Out of curiosity, do you think millenials have a better or worse quality of life than the generation before the boomers?
On the one hand:
- Better hospitals/vaccines/doctors/dentists/optometrists
- Fewer wars / more freedom* / better sense of equality*
- Cheaper/More effective modes to access knowledge or communicate over distance
- Cleaner/Cheaper water, heat, electricity
- Robots do increasingly more "mundane" work. Vacuum, drive*, wash dishes, wash clothes
- Cheaper, higher quality, entertainment. TV, Movies, Video-Games, Twitch, Youtube
On the other hand:
- I live in a tiny apartment / Less privacy overall (surveillance included)
- I work a lot / had to move cities in order to get an appropriate job (three times now)
- Other people can't even get jobs / don't get paid enough to live in small apartments
- The environment is in a crappier state
- The media is more negative, fear-mongering even. Forcing comedians to tell the news such that the tone balances to neutral
Which is objectively better?
Our lives are a lot more comfortable - relatively painless and full of entertainment.
Our lives are a lot more disappointing - expectations of continued economic progress and social advancement fostered by parents and observations of the last 100 years of stupendous growth have fallen flat.
To give you some perspective, between 1955 and 1977, oil production has quadrupled, with consumption mostly going towards developed countries, out of which US was in a majorly advantageous position after WWII.
The time period coincides perfectly with Boomers coming to maturity, starting their first adult jobs, buying houses and starting families.
The problem here is that we have experienced an anomalous amount of general wealth growth, and have internalized it as the norm, whereas nothing could be further from the truth and it still remains just an anomaly.
So, maybe look at the policy and other changes that redirected the wealth growth (which has continued) rather than asserting that it was an anomalous period of wealth growth.
You're absolutely right. I was merely pointing out that we are viewing that short period of wage growth as the norm, whereas the entire system is not sustainable because it depends on finite and destructive fossil fuels.
It doesn't matter if our generation got a bigger cut of the wealth on the historic scale - in this case it would have been the next generation (Z? Z 2.0 ?) that would be forced with a rude awakening and stagnating wages.
> rather than asserting that it was an anomalous period of wealth growth.
But that's the part that's not really under dispute. Wealth grew as a result of fossil fuel exploitation. Wages grew for a time until the marginal product of labor started going down in relation to capital (that doesn't mean productivity or output stayed constant) and it became more advantageous to accrue wealth.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/21/us/life-expectancy-for-les...
The statement is basically still true today, but I guess the coefficients are a lot higher.
Salary Multiplier: 1.1 is now 2.0
Housing Cost Multiplier: 2.0 is now 3.0 (or maybe 4.0?)
Average SF Home Sale: 1,200,000 (Condo)
So factoring it the fact that the SF condo likely has one less bedroom the HCM is 6.0!
Who cares if you can buy a television 10x the size and 10x cheaper than your parents generation if you can't secure the things you need to lead a satisfying life?
I guess I'm a baby boomer. I was born in the 70's. I was a kid during Vietnam war, and Korean War. Growing up, I was scared of Russia, and the bomb. As a college student, I was glad I didn't have to deal with a draft, only signing up for selective service.
The thought of owning a home always seemed like a pipe dream. I thought the only way I could own a home is maybe in Lake County. In other words, a vacation home in the middle of nowhere. I could no way afford my dad's home. I can still buy a hot box in Lake county for what it cost 20 years ago.
Unless you were a networking, butt sniffer you didn't just automatically land that great job out of college. Oh yea, guys like me thought little of networking. "Why would I like a person, just because they could do something for me?" On the other hand, my wealthy sister went after those who could further her career like Sheen to drugs. She is a bit of an odd ball though. She was so greedy, she took all my mother's money. I'm so tempted to out her, but can't.
Growing up, we did have access to more jobs--mainly lousy jobs. Even the college corporate jobs were not great. I had two, and traveled a lot. It was not fun. I hate hotel rooms, and airlines. The real stepping stone in life was a wealthy father. I don't think that's changed much. Those kids got the right advice. Those kids got the right loans. They got to take on risk? They are in houses, and have stock portfolios now.
The way I see it, the labels are not productive. At least don't include my generation with my father's. My father was a real baby boomer, but he was born in 1938. If you didn't want to go to college, you just went into a union trade. You bought a house, and had kids. You drank, and smoked a lot--and didn't have to worry about dying from sex. Life wasen't bad.
My generation and my father's were completely different. I looked at my father as a spoiled kid. I thought he had all the opportunities, and he didn't explore them.
Again, as to generation labels, I wish we would stop using them, or at least get the dates in order. My best friend is a gen X'er--I guess. I recall the first time we even talked about our "different" generations. There were no differences. I will admit there's a difference between my generation and Millenials. Millenials know much more than I did growing up. We were Naive. Housing was always terrible for all of us. Wasen't it my generation that coined "living in the parent's basement?". Believe me--housing has always been bad. Now--in the Bay Area it is beyond bad. I will give Millenials that, I have never seen housing prices like this, but as Stanley Druckenmiller pointed out today, he sees a big kaboom comming up. You rich kids will get your house.
(I won't be back to argue. I don't think I said anything worth arguing over. I'm getting over Shingles. I can pass this along. If you ever get a weird pain in your back, and notice a weird rash; go right to a doctor--if you have one. Mine is 20 miles away. I'd even go to the emergency room, and ask for the antiviral. It cuts the infection down to 50 percent, and side effects, like neuropathy. You have around three days. I've been down for 3.5 weeks now. In a lot of pain. I used to think I could handle physical pain, but this malady is really irritating.)
You're Gen-X, not a Baby Boomer. Lots of generational discussions these days focus on Millenials vs. Boomers and ignore Gen-X entirely, but insofar as the contrasts drawn have validity, Gen-X is in many ways a lot more like the Millenials than the Boomers.
> I was a kid during Vietnam war, and Korean War.
Unless this a technical reference to the fact that the Korean War never formally ended, this contradicts the preceding: the armistice which ended the active phase of the Korean War was signed in 1953. If you were born in the 1970s, you weren't a kid during the Korean War, as that term is usually used.
> At least don't include my generation with my father's. My father was a real baby boomer, but he was born in 1938.
Baby Boomer refers to the post WWII baby boom, those born 1946-1964.
Lord knows if the marketing industry has ever found these conjectures from their gurus to have ever been useful. Mostly they're hoping to find some generalized commonality based on presumed shared experiences that come from being born into then living through a certain span of history, however recent. And from that they further hope to be more effective at selling things, from soaps to political candidates.
It's hardly science, they're simply reaching for a good "80/20" rule.
It was the greatest generation who turned their back on progressive taxation and properly funding state affairs in the late 1970s - but it has been the boomers who mostly reaped the benefits.
Beyond that, it comes down to upbringing and lifestyle, of which I kind of feel the millenials have been coddled much more as a general statement that prior generations. This may well mean higher rates of depression, which can greatly affect the perception of quality of life.
Both of my grandmothers grew up on farms, and have a very different view of the world than the generations that came after mine (I'm GenX). It's a matter of perspective as much as anything.
My only advice to those in their late teens, is if you go to college, make it for something practical and ideally that you enjoy... minimize you debt, and prefer the cheaper route as opposed to what you think might be a better option, with few exceptions after 5 years of graduating, it probably won't matter, but you'll be much happier without a debt you can't declare bankruptcy on that's a multiple of your expected annual salary for your chosen career path.
Few people can get by and be successful without college... making it into the top 5-8% of wage earners is the top 1% for people who don't have an education beyond high school.
In generations past, many people moved for other chances, and opportunities... I don't see this as all that different really.