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Auto manufacturers today are scratching their heads, trying to figure out why the millennial generation has little-to-no interest in owning a car. What car makers are failing to see is that this generation's interests and priorities have been redefined in the last two decades, pushing cars to the side while must-have personal technology products take up the fast lane.
It's no secret the percentage of new vehicles sold to 18- to 34-year-olds has significantly dropped over the past few years. Many argue this is the result of a weak economy, that the idea of making a large car investment and getting into more debt on top of college loans is too daunting for them. But that's not the "driving" factor, especially considering that owning a smartphone or other mobile device, with its monthly fees of network access, data plan, insurance, and app services, is almost comparable to the monthly payments required when leasing a Honda Civic.
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With recent studies showing a huge decline in auto sales among the millennial marketplace, it's no wonder auto manufacturers are in a mild state of panic, realizing they're missing out on a generation that wields $200 billion in purchasing power. Numbers don't lie, and over the last few years statistics have shown a significant drop in young people who own cars, as well as those with driver's licenses—and that decline continues among the youngest millennials, meaning this is not a trend that's going away anytime soon. From 2007 to 2011, the number of cars purchased by people aged 18 to 34, fell almost 30%, and according to a study from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, only 44% of teens obtain a driver's license within the first year of becoming eligible and just half, 54% are licensed before turning 18. This is a major break with the past, considering how most teens of the two previous generations would race to the DMV for their license or permit on the day of their 16th birthday.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 13 2016, @11:42PM
They are fucked when it comes to money, so they will figure how to live without car.
Next up: Millenials and housing.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @12:07AM
My friend purchased his first death trap for a bit under $1000 (working minimum wage) so he could make it to concerts. Craigslist assures me the same deals are available today.
I understand that every generation previously had their Bentley presented to them at 16 to drive on gold lined streets, but I don't see many Millenials in the alms house, and the little gadgets they have to document their lives cost as much as my friend's car.
(Score: 2) by dingus on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:03AM
You can get phones for cheap. That, and they're pretty much a necessity for modern life, unlike a car(in most cities -- some places have terrible or nonexistent public transport).
I can say with confidence that if I hadn't been given my dad's truck, I would be riding my bike or taking the bus. It's just not worth.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Gaaark on Wednesday September 14 2016, @03:00AM
Exactly: phones are considered a necessity, but are expensive when you have school debt.
They make it seem like "hey, why don't they drop their phones and bills and buy a car"... they can only afford one, so they choose their phones.
My wife and I, though, need cars and so cannot afford mobile phones.
It's one or the other for lots of people, and getting worse for those with large school debt who can't find good paying jobs.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @03:19AM
Somehow I've managed a career without ever having more than a landline.
You might want to rethink your idea of "necessity".
Playing Candy Crush while you wait in line ain't exactly it.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Wednesday September 14 2016, @09:30AM
Depends how much you use the phone (and probably on where you live). I just got a landline for the first time in over a decade, and only because it's a requirement for FTTH here (there's no phone connected to it). I dropped the landline because it wasn't economic. Back then, it cost £10/month just for line rental, and I was spending £2-3/month on a pre-pay mobile. Since then, mobile prices have gone down, landline line rental has gone up. I now pay 3p/minute for calls, 2p/text, and 1p/MB of data and spend about £1/month on my phone.
I bought my first Smartphone (Nokia N80) as a cost-saving measure too. It had a built-in SIP client and the cost of calls using SIP over WiFi was lower than the cost of mobile calls by enough that the device paid for itself over about half of its lifetime. Now, aside from calls abroad and freephone numbers, it's cheaper to use the mobile, so I spend about £5/year on my SIP account, mostly to call my mother, who now lives in France.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @01:22PM
Uh, cellular service costs less than a landline, dipshit.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:04PM
In cellular-only households I've seen, there's a phone per persno. Do two to four cellular phones in a household cost less than one landline?
(Score: 2) by pendorbound on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:56PM
In a family shared plan, it's pretty close.
(Score: 2) by quacking duck on Wednesday September 14 2016, @06:41PM
Not these days. Now where I am, where a traditional phoneline starts at $30, and VOIP is cheaper still.
Meanwhile, shared cell plans *start* at $75-80, for a mere 1 or 2 GB, and that's just for the *first* phone on the plan.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday September 14 2016, @10:40PM
Yeah, $75/month (plus tax) is what I pay for my contract. But I get a hell of a lot more than "a mere 1 or 2GB". Last month I used 56 gigs. That $75/month gets me 450 minutes, unlimited texts, unlimited data (no caps, no throttling) and a subsidized phone (the usual -- $200 for the latest model Galaxy or iPhone.)
My parents have two phones on a single non-contract account, and they pay around $30/month. Plus an initial $100-$200 to buy each phone (an iPhone and a Galaxy, two year old models). Although they don't use a ton of data -- that 2GB/month would cost them an extra $10-15, but that's still below $50/month.
I live in Rhode Island, they're in Pennsylvania, and we're using different providers although they're both Sprint MVNOs -- Credo Mobile and Ting.
So you can get a phone for $100 plus around fifty a month for service which you can cancel or adjust at any time if money is tight. Buy a car and you're out at least a grand, and possibly in debt which you can't just cancel. Plus gas, plus maintenance, which could be more than a hundred a month even on a car that's in pretty good shape. So maybe you buy a halfway decent used car, and the *loan payments* are about the same as a monthly cellphone bill, but there's no way in hell that the total cost of a car is that low.
You might be able to afford a *bicycle* and the associated maintenance for around the cost of a mobile phone or two...my ex commuted several miles every day by bike and she definitely spent at least $50/month maintaining that thing, repairing bent rims and punctured tires and such. She did have a cellphone though -- a two year old iPhone, cracked so badly that big chunks of the glass and LCD were missing and you could see the aluminum frame. Still on her parents' family plan, which her and her siblings helped pay for because the parents couldn't afford it either. She didn't own a PC, so that iPhone was her only means of communication. Maybe a landline would have been a bit cheaper (although it would actually be three landlines vs one family plan -- the users of that family plan were spread across three states) but a landline can't browse the web which means riding several miles to a library or something, and it can't get text messages which would have caused some issues with her job since they did some of their scheduling via texts. So the landlines would have been about the same cost as the cellphones, without providing anywhere near the same level of access. Plus the fact that the cellphone is always with you, so you don't miss a call (missing calls repeatedly could cost you your job if you're in a low wage position) and also provides a very valuable tool in case of emergency.
Cellphones vs landlines isn't a fair comparison, as the phone is also a computer and a stereo system and an emergency beacon and a watch and so much more if that's all you have. And anyone who says cellphones are the same cost as a car is ignoring at least half the cost of the car.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @04:07PM
And VoiP (can do that at the library) is even cheaper still.
What's your point fuckwad?
Back when (insert regional disaster) happened, all the cell towers were at over capacity and quite a few were down. Couldn't make a call.
Landlines operated just fine.
Within the realm of necessity is the ability to make calls during disasters. Landlines are incredibly robust.
Did you get that bitch?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:25PM
Landlines are seldom affected by natural disasters - but they do take a fucking sometimes. Most frequently, flooding takes them out of service. A very unfortunately located fallen tree can take out areas of land line service.
You've made a decent point, but that point isn't always true.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:59PM
Depends if it's a real landline or not. Around here the POTS are mostly being replaced with fiber or cable connections, which means that they go down whenever the power goes down. I've had a great deal of luck with cellular during power outages and what not. Most of the cell towers have redundant power anyways, so as long as my handset has power I'm fine.
A relatively cheap solar set up ensures that I can have power for things like that indefinitely.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:22PM
That is true, and untrue. My landline costs about $20/month. With that landline, I can call anything within about 25 miles, except I can't call across the state line, without paying a fee. I no longer have a long distance carrier, so that makes it difficult to make a long distance call on the landline. I'd have to jump through a couple hoops, and connect with a long distance carrier in order to do so. BUT - long distance calls from a land line are pretty expensive.
So - a landline is cheaper than any cell service, if you only get the basics. But if you need to call further than your local calling area, the landline gets expensive real fast.
In today's world your freinds and relatives most certainly do NOT all live within any given area code, let alone local calling area. Even small businesses need to make frequent calls outside of their own area codes, and larger corporations think global.
So, yeah, I can almost agree that a cell phone is a necessity for people getting started in this world today.
It's not really a necessity for me. The wife and kids think so, but I don't.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @08:41PM
> cellular service costs less than a landline, dipshit.
Where YOU live, maybe!
Not here. $35/mo for landline, $45 for the very cheapest cell plan.
(Score: 2) by cykros on Thursday September 15 2016, @06:24AM
$40/mo (no contract) here will give you unlimited talk, text, and 3g data. As long as you're in the city, coverage is fine.
If you're out in the middle of nowhere, things are different. But then, the real thing to point out here is just how few millenials you'll be likely to run into out there. Millenials and cities are pretty inseparable.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:15PM
"Playing Candy Crush while you wait in line"
Yeah, but, what about Zombie Apocalypse?
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Wednesday September 14 2016, @10:44AM
My wife and I, though, need cars and so cannot afford mobile phones.
What? You can get a functioning mobile for £30.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:28PM
The most recently purchased feature phone in my home cost $20US. Cheap, cheap, cheap. But, it's not the cost of the phone that makes cell service expensive. It's the monthly fee. I know, $45 or $55 monthly isn't a great deal - but it's a deal if you don't have reliable employment.
Millenials often work two or three jobs, because the corporations aren't willing to put them on full time. That seems to be true, because several of the people I work with have second jobs. To them, it just seems natural to have two or more jobs.
(Score: 2) by Wootery on Friday September 16 2016, @10:05AM
Is there no way to get a cheap, low-upkeep service?
It's certainly possible here in the UK. Generally people go with contracts for high-consumption, and pay-as-you-go for low-consumption.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday September 16 2016, @02:42PM
If there is a cheaper service, I'm not aware of it. The first tier carriers want more than $100 US. The second tier carriers, like I use, start out around $40. The third tier carriers offer really cheap deals, but none of them cover my area. People further out in the boonies than I am certainly can't get those low rent deals.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:56PM
I paid $30 for a used flip-phone, and $100 a year for more service than I can use at TMobile.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15 2016, @06:30AM
$30 for a used flip phone? Christ, as long as you're throwing money around like that, how about sharing some around here. You can buy them new for $12.99 on fry's.com [frys.com], and that's only as high as it is because they're becoming a bit of a specialty item. $30 will buy you a smartphone over at Walmart [walmart.com].
(Score: 1) by tftp on Wednesday September 14 2016, @06:24AM
You can get phones for cheap. That, and they're pretty much a necessity for modern life, unlike a car
I don't know why a phone is needed "for modern life", unless you define the modern life as one that revolves around the phone :-)
I have an old flip phone, but I keep it only for emergencies. I rarely, if ever, call from it, and almost never receive valuable calls on it. Most of my communication these days is over email and Skype. I have them over Wi-Fi nearly at any place where I can be. Perhaps, if I were a UPS delivery guy, for example, then I could reconsider. But my day is nowhere that mobile. If someone cannot email me while I am getting from A to B, they can always call me if that's so important. If not, it can wait until I get to where I am going.
So the phone is not relevant to my life. However a car is. Sure, I live in a city now, and there are buses. But they are very expensive, and they incur too much overhead - they move slowly, stop at every corner, and come not all that often. I can be where I'm going in a car before the bus even shows up at the stop! My time is my life, and my life is finite. I do not want to waste time on things that I do not like - and certainly waiting for a bus is not a valuable investment of time. (If for you it is, then you surely need the smartphone and a data plan, as you will spend a good chunk of your life waiting :-) For me the car is an instrument that allows me to do more; often it allows me to get to places that the bus just doesn't go - such as to homes of some of my friends, who live just a few miles away from the city. A few miles in a car is not even worth mentioning. A few miles walking - that is something else entirely. Buses are also not all that great when you need to carry bulky stuff - and by "bulky" I mean anything that is larger than a small box. An average coffee maker is probably OK, but FSM forbid you also want to buy a pillow, let alone two. You won't have enough hands to carry all that. But with a car you just throw them in and carry them home.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by dingus on Wednesday September 14 2016, @07:16AM
Then your life is different from a lot of peoples'. Get over it.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Nuke on Wednesday September 14 2016, @09:23AM
Dingus wrote :- Then your life is different from a lot of peoples'.
So is yours. I use phones when i need to, but the cost is trivial compared with other costs in my life. I don't understand how in a matter of about 20 years, phones have become such a major (or the major) expense in so many people's lives - a triumph of marketing I guess. In town I see about 30% of people are walking around with a mobile to their ear, which suggests that they are spending perhaps 20-25% of their waking lives on the phone. WTF for? Who is it at the other end who needs all that information? People did not need it before about 20 years ago.
At work I use the company phone. At home (in the UK) I have a landline costing me about 25 GBP per month (excluding internet connection which is another 15 GBP). Most of the calls from my landline are at an off-peak rate (because at peak rate times I am at work). I also have a PAYG dumb mobile that cost me about 50GBP eight years ago and I need top it up only occasionally because I use it only if I have a particular need to, not to unload verbal diarrhea.
(Score: 2) by SDRefugee on Wednesday September 14 2016, @03:31PM
Sure.. cellphones are expensive if you have to have the latest/greatest, and "unlimited" data/minutes/text.. But.. you can have a perfectly usable older smartphone that you BUY from ebay/swappa or many other places. and steer yourself to something like Ting, a MVNO on both tmobile/sprint's networks.. I have a not-so-new Nexus 4 on Android 5.1.1 that I paid $65 for on ebay and wife has a Nokia Windows phone we paid $35 for, and our phone bill each month is around $35 for the both of us using Ting.. We're not yakkers, and don't use a heck of a lot of data/text, so this works fine. I'm a geek, but I sure the hell don't need the latest/greatest and the heavy costs that accompany these things, since wife and I are retired...
America should be proud of Edward Snowden, the hero, whether they know it or not..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 16 2016, @05:38AM
And hey, that Android 5.1.1 is only wide open to a handful or two of glaring security vulnerabilities. Might be time to build 6.0 [androidpit.com] or later...
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:34PM
"a triumph of marketing I guess"
I think the greatest triumph of marketing has to be bottled water. People actually PAY for a drink of water. And, in many cases, that water is of questionable origin and purity. Water. Ordinary tap water. People PAY FOR IT!! A dollar, a dollar and a half, two bucks, and more, for just a little drink of water.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Nuke on Thursday September 15 2016, @06:19PM
I think the greatest triumph of marketing has to be bottled water. .... Water. Ordinary tap water.
I agree. I was behind a delivery truck two days ago and the ad on the back made no bones about it being bottled tap water. "Mains water in a bottle" it said. Cannot remember the brand (I am in the UK btw). They probably stick it through a filter or something just to claim some added value. Jeez, even the Romans had mains water and we are going back to carting it around in bottles. Civilisation is sliding backwards - women will be fetching the bottles on their heads next.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:57PM
I was offered a free car from one of my parents' friends when I was in high school, but the costs associated with driving a car don't stop with the car itself. There's the other add ons that you're required to have an insurance for teenage boys is rather expensive.
In fact, I didn't even bother getting my license until I was 19 because I didn't feel the need to drive. The bus got me where I wanted to go and if I did need to drive, chances are somebody else I knew was going there as well.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:02PM
My friend purchased his first death trap for a bit under $1000
A family member told me her 21-year-old son has a license but doesn't drive because insurance for a male under 25 would cost more than that per year.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:43PM
I have problems with the insurance scams, as well as the auto financing scams. The last vehicle we bought, we walked into a sales office, and asked, "What do you have for $3000 cash?" We were shown a half dozen cars, the wife really liked one of them, and we took it.
Now - obviously, the cars we drive aren't very valuable. Paying a couple thousand per year for insurance is ridiculous. Paying three or four thousand per year is insane.
For a long while, Geico seemed to offer the best deal around - then Shelter beat them out. We are happy to change insurers just as often as the rates start climbing.
Long story short - we pay about $1300 annually for insurance. That's for several vehicles, including a motorcycle, and allows our over 25 year old sons to drive them - except the motorcycle. Only the youngest son or myself can operate that particular vehicle, thanks to the way the policy is written. Off-road machines are simply not insured.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @12:24AM
If you look at the data, homeownership is (and has been) going down for some time. When broken out by age, there is a precipitous drop in the rate for people less than 35 years old. Here is the official census data: http://www.census.gov/housing/hvs/index.html [census.gov]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @06:29AM
The car for prior generations provided a sense of freedom, 'limitless opportunity', 'a temporary home', and most importantly: entertainment.
Nowadays all but the temporary home can be provided by your cell phone or internet access device, with at most a console or portable to cover the entertainment if your phone/internet device is not capable for your needs.
Furthermore car repair costs have only gone up in recent years, and while some cars will run for longer periods before needing work, most require a higher level of maintenance than previous generation vehicles. Especially anything using 0W20 oil (which comes out to a quart every 1000 miles or so, whereas many previous generations of cars would not significantly consume engine oil before the oil change time was reached. Gas mileage vs oil consumption should really have been a consideration in EPA testing, but it is not as long as the tailpipe emissions are clean. The result is probably more cars consuming oil, being ignored by their owners, then having their engines damaged due to insufficient lubrication, leading to increased emissions and increased future oil consumption due to the new looser tolerances and same thin oil.
Really though, with social networking most people have SOMEONE in their circle who they can mooch rides off of when they need it, so unless they are working their own job, can't get there by bus or bike, and can't work out a deal with someone else, they don't really need a car themselves, and not having it saves thousands of dollars a year and the stress of driving (which can be more than the multi-hour bus or bike commute in some counties/states.)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by janrinok on Wednesday September 14 2016, @06:48AM
I don't think that we have that problem in Europe but, if we have, I'm sure someone will let me know fairly quickly. From my point of view, oil levels rarely even need checking nowadays. If the in-car indicator says oil is good, then it is good. I have my oil replaced every annual service (which is itself not strictly necessary any more, but I am a traditionalist). However, I certainly wouldn't even consider buying a car that uses a quart of oil every 1000 miles or so. It must be throwing oil all over the place ...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:09PM
My car in highschool used\leaked\burned a quart a month. Oil was all the way down the bottom, and the acrid blue tendrils of smoke were a common sight coming from the top of the exhaust manifolds.
I made the mistake about changing the oil in it once, and it came out looking like I had just poured it in. I kicked myself for wasting 5 months of oil lol.
Totally worth it, spent 300 dollars on it, put maybe 500 into repairs over its two year life with me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @03:27PM
You mentioned something key that is not usually acknowledged: many "car-free" people MOOCH off the car owners when they need one! Cost shifting at its finest.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:51PM
The wife and I said "enough is enough" to one of the moochers this past weekend. "I need you to come to Little Rock and pick me up!" That's a five hour round trip. When we pointed that out, he says, "I've got gas money for you!" The answer was, "Do you have $20/hour to pay for our time?" He says "No!" so we says "No!"
The wife is soft hearted though. She told him that she could buy him a Greyhound ticket to Texarkana, and she would pick him up there. He actually turned her down!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @06:00PM
Yee-Haw!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by julian on Wednesday September 14 2016, @01:14AM
Exactly this.
I'd love to own a car. Most of the people I know in my situation and age would love a car. We can't afford it. We can't afford it because the baby boomers who are now scratching their heads privatized everything, replaced fully-funded education with student loans, outsourced professional careers or replaced them with internships and H1Bs, crashed the economy, reverse-mortgaged their homes so we won't even inherit those, and then have the stones to blame us for all this.
Fuck them. I'm never buying a new car now *out of spite*.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:50AM
The baby boomers privatised everything? Except for the things that they kinda-sorta didn't really privatise. Such as, say, Amtrak. And ports. And the mortgage boosting agencies. And all those industries that started out private, but have been heavily regulated to the point of being another arm of the government.
They replaced fully funded education with student loans. Except that they established a deep and rich set of grants, bursaries, scholarships and tax breaks to the point that, if you're going broke with student loans and you're not taking one of the several ways to get them forgiven (the exact list depending on your field of study) that's kind of on you.
Outsourced professional careers. Oh, and created entire new fields of work that didn't even exist when they were born. There are more people working in the USA now than even existed in the country in 1945, and they don't all work for Walbucks and Starmart.
Crashed the economy - that is better and stronger now even after an anaemic excuse for a recovery than it was when Generation X hit the labour market.
Reverse-mortgaged their homes because the Greatest Generation's dream of a social safety net turns out to have been a ponzi scheme.
I'm not even a boomer, and even I can tell you're full of a festering blend of bullshit and poorly directed rage.
Tone down the rage, study the environment, and figure out what to do to fix it, not blame other people for (at best) half-true fairytales of political self-righteousness.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @03:16AM
At this point the Millennial's tales of woe are reaching such extravagant proportions, they really should be called Generation Dave.
As a point of reference, my mother had to navigate a minefield in order to go to school. I had to nurse her nervous breakdowns before I could start on my own career.
Your lives aren't that terribly bad.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:25AM
Tone down the rage, study the environment, and figure out what to do to fix it, not blame other people for (at best) half-true fairytales of political self-righteousness.
I think that there are plenty of reasons to be completely furious these days. For fuck's sake, millennials are growing up in a time when there is genuine concern for the future well being of the entire planet's eco systems. Humanity itself may not survive for too much longer. That prospect alone would be enough to burst a millennial's vein in a fit of outrage.
And there is no denying that over the last 30 years or so a perfect storm of privatisation has raged through the democratised neo-liberal nation states. And that has had consequences. Some good, a lot of it not so good.
We have a stronger economy now? Yes, very strong if you are one of the people on top. THAT should be plenty obvious by now. And is that the same strong economy that could burst any time now? The one that is pretty much completely fucked under the surface? That economy with the nice and shiny veneer that deludes most of us? The one that is almost completely unsustainable and will drive us all straight off the edge of the cliff? That economy?
Wake the fuck up dude!
I just wish millennials would rid themselves of their social media addictions and actually do something that doesn't involve some variation of "mirror mirror, on the wall, who has the most likes of them all".
(Score: 2) by quacking duck on Wednesday September 14 2016, @06:52PM
Some have. Six of the leaders of the "Umbrella revolution" which disrupted central Hong Kong for months a couple years ago, were just elected to the territory's legislature. They're all in their 20s or 30s.
This means two things:
1) millennials "actually [did] something" by running for power
2) millennials flocked out in huge numbers to vote them in
All the more impressive because this is in the shadow of authoritarian China, which has shown lip service to true democracy in Hong Kong (not that the former British rulers did any better until just before their 100-year lease expired).
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/election-of-hong-kong-activists-means-clashes-ahead-with-beijing-1.3751652 [www.cbc.ca]
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:28AM
They replaced fully funded education with student loans. Except that they established a deep and rich set of grants, bursaries, scholarships and tax breaks to the point that, if you're going broke with student loans and you're not taking one of the several ways to get them forgiven (the exact list depending on your field of study) that's kind of on you.
What a bullshit, squishy, generic defense. That "deep rich set of grants, etc" does not even approach the nearly free education available to all before the 80s. If it did, then student loan debt wouldn't be well over a trillion dollars. [marketwatch.com] No, millennials are not so universally stupid that they all can't figure out these unnamed ways to discharge their debt. Student loans were financialized in order to make wallstreet billions of dollars at the expense of those least able to carry the load. Your apologia is self-righteous sanctimonious bullshit. Fuck you.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday September 14 2016, @01:47PM
Indeed, I wonder who this AC could be and where he might work, and how old he could be to still be drinking that KoolAid. Certainly he could not work in tech, because anyone who has worked in tech longer than 6 months knows how true to life Dilbert is. Or he could be a millenial who won the job lottery and got something working in finance, and is fresh off all the summer parties in the Hamptons that banks throw for their new analysts, and he's thinking boy this is great I sure am the best-and-brightest that EVAR WAZ, but has not yet felt the knives of his colleagues in his back (an occupational hazard in finance) nor truly plumbed how deeply stupid his superiors are.
But it is a vanishingly rare animal in 21st century America who yet spouts the Pollyanna platitudes this one has.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @08:51PM
This.
You can get some grants. Sure! How about 80% of your tuition? Wow! Amazing! Sounds great!
Except that books, food, bus fare or gas, and rent aren't covered by those grants, very often.
Except that the 20% uncovered by grants in this example exceeds the full amount of tuition in the early '00s - let alone the 80s.
Except that getting post-secondary now is like getting high school in the 90s, and good luck finding scholarships if you're at the bottom of the acceptance list. Maybe a bursary or grant or two. No full coverage unless you have a family with links to a school/union/company that *happens* to have a program that not enough others apply to, to squish you out.
Source: went to uni almost 20 years ago and again now. Undergrad tuition is > now 6x what I first paid and (and is climbing year on year at my institution).
(Score: 1) by Sarasani on Wednesday September 14 2016, @07:50AM
...and they don't all work for Walbucks and Starmart.
Indeed, some of the children (!) of millennials in the USA don't work for Walbucks and Starmart (or go to school) because they're too busy trading sex for food [theguardian.com] to feed themselves or their younger siblings.
And this is happening in the world's wealthiest country. What an utter disgrace!
(Score: 3, Funny) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday September 14 2016, @01:50PM
They just didn't work or study hard enough, and did not wear anywhere near the sufficient amount of flair [youtube.com]. Hey, some of them even have as many as three or four jobs!! Isn't that incredible, that a young person can have that many opportunities for advancement? Is this a great country, or what?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by rondon on Wednesday September 14 2016, @12:13PM
I wish we could figure out who paid this troll. "Deep and rich" set of grants? Sounds like a "deep and rich" fucking by wealthy men who took a system that already favored them and skewed it ever-more in there direction.
Please, continue to pretend that every student has access to money that allows them to go to college on the cheap. I can only hope you experience the despair that you pretend doesn't exist for other people right now.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday September 14 2016, @01:54PM
Yeah, this benighted creature is surely part of some ridiculous astro-turfing venture, but it's hard to opine whose. Hillary's? Wouldn't be Trump's, because his slogan is "Make America Great Again," not "America's 100% Great Now." Maybe the student loan industry or Wall Street are watching the student debt internals or millenial employment deficits and are trying to soften the imminent blowback.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday September 14 2016, @01:41PM
I don't know what crack you're smoking, or if you have some super secret knowledge that no one else knows, but all that happened with those grants and scholarships was that colleges raised their tuition rates accordingly to soak up the entire pool of available money. And those grants and scholarships were never for non- non-white people to begin with, and even if you managed to land one they never covered anything close to the cost of your college. I had a National Merit Scholarship, which are pretty hard to get, and it covered about $5K/yr for tuition that cost $25K. Super great, guys, thanks!
I have also no idea what you're talking about having your student debt forgiven, because in the mid-90's they changed the bankruptcy laws in the United States to make it impossible to ever get out from under student debt. Or perhaps you're talking about something like ROTC. Yeah, you know what happened to my friends that took that route? One narrowly escaped being stop-lossed to Iraq and/or Afghanistan after giving 4 years' active duty and then 8 years reserve duty (the deal when he signed it was 4 years active duty or 8 years reserves, not both, but they decided to alter the deal...), and the others are still there in Afghanistan, in their 40's!
Real incomes have been on an uninterrupted 40-year slide. Wealth inequality is greater now than it was the era of the Trusts. You're arguing that things are great?
I'm not a boomer or a millenial, but I can observe that you have industrial sized blinders on, or have lived an incredibly charmed life that you have not experienced the vicissitudes of late 20th- and early 21st-century America.
The rage is justified, because it is based on reality. And "figure out how to fix it?" Maybe he should just work & study really hard and watch the rewards roll in for his diligence...? You're the one who is more guilty of believing in fairytales of self-righteousness.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by ShadowSystems on Wednesday September 14 2016, @06:37PM
Enjoy a six pack of your favorite on me. Very well said.
My son & I liked to laugh at the bumper stickers on the cars we'd see, until one day we saw one of the "Spending my child's inheretence!" ones. My son asked "Isn't that kinda stupid? I mean if you spend the money we'll need to take care of you in your old age, aren't you pretty much asking to wind up in a leaky cardboard box forgotten under a bridge? Don't nursing homes cost money?"
He was eight years old & the phrase "Out of the mouths of babes" couldn't have been more apt if it had been written for the moment.
I decided right then & there I would *NOT* be spending my son's inheretence since I'd REALLLLLLY like not to spend my "Golden Years" shivvering in the rain & catching rats for food. =-\
(Score: 2) by SubiculumHammer on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:03AM
i suspect that there are a lot og good used cars on the market, while new cars find it harder to find buyers.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Thexalon on Wednesday September 14 2016, @03:02AM
That is definitely true: I picked up my current car at 10 years old and 120K miles. And it's running just fine after another 70K miles. Why buy a super-expensive new car on credit when I can pay cash for an older car that does the job nicely?
But yes, the reason my peers aren't buying cars is that they can't afford them. Or if they can afford them, they'd rather save the money if at all possible so they might someday have the beginnings of a nest egg. I did that early in my career, and it saved my butt in a big way.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Dr Spin on Wednesday September 14 2016, @09:02AM
When I went to have our 10 year old Ford serviced, I told the mechanic we were looking to replace it this year.
He said "I would not, if I were you. The new ones are not as reliable as the old ones". The large amount of
electronics in a modern car is a serious liability.
My younger son does not have a car because
Nowhere to park it
Hit by bogus whiplash claims, his insurance would be very high.
His mates who don't have cars would expect lifts all the time.
He uses Uber, Karhoo and Zip cars.
I had a car at his age because: he who has the car, gets the girls.
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 1) by tisI on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:12PM
Since the 80's, all decent paying blue collar jobs have been sent to China/Mexico/NotHere as their labor is pennies on the dollar.
No jobs, no money, no sales figures. Corporate america have buttfucked themselves.
All your elected politicians are responsible for this.
The shiny new foreign made chevy/furds now costs $50K, and who the fuck can afford that on min wage from working @ McDogfoods?
duh
"Suppose you were an idiot...and suppose you were a member of Congress...but I repeat myself."
(Score: 1) by Francis on Wednesday September 14 2016, @05:54PM
That's part of it, but it's more complicated. The population is getting increasingly concentrated in urban areas where driving sucks. Transit systems are getting better and better, but even without the bus or a subway system, there's more available to do within walking range. And in much of the US there's an increased focus on providing people with safe ways of biking around the city. Especially around here where they're using bike lanes as an excuse to screw up traffic for drivers.
There's also a cost though, not just the cost of the car, but the cost of the insurance, the cost of the gas, the cost of parking and so forth.
The other thing is that motorcycles and scooters are getting more and more popular for young people. The cost of them can be less than the cost of taking the bus on a regular basis, but at a fraction of the cost of driving a car. Then there's the ride share companies that provide a car when you need it rather than having to commit to the car for many years.