Comment by hylaride | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hylaride | Hacker News Reader

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Articles like this make me think. There is most certainly a generation of tech workers that have not truly experienced a recession or bad times.

I came of age in 2000, but missed the worst of that crash as I was in school. When I graduated in 2004 things were starting to pick up where I lived (Toronto), but it was nowhere near like it has been for the past 5 years where simply updating your LinkedIn profile would cause a flurry of recruiters to inundate your inbox. The 2008 recession both didn't hammer Canada as bad (especially outside of traditional manufacturing) nor tech really much at all.

My generation of tech workers have simply not known hard times. Many of my college colleagues are obviously not saving and drive $90K Mercedes and live in very nice houses that would stretch tech salaries (Toronto is a bit insane with housing prices right now).

I have no idea if coronavirus, Trump, or what will cause the next recession nor do I know how bad it will be, but if it does impact tech workers, a lot of them are going to be unprepared, I think.

> My generation of tech workers have simply not known hard times. Many of my college colleagues are obviously not saving and drive $90K Mercedes and live in very nice houses that would stretch tech salaries (Toronto is a bit insane with housing prices right now).

Why should they save and live frugally? Canada is very socialist, their quality of life will be maintained by the government when things go south. The point of being rich is to live like a rock star. If you can already live like a rock star, you can skip the getting rich part.

But let's say they do save money. It's just going to get eaten away by inflation. If they buy property, it's going to get taxed.

You can either live now, or save lots of money and so stuff in old age. Of course, you'll never get to have the time back, and I'd much rather experience life in my 20's and 30's than in my 60's and 70's.

I think that there is a balance between blowing all of your money that you earn such that any decrease in salary would be catastrophic and driving a decrepit car, living in a cramped room with an hour+ commute, and not spending a dime more than you have to.

Surely you can still "experience life" in your 20s and 30s while saving something for a rainy day/when you can no longer work.

Ahh, to be a teenager again.

I think people just live differently and have different values. Nothing wrong with it, really.

There is something very wrong with this mindset, as it causes all sorts of negative externalities that impact those of us without that mindset.

It does seem like GP has not heard of the ant and the grasshopper fable, though.

This is a terrible point of view, you must be really young and have very little understanding of investing. You can still experience life and invest/save money.

For example, if you have money saved up and excellent credit you sit on the cash and wait for a crash. During the crash you purchases houses, apartment buildings....this would actually allow you to build wealth. I know people who bought manufacturing equipment during 2008 crash for scrap value.

Plus, not everyone who is wealthy wants to be a rockstar. It is such an ignorant opinion, people may have much greater goals in life and money might just be a byproduct.

> if you have money saved up and excellent credit you sit on the cash and wait for a crash

Ah, market timing. You realize this is contrary to mainstream investing advice, right?

> During the crash you purchases houses, apartment buildings

I forgot, the American dream is to own someone else's house. The only way to get rich to be a land lord anymore. Plenty of people get burned playing this game as well, and the advice doesn't work in every market.

> I know people who bought manufacturing equipment during 2008 crash for scrap value.

Oh, so not you?

> such an ignorant opinion

Is it ignorant just because you disagree with it? Look around yourself. How many people are driving a Mercedes or BMW? How many people are wearing designer clothes and jewelry? How many people have an iPhone when a $150 android will do just fine?

Most people I know will never save money. They'll never have a new car, they'll never have a 4000sqft home. They're 100% going to be on government assistance in old age. They should enjoy themselves now, go bankrupt as often as legally possible.

In the Bay Area, mid career elite engineers make $300k - $800k. That's why you see a lot of spending. They might be saving, too, because they can afford it...

The Canada Pension Plan is not a proper pension plan, which is why in the 1970-2000 period, good employers offered good pension plans. Now everything is matched RRSP contributions if you're lucky. It's possible that housing costs will never come back down; now that the housing bubble has pushed way beyond the metros, "just sell your downtown house and move to the suburbs" is not a retirement strategy anymore, if it ever was. (Bloody London, ON is getting a fat influx of Torontonians seeking cheap housing! That's nuts!)

So people should either be buying a house that they can afford not to lose in a downtown, and/or put some good money in their RRSP. The earlier, the smarter.

-- He who dies owing the most wins! You lived like a king and didn't pay for a thing.

I don't know, I'm just old I guess, because I don't understand that thinking.

Owning things isn't the objective. It's the experience of having things to show off to others, to attract friends and mates, and to get likes on social media.

It's a lot like Skydiving. People do it so they can have the adoration of others. They want to be able to impress their friends that they did some super cool thing. It's why the iPhone has 17 cameras or whatever it is now. People need the latest, greatest thing to continually get adoration.

It's like people that win the lottery and go broke. They finally acquire and get to do whatever it is they always wanted. Maybe they just wanted to live richly for 8-24 months. What's the point of having all that money if you can't have fun?

Personally, I don't live this way, but many people do. I've just decided to stop looking down my nose at those people. They are optimizing for their own happiness.

Someone ought to tell all of the people in Toronto who are homeless or being priced out of the city that they're supposed to be living like rock stars.

> Canada is very socialist, their quality of life will be maintained by the government when things go south.

Canada has universal healthcare, but the "socialism" you think it has ends there. If you lose your job, you'll qualify for a few months of unemployment insurance and then you're on your own. There are no food stamps and welfare is about $800/month in Ontario and is incredibly difficult to qualify for.

That's the thing. When the bubble pops, the socialists will vote for wider-reaching welfare. I mean, people around here are already talking about universal basic income non-ironically. I think Canada will be the first to pass it large scale after the next major economic downturn.

Socialism does not mean that your standard of living is maintained if you lose your job. It mostly just means that you don't starve or that you don't have to live on the streets.

That's not socialism. That's just basic civilization. When we create a society, we agree that we will have a system where on the way to work we are not going to trip over the dead bodies of people who we let starve to death.

How old are you?

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