The World Socialist Web Site, publication of record of the ICFI (SEP), on May 24th released a report about the grim situation many millennials face:
The stock market is booming, and President Donald Trump is boasting at every turn that the unemployment rate is lower than it has been in five decades.
However, the working class, the vast majority of the population, is confronting an unprecedented social, economic, health and psychological crisis. The same processes that have produced vast sums of wealth for the ruling elite have left millions of workers on the brink of existence.
Perhaps no segment of the population reflects the devastating consequences of these processes so starkly as the generation of young people deemed the "millennials," those born roughly between the years 1981 and 1996. More than half the 72 million American millennials are now in their 30s, with the oldest turning 38 this year.
A recent exposé by the Wall Street Journal noted that millennials are "in worse financial shape than prior living generations and may not recover." The article, "Millennials Near Middle Age in Crisis," [paywalled] concludes by stating that people born in the 1980s are at risk of becoming "America's Lost generation."
Selected bullet points from the WSWS article:
The report concludes, "Far from becoming the 'Lost Generation' predicted by the Wall Street Journal, this generation of workers carries within it an enormous source of revolutionary potential."
[Ed. Note. I debated whether or not to run this story given the partisan source for the article, but the list of references suggested it was more than a simple opinion piece. So, are things really as grim as portrayed here? I'm too old to be a millennial, but have both personally experienced as well as witnessed many others facing the same trends listed here. Where do things go from here?]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 27 2019, @09:12PM (14 children)
Stop foreign aid (bribes) and take care of ourselves and the debt disappears quickly.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by NewNic on Monday May 27 2019, @09:36PM (10 children)
More ignorance. This site is just a hotbed of it.
The foreign aid budget:
1. Is too small to have quick effect on the deficit.
2. Is less that the annual deficit.
3. Brings a lot of intangible benefit to the USA.
4. Quite a lot of it ultimately gets spent in the USA, benefiting US companies.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 5, Insightful) by julian on Monday May 27 2019, @11:36PM (9 children)
Thank you. Hating on foreign aid is just a crowd-pleaser line for low-IQ xenophobes and isolationists. It's the refuge of simple-minded rubes who say things like, "why are we helping people in Africa when I can't afford my insulin!?" Well, Karen, your insulin and mobility scooter would be free to you at point of use except you keep voting for Republicans who have tricked you into blaming people even less fortunate than yourself so that while you're distracted with misplaced rage they can raid whatever value and security you had left for in your future.
(Score: 4, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday May 27 2019, @11:50PM (8 children)
You may commence betting on where julian's IQ sits in relation to mine. Betting closes as soon as julian replies with his score. I'd demand proper longshot odds if you want to bet on him coming out ahead.
Trolling aside, you're thinking entirely with your emotions and accusing others of not using their brains? Seriously? Helping a neighbor out is a grand thing. Taking food from your children's mouths to do it is insane though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Touché) by julian on Monday May 27 2019, @11:56PM (6 children)
I guess I'm just not hurting the right people. [vox.com]
(Score: 0, Redundant) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday May 28 2019, @12:17AM (2 children)
And that has what to do with the price of tea in China? Or if you prefer it in snooty-egghead-speak, you're using the fallacy of composition.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 28 2019, @04:37PM (1 child)
It's called providing evidence for his claim. Fairly convincing evidence, at that, although I am biased because I needed no further proof that Trump's primary strategy is to grant people permission to feel self-righteous anger instead of fear for their irrational phobias (homo, xeno, what have you...) Just another brick in Making Insecure Whites Great Again.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday May 28 2019, @07:49PM
Right-wing snowflack trigger alert! Clean up on Aisle 14! Bring out the inflatable safe-space bouncy castle!
Buzztard, in "snooty-egghead-speak" (sorry, some of us are educated enough to understand the subtle distinctions of big words), the fallacy of composition is not here committed. Could explain your reasons for thinking it is? Or is your lumpenproletariaty-pumkinheaded-jargon-spewing incapable of such self-awareness and justification?
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 28 2019, @12:41AM (2 children)
Heh, he went full IQ diptard. Don't mess with da Beezus, he's a convicted kiddy diddler. 12 year olds dude.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday May 28 2019, @01:00AM (1 child)
Weak as hell. This ain't Twitter or a chan. Do better or be mocked.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 28 2019, @07:32PM
Lol says King Twat.
And I quote "And that has what to do with the price of tea in China? Or if you prefer it in snooty-egghead-speak, you're using the fallacy of composition."
Not to mention your initial reply, "You may commence betting on where julian's IQ sits in relation to mine. Betting closes as soon as julian replies with his score. I'd demand proper longshot odds if you want to bet on him coming out ahead.
Trolling aside, you're thinking entirely with your emotions and accusing others of not using their brains? Seriously? Helping a neighbor out is a grand thing. Taking food from your children's mouths to do it is insane though."
The most useful thing you added to the discussion was "Helping a neighbor out is a grand thing. Taking food from your children's mouths to do it is insane though" and that is a pretty lame bit of "reasoning".
Don't want to be insulted? Don't make stupid replies that are fodder for https://www.reddit.com/r/enlightenedcentrism [reddit.com]
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Thursday May 30 2019, @07:48PM
Why are you attempting to rebut a comment that appears to be aimed at an Anonymous Coward?
Are you that Anonymous Coward?
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 5, Informative) by NotSanguine on Monday May 27 2019, @10:20PM (2 children)
That's ridiculous. US foreign aid [wikipedia.org] is about 1% of government expenditures. What's more, if we were to use all of that money to "pay down" the national debt, it wouldn't cover even 15% of the annual *interest payments* on the debt [treasurydirect.gov].
Helping other places make things better can enable those places to improve their lot and (hopefully) more of their people will stay there and grow the global economy rather than trying to come to developed countries.
Next time, perhaps you should consider this [quoteinvestigator.com] before posting.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 3, Insightful) by driverless on Monday May 27 2019, @11:55PM (1 child)
You've also got to look at what that "foreign aid" is, the top three are trying to clean up the mess the US made in Iraq and Afghanistan and propping up Israel, none of which can be discontinued. After that it's mostly chump change, still a few billion but that's not even a blip on a $20 trillion debt.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 28 2019, @01:00AM
Of course, we owe Israel so much. We should send more troops to protect them.