
Young People Need Another Gold Rush - pdog
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-08-30/america-s-young-strivers-could-use-another-gold-rush
======
pavel_lishin
> _This lack of opportunities could create more pessimism and disaffection
> than economic conditions warrant. An increasing body of economic research
> shows that people tend to form extrapolative expectations -- they expect
> recent trends to continue forever. Overoptimism is also a common
> psychological bias. Booms make a lot of young, energetic Americans believe
> that they’re going to get rich. On the one hand, this causes inevitable
> disappointment when the froth dissipates. But as long as there’s a gold rush
> somewhere in the economy, big dreamers can dream big._

So America needs another slot machine we can present to our youth to appease
their cognitive biases?

~~~
nsxwolf
Perhaps we should find ways of making them feel good about living in tent
cities?

~~~
altotrees
There has to be some middle ground between these ideas, surely.

~~~
nsxwolf
It seems to me a crime to tell a young, vibrant person "don't get too excited"
and manage their expectations for life way down.

Same as you'll never get me to give up delicious food by handing me a bottle
of Soylent.

~~~
altotrees
No, I totally agree with that sentiment. Things have changed for our younger
generation and sadly in most cases, not for the best. It blows my mind
sometimes to think of my grandfather working a factory job with my grandmother
not working while raising 8 children. Oh, and they owned their own home which
was a nice middle-class abode and also drove decent (but not luxury) cars.
Grandfather retired at 58. Grandmother died at 86, some money still in the
bank.

So yes, things have changed for many reasons. Our middle class, outside of
those in a few booming sectors is struggling, if not outright choking. College
is becoming a no-win proposition for some and at 33, I certainly am not
expecting a life like that of my grandparents or great-grandparents, for
better or worse. So I get it. I was just pointing out that there is a middle
ground between those two viewpoints on either end, and perhaps, just perhaps a
solution is somewhere in that terrain.

I'm not holding out hope though, as there are so many forces at work right now
and...yeah our leadership is making me a bit nervous.

^These observations is all America-centric, I know that. I don't pretend to
know how things are for every young person globally and don't want to act like
I do.

~~~
Domenic_S
You can still get close to that today, even outside of tech. Tradespeople make
plenty of dough.

The problem though is survivorship bias: plenty of people in the '50s and '60s
were poor, or didn't buy their own house, or etc... and likewise plenty of
"kids today" are doing well.

------
quxbar
This article should be titled 'almost all remaining economic opportunity has
been systematically monopolized by large corporations'

~~~
sametmax
Which is completely false, and have been said for ever from people not seeing
opportunities or unwilling to pay the price for them.

I get a new business opportunity every month. The fact that I'm not a
millionaire is not because of the lack of it, but because I failed in some way
I could clearly see after the fact.

~~~
Zigurd
This is where the money went: [http://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-
gap/](http://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/)

Without addressing this, millennials are right to think capitalism screwed
them. Safe bet: someone here will say it's the fault of heavy handed
government regulation.

~~~
danblick
That chart is interesting, but I'm not sure how to interpret it.

I think the authors are suggesting, "people are not being paid in line with
what they produce."

I think the chart may show something else, which is "an increasing amount of
work is being automated (and goods are produced by no one in particular), and
this benefits owners rather than workers."

If I make widgets and you build a robotic cog factory, why should my wages go
up?

~~~
danblick
Another issue: If you want to argue "we all deserve a share of productivity
increases", then who is "we"?

Does the local community deserve to benefit from the automated cog factory?
Does the state? Do all Americans? All humans? Those with coercive power?

It bugs me sometimes that you can argue "let's all share the wealth" but do it
in a self-interested way by making a choice about who deserves what.

~~~
Zigurd
In a democracy it depends on what the people prefer.

This article claims that without some kind of vivid lottery capitalism that
makes people think "I'm not being screwed, I'm a temporarily embarrassed
millionaire" people might become jaded regarding a US-style economy and choose
a more socialized system that produces, for example, Germany-like income
distribution rather than US-like income distribution.

Economies produce what they are designed to produce. The design and
implementation of the US economy has been captured by capital, and produces
results optimized toward the advantage of capital. That's a brittle situation,
and a "gold rush" is a cynical response.

------
alextheparrot
I don't know about others, but growing up during the recession made me
extremely defensive in terms of my risk taking and spending. I view risk as a
luxury that is bought, buying the ability to mitigate the personal downsides.
A gold rush is a bandaid, a lottery winners dream, to create the freedom to
take risk.

I know, risk is something that is most easily taken by the young, the
uninhibited, the unindentured, but many of us are indentured to loans,
inhibited by our memories, and too busy trying to get old safely to act young.

------
lithos
Reads a little like "we need people to sell shovels and gold pans to, while
simultanously keeping the young distracted enough to stay out of our
politics".

~~~
pm90
When has that NOT been the case? :)

Until WW1, war was seen as a part of life, and for serving in the military was
seen as brave, noble thing for young men to do. Even now, we expect most young
people to start at the bottom and move up "through hard work" while the scions
of the rich start at great positions and build a career without ever having to
do minimum wage (exception is certain careers that require skills and are
booming, such as technology).

And while the young people are struggling to meet ends meet, they have even
less time for politics, participation etc.

------
adventured
If we're talking about America's youth, they need three things.

1) A functional healthcare system like any of the other half a dozen good
alternative approaches in other developed nations.

2) For the government to stop inflating the cost of education by enabling
universities to raise their prices outside of market forces (eg income growth)
via perpetually greater government loan backing. Compare the median income vs
median tuition costs, just from the late 1990s vs today, the government made
that imbalance possible. For a century the US had very reasonably priced
universities (40 years ago you could pay for an Ivy League education with a
part-time job), that ended in the very early 2000s when the government
inflation run took off (exactly in tandem with healthcare inflation and dollar
debasement under the Bush Administration, which you can see represented in the
commodity bubbles, housing, gold and the dollar GDP of every other nation
soaring simultaneously from the year 2001 to 2008).

3) Significantly improved cities. More people from rural America need to be
encouraged to move into urban centers, to resolve the opportunity & quality of
life gap (such as falling life expectancy in rural US) that is widening
between the two. That includes improving infrastructure, transportation, and
available housing supply (entailing, among other things, pushing back against
overly aggressive zoning laws used to restrict housing). Urban improvement /
renewal, would benefit basically every demographic, including poor black
communities that are being persistently hammered by extreme violence.

A possible #4 candidate, would be to continue ending the war on drugs,
shifting to treating addiction as a health matter and decriminalizing or
legalizing all drugs. Sentencing reform and police reform would also go with
that item.

Doing these things would radically improve the circumstances for America's
youth as a whole.

~~~
corporateslave3
So bigger government is the solution? All of those are manifestations of a
communist/socialist society.

~~~
Riesling
When americans are discussing politics they are always missing the point. At
least from the outside perspective.

It's like two parties arguing about football. One side is saying, we need to
abolish referees, the players should sort problems out themselves. The other
party is saying the referees need more power and instruments in order to
better control the game.

The simple truth is, people need to make sure that the referees work for
__them __and not for the individual players who hand them the most money.

~~~
CryptoPunk
That assumes the referee should be in control of private resources and
decisions, instead of simply ensuring all parties are abiding by the rule of
not violating each other's property rights and of fulfilling their contractual
obligations. That _IS_ a normative position that not everyone accepts.

------
QAPereo
I'll be honest the only time I've heard the word "Strivers" it was being used
to mock just the kind of patronizing mindset found in this article. I'm sure
it _would_ be lovely to rest on an economic boom created by a risky new
venture filled with young "expendables'" in the same way that some people pine
for a world war to stiffen up the economy; it borders on evil.

------
chamza
As a millennial, I have observed a few perceived 'gold rushes' for individuals
in my age group (25) and younger. I am defining 'gold rush' as an exponential
growth of capital:

-Creating a technology startup / business

-Becoming YouTube famous and selling 'your own brand'

-Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cryptocurrencies

~~~
dwild
Yeah, I remember talking about the Ethereum boom that happened recently with
my significant other and without even mentioning anything about it, she was
interested in investing in it.

I personally didn't feel like it was a good idea so we didn't but it was like
the Gold Rush. She was ready to rush into it.

------
hungerstrike
The fledgling Marijuana industry might be one candidate.

I know a few different people who quit jobs in finance to go do a marijuana-
related startup.

------
sergefaguet
What a load of garbage. The world is awash in opportunity - biotech, genetics,
AI, fledging nanotechnology, robotics/drones and other things that will
transform us into posthumans in 50-100 years. The greatest fortunes in history
will be created in this period.

Whiny idiots will complain though. As they always had.

~~~
googletazer
How many people can realistically grasp those? Or even be worker drones in
those industries? ~30% of people are unable to grasp material beyond Gr 8
math. There is a huge problem looming on the horizon - human obsolescence.

~~~
nradov
Are those people really unable to grasp math or did they just have bad
teachers and a lack of parental help?

------
Torai
> _But as long as there’s a gold rush somewhere in the economy, big dreamers
> can dream big._

As long as there’s a gold rush somewhere in the economy, people will focus on
getting rich without thinking if they are doing is sustainable and long term
positive for the economy, without thinking if structural changes are needed to
secure their well-being, which is correlated to the general well-being.

------
tarboreus
There was a plastics gold rush in the '60s because of the massive investment
in R&D and basic research made in the first part of the 20th century, due in
no small part to the world wars. There was an internet gold rush in the 90s
and the aughts because of the investment made by the US in programs at DARPA
and Bell Labs, a public monopoly. You can't have these kinds of non-zero sum
"gold rushes" without laying the groundwork through new understandings of the
universe, or how to better organize society. Yet as a culture we glorify the
Steve Jobses of the world that do the equivelant of carrying the letter from
the mailbox to the house, forgetting that it was flown halfway around the
world to be there in the first place.

Entrepreneurs don't create gold rushes. Scientists create gold rushes.
Forward-looking politicians create gold rushes. Strange devils sitting alone
in their rooms create gold rushes. But these rushes happen 20, 30, or 40 years
after the initial investment is made.

So we're not going to see many gold rushes in the next few years. Sorry. Hope
you have some rents to draw.

------
mobilemidget
cryptocurrency is not enough like another gold rush already?

~~~
sosuke
My perception is probably wrong but I see the cryptocurrency gold rush as
already over. To mine bitcoins now is to already have lots of money on
machinery or a botnet to steal the machinery to mine the bitcoins.

Do you feel that cryptocurrency is still available to the individual as a gold
rush?

~~~
mobilemidget
I might be the wrong person to ask, my personal opinion of cryptocurrency
isn't a popular one. I have issues with the whole idea when I think about the
power consumption to keep this 'alive'. And not to forget the 'early adopter'
advantage.

But the trade, and the price fluctuations aren't over by long, new
cryptocurrencies launched daily by respectable instances and companies. So in
this way, I still see a lot of 'rush' potential, even today.

And like the goldrush, it was the people selling the shovels and things making
the good steady profits. And there are also a lot of hardware things to
change/improve on the cryptocurrency market.

~~~
sillysaurus3
There was an article I can't find now, but it breaks down the cost of
bitcoin's energy use relative to the whole world. The conclusion was something
like, if bitcoin reaches a trillion dollar GDP, the energy usage would only be
around ~1.5% of our total. I think I'm getting that number wrong, but the
point was that we spend way more energy for trivial purposes compared to a
trillion dollar GDP.

~~~
mcone
Maybe this site?

[https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-
consumption](https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption)

------
vonnik
Said a journalist working a 9-to-5 job by choice.

------
gumby
"Everything that can be invented already has been so soon the patent office
can shut down"

The quote is apocryphal but sums up the article.

------
nradov
My high school physics teacher told me that during the first Internet bubble
more students signed up for STEM electives and actually paid attention in
class. Technical fields were exciting and lucrative. But when the crash hit
students became disillusioned and lost interest in STEM again.

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scottlegrand2
1\. Launch adventurous Millennials into spaaaaaace!

2\. ???

3\. PROFIT!!!*

*For the companies that build rockets and launch them...

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sandworm101
The young need something big to transfer relative wealth from the old. It is
getting crazy. With rich people living into thier 90s those who inherit are
generally already in thier 60s or even 70s. The family money is moving between
retirement funds. Something like a gold rush would move that value into the
hands of the 30 or 40-somethings where it might do something more.

~~~
alphonsegaston
It's called socialism, but it's anathema to American culture (by design).
We're so bathed in delusions of our inherent affluence and power that we'll
watch the wealthy suck actual blood from young people as we're surrounded by
tent cities. And many still think they're "winning" because they can pay
another rich person $3000 to live in a closet.

[https://www.theguardian.com/society/shortcuts/2017/aug/21/am...](https://www.theguardian.com/society/shortcuts/2017/aug/21/ambrosia-
the-startup-harvesting-the-blood-of-the-young)

------
losteverything
To have another gold rush we have to slow down the flow of information. No
longer can a man search for a better life, based on simple writings. Now,
everything is validated or rejected before he can pack his bags and head west.

We are currently living in a gold rush.. Make something and sell it online. Or
support those that do.

------
blacksmythe
I was astounded to see that there is a perceived shorted of gold rushes.

"Filecoin Suspends ICO After Raising $186M in One Hour"
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14988132](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14988132)

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danschumann
It may be a ways away, but I'm excited for the space rush.. once medium and
small size companies can afford space ships to explore the solar system,
finding asteroids made of gold. That will be glorious.

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d--b
> The economy does best when talented risk-takers are driven by the chance to
> strike it rich.

Wha~~~t? Who says so?

------
sjg007
There are interesting studies on young adults growing up in the boom vs
recession time lines.

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ausjke
Young kids are busy at games, used to be the PC, game console, now adding cell
phones and tablets.

Let's deal with this new mental-drug-war first before any Gold Rush
suggestions, as the kids then young people ignore anything else, even traffic
lights...their eyes are too busy on the screen these days.

~~~
QAPereo
That sounds like bad parenting and foolishness becoming more visible, rather
than a new threat.

~~~
nsxwolf
I don't know how much of this is really new. I spent my youth watching TV and
playing Sega and computer games. By age 12 I had seen every episode of "All In
The Family" at least twice. I stayed up watching TV on school nights until
1AM.

I also do believe I received bad parenting, but eventually I turned out OK.

~~~
QAPereo
I agree completely, and honestly I did something very similar with books. It
doesn't really matter if you're staying up until 1 AM imagining things,
watching TV, reading a book, or any other activity… The issue is that you're
not asleep getting ready for school, perhaps not having done your homework.

The difference though is that somebody looking at a smart phone is seen as
antisocial, where is someone buried in a book is not, although of course the
person in the phone could be reading a book! Most of this is with the
politicians call "optics" you know?

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googletazer
Bread and circuses

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bradstewart
Legal Cannabis.

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djd20
Don't we already have *coin ?

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SubiculumCode
Onto Mars!

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humbleMouse
... legal marijuana??!?!

