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posted by martyb on Monday May 27 2019, @06:52PM   Printer-friendly
from the it's-all-the-millennials'-fault dept.

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:

  • Millennials have taken on 300 percent more student debt than their parents' generation. [Source: The College Board, Trends in Student Aid 2013]
  • By 2014, 48 percent of workers with bachelor's degrees are employed in jobs for which they're overqualified. [Source: Labor Economist Stephen Rose, published by Urban Institute.]
  • The number of workers in the United States participating in the gig economy is expected to triple to 42 million workers by 2020, and 42 percent of those people are likely to be millennials. [Source: Freshbooks]
  • Between 1978 and 2017, according to the EPI, CEO compensation rose in the US by 1,070 percent, while the typical worker's compensation over these 39 years rose by a mere 11.2 percent.
  • In the 40 years leading up to the recession, rents increased at more than twice the rate of incomes. [Source: Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University.]
  • One in 5 millennials say they cannot afford routine healthcare expenses. Many of these millennials are uninsured because of the cost. An additional 26 percent say they can afford routine health-care costs, but only with difficulty. [Source: Harris Poll]
  • Men and women in their thirties are marrying at rates below every other generation on record. [Source: The Atlantic, "The Death (and Life) of Marriage in America"]
  • It is predicted that most millennials will not be able to retire until age 75. [Source: NerdWallet analysis of federal data]

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?]


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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by NotSanguine on Monday May 27 2019, @09:39PM (14 children)

    History (which you eschew as useless) tells a different story.

    From a purely *capitalistic* standpoint, limiting the purchasing power of the vast majority of consumers is a recipe for disaster in an economy (like the US') based on consumer spending.

    Go look through the newspaper and note the listed stocks. The vast majority of big, profitable companies are those who rely on consumer spending to stay afloat. Take away their customers and they (and the economy) will suffer greatly, if not fail outright.

    It's cutting off your nose to spite your face and there's nothing socialist about market economics.

    --
    No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday May 27 2019, @09:54PM (13 children)

    A) If your standard of living is above that of most of the world, you don't get to claim The Man is keeping you down economically.
    B) If the market full of corporations that rely on consumer spending is kicking ass, you don't get to claim consumers don't have anything to spend.

    Yeah, it's something that needs attention paid to it but we're not even slightly near working sixteen hour shifts in the coal mine, living in tiny, leaky, uninsulated company houses, and buying everything from the company store. We've done exactly this. Relatively recently even. Not getting two months a year paid vacation, free employer-paid healthcare, and 10% a year added to your pension does not compare. Not even remotely. It's just entitled little whiners whining.

    --
    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Monday May 27 2019, @10:06PM (6 children)

      You misunderstand my point.

      It's not about specific people or corporations. It's about the macroeconomic impact of wealth concentration.

      Spreading it around will still allow the rich to be plenty rich, and will create a more vibrant, robust and resilient economy.

      And that ain't socialism, it's Econ 101.

      --
      No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
      • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday May 27 2019, @11:38PM (5 children)

        It's about the macroeconomic impact of wealth concentration.

        There isn't one. Or rather the impact is a null op for the top end to increase faster in wealth than everyone below them. And rest assured we are all steadily increasing in wealth. Is it creating the optimal ratio of wealth distribution across the population for economic growth? Almost certainly not. It's not harming anyone either though. This is why I can say with complete conviction that anyone espousing wealth redistribution is getting their avarice on (econ geeks aside).

        There may well indeed be a moving sweet spot for the economic prosperity of a nation but as of yet nobody has found a way to track it nor made a convincing argument as to why we should aim for it over aiming for individual liberty.

        Now a lot of redistribution types like to say that we're losing wealth from inflation but this simply isn't true. There absolutely are specific sectors that inflation is out of control in. And trying to tweak the entire economy to keep up with a broken industry is the worst possible way to go about fixing things short of nationalization. You only need to, and only should, fix the specific industries that need addressing.

        --
        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 28 2019, @01:17AM (3 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 28 2019, @01:17AM (#848365)

          You can track economic prosperity when you know the export/Import and how the internal economy is doing. If all of this is balanced, you don't need to wonder about inflation since you can keep it stable.
          I think the problem is more related to "free trade", which is a weasel word for "no tariff". If you have for example a 50$ phone that is then sold 1000$, you know that 950$ profit is made on it, and where those 950$ be reinvested? Mostly where they are manufactured and where the components are made. Which means barely anything is done for the country where it is mainly sold.

          That's just an example but you can imagine that if all production is off-shored to somewhere else, then where does the population that it is sold to get their money? If not from manufacturing, or other jobs?

          • (Score: 1, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday May 28 2019, @02:15AM

            Drastic change of subject aside...

            That's just an example but you can imagine that if all production is off-shored to somewhere else, then where does the population that it is sold to get their money?

            That you need to ask tells me you really, really do not understand money.

            --
            My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 28 2019, @08:49AM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 28 2019, @08:49AM (#848439)

            Service based economy. Aka a huge circle of hairdressers, each one cutting the hair of the guy in front of him.
            What's so hard to understand? You'll tell me next you don't believe in trickle down economy either?

        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 28 2019, @03:39AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 28 2019, @03:39AM (#848400)

          wealth concentration is unavoidable.

          Compared to the living standards of the early 19th century, it would take close to 400 slaves PER HOUSEHOLD to produce everything that we consume today. (I did the math myself as part of an economics degree). In other words, we are all rich. So what's the problem? It's this -- percentages.

          Society/civilization is a lot like a super-organism. It's a well known metaphor. Some cells (heart, brain, etc.) get more resources than others (bone, bowels, skin...) But what happens in an organism when a small group of cells takes too many resources for themselves, and away from the greater organism? It's called a cancer, and it is usually fatal.

          Today the richest 1% has a monumentally larger fraction of the total wealth than the rich did in the 19th century or any other period of human history prior to 1950. People, we have a cancer. You know what to do. It has to be cut out. I know, I know, it's going to be painful. It's a violent thing to do. But it's the only way our civilization will survive.

          But if it doesn't survive, all is not lost. Our dystopian future will eventually grow a new civilization out of the scraps and pieces. As the bible says, the meek shall inherit the Earth... In other words, those 1%'er rich people are going to die one way or another. Don't fret about how it happens.

          Fortunately, I'm pretty old. I'll probably miss all the fun. Good luck out there.

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 27 2019, @10:28PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 27 2019, @10:28PM (#848296)

      People don't like being shit on, doesn't matter if some stranger thousands of miles away gets comparatively more shit.

      If your standard of living is above that of most of the world, you don't get to claim The Man is keeping you down economically.

      - Louis XIV, 1789

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 28 2019, @01:22AM (3 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 28 2019, @01:22AM (#848367)

      ah, the old switcheroo blame shift from the social process to the individual? with this and your denial of any effects of those macro process I can declare you one of those blind people who worship a one-eyed king

      • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday May 28 2019, @02:17AM (2 children)

        Some quality buzzwords in that nonsense. You have a bright future as a marketing drone or middle management.

        --
        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
        • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 29 2019, @01:13AM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 29 2019, @01:13AM (#848726)

          I dream of a day when TMB realizes he embodies everything he hates and he implodes in a puff of logic.

          • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday May 29 2019, @05:03AM

            by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Wednesday May 29 2019, @05:03AM (#848784) Journal

            Never going to happen. He's managed to make himself love the taste of jackboot, all the while convincing himself he's the only one who's escaped the system. I gave up on him a long, long time ago.

            --
            I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...