I suspect that a large part of that has to do with student loans, which have grown by a huge multiple since 1996. With compounding interest it takes longer to recover from school.
I know I graduated with $75k loans at 8% interest. Even with say, a $100k salary, just the interest eats ~7% of the income. With the total payments being somewhere around 12% of your income. Combine that with increased taxes over the same time and a 34% reduction in worth seems about right (if we account for the loss in compounding interest from buying a home, 401k investments, etc)
This is certainly a factor, but I think HN's main demographic tends to overestimate the effect of college-related issues on the fortunes of the general population, where college graduates are still a minority. I imagine that the most important factor is the lowered rate of home-ownership.
2017: 33.4% of Americans (25+) have a Bachelors or higher
2007: 28% of Americans have a Bachelors or higher
1940: 4.6% of Americans had a 4+ year education (post high school)
You're right, college graduates are still a minority, but there is definitely a largely increasing. There's definitely more people enrolling than that.
70% of Americans will enroll in a 4 year degree but <2/3 of them will get a degree and 56% will drop out by year 6.Also Full-time students are 55% less likely to drop out of college than students who go to school exclusively part-time.[1]
So while college graduates are still a minority, it doesn't look like Americans who enroll in college are. They are clearly in the majority, and just because they don't graduate doesn't mean they haven't gathered debt.
Graduating does not count as dropping out. Since a 4 year degree does not require completion within 4 years, it makes sense to extend the statistics longer. That way you include people who tried to spend extra time to be able to graduate.
How do US universities work with regards to this? In the UK you don't really need to pass anything to graduate. I've got a BA (Hons), the BA I got for showing up, the (Hons) indicates I actually passed something.
Second I would guess the vast majority of drop outs are within the first 6 months? How many people are going to waste 6 years for nothing?
Somebody needs a pair of math classes to meet the requirements. They ignore it for 3 years. They then begin a 2-semester sequence of really basic math that is pretty much 7th grade (12 year old) level. They drop the first class, tray again and fail, and then pass. They fail the second class, fail the second class again, fail it yet again, and then are prohibited from attempting it because there is a limit of 3 attempts.
> How do US universities work with regards to this? In the UK you don't really need to pass anything to graduate.
In the US you have to maintain both satisfactory overall GPA to not be dismissed and pass a required set of classes (which may include a number of electives) in order to graduate.
Not necessarily. The reasons people drop out are family emergency, cost, personal emergency, and not being able to deal with the workload. Most of these reasons don't necessarily cluster in the first 6 months.
It's actually cheaper to own in many areas than to rent. What stops most people is their inability to save for a down payment and/or obtain a reasonable interest rate on their mortgage, both tools used by banks to hedge against the risk of lending. I'd argue that measures of that risk are somewhat arbitrary and reflect an institutional lack of faith in Americans' creditworthiness. So it's not that people can't own homes because they lack wealth, it's that wealth is hard to come by because they're not allowed to own their domicile.
Renters pay most of the cost of home ownership, with the added feature of being unable to control children’s schooling or meaningfully become part of a community.
Usually the argument against owning your home that is that inflation adjusted returns on real estate are not as attractive as investments in an index fund. In many, and I would argue most scenarios, that doesn’t really matter as the vast majority of people have minimal liquid net worth and renting eats up the cash flow that would allow them to accumulate wealth.
I bought my first and current home when I was 23 and refinanced to a shorter term. I bought near the 2006 peak and due to local market conditions have minimal capital gains, but in the near future will have no debt service costs whatsoever. That means the freedom to make less income, start a business, blow the money or accumulate cash or whatever.
Had I done the smart thing, I would have put 90% (or more, rents rose during the recession) of my current monthly mortgage obligation into rent. To the tune of $300k, allowing for fairly meager savings.
Now if I was sitting on a pile of cash that was a critical mass, and paying rent from my income cash flow, that’s different. But that is a much more rare situation.
> Renters pay most of the cost of home ownership, with the added feature of being unable to [...] meaningfully become part of a community.
Why can’t we become part of the community? I’ve been a renter for a decade now and I think I am more involved in my community via volunteering and local politics than the average person.
Further when I was a kid my single mom rented an apartment — during that time she worked to create a community at our apartment complex. When we moved there barely any one said “hi.” Now, almost a quarter century later she still keeps in touch with many of these old neighbors despite them being scattered all over the U.S.
Renting sucks, we both agree with that. But the trope about renters not caring about the community needs to go — it’s part of the reason apartments are illegal in the majority of California.
Most places in the US have minimal tenant rights. Leases are often 1 year and because of rental price floors geographic rents tend to not vary much.
Geography determines school placements, what little league your kid plays in, who your local representatives are, etc. I don’t mean to cast tenants in a bad light. It’s just hard to have deep roots if you have to move frequently.
The places that are exceptions have rent stabilization or weak markets. Rental markets always devolve into little geographical cartels where tenants have no leverage. But we live in an era where we pretend it’s a real market and dislike regulatory frameworks.
Someone like me is probably more common. You're the exception.
I've chased jobs for the last 15 years, moving to numerous states, several foreign countries, and for the last 8-9 years, about half a dozen different rental in the same metro area.
I have never been involved in my community, met neighbors, or gotten involved in really anything more than a cordial greetings to people I recognize.
I'd love to buy a house, but even the smallest condo in a decent area is $300k and as a contractor, I still have to often change work locations every year or more often. My commute might increase by an hour or more, each way, if I were unable to move close the work site.
I feel this is common for a lot of people these days, especially as marriage and especially children become less common. I have no incentive to be stuck in one place, and have done well to save a lot of money by being mobile and living frugally, without the trappings of typical suburban life.
>Why can’t we become part of the community? I’ve been a renter for a decade now and I think I am more involved in my community via volunteering and local politics than the average person.
If the person who owns your house decided to sell it tomorrow, how much protection do you have? Here in the UK, I have effectively none.
In general there are renters rights and the lease contract survives a sale. When you buy a property you need to look at contracts in place and whether they are incompatible with your desired use.
As far as I am aware, if you are in an assured shorthold tenancy, as the majority of rented homes are in the UK, your new landlord can serve a court order under section 21 for a no-fault eviction.
On the other hand, if you are renting commercial property for a business and have negotiated a lease, then the lease contract holds.
Any comparison of rent vs buy should be made by comparing interest+council rates/land tax paid to rent paid. You also need to be secure in the assumption that your house/land value will not drop. You also need to account for rises in rent. Changes in interest rates... all in all, it's more difficult than it sounds, and advice on this depends a lot on what your local property market is doing. In some places it can go either way.
assume home prices go up 5% and the stock market goes up 7%.
If I want to buy a house for 100k and put 20k as a down-payment and live in the spot for 5 years, I can make 8051$ off the stock market (invest 20k) but my home would have appreciated 27k$.
sure there are some other factors, and maybe my numbers are not right, but I think it gets at what you were saying, an advantage of buying a home is you can make a leveraged investment.
in general, houses appreciate in value over time, but that doesn't mean your house will. leverage multiplies your exposure to the upside and the downside of an investment, and a single house is a much more volatile asset than SPY. imagine how much it would suck to be upside down on that $100k mortgage after five years.
I have half a million I can liquidate, because I bought instead of rented. Many friends said it was a 'bad investment', but when the money gets spent either way, even a bad investment is better than none. It has never been easier to buy a home that you can afford thanks to loan programs and historically low rates, although now rising...
But yeah, even though in many ways a home is a liability, it has equity you can leverage. In many countries, homeownership conveys other perks. In the usa, homeownership is also a strong sign of being a 'good neighbor' as you have skin in the game, while renters see little reward or penalty for being poor neighbors.
There are of course shades of grey and other factors, but in general, the modern marketing to milennials that homeownership is futile or worthless is partly its own downfall.
Right, but it's really only an investment property if you already have somewhere else to live. It's more of a consumable asset with a tightrope walk between transaction costs, upkeep costs, depreciation, and inflation vs market price increases. And if you live there, it's different because to sell it you have to become homeless and/or use the money for new accommodations. Assuming that your investment has done well because housing prices have risen, then your new accommodations will likewise be more expensive too.
It might pay off a bit if you can see it through, especially if you can then move to a lower cost-of-living area, but it's hard to tell 30 years in advance whether you'll be able to keep that commitment and if it will pay off better than investing in index funds or other investments. Certainly some people found out the hard way in 2008 it doesn't always work out that well. In general, it may sometimes slightly beat inflation if you're lucky but under-performs the stock market.
The best real estate investment you can make is your own home. 100% guaranteed occupancy, no property management, 0% turn over, deductions on property tax, federal taxes, etc...
> The core of the "bad investment" argument is that the money doesn't necessarily all get spent either way.
Yes but that is part of the problem with the argument: it basically assumes perfectly rational actors who never cheat contributing to their index fund so they can go do/buy whatever. It’s a lot harder to just not pay your mortgage one month.
Especially if your measurement is net worth. A new college graduate today isn't just broke, she's personally insolvent and will be for the next few years.
> only 20 percent of consumers were meaningfully better off in 2017 than they were in 2007, with precious little income left to spend on discretionary retail
Reading this I assume it is rather caused by housing and food cost in metropolitan areas.
Every city job I’ve seen outside of the minimum wage service jobs pay better than all the surrounding small cities and towns. Which helps offset costs.
But certainly many urban areas have been very slow to match the right level and type of housing development for the needs of a growing population. The effects of building laws, zoning, political influence, rent control (particularly how it was done in 70s/80s), etc has a long recorded negative pressure on supply vs demand. So it’s very likely the wage differences aren’t sufficient for most people.
Above a given paygrade, yes, it offsets, but for most people, especially people working for public services, a fiver per hour more won't offset the extra thousands per month.
Note: one of my former landlord said he bought the property in the '70s we lived in for £25K, when he worked as delivery postman for £500/month. With living on his own in London, he bought the property after 6 years working for Royal Mail. Today, the median RML postman salary https://www.payscale.com/research/UK/Job=Postman/Salary is £18K (take-home pay is £1315/m), a 1-bedroom flat rental in the outskirts according to Numbeo (https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/in/London) is £1215, without the utilities and council tax (which was £92/mo for me) The remaining £100 is enough for nothing. But even if let's say share the flat with an SO and split the costs, it is unlikely you can ever afford a 1-bedroom flat.
The same for my parents' case in Hungary ('90s). My mom was a PA, my dad a factory worker. They were able to buy a flat when they were 20, a year after my sister born. My wife parents (factory workers) bought a small house in a village when they were 19. Both family needed no financial aid from their parents. Both properties had an interest-free mortgage around the 30% of the property value.
I wouldn't compare that era with the current one , because neither my landlord, nor our parents could afford holidays abroad or a car. But neither had to worry about where will you sleep or whether your family can afford fresh, quality food if you have to find an other job.
> I wouldn't compare that era with the current one
When it comes to housing stock these past gov policies and local private+public development grants can have a long term impact on any city well beyond any decade.
The various building/zoning/etc policies are often long lasting: Prior land use could have been terribly inefficient from some half-failed social housing project, left to arson/deterioration of perfectly good buildings in Harlem in the 80s due to rent control and impossible-to-evict tenants not allowing renovations on the building. Plenty of middle-class & wealthy people keeping (now) expensive apartments under rent-control, reducing new development appropriate for that market and taking stock and taxes/income the area. Prior low-density developed areas can be locked down for decades due to elderly and other single-family homeowners staying for long periods of time. The well-covered complete lack of development of anything in-between a single-family houses and condo/office highrises in most cities also for decades. Etc, etc.
There's plenty of legacy decisions keeping housing expensive and highly inefficient.
> Above a given paygrade, yes, it offsets, but for most people, especially people working for public services, a fiver per hour more won't offset the extra thousands per month.
Unless you're comparing San Francisco with East Bufu, Nowhere, living in a city does not cost 'extra thousands' a month.
> Millennials are the largest voting block in the US. They have more representation than any other demographic
Eh, millennials are a large population block. As a voting block, we're borderline useless [1]. And that's just voter turnout. The more important forms of participation--showing up to meetings--tends to show single-digit participation.
The graphic does say that the demographic aged 18-29 was the only one to see an increase in turnout between 2012 and 2016. But anyway, millennial voting was a lot more impactful in 2018.
There’s a seismic shift going on in voting in the UK. The traditional two parties are falling to bits - the old and uneducated are voting for Farage, the young and educated are voting for Lib Dem and Green, leaving the current bug parties - the ones of Thatcher and Blair - 4th or even 5th in the polls.
It is hard to separate the youth vote - when it bothers to turn up, from the educated vote, as the majority of people with degrees are under 40
The composition of the house is nearly-irrelevant, and the vast majority of states are straight red, or straight blue for their senators, the same exact way, year after year.
I think voting for our financial incentive has been obfuscated by the recent "authoritarian" vs "socialism" platform the Republican and Democrat have been pushing. We can't vote for what makes sense because we are voting on vague and diluted ideologies that will not find compromise. Even if I go out to vote, I can't vote for conventional fiscal responsibility.
At least when we had "political fluff" vs "extreme rhetoric" there was an opportunity to compromise and move forward.
"Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence. The results provide substantial support for theories of Economic-Elite Domination and for theories of Biased Pluralism, but not for theories of Majoritarian Electoral Democracy or Majoritarian Pluralism."
The fact that you are stating something so easily disprovable, and that I'm getting down voted speaks volumes on the state of social acceptance of age discrimination.
I'll quote from the wikipedia:
"In the United States, a person must be aged 35 or over to be President or Vice President. To be a Senator, a person must be aged 30 or over. To be a Representative, a person must be aged 25 or older. This is specified in the U.S. Constitution. Most states in the U.S. also have age requirements for the offices of Governor, State Senator, and State Representative"
Also, let's be clear. Generally a Senator or Congressman has a long history of local public office before being a Senator or Congressman.
Young people are locked out of those offices until AT LEAST 30. That means, they start running for some small office in their mid 30s, to end in higher office at a much older age.
Imagine how you would feel towards a teenager who complained he or she couldn't run for president. Age doesn't necessitate wisdom, but wow are they positively correlated.
You know there are a ton of correlations related to race and gender.
I thought those were no longer valid to be applied to huge swaths of people as it is discriminatory. I mean, not everyone who is part of a race or gender will have that correlation applicable to themselves.
Yes, some teenagers are dumb. Most. I was. But I've meet teenagers that are way smarter than I'll ever be.
I'm afraid many people view discrimination from a situational ethics point of view; it's only discrimination if it is the type of discrimination they don't like. Otherwise, it isn't discrimination.
Which then raises the question: if a teenager has managed the extraordinary feat of becoming a viable candidate, then they're clearly an outlier, and whatever you think about teenagers in general may not apply to them. Alexander the Great was... 20 years old when he became king and 22 when he began his invasions.
I searched for "teenage kings" and found https://www.history.com/news/6-child-monarchs-who-changed-hi... . Ptolemy XIII, from age "11 or 12": seems to have screwed things up. Fulin / "Shunzhi Emperor", taking power at 12, seems to have done a decent job. Elagabalus, becoming Roman emperor in A.D. 218 at 15, screwed up horribly. Pharaoh Tutankhamen, starting at "9 or 10", seems to have done well. Mary, Queen of Scots... I don't see much about decisions she made during her reign; she seems to have been trampled by more powerful enemies without it being obviously her fault. Baldwin IV of Jerusalem, from age 15: seems he did well. Incidentally, all of the above died in their 20s or younger (except Mary, who was locked up for life in her 20s).
So that's two screw-ups, three did-well, and one don't-know. The article says "who changed history", which means something significant happened, which might give us a biased selection—in many professions, the easiest way to do something very significant is to mess up something critical. I wonder if someone has made a more extensive and non-selected list.
Regarding this particular set, I also might say we should compare Elagabalus with other Roman emperors in the 200s A.D.—I'd guess there are other stinkers on that list... Looking at the others in the Severan dynasty... Elagabalus was succeeded by Severus Alexander (age 14!), who apparently did whatever his mother recommended, and seems to have done ok-ish (though the army grew to hate him and eventually overthrew him). Before Elagabalus was Caracalla, who co-ruled with his father Septimus (who did very well) starting at age 10 (!) and became emperor at 23 (technically co-emperor with his brother, but he had his brother killed that year), and was awful.
Hmm, interesting. Unfortunately the Severans after Septimus were all young, which makes it hard to tell between "the Severans being too young made them suck" or "the Severans after Septimus sucked". Let's look at another Roman dynasty... the ones after the Severan seem too short and interrupted by weirdness to judge... Let's try Flavian. Vespasian began the line, was a military officer before he was emperor, and did well; Titus, his son (age 40, also already a military commander), did well (until he died of a fever); Domitian, Titus's brother (age 30), seems to have been effective though possibly tyrannical.
It seems a main lesson from the first bunch of Roman emperors was, if the emperor chooses a successor for reasons other than "family", things tend to go well; if there is automatic inheritance, it tends to go badly. But it also seems to go along somewhat with age: Caligula became emperor at 25, Nero at 17.
It's possible that there's unexpected wisdom in the age-35 rule. Still... If someone had been tutored from a young age by great teachers (Alexander the Great was apparently tutored until 16 by Aristotle), then managed to gain a few years' experience running a large chunk of a mid-size company (perhaps by a parent bringing them along to meetings, having staff explain things, then having the kid do research and come up with his own proposals that he delivers in meetings, and ultimately grow into some CxO role) and, by all accounts, running it extremely well; and finally managed to rise to national prominence by, I don't know, identifying a national crisis and getting several companies to work together to fix it, and everyone who's interacted with him says he's great; and if he did this all by the age of 19, would you think he's a worse candidate than the last several presidents of the U.S.?
I've meet people in their late 90s who have more wits than people in their 70s.
I've meet teenagers who were way wiser than adults.
I'm not sure why people are so afraid of letting things run on merit. Can things go wrong that way? Yes. But it's not like the other way is perfect either. And let's be clear, what you are advocating for is discrimination. I've found most people who advocate for that don't do so with intellectual honesty, they like to call it a 'requirement'.
Fair point, I am advocating that we discriminate against would-be presidential candidates below a Constitutional age limit.
In your opinion, at what age should we let people vote? Smoke? Drive? Sign contracts? Drink? Have consentual sex? Get married? Require them to be off their parents' health insurance? Permit catch-up retirement contributions? Allow tax-free withdrawals from IRAs? Allow claiming Social security? Etc.
It would only be fair that people who are subject to adult taxes, regulations and jail should be allowed to participate in the processes that subject them to involuntary actions (such as taxes and jail) - This doesn't only mean voting but being eligible to be voted for - After all taxation without representation was literally the rallying cry of our nations freedom.
Given what we have now, 18. Stupid 18 year olds you say? No problem they won't get elected. What if someone does? Well, then that person is clearly an extremely exceptional 18 year old and might be smarter than both you and I. Basically, meritocratic participation. I'm not sure how someone can argue against it.
Now, if you want to put in a requirement to have some level of public service experience before being president, that is not discriminatory, though it opens up a whole other can of worms - Personally I'm against this, but at least such a requirement would actually make sense in a meritocratic way, instead of just being silly ageist discrimination, which hopefully one day will be seen for being similar to other vile views like racism, sexism and classism.
The rest of your questions aren't really relevant to this point.
> The rest of your questions aren't really relevant to this point.
I disagree. We, as a society, discriminate on age in myriad structural ways because we believe that it is beneficial for both individuals and society as a whole.
Maybe there are exceptional 6-year-olds who should be able to smoke, drive automobiles, and collect Social Security. But I see no reason for our culture to permit them to do so, even if they landed a majority of the Electoral College.
No one is talking about 6 year olds smoking cigarttes. Only you.
We are talking about adults being treated like adults when it's in societies interest (pay taxes, go to war, go to jail), but not being treated like adults when it isn't (get elected) - This is an issue.
The issues you bring up don't cover this issue. These questions are a whatabboutism, bordering on trolling given the extremity.
Specifically, you are responding to the following comment, so any comment that is a sub of this comment is expected to be on topic, which you will see your smoking 6 years olds are most definitively not part of:
"Yeap, and legally enforced age discrimination means we can't actually take many offices.
We can vote for old farts. We just can't be elected.
Double think starts: But that isn't discrimination. Because it is legal. Instead it is called 'age of candidacy'."
-----
Whatabboutims works like this: Person 1 says "adults are being discriminated upon so they can't be part of the political process"
Person 2 doesn't agree, but has no argument. So person 2 states "But what about children smoking? what about pensions? what about..."
Person 2 isn't (an many times can't) answer the point, so they try to highlight that some similar issue is happening in some other place in a way to undermine Person 1's position. But in the end... Person 2 isn't addressing the issue being brought up.
Just because you have the most voters doesn't mean you have the most representation. Feel free to ask minorities in cities for a century how their majorities worked for them.
The counter argument to this is that their representation is arguably higher now than any other time in history, so more representation (falsely) equates to less wealth by your supposition.
> I suspect that a large part of that has to do with student loans
I think that this is not just a USA issue but it is also happening in all Occident. Student loans are just one of the reasons. But, it is bigger than that.
Can't compare UK here, education is free in Scotland, £9k/annually in Wales (Welsh government can provide 67% grant every year, so it goes down to £3.3k), in England it's the most expensive, over £9k/ann and Student Loan Company has highest interest rates there.
That's not correct! If at any point in your life you make more than £25k they will add this tax on you, and your interested on the student loan is still growing, even when you're under £25k.
> In fact, this chart understates how badly things have gone for millennials, because it shows incomes before housing costs.
No, it does not, because the chart is weighted with CPI, which contains the housing cost. According to that chart, the millenials have the best living standards, but I seriously question the quality of the source, where the young adults take-home salary is above £15K, UK-wide.
Couple this along with the fact that millennials are largely choosing to live in cities which have seen the most dramatic cost of living/rent inflation.
Not sure it’s a true choice. It’s either live in the city and earn a 6 figure salary or literally go jobless. Small towns and cities don’t have jobs. If they did we’d see less people living in cities.
They sure do have jobs, but you can't land in a random small city and expect to find a specific pair of specialist jobs. Small cities work great for single-income families that aren't picky about which particular city they end up in. Non-specialist second income is fine too.
Example: There are lots of small cities with openings for librarians, and lots of cities with openings for CNC programmers. It is far more difficult to find a small city with both, so insisting on that sort of two-income situation in a small city isn't going to go well.
The same goes for nearly any kind of skilled employment. The jobs are there, but you can't throw a dart at a map of America and expect to find two very specific job openings in one spot.
This may be one factor driving the urban-rural political split. Single-income families are different from two-income families.
I don't think librarian salary is enough to pay for effectively trailing spouse.
Single income has very real consequences for both spouses (the one giving up work experience and the one being sole provider) and very real risks. It has consequences on familly dynamics and ressentments, especially when bad times hit and money are not to buy what both wants.
Moving wherever philosophy has also very real consequences on relationships and community that forms or rather does not form.
I know a librarian making around $100k in a small city. The job involves knowing ancient Greek and Latin, which surely affects pay.
Perhaps it wasn't the greatest example. It's what popped into mind as a skilled job that isn't just software or finance. Maybe a better example would be a dermatologist, an air traffic controller, a fire investigator, or a civil engineer.
Dual income also has very real consequences for both spouses. It causes plenty of resentment. Typically the woman ends up doing most housework, even if the man intends to do half of it. That right there is a huge source of resentment. Risk of divorce goes up greatly if the woman earns more. Finding affordable child care and ensuring that it is never interrupted becomes a source of stress.
While it is relatively important for the small-city people to be prepared to move, it is normal to stay in one place. Job hopping is less common. Small cities also often specialize in an industry, with several possible employers, so staying put while changing employer is often possible.
The urban environment has its own very real consequences on relationships and community. Residents are typically renters who can find themselves evicted. Because there is such a large mass of anonymous people, relationships are throw-away from the start.
Me being woman, I take dual income over single one in part due to consequences. The negotiation over household work is much better with dual income anyway. So is any other conflict situation, especially those about money.
The risk of divorce with woman earning real money is in part larger, because she has that option. See, the spouse that did not worked for six years have hard time in job market which compels her to stay in bad relationship. Does not even have to be abusive, just a bad one. And I am picking woman here as example, because it is woman who areore often in that situation - and you framed comparatively must smaller female problem as example for some reason. I do more household work is less of a sux then "I would leave if my confidence was not so low and if I had real job options" sux. Divorces do not happen magically. They happen because someone decided it is best solution for their present situation.
The "I am earning money and she does not understand and just do nothing whole day" resentment is real too.
Those are not the words of someone who intends to stay together.
Relationships are not automatic. They require stubborn commitment. If you are planning for an exit, you're going to get one. It is certain that there will be conflict, and you're ready to hit the eject button at the first sign of it. Infatuation does not last, and is thus not a suitable foundation for a mature relationship. Responsible people of integrity do not plan to abandon their commitments.
You plan for divorce from day 1, you unsurprisingly get one, and then you can justify your planning because it happened. This is circular.
I dearly hope you are at least honest about your intentions, and that you pair up with people who are like yourself, and that you have permanent birth control. Anything else would be extremely cruel and selfish. I suspect you're leaving a trail of shattered lives, broken homes, uprooted yet spoiled children, and suicidal exes.
You twisted "I want to have options if this turn bad and want to be on equal footing" to "plan to run away at first small conflict". Nice try to make it personal and recommend me to not have kids. So yes, I need the eject button in case I would marry someone like you and found out only too late. Of course it is good for you when partner does not have option to leave, because then you can respond to conflict the way you responded here and she can only shut up and take insult. Over time, it will affect her in negative way.
It just so happens that kids whose parents stay in bad relationship, whether verbally abusive or violent are not better off. It just so happen that these are more likely to appear when women dont have jobs.
Also, men dies and it is good to have the options in that case. Responsible people do not put themselves into massively vulnerable situation.
Lastly, it was you who tried to make it about women first by "in dual income men often don't pull their weight and therefore in marriage with such men it is better for her to have no income". I guess that assumption is that men who don't listen to her concerns when on dual income will somehow listen to them better in single income situation.
I don't think I twisted anything, given that you said: "Does not even have to be abusive, just a bad one. [...] Divorces do not happen magically. They happen because someone decided it is best solution"
It is nearly certain that a relationship will be bad at times. Much of the reason for marriage is to make it difficult to run off one day when you are frustrated and angry. Problems can be resolved, but not if people give up early. Willingly accepting a state of vulnerability is both a demonstration of commitment and a way to help resist the urge to give up.
Death is why you buy life insurance. You can also buy disability insurance.
If you marry somebody and then find out too late that you don't like them, that is unfortunate. You made that mistake. You need to take responsibility for it. That other person made major life decisions based on your promise to remain until death. That other person gave up their alternative choices for you, and can not now go back to choose differently.
Lots of men really intend to pull their weight with chores, but it doesn't happen. I think this often comes about due to differing standards, not a refusal to listen to her concerns. If both will clean the toilet when they see it dirty, but her idea of "dirty" is a single spot (urine, stray hair, skid mark, etc.) while his idea of "dirty" is that the floor is sticky and the bowl scum is peeling loose in layers, she will end up doing the job. He would clean a dirty toilet, but he never encounters one.
It is quite possible for marriage to be bad enough to leave without the partner being abusive. Abuse is about intentional harm, bad relationship about harm. Life insurance does not pay as much money as you imagine either.
When the reason partner have to stay with you is that she would be too poor otherwise, then it is not solved relationship problem. It is locked down person without freedom in bad situation.
> If you marry somebody and then find out too late that you don't like them, that is unfortunate. You made that mistake. You need to take responsibility for it.
Me taking responsibility for my part here is me leaving. It is also often because the other person makes mistakes and when other one refuses responsibility on them, it is not me. Whether abuse or simply partner who ceases to care about relationship (preferring friends, work, video games, hobby, whatever). That can happen with both genders and does.
Abuse escalates after marriage and after having children - precisely when it becomes harder for partner to leave. Abusers of both genders are not necessary stupid and can be very charismatic until they decide they don't need it anymore.
Same with indifference - the part when one decides checking out of relationship and ignoring partner effectively is good decision. Marriage should not be trap.
These are decisions partner made and may be result of them changing values (new friends, new ideology), they are not merely result of personality.
> Lots of men really intend to pull their weight with chores, but it doesn't happen. I think this often comes about due to differing standards, not a refusal to listen to her concerns.
Differing standards are solved literally by talking and listening to other side. She lowers hers a bit, he raises his a bit. When it is not happening, someone is not listening nor caring about relationship part here. There is the part where he cleans something because she has higher standard or because she asked. Or where he explains that he really thinks she is overdoing and she listen.
Frankly, I know only one man whose idea of clean floor is "sticky" or peeling scum. Not when somebody else is cleaning, not in hotel not in restaurant. I live in a culture that generally expect non sticky floors. The differences are not so much in opinions, but more of in habits and actions.
This idea that "Me taking responsibility for my part here is me leaving." is simply stunning in how upside-down and backwards it is. I'm not sure what the point of marriage is if you show it so little respect. Tax break? Taking unfair advantage of somebody who is more serious about marriage?
Marriage absolutely should be a trap. That is mutual. One enters into this willingly, partly as a demonstration of commitment and partly to help resist one's own urge to be destructive. Willingness to demonstrate a high level of commitment is one factor in obtaining a high-quality spouse. Fewer good-quality spouses will be available if you show signs that you are ready and willing to abandon your spouse.
Remember, you're supposed to stick around even if your spouse is drooling in a wheelchair and smells awful.
I won't claim that that would be perfectly fine, but I don't think it is much different from a megacity dweller being evicted from an apartment. It's not the end of the world to have to move. This shouldn't be so scary. I've done it more than once, and I still prefer the small cities.
Yes but not all cities are equivalent. I can sling code in Houston the same as in San Francisco or New York. While someone always calls out the extremes (as if everyone in SF is a $400k engineer), in general the economics work out in my favor in a cheaper city.
Not just that, but educational attainment in general, demographic changes, economic changes etc.
We've shifted from a population that does not die old, starts working early, stops education early, and does most of its work in the primary/secondary (agri/manufacturing) economy where its most productive when young.
To automating those jobs and shifting to a world where we grow old, stay in school longer, have high returns on education in our tertiary service-based economic productivity levels, which gets us to be most productive in middle age, which also coincides with most of our investments in personal housing equity, retirement funds and paying down debt.
Not a huge surprise that if you take a few age cohorts, that a young one will drop in wealth, while an older one will grow in wealth. Our society lives and works longer, and prepares longer for this work in school, which has more individual-benefits and thus higher individual educational debts at a young age.
As such, I wouldn't be surprised if the wealth-hump didn't just move over a few years. Losing 1/3rd wealth within a certain age cohort (18-35) would be no surprise if half the wealth of 18-35 year olds was generated at 32-35, and this shifted to 35-38. I'd be most interested in seeing a graphical wealth distribution by age, for different generations, then you'd know if this was a story of decline, or a story of shifting the 'prime productivity' age by a few years.
That having been said, my post was mostly on a 100-year historic scale. Things haven't changed quite as much since 1996, but I think it's still mostly linked to the same forces.
At that 75k loan, 8% interest, and 100k salary, if you pay 10% of your salary it takes you 11.5 years to pay off (and you pay almost 40k in interest >50% of principal).
Same numbers, but a 100k loan that goes to 20.25 years to pay off and you pay >100k in interest.
Though to be fair, if we put in the average student loan ($29800) and the average US household income (60309) we bring it down to 6.33 years and ~8k in interest (28% of principal). But it is unlikely that many college graduates are making the median household income as a fresh graduate. If we go to 40k/yr salary then it jumps to 11.5 years and 15k in interest (53%).
This also doesn't take into account that most of these loans are variable interest rates. Considering that, these numbers would put us on the lower side (of someone starting with an 8% interest rate).
The OP simply misspelled 'principal'. By ">50% of principal" they meant that the interest paid over the life of the loan is more than 50% of the original loan amount.
I have read the new wealth of nations by Surjit Bhalla recently. He describes this phenomenon and also includes the reasons of educational and international mobility. Education has been as accessible as never before in the last decades. Further, emancipation (rated "good" by the author") has contributed to more women studying and entering the white color workforce. And globalisation has contributed towards people moving globally to where the jobs are. This has lead to an oversupply of highly qualified people and the stagnation of real wages worldwide. Exceptions are developing countries where demand is still higher and yet is leading towards increasing wages.
The 8% interest on the loans seems high to me. Around here (Poland), a standard credit card is at 10% interest, and student loans should be much safer for the bank.
In the US, 8% is about right for a graduate/professional loan by the federal government[1]. I'm not sure about private/bank loans.
10% interest on a credit card would be pretty low for the US, AFAICT. Most first-time cards come with 23-24% interest, at least when I started searching for one.
It's true. I may have actually been higher for some loans until I got a couple of promotions and had enough of an income increase to be able to refinance to a 5 year 4.75% loan at SoFi. Which itself still feels high as you watch DAILY interest compounding happen.
I lean fairly liberal, but I think we can make significant strides with this issue in the US by simply changing what max interest rates are and how this interest compounds. The way things work right now truly feels like robbery when you're in the thick of it.
We could limit max interest rates. If that had been in place, your loan would have been denied. Would that have been better for you? Might you have then chosen to get an illegal loan at an even higher interest rate from organized crime, with a risk of violence for non-payment?
In the Netherlands, interest rates on student loans are currently 0% (they're tied to the 5 year bond interest rates), and there was a huge outcry when they planned to tie it to the 10 year interest rates instead...
Just checked my direct federal loans (the first source of loan funding for most US college students -- the second is private banks). Interest rate is 4.41%. I was lucky because federal direct loans covered my tuition, but many other students need to take private loans, as well.
It's extortionate, given that they're not dischargable in bankruptcy. There's no good reason for the student loan rate to be more than 1% above the mortgage rate.
Consumer loans with compounding interest should be illegal. The human brain is incapable of conceptualizing it and it results in inescapable debt once a person starts to fall behind on payments.
Also they specifically target people who've never had to deal with such things in practice, and lock them into a multi-year commitment (another thing they've never had to deal with) that they can never get out of while all of society tells them that if they don't do it they'll be a failure.
Even if you understand the abstract math as a teen, it's a bit much to expect someone to make an informed choice about the reality of resolving it over years which they have no experience with, and in a job market that they have no experience with.
It's a high-pressure predatory system with long-lasting consequences that targets the vulnerable.
Another, more optimistic way to describe it is that students are spending more of their wealth to invest in their own human capital, which isn't measured in statistics.
> Another, more optimistic way to describe it is that students are spending more of their wealth to invest in their own human capital, which isn't measured in statistics.
Statistics can measure this fairly easily. Just these particular statistics cited in this article do not.
However, the root of the argument is probably depressing. It is pretty unlikely that all the money spent on higher education produces a true positive return on investment (please do not cite any "college grads make more money" stats without controlling for co-variant effects). Most loans taken out to fund schooling are forms of malinvestment.
Thinking about this a lot, university at the end of a school cursus to develop “human capital” seems a not so great idea.
People live close to 70 years, and the world changes a lot.
So many things that we took for granted 10 years ago are just mistaken now. Anyone
wanting to be well rounded can’t stop learning when getting out of school, whatever school they went to.
Do they learn less by themselves, reading papers and lectures while having a good sense of the how society and the world works from an adult point of view ?
What would happen to someone who only focuses on work related education at school but keeps reading and getting lectures about whatever subject picks their interest ?
Wouldn’t they be in a better place than whoever spent crazy amount of money on a “well rounded” education and goes to the world with the impression they now know most of what they need to know ?
Very few people use many of the concrete facts they learn in college in the normal life. If a college education can be defended from a standpoint of practical usefulness, it must be because it teaches some generalized/abstract "how to think" rather than the specific facts. And if so, that should age much better.
The "aging better part" is where I feel there must be a better way to think about it.
It needs to age better because we tend to think we only get one chance to learn these things. If it was more of a norm to keep learning once in the workforce, there would be less question of making knowledge age, as it would be easier to keep it fresh.
On the other hand I think a 1 year or 2 year specialized course on a very practical subject to enter the workforce is a clever approach, as long a the person keeps learning about the other subjects (history, geography, philosophy, etc.) going along.
Many things being taught in college today will be out-of-date by the time a current college student dies. But I think you're overstating the proportion which that applies to, and discounting the usefulness of that knowledge between now and when it's no longer useful. Most of what's really subject to change is the stuff on the outer edges of fields, which is mostly only being taught to people specializing in those fields. Most of the rest is in relatively new fields (much of computer science) and people in new fields are going to have to work to keep up anyway.
I agree with you when it comes to fields like mathematics, physics where knowledge is basically cumulative and a basic understanding goes a long way.
Then for instance Freud is still studied in philosophical classes, history as we learn it is so basic and biased that the most important parts (the ones that directly affect how we see the world and plan the future) need to be completely reviewed as an adult to have any acceptable grasp of where we are and where we go.
For instance what I learned about the cold war that still stands today could be summarized in a A4 sheet, and we spend a few months on it. The rest just turned out to be mostly propaganda, unbased assumptions and half truths.
Even going back to the greeks and the romans, actually learning about the subject gives a completely different impression that what we got at school. It might be because I'm an adult now, but then what was the meaning of these months spent on it ?
Basically I feel that subjects closely related to humans and society are not well fit for a 3 or 4 year generic program, to be almost useless if it's the only time someone study them.
Is computer science really that subject to change, though? Especially given what most CS graduates end up doing in industry? The tech stack may change, the syntax of the language may change, but the underlying math/theory mostly doesn't.
I think most decent CS programs are roughly the same as they have been for decades.
It should include a lot of math including a few semester of calculus, linear algebra, probability, etc.
Should be forced to take a few of the CE beginner courses like digital logic. And of course, learning low level OS development, networking layers, which includes C and assembly. Algorithms and some sort of numeric computing course using the learned math.
It wasn't until my last year where I had electives that I needed an IDE for dealing with high level languages and frameworks.
But I have a feeling that a lot of CS programs - especially those in lib arts instead of under the engineering schools - have really become watered down and glorified boot camp, and for several reasons.
* need more women and diversity to pass the program.
* colleges are addicted to the foreigners who pay full tuition. Who cares of half of them cheat, can't speak English, can't complete the work - they're paying $100k for that degree. And the smartest ones can be used as indentured servants in the grad school since they can't stay otherwise.
Anyway, when I do interviewing, I have noticed a decline in candidates even if they have a fresh CS degree. Many of them know things like React and Javascript, but are clueless with most of the subjects I wrote about above.
Human capital manifests statistically as employment. It’s not a complete measure of labour but it is very convenient for measuring the natural value of a degree.
Reminder to those down voting this comment. Down votes are for people not contributing to the discussion in a meaningful way. They are not for expressing disagreement. Use the reply button if you disagree with the parent comment.
Is downvote the opposite of upvote? It seems that people upvote comments that are helpful/insightful and that they agree with.
Because upvote and downvote seem like they would be opposites, it's not surprising that people might focus on the negative of "I agree with this comment" instead of the opposite of "this comment is helpful/insightful". The former is easier to measure than the latter.
pg has in the past explicitly endorsed the idea that votes should, to some extent, reflect agreement/disagreement, but he's making a mistake. He has also correctly said the votes should answer the question "do we want more of this on HN?" since that's functionally what they are used for. If anything, we should err on the side of upvoting thoughtful things we disagree with, rather than agree with, since we learn more from that.
The OP should acknowledge that difference, but it's not a good policy to condone downvoting to disagree. It freezes out unpopular points of view and breeds resentment.
I sometimes wonder what it would take for “yellow vest” type protests to happen in the US.
It seems like there’s a combination of shame in talking about money, in being made to feel personally responsible for being in precarious financial situations (e.g. too much avocado toast!), and relatively easy access to consumer credit to numb things over. Or it’s just the “boiling frog” phenomenon where things get slightly worse every year due to everything getting a little more expensive but never sharply enough that it’d create a mass revolt.
> what it would take for “yellow vest” type protests to happen in the US
The solution is simpler. If 18 to 34 year olds simply voted at the frequencies 45 to 64 year olds did [1], our views would form a block worth pandering to. Running as a candidate reducing pensions and alleviating student debt doesn't work because the former will vote you out of office in greater numbers than the latter will vote you in.
I would make student debt dischargeable through bankruptcy and I would also favor the federal government no longer providing, subsidizing, or guaranteeing student loans.
The "cost" of higher education is a sham; with no incentive to ever reduce costs, the cost will always rise to match incoming revenues. Meanwhile, student loans are a predatory mechanism where teenagers are encouraged to take on tens of kilodollars of undischargeable, unsecured debt. This combination has allowed the cost of higher education to grow out of control, backed by the cheap, subsidized credit of millions of Americans. Very reminiscent of the housing bubble, in fact.
As a parent paying college tuition right now I want to agree, but as a professor I see the other side of it. I teach at the graduate level and despite the high tuition we lose money on every student that we accept. It costs a lot to have faculty spending two hours with each student alone in office hours, plus six hours of class time per week, and countless hours of support virtually 18/7 via email.
My time as faculty is just the tip of the iceberg: the cost of the buildings and grounds, IT costs, academic and administrative support, and the costs to support research, let alone student services and things like admissions, career services, etc.
My father was an engineer that spent his retirement volunteering to teach computer skills to anyone who was interested. I will be retiring in a few years and I plan to follow in his footsteps, however humble my contributions may be. I would love to contribute to a change that would make high quality education available to many more people at a much lower costs, but as a long time participant in MOOCs, I am just not sure they are the way.
American universities spend much more on buildings and resources. The kind of gym and pool we bad in our tiny liberal arts college was way better than any college resources of europe. Even public universities here spend tons on non academic costs. Way more than other countries. Sowell covers this in 'inside American education'.
Alleviating debt and making it easier to pay more expensive loans incentivizes colleges to compete to attract students who can now affors higher price points
It is becoming an arms race. Colleges in the USA build these things to attract potential students. If one colleges has them and the nearby comparable college doesn't then the one without looks worse in comparison.
Your report restricted itself to public universities, which of course are more highly affected by governmental funding decisions. Also your journal has an agenda, so it makes sense it wants to secure more federal funding.
Compare that to the Calc1 course from MIT on EdX as well. The algebra course engages you, helps you think through problems, and offers a customized learning path with a virtual tutor. The MIT course is just lecture and reading materials, it's not interactive, and it doesn't help you to discover the topics on your own in the same way that School Yourself does.
I desperately want to see a focused study program from an entity like EdX that takes a person from algebra to discrete mathematics using the model of School Yourself. I also want to see a similar course path for physics and chemistry.
Being a liberal arts major I wouldn't be where I am in technology today if it wasn't for friends, IRC, and places like EdX. I was willing to literally sift through hundreds of hours of content to get here though. Not everyone has that kind of time or interest, we need to make it easier for everyone to learn.
If we can just have a single platform that really focuses on bringing value to the individual and giving them a strong base to work from piece by piece, then we would have so many more mathematicians, physicists, engineers, programmers, etc.., all without crushing student debt. Imagine the innovation that we could realize!
Why do you think college is 10x more expensive now? Seems like maybe some of those expenses are not materially impacting education quality, unless you think that the generation that got us to the moon was working with absolutely substandard educations.
I have a friend who is an advisor at a Big 10 school. While going through the old papers in her office she found the budget of the school from the late 90s. The school's expenses have doubled in that time. Part of it is certainly the amenities arm race. However, the amount of money they get from the state has only gone up by 50%.
> While going through the old papers in her office she found the budget of the school from the late 90s. The school's expenses have doubled in that time. Part of it is certainly the amenities arm race. However, the amount of money they get from the state has only gone up by 50%.
The implication here is usually that the amount of money they get from the state is insufficient to keep up with costs, therefore universities are forced to raise tuition. I don't think this is true. I suspect universities would raise tuition anyway, and if they got more money from the state, they would just increase their costs even more.
Increase in tuition is almost entirely due to pull back in state funding coupled with increased administrative/executive overhead. Vast majority of increase don't go to faculty. Keep in mind tuition has increased by 3.1% each year on inflation adjusted basis [1]. I don't think faculty paychecks have increased by that rate anywhere close.
At least for subjects like math or programming, I think the right way might be self-study (going through a textbook and solving all exercises) plus an hour of one-on-one time with a teacher every couple days to check progress and resolve questions.
When you say you 'see the other side of it' that suggests that you think the status quo is inevitable. But wasn't tuition much cheaper when you were an undergraduate?
I'm sure they make a killing on undergrads though. I can't imagine losing money when you're paying adjuncts a few grand to teach a class of 60 students.
We do not have many adjuncts so I don’t think we actually lose less money on undergraduates. If it were not for the generosity of alumni and an endowment built over two centuries then I am not sure how we would stay afloat.
> I would make student debt dischargeable through bankruptcy and I would also favor the federal government no longer providing, subsidizing, or guaranteeing student loans.
I completed a Bachelor and Master degrees at a top 50 world-ranked university with an (Australian) government sponsored loan of, by graduation, around $30k USD, that I never would've had a hope of funding privately at that point in my life (or honestly any point after if I had never gotten the degree and hence a high-paying job).
My loan is not dischargeable through bankruptcy, and is repaid as a percentage of taxable income (~10% at the top tier), and not repaid at all if you earn below a threshold a few multiples above the poverty line. The "interest" is actually just inflation as the cash rate from the reserve bank is applied to the outstanding balance at year end. My interest last year was $800 AUD on a $40k AUD balance.
I disagree that the problem is specifically easy access to capital. There is a value in attending university; it creates an educated population which benefits everyone. I believe the core of the problem in the US is the lack of appetite for regulation and government intervention leading to a situation where the government guarantees private capital to fund things that they don't control the cost of. This creates a reason for the lender to discount the risk of the debt (because the government guarantees it by making it undischargeable) leading to capability for borrowers to get bigger loans. Universities quickly cottoned on and billed more for less, and the cycle continues until it (eventually) collapses.
The cost of degrees in Australia are easily regulated as the majority of universities are government institutions. There is one private university but the government loan limits are often not enough to finish a 4 year degree there so in reality only rich kids whose parents wish to buy them business connections attend.
I think it's the government guaranteeing loans to expensive institutions are the problem, not that people are getting degrees. Why remove all government loan assistance? Just stop giving it to people who want to go to private universities.
The argument for student debt not being dischargable is to stop lots of people declaring bankruptcy upon graduation.
You can repossess a house or a car, but you can't repossess a degree.
If there was an option of cancelling a degree (either because of bankruptcy or user disatisfaction) this could perhaps work for vocational degrees or where the degree is 100% signalling.
If some kind of learning took place - how do you give that up?
An idea is to make universities add some skin in the game and personally fund a portion of student loans for their students along with bankruptcy provisions for those loans.
You can think of the whole cosmopolitan urban vs salt-of-the-earth rural aspect of American politics as one example. Or southern identity/culture. “As a veteran who served”/“As a parent”, or the cross-denomination “moral majority”— it’s all based around the idea that your lived experience as something shapes your political perspective and is intrinsically valuable to the political conversation.
And even Occupy: was occupy simply making a statement about economic politics or was it the identity of “the 1%” or “Bankers” vs the rest of Americans? These categories were somewhat arbitrary and basically represented which group you identified with.
That's what I mean by defining the phrase so broadly it becomes useless. You can say, "I am, and I have an identity, therefore my politics is identity politics." However, identity politics is specifically when the tribal motivations exceed and dominate all other motivations. It's similar to how islands are not called bodies of water even though soil contains water.
> However, identity politics is specifically when the tribal motivations exceed and dominate all other motivations.
Then the term "identity politics" shouldn't be applied. But even if we accept that extremely narrow view: there are numerous political segments that are notorious for doing what you describe across the political spectrum. Most notable the rural Scotch-Irish, often criticized for routinely voting against their self-interest and instead choosing to vote for pols who simply provide them cultural validation and do nothing to address their material concerns.
Parent should have been more specific: all politics is identity politics in a multi-ethnic and multi-religious state. The USA of the Vietnam war no longer exists, and isn't comparable to the USA of today.
In a nation state, politics tend to be divided more on ideological and regional lines, because everyone shares an identity.
This is very weird comment. Are you saying that the USA was not a multi-ethnic/multi-religious state in the 1960s?
In a nation state, politics tend to be divided more on ideological and regional lines, because everyone shares an identity.
There has never been a "nation" where everybody shares an identity in the sense discussed above.
The comment makes sense, but the US isn't best example. Although last century the US was somewhat dominated by one identity (which is now waning and leaving room for others to grow) it has always been multi-ethnic and multi-religious.
A better example would be European nations like Hungary, which have reinforced their national identities in the face of the recent migrant crisis.
We've asked you repeatedly to stop doing ideological flamewar on HN. A crazy number of times actually. Would you please really stop now so we don't have to ban you?
If you define "British origin" to include Irish Protestants, which is reasonable.. But the country was barely 50 years old by the time that cultural hegemony started eroding as German, Dutch, Irish-Catholics, etc poured into the country.
There's even an infamous 1899 political cartoon that asks "Why should I let these freaks cast whole votes when they're only half American?"[1]
The fact is, the US has spent a majority of its existence feeling like there's an immigration and/or integration crisis, starting in the mid-1800s with Irish-Catholics and stretching to the modern day with Latin-American immigrants.
Really? One thing that is starkly contrasted today vs. even 10 years ago.
People used to be able to listen, understand, empathise and compromise with those that they don't agree with. Showing a due amount of respect for people. This has been sorely lost with the tail end of the Millennial generation, and it shouldn't be surprising that nothing of value is being accomplished at all imho.
I may not agree with all politicians, but there are some I feel that I genuinely respect. Those who lean on identitarian tribalism are not in the list.
* Force ever expanding identitarianism view
* Force corporations to align with their views
* Make anti-semetic statements while supporting other religions
* Seek to ignore the foundations of government and the press
* Work to displace government
* Are willing to use physical violence to accomplish their goals
?
This is probably as true today as at any time in the past. What has changed, for the worse, is the definition of "other" identities (those that are not our own).
What did "rural america" mean to "city dwellers" in the 1970s? What does it mean now? I'd guess the definitions most of us carry in our minds have narrowed.
I heard (and take this with a bucket of salt) that the aim of the ruling class is to de-economize politics, and de-politicize the economy. I.e. don't let pesky democracy get in the way of capital.
As long as their is cheap food, cheap gas and television there will be no mass revolt in the US.
Few are willing to risk their life when they ride around in their F150 picking up cheeseburgers, fries and a large drink for <$10 on the way home to watch the game… or whatever. That’s the real power of America that so many underestimate. You can placate 90% of the population with that alone.
Take away any ONE of those things the US will spiral into anarchy in mere weeks.
>
Few are willing to risk their life when they ride around in their F150 picking up cheeseburgers, fries and a large drink for <$10 on the way home to watch the game… or whatever. That’s the real power of America that so many underestimate. You can placate 90% of the population with that alone.
And no wonder. It's the lifestyle that billions of people in countries other than US can only dream of. A lot of them are risking their lifes to be able to live this dream.
And narcotics and antidepressants to handle chronic pain and PTSD. Having spent the last month on the West Coast I have started to think these might have a real dampening effect on violence potential.
Definitely a culture & behaviour mix that keeps people from acting in their best interest. Might be that the current offline/online social platforms don't allow what's needed to occur. Friends might talk about being tight on finances for a day but what else will come of it?
Here in suburbs of New York, if you have no college degree, most of jobs will pay you $12/hr, some decent employers will pay $15/hr but if you get lucky and have some useful experience you can find something for $18/hr which result in around $2400 paycheck every 4 weeks of work.
Most 1br apartments are around $1500/mo.
Car (Lease+Insurance+Gas) is $500/mo roughly.
After groceries there is literally no money left to go out.
How the fuck are we supposed to build up net worth?
Why would someone making $2400/monthly after taxes rent a $1500/mo apartment on their own? I'm not sure they'd even qualify because most landlords require at least 2-2.5x gross income. Renting a room with other housemates, or splitting rent on a 1-bedroom with a partner/SO is probably a better idea in that situation.
I hate to sound callous but... no? Why would everyone be entitled to live in a 1bd apartment in the middle of the most expensive cities in the US?
From a strict supply/demand question, there are vastly more people in the country that might want a 1bd in SF than there are 1bd apartments. If not by price, how else are you going to allocate them?
Someone working a full-time job should be able to support at least themselves, if not a family. If you contribute half your waking life to supporting society, and in a role that society has determined is needed enough to employ you at, then what society gives you in exchange should be at the very least enough to support yourself. It's just a basic standard of a decent society.
That doesn't imply that "everyone should be entitled to whatever they want" in the negative way you're thinking of.
Not long ago I lived in Morehead, Kentucky while my wife finished up nursing school. We lived in a cute 2bd house walking distance from downtown for $425/mo. Our grocery bills were $120/week and included meat/fish, fresh veggies, and wine for every meal. We did a lot of hiking and rock climbing. I learned to play the banjo.
It's not a booming economy but they have the same minimum wage jobs that they have everywhere else. If you are content with that (and I say this without judgement - many people get their life's meaning outside of work) then there are plenty of places in the US where you can have a comfortable life. Just not expensive cities.
I don't think $1500 is what it now costs to live in the middle of some cool city, but basically that's what it costs to live deep in suburbia in any city with a lot of jobs. It's not just SF or NYC, but pretty much all major metros in the top 20 or so.
In DC, I might pay $2500 to live in a decent 1BR in a hip part of the downtown area.
Or I could pay $1500 to live 40 miles away with a 90 minute commute and $5 in tolls, each way, in some new developer community.
There is no $1k 1BR apartment anywhere in the metro,
unless I'm sharing a room off Craigslist or living with illegals or college kids in a house share.
For a late 30s, single professional with a decent salary in the US, not only is it kind of depressing that buying a home is nearly impossible nowadays in the same cities where a our parents easily afforded it with similar jobs but also a few kids, but it's becoming increasingly difficult to even assume my own private tiny apartment.
> I don't think $1500 is what it now costs to live in the middle of some cool city, but basically that's what it costs to live deep in suburbia in any city with a lot of jobs. It's not just SF or NYC, but pretty much all major metros in the top 20 or so.
$1260 will get you a 1br in downtown Atlanta.[1]
In Midtown, which is much nicer, a 1br will run you $1400-1600.[2] From personal experience, there are also some not-so-nice parts of Midtown where you can rent a whole 2br house for that much.
If you're willing to drive a bit you can get a 1br for around $900.[3] It takes 12-28 minutes to get from here to downtown in rush hour traffic.
I just looked at those links - none of them were even close to $900. They had crazy ranges like $1400-$2000 / month, so even at the cheapest, with fees, you're looking at $1500 to live in a general suburban area where you'd definitely need a car.
And this is Atlanta, which for the last 10 years has been one of those 'cheaper' cities that millennials have been told to move to because the coasts are too expensive.
I make over 6 figures and could easily afford a 1 BR, but like I said, it's kind of depressing that a professional in his late 30's who supposedly makes in the top 90% of salaries is now considering a $1500 tiny apartment in a 'cheap city' to be obtainable.
Or a one bedroom that is 45 minutes by public transit from the heart of DC all for less than $1200/month? Seems you're exaggerating your extremes.
Now, I haven't checked all 567 listings, personally, but I have to assume at least one of them isn't a listing for a room with "illegals or college kids", or any other group you find objectionable as roommates.
Not sure if you're being humorous or probably just not familiar with DC. Both of those cozy apartments are in SE DC. I'm being a 100% serious when I say that if I moved to those apartments, as a white guy, I'd almost certainly be a victim of violent crime within a few months. I wouldn't even get off the metro in those neighborhoods.
> you dont think a human being with a full time job in the first world country deserves basic privacy of 1br apartment?
That's an entirely different question, and I don't know the answer to it. I do know $18/hr isn't enough to pay for that in NY though. It would be great if wages would go up or rent, become cheaper so it could happen.
More generally, I see nothing wrong in a single person, with no children, needing to share a house for a few years until they establish themselves financially. There are many people with far higher pay than $18/hr who live with roommates, or parents, until they have enough saved up to buy and move out. I've done it myself. And I think historically speaking (I could be wrong about this), people have always lived with family or rented a room (even shared a room) until they got married - Western society has only changed in that regard in the past 50-60 years.
Are you using flawed social policy to justify a bad decision? Yes, people do deserve that. but the system is messed up and that's the reality and it's going to take till long time to change that, like all societal shifts. In the meantime, you can't just make decisions as if you lived in a perfect world. Unless you like fucking yourself over.
im not asking for advice how to save money. if you read the article its about not being able to build up net worth. I dont want to be living a pathetic life in shared apartments to build up net worth? what is that net worth good for if I didnt get a chance to afford a decent life? to take it to the grave with me?
* Move to a city that isn't so expensive
* cut the car in favor of a transit pass and save the difference
* get a roommate or partner to split costs with
* Night/online schooling
* self-driven training
* get into a trade/craft job
Trade jobs deserve more respect than they get. Skilled labor is in short supply, nearly guaranteeing vocational school graduates steady work and good income (especially in construction/machinery fields). Not to mention about $100k less spent on tuition vs college bachelor's degree.
Absolutely agreed... also, they're largely automation proof (at least in the near term). Trade jobs are probably a better option than University for a lot of people, and I'm surprised it isn't a recommended path more often.
I assume you mean suburbs of New York City, as the suburbs in the rest of the state are not nearly expensive. Rent for a 1 bedroom apartment will be much closer to $800 (and I'm not so sure the job prospects in a NYC suburb is substantially better than a Rochester/Buffalo/Syracuse/Albany suburb given how expansive, and thus difficult to commute into, the city is?).
yeah, I was referring to Long Island in particular but I have been to Albany a lot and I have friends living there. Not sure about other areas but Albany
doesn't have as many good paying jobs as suburbs of NYC has to offer, in my observations.
First, "dropped" is sort of a misleading term since it's not saying anyone actually has lost money. Rather, the cohort of Americans in that age group has less money than previous cohorts did at that age.
Second, 18 to 35 is sort of a crazy range, it seems to me, since the net worth of the group is likely going to be dominated by those in their 30s who are mid-career.
Lastly, it's unsurprising that those who began their career in the throws of the 2008 collapse were stunted, relative to basically any other group.
> Second, 18 to 35 is sort of a crazy range, it seems to me, since the net worth of the group is likely going to be dominated by those in their 30s who are mid-career.
And yet, it still
> has dropped 34%
If you break it down to two sub-demographics, I suspect there'd be an even larger disparity within e.g. 18-25 than there is with 26-35 for reasons such as student loans, but 18-35 would seem appropriate for what's perhaps an overgeneralized view of when most career trajectories and preferences plateau/harden.
Not sure if it's at all related to the key TV demographic of 18-34, but that wouldn't surprise me either for largely the same reason (hardening of preferences).
But I think that's kinda the point. People were previously building more wealth at a time in their lives when said wealth would have a more profound impact as they approached retirement age some number of decades later. The current generation occupying that demographic has been tragically stunted by stagnation in wage growth + inflation of education charges, and here in the United States, this may well impose a cascading detrimental impact on the health of the economy as a whole.
> If you break it down to two sub-demographics, I suspect there'd be an even larger disparity within e.g. 18-25 than there is with 26-35 for reasons such as student loans, but 18-35 would seem appropriate for what's perhaps an overgeneralized view of when most career trajectories and preferences plateau/harden.
My point is exactly that I don't think it's likely that 18-25 would show an even larger disparity, since my suspicion is that the disparity is driven entirely by those who began their career during the Great Recession. 18-25 year olds, who began their career as the economy was heating up, wouldn't show the same. But I'd love to see the data to know if that's the case.
From what I have seen, very few people prioritize paying off their student loans. But in any case, I would expect that the net worth of most in the 18-35 age bracket is negative, except maybe for those people in their late 20s that haven't yet bought a home and are still saving up for a down payment. On the front end, you have student loan debt, plus they haven't worked long enough to generate any savings, while on the back end, they might have some 401k savings invested, but they would have mortgages with little equity that would dominate the calculation.
The percentage is very misleading because you can have a negative net worth. The average could be $1, in which case you get a 500% increase by giving everyone $5.
That doesn't discount the article entirely, but I wish people would stop using misleading statistics for completely valid points. It really ruins your argument.
I'd almost be more interested in the change in variance across time. If education costs are the main factor, and the top 10-20% (? estimate) have parent's who pay for college, you'd think this might be yet another factor exacerbating inequality.
I'd also be much more interested in a more detailed net worth distribution over time. Reminds me of the quote Nassim Taleb is fond of, "Never cross a river that is on average 4 feet deep".
Averaged across 10’s of millions of people and even 100$ is quite significant. It’s not that everyone has X$ less, some people have more and others have significantly less.
It's almost as if guaranteeing loans to for for profit institutions which receive the money that is printed out of thing air is going to exacerbate social inequality!
Don't get me wrong, 18 year olds are generally stupid (I was at that age), but blaming them seems like the kind of thing the profiteers from this mess would want. It's also not a very logical position. It's almost as if this type of idea would be something a propagandist would want to disseminate.
I think we’re on the same page here. To really stretch an analogy, if I were to leave a taser with a small child they shouldn’t taser themselves, but I’m clearly (and Unironically) the asshole for giving them the taser.
I am simultaneously feeling privileged and horrified. My net worth is substantially above $8k, i have a reasonable income, and i’m feeling stressed about money most days and will remain unable to buy property in the city that has the best and most jobs for my profession for the foreseeable future.
There is nothing preventing you from exploring. You can be a big fish in a small pond. And because they know your worth, they won’t treat you as disposable.
It blows my mind away that in America student loans have a higher interest rate than car loans and housing loans. That’s a country intentionally ruining the next generation’s chance of making the county better.
Coming from Australia, this really makes me cringe.
Just cause of collateral. You can impound a car, foreclose on a mortgage, sell it and get back much or most of your money, which is why rates can be a lot lower. You can't compound on a college dropouts partial knowledge. And given there are various ways to get the loan forgiven, and with college dropout rates being as high as they are, and given the (popularity and) volume of degrees with low financial returns...
Fact is, most studies show that the returns on education in the US are quite high, higher than much of the rest of the world.
Where I am from (EU), you're not dissuaded to pursue a degree with low financial returns. My college fees are 10k in total for the entire bachelor+master's programme, and you can borrow 50k during those 4 years currently at 0% interest. I love it, but our returns on education are quite a bit lower than in the US because we subsidise things that don't work, or prevent it from failing, and incentivise people to study things they don't need or have no economic value. And it doesn't necessarily make the country better off.
I'm not saying economic value is the only metric that counts, there are other reasons why I'm in favour of pretty strong educational subsidies. But there's also benefits to the US system too that we don't have. And it's too easy to say the US is intentionally ruining the next generation, that's just not true.
>Just cause of collateral. You can impound a car, foreclose on a mortgage, sell it and get back much or most of your money, which is why rates can be a lot lower.
If it follows that the interest should be higher on a more risky investment, then why are student loans (that are unforgivable) not essentially free? As they should be basically a zero risk investment since they follow the person around forever, through bankruptcies etc.
Unforgiveable doesn't mean it'll be paid back. If someone goes bankrupt and can't forgive a loan, it's more likely that they'll continue to miss interest payments while also never paying back the principal, which just keeps building up. Typically loans line that get written off internally as a loss, or sold at a loss to a debt collector, even if the loan isn't forgiven to the borrower, it'll be a loss and therefore a risk event for the lender.
These numbers makes me wonder if the gap among young people also is growing. Meaning we have more poorer and richer young people than "middle-class" young people!
I would also like to see the distribution, since the metric in the article is average. My guess is that it's flatter or more spread, like you say. It's not that the average worth has dropped, but the worth gap has also grown.
Along with older retirees, younger generations seem to be supportive of distributive policies that are going to tax them more during their highest earning years and shift more wealth to other groups.
I don't see this trend changing anytime soon without more fundamental change.
I have much greater income security and compensation than my parents achieved and at a far younger age despite having less education. The biggest difference is a practiced skill. It takes lots of time, often without compensation, to build a desired skill.
Not really, but the short of it is that I gave up my career as a successful software dev in the bay area and sold everything I own to work in diving.
I used to hate getting up in the morning and was consumed with stress about trivial work bullshit. These days I work in the South Pacific and split my time between environmental projects and training new divers.
It's not going to make me rich, at all, but I honestly don't care. I would trade the decade I wasted in front of computer screens to have started doing this a few years earlier.
Most financial growth comes from home ownership/equity. The debt from student loans has also skyrocketed in line with tuition rate increases since around that time. Those to factors probably account for all of the difference. Starting off deeper in debt with debt that doesn't lead to equity gains for most people.
On one side it's depressing, but on the other side it's not as harsh as media wants us to believe in recent years. -30% is not "one house and 2 cars less than the parents", as many articles claimed over at least 2018.
TLDR; Education expenses have climbed 65 percent in the past decade. Food costs have jumped 26 percent, health care is up 21 percent, housing jumped 16 percent and transportation rose 11 percent. And there are now expenses that most consumers didn’t have to account for 20 years ago, including smartphones and data plans.
Not a surprise when you consider that more people are spending money to go to college, where they are mostly taught to be poor (spend money on school, rely on a job for income, spend your money on a house, do what you love, etc.)
This is highly misleading, the demographics of the USA were quite different 23 years ago which means that 18-35 cohort of today isn't comparable to the 18-35 cohort of 1996 in any coherent way. These changes can only be understood in the larger context of a dynamic system, not just comparing static snapshots.
Is there a solution to this "problem" that doesn't involve taking the hard-earned wealth away from people 55 and older who carefully planned and saved so they can enjoy themselves?
Yes, leave the hard-earned wealth and take away the grifted wealth from billionaires who got bailed out by the government and continue to be subsidized by the FED and the US taxpayer.
You say that, but the reality is that the 55 year olds are largely doing the opposite, taking from the young and healthy to support their Social Security benefits, their insurance, etc.
The 55 year olds aren't taking from the young via Social Security and Medicare, they already payed in and are still paying in. The 65+s also already payed in and they're just getting back what they paid for.
We have propaganda about things like this, but direct observation has been made over a number of decades and today's 55 year olds who will one day start collecting Social Security Retirement and/or begin benefitting more from their health insurance than they are paying in, are still not behaving very differently than 55 year olds at the time going back quite a bit into the previous century.
These are the 55 year olds who are still paying in to their respective Social Security and insurance plans, otherwise they would not be the ones that will receive significant benefits later.
Of course eventually as each individual reaches 65 and is eligible for full benefits, the true actual worth and buying power of those benefits has always been gradually declining.
To the point where you might have been better off without having these earnings immediately removed from your pay right off the top all along by the enforcing authorities.
And without having any need for a Social Security number.
The fundamental flaw with our Social Security is that the entire bureaucracy, infrastructure, business cash flow, collections & distributions is based on taxes on income rather than commerce.
Like a lot of things, but with SS it's even worse since only the lowest-income workers have their entire income taxed. As higher-earning pay levels are achieved, a decreasing percentage of earned income is taxed for SS purposes.
Regardless, with SS as one of the UBI systems with proven long-term functionality, it's too bad the full untaxed BI is still only universal for the 65 & over paid members in good standing, and only if they actually quit earning other income and truly retire.
And too bad it's not enough for a senior citizen to live on, so it's not up to quite basic levels but it's something.
This is because there are bigger tentacles that have been reaching into your pockets during your working years starting decades earlier in the 20th century than the FICA has been doing it.
If you do the math considering these resources, there is no excuse for not having gradually extended full benefits to much younger ages in a direct march toward full UBI. These have been the most highly productive hard working people in the most prosperous country in the modern history of my home planet.
Same with Medicare, it could have gradually reduced age of eligibility and achieved higher levels of health coverage for a more universal portion of the citizens far ahead of any less propsperous nation.
This all would have only required that an affordable portion of the resources were invested wisely to the advantage of the citizens from the outset, and only somewhat wisely at that. Markets can do amazing things, enough wealth was removed from working citizens before Nixon to have been leveraged to full UBI sometime between then & now, even using a no-brainer approach.
And when there's no excuse, you tend to get a lot of propaganda.
Even if you work for Apple, be careful about reality distortion effects.
College debt is one of the reasons that decided to leave the U.S. After I saw the injustice of the federal gov't bailing out morally corrupt banks and Wall St. institutions circa 2008 while leaving me to hang by my college debt, I said enough. One of the best decisions I ever made. Gave me perspective, gave me freedom. The U.S. is giant penal colony.
Did you pay it off or was leaving the country a form of abandoning your debt responsibility?
Don't get me wrong. I think it's insane to have an education system this dysfunctional. I think some people get institutionalized and just kind of see college debt as how the universe works.
I have partially repaid my loans, but now I have been postponing the repayments while I struggle with the idea of defaulting. I feel guilty doing so, but I also think that when I took on the loans I was too young to understand the implications and, as you mention, was "brainwashed" into thinking this was the only way to go. My family was too poor to pay for my college, so this was my only "choice." So while large corporations and the rich can privatize gains and socialize their costs, we peons are on the hook 100%, with a large predatory capitalist system stacked against us.
Single biggest purchase and wealth building instrument is buying REAL ESTATE / HOUSE.
Most millennials are not leaving on the streets homeless. They are paying high rent prices = money wasted = money that could have been going towards building their wealth long term, towards their homes.
High education costs prevented them from buying homes early which in turn impacted their net worth long term.
Simple example: If you buy a house in an average area when you are 30 - by 35 you have at least $50,000 that you paid towards your net worth (assuming very budget 1000/month mortgage).
Whats happening instead today? High housing costs and debt load from education prevent younger generation from bulding their wealth early through real estate. Something previous generations enjoyed.
We need more affordable housing, we need to change building codes and zoning laws to allow construction of affordable homes easily (that younger folks/families/singles can afford to buy). We need to build out infrastructure!
This is a very narrow definition not taught in accounting.
"Asset", "Liability", and "Net worth" are words with very specific meanings.
An asset is something that has value. (producing income isn't a requirement) A liability is an expense. An item can be both an asset (your home has a value) and a liability (the mortgage). The net worth is the difference.
According to accountants the food in my fridge and the cocaine on the table is an asset. Even credit card debt can be an asset according to the accountants. Accounting expenses as assets just because you can sell them is stupid.
Let’s divide the things that earn money from the things that cost money. Some of those things you can own. If they are a thing you own but cost money and you plan to consume it (house, car, food) it’s a liability. If they are thing you own that earns money or you plan on selling for profit it’s an asset.
A home could be an asset, but they usually aren’t. People don’t buy homes to sell them at a profit or rent them out, they buy them to consume/live in them (like a car). Thus they’re a liability. Most people buy a mortgage not a home, so no the house they live in is definitely not their asset. It’s the banks asset, and their mortgage is a huge liability.
You've taken "Rich dad, poor dad" too literally it seems. A house can be an asset or liability, depending on its use. If you live in it, it certainly earns you something, it replaces the need for renting a space to live in. If you own it and don't use or rent it, it can be a liability if it's not even a suitable investment vehicle (e.g. with stable or falling prices).
> A house can be an asset or liability, depending on its use.
A house, per se, is an asset. It may or may not have liabilities attached to it. (Or produce maintenance expenses, which is a different thing altogether.)
> If you own it and don't use or rent it, it can be a liability if it's not even a suitable investment vehicle (e.g. with stable or falling prices).
You seem to have confused a depreciating asset with a liability.
I know I graduated with $75k loans at 8% interest. Even with say, a $100k salary, just the interest eats ~7% of the income. With the total payments being somewhere around 12% of your income. Combine that with increased taxes over the same time and a 34% reduction in worth seems about right (if we account for the loss in compounding interest from buying a home, 401k investments, etc)