From Motley Fool:
Why Millennials Put Mortgage Before Marriage
Millennials continue to confound older generations with an emerging tendency to reverse the traditional order of steps in a committed relationship. Where the norm used to be, “First comes marriage, then comes the mortgage,” a 2013 Coldwell Banker Real Estate survey found that for one in four married couples, joint homeownership came before wedding bells.
Those in the housing markets have definitely noticed this trend of buying a house before marriage. “I find a much higher percentage of millennials are the product of divorced or second families,” said Bruce Ailion, a real estate professional with RE/MAX Greater Atlanta. “The expectation of marriage as a forever proposition has changed and thus , they are not holding off on making major life decisions till marriage — whether that is moving in together, having children, starting a business, or buying a house.”
…
So what is it that makes getting a mortgage loan together — definitely a big commitment — easier than getting married first?Rising costs of weddings. One reason could be the rising price of weddings in the U.S. With the average wedding cost ringing in around $28,000, many couples are putting off that expense in favor of other financial goals, such as buying a home.
…
Financial security. “Often in these couples, one or both feel capable of going forward alone with the home if something happened to the relationship either before or after marriage,” Ailion said.High cost of housing. “Another factor: in many markets renting an apartment can be nearly twice as costly as owning,” Ailion said.” Many unmarried couples living together are doing so to reduce living expenses. One residence costs less than two.”
Confidently cohabitating. Millennials are more likely to postpone marriage, choosing to live together instead. For instance, from 1990 to 2008, while millennials were moving into adulthood, the share of households headed by a cohabiting couple nearly doubled (to 6.2 million), according to the Census Bureau.
Kear notes that fewer young Americans attach the same meaning to a wedding and marriage than previous generations”
The folks in that photo are hardly millennials.
Putting that aside, it’s hard to argue that this behavior isn’t considerably more conservative, financially, than that of their predecessors. And we continue to knock the millennials as being flippant with finances?
They’ll be the greatest generation in the history of the US.
God damn it’s cold.
Thought this post was fitting to the discussion yesterday, from HousingWire:
Monday Morning Cup of Coffee: Economic growth needs securitization
Last week saw the biggest securitization gathering ever, with IMN/Structured Finance Industry Group’s ABS Vegas 2015. While the mood was “cautiously optimistic” and people foresaw “modest growth” – snazzy headline-killing expressions abounded – the consensus was that securitization needs will drive economic growth.
“Securitization allows packaging varieties and types of credit that don’t fit investors’ profiles in the form of whole loans and tailors them to fit investors with different risk/return profiles,” says Ron D’Vari, CEO at NewOak. “Without securitization, lenders and originators will not be able to extend credit to many legitimate borrowers because of inadequate levels of capital, causing a significant reduction in potential economic activity.”
“As a result, policymakers and regulators all around the world have acknowledged the need for securitization to various degrees,” he adds. “However, securitization, combined with leverage through derivatives, had been blamed as one of the key causes of the credit crisis and the great recession, and the securitization industry has been struggling to revive in critical areas such as U.S. private-label mortgages ever since.”
Securitization and You: Perfect Together
They’ll be the greatest generation in the history of the US.
That’s if their Twitter account doesn’t expire and they don’t loss their cell phone.
5 – pretty sure you know a few millennials that don’t fit the stereotype.
6 – A “few” is the optimal word. ;)
One degree here right now.
One.
Gaahhh!!!
Fast Eddie, do you expect rent to fall in the area? Slim chance. So how can you expect housing to fall?
I expect that rent control is going to be a major topic in 2015 and 2016.
1. “Millennials will be the greatest generation in the history of the US”
…lmao
I had a hockey game at Mennen Arena last night that let out around 11pm. Now that was cold and the winds were much worse last night. I never witnessed as many cars broken down as I saw last night. I suppose the cold really did a job on older cars. And somehow we beat the best team in our league 6 to 1. Man do we suck. We lose to the weakest and demolish the best. So much for consistency.
I learned something else as well yesterday. One should never eat Taco Bell on the same day a game is played. Due to an unusually busy schedule, the family made a pitstop at the Bell around 2pm yesterday for lunch. Breakfast had been super early due to hockey playoffs. Keep in mind, I am not a fast food fan. Especially the bell. I’m not sure what’s in their beef, but 8 hours later, after serious physical activity, I could taste it in my burps. Took a massive dump at 1am (I’m talking colonic here) and had to sh1t again at 7:15am before my shower and again immediately afterwards. Make a run for the border perhaps should be replaced with a make a run for the bathroom. Never again!
11 – We’ll have a chat when one of us is on our death bed to reassess.
Really though, how hard is it to do better than the Bush and Obama generations?
And really, Tom Brokaw had no right handing out that title so early in America’s history.
So who is working today? :P
JJ’s off with the public serpents?
[2] grim – I posted this on my FB wall yesterday:
“Who would have thought a NJ vacation at near zero degrees would be wonderful compared to Boston? Glad to be in NJ (and not be taxed for same).”
God damn it’s cold.
And really, Tom Brokaw had no right handing out that title so early in America’s history.
When a generation rises from the ashes and puts a man on the moon using a pencil and paper, it’s pretty much a no-brainer.
I borrowed a 27″ 5K retina iMac from the Apple
storelibrary for this trip. It’s pretty nice, but it will still be going back next week.I did get a replacement for the 27″ smashed-in-shipping iMac. Great machine. Although do not have the 5k display, I have the lower-res 3.7k display. The display is incredible, not sure the 5k is even necessary.
Apparently, constantly moving that red line in the sand back again and again has become a habit . . .
http://www.cnbc.com/id/102425825
I never ever eat at Taco Bell for the same reason I never order a veal parm sub at a pizzeria. It’s simply impossible to sell beef or veal at those prices. If Taco Bell doubled their menu prices, I’d put them in my once a month fast food rotation.
One should never eat Taco Bell on the same day a game is played. Due to an unusually busy schedule, the family made a pitstop at the Bell around 2pm yesterday for lunch. Breakfast had been super early due to hockey playoffs. Keep in mind, I am not a fast food fan. Especially the bell. I’m not sure what’s in their beef
[12] lib
“Make a run for the border perhaps should be replaced with a make a run for the bathroom.”
Classic!!!!
Last night, I was going to pick up my 5yo at practice. I hadn’t eaten all day and the only fast food in the area was McDs. I thought about it briefly and decided I preferred near starvation to what can only be called the next best thing to food.
My girls don’t like much of anything at McDs and for that, I am eternally grateful.
Runs from the Border?
When a generation rises from the ashes and puts a man on the moon using a pencil and paper, it’s pretty much a no-brainer.
Doesn’t this honor belong to the “Silent Generation”?
Anyone alive under all that snow in Boston? I heard they have a warrant out for Punxsutawney Phil.
I am at work today.
[23] lib
Or “Live Mas” should be replaced with “No Mas”
http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2011/05/living/infographic.boomer/
[26] juice
Actually, that was a gag put out by the Merrimack, New Hampshire police department.
For what it’s worth, the cops in Merrimack are a-holes. Fortunately, it is not hard to avoid Merrimack and I always recommend doing so.
It’s a holiday?
I tried to schedule a permit inspection the other day only to find out the city was closed for “Lincoln’s Birthday”.
WTF? Who makes this shit up?
Should also note that the actual moon landing itself took place squarely in the Generation X birth range. In fact the kids being born during the Apollo program were Gen X’ers.
Fast food breakfast tip: When you have a choice of meat, go for ham.
Who knows what they’re doing with their sausage, and they’ve perfected the production of sub-1mm bacon slices but I don’t think enough people choose ham that they’ve monkeyed around with it too much.
About once a month I go out and get a ham, egg, and cheese breakfast meal from the local Burger King. I “go large” for $1 more which gives me their largest coffee and largest hash brown/tater tot discs, costs less than 5 bucks total. I bring it home, split the sandwich with my wife, keep the coffee for myself (wife drinks tea), and the giant hash browns portion is split 4 ways amongst the whole family.
Could probably be argued that the Greatest Generation actually failed, and lost the space race, when Yuri Gagarin orbited the Earth in April of 1961, beating out America’s Mercury program by more than a year.
I’m with you on the ham tip.
re # 25 – “Doesn’t this honor belong”
A bunch a Nazi scientists?
Wernher von Braun
Werner Dahm
Hermann H. Kurzweg
Konrad Dannenberg
Kurt Heinrich Debus
Walter Robert Dornberger
Eberhard Friedrich Michael Rees
Ernst Stuhlinger
Hubertus Strughold
Von Braun could have orbited a man years earlier if they’d have let him (no, not talking about the Nazis).
[20]I agree that the 5K is overkill, I’ll soon be buying a 27″ Thunderbolt display only when the prices drop on the release of Thunderbolt 2. I work at home and office with multiple computers and multiple displays but my main computer at both places is outfitted with a large display coupled with a large-ish secondary display. I run my main display in landscape and my secondary display in portrait. At home I have a 24″ main and a 19″ secondary, but when I get the 27″ Mac display I’ll turn the 24″ 90 degrees to portrait mode as the secondary. For viewing web pages and programming there’s nothing like having a tall secondary display.
I did get a replacement for the 27″ smashed-in-shipping iMac. Great machine. Although do not have the 5k display, I have the lower-res 3.7k display. The display is incredible, not sure the 5k is even necessary.
From the LA Times:
Are the Millennials the new GI Generation?
This type of relentless optimism and faith in collective action in the face of hardship is typical of civic generations such as the Millennials. And judging by history, their attitudes will serve them well. Their great-grandparents, the GI Generation, learned to make do with less as they entered adulthood in the 1930s and then went on to defeat fascism in World War II and build the strongest economy the world has known. As young Millennials absorb the lessons of America’s greatest economic downturn since the 1930s, their determination to succeed, like that of the GI Generation before them, will be the source of the economic rejuvenation that in all likelihood will accompany their full entry into America’s economic life.
Dannenberg’s 2009 obit in the NY Times, he was born in 1913, actually from the the “G.I. Generation 1901 to 1924”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/23/us/23dannenberg.html?_r=0
Speaking of secondary displays, I needed one on Saturday. I was setting up my ThinkorSwim trading platform on the iMac and the install crashes because of the 5K display, apparently a common problem:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6649928?start=15&tstart=0
I tried for a couple hours on Friday night installing the Unix platform instead of the Mac platform, but no luck. Saturday morning the solution occurred to me. I have a $5 app on my iPad called iDisplay that lets you use the iPad itself as a secondary display for either a Mac or a PC on the same WiFi network. I installed the iDisplay client on the iMac then changed the iPad to be the primary display for the iMac and was then able to install the TOS platform on the iMac using iPad screen.
Didn’t Korolev beat von Braun to put the first satellite into space? Sputnik being referenced as the event that started the “Space Race”.
Korolev launched the first satellite, the first animal, and the first person. Was also the first to crash a probe into an object, first to orbit the moon with a probe (second try was a charm), and first to put a woman in space.
There is actually academic study supporting this theory. It is believed by some that there are cyclical patterns in morals and values that repeat every 4 generations.
Current cycle:
1. Hero – GI Generation – born in an Unraveling era
2. Artist – Silent Generation – born in a Crisis era
3. Prophet – Baby Boomers – born in a Recovery era
4. Nomad – Generation X – born in an Awakening era
5. Hero – Millennial Generation – born in an Unraveling era
6. Artist – ? – born in a Crisis era
http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ww2010.cs.us.htm
Are the Millennials the new GI Generation?
But yes, if not for the Germans, the US would have been nowhere.
Lol
http://www.boston.com/news/weather/2015/02/16/guy-took-spot-put-the-snow-back/mSalWmA5Ab5RXk6sYyRupI/story.html
And a great article on St. Kennedy, who was, and this is little known, *not* a supporter of the space program and manned space flight…
JFK space race myth: Column
It was always assumed that the president had a deep and abiding interest in space, on the basis of the lofty words of his speech at Rice University in 1962 defending the moon initiative.
…
But ironically, his ostensible vision of sending men to the moon and back within a decade likely only survived because he himself did not. He was in reality quite ambivalent, and even apathetic about space. In the late fifties, he and his brother Robert ridiculed the vision of MIT professor and aerospace pioneer Charles Stark Draper at dinner with him.
His own science advisor, Jerome Wiesner, according to The Atlantic, said that it was the area that the president understood the least. The announcement of the lunar goal in May of 1961 was not a result of a desire to see humanity conquer the heavens so much as a political response to the Soviets being first to send a man into space, and to distract from the recent Bay of Pigs fiasco, a failed CIA operation to overthrow the Castro regime in Cuba that had been planned during the Eisenhower administration. In a meeting with his advisors in 1962 a couple of months after the Rice speech, he bluntly told them, including NASA administrator James Webb, that he “wasn’t that interested in space.” In fact, before his death in November of 1963, he had been giving serious consideration to ending the race, and negotiating with the Soviets to do a joint mission, to reduce its horrific costs (at its peak in the mid-sixties, Apollo was consuming 4% of the federal budget).
So it is quite possible, and even likely, that had Kennedy lived, what many view as one of his signature achievements, if not indeed the one — sending America to the moon — would not have happened.
Von Braun was a disciple of Goddard (an American). Again, he was ‘held back’ by squabbling between the U.S. Navy, then new USAF and political battles between the two.
The Soviet moon program was, to quote Neil Armstrong “…Victorian…”.
Like many Gen Xers I was a model rocket enthusiast and aspiring astronaut back in the early 70s.
Da Russkies did accomplish some goals quicker using brute force and taking great risks.
Post Apollo the U.S. program was hijacked by that pork project called the shuttle. What a waste.
Much more to say but his is a Real Estate forum.
Launched lots of rockets as a kid. I recently saw F size engines at Hobby Lobby, of all places, got me all nostalgic. I’d never actually launched an F sized rocket before. My wife was not so thrilled at the idea.
I hear they sell size G composite motors now, they are like $30 a piece.
@chuckknoblauch: Congrats to 46. Yankees retiring his number. Hopefully they don’t retire it like his HGH testimony.
Only rocket that matters anymore is a RPG.
[38] “This type of relentless optimism and faith in collective action in the face of hardship is typical of civic generations such as the Millennials. . . . Their great-grandparents, the GI Generation, learned to make do with less as they entered adulthood in the 1930s and then went on to defeat fascism in World War II and build the strongest economy the world has known. As young Millennials absorb the lessons of America’s greatest economic downturn since the 1930s, their determination to succeed, like that of the GI Generation before them, will be the source of the economic rejuvenation that in all likelihood will accompany their full entry into America’s economic life.”
It’s laughable that anyone would consider today’s “Millennial” generation–in all their coddled, “trigger”-afflicted, greater-victim-than-thou, phony “rape-culture”-survivors, LGBTQXBLT, iCrap addicted, children-until-35-for-mommy-and-daddy’s-health-insurance, video-game p0rn addicted, EBT food-stamp addicted, feminized, “die-in” (hands-up-don’t-shoot!), narcissistic, selfie-stick, social media wh0ring glory–anywhere near as capable as the children of the Great Depression who died by the hundreds of thousands, manned rubber and scrap drives, lived on rationed food during wartime, and came back from winning a World War to marry, build businesses, families, and a new superpower.
At least they are into multi-kulti kitsch; it will serve them well when it comes to kow-towing before their Chinese overlords.
Happy Presidents Day, folks! Time for another [Clinton / Bush]! Whoo-hoo! We are on the road to greatness!
Our scout leader frowned upon packing the rocket nose cone with black powder.
We did though, once, stuff a rocket motor in an aluminum tent stake.
Bad idea.
entitled old farts are bitter that newer generations are doubling down on self-entitlement
Isn’t the millennial generation the first to fully fall for the latest apocalypse hoax? (Global warming as the end of the world?) The “greatest” generation were willing to suck it up and try to survive a real apocalypse like nuclear war. In contrast, the boomers were falling all over each other to surrender to the reds.
“entitled old farts are bitter that newer generations are doubling down on self-entitlement”
Right – because society was so chock-full of entitlements during the Great Depression and World War II.
Doubling down on self-entitlement = Greatness. Good luck with that.
From the Chicago Tribune:
Greatest generation the most entitled
One thing nearly everybody agrees upon is that the “sequester” is a silly sideshow to the real challenge facing America: unsustainable spending on entitlements. Ironies abound. Democrats, with large support from young people, tend to believe that we must build on the legacy bequeathed to us by the New Deal and the Great Society. Republicans, who marshaled considerable support from older voters in their so-far losing battle against Obamacare, argue that we need to start fresh.
Perhaps it’s time for both sides to consider an underappreciated fact of American life: The system we are trying to perpetuate was created for the explicit benefit of the so-called greatest generation, the most coddled and cared for cohort in American history.
I don’t mean to belittle or demean the heroic efforts and sacrifices of those who served in World War II. But the idea that a whole generation deserves credit for what only some did is little more than an attempt to buy glory on the cheap. One of the egalitarian precepts that all Americans are supposed to subscribe to is the idea that one citizen isn’t more worthy than another, simply by accident of birth. If you stormed the beaches of Normandy, you are due praise and honor. If you were simply born the same year as those who stormed the beaches, you’re no more deserving of praise than someone born of any other generation.
http://www.rifuture.org/the-myth-making-generation.html
The so-called “Greatest Generation” is the recipient of a lot of rose-tinted glassed stares of longing these days. Apparently people dream of the time when men were men, women were meek, black people were free to be openly oppressed, and Indians were undergoing cultural genocide. But while the obvious flaws with the 1940s are well known, the idea that the Greatest Generation struggled through the Great Depression and stepped up at our hour of need to topple fascism and then build this country into a world superpower is a cultural touchstone.
Let’s get rid of that touchstone, because it’s a complete crock. All of those required massive government intervention, directed and conceived by the two generations before them, the Missionary and the Lost Generations. Without the leaders in Congress and the White House who ushered in the New Deal, the G.I. Generation wouldn’t have had work during the Great Depression. Without the re-implementation of the draft, not only would the G.I.’s not had work, but there wouldn’t have been a labor shortage that required women to enter the labor force. And without a war fought abroad that devastated all of America’s competitors while leaving U.S. industry unscathed, the G.I. Generation wouldn’t have found it as easy to sell American products to the world (and let’s not forget that servicemen were offered cheap homes and education/training after the war).
[55] “If you were simply born the same year as those who stormed the beaches, you’re no more deserving of praise than someone born of any other generation.”
Right.
A small percentage of the World War II generation fought in the war. All of them, even the ones back home, grew up during the Great Depression and sacrificed during the war to a level that today’s spoiled generation–to whom going without wifi for 24 hours is deprivation–cannot even fathom.
And today, an even smaller, minute really, percentage of the Millennial generation will come up with some new business or new idea (even still, most of which are circle-jerk “innovations” like Facebook and Twitter), while the rest are a bunch of occupy-mom’s-basement nothings.
So, while of course one cannot attribute to an entire generation the characteristics of the best among them, stacking them up side-by-side, the best against the best, the average against the average, it’s laughable to think that the Millennials are the greatest at anything.
“Without the leaders in Congress and the White House who ushered in the New Deal, the G.I. Generation wouldn’t have had work during the Great Depression.”
I’ll take the WWII generation’s work ethic over the Millennials any day of the week.
“Without the re-implementation of the draft, not only would the G.I.’s not had work, but there wouldn’t have been a labor shortage that required women to enter the labor force.”
Imagine the howling if the Millennials were drafted to fight for anything.
“And without a war fought abroad that devastated all of America’s competitors while leaving U.S. industry unscathed, the G.I. Generation wouldn’t have found it as easy to sell American products to the world (and let’s not forget that servicemen were offered cheap homes and education/training after the war).”
But let’s not forget who did the “devastating” mentioned above. What have the Millennials done that is anywhere in the same ballpark?
Funny, in the late 1920s, folks would have had the same criticism of the GI generation, having grown up in the economic growth of the roaring 20s, with mass culture and the greatest boom of consumerism that the world had ever seen. Not to mention partying through what was potentially the greatest hedonistic bacchanal the US had ever known. You do know the causes of the Great Depression, don’t you?
Laughing over the thought of a bunch of 1800s curmudgeons chastising a bunch of young folks in the 20s for spending so much damn money on those new fangled radios.
You know what? I agree with the characterization below, mostly, but these kids might be perfect “blank slates” for basic training at Paris Island. Robert DeNiro, for example, looks like a genius on screen but for some reason you never see his “genius” on talk shows(nor do you see him, which is the point). If you watched the SNL special last night, you saw that he can barely read cue cards. But he is a perfect blank slate for directors. His head is filled with nothing, so directors can easily install anything they want. I think the same goes for millennials once you take away their iDevices and have a baby-boomer Drill Seargent start screaming in their faces for several weeks straight.
It’s laughable that anyone would consider today’s “Millennial” generation–in all their coddled, “trigger”-afflicted, greater-victim-than-thou, phony “rape-culture”-survivors, LGBTQXBLT, iCrap addicted, children-until-35-for-mommy-and-daddy’s-health-insurance, video-game p0rn addicted, EBT food-stamp addicted, feminized, “die-in” (hands-up-don’t-shoot!), narcissistic, selfie-stick, social media wh0ring glory–anywhere near as capable as the children of the Great Depression who died by the hundreds of thousands, manned rubber and scrap drives, lived on rationed food during wartime, and came back from winning a World War to marry, build businesses, families, and a new superpower.
anon – This is a stretch, but not real far from the truth. I think we (boomers) did settle into an entitlement posture by mistaking a bull market for brains.
OTOH, we mostly:
A. Hustled our a$$es off early to make money because our parents had none to give us.
B. More of A.
I don’t have a problem with kids gliding through college as easy as they can, but I have a HUGE problem with them gliding through college with no sense of financial want, present or future. I admit that college was cheap when we went, but it was also a bare-bones existence unless you figured out how to make money at the same time. In addition, we had a realistic expectation of what we would get right out of college, and it was based on what graduating seniors were currently getting in whatever field of study you chose. We studied starting salaries in our chosen fields while we fueled our fun with our own cash. That’s the big difference.
entitled old farts are bitter that newer generations are doubling down on self-entitlement
Millennials, or maybe a name more apt would be Generation Sheep, have been coddled like never before. The dumbed-down, pc-laden curriculum that they were subjected to will insure the most docile, gullible generation yet.
You know what? I agree with the characterization below, mostly, but these kids might be perfect “blank slates” for basic training at Paris Island.
Nice try, but a Pew study from 2012 shows that millennials are the least socially trusting of all generations today. I’m sure even Clot can appreciate that about them.
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2014/03/07/millennials-in-adulthood/
Blah blah blah … college
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2014/02/11/the-rising-cost-of-not-going-to-college/
Look at these numbers, take a good look. Then this evening, have a sit down with your children, perhaps the children of your siblings, or even your grandkids, and tell them they will not be going to college, like their peers. Align your actions with your talk track, and if your kid is in college, let them know they’ll not be enrolled next semester, or if in high school, start arranging other plans.
… and good luck to them.
Or does this not actually apply to your own family?
Someone’s kid is wasting a whole lot of time at Boston Latin if there isn’t any reason for her to go to college, right? After all, she’ll just glide through college with no sense of financial want. Why not enroll her in public school and get her grounded, some real direction, real work, salt of the earth kind of work, hands and knees clean the floor kind of work.
Right?
Why am I more positive about her contribution than you are? (The post millennials are largely driven by the same social and cultural drivers that the millennials were).
[63] grim
“Nice try, but a Pew study from 2012 shows that millennials are the least socially trusting of all generations today. I’m sure even Clot can appreciate that about them.”
Good, good, heh, heh heh. Isolated pockets of resistance are more easily mopped up after the Great Clotpocalypse plunges the nation into chaos.
Whoops, I’m channeling clot again, aren’t I?
If you’re bitching about young people and how they live their lives, look in a mirror. You’re officially a cranky old fart.
One last comment about putting a man on the moon.
I agree, let’s restore NASA funding to the amount it was during the Apollo program, between 4-5% of the Federal Budget, about $150 billion a year. Let’s let Gen X and the Millennials put a man on Mars, they can do it.
This would mean increasing NASAs in house and contract employees from about 80 thousand to 400-500,000 employees, equivalent to what it was during the Apollo program.
Why not put our money where our mouth is when talking about STEM education by actually employing graduates in the space? Can you imagine? 320,000 new high tech jobs in the US? Can you imagine the downstream technology that would result?
For the millenials on the blog: TRIGGER WARNING
(68) Put a man on Mars? I’m all for it. Too bad the money (and then some) has already been spent housing, feeding (1 out of every 7 Americans!), and otherwise coddling the biggest demographic of people not pulling their own societal weight in American history. Hey, let’s throw in free community college; folks just need a little more money in their pockets, right? And let’s not forget about everyone on “disability” . . .
Can’t blame Millennials for all of this, but how can anyone see them as anything but the most recent generation in a continuing downward spiral of degeneracy that started with the boomers is a mystery to me.
Yeah – I hit 40 this year and fully embrace my old curmudgeon status. Gen X is messed up, but at least it is a result of largely being poorly raised by the self indulgent boomer generation–so much so that the Gen X latchkey generation largely was thrown to fending for itself. But I don’t but the hype about the most coddled and bubble wrapped generation in history somehow turning the ship around.
. Too bad the money (and then some) has already been spent housing, feeding (1 out of every 7 Americans!), and otherwise coddling the biggest demographic of people not pulling their own societal weight in American history.
Who?
Grim (63)-
I’m a Millenial fan. They are going to clean up the shit of multiple generations. They are, by and large, fiscally prudent, motivated and energetic. They are also not suckers for a line of bullshit (witness their abandonment of Bojangles). On an anecdotal note, my daughter at 21 is intellectually and emotionally about where my friends and I were at 30.
However, don’t be surprised when they deal with the US’ unpayable debt by repudiating it.
“Nice try, but a Pew study from 2012 shows that millennials are the least socially trusting of all generations today. I’m sure even Clot can appreciate that about them.”
The two generations that have sucked the gubmint teat dry are the GIs and Boomers.
Numbers don’t lie.
I suspect they will also be much more entrepreneurial than the X’ers, and significantly more entrepreneurial than the Boomers. Coming out of the Great Recession they will have no reason to swear allegiance to the corporation, like the Boomers had. I also suspect that outside of social causes, they will be significantly more laissez faire than the current crop of politicos that insist their noses be in everything. It will be interesting to see what is accomplished if government could just get out of the f*cking way. The entrepreneurship will manifest itself as technology innovation.
And in my still short foray into craft manufacturing, it’s the millennials who are poised to put their money where their mouth is and “buy American”. They are among the few who will pay a pricing premium. Unlike the vast majority who will preach about it, but then spend the night gorging in Walmart. I can point to nearly an entire nation that blabs this all day long, but won’t actually try to do it.
[71] “They are also not suckers for a line of bullshit (witness their abandonment of Bojangles).”
Abandonment of Bojangles? Fantasy — they put him in office, twice.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Elections/President/2012/1107/Youth-vote-decides-presidential-election-again.-Is-this-the-new-normal
“Millennials made it to the polls in droves Tuesday – proving themselves a central voting bloc in swing states and defying speculation that their enthusiasm had waned since the days of Barack Obama’s historic candidacy in 2008.
People age 18 to 29 made up 19 percent of voters in this election cycle, up 1 percentage point from 2008, according to early National Exit Poll (NEP) data.
President Obama won this age group with 60 percent support, versus 37 percent for Mitt Romney.”
The article does point out that the Millennial support for Obama was down 6 points from 2008, but even black support for Bojangles was down 2 points, so in context in hardly seems like the Millennials abandoned him.
The Occupy My Parent’s Basement crowd demanded, and received, a second serving of Oblama.
It’s easier to pay a premium when the mindset is about discretion in what you choose to own, rather than mindless accumulation.
[71] “Who?”
All the people sitting the wagon rather than pulling. Lots of Boomers and Gen Xers in there at the moment, but the current crop of Millennials is being groomed to continue the downward spiral. Absolutely zero evidence that they are doing anything better.
These are the law students–the supposed cream of the crop from Harvard, Yale, etc.–who needed their exams delayed by a few weeks while they processed the trauma of the Ferguson grand jury decision.
Effing eggshell generation. They are already cracking — wait ’till the S really HTF.
Millennials didn’t vote for Obama, they voted for the message he towed.
[75] “They are among the few who will pay a pricing premium. Unlike the vast majority who will preach about it, but then spend the night gorging in Walmart. I can point to nearly an entire nation that blabs this all day long, but won’t actually try to do it.”
Easy to pay a premium for your liquor when your rent, food, cable, cell phone, and everything else is already being subsidized by Mom and Dad. Or Uncle Omar.
Any layabout of any generation would pull the lever for a medicine show hustler like Bojangles.
The productive of the Millenials know full well that the charlatan-in-chief doesn’t have their backs. Bundles of empty promises and welfare for billionaires.
[81] “The productive of the Millenials know full well that the charlatan-in-chief doesn’t have their backs.”
Well sure, there will be outstanding people in the Millennial generation, as in all others; your daughter seems likely to be one. My opinion is that they will be the exception, not the rule.
Heck, I have 3 kids under 10 at home — I don’t even know what their generation is going to be called, but regardless of the fact that I think my kids will be successful, that is not going to color my perception of their entire generational cohort, who are on track to be a bunch of helicopter-parented eggshells themselves.
Bebo, Chen, Diego, and Abhishek are hungry. Graydon is sensitive and entitled. Sit back and enjoy the show!
80 – If they didn’t before, they do now.
Only anecdotal, but I know a ton of Millenials and employed a bunch over my three years in JC. Working multiple jobs, getting graduate degrees, paying bills was pretty much the norm. I felt bad for a lot of them, because it seemed to me that some of them never really had a childhood. All serious, all the time.
My daughter and most of her crowd spend Saturdays at Career Services, sending out letters and talking to advisers. The idea of not having a job at graduation is unthinkable to them. This isn’t exactly slacker behavior.
regardless of the fact that I think my kids will be successful, that is not going to color my perception of their entire generational cohort, who are on track to be a bunch of helicopter-parented eggshells themselves.
Are you shitting me? Sure they are, they are special, gold stars for the lot of them.
All but the wealthiest Millenials grew up with foreclosure, BK and authority figures with drug/booze/mental issues either in the house or on the block. I would equate that to wartime.
Even my 17 y/o has been shaped by that. The situation some of his acquaintances were in around 2008-2011 (driving the Benz to the food bank) was truly shocking. My daughter watched me go flat ass broke from 2008-11, and I know it had an effect on her, although we never got to the Tom Joad/drive the pickup truck west moment.
We’ve been at war for 25 years. More than half the Millennial generation watched the Twin Towers fall and understood it, it’s the equivalent of Pearl Harbor.
This war has lasted longer than WWII, longer than WWI, and longer than Vietnam. We’re now so immune to war, we no longer realize we’re at war.
The only material difference is this time, we’ve gotten really f*cking good at killing people, so US casualties were low.
“Millennials didn’t vote for Obama, they voted for the message he towed.”
Is that supposed to make it better?
Perpetual war is the new normal.
Speaking of defining events. Still remember Challenger vividly. I was in 4th grade, the school was gathered in the auditorium to watch the launch live. We had been doing “space” lessons for a week or two leading up – maybe longer. First teacher in space. It was a bit before noon. It was near panic, from the teachers, we didn’t know what was going on. They quickly disassembled and we were dismissed for lunch. Didn’t realize what had happened until I watched TV when I had gotten home from school. Was the first and last time that happened.
And for the cost of these wars, we could have put a man on Mars.
The cost? These goat herders want us all dead, yours and mine. I have been to the middle east go take a trip and find out for yourself who your friends are.
Never mind me. My voice is no longer loud or political. I will buy my sons freedom from these wars or die trying.
91
Yes, the cost.
Joyce last thing in my bones is war. Go for yourself, that is why I went.
Grim,
I was in high school in central Florida when the Challenger exploded. Worse, people watched launches live outside, not on tv. For a class I had written a paper and was waiting to make my presentation – the topic was that the space shuttle program was a big waste and a vanity project, that diverted funds from more effective and efficient space technology. The teacher gave me an a without requiring me to present my case.
All these goat herders want is for us to leave their lands so they can stare at the sun and r@pe their sisters all day. Natch, we won’t get out of their lands because of that oil thingy.
And the dumbest of all the things we did was get sucked into Afghan & Paki, two countries with no real resources and full of bonafide cavemen.
Branson close to taking people into space. 63 miles up, and back within 90 minutes.
Wonder what the over/under is on how long it takes for them to turn a ship full of passengers into a TV dinner…
[85] “sure they are, they are special, gold stars for the lot of them.”
Yeah – because believing that the Millennial generation, as a whole, is no better (and likely worse) than the current crop of @sshats in charge, and a far cry from the generation that won a world war, requires a belief that no one from said generation will succeed. Whatever.
I was a very young Aerospace software engineer at the time. The pall that fell over our workplace was all about worrying if one of our systems was involved in the failure.
Speaking of defining events. Still remember Challenger vividly.