Reply With Quote"I'm".
I like the response StGabe linked. Good stuff.
Cant edit thread titles? This kills me every time it bumps to the front page. First Im like, "dont tell me what I cant do with my life," then Im like "also, why dont you put a shirt on before you tell me do with my life?" and then Im out of things to say until it gets bumped to the front page again. And here we are.
"I'm".
I like the response StGabe linked. Good stuff.
Totally different situation! That's a superfluous apostrophe.Originally Posted by lesslucid
Last edited by rattledrush; 07-04-2012 at 01:47 AM.
A perfect existence? How can you even promise that to a child when so many things are out of your direct control? Drake113 is right, giving your children every opportunity to succeed is a good thing, but promising them a perfect life is not only harmful it's downright lunacy.
That article just reeks of adolescent angst, among other things. After it got finished patting itself on the back for working so hard, it shouted at it's parents that it hated them for making them dependent and then slammed the door and sulked in its room about the over-competitive nature of the world. There is surely a kernel of truth there but its just a kernel.
Realistically, how many of the kids in that audience are actually going to amount to anything at all? How many of them THINK they're going to amount to something. Probably a wide margin there. Once you're out of high school the real world kicks in unless you're family is wealthy. Time to get over the fantasy and get practical.
Folks in this thread are right - the national-level-at-something kids know they're hot shit and special, don't need or want pats on the back, and probably are going to do fine. It's the kids that are cold shit but know they're special only because somebody told them so a million times and they're so far removed from being able to recognize "special" that they believe it. Those kids get the rude awakening. Unless their families are wealthy.
It must be galling to hear "you're not special you lazy fucking kids, work harder" coming from Baby Boomers, Gen-X and Gen-Y'ers. Could there have been a softer, more untroubled time to be born a white kid than the 60's or 70's?
Yeah, it's called the 80's and 90's.
Your selection covers the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s, actually. And yes, it was pretty easy, although it has gotten progressively worse. My Generation (X) is stuck waiting for the shitheel baby boomers to retire so we can run things, but the fuckers didn't save any money so they're sitting on their cushy pensions (grandfathered out), unions(busted), and jobs(technically beyond them).
Granted I have a ton more anger than most since I work for a company that rewards and protects those who maintain the status quo and is financially non-competitive.
I'm starting to feel the same way. Let's face it, we're going into a time period where the gulf between the rich and the poor is at its largest, college is at its most expansive, and the US governments spends the larger portion of its funds on old people than ever before.
Very few moments in history of the US, that have been worse for young people than at this time.
Wow I would have to totally disagree with that last statement. No one is in danger currently of being drafted and sent off to a war to fight and die. I would consider growing up in times when that is what was happening to be far worse then anything today. And until recent years that happened on a fairly regular basis. 4 wars just in the last century.
We've been in two wars, in which the hardships of the event haven't been spread across the entire US, but instead on the shoulders of a small subset on the population. And unlike most other wars we've had, Bush decided to put it on our credit card.
Maybe it would have been better if we did have a draft. At least than we might have had a serious discussion about it.
Also, my point was in comparisons to other generations. In previous eras, the costs or benefits have been spread around multiple generations and social classes. In this era, the costs are primarily on the young or the less well off, while the mega wealthy are pulling ahead. If you look at history, you'll see that nations do best when the gap between the rich and poor are narrower, but as they expand, you start to see nations end up in a terrible state. South America in the 70s and 80s are a great example of what can go wrong when that happens.
Bullshit. My child is the chosen one who will lead god's people to the promised land, and probably win several little league championships along the way. Fie on you, infidel.
While being drafted is definitely a major drawback for older generations, nobody born since the mid to late 50s was drafted. Compare the following metrics of any recent generation to the kids that are 18 today:
1) Median housing cost
2) Median starting wage with high school degree
3) Median starting wage with college degree
4) Median cost of college degree
You'll find that kids today are completely screwed compared to any recent generation.
Do you have a source for that data? I ask sincerely, as I was thinking about that earlier. I would also think that in absolute terms, kids today are much, much better off in terms of the goods to which they have access. We are very much more materially wealthy than previous generations as well.
Dig it. Color TV. Vietnam. Hot pants.
The sixties were untroubled?
The sixties were chaotic but full of opportunity.
Don't get me wrong, a lot of things are significantly better now and I think that's important to recognize. However it's absurd watching a bunch of baby boomers who act just as entitled try to pin their economic failures on the folks who just started voting. You can find annoying, spoiled idiots of any generation but focusing all your attention on those people is just an excuse to ignore more pertinent, personal failings. I think the irony of the situation is that kids today are, actually, a lot smarter than their parents. All that spoiling actually worked and gave kids the self-esteem to break free of the dogmas of their parents. Unfortunately, no matter how smart they are, they still have to clean up the mess of those who came before them (which takes time). When your kid grows up smarter than you and then asks, "why'd you fuck this up so badly?", it's easier to call them an entitled brat than to admit fault,
Last edited by StGabe; 07-06-2012 at 01:39 AM.
http://www.workinglife.org/wiki/Wage...ges+(1964-2004)
This has real wages on it. They have been going down for a while. So, yeah, we'll earn yes than our folks did, we'll have fewer vacation days, and we'll be paying off our debts forever.
My father use to tell me stories of how he could work during the summer at a factory, and make enough to pay for college during the school year. I don't think that's possible today, unless you go to a community college (which he didn't, he went to a state school).
This is the first generation since 1900 which is facing worse economic outcomes than their parents.
Despite the peaks and valleys, America has been on a steady upward climb econmically since the end of WWII, until now. Those born in the years between 1950 and 1990 certainly had their share of ups and downs, but generally if you were a lower-middle class family or above your kids came out alright and are probably college educated or skilled in a trade and are now raising families of their own.
Those born after 1990 (including my oldest son who is 21) are looking at the highest adjusted cost for higher education in the history of the U.S., and the reward at the end of those four years is a giant student loan and very few decent jobs in most fields as Baby Boomers, the largest segment of the workforce population, refuse to retire or scale back at work because they have little to no savings or were wiped out in the economic turmoil of the stock market and housing market disasters of recent years. Add to this mix the exhorbitant cost of healthcare in this country and those same Boomers face a bleak financial future even if they were able to scrape together enough money to retire. My mom is retired from a modest job as a college administrator, and her largest expense by far is health insurance. Her coverage has been shrunk by a large amount in the past 5 years, while the amount she is expected to pay has increased by nearly 400%. How are you supposed to plan for shit like that?
There is a ticking time bomb out there that the political candidates don't want you to think about. They don't want you to think too hard about what is going to happen over the next 20 years as people who would have exited the work force are forced to stay on and hold jobs that would have gone to younger workers. The don't want people in their 30's and 40's to think about how much longer it's going to take to get promoted to the "next level" job because the guy holding it didn't retire at 55, or 60 or even 65. Trickle down effect means that those 30 & 40 somethings then hold onto the jobs that the 20 somethings would have been promoted to, and eventually you've got people in their early 30's in jobs that normally would have gone to recent college graduates because there is no upward mobility left. Then all those kids with college degrees are working retail or service jobs just to get by. It's a fucking mess, and it can't be solved unless there is real economic growth in this country. That's not going to happen with our current political climate. Entire government programs need sweeping change to make this situation better. Social Security, Welfare, Medicaid/Medicare, Military Spending, dozens of federal agencies, and last but certainly not least, the healthcare system. All need huge changes moving forward if this country is going to pull itself out of the spiral it's headed towards, but nobody in Washington is ever going to have the balls to do anything like that because government is no longer interested in what's best for the people, but what's best for the professional politicians, lobbyists, businesses and special interest groups who make fortunes off the backs of middle America.
But "untroubled"?
I'm not sure what this has to do with speech in question beyond a lot of nonsensical finger pointing (I blame the thread in general, not you). It's always somebody else's fault, this is the laziest generation ever, blah, blah, blah. Anyone who thinks that the exact same things weren't said during the sixties either weren't paying attention or didn't live through them.Don't get me wrong, a lot of things are significantly better now and I think that's important to recognize. However it's absurd watching a bunch of baby boomers who act just as entitled try to pin their economic failures on the folks who just started voting. You can find annoying, spoiled idiots of any generation but focusing all your attention on those people is just an excuse to ignore more pertinent, personal failings. I think the irony of the situation is that kids today are, actually, a lot smarter than their parents. All that spoiling actually worked and gave kids the self-esteem to break free of the dogmas of their parents. Unfortunately, no matter how smart they are, they still have to clean up the mess of those who came before them (which takes time). When your kid grows up smarter than you and then asks, "why'd you fuck this up so badly?", it's easier to call them an entitled brat than to admit fault,
Still, I gotta say: if you never had to face the draft, stop yer whining.
And get off my lawn.
;-)
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