
Generation Uphill - DiabloD3
http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21688591-millennials-are-brainiest-best-educated-generation-ever-yet-their-elders-often
======
minikites
> Throughout human history, the old have subsidised the young. In rich
> countries, however, that flow has recently started to reverse. Ronald Lee of
> the University of California, Berkeley, and Andrew Mason at the University
> of Hawaii measured how much people earn at different ages in 23 countries,
> and how much they consume. Within families, intergenerational transfers
> still flow almost entirely from older to younger. However, in rich countries
> public spending favours pensions and health care for the old over education
> for the young.

Speaking in broad strokes (i.e. I'm sure there are plenty of individual
examples to the contrary) the baby boom generation is the most selfish
generation in recent history, voting to cut taxes and benefits for government
and societal services after they had gotten their full use out of them.

[http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/yes-summer-job-
paid...](http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/yes-summer-job-paid-tuition-
back-in-rsquo81-but-then-we-got-cheap/)

> What really made me feel ancient is that the 1981 UW student guide shows the
> Med school charged only $1,029 a year back then. Today: $28,040!

> The reason a summer at KFC could pay for a year of UW med school in 1981
> isn’t that we were so hardworking and industrious. It’s that taxpayers back
> then picked up 90 percent of the tab. We weren’t Horatio Algers. We were
> socialists.

> Today, the public picks up only 30 percent of UW tuition, and dropping.

Imagine what would happen if young people actually voted.

~~~
magicGLASSman
Why not get to the root of the problem? An education should not cost that
much. Much of the reason the cost has outpaced inflation is the subsidizing of
the tuition price paid by the student instead of making the process of
educating less costly by using technology.

Imagine what would happen if a degree was about what you know, not just a
credential.

~~~
reirob
Education should not cost anything at all. Full stop. Free education for
everybody should be considered the biggest achievement by human beings.

If a society is not able to provide free education for the upcoming
generations, then the basis of such a society should be questioned, rightfully
so.

~~~
cturner
Is there a limit to your principle?

Should people be able to live at university forever, with a living wage from
the public purse? What if they were enrolled but didn't ever attend?

Should the government even be involved in education? Were it not for
government protection, what kind of disruption would we have seen to the
education sector by now?

Given that university-educated people earn more than other taxpayers, why is
it unreasonable to expect that they should be responsible for covering the
cost of their education?

Consider the deferred payment system of the Australian model.

The Swiss model is interesting as well. In Switzerland, each university has to
take whoever wants to go. But there's no rules about the conditions that they
give you when you get there. So if 200 people applied and they were only set
up for 50 places, they could give aptitude tests to them all, and then put
seats and books in the gym for the remaining 150 with instruction to submit
one difficult major project for pass-fail assessment each per semester.

~~~
lkozma
You make some very interesting points - I just want to ask a side-question on
a linguistic issue:

\- do you use "disrupt" in a positive sense, or in its original dictionary
sense:

"interrupt (an event, activity, or process) by causing a disturbance or
problem, alter or destroy the structure of .."

My point is also that often when people mean to disrupt in one way, they end
up achieving the other.

~~~
cturner
I always think of disrupt from the perspective of creative destruction, and it
always being unambiguously good. So if I was in a stagnant industry, I'd be
trying to reform. And if I was getting hit hard by reformers, I'd see that as
justice that I was on the wrong side of.

Hence, I'm tempted to say that both meanings mean the same thing to me.

But it's interesting you raise it. I recently reread _A Second Chance at Eden_
by Peter F Hamilton. In one of the stories, a character turns down an
opportunity at fabulous wealth from a mindset that it would cause vast social
trauma. This seeded a thought - perhaps creative destruction is not as
unambiguously good as I presume. But it still hasn't yet sunk in. (And such a
correction would require a worldview rebuild - a trauma of its own :) )

------
orthoganol
I can relate to the allegation that baby boomers like to 'keep millennials
down' \- I truly cannot stand aspects of family renunions with aunts, uncles,
even my parents who casually dismiss the majority of things I stand for or
aspire to as 'a phase' or as 'nerdy'... meanwhile they swear by Fox News,
pedal oversimplified, uncompromising viewpoints, and are more interested in
talking to me about how I find time to party than the projects I work on
("Work hard, party hard, Orthoganol"). I sit at my grandfather's table when I
can, maybe it's just an effect of old age, but I feel like his generation
better understands the important things.

~~~
WalterBright
> 'a phase'

If you aren't a liberal by age 20, you don't have a heart. If you aren't a
conservative by age 35, you don't have a brain.

[http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/02/24/heart-
head/](http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/02/24/heart-head/)

My generation blamed the previous one, as well. "Don't trust anyone over 30",
"Hope I die before I get old", etc.

~~~
orthoganol
I think it's too simple to say "this is how all generations think of the
previous one." I think baby boomers, admirably, set out to create a new
identity - coming of age at the height of the 60s, time of prosperity meaning
more independence, with Vietnam and the civil rights movements probably
casting doubts about the prior generation's values (rightfully so). A clean
break of sorts. I think the problem is they threw out the old, but failed to
actually assert something substantial that could raise the next generation.
Vague values and sentiments, really. Millennials get told to just be
ourselves, find our passions, and are encouraged to party, drink, have sex...
don't work too hard. Partying is treated almost as importantly if not more, as
working hard to make something out of yourself and your life. Nerd culture is
despised, maybe because they all watched a ton of jock 80s movies. I don't
doubt a correlation between being raised on those values and the depression
and mental illness rates we see today among young people... you can surely
overcome it eventually, but you're raised on it by default. I'm painting with
a broad stroke, but I think the baby boomers represent a sort of 'break' with
the generations before them, and it didn't set up the next generation so well.
My grandfather's generation, while they weren't socially progressive by any
means, seems more grounded overall - they at least have access to the wisdom
of many generations before.

------
cheriot
Where's the connection between mellinials in China and the West? Wildly
different challenges.

~~~
spangry
I'd say more difference than connection. China is facing a terrifying
'demographic cliff' due to the previous 1 child policy, much more so than
western nations. This also skewed gender towards males in the Chinese Gen Y
cohort
([http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=8957256...](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89572563)).

Similar story is rural India; lots of 'missing women' from the population. In
both cases, the first born son is/was culturally expected to be the 'old age
pension fund' of the parents, whereas girls were considered financial
liabilities until they could be married off (i.e. someone else's problem).

The very disturbing implication being: if you can only have 1 child, and you
believe only boys can support you in retirement, what do you do when you give
birth and find out it's a girl?

~~~
simula67
Yes, this is why it is illegal to determine the sex of the child before birth
in India

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prenatal_sex_discernment#India](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prenatal_sex_discernment#India)

~~~
spangry
I honestly wonder if this does more harm than good. By which I mean it leads
to more of this:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-
child_policy#Effect_on_inf...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-
child_policy#Effect_on_infanticide_rates)

and this:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_infanticide_in_India#Co...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_infanticide_in_India#Contemporary_data_and_statistics)

 _" The 'one-child' policy has also led to what Amartya Sen first called
'Missing Women', or the 100 million girls 'missing' from the populations of
China (and other developing countries) as a result of female infanticide,
abandonment, and neglect"._

------
roymurdock
This article does not address trends in health care or pension spend. These
are the two largest total (federal, state, and local combined) spend items in
our collective budget. 2015 figures:

    
    
      Total Spend: 6.18tn
      Total Revenue: 6.08tn
    
      Healthcare: 1.32tn     (21.3%)
      Pension: 1.20tn        (19.7%)
      Education: 0.93tn      (14.8%)
      Defense: 0.80tn        (13.1%)
      Welfare: 0.50tn         (8.2%)
      Other*: 1.43tn         (23.1%)
    
      *Other = Protection, Transportation, General Government, Interest
    

Healthcare expenses lean heavily towards the old but are funded by the working
age population. What happens as the birth rate decreases and the average
individual lives longer? Expenses increase for the working-age population.

Currently, social security is taking in ~$74bn less in payroll taxes than it
pays out in benefits. The $2.83tn fund is invested in federal debt that pays
3.4% interest. So the interest payment (from the Federal government) of $96.2b
is enough to cover the deficit.

By 2020, interest will no longer be enough to cover the deficit between
revenue in from taxes and expenditures out to retirees. At that point, the SS
fund will need to start redeeming treasuries for cash. The federal government
will then need to issue new debt and/or raise taxes to cover SS treasury bond
redemptions.

If the Federal Reserve follows through in its quest to raise interest rates
and inflation, it will be relatively expensive to raise the $2.83tn in debt
that we will need to fund SS through 2029, when it is projected to completely
deplete its reserves of treasury notes. At this point, SS will only be able to
pay out 75% of promised benefits given the current tax rate and demographic
trends.

I'm less concerned about spend on education (which is broken) than I am about
how we plan to fund our health care and pension systems. The only feasible way
I can see is through increased taxation. I just started working last year.
Hell of a time to enter the work force!

Overall it seems to me like we are paying an increasing amount of our federal
budget on the older population than we anticipated we would need to and that
we did not adequately provision for.

~~~
iofj
And to think I'll be "getting a pension" (or so I'm told) in 2047, or 18 years
after Social security is broke, assuming 4% average return, which we're not
getting.

------
stygiansonic
From the article:

" _They are also brainier than any previous generation. Average scores on
intelligence tests have been rising for decades in many countries, thanks to
better nutrition and mass education._ "

Is this true? From what I've read on the Flynn effect[0], these are only
possible explanations.

0\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect#Proposed_explanat...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect#Proposed_explanations)

------
gizi
The internet has solved most problems that the article is referring to; but
not for everybody. From his "village of mountains, rivers and trees" he could
create the next facebook on his laptop (or even something less ambitious). The
reason why he does not do that, has nothing to do with a lack of "hukou"
privilege. When he says: "It is unfair", he is fixating himself on a problem
that he cannot solve, instead of moving on. Seriously, the "hukou"-holding
Chinese are as ignorant as he is. They will not create the next facebook
either. There is nothing to learn from them or their schools. That is what him
and 99% of the world's population don't seem to see. With the internet around,
location does not matter. You can make exactly as much money as your
intelligence allows you to. That means: almost nothing in terms of money for
the "hukou" guys.

------
tdaltonc
I don't think I got a satisfying answer to "Why now?" Why has the gerontocracy
suddenly taken over in so many countries?

~~~
mercer
The aging of the post-war baby boom, I guess? Truly just a guess though.

Edit: What I mean is, what makes you question that explanation?

~~~
tdaltonc
The author is trying to explain a global phenomena. Can an aging demographic
bulge explain the Hukou? Honest question.

------
JBiserkov
>Politicians in democracies listen to the people who vote.

A reasonable observer would conclude that either

a) the statement is false because politicians listen to the people with
power/money

b) the set of democracies is empty, and the statement, while true, is a
tautology.

------
noobie

        www.economist.com - Access Denied
        Error code 16
        This request was blocked by the security rules
    

_Okaaaaay_

Edit: Strangely The Economist seems to be blocking Tunisian IP addresses.

~~~
tobias3
I had to enter a captcha yesterday for the first time at their page. I think
they are under a DDOS attack.

