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American greatness was long premised on the common assumption was that each generation would do better than previous one. That is being undermined for the emerging millennial generation.
The problems facing millennials include an economy where job growth has been largely in service and part-time employment, producing lower incomes; the Census bureau estimates they earn, even with a full-time job, $2,000 less in real dollars than the same age group made in 1980. More millennials, notes a recent White House report, face far longer period of unemployment and suffer low rates of labor participation. More than 20 percent of people 18 to 34 live in poverty, up from 14 percent in 1980.
They are also saddled with ever more college debt, with around half of students borrowing for their education during the 2013-14 school year, up from around 30 percent in the mid-1990s. All this at a time when the returns on education seem to be dropping: A millennial with both a college degree and college debt, according to a recent analysis of Federal Reserve data, earns about the same as a boomer without a degree did at the same age.
[...] Like medieval serfs in pre-industrial Europe, America's new generation, particularly in its alpha cities, seems increasingly destined to spend their lives paying off their overlords, and having little to show for it.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Whoever on Tuesday February 07 2017, @07:24AM
That is the libertarian goal. It's just the feeble-minded libertarians who haven't realized it yet.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 07 2017, @12:28PM
I'd say that's more the goal of right wing authoritarians that have poisoned the concept of libertarianism. I personally think the goals of a sort of individualism like civil libertarianism [wikipedia.org] are fairer and a more honest attempt at creating a utopia for the majority. I don't see how people who fight the tide in support of this can be described as feeble-minded. The feeble-minded are those that fall for the spin of the authoritarian status quo.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by HiThere on Tuesday February 07 2017, @08:40PM
No, it's not the libertarian goal, but it may well be the Libertarian goal. I haven't followed that party's platform in decades, so I not real sure.
That said, even the libertarian goal isn't workable in a society where you don't know most people you deal with. You need at least a minarchy with well enforced rules. And I happen to favor liberal social policies combined with conservative economic policies. Meaning those with power should be held more tightly to the rules than those lacking power. (Actually, I suspect I'm deluded in thinking of that as an actual conservative position, it probably more reflects my ignorance back when I was a child. I doubt it was ever really in practice.)
For conservative I mean someone who attempts to retain what the see as the good features of the current system. For libertarian I mean someone who proposes lightening some of the constraints imposed by the current systems. These two concepts are inherently at odds with each other, but they aren't directly opposed, and it's possible to support both. I just suspect that my conservatism is based on a deluded ideal of what the system was as I was growing up.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.