positive results we are achieving get rejected.
Very proud of what we're doing to make our young "people" very very rich. Tax Cut & Jobs Act has been tremendous for that. We have Kylie Jenner. Her lips are very small, she invented makeup to make them look bigger. And now she's the youngest Billionaire in the World. She's 21. So she's not too old and not too young. That's just great. And we have the Collison Brothers. They came from E.U. to America with NOTHING. Built 7 Lines of Cyber Code. And with some help from my friend Peter Thiel they became Billionaires before they turned 30.
And we've been very successful with Economy & Jobs. Jobless claims in the United States have reached their lowest (BEST) level in over 50 years. Lowest Women Unemployment rate since 1953. And over 5.5 MILLION new jobs since I was elected!!!! whitehouse.gov/articles/u-s-job-growth-remains-strong-adding-196000-jobs-march-surpassing-market-expectations [whitehouse.gov]
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Tuesday April 23 2019, @05:57PM (10 children)
I only submitted it. It was found by a bot from a US site.
...and you still talk crap.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by realDonaldTrump on Tuesday April 23 2019, @07:28PM (9 children)
BULLSHIT, The Economist is NOT American. It's 100% British. Otherwise known as, E.U. Like you're E.U.
And Robots only go when, and where you tell them too go. Like the Robot that got run over by a Tesla, its Owners put it in the Street, they told it to go running in the Street( so irresponsible!). You wanted the story about the poor poor Americans that will never be Rich like me, so you submitted it.
I can tell your very jealous of American Millennials & Billennials. Because they're much richer than you. Much younger than you. And, much more beautiful. Thanks to fabulous Plastic Surgery -- the best in the entire World. And the very special Lipstick that makes lips look HUGE!!!!
(Score: 3, Funny) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday April 23 2019, @10:44PM (2 children)
Shut the fuck up, Donny, you're out of your element! (Again)
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 24 2019, @07:33PM
It is hilarious when Trumplestiltskin Shitweaver gets a chance to talk about real estate. He is still pretty ignorant, but you can tell when his brain switches to a topic it has some comprehension. Then he almost seems human!
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday April 24 2019, @08:51PM
+1 for Lebowskism.
I'm going to see if I can make a new mantra before posting for awhile.... The Lawn Abides. (Prediction: failure).
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Wednesday April 24 2019, @06:00AM (2 children)
The bots use exactly the same sources as SN - it actually reads the news items from the SN feed, strips out all the advertising or scripts, and produces a submission.
Any editor can use Arthur, it is also part of our IRC story submission system which I, personally, have never used. And anyone, AC or registered member of our community, can use Arthur to submit a story via IRC.
...said the orange man.
should be "you're"
Which proves that you know nothing about me at all.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Thursday April 25 2019, @02:10PM (1 child)
You submitted the story -- you say you submitted it. But, your Robot Produces the Submission. And, anybody can use it. But, you've never used it. More Bullshit. While Front, or Mainpage is covered with Arthur this, Arthur that!!!!
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Thursday April 25 2019, @03:18PM
Anyone (including ACs and even you) can go on our IRC channels and select an article for submission. It will be processed by one of 2 bots (Upstart or Arthur) depending on which command they choose to submit their story. Both are submitted automatically and the submitter is shown as the bot's name. I wrote the original Arthur bot and it is now available for anyone to use. I don't have to be aware that it is being used and I do not have a hand in every submission that it generates. Arthur has its own user account (6256) as does Upstart. This allows the submissions to bypass certain security features that we place on some bots that we use protect the site from some denial of service attacks.
Copies of Arthur, which is now in version 3, have been given away to over 40 people, anyone of whom can use it to find and submit stories, in addition to the IRC version. They will all show that they have been collected by Arthur T Knackerbracket which helps the editor to identify the level of processing required for that submission. The fact that this is too difficult for you to understand suggests that this site is a little too taxing for you. Perhaps you should stick to politics....
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Wednesday April 24 2019, @06:52AM (2 children)
That is most definitely a US source!
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Thursday April 25 2019, @02:18PM (1 child)
"The Economist was established in 1843 by James Wilson, a hatmaker from the small Scottish town of Hawick, to campaign against the protectionist Corn Laws." The Sight.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Thursday April 25 2019, @03:04PM
And the article it printed was the result of a paper from https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/How-Will-Retirement-Saving-Change-by-2050.docx.pdf. [brookings.edu]
It doesn't matter which newspaper prints it, the source material is from the USA.
(Score: 2) by srobert on Tuesday April 23 2019, @04:22PM
When I was in my 20's, I was definitely going to be a millionaire by 40. 56 now, not even close, maybe before I'm 80.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mrpg on Tuesday April 23 2019, @04:47PM (2 children)
"Then there is mum and dad: even if they don’t become millionaires, millennials will one day inherit from their parents, and that may help redress their relative poverty."
What if they inherit debts?
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Tuesday April 23 2019, @07:12PM
What if pigs fly?
You don't inherit debts. A death can mean that you are now the sole person responsible for a debt that you were already partially responsible for, but that's not inheriting a debt.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 24 2019, @12:48AM
Doesn't work that way in Anglo-American law. Your "estate" is administered by executors who pay off your debts and distribute what remains to the heirs. If there isn't enough, the creditors won't all get paid, and the heirs get nothing.
Though if your son cosigned for a debt you incurred, he's on the hook. Don't do that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 23 2019, @07:48PM (1 child)
Who needs more than that?
:-)
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 24 2019, @01:04AM
Happiness can't buy you money.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 24 2019, @05:25AM
http://requiemfortheamericandream.com/watch/ [requiemfortheamericandream.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 24 2019, @06:25PM
America runs on the fumes of delusion. If people knew the actual state of things the nation would erupt.