Debt. Terror. Politics. To Seattle Millennials, the Future Looks Scary
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Seattle attracts a lot of people, and they often have sticker shock because they didn't do enough research. And, a lot of people feel entitled to live in the hippest neighborhoods very cheap.
That said. The writer needs to contextualize this. In 2001, the year I went to college, the Twin Towers fell and a plane crashed into the Pentagon: being someone who had read some history, I was sure that day that, attackers being intelligent, a wave of guerilla attacks would go off against major military and civilian targets. Surprisingly, that didn't happen.
In 1983, deep fear of the USSR was playing out.
In 1974, the US was in Vietnam. Many people were dying constantly, and it was on the TV nightly.
In 1968, campuses rioted. Bewilderment set in over the nation.
In 1961, the Soviets/East Germans put up the Berlin Wall.
In 1948, the Cold War started.
In 1939, WW2 started.
In 1932, FDR became president, in a profound economic situation far worse than what we've seen since.
I could go on. The future is scary. But since it happens regardless of our personal choices, our best bet is to keep a stiff upper lip, our chin up, and wade into the stream, keeping a weather eye out to maximize our luck surface.
The most likely cause of death for a person before the age of fifty is a prescription drug mistake, suicide, or dying in a car crash.
Also depends if being Jewish is relevant [not counting Israel] and if you frequent Kosher grocery stores, and synagogues, in which case the denominator is again much lower. Also depends if being actively Gay - nightclubs, parades, etc is part of your style. Again much smaller denominator means the proportion of untimely death is much higher.
Finally, there's the equivalent risk assesment of how many people in the US have been killed by a Tsunami? The answer is none...so far but it's not impossible in the future for an order or two of magnitude greater fatalities due to terrorist attack, e.g. a whole stadium full.
If I lived in eastern Europe any where near Turkey right now I'd be more afraid.
No. People really are that afraid.
I don't know why.
The antidote is:
1. Practice information hygiene. Who is saying it? How do they benefit in making you afraid? What are the opposing viewpoints? Where is the evidence? 2. Be aware of cognitive biases. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases 3. Know history (this is especially hard for Americans). At least the history of the issue at stake.
I don't think that's the whole of it though. A large part of the American media / news system is still profit driven -- I'd say a large enough part to swamp editorial intent if the two butt heads.
It seems to me another explanation for the evidence is that people like being afraid.
That is the one thing that I can think of that is particularly American but there does still seem an inverse instinct within the US, where someone in say Alabama, who is as likely to be touched by a terrorist as they are by aliens are more likely to be a doomsday prepper.
General: house prices. Just build more ffs.
I've been reading Robert Caro's multi-volume biography of Johnson. He writes somewhere about the US political process eventually mirroring the desires of the population (I suspect in the third and fourth volume where Civil Rights feature). Just keep going for the politics you want.
The idea that the nation seemed more "stable" in the 70's is an insane amount of historical ignorance though. The 70s did teach us that political engagement was essentially a lost cause, and we need another way to make progress. I'm not sure getting Carter makes up for Thatcher and Reagan's follow up destruction.
Of course this is nonsense. One can always keep invest a 401(k) in hard currency or short term treasuries (T-bills.)
So is money put in a bank. Other than stuffing cash in a mattress, there are very few ways you can save money that don't involve either investing in markets or enabling someone else to do so.
> One can always keep invest a 401(k) in hard currency or short term treasuries (T-bills.)
Using your 401(k) to buy up central-bank issued currency or government securities (both of which financial sector companies also invest in, and increases in other people investing in them increases their returns and gives them more money for their other operations) -- all while still paying a fee to the investment company running the 401(k) -- isn't any less investing in the financial markets and enabling unethical behavior on the part of investment banks than investing your 401(k) in the stock market is .
Even stuffing cash into your mattress affects the total amount of dollars in circulation, and thus represents a zero-interest loan to the government.
Similar to people who preach about the evils of fast food hanging out at Chipotle or Starbucks.
I wasn't around then but we're they actually good?
The funner part of the 70's (and part of the 80's) is people doing analysis of the crimes now and finding a serial killer in the data.
The bad:
Constant strikes, works to rule, sympathetic strikes (miners going out in sympathy with the rail works and other such silliness), having to be bailed out by the IMF, three day week and doing homework by candle light due to electric strikes. Horrific fashions and decor. So much bad music! Godawful food - this was when the UK earned the reputtion for terrible food, and it was well deserved. thankfully we're well out the other side of that reputation. High inflation if you were a saver. I recall my childhood saving account paying 16% one year! Tech was a calculator, a record player and a speak and spell. The internet was having a penfriend!
The good:
Simpler expectations, no great media missions to have government "do something" after every minor crime and accident. No 24hr news so little chance of hearing about the 1:1,000,000,000 crime that took place 500 miles away. Terrorism existed, but didn't result in wholesale change of the way we lived. "They won't change our way of life" was the usual refrain rather than "we need a war on terror"[1]. As a householder, high interest rates. Yes really. As a worker it led to regular, large, wage rises - often perceived to be good whatever your stance on the economics. After 3 years at 15%+ the mortgage you made a huge stretch to take has reduced to affordable. After ten or fifteen years its become pocket money. The house was a much lower multiple of wage to start with. After all that you still got tax relief on mortgages (abolished in the 90s). Final pay pensions. Job security, even if you were a manual worker. Your 15yo wasn't demanding an iPhone 6 to replace her iPhone 5 as it's SO much better! (Meanwhile I still used the Nexus 4).
Yeahhhhhh but don't forget interest on that 30-year fixed was 12%+!
With lower interest rates these days fixing is much more common than it was.
There are 5/1 ARMs and the like that are more similar to what you describe, but most rates are locked.
It's like handling death. The first few times you suck at handling it and after many deaths of family and acquantinces it becomes very unscary. You become confident in want to say, etc
As someone in my 20s this is very frustrating. Obviously things from the 60s seem clearer now; hindsight is 20-20. Then there's this:
"Many are terrified of debt and deeply worried about their economic future"
I view this as a good thing. Debt is not fun and should be worrisome. Especially in the US where it's socially acceptable to carry mounds of debt.
I feel the same way. The Fear encourages me to save money and evaluate my spending habits. (I'm also in my 20s.)
When I last lived in Seattle full time, the city was a relative bargain and was known for being cool and fun yet affordable. But it hasn't built enough housing to keep up with demand, and while it does better than CA (http://www.vox.com/2015/12/23/10657690/seattle-housing-crisi...), it's still not good enough. That's the crux of the issue, and it's why so many people are moving to Texas: Houston, Dallas, and Austin all have relatively liberal building regimes, which means housing is not a perpetual crisis.
It is somewhat dispiriting to work on all these projects when the biggest challenges in many cities are not subsidies but being able to build enough housing in the first place. Housing is a solved issue in technology terms, as steel-framed buildings and elevators are quite old; the problems are entirely political and legal (see e.g. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/023562e2-54a6-11e6-befd-2fc0c26b3c...).
As a result, a relative handful of cities have become what many parts of Manhattan, for example, have been for a long time. Essentially luxury goods.
Building regimes is also part of it but housing stock, and associated infrastructure, tends to increase over longer timeframes than the current urban living fad took to develop.
I imagine it is the same for many jobs - you need to live in a city.
In the Boston area for example, most of the computer-related jobs are not actually in the city and there is plenty of reasonably priced housing within 45-60 minutes of the city.
How about the first past the post voting system that guarantees two party dominance and thus the silencing of anything but the most extreme and/or most well-funded opinions?
That is what broken means.
Nor did anyone say I'm not happy Bernie shifted Hillary, and that Hillary will beat Trump.
Nor did I throw up my hands and say it's hopeless.
Quite the opposite: I explicitly said that discussing the fact that it's broken is one very important part of fixing it.
"Right there beside you" by being a cynical naysayer with a bone to pick with anyone who dares publicly criticize a system that isn't quite as bad as total anarchy?
Does Malala Yousafzai think her country's political system is broken? What would this mean for your characterization?
While the system is less responsive than it should be, while there are elements of corruption, I don't have a lot of sympathy for the "take my ball and go home" whiners.
I've really aligned myself with this viewpoint the more I work in the corporate world. Things are a compromise, always. Purity is found in mathematics and, sometimes, theology.
I also think there's room for a certain level of what is called corruption: it's important to allow for judgement and slop, people who aren't facially qualified, but through a few connections getting them work can demonstrate that they really ARE qualified and capable.
This is sliding scale, not binary
"We're not as bad as Syria, so that means we're not broken?"
This is sliding scale, not binary
Prison, maybe not, but people go to jail all the time for that.
When racism looked like Jim Crow, it was straightforward to say "repeal Jim Crow". Deciding on tactics was complicated, making it happen was hard, but there was a clear goal in mind. Taking on an issue like police accountability or pay inequity is much fuzzier - there's no law to change or villain to conquer.
None of which means there weren't fuzzy issues in the past, too. But I think the 'nostalgia' for the issues of the past is often for clear targets like suffrage and school integration.
The point is, I'm a millennial, I guess (I'm younger than the 31-year-old the article focuses on, and I have no idea anymore what the term 'millennial' actually means besides 'young person'), and these are anxieties that I share. But they don't prevent me from living a normal, relatively uneventful life in the US.
Part of growing up is realizing that even when you work hard, success can be elusive, that in the US the government generally does not have your back, and your well-being is entirely a function of your effort, luck, and circumstances. Not to discount their importance, but the issues of the day will vary: equal rights regardless of color in the 1960s, equal rights regardless of sexual identity in the 2010s; proxy wars in the 1970s, terrorism since ... (I lied, terrorism has always been around).
The future is uncertain, and we're constantly trying to juggle our resources among our hierarchy of needs of our own immediate needs vs. the good of the community, of people like us, of people different from us, of our national security and 'way of life', of our planet; but the only thing new is that we 'millennials' are new to it.
These generalizations about Millennials are strange to me. I see over and over again in popular media that Millennials are in a rut, and things aren't fair because of a foundation that was laid, that we need to reform politics and make things fair for everyone, abolish debt, give college value, and et cetera.
I see all of this coverage and I am confused because I can't relate to it. I'm definitely biased. Did I just get lucky or something? Am I a part of the problem? Is this issue really so common or is it just being exaggerated for pageviews all over the Internet?
Context: I am a Millennial, born after 1990. Grew up in poverty on the east coast US. I moved to Seattle last year and I'm making very good money as a systems engineer. I didn't go to college, I've just worked my way through jobs in the last few years since graduating high school.
I am daunted by terror and politics just like many other people. I have questions, and I want things to change, too. But I feel like my voice in the community, my opinions, and my fears don't matter because I am not struggling enough, or I make too much money, or that I'm promoting gentrification just by existing. Obviously, these things aren't true. Yet I find myself avoiding discussion about work, money, and the tech industry when I go out for beers with people around my age.
What a frustrating culture. I feel discouraged to say things like, "Becoming self-sufficient is NOT impossible!" It's very difficult but not impossible. I also feel like I should keep my success to myself, and that talking about my success is taboo or offensive to others somehow. Again, obviously not true. Maybe I just need to go outside more and read less articles / commentaries to see if this dichotomy even exists.
Working to save money will give you resources that will let you participate in the decision making process. For example, let's consider a situation where you have $10000 that you would like to use to help. You could donate it to an effective charity, invest in Tesla, use it to lobby local government, buy solar panels, etc.
That means your job is actually enormously meaningful!
Gen-Xers, anyone?
Baby-Boomers: Eldest child, assertive and confident, though takes for granted the opportunities it's been provided by being the eldest, feels the younger kids would be more successful if they just followed their example.
Gen-Xers: Middle child, mostly forgotten about, more involved in taking care of the youngest.
Mellenials: Youngest child, brash and open, generally optimistic, though sometimes hit hard by the harshness of the world.
How is a $90,000 starting salary for a javascript bootcamp grad a sign of the end of days?
It seems to me the problem is occurring as the "millennials" want to settle down in mid-life, buy a house, buy a car, have kids, and save for their college.
In short, the middle class baby boomer lifestyle seems completely out of reach for most in their twenties and thirties.
Seattle houses (condos on the market are usually pretty fancy and on par with house prices) are roughly 450K on the low end; neighboring cities hew to that, with the usual SES modifiers.
So if you're making, say, 100K/yr salary, your conservative financial buy of a house is about 300K. Welp. There you go. No house for you.
The trick here is that it's leaving out the key aspect: 90K for a bootcamp grad is great pay. It's excellent if you're 22 years old, and want to save for a house over 10 years. In a decade your salary will probably be between 140 and 200, not counting inflation. This is great.
If, however, you've farted around following your dreams or just want a new career, you're 32, maybe you have a kid or want one, you are looking at a different time run way for saving, different personal needs, maybe you have health issues, maybe you have a family, maybe they have health issues.
I would argue that the key issue here is the stupid high cost of housing that has been produced by stupid anti-development laws.
That's a convenient bogeyman. That's not to say there isn't truth to it--more or less depending upon the locale. But at least an equal driver is the relatively sudden desire of certain demographics to live in a handful of urban areas.
I'd add that if someone has farted around until they're 32 and just getting ready to think about starting a career, I'm not sure in what period they'd be in good shape to buy a house in anything considered a passable neighborhood with employment possibilities.
That's true! I'm in Seattle, which is undergoing a job boom and concomitant low supply of housing. Lots of people are like "I WANT A JOB" and showing up.
> I'd add that if someone has farted around until they're 32 and just getting ready to think about starting a career, I'm not sure in what period they'd be in good shape to buy a house in anything considered a passable neighborhood with employment possibilities.
Mmm.... wiggles hands depends on what era and what locale. It's been definitely doable in the less-urban areas. Still true today in the right intersection of suburban and employment area. And of course, the US Gov has been doing various amounts of subsidizing over time for different blocks.
edit: oh yes.
There's a really complicated set of class/aspirational class thing where working in trades is often looked down upon, and (starving) artists are looked up to, and often it's seen as better (by some) to be unemployed and looking for working in your chosen field than employed in a crappy job and looking for your chosen work. I don't think it's very well understood - at least from my reading - and certainly it's not economically effective for the US population.
Fair enough. There certainly used to be more opportunities for someone at 32 who was willing to work reliably and hard even if they weren't educated or otherwise have a developed set of skills. And, as you say, some of this is related to "the trades" not being viewed as appropriate work by certain demographics. (Of course, many trades require significant skill and it may be difficult to get started if you don't have the right connections.)
That is not a realistic expectation in Seattle.
They're also the ones writing these articles.
Edit in reply:
The entire article is about painting millennials with a broad brush, written by a member of Generation X. Now you complain you're being stereotyped?
Give me a break.
I don't mean you personally, I mean you.
No, that was the Boomers. The reason that you get all these Boomer vs. Millenial articles is that Gen-X was comparatively a baby bust between the Boomers and the Millenials, such that Gen-X never were the largest generation in the population, and never dominated (and likely never will dominate) political or social influence. Earlier this year, Millenials passed Boomers to take the top spot in sheer numbers, something Gen-X never had.
The 90s were full of sentiment about how Gen-X was the "first generation to be worse off than their parents." But the media has long since moved on. I guess, "millennials still better off than Gen-X" doesn't really generate clicks.
The kids will be fine.
Can anybody comment on the location of these areas and travel time to Seattle?
The world has always been this scary, now we're just paying attention.
I see this a lot, and I'm never convinced. Something like the "flash crash" was impossible a decade ago, much less a century. I wouldn't claim that the world has gotten worse, but the capacity for rapid, unpredictable change has never been higher.
But the other is the fact that the same events you hear about living on the other side of the world can affect your life almost as fast as the news spread. If you had just the media of today in a world of 500 years ago, you'd worry only about your nearest neighbour cities and countries. Today, living in Europe, I hear that bankers in the US fucked something up again big time, and I start to wonder if I'll have my job - or any food - next week. That's how the global economy is interconnected. I also worry I may one day wake up and find my city in flames, with the Marines giving us practical workshops on how to run a democracy right.
(And to not single out US here - I was scared shitless when the whole Russia/Ukraine thing started, because I was afraid my country will be next, and "next" here means "at any time, under 24 hours from when someone makes a decision".)
It was the end of the postwar boom. High inflation, high uncertainty. 15% mortgages with 20% down as a minimum. Cities collapsing after the white flight. Big industries transforming.
Anyone claiming it was a happy go lucky happy time frankly doesn't know what they are talking about.
No, they weren't.
Though much of what you say about the 70s might be accurate of much of the 80s in the US.