My name is Mad Doc Grotsnik, and I'm a little over 37 years of age. Now, depending on who you ask, I either fall into the late Gen X period, or I'm one of the very first Milennials. Others yet call it Xillenial, which I kind of like the sound of. Sounds a bit like Xenos.
And I'm here to tell you what's it been like growing up through the 80's, 90's, 00's and 10's.
At first, it was pretty good. Mostly because I was a kid and really didn't know better. Life just was what it was. TV ruled - He-Man, Thundercats, Transformers, Galaxy Rangers. All that stuff. Glorified toy commercials which somehow turned out more than intended. We had home computers. Alright in the earliest days it was the simple ZX Spectrum (mine had the rubber keys, and required a separate tape deck). Yes, life was easy in those days. Get up, brekkie, go to school, come home, much about. Rinse and repeat. So far, so standard childhood.
But then came the later 90's. Yes, that was a bit of time jump, wasn't it. By then, we had the grassroots of the internet. Websites were basic, Google was basic, the connection was dial up. I distinctly remember my old 56k modem taking around, ooooh....4 hours to download the trailer for The Phantom Menace. But hey, new toys were new. We were the very first to get to use them (though sadly my education ended before it made much headway in that sphere). But why did my education end there?
Well, it's simple. From my birth until I was aged 17, University was free for all. If you got the grades, you could attend whichever Uni would take you, and with further work, walk away with a degree. But then.....but then, the first of many rug pulls on my generation was performed.
You see, the very same preceding generations decided you can indeed get something for nothing, if you use your free degree to get a well paying job, and then vote to end free Uni. I mean, why should you pay for someone else's uni education? Sure, some poor rube paid for yours, and you're doing alright Jack. But this will lower your tax, won't it. Yeah. Thanks for that.
Then came the 00's. Idiotic, world destabilising wars, followed by a financial crash, suppressed wages and soaring house prices. Wow. What a world you've created for us!
10's? Well well well. It's not enough that Milennials now need to pay for Uni, but you've just jacked up the fees...and look! House prices continue to go mental because Baby Boomers have so much equity in the homes they bought for a measly few grand, that they're now becoming Buy To Let Barons - an unregulated market where you can, and do, charge just whatever you want. It's not enough to cover your mortgage, why not whack another 40% on it? I mean, your gold plated, final salary pension just isn't enough. Best rig that housing market even further. Maybe it's time for another twist of the knife. Go on, vote us out of the EU on the back of a campaign of shameless lies, the architects of had no ability and no intention of ever delivering on.
So before you call us feckless. Before you call us self-obsessed. Before the word 'entitled' trips from your aged, dry, cracking lips. Stop. Stop and take a look in the mirror. We didn't make this world the way it is. We merely inhabit it. You. You did this to us. And don't you dare try to claim we just need to work harder. It's hard to do that when you're on a Zero Hours contract, and thus have no idea what your work pattern is going to be.
We are paying the price for your selfishness and naked greed. We're the first generation in a long, long time to be objectively worse off than it's parents. Because. Of. You.
I'd love to see you try to start from scratch the way we have to. I don't think you could hack it. Your privilege and perks have made you soft. So soft, you'll vote for anything you think will keep things stacked your way, and decry the actions of younger people who try to redress the balance.
Automatically Appended Next Post: And there's much more where that came from.
Me, I got lucky in later life. Started in my current job in 2012, and I've never looked back. It's now become a career, and I'm doing really quite well for myself.
For once, I caught a break.
But peeps a bit younger than me? Well, after a year of putting them up, my house guests have finally, just about, secured their own flat. After a year's hard scrimping and saving up a deposit. To rent. Not a deposit to buy. A deposit to rent.
Two adults. In work. Taking a year to save up a rental deposit. Does that give you any idea what we're up against out here?
And the younger the subject, the tougher it gets. I live in a prosperous little town. Yet there's barely a full time job to be had. It's all part time or Zero Hours. How are you meant to plan your life in the face of that? It's not simply 'well, you'll just have to tighten my belt, uphill both ways, in my day, lucky for a farthing blah blah blah'. One month you might be flush, having worked 160 hours. The next month? Oh poop. You've managed just 40 hours. At minimum wage, the flush month is a struggle. The short month? Whoops, guess that's the rent missed - and now you risk homelessness as a result.
That is what young people are up against. And again, we didn't make it this way. Who would? Who would vote for that for themselves?
Nobody. But, we totes know who'd vote it on others. I mean, surely if you're not well on your way to paying off your mortgage by 30, alongside a dog and two kids, you're just a narcissitic, entitled oik - and certainly not a victim of a greedy generation utterly blind to the plight they've foisted on others.
You have repeatedly shafted us since the word go. Every Nice Thing you enjoyed has been taken away. Apparently, we can't afford that anymore - but we can afford to prop up your pensions with a triple lock, or ensure your decent salary is sustained by paying us two thirds of fifty percent of sod all for the same hours.
You might've guessed - I'm extremely angry about this state of affairs.
It is even harder than what you wrote for Central and Eastern European "Xillennials", sometime called "transformers" in Poland, because we were the last generation to live our childhoods behind the Iron Courtain and were to young to "hop on the change train" right after - when people just 5-10 years older than us made stunning careers in newly open economy (seriously, everybody could have their dream job back then if he only lived in large enough city and was of right age) we were still in high school. Then, when we went to universities and even more so when we left them, most career doors were already closed for years to come, occupied by the same people 5-10 years older than us.
One simple statistics shows this "generation uncertainty" rather nicely - women from my generation (born '77-82) have their first child not only when they're significantly older than neighbouring generations, they have their first child AFTER next generation have theirs.
I can say nothing except to say I agree wholeheartedly.
Turning 38 next month, and like you caught a lucky break when I fell into the NDT industry.
I would only add that the complaint should extend to almost everything you'd think you're paying taxes for, like healthcare, public transport and infrastructure
And let's face it, we work more hours for less pay. So to call us slackers is an upfront urine extraction and no mistake.
We are being squeezed, and squeezed and squeezed again to help pay for shortfalls we never created in the first place.
Yes, like anyone, we are lucky to have jobs. But unlike Baby Boomers, we can't buy a house with just any job. And to get the sorts of jobs where we could, we need to rack up £27,000 minimum Uni debt to do so - which we need to pay off.
Never mind the various other social ills caused by a feckless older generation determined to see services cut the bone. Those affect us too, and we have to live with the consequences for far longer.
Automatically Appended Next Post: And when it comes to secondary/high school achievement?
Stop claiming the exams are getting easier just because results improve.
Consider this. I completed secondary school pre-internet, and may have been the last year to do so.
So when I had an essay to write, I had to do just that. Write it. Only the luckiest students had home PCsand a printer. That stuff was expensive.
And if I needed a source book of some kind? If my parents were wealthy, I have no doubt they'd have bought me those books. But they weren't. So instead I joined the mad dash of 20 or so students down the library to try to snag one of the two copies held there.
Now? Well, for a start, I can type up my essays and what have you. And that allows for an editing process which is incredibly time efficient. I can cut paragraphs and paste them elsewhere. I can review and tweak my wording as needed (and I do this at work. Regularly). In short, I can finish as I draft. No more 'sodding pen won't work' or 'curse my left handedness smudging the ink. That'll cost me marks'.
As for research? Pretty much the sum total of human knowledge is at our collective finger tips. We can google it. Kids are taught how to do that efficiently, and how to check the information they're cribbing from. For instance, Wikipedia is no good for citing in an essay, but it's an excellent way of finding better sources.
Exams aren't getting easier. At all. Stop being jealous. All that's happening is access to knowledge is becoming more prevalent, and the advent of the digital age has made essay writing an awful lot easier - you don't get writer's cramp for a start.
It's just another arrow in the bitter quiver of a generation who refuses to let anothers Have Nice Things.
On exams and schooling. We now have at our easy command the sum of human knowledge, we can find from home information on any subject needed.
No trips to libiary, city libiary or even London.
Sure if doing a university level essay specialist books are standard but even now with internet, I can place a request order via city libiary for a copy.
Win win.
For exams, for school essays, its not easier we just bow have at command, so much information, so many connections and linked subjects.
Its hard to not find what you need!
I was at school early ish internet, still using dvd encyclopedia and such.
Now days. Information is just there by the ton, endless info.
If need deeper just get the book the decent webpage cites
In my undergraduate pre-WWW days, I was ahead of the curve by knowing how to use Telnet to dial into the electronic card catalogs of other universities in my city. Still meant I had to travel to actually procure the books and articles, of course.
As a graduate student just eight years later, I was downloading every full-text article I needed online. I only set foot in my university library maybe two times, which was great for a commuting student like me. That's an amazing amount of change in 8 years.
Not sure what that really has to do with the attitudes of Baby Boomers toward Millennials, however...
I had a day out in London when I was in Uni, to protest about tuition fees being introduced, probably 4 years or so before you would have been there. The NUS bussed us there, we walked around a bit and caused the traffic to clog up, all for the (slim) chance it would slow the tide of ever-increasing debt for the next students to come along. I had my fees paid through uni, but I knew what it'd be like if I was there a year or two later.
I had 16 years climbing slowly though the private sector's IT jobs, and ended up here, in the public sector. I'll be grateful of the 1% pay rise, yet being paid too much anyway. I love our government.
In any case, the problem with information these days, especially online, is signal-to-noise. There's just so much crappy, or outright wrong information out there, one needs almost as much time sorting it all out as we did writing it down. Correctly. Edited for spelling, grammar, punctuation *and* style.
I'm 28 and I gotta be honest I think we do have it easier in some areas.
For example, teaching is so good now that getting good exam results is an absolute doddle.
Uni does cost more but really student loans don't matter as you only pay them when you earn over a certain wage so they can never become affordable.
Its true that harder to save up for a house, but as people get married and have children much later in life they are much more affordable once you get them as you are being payed a lot more.
Also, because most women work now we get to split the cost instead of buying a house all by ourselves, you gotta love equality!
So I think we come out about even on those things, but we got cool stuff like gap years, amazing holidays ever year, crazy cheap electronics, much better job variety due to the expectation that we will switch jobs every few years, loads more opportunities to work abroad, no power cuts or three day working weeks because of bloody trade unions! etc.
there are pros and cons to all generations but like most people I think mine is best. Objectively if you are a woman, a foreigner or a homosexual then living now is much better what with all the anti-discrimination laws as well!
As a 77-82 as well (Proud Gen-Xer), the thing I hate most is that politically we just will never matter. Baby Boomers rule for now, and when they are gone Millenials will rule over us. We are essentially voiceless in the political process as a generation. Bummer dude.
I think there's a whole heap of wishful thinking or extremely good fortune skewing this:
Kroem wrote: For example, teaching is so good now that getting good exam results is an absolute doddle.
A decline in difficulty will do that - and I say that not in a 'they get it easy now' sense, but as someone who marks university essays and exams and sees the absolutely stark difference between British and non-British kids. For the most part the Europeans that think they're mediocre blow the Brits with straight As out the water. The international kids that actually did really well at home? Oaft!
Its true that harder to save up for a house, but as people get married and have children much later in life they are much more affordable once you get them as you are being payed a lot more.
Also, because most women work now we get to split the cost instead of buying a house all by ourselves, you gotta love equality!
Most boomer women work/worked. That aside, I don't think this is at all realistic. Very few people can afford, at any point in their career, to buy a house comparable to what their parents would have been able to a decade of more earlier in theirs.
...we got cool stuff like gap years, amazing holidays ever year...
Only the very lucky/wealthy. I certainly didn't get any of that, nor did any of my friends. My wife and all her pals did - and they think it was a great time to be young, too...
Gen Xers were labeled 'slackers', and now we're running all kinds of stuff. People tend to view younger generations as lazier, less competent, etc...that's just how it goes. I graduated into a recession, so I understand what it's like to just get by for a while as a young person. Those are crucial years in a career too...if things stall or go nowhere for you, it can take some time to make up the difference.
Still, I'm gonna throw something out there for discussion. Is it possible that Millennials want things on their terms a little more than previous generations? I could be 100% wrong, but it seems as though their priorities may be a bit different, especially when it comes to their lifestyles as young people.
Are they perhaps a *little* less interested in moving their lives to where the work is, especially if it's not a desirable location? Are they maybe a *little* less willing to give up travel, going out to eat, or their expensive coffees, craft beers and brands in the name of savings? I feel like that tends to jibe with some of the research I've seen.
I didn't start making a decent wage until the second half of my 20s, yet I had savings and could afford things because I did my best to live within my means, including my lifestyle. That meant I missed out some things, but my financial and career focus also helped get me to where I am. I think there may be a genuine generational shift here, although I also think it's hard to truly blame Millennials for a consumer attitude that may have been coached in them since the time they were young children.
gorgon wrote: Gen Xers were labeled 'slackers', and now we're running all kinds of stuff. People tend to view younger generations as lazier, less competent, etc...that's just how it goes...
...Is it possible that Millennials want things on their terms a little more than previous generations?
gorgon wrote: Gen Xers were labeled 'slackers', and now we're running all kinds of stuff. People tend to view younger generations as lazier, less competent, etc...that's just how it goes...
...Is it possible that Millennials want things on their terms a little more than previous generations?
Err...
They aren't the same things. I'm talking about different life priorities, not different work ethics or ability levels.
What's more, I'm talking about incremental attitudinal change here and not absolutes, although I'm sure the nature of the interwebz will inevitably steer things in that tiresome black-and-white direction.
See, the changes at my alma mater since my time there are fascinating to me. The amount of money that universities pour into amenities now (at least in the U.S.) is staggering. And it's been explained to me that the reason is because today's students are much more discriminating when it comes to things like their dorm rooms, the quality of the food, the recreational facilities, etc. Those are things that really weren't so much on the radars of college students in the '80s and early '90s. Universities actually tended to skimp when it came to that stuff. But something is clearly different in students' attitudes today.
jhe90 wrote: On exams and schooling. We now have at our easy command the sum of human knowledge, we can find from home information on any subject needed.
No trips to libiary, city libiary or even London.
Sure if doing a university level essay specialist books are standard but even now with internet, I can place a request order via city libiary for a copy.
Win win.
For exams, for school essays, its not easier we just bow have at command, so much information, so many connections and linked subjects.
Its hard to not find what you need!
I was at school early ish internet, still using dvd encyclopedia and such.
Now days. Information is just there by the ton, endless info.
If need deeper just get the book the decent webpage cites
Speaking as someone from the slightly younger generation growing up in the 90s to 00s, I look back to the older current generations and see the truths from the lies (or as I interpret the, anyway). None of us can truly moan about our living standards as they have improved and refined over time. Each decade has brought better technology and quality of life even if you claim some form of current stagnation. Poverty isn't what you would class as poverty 50 years ago and we are all a lot healthier whatever lifestyle we choose. I don't really see that getting a job is harder today than it was back in the years X. What has changed is the transition of mechanisation and a shift in new/decline in other industries.
Personally I believe each generation builds on the last, but each subsequent generation is too keen to be spoon fed more. I feel that my generation and those younger are/will be too picky and demanding. People are becoming a force of want rather than need. The jobs are out their if you need it rather than the 'I want this one' but it isn't available so will complain mentality. Of course we are facing increasing issues that we can blame on previous generations, but we ourselves will be burdens on those younger than us. The terrible fact is we are living too long and not paying in a sustainable amount.
I am one for getting on with things. I threw myself into an unknown with my job and work very hard at it (compared to most people my age). Unlike most who seem to spend rather than save and put a higher value on lifestyle rather than work, I am a polar opposite but will set myself up to be self sufficient with money. I usually work 6-6 6 days a week unless for a special task such as taking rye grass to a bio-digester where I worked 6-9 14 days straight. My pay is low but my overtime makes up the loss. If I can do it so can everyone else, the problem is people aren't willing to do such things anymore.
Back in days of yore, I worked in a school doing IT support, and occasionally classroom support. Yes, it was my old secondary school. Yes, it does make me Screech.
We tried to teach the kids critical thinking when Googling. The task was simple. We'd choose something for them to find, but it had to be something which required a decent crack at the spelling.
I chose Sawney Bean. Easy for me to type, but announced vocally, trickier to find.
The kids then had to put their hand up and have a crack at what the subject matter was.
Basic Google-Fu - learning how to best ask a question to elicit the most information.
Unless a job will get me into a better living situation, I don't really see the point in throwing myself full force into things.
I suppose some jobs still have advancement, (mine does not) but I have gotten to a point where I could never afford to go to school or pay off the debt and live at the same time.
And being very weird and unpopular with the ladies means I won't get married or anything.
So what I have now, the 1 bedroom apartment, is as good as it will ever get.
Regardless of what I actually ever do.
There is only so high I can climb and that isn't that high, so I have lost all desire to work harder, I don't care about buying copious amounts of warhammer that much, can't travel since my job rarely gives days off and while they say you're allowed a holiday they don't really like to actually give your days to you, and they keep throwing more work with no more pay and no more hours.
Personally I hope I don't live to be old, then I am fethed.
jhe90 wrote: On exams and schooling. We now have at our easy command the sum of human knowledge, we can find from home information on any subject needed.
No trips to libiary, city libiary or even London.
Sure if doing a university level essay specialist books are standard but even now with internet, I can place a request order via city libiary for a copy.
Win win.
For exams, for school essays, its not easier we just bow have at command, so much information, so many connections and linked subjects.
Its hard to not find what you need!
I was at school early ish internet, still using dvd encyclopedia and such.
Now days. Information is just there by the ton, endless info.
If need deeper just get the book the decent webpage cites
Information is not knowledge though.
Knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom is not truth. Truth is not beauty Beauty is not love Love is not music. Music... is the best. - FZ
I'm probably considered new to the Xillenial - I'm 32 this year. While I don't remember much of the 80's, I remember playing my SEGA negative to death, collecting WWF stickers to collect all of Brett "The Human" Heart, watching telly on 4 channels and not having a mobile phone till I was 16.
Anyway, agree with Grotsnik. I was lucky. I got a modern apprentice position in the steelworks where I live, and been there since 2004. I earn enough to pay my mortgage, food for my wife and 2 children and let my wife be a stay at home mum.
Like I said, I was lucky, but also sensible. Uni was a money sink, and I got into my job just as zero hour contracts begun. Saw the writing on the wall, managed to jump ship in time. Many of my friends didn't.
Rainbow Dash wrote: Unless a job will get me into a better living situation, I don't really see the point in throwing myself full force into things.
I suppose some jobs still have advancement, (mine does not) but I have gotten to a point where I could never afford to go to school or pay off the debt and live at the same time.
And being very weird and unpopular with the ladies means I won't get married or anything.
So what I have now, the 1 bedroom apartment, is as good as it will ever get.
Regardless of what I actually ever do.
There is only so high I can climb and that isn't that high, so I have lost all desire to work harder, I don't care about buying copious amounts of warhammer that much, can't travel since my job rarely gives days off and while they say you're allowed a holiday they don't really like to actually give your days to you, and they keep throwing more work with no more pay and no more hours.
Personally I hope I don't live to be old, then I am fethed.
I wouldn't sell yourself short I think we all know plenty of weird people who are married.
gorgon wrote: Gen Xers were labeled 'slackers', and now we're running all kinds of stuff. People tend to view younger generations as lazier, less competent, etc...that's just how it goes...
...Is it possible that Millennials want things on their terms a little more than previous generations?
Err...
They aren't the same things. I'm talking about different life priorities, not different work ethics or ability levels.
What's more, I'm talking about incremental attitudinal change here and not absolutes, although I'm sure the nature of the interwebz will inevitably steer things in that tiresome black-and-white direction.
See, the changes at my alma mater since my time there are fascinating to me. The amount of money that universities pour into amenities now (at least in the U.S.) is staggering. And it's been explained to me that the reason is because today's students are much more discriminating when it comes to things like their dorm rooms, the quality of the food, the recreational facilities, etc. Those are things that really weren't so much on the radars of college students in the '80s and early '90s. Universities actually tended to skimp when it came to that stuff. But something is clearly different in students' attitudes today.
Perhaps it occurs to some students that they're paying vastly more for those amenities than previous generations, and have vastly less choice?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
jhe90 wrote: On exams and schooling. We now have at our easy command the sum of human knowledge, we can find from home information on any subject needed.
No trips to libiary, city libiary or even London.
Sure if doing a university level essay specialist books are standard but even now with internet, I can place a request order via city libiary for a copy.
Win win.
For exams, for school essays, its not easier we just bow have at command, so much information, so many connections and linked subjects.
Its hard to not find what you need!
I was at school early ish internet, still using dvd encyclopedia and such.
Now days. Information is just there by the ton, endless info.
If need deeper just get the book the decent webpage cites
Unfortunately, the ability to access information does not confer the ability to process it. Honestly, undergraduate essays can be staggeringly bad. Hell, plenty postgraduates are barely capable of constructing an argument or drawing independent conclusions. If the marking scheme was up to me, about 1 in 5 first year essays I mark would pass. Maybe 2 and 5 second years. Alas, with marking schemes as they are, I think I've failed two essays ever.
Obviously I can't go back in time and see pre-internet university essays, but I don't see them being worse...
Rainbow Dash wrote: Unless a job will get me into a better living situation, I don't really see the point in throwing myself full force into things.
I suppose some jobs still have advancement, (mine does not) but I have gotten to a point where I could never afford to go to school or pay off the debt and live at the same time.
And being very weird and unpopular with the ladies means I won't get married or anything.
So what I have now, the 1 bedroom apartment, is as good as it will ever get.
Regardless of what I actually ever do.
There is only so high I can climb and that isn't that high, so I have lost all desire to work harder, I don't care about buying copious amounts of warhammer that much, can't travel since my job rarely gives days off and while they say you're allowed a holiday they don't really like to actually give your days to you, and they keep throwing more work with no more pay and no more hours.
Personally I hope I don't live to be old, then I am fethed.
I'm 33 and make double the median salary for my area. I live in what's effectively a 3 bedroom apartment with my girlfriend, paying for it all on my income, and I make enough money to keep saving and buy myself shiny things whenever feels good.
You... might want to consider a new job. It's a strange thing to me that people willfully work jobs that don't give time off and are borderline abusive to their employees. My girlfriend does that even though she could probably get a job with actual benefits pretty much anywhere else out of some misguided sense of "loyalty". I ask how that's possible when they're not loyal to her, but that's another rabbit hole. I just shake my head.
Also, if you want to be more popular with the women, maybe stop referring to yourself as "Rainbow Dash"? Might help you get taken more seriously.
For instance, the town I live in, as mentioned, is affluent. Rents are a good bit above the national average, wages anything but.
If like me you get lucky and earn above the median for the nation, it's a nice place to live. But if like my soon-to-be-former flat mates, who work minimum wage jobs, not so much
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: If like me you get lucky and earn above the median for the nation, it's a nice place to live. But if like my soon-to-be-former flat mates, who work minimum wage jobs, not so much
And that's the thing that falls apart for me. Why does one keep working a gak job like that? Even when they have other opportunities? I mean, even if you're not getting jobs thrown at you, you can still keep LOOKING, at least.
I didn't come from a wealthy family. I got student loans for college. I paid for my sister's student loans after the fact because (as the art major) it was apparent she wasn't going to be able to pay them off herself. I keep offering to pay for my 21 year old brother to go to college, but instead he lives with our parents still, working for just above minimum wage as a retail stockboy. I was scrambling to be out of the house at 18.
I just don't get this relaxed mentality about that kind of stuff.
I'm 33 and make double the median salary for my area.
You... might want to consider a new job.
I wonder which is more likely. That someone was fortunate enough to have the skills and opportunities to get a job that pays double the median salary for an area, or that all the other people are just not willing to look for jobs that pay double the median salary?
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: If like me you get lucky and earn above the median for the nation, it's a nice place to live. But if like my soon-to-be-former flat mates, who work minimum wage jobs, not so much
And that's the thing that falls apart for me. Why does one keep working a gak job like that? Even when they have other opportunities? I mean, even if you're not getting jobs thrown at you, you can still keep LOOKING, at least.
I didn't come from a wealthy family. I got student loans for college. I paid for my sister's student loans after the fact because (as the art major) it was apparent she wasn't going to be able to pay them off herself. I keep offering to pay for my 21 year old brother to go to college, but instead he lives with our parents still, working for just above minimum wage as a retail stockboy. I was scrambling to be out of the house at 18.
I just don't get this relaxed mentality about that kind of stuff.
Because after years of remorseless grind for pitiful wages, and better jobs applied for that never get back to you, hope wears thin.
Then there's social circles to think about. Ever since I got my break, and doubled my wage, my friends have started following suit. I'm no shining paragon of virtue by any means. But, I am absolute irrefutable proof it can happen.
If you're stuck in a rut, chances are your friends are too. And much like drug addicts, that's a vicious circle.
I wonder which is more likely. That someone was fortunate enough to have the skills and opportunities to get a job that pays double the median salary for an area, or that all the other people are just not willing to look for jobs that pay double the median salary?
My confusion lies in the apparent lack of effort toward making the first of your hypotheticals one's reality.
The inevitable outcome to this train of thought is that we determine that I'm "better" than other people, for values of "better" including some nebulous combination of "talented/smarter/better trained/connected/lucky/racially lucky/magical".
I do not think I'm better than other people. I think we're all more alike than we're usually willing to admit. I instead posit that I'm not better than anyone else and there exist jobs out there that are accessible to people, but they don't go for them because they don't think they can. Maybe I just know a more shiftless subset of people though.
Because after years of remorseless grind for pitiful wages, and better jobs applied for that never get back to you, hope wears thin.
Then there's social circles to think about. Ever since I got my break, and doubled my wage, my friends have started following suit. I'm no shining paragon of virtue by any means. But, I am absolute irrefutable proof it can happen.
If you're stuck in a rut, chances are your friends are too. And much like drug addicts, that's a vicious circle.
The first part doesn't really apply much to my anecdotes, but I could see that for a (small) subset of people.
The bit about social circles is profound though, and it's not the first time in even the last week or so I've heard that suggested in some form or another. I think there's a lot more to that than people want to admit.
Basic Google-Fu - learning how to best ask a question to elicit the most information.
This right here... is extremely important.
We have massive amount of access to information at our finger tips... it's all for naught if you don't know how to ask the appropriate question to zero in on the desired information.
I dunno man. Again, I offered my brother FREE COLLEGE. That's sort of a big deal in the US, particularly when you have middle class parents who don't make enough to pay for you but at the same time don't make so little that you can just go for freesies.. Zero interest. And I wouldn't normally have described him as stupid either outside of the context of this conversation..
Even with opportunity, and a particular amount of ability, people still don't achieve. I think there's something else missing there that makes the difference.
The fact that you are making twice the median salary seems to indicate that a very large number of people don't have better jobs because for whatever reason they are just not looking for them, or that these better jobs are not actually out there and you are very fortunate.
Either way there is a reason why your salary is not the median.
d-usa wrote: The fact that you are making twice the median salary seems to indicate that a very large number of people don't have better jobs because for whatever reason they are just not looking for them, or that these better jobs are not actually out there and you are very fortunate.
Either way there is a reason why your salary is not the median.
I'm probably quite fortunate. I'm just confused with why I'm not seeing the people close to me striving for that same fortune.
As I've sat here thinking about it, it occurs to me that since I'm referring to specific people, and not just "those kids these days", perhaps the only reasonable thing to do is actually ask them and see what they say. I suppose I shall withdraw my point until I can do that.
I dunno man. Again, I offered my brother FREE COLLEGE. That's sort of a big deal in the US, particularly when you have middle class parents who don't make enough to pay for you but at the same time don't make so little that you can just go for freesies.. Zero interest. And I wouldn't normally have described him as stupid either outside of the context of this conversation..
Even with opportunity, and a particular amount of ability, people still don't achieve. I think there's something else missing there that makes the difference.
And that's on him.
But, one shouldn't, and prior to neo-liberal nonsense, didn't, need a College Education just to be able to afford to own a house, or have kids.
The situation in the U.K. is even more ludicrous. Have you heard of Income Support and Tax Credits? They're state benefits which top up low wages. That's right. As a tax payer, my taxes (which I gladly pay) are used to effectively subsidise employers paying the absolute least they can possibly get away with.
Is that not sick? Is that not twisted? Is that not so utterly arse-about-face as to make you question why such things are necessary? Does it not suggest that the well paying jobs are few and far between?
Now, I do a very particular job. And that job requires an innate level of judgement and sense of fairness. You can either do it, or you can't. I'm lucky that I can do it with aplomb. As a result. I consider myself well paid.
But the shelf stacker in Sainsbury's....sure, any ablebodied individual could do that. But can you explain to me why that job shouldn't pay a decent, living wage? The street sweeper, who's efforts we all benefit from. Why should he or she live on a pittance, just because it's not a job I or most much fancy doing?
Time was even those doing such jobs could still afford a place to live and some little luxuries. Not anymor though.
d-usa wrote: The fact that you are making twice the median salary seems to indicate that a very large number of people don't have better jobs because for whatever reason they are just not looking for them, or that these better jobs are not actually out there and you are very fortunate.
Either way there is a reason why your salary is not the median.
I'm probably quite fortunate. I'm just confused with why I'm not seeing the people close to me striving for that same fortune.
I was reading your replies more from a "why isn't everyone just trying harder, bootstrap people" standpoint, so I think I was addressing a generalization you didn't actually make.
As I've sat here thinking about it, it occurs to me that since I'm referring to specific people, and not just "those kids these days", perhaps the only reasonable thing to do is actually ask them and see what they say. I suppose I shall withdraw my point until I can do that.
I have the same situation with my younger brother. I'm first generation college, and after ups and downs I have an advanced degree, a nice government job, a good pension in my future, a family income in the to 25% of earners, and a nice 3 bedroom house for us and our kids.
My younger brother...really doesn't have anything close to that. He never had a real plan or ambition for anything else after high school. His plan was to just work at the warehouse where my dad worked, and that was pretty much it. No desire of any kind to head to college, and while we were a small town we also had the regional vocational technology school in our town where he could have gotten cheap/free training to pick up a trade (I'm a big proponent of "everyone should get an education, college or vocational training" vs just "everyone should get a college degree"). At one point he was going to join the army, but backed out before heading to basic. He did the oilfield thing, but was laid off when the oil economy tanked over the past few years. He finally got a CDL, which was a big step up in job opportunities for him. We had many talks about why he doesn't pursue even simple opportunities for improvement, but I haven't gained much insight there.
So while I appreciate my station in life and understand that I've had a good combination of luck and opportunities with the right skills at the right time, I also understand that it's not just for a lack of boot-strapping that most people find themselves in less fortunate situations. But man, could my brother benefit from finding his bootstraps and giving them just a little tuck.
daedalus wrote: And that's the thing that falls apart for me. Why does one keep working a gak job like that? Even when they have other opportunities? I mean, even if you're not getting jobs thrown at you, you can still keep LOOKING, at least.
I keep working a gak job, because the alternative is no job which looks even worse when you show up at an interview site. I've been looking for a job better than minimum wage for nearly 7 years. Now this isn't an attempt to bash at you, so much as offer an insider perspective cause I feel like an expert on this topic at this point XD
I've gone to maybe 1-2 interviews a month over the last 7 years, with a month or two a year that I ended up not having any. These jobs range from minimum wage to salaried positions in a wealth of areas like marketing, publishing, sales, stocking shelves, loading trucks, and paper pushing for federal regulations. Basically anything I'm even remotely qualified for on paper I take a stab at. Questions I've been asked by interviewers/potential employers;
-"I see you went to school, but how much work experience do you have?" Did you look at my resume? There's like four jobs listed there. Oh, you mean "real work" and not minimum wage? None I've done at least 50 interviews where you've all asked this question and then didn't hire me. If I were a legislator I'd push for a law banning any job from labeling itself "entry level" while simultaneously asking for "X years of relevant experience." if you're gonna gak on me at least gak on me honestly and don't pretend this job is for people who've never had the job before. My experience is that like most Americans, employers consider minimum wage jobs worthless. It's better than having no job, but no one really cares that you flipped burgers for X years when looking to hire a typist.
-"Can you fly down to Cleveland for an Interview?" Yeah if I had a couple hundred bucks to spend on last minute airfare to compete with who knows how many other saps. I no longer waste money or time this way and wish I hadn't the first three times I was asked. If you are in charge of hiring, don't ask people to do this. It costs me my free cash just to get a suit dry cleaned. I can't afford to meet you face to face half the country away. Especially after the last time when it turns out there wasn't even a position available. Why the feth did you even bring me down here? You couldn't have wasted my time over Skype or FaceTime?
-"You lived at Fort Bragg for seven years? Were you in the military?" This question was just dumb. They asked for my last three addresses, so I gave them my last three addresses. My mental thought was "Bitch is military service listed on my "previous jobs" section?! "
And of course the most patronizing, head up the ass, go suck a dick question anyone has ever asked me (three months ago);
-"Why did you wait so long to start looking for a career?" I swear I nearly punched that overweight guy in the tit, right on his donut stain (i assume it was a donut stain).
And that's the worst part. The longer you go without having whatever jobs are considered good jobs, the more people assume there must be something wrong with you. People think it all the time, and I encounter it every time I bring up how long I've been looking for better than minimum wage work. I'll put good money someone is thinking it right now, not even realizing that bias only perpetuates an inability to find work because job interviewers think the same thing and are somehow so pretentious they think I've been sitting idle this whole time on my computer not even trying. It's an employers market, and it turns out employers can be dicks sometimes. People too. The most successful guy I know got a job at his dad's business and loves to preach to the rest of us how easy it is to get work. feth off Todd, my dad doesn't own a electrician company I can get a free job at (love you Todd his real name isn't Todd).
I just don't get this relaxed mentality about that kind of stuff.
My relatively calm bordering on emotionless demeanor (IRL, I doubt I come off that way in text XD) isn't relaxed. Its basically the only way to avoid looking like a psycho with all the seething rage. There's been a slew of articles of the years about how Millennials are less concerned with marriage, kids, owning property, etc etc and its all bull. I'd love to do all that gak my parents got to start doing 3 years younger than I am now but I don't have the money or the opportunity. Just making opportunities costs more money now than my very well off father makes in 6 month period. If I got married I'd need to find a rich girl with a plush salary, cause I sure as hell can't support anyone right now. I'd love to have my own place, but I can't afford it. I can barely afford insurance, food, and maybe a new game/book with the left over money (sun praise the discount section at Barnes and Noble. Got the entire collected works of H.P Lovecraft for $15.). I indulged a few months back "maybe I can play 40k again, cause my current job pays better than the last one." Yeah that didn't happen.
So yeah. Still working a gakky job. I think a better question than "why do people work gakky jobs" is "why are there gakky jobs?" give me a three dollar raise and my job wouldn't be gakky at all. I'd go from making ~ $476 a week to $596- oh wait the job would still be crappy. Damn. Guess I'll just have to keep looking for something better but jesus at least that extra hundred bucks would make it possible to move out of my parents house and pick up a more than likely gakky roommate to rent some place with.
gorgon wrote: Not sure what that really has to do with the attitudes of Baby Boomers toward Millennials, however...
Essentially, all the people who are the absolute least qualified to comment on how society works, due to being completely disconnected from it, happen to also be in charge of everything.
"dude if you don't like your job just go out and get another one haha"
"dude when I was your age I had a house a dog and three kids why can't you do the same haha"
Unfortunately, the ability to access information does not confer the ability to process it. Honestly, undergraduate essays can be staggeringly bad. Hell, plenty postgraduates are barely capable of constructing an argument or drawing independent conclusions. If the marking scheme was up to me, about 1 in 5 first year essays I mark would pass. Maybe 2 and 5 second years. Alas, with marking schemes as they are, I think I've failed two essays ever.
Obviously I can't go back in time and see pre-internet university essays, but I don't see them being worse...
You can actually, Ethos is grand for that. They're postgrad for the vast majority of them, but it lets you see what standards used to be like. Generally speaking, in my field at least, you get some atrocious history theses written up until about the 1980's. Seriously. I've read ones that would embarass an undergrad passed by supposedly respectable institutions. I think it used to be a case of 'Get on with your supervisor and the two mates he invited over for your viva' as often as it was academically rigorous.
-"Why did you wait so long to start looking for a career?" I swear I nearly punched that overweight guy in the tit, right on his donut stain (i assume it was a donut stain).
I've read about the subconscious psychological profiling most employers do. Something along the lines of 'If nobody else hired this guy for so long, there must be something wrong with him. Why take a chance?'
This thread is like all of my anxieties over the last few years rolled into one giant sob story.
LordofHats wrote: There's been a slew of articles of the years about how Millennials are less concerned with marriage, kids, owning property, etc etc and its all bull. I'd love to do all that gak my parents got to start doing 3 years younger than I am now but I don't have the money or the opportunity. Just making opportunities costs more money now than my very well off father makes in 6 month period. If I got married I'd need to find a rich girl with a plush salary, cause I sure as hell can't support anyone right now. I'd love to have my own place, but I can't afford it. I can barely afford insurance, food, and maybe a new game/book with the left over money.
A lot of what you are experiencing rings true for me.
I am about to turn 35 in a few weeks, so I fall in that nebulous grey area between Gen X and Millennials. Only recently got married, and put that off for a few years because of financial reasons, and when my wife and I were finally married it was at a courthouse.To save on costs (my wife wasn't thrilled but she is pragmatic).
We rent, and really aren't even considering home ownership (Los Angeles housing market... go feth yourself!) and kids are a non-starter. There is no way in hell we could afford a child. It works out in our particular situation that we do not want to have kids, but we've had the children discussion, did the napkin math, and it became clear that we just couldn't in our current situation even if we wanted to. The kicker is we both have "good" jobs, jobs that are considered career track, but they pay gak and it's so difficult to find anything with health benefits (we both have pre-existing conditions and need insurance) that we are sticking with our "barely getting by" jobs to keep us visiting the doctor. Until recently I was working two jobs (full-time gig, plus teaching at night) in order to try and bring in more income to better things. Hasn't paid off. I had to quit the teaching job recently because it was actually costing more in terms of time and disruption of my home life and bringing in less than minimum wage when actual hours vs compensation were calculated.
No one wants to pay. No one seems to care if you have a degree, even an advanced degree. Every job is entry level, or if you are lucky, something in the $12-15 range, which is starvation level in my area.
I've been job hunting for the better part of two years and have a hell of a time getting a call back. The feeling of being stuck is unbearable, and the future is nothing but an ax hanging over my head. I dread aging. I dread a major illness that will knock me or my wife out of the workforce. How can you save when all of your disposable income goes towards bills, insurance, rent and mother fething student loans? Just sucks.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Now, depending on who you ask, I either fall into the late Gen X period, or I'm one of the very first Milennials. Others yet call it Xillenial
None of those work for me I'm just going to call you Fred.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Now, depending on who you ask, I either fall into the late Gen X period, or I'm one of the very first Milennials. Others yet call it Xillenial
None of those work for me I'm just going to call you Fred.
DarkTraveler777 wrote: This thread is like all of my anxieties over the last few years rolled into one giant sob story.
I just want to point out that it is hilarious that sob story on forum ends up being Sisters of Battle Story, cause who the endures more indignity, relentless exploitation, and sheer abandonment in the game and lore of 40k than the Sisters of Battle
One simple statistics shows this "generation uncertainty" rather nicely - women from my generation (born '77-82) have their first child not only when they're significantly older than neighbouring generations, they have their first child AFTER next generation have theirs.
Pretty much. In my circle of friends (I'm from a small town, so you hang out with the people you went to school with for the whole of your life for the most part) a good half of the guys do not have kids. It's true some of those will be by choice, but for many others it's just a combination of job insecurity leading to inability to form a home.... and then you find yourself in your late 30s (I was born on 78), still nowhere close to your "dream job" and already looking too old for some promotions.
I can't complain at all since at age 26 I was already making more than both my parents combined, by age 32 I had already burned all my savings on a failed business and took a step back to just working for someone else. On my second marriage I finally bought a nice home which takes just 15% of our monthly income and we have a lovely kid together.
However some of my friends. Bright, hard-working individuals will probably never have that, and as mad doc says will be the first generation that's objectively worse than their parents. A friend of mine, after getting a Doctorate in History hasn't really been able to find any job other than part-time tour guide. Bad hours and bad pay. He eventuallyl gave up and now works in a plumbing company. The hours are equally bad, but at least the pay is decent.
Another friend of mine is a great construction project accountant, which basically sank with the crisis. For years he could only find part-time jobs, all while his architect girlfriend barely held onto her job (taking a pay cut) while everyone else in the firm was made redundant. Oh, and their jobs are 100km apart, which means they can only see each other on the weekends, and because her parents passed away and she has very little family means having kids is just not posssible.
Just another friend of mine is a Solar Energy engineer. Local pay is so bad he takes project work abroad, and has been spending 8-9 months away from home every year for the last 5 (in places like Chile, UAE, Bolivia, etc), while the wife works just part-time administrative work because they have 3 kids (a record in our group).
Basically if were lucky enough that your parents could let you a place to live, then you can get by with a badly paid work. If you need to stand on your own, then you're screwed.
Millinial Here
as a 20-30 year old, im often told that im horrible with money and that i spend all my savings on too many trips(I do, but lets see why)
Sociology tought me that quite a bit of your formative years are your 14-21 when it comes to alot of stuff. What happened when I was 16?
The market crashed. So I saw alot of people lose their home, lose their car and lose alot of stuff
Why should I spend so much money for something that will just up an disppear. Why should I save when the savings might just disappear because the previous generation gakked up. Maybe I want to spend it on a nice sandwich now, then nothing later on?
Im honestly so scared for the future now that it fills me with dread. Because I know its gonna get worse. Especially here in the bay when it comes to housing. It used to be my 18.50$ n hour job would help me get an apartment with a friend. now im lucky if I can give my mom rent.
But the shelf stacker in Sainsbury's....sure, any ablebodied individual could do that. But can you explain to me why that job shouldn't pay a decent, living wage? The street sweeper, who's efforts we all benefit from. Why should he or she live on a pittance, just because it's not a job I or most much fancy doing?
Time was even those doing such jobs could still afford a place to live and some little luxuries. Not anymor though.
Well that is the big conundrum in society. Ultimately it comes down to the question of "Why has the cost of living soared?"
I don't think that question can be settled till we get past a few things as a society.
First off. Entitlement has become a major issue. People nowdays feel that they are entitled to a lot more beyond what the basic necessities are(food, clothing, shelter). A lot of things that were rightfully considered luxuries up to 100 years ago are now viewed upon as being basic necessities. Things like personal transportation, instant gratification of almost any desire, on-demand entertainment, stuff like cell phones and computers, etc...
Basically, the "basic necessities" list for a person to function in society has become way way longer than it used to be. Nowadays, there are many jobs that you literally couldn't even apply for if you didn't have internet access, email, or a phone. Most people couldn't get to a job if they didn't have transportation of some kind. People today eat way "better" food than we used to(in the sense that we today eat foods everyday that in the past would have been stuff only the wealthiest would have had access to). Then we also have healthcare. People routinely get things done that didn't even exist as little as 20 years ago.
This means that our basic standard of living has gotten massively more expensive to maintain. And this is true for everybody. Thus, we have costs of everything spiralling out of control to simply maintain this society which is adding more and more expensive stuff to the baseline.
However, the individual jobs which are available do not see their value go up just because everybody is living to a higher standard. Pay should not be based upon the $$$ the employee needs to maintain the lifestyle he has chosen/has foisted upon him. That's not fair to the employer OR to other employees who would be competing for the same job. Otherwise you end up with an odd situation where you could have 2 workers doing the exact same job being paid radically different wages. If you had a single unmarried no kids man working as a Ditch Digger, he shouldn't be paid less for digging a ditch than the married man with 3 children gets paid for digging an identical ditch.
Ultimately, I think that the progressive adding on of "entitlement" type benefits that are mandated by law are what is actively leading to the cost of living outstripping what people can reasonably earn. Mandated health coverage. Constantly raising the minimum wage. Continually adding "safety nets" and other social services monitored by the government(and paid for by more taxes). Also combined with a society who has become one which expects to automatically have better or equal standards of living to their parents, instant gratification, and general feeling that they deserve nice things. It all contributes to this problem.
On the subject of health insurance. That entire type of system we have is basically one that is doomed to fail. It also sets itself up so that costs go up over time by having the whole healthcare system be based around insurance in the first place.
If you do not require everybody to have health insurance. You end up with the problem of most people who get it being sick people who would be taking money out instead of putting money in. But if you go the opposite way where it's mandated, you trample on a right everybody should have. The right to opt out. If you feel that you don't need it, you should have the option to not get it. At your own risk of course, but in the interest of maintaining personal liberty IMO that option must be there. Its why I think the "Personal Mandate" for Obamacare is morally repugnant.
The other problem with insurance in general is that any type of market that is based around insurance payouts is going to result in price inflation. Even when there is competition. Because insurance companies will rightly try to minimize their payouts to maintain their own profits. Which leads to doctors and other medical professionals being forced to raise their prices through the roof just so that the insurance will, after all the hemming and hawing over the payout, pay them enough to actually cover their costs. This system ultimately results in prices for anything medical related to go up, not down.
So I think that at the end of the day, the healthcare system would ideally completely ditch the idea of insurance alltogether and only work with actual costs, instead of the artificially inflated prices we pay today. Which is what results in something as simple as an ambulance ride costing $600(true story. My grandpa got taken to the hospital by ambulance, a 5 minute ride from where he was living. Got billed for $600 for something that couldn't possibly have actually cost them more than $50).
hotsauceman1 wrote: ...What happened when I was 16?
The market crashed. So I saw alot of people lose their home, lose their car and lose alot of stuff
Why should I spend so much money for something that will just up an disppear. Why should I save when the savings might just disappear because the previous generation gakked up. Maybe I want to spend it on a nice sandwich now, then nothing later on?
It is tempting to wonder if the tales of un-motivated Millennials is grounded in that event. So many people saw the product of so much hard work vanish, thanks to forces that were totally out of their control. It really put the lie to the "Work hard and Save, and you will be Rewarded" mantra that so many were raised on.
LordofHats wrote: . . . cause who the endures more indignity, relentless exploitation, and sheer abandonment in the game and lore of 40k than the Sisters of Battle
Grey Templar wrote: However, the individual jobs which are available do not see their value go up just because everybody is living to a higher standard.
But they should, and that's the point of minimum wage laws, progressive taxes, etc. When the standard of living for society as a whole improves the benefits should be available to everyone. Otherwise you have a situation where vast numbers of people are stuck in a hell of barely making enough to survive and having no reason to continue living. Aside from any fairness issues, this is the sort of thing that tends to get the elite of society lined up against a wall and shot when the masses finally decide they've got nothing to lose.
Also combined with a society who has become one which expects to automatically have better or equal standards of living to their parents, instant gratification, and general feeling that they deserve nice things.
Why is this a problem? We, as a society, have the resources to maintain that standard of living if we stop concentrating vast amounts of wealth into a handful of obscenely rich people.
But if you go the opposite way where it's mandated, you trample on a right everybody should have. The right to opt out. If you feel that you don't need it, you should have the option to not get it. At your own risk of course, but in the interest of maintaining personal liberty IMO that option must be there.
Why is this "right" so important? Why do we need a right to make suicidally stupid choices that no sane person should ever make?
Of course the "right" to opt out really means the right to get free health care when something bad happens. After all, what are you going to do, let someone bleed to death in the street after a car accident because their credit card was declined? Of course not. Even people with no money and no insurance are going to get a minimal level of service, and those costs get passed along to the people who do pay for insurance. That's why buying insurance is mandatory, so that people can't take advantage of the system at the expense of everyone else.
The other problem with insurance in general is that any type of market that is based around insurance payouts is going to result in price inflation. Even when there is competition. Because insurance companies will rightly try to minimize their payouts to maintain their own profits. Which leads to doctors and other medical professionals being forced to raise their prices through the roof just so that the insurance will, after all the hemming and hawing over the payout, pay them enough to actually cover their costs. This system ultimately results in prices for anything medical related to go up, not down.
Agreed. The way the system depends on a for-profit insurance industry paying a for-profit health care industry is a ridiculous death spiral of increasing costs. That's why both should be abolished, and replaced with government-run health care funded by taxes and available at no additional cost to the individual needing it.
So I think that at the end of the day, the healthcare system would ideally completely ditch the idea of insurance alltogether and only work with actual costs, instead of the artificially inflated prices we pay today.
That's easier said than done, especially for things that aren't routine. If you need major surgery or cancer treatment or whatever you certainly aren't going to be able to afford those real costs unless you're a lot wealthier than the average person. That's why insurance exists, to spread those costs over a long period of time and large number of people. And once you have insurance covering the major things it's hard to break the death spiral of it driving costs everywhere.
Healthcare I can't really comment on. I'm lucky enough to have the full benefit of the NHS, and top notch private care through work.
If I go much further, this'll become a UK vs US political thing, which is for another thread.
Fair pay? I see no reason why anyone in full time work shouldn't be paid enough to comfortably cover their rent, and maybe afford a cheap holiday once a year (not 'let's all go to the Bahamas' holidays. But surely someone working full time deserves at least a caravan or camping break somewhere?). After all, when someone is economically active, the local economy and then the national economy benefits.
It doesn't really matter what the job is. Shelf Stackers are necessary for a supermarket to function. Refuse Workers are necessary to keep our environment pleasant. Street Sweepers are necessary because frankly people are awful and prone to leaving a mess.
You only have to look at the state we get in when bin workers go on strike, and won't do their rounds. Rubbish piles up, starts to stink, attracts Rats and other hazardous vermin. So why aren't they decently paid? Does it matter what percentage of the population could do that job? Or does it matter most that it gets done, and the employee is paid a wage they can actually live on?
But that word - entitlement.
Does it mean different things to different people?
As you might've picked up from the thread, I consider entitlement to be the sole preserve of the Baby Boomers. They benefitted from all the perks, but didn't want to pay it backward via higher taxes. So they voted, repeatedly, to slash Nice Things to get lower taxes.
Then they got all Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY) about house building. If anything, anything looks like it might stop rampant housing inflation, it seems that generation freaks right out. Never mind the majority of them are now mortgage free and their property may be worth 10 or more times what they paid for it in the 70's. No. THE VALUE IS ALL. My house price must go up. And if that means doing whatever it takes to keep supply restricted, so be it. The Youngsters Will Just Have To Work Harder. New development? NIMBY! Talk of an extension to the town, including homes and infrastructure? NIMBY! Older estates being redeveloped or regenerated? NIMBY! NIMBY NIMBY NIMBY HOW DARE YOU THINK OF MY HOUSE PRICE, WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF MY HOUSE PRICE.
That to me is entitlement. A feeling that the world must bend and acquiesce to your every whim - whilst propping up your position by dismantling the very social structures that got you where you are today.
That to me is entitlement. A feeling that the world must bend and acquiesce to your every whim - whilst propping up your position by dismantling the very social structures that got you where you are today.
I don't consider simply wanting work, a living wage, and the same opportunities as before to be particularly entitled. But hey keep telling me how much I want it all now. Seriously 7 years and I'm still being lectured to about patience as if I'm somehow not and frustration at all the wasted effort is meaningless.. That said I think there's something to be said about government Entitlements. Stuff like Social Security, Medicare, etc. With how vindictive US politics are becoming I won't be remotely surprised if my generation shuts that stuff down simply out of spite once we're the ones making political decisions. We're never going to benefit much from those programs at this rate, if at all, and neither will our children or theirs. but our parents and grandparents will still expect us to finance their retirement while putting ours off even more than they have.
But please older Americans, keep informing me how I'm the entitled one in this economy.
Yep, still angry about all this!
Peace is a lie. There is only Passion.
Through Passion I gain Strength.
Through Strength I gain Power.
Through Power I gain Victory.
Through Victory my chains are Broken.
The Force shall free me.
I'm in a similar boat - 33 now, didn't have to pay for uni (Scotland) but did have to pay to graduate (I graduated in a ~2 year window when it was a thing), got a decent job out of uni (which I probably couldn't have afforded to do if I had to pay £9k/year for it!). Bought a house aged 23, with a deposit provided by a relatives estate, on a 95% mortgage, in July 2007 (the month the market collapsed). Paid about twice what the previous owners did for it, and in the 10 years since, despite poring most of my money into it, it's now worth about 80% of what it was when I bought it. So much for house price inflation, but then, it's still cheaper than renting and I can do what I want.
I earn really well for my area, and even with my wife working (she's not now due to childcare costs), I'll be paying off the mortgage on my tiny house just in time to retire, when my parents (who I now out-earn) had their paid off by 40 in a house I couldn't dream to buy myself.
I'll admit I got a few good breaks, and I'm still not far off the "just about coping" category. I can't imagine how badly shafted everyone else is at the moment.
I hope that in 17-20 years when my kids hit unniversity and are starting in the real world, that things have improved again and I'm just a generation that was missed, because I don't think there's any way I can hold them up like my parents did for me.
Stop claiming the exams are getting easier just because results improve.
This one in particular bugs me. Results improve partially because people who were likely to fail were encouraged not to sit the exam, or encouraged to sit lower level exams (because of the league tables), not because the tests are getting easier. They are certainly different - calculators now exist when my parents sat exams using slide-rules or log tables or something.
And that's the thing that falls apart for me. Why does one keep working a gak job like that? Even when they have other opportunities? I mean, even if you're not getting jobs thrown at you, you can still keep LOOKING, at least.
Because statistically, not that many jobs pay double the median salary, and demand is fierce as well as there being high entry requirements. I earn about double median for the country but I needed a 4-year degree under my belt first, and there's very few openings.
It's also hard to get out of the grind - if you don't have time for open learning, or to pay for/attend training, go to interviews, etc.
"just work harder or get a better job" only really applies in fluid markets or with connections.
The other problem with insurance in general is that any type of market that is based around insurance payouts is going to result in price inflation. Even when there is competition. Because insurance companies will rightly try to minimize their payouts to maintain their own profits. Which leads to doctors and other medical professionals being forced to raise their prices through the roof just so that the insurance will, after all the hemming and hawing over the payout, pay them enough to actually cover their costs. This system ultimately results in prices for anything medical related to go up, not down.
Why is why in the real world single payer works so much better than just throwing money at it.
Plus I spend ~1/hour each way on a train to work, at a cost of about £3k/year, because the only way to afford a place to live near my work was to have bought something 30 years ago. It's cheaper to commute half way across the country + my mortgage for a decent but small place, than to buy a single room bedsit near my work. All the work in my field is concentrated so finding another job doesn't solve the problem.
It's not bad, in that I can read/work on the train, but it means my leisure time is curtailed (if I cut my commute in half I'd have an extra hour a day for housework, DIY, and might even get some relaxation/hobby time in too).
Why is why in the real world single payer works so much better than just throwing money at it.
But that's a completely separate discussion.
I'd seen someone make the valid point that Americans are terrified of the cost of single-payer because they think what they pay for medical treatment is what it actually costs, i.e. if it's paid for in tax, everyone would be stumping the full bill for treatment, not realizing that once you take the profiteering out of it you can probably drop the cost down to about 10% of what it is.
I mean, in the UK we pay ~11% national insurance, some of which goes to healthcare, but I've heard of people paying more than that for insurance alone, and they still have co-pay amounts in excess of what the treatment actually costs.
While I agree there's a lot of unfair dumping on younger generations, I also don't buy in to the complete victim narrative either. I look at my parents experience as an example. Sure, my Dad's uni education was free. And sure they paid a lot less for their house than my wife and I.
But they also lived in a time when food, electricity, transport and all the rest chewed up a much bigger share of their income. Sure, my parents are very comfortable now, but as a kid we hardly ever went out for a meal. The only trip my family took in a plane was when I was I 8, and they saved for a couple of years for that. And my parents weren't battlers, Dad was a fairly high ranking civil servant. But lots of things we enjoy regularly now used to be prohibitively expensive.
It's just, things are different for each generation. The pressures are different, and the pressures are greatest for people in their 30s, when people have realised they need to start getting ahead and are taking their first steps to doing it.
This doesn't mean people now should just suck it up, that they shouldn't push for ways to ease those pressures. But it shouldn't be done in the mistaken belief that other generations sailed through. No generation ever had it easy.
I mean, in the UK we pay ~11% national insurance, some of which goes to healthcare, but I've heard of people paying more than that for insurance alone, and they still have co-pay amounts in excess of what the treatment actually costs.
For a good while I spent about 2/3 months a year in the US.
My health plan there cost more than my SS deductions + my private plan in Spain. And that was for a single, healthy person in his late 20s with no preconditions, basically your insurance dream client (indeed my only interaction with the US health care system were regular payments).
I spent a couple of weeks in a US hospital, and the bill was utterly horrendous ($26k IIRC), with individual billing for bandages, accomodation, every diagnostic.
At least I was on travel insurance, but it's easy to see how for the uninsured any illness can be devastating.
I've heard of people needing to sell houses to afford care, which for the supposed leader of the civilized word is pretty disgusting.
sebster wrote: While I agree there's a lot of unfair dumping on younger generations, I also don't buy in to the complete victim narrative either. I look at my parents experience as an example. Sure, my Dad's uni education was free. And sure they paid a lot less for their house than my wife and I.
But they also lived in a time when food, electricity, transport and all the rest chewed up a much bigger share of their income. Sure, my parents are very comfortable now, but as a kid we hardly ever went out for a meal. The only trip my family took in a plane was when I was I 8, and they saved for a couple of years for that. And my parents weren't battlers, Dad was a fairly high ranking civil servant. But lots of things we enjoy regularly now used to be prohibitively expensive.
It's just, things are different for each generation. The pressures are different, and the pressures are greatest for people in their 30s, when people have realised they need to start getting ahead and are taking their first steps to doing it.
This doesn't mean people now should just suck it up, that they shouldn't push for ways to ease those pressures. But it shouldn't be done in the mistaken belief that other generations sailed through. No generation ever had it easy.
Oh everyone has to work at it. But Baby Boomer absolutely had it easier.
Being part of generation rent, I have a surprisingly insecure homelife. Yes, I get on well with my landlady and there's never been any real bother. But even so, if they decide to sell up, I'm pushed to scratch up a new deposit in time, let alone find somewhere suitable.
With Uni costs going through the roof, people are entering the world of work with a small mountain of debt which will need servicing once they earn more than £17,755 - which I'd definitely hope most post-grads could achieve (the reality of course is somewhat different, which just goes to show the struggle is very real, and colossally unfair).
Job security is also somewhat less these days.
But it's when we're told we're lazy, entitled and feckless. By a Baby Boomer - that's when it rankles.
But it's when we're told we're lazy, entitled and feckless. By a Baby Boomer - that's when it rankles.
This is my feeling as well.
Life is hard. Way it is, and it's not like I think Xers, Boomers, Silents, or Greats (so and so forth) had like the super life and everything was golden. But there's just no avoiding the bitterness that comes from being told by a generation that could simultaneously engage in higher education, home ownership, and savings that I'm some lazy gakker who just wants it easy. Even worse when they try to brag about how hard they worked for it, like somehow I haven't put any effort into anything at all. I could be making twice what I make now and probably still wouldn't be able to own a home and twice what I make now is higher than the median wage of the country! Cost of living ain't as low as it was when you were up and coming, wages haven't kept pace with inflation, insurance has gone through the roof and I sure as hell didn't make that happen. It's been going up since before I was even born.
Especially when the policies of the generations that came before me inadvertently played a role in helping make my situation, complaining to me that it exists or trying to shrug off responsibility and pretend the last 30 years of fiscal and public policy have no role to play is rubbing salt in eyes. Dick move dicks
Well, technically I am a Baby Boomer, born in 1962 at the tail end of the supposed era. I shared only in the tail end of the benefits. I got a not fully subsidised university, and was able to get into the housing market on the first floor (meaning after the boom had started, but before it went too far, so prices were only significantly inflated.)
OTOH I've had my state pension slashed and deferred two years by government fiat after I've already paid up my 30 years of contributions. I've lived through five major recessions, been made redundant, had my salary halved in relative terms (more than that in real terms) and I still have a £95,000 mortgage to pay off in the next 12 years.
The idea that Baby Boomers deliberately set out to shaft everyone who came later is a bit extreme. I mean, I have a wife who isn't a baby boomer and a daughter who definitely isn't. In fact, as she's only 17 she will have things a lot worse that Xillenials, with the cost of a university education approaching £60,000 and climate change ramping up other problems around the world. I didn't spend my life thinking about how to make things worse for them. In fact, as a Liberal Democrat voter, I've voted for tax increases to help address some of these soci0-economic problems.
A lot of what Sebster said is correct. Back in the 60s and 70s, life was simpler and more expensive in many respects. I never had an overseas holiday by flying until I was nearly 30. None of this flying to Prague for £30 each way. There were no computers, there were only 3 TV channels and they broadcast only about 12 hours a day. The range of food available was much more restricted.
I think the most important difference now is that the major life commitments of buying a house are so huge that a lot of young people realistically think they are unaffordable, and spend the money on smaller things instead. I've tried to explain this to my mother, who is 80, and she can't really understand my point.
I think the two reasons the baby boomers get attacked most are house ownership and pensions. The reason for that is we see lots of buy to let landlords and lots of protective "I'm alright" behaviour from people who are generally of that age, and many meleinals see their pensions being cut whilst having to pay in more to cover holes thay did not create.
I don't think anyone thinks individuals are blaimed, but there is a feeling that we are paying for baby boomers pensions and damaged by their house ownership.
Steve steveson wrote: I think the two reasons the baby boomers get attacked most are house ownership and pensions. The reason for that is we see lots of buy to let landlords and lots of protective "I'm alright" behaviour from people who are generally of that age, and many meleinals see their pensions being cut whilst having to pay in more to cover holes thay did not create.
I don't think anyone thinks individuals are blaimed, but there is a feeling that we are paying for baby boomers pensions and damaged by their house ownership.
Pretty much this.
My parents are Baby Boomers, but like KK, typically vote Lib Dem - so as two individuals they're not so bad.
But my aunt? Wow. Perfect example of the spoiled brat psychology of a baby boomer who had everything, and now won't share. Buy To Let portfolio, penny pinching, constantly fretting about money, money, money.
So as individuals, culpability will of course vary. As a generation? Well, I didn't vote to be effed in the A at any point, did I?
Kilkrazy wrote: The idea that Baby Boomers deliberately set out to shaft everyone who came later is a bit extreme.
I said inadvertently
Policy isn't so easy to predict that one could purposefully screw over an entire generation. As Gordon Ramsay would say "take ownership of the ship and stop shifting the blame." At some point it be really nice for people to recognize that we can take responsibility from our feth ups without giving up the pride in our accomplishments. Lacking that, the least that could be done is stop screwing with me. Do I seriously need to read in major publications how I've killed department stores? That's what Xers were accused of in 1990! How the feth are we getting blamed for it XD
I don't think anyone thinks individuals are blaimed, but there is a feeling that we are paying for baby boomers pensions and damaged by their house ownership.
We are paying for their pensions (along with other entitlements) and we are damaged by their house ownership. The former wouldn't really bother me if I had any hope I'd ever see one myself (and if the the people getting them weren't blocking welfare and support for others). The later only bothers me when some plush old guy is gonna try and lecture me about why I don't own a house yet. Even if I could afford a house I wouldn't buy one just because it's a waste of money. I'd rather buy a condo. There's a difference between acknowledging and feeling disgruntled with a reality, and thinking someone purposefully set out to ruin me. The only person who I honestly felt ever set out to ruin me was that girl in third grade who tripped me at the start of a round of tag. Damn girl was playing by Without a Paddle rules
But my aunt? Wow. Perfect example of the spoiled brat psychology of a baby boomer who had everything, and now won't share. Buy To Let portfolio, penny pinching, constantly fretting about money, money, money.
I think this is a major component of the bitterness too really.
How many of us have adults in our own families who engage in generation bashing? I do, and while my parents have never directly bashed me because they're not monsters that doesn't mean I don't feel anger listening to them rant about how lazy the young people these days are, and how they want everything for free. I'm one of those "young people" and if you were living my disappointments yourself you wouldn't be saying the things your saying. That's really hard because I imagine most of us love our parents and our families, but in my experience everyone has at least one immediate or expended family member who dismisses us an infantile newt from the porch of their nice house collecting the money I pay into social security.
Rainbow Dash wrote: Unless a job will get me into a better living situation, I don't really see the point in throwing myself full force into things.
I suppose some jobs still have advancement, (mine does not) but I have gotten to a point where I could never afford to go to school or pay off the debt and live at the same time.
And being very weird and unpopular with the ladies means I won't get married or anything.
So what I have now, the 1 bedroom apartment, is as good as it will ever get.
Regardless of what I actually ever do.
There is only so high I can climb and that isn't that high, so I have lost all desire to work harder, I don't care about buying copious amounts of warhammer that much, can't travel since my job rarely gives days off and while they say you're allowed a holiday they don't really like to actually give your days to you, and they keep throwing more work with no more pay and no more hours.
Personally I hope I don't live to be old, then I am fethed.
I'm 33 and make double the median salary for my area. I live in what's effectively a 3 bedroom apartment with my girlfriend, paying for it all on my income, and I make enough money to keep saving and buy myself shiny things whenever feels good.
You... might want to consider a new job. It's a strange thing to me that people willfully work jobs that don't give time off and are borderline abusive to their employees. My girlfriend does that even though she could probably get a job with actual benefits pretty much anywhere else out of some misguided sense of "loyalty". I ask how that's possible when they're not loyal to her, but that's another rabbit hole. I just shake my head.
Also, if you want to be more popular with the women, maybe stop referring to yourself as "Rainbow Dash"? Might help you get taken more seriously.
Well that was an old and stupid name and a forum for model soldiers isn't exactly (usually) a really serious place I have been looking for a new job but, pickings are slim, hard when all the people you go up against are far more educated then you.
My biggest issue with the opposite sex isn't my bizarre personality per say, though a lot of the time it is, but general awkwardness and a host of other issues derived from mental illness (an embarrassing topic to discuss)
But I care about work and my own life then I do about dating and meeting girls.
d-usa wrote: The fact that you are making twice the median salary seems to indicate that a very large number of people don't have better jobs because for whatever reason they are just not looking for them, or that these better jobs are not actually out there and you are very fortunate.
Either way there is a reason why your salary is not the median.
I'm probably quite fortunate. I'm just confused with why I'm not seeing the people close to me striving for that same fortune.
I was reading your replies more from a "why isn't everyone just trying harder, bootstrap people" standpoint, so I think I was addressing a generalization you didn't actually make.
As I've sat here thinking about it, it occurs to me that since I'm referring to specific people, and not just "those kids these days", perhaps the only reasonable thing to do is actually ask them and see what they say. I suppose I shall withdraw my point until I can do that.
I have the same situation with my younger brother. I'm first generation college, and after ups and downs I have an advanced degree, a nice government job, a good pension in my future, a family income in the to 25% of earners, and a nice 3 bedroom house for us and our kids.
My younger brother...really doesn't have anything close to that. He never had a real plan or ambition for anything else after high school. His plan was to just work at the warehouse where my dad worked, and that was pretty much it. No desire of any kind to head to college, and while we were a small town we also had the regional vocational technology school in our town where he could have gotten cheap/free training to pick up a trade (I'm a big proponent of "everyone should get an education, college or vocational training" vs just "everyone should get a college degree"). At one point he was going to join the army, but backed out before heading to basic. He did the oilfield thing, but was laid off when the oil economy tanked over the past few years. He finally got a CDL, which was a big step up in job opportunities for him. We had many talks about why he doesn't pursue even simple opportunities for improvement, but I haven't gained much insight there.
So while I appreciate my station in life and understand that I've had a good combination of luck and opportunities with the right skills at the right time, I also understand that it's not just for a lack of boot-strapping that most people find themselves in less fortunate situations. But man, could my brother benefit from finding his bootstraps and giving them just a little tuck.
I've never heard of vocational school, I don't think we have those in Canada.
I remember my step mother saying something about community collage which I don't think we have either.
hotsauceman1 wrote: Millinial Here
as a 20-30 year old, im often told that im horrible with money and that i spend all my savings on too many trips(I do, but lets see why)
Sociology tought me that quite a bit of your formative years are your 14-21 when it comes to alot of stuff. What happened when I was 16?
The market crashed. So I saw alot of people lose their home, lose their car and lose alot of stuff
Why should I spend so much money for something that will just up an disppear. Why should I save when the savings might just disappear because the previous generation gakked up. Maybe I want to spend it on a nice sandwich now, then nothing later on?
I think that's fine so long as you recognize that saying 'feth it' is your decision and not something society forced you into. Perhaps it could actually keep you in a happier frame of mind than if you were worrying about the future. One could say that it's an attitude bound to lead to trouble later on, but ultimately maybe it really isn't any worse than living for the future when you put them on the scales.
Somewhat of an aside here, but one of the most important things I've learned is that living life in a thankful state of being is one of the real keys to happiness. Note that you can achieve this whether you have a little or a lot, and can fail to achieve this whether you have a little or a lot.
Some of those rich fethers you come across who are unhappy as hell? They are that way because they aren't thankful -- they look at life in terms of what they deserve or what they're owed, and fail to recognize the breaks they got and times at which others helped them.
So I hope that some of you Millennials who have been having such a rough time of it don't fall into this trap. Because rest assured that a lot of the negative feelings about not getting what you think you're worth can stay with you even after you're making good money. You may scoff at this advice now, but it's an absolute truth that you'll understand later.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: But my aunt? Wow. Perfect example of the spoiled brat psychology of a baby boomer who had everything, and now won't share. Buy To Let portfolio, penny pinching, constantly fretting about money, money, money.
I obviously don't know her personality, but she could be a good example of what I describe above.
I don't think being frugal and careful about money is a character flaw, however. That doesn't have to turn one into Ebenezer Scrooge.
Being good with money is fine. The economy would collapse if we didn't have them to match the big spenders.
But, this particular person is all about money, and nothing but. Borrow money off her parents to start her portfolio - never paid it back, still took her full slice of the inheritance pie. Freaked out - properly freaked out - when she found her two brothers had also borrowed money of their parents.
If I've ever met an avatar of everything pathetic and feeble about Baby Boomers, she's it. Everything has to be her way. Everything. We once went out for a family lunch. Nothing special, just a trip to the pub up the village. She moaned and moaned and moaned about the table we were sat at. Given it was the extended family (I don't get up north much, and this was my way of seeing everyone at once. And on neutral ground), the pub didn't have an alternative. So she insisted we go elsewhere - and then sulked when she didn't get her own way.
DarkTraveler777 wrote: This thread is like all of my anxieties over the last few years rolled into one giant sob story.
I just want to point out that it is hilarious that sob story on forum ends up being Sisters of Battle Story, cause who the endures more indignity, relentless exploitation, and sheer abandonment in the game and lore of 40k than the Sisters of Battle
sebster wrote: While I agree there's a lot of unfair dumping on younger generations, I also don't buy in to the complete victim narrative either. I look at my parents experience as an example. Sure, my Dad's uni education was free. And sure they paid a lot less for their house than my wife and I.
But they also lived in a time when food, electricity, transport and all the rest chewed up a much bigger share of their income. Sure, my parents are very comfortable now, but as a kid we hardly ever went out for a meal. The only trip my family took in a plane was when I was I 8, and they saved for a couple of years for that. And my parents weren't battlers, Dad was a fairly high ranking civil servant. But lots of things we enjoy regularly now used to be prohibitively expensive.
It's just, things are different for each generation. The pressures are different, and the pressures are greatest for people in their 30s, when people have realised they need to start getting ahead and are taking their first steps to doing it.
This doesn't mean people now should just suck it up, that they shouldn't push for ways to ease those pressures. But it shouldn't be done in the mistaken belief that other generations sailed through. No generation ever had it easy.
Oh everyone has to work at it. But Baby Boomer absolutely had it easier.
Being part of generation rent, I have a surprisingly insecure homelife. Yes, I get on well with my landlady and there's never been any real bother. But even so, if they decide to sell up, I'm pushed to scratch up a new deposit in time, let alone find somewhere suitable.
With Uni costs going through the roof, people are entering the world of work with a small mountain of debt which will need servicing once they earn more than £17,755 - which I'd definitely hope most post-grads could achieve (the reality of course is somewhat different, which just goes to show the struggle is very real, and colossally unfair).
Job security is also somewhat less these days.
But it's when we're told we're lazy, entitled and feckless. By a Baby Boomer - that's when it rankles.
Exactly.
I bought into the middle class idea that if you did well in school, applied yourself, then you'd get a job and life's options would open up. That didn't happen. Little did I know the social contract I was being groomed to sign was already breaking a decade before I was born and by the time I reached adulthood had pretty much been destroyed.
hotsauceman1 wrote: Millinial Here
as a 20-30 year old, im often told that im horrible with money and that i spend all my savings on too many trips(I do, but lets see why)
Sociology tought me that quite a bit of your formative years are your 14-21 when it comes to alot of stuff. What happened when I was 16?
The market crashed. So I saw alot of people lose their home, lose their car and lose alot of stuff
Why should I spend so much money for something that will just up an disppear. Why should I save when the savings might just disappear because the previous generation gakked up. Maybe I want to spend it on a nice sandwich now, then nothing later on?
I think that's fine so long as you recognize that saying 'feth it' is your decision and not something society forced you into. Perhaps it could actually keep you in a happier frame of mind than if you were worrying about the future. One could say that it's an attitude bound to lead to trouble later on, but ultimately maybe it really isn't any worse than living for the future when you put them on the scales.
No, Society 100% pushed me in this direction, I would love to live on my own, run the air conditioner when I want, sit around and do nothing and not hve my parents yell at me
But its impossible, a single room apartment here is almost 1000$ a month. That is before whatever isnt included.
I want a good life, but the previous generation cocked it up for us and blame us
Yes, ofcourse Millinials cant afford diamonds WE CANT AFFORD FOOD
No, Society 100% pushed me in this direction, I would love to live on my own, run the air conditioner when I want, sit around and do nothing and not hve my parents yell at me
Sure. Maybe it's society's fault. It's YOUR life. You get to choose how you respond to whatever forces that caused whatever issues you have..
But its impossible, a single room apartment here is almost 1000$ a month. That is before whatever isnt included.
I want a good life, but the previous generation cocked it up for us and blame us
Yes, ofcourse Millinials cant afford diamonds WE CANT AFFORD FOOD
In a former life some 10 years ago I bought an engagement ring for a girl when I was working two jobs at about $10/hour. That was before I got my big-boy job. It wasn't an incredibly big diamond, but it was a diamond. I couldn't afford warhammer at that point in time though, and I certainly didn't eat out as much as I do now, but I did live in an apartment with a roommate, and I was managing to pay off student loan, penny by penny. I suspect a big difference is California cost of living versus Missouri cost of living.
A lot of that is because you live in California. Around here, a nice two bedroom townhouse with a finished basement is $850. What do northern Cali prices look like?
daedalus wrote: I suspect a big difference is California cost of living versus Missouri cost of living.
A lot of that is because you live in California. Around here, a nice two bedroom townhouse with a finished basement is $850. What do northern Cali prices look like?
San Francisco is notorious for its jaw-dropping real estate prices.
The median rent for a one-bedroom apartment stands at $3,460 a month.
But it's not just housing expenses that will eat away at your paycheck. In general, the total cost of living in San Francisco is 62.6% higher than the US average.
Granted, that is San Francisco which is going through a housing crisis thanks to Silicon Valley, but it ain't cheap to live in NorCal.
A lot of that is because you live in California. Around here, a nice two bedroom townhouse with a finished basement is $850. What do northern Cali prices look like?
around here, a 1 bedroom/one bath is around 1100$
And I blame San Jose for this and the damn tech boom
Kilkrazy wrote: I think the most important difference now is that the major life commitments of buying a house are so huge that a lot of young people realistically think they are unaffordable, and spend the money on smaller things instead.
I think this is certainly the case in the States and especially true for the generation that came of age in the wake of 2007-08. One of the reasons is because the quality of life one can afford while renting doesn't necessarily match up to the quality of life one can afford over and above the cost of a mortgage on a property that "matches" the former. That is to say, thinking of oneself as upper middle class, if you were to buy a house that you might think of as appropriate to that class, would force you to adopt a lower middle class life style in other respects. So there is a misalignment there, and the lack of job security doesn't make people any more willing to embrace it.
Kilkrazy wrote: I think the most important difference now is that the major life commitments of buying a house are so huge that a lot of young people realistically think they are unaffordable, and spend the money on smaller things instead.
I think this is certainly the case in the States and especially true for the generation that came of age in the wake of 2007-08. One of the reasons is because the quality of life one can afford while renting doesn't necessarily match up to the quality of life one can afford over and above the cost of a mortgage on a property that "matches" the former. That is to say, thinking of oneself as upper middle class, if you were to buy a house that you might think of as appropriate to that class, would force you to adopt a lower middle class life style in other respects. So there is a misalignment there, and the lack of job security doesn't make people any more willing to embrace it.
Wait, is renting cheaper than a mortgage in much of the US? I know there are rent controls in certain places, but as a general rule? Here the barrier to buying is the deposit and actually getting the mortgage, but once you have it you'll always be paying less (often significantly) monthly in mortgage repayments than you would in rent for an equivalent property.
Hilarious. Yes, the baby boomers had some good luck, and yes, some baby boomers are cutting the ladders behind them. They're the highly visible minority.
A ton of baby boomers also worked jobs today's kids wouldn't do at any price, and lived in conditions today's kids would run away from screaming. My mom worked in a nursing home until she had kids, then as a cleaning lady after we were old enough. My dad started working in a tannery until he started an aluminum siding business, which he did in the summer, and he spent his winters trapping mink and muskrat. In the winters they heated the house with a wood stove in the winters to save on heating oil costs, until probably around 2005.
Their parents came over from the Netherlands after WW2, kids in tow. No social safety net to get them going, they were directed to Northern Ontario to start chopping lumber until they found something better, which they did, but not that much better.
So hey, millennials, you ready to get in a canoe and fish dead animals out of the frozen water and skin them to make a living? Ready to clean people's toilets and kitchens to make ends meet? Ready to chop your own wood to save a buck on winter heating? Are you raising vegetables and chickens in your backyard? If not, stop pretending society has stolen your future out from under you. A lot of the baby boomers worked their asses off and scrimped and saved to build a better future for themselves, and there wasn't any social contract to help them out either. No free university education, no great job waiting for them.
It's the same for every generation, don't kid yourself. A small portion of them get a free ride and the next generation looks at those guys and feels cheated. You're not being cheated, people, you're ignoring all the normal shlubs who had to do what you're doing now - bust your hump and sacrifice to scrape by.
John Prins wrote: Hilarious. Yes, the baby boomers had some good luck, and yes, some baby boomers are cutting the ladders behind them. They're the highly visible minority.
A ton of baby boomers also worked jobs today's kids wouldn't do at any price, and lived in conditions today's kids would run away from screaming. My mom worked in a nursing home until she had kids, then as a cleaning lady after we were old enough. My dad started working in a tannery until he started an aluminum siding business, which he did in the summer, and he spent his winters trapping mink and muskrat. In the winters they heated the house with a wood stove in the winters to save on heating oil costs, until probably around 2005.
Their parents came over from the Netherlands after WW2, kids in tow. No social safety net to get them going, they were directed to Northern Ontario to start chopping lumber until they found something better, which they did, but not that much better.
So hey, millennials, you ready to get in a canoe and fish dead animals out of the frozen water and skin them to make a living? Ready to clean people's toilets and kitchens to make ends meet? Ready to chop your own wood to save a buck on winter heating? Are you raising vegetables and chickens in your backyard? If not, stop pretending society has stolen your future out from under you. A lot of the baby boomers worked their asses off and scrimped and saved to build a better future for themselves, and there wasn't any social contract to help them out either. No free university education, no great job waiting for them.
It's the same for every generation, don't kid yourself. A small portion of them get a free ride and the next generation looks at those guys and feels cheated. You're not being cheated, people, you're ignoring all the normal shlubs you had to do what you're doing now - bust your hump and sacrifice to scrape by.
A lot of economists would blow holes in your "argument" here.
Read Robert Reich's work on the break down of the American manufacturing industry in the 70's and 80's and the change in the social contract between corporations and workers during that same time period.
It absolutely isn't the same for every generation. Globalization and the internet have fundamentally changed how many industries work today. Were you or your parent's generation dealing with that? Automation is now the next thing to cripple jobs. Which is leading some countries to begin looking at universal income as a way to stave of the inevitable decline in jobs and growth of an angry, mob of young people who cannot function in society in the same manner as previous generations. But, yeah, it's all the same, we just need to hump and sacrifice more.
Wait, is renting cheaper than a mortgage in much of the US? I know there are rent controls in certain places, but as a general rule? Here the barrier to buying is the deposit and actually getting the mortgage, but once you have it you'll always be paying less (often significantly) monthly in mortgage repayments than you would in rent for an equivalent property.
As a very generalized rule:
The monthly cost of renting an apartment is less than the monthly cost of renting a house, but the monthly mortgage payment of a house is lower than the monthly rent for the same house.
With that said, and leaving apartments out of the equation, renting a house vs buying a house comes with a couple issues that can complicate things:
- You already mentioned the initial barrier of needing a down payment and qualifying for a mortgage. Often it is easier to just pay $100 more a month than coming up with a $30,000 down payment.
- Flexibility: It's easier to rent if you are needing flexibility. Maybe your job requires frequent moves around the country. Maybe your job does not have a reliable income. It can be easier to move to another home, or to a cheaper home, if you are renting.
- Added costs of home ownership vs renting that are not reflected in the mortgage payment. HOA fees, homeowners insurance vs renters insurance, having to pay a couple thousand dollars out of pocket because your water heater is broken vs calling the landlord and telling him to fix your water heater. Needing to pay yourself $X each month to build up an emergency fund to pay for all the things that you would call someone else for. So in the end it might be cheaper to rent on a monthly cost.
So once you look at all the additional factors, buying a house can be more expensive than renting a house. But you are also giving up a lot of benefits like taxes (although you can argue that it's stupid to pay interest on a loan just so that you can get a smaller amount of that money back in taxes), and unless we have another economic meltdown you could be building equity by not renting.
nfe wrote: Here the barrier to buying is the deposit and actually getting the mortgage, but once you have it you'll always be paying less (often significantly) monthly in mortgage repayments than you would in rent for an equivalent property.
The down payment is also the major obstacle here. Although you don't have to pay a substantial (10%+) down payment, the result of not doing so is a higher monthly bill - which can be as much as or even more than rent, even before considering mortgage insurance, home owner's insurance, property taxes, and (certain) utilities.
DarkTraveler777 wrote: Granted, that is San Francisco which is going through a housing crisis thanks to Silicon Valley, but it ain't cheap to live in NorCal.
One could move to a cheaper area, though.
As I said a while back, I think there may be some generation shifts with regard to lifestyle priorities. More Millennials may be more willing to sacrifice financially for the chance to live in a more appealing area, while prior generations may have been more willing to sacrifice with regard to where they live for the chance to be in a better financial situation.
With regard to the whole rent/mortgage thing, I think most homeowners (at least in the U.S.) would tell you that it's the many costs of owning a house that wrecks one's finances moreso than the mortgage itself.
Gorgon, that's surely true - but it was the mortgage itself in the wake of the financial crisis ... which is why I mentioned this traumatizing a certain demographic.
Overall, home ownership (within reason) is more advantageous than renting unless you need maximum flexibility for moving between regions. The fact that so many people find themselves "stuck" in renting despite having fairly stable jobs is a problem, IMO.
John Prins wrote: Hilarious. Yes, the baby boomers had some good luck, and yes, some baby boomers are cutting the ladders behind them. They're the highly visible minority.
A ton of baby boomers also worked jobs today's kids wouldn't do at any price, and lived in conditions today's kids would run away from screaming. My mom worked in a nursing home until she had kids, then as a cleaning lady after we were old enough. My dad started working in a tannery until he started an aluminum siding business, which he did in the summer, and he spent his winters trapping mink and muskrat. In the winters they heated the house with a wood stove in the winters to save on heating oil costs, until probably around 2005.
Their parents came over from the Netherlands after WW2, kids in tow. No social safety net to get them going, they were directed to Northern Ontario to start chopping lumber until they found something better, which they did, but not that much better.
So hey, millennials, you ready to get in a canoe and fish dead animals out of the frozen water and skin them to make a living? Ready to clean people's toilets and kitchens to make ends meet? Ready to chop your own wood to save a buck on winter heating? Are you raising vegetables and chickens in your backyard? If not, stop pretending society has stolen your future out from under you. A lot of the baby boomers worked their asses off and scrimped and saved to build a better future for themselves, and there wasn't any social contract to help them out either. No free university education, no great job waiting for them.
It's the same for every generation, don't kid yourself. A small portion of them get a free ride and the next generation looks at those guys and feels cheated. You're not being cheated, people, you're ignoring all the normal shlubs who had to do what you're doing now - bust your hump and sacrifice to scrape by.
All the evidence, which shows that house prices in the U.K. and US have gone up faster than wages, inequality has increased and living standards have decreased. Most baby boomers did not do what you claim, and there is no way someone could afford to even live now the way you claim your parents did.
DarkTraveler777 wrote: Granted, that is San Francisco which is going through a housing crisis thanks to Silicon Valley, but it ain't cheap to live in NorCal.
One could move to a cheaper area, though.
Easier said than done.
If you are barely scraping by how do you afford to uproot, find a new job and new housing, when you already aren't getting by?
Yes, moving is the obvious answer but it isn't like everyone can snap their fingers and relocate to a better area. Moving house is a major undertaking when you are just moving across town. Moving between states or even across a state (especially one as large as California) could result in living in a new climate. That is more costs, as your wardrobe needs to change, perhaps your vehicle (if you have one) is inappropriate for the region, etc. Gak's expensive, yo.
If you are barely scraping by how do you afford to uproot, find a new job and new housing, when you already aren't getting by?
Especially if you don't have your own transportation, internet access, or phone that some people just say "why do you need it?"
Saying people should just move is the proverbial catch-22 of social commentary.
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John Prins wrote: A ton of baby boomers also worked jobs today's kids wouldn't do at any price, and lived in conditions today's kids would run away from screaming. My mom worked in a nursing home until she had kids, then as a cleaning lady after we were old enough. My dad started working in a tannery until he started an aluminum siding business, which he did in the summer, and he spent his winters trapping mink and muskrat. In the winters they heated the house with a wood stove in the winters to save on heating oil costs, until probably around 2005.
Oh gee. Why didn't I think of that? I mean central PA is just crawling in mink and muskrat, and I guess I just completely overlooked all the fire places in my college dorm because that's such a stand feature in rented spaces right?. I guess I'll just skip on over to the nearest frozen lake with the canoe I don't own when I'm not cleaning toilets and ktichens. Have you seriously not be in an eatery or department store in the last ten years? Who do you think is cleaning those places right now? *this guy* And oh yeah I'll just go raise some farm to table in my backyard... Seriously haven't read the thread for that one have you
But please. Keep telling me how hard Boomers worked and how hard I haven't. Never gets old.
DarkTraveler777 wrote: Granted, that is San Francisco which is going through a housing crisis thanks to Silicon Valley, but it ain't cheap to live in NorCal.
One could move to a cheaper area, though.
Easier said than done.
If you are barely scraping by how do you afford to uproot, find a new job and new housing, when you already aren't getting by?
Yes, moving is the obvious answer but it isn't like everyone can snap their fingers and relocate to a better area. Moving house is a major undertaking when you are just moving across town. Moving between states or even across a state (especially one as large as California) could result in living in a new climate. That is more costs, as your wardrobe needs to change, perhaps your vehicle (if you have one) is inappropriate for the region, etc. Gak's expensive, yo.
Obviously it depends on one's particulars. But you can at least search for jobs in other areas thanks to the wonders of the interwebz. Even back when I was young, struggling, and looking for the right kind of work, I had a phone interview for a job 700 miles away. I didn't necessarily want to move there, but if it was going to be an opportunity for me, then it was worth exploring. And if one is actually poor with a small apartment, then a U-Haul rental should suffice for getting one from point A to point B. That's what I did when I ultimately moved 300 miles for a job that was a lateral move (and overall a loss for me since I was going from a shared apartment to footing the bill on my own). But that move also had the promise of more opportunity and it ultimately paid off.
Sometimes you need to take risks, especially if nothing much is going on for you anyway.
And what kind of situations are you talking about that involve radical climate change? Maybe you need a heavier coat if you move north. Maybe you need another pair of shorts if you move south. And exactly where is a basic car not going to operate? You're not helping your case with those kinds of objections.
It's the same for every generation, don't kid yourself. A small portion of them get a free ride and the next generation looks at those guys and feels cheated. You're not being cheated, people, you're ignoring all the normal shlubs who had to do what you're doing now - bust your hump and sacrifice to scrape by.
It sure is nice to live in ignorance.
Which is a big problem when so many people choose to do it. When you're dealing with people like John who stick their head in the sand and can't be bothered to base their opinions on simple things like 'facts' or 'statistics' and whose interpretation of reality is 'I feel this is right,' there's just no making people like that stop being uneducated donkey-caves.
Interestingly, a new report says that income inequality in the UK has decreased since 2008, however this is as much the result of middle and upper middle class incomes shrinking as working class incomes growing.
gorgon wrote: But you can at least search for jobs in other areas thanks to the wonders of the interwebz.
"Can you fly down to Cleveland for an Interview?"
No I can't because I already have a job where time off is a pain in the ass to get and even if I got it I don't have a couple hundred bucks to drop on a round ticket just to learn you've had thousands of applicants. I've done the same thing you did already, and the reality is that it's not that simple anymore. I moved out the Kansas for a job with better opportunity except that better opportunity ended up going to someone else because competition has become so fierce and my odds of beating out hundreds or thousands of others are pretty low at this point. Even managing to jump the hurdle and get a stab at it took me 2 years. It would take years right now (5 years after starting) for me to become the most qualified candidate to move up. But gak wasn't like that when my parents were entering the work force and they patently fail to realize how much larger to pool of candidates for most jobs has become.
You can't just get a phone interview anymore. I've done phone interviews, after which the employer wants in person interviews and they do that because they can afford to. There's so many people putting their hats in the ring for the job that if only three or four people can show up to actually meet face to face they'll be just fine and non-ironically the kind of people who can afford to do that either live in the area already or are already well off.
Not everyone can be a rocket scientist or a brain surgeon and find themselves in an advantageous position if they approach the job market the right way.
Sometimes you need to take risks, especially if nothing much is going on for you anyway.
The most tiresome thing to be told after "just work hard" is "take risks." I've taken gak tons of risks. $100,000 dollars in risk before I even got a degree, plus hundreds more since on dry cleaning, gas, phone calls, and all the wasted time that comes with searching for a good job.
gorgon wrote: Sometimes you need to take risks, especially if nothing much is going on for you anyway.
Oh, thanks. Sage advice there. So again, how do you make the move if you can't fund it? Go into debt? That is a risk. If you can even obtain the credit necessary to fund the move. And if you already are in debt, say by taking a risk that a fething degree would actually pay off, and it didn't, what then? Or what if someone made a move to a different region and their luck didn't pan out. They risked. What now?
The implied insult that I or anyone else in this thread is risk adverse is obnoxious.
gorgon wrote: And what kind of situations are you talking about that involve radical climate change? Maybe you need a heavier coat if you move north. Maybe you need another pair of shorts if you move south. And exactly where is a basic car not going to operate? You're not helping your case with those kinds of objections.
Okay, I'll try and play nice despite your jabs.
Radical climate change, let's see: NorCal to the South West would be dramatic, require a new wardrobe, and potentially a different vehicle.
SoCal to anywhere mountainous like Colorado or Idaho would require a wardrobe change and likely a different vehicle. If you have a sub-compact car traversing icy-mountain roads isn't fun.
Moving from one coast to another would produce dramatic climate change for the person involved. Again, you are advocating that someone who is strapped for cash and low on options "simply" relocate somewhere else, but you aren't considering all of the real-world costs involved. Pretending that moving from Los Angeles to Denver, or Napa to Albequerque, or Rochester, PA to Orlando, FL would have no impact on the clothes you wear or the type of goods you'd need to properly live in those vastly different climates is, to use your words, not helping your case.
DarkTraveler777 wrote: Oh, thanks. Sage advice there. So again, how do you make the move if you can't fund it? Go into debt? That is a risk. If you can even obtain the credit necessary to fund the move. And if you already are in debt, say by taking a risk that a fething degree would actually pay off, and it didn't, what then? Or what if someone made a move to a different region and their luck didn't pan out. They risked. What now?
Out of meager curiosity I just looked at what it would cost to rent a U-Haul and go 300 miles; $400 dollar, not including gas. Throw in maybe $100 it would cost me to load on on cheap gonna fall apart before the season is over winter gear, the probable increase in insurance across the board cause "red neck hills" VA has some of the cheapest insurance I've ever paid (even cheaper than country PA, which surprised me), and I'm probably looking at somewhere around $500 to move.
I could afford that but only because my parents don't make me pay rent and my car is paid off. Not everyone can do that. It's like people seriously don't comprehend how little free cash you have when you're working minimum wage, which isn't a millennial only thing to be sure, but seriously can people stop pretending that "just move" is the answer to the struggle of being poor? There's probably lots of Xers and Boomers would would appreciate an end to that too.
SoCal to anywhere mountainous like Colorado or Idaho would require a wardrobe change and likely a different vehicle. If you have a sub-compact car traversing icy-mountain roads isn't fun.
I can tell you driving my car in even light snow is terrifying. I don't know what it is about the Ford Fiesta (I named him Slowpoke Rodrigeuz ) but that thing slides if there's even a quarter inch on the road. Probably because it's so light. If I were to live somewhere with heavier or longer winters I wouldn't feel very safe driving it but I'd probably have to because cars aren't cheap and I couldn't afford one even if I wanted to.
When I went for my current job, on offer was a doubling of my wage. Downside? For each role, there was 100 applicants.
Glad to say I clearly made that 1%.
But I'm even more glad to say that I have supportive parents.
Now, you may be wondering 'Oh Doc, you landed that job, what did your parents have to do with it!?'
Simple. Train Ticket.
See, I live in the beautiful town of Royal Tunbridge Wells. And my job is in London. For that first month, I had to get the train. And that ticket cost £432.00. Not a misprint, £432.00.
Now, at the time, I earned over the minimum wage at £13,200 per annum. After tax, rent, food, water, electricity? I had the princely sum of £200 disposable income each month.
D'you see the problem there? Had it not been for my parents treating me to that first month's commute cost, I could not have taken this job and would have been doomed to work my bollocks off for an absolute pittance|
And I'm far from the only one in this situation. How can someone on a low income make the jump I did? It's just not possible without some cash behind you - and pitifully few can afford to save.
So it's far from 'just look for a better job in the right areas'.
Setting all this stuff aside, how does it cost $502 (432 Euros) to travel 40 miles?! In the US I could travel 300 miles on that, bring all my stuff with me, and still have change left over XD
LordofHats wrote: Out of meager curiosity I just looked at what it would cost to rent a U-Haul and go 300 miles; $400 dollar, not including gas. Throw in maybe $100 it would cost me to load on on cheap gonna fall apart before the season is over winter gear, the probable increase in insurance across the board cause "red neck hills" VA has some of the cheapest insurance I've ever paid (even cheaper than country PA, which surprised me), and I'm probably looking at somewhere around $500 to move.
Thanks for doing the heavy lifting. Great examples! And 300 miles isn't all that far in terms of relocating. A multi-day 1000+ mile trip would be even worse.
LordofHats wrote: I can tell you driving my car in even light snow is terrifying. I don't know what it is about the Ford Fiesta (I named him Slowpoke Rodrigeuz ) but that thing slides if there's even a quarter inch on the road. Probably because it's so light. If I were to live somewhere with heavier or longer winters I wouldn't feel very safe driving it but I'd probably have to because cars aren't cheap and I couldn't afford one even if I wanted to.
Exactly. It may not always be an issue for each person, but it is definitely a factor that needs to be considered. I drive an older model Scion XB(ox), and I don't think it would handle most "country road" conditions. It is pretty low to the ground, has weak acceleration and is front wheel drive. I don't even take it out to the desert when we go shooting because I've had trouble getting it over rougher terrain. If I moved somewhere non-urban I'd likely want 4WD, and probably something lifted higher than my Xbox. Want, not get. I can't just produce a new vehicle out of thin air.
Setting all this stuff aside, how does it cost $502 (432 Euros) to travel 40 miles?! In the US I could travel 300 miles on that, bring all my stuff with me, and still have change left over XD
Are trains that expensive in the UK?
Yes.
I spent about £4.5k on accommodation at university for my final year in Manchester for ten months. It costs £800 more for a train from my home town of Derby for the equivalent season ticket and £1.5k more if I get a ticket every day.
I only take the train when I need to get home quick. The bus is cheaper, comfier, I don't have to change trains halfway through and it has free Wifi so I'm not bored out of my mind for three hours.
Tell me about it. I moved to Kansas and then Drove back to PA 2 years later. I don't like traveling tho so I soldered on and did the trip in 2 days, and saved on hotel by sleeping over at Grandmas.
I'm going to bow out of this thread, because it appears we're talking about different things. I thought we were discussing the underemployed, but if we're talking about people who can't afford phones, internet access or clothing, then we're talking about a serious level of poverty and a wildly different situation.
I also appreciate how this topic can get emotional quickly, and in retrospect this thread was probably intended as a place to vent and not one to seek advice or share ideas. I'll just close by saying that there are people here who have started quite humbly and come out the other side. So when we see young people saying "I can't," we have a reaction to that because our experience has shown us that it's not necessarily true.
See, I live in the beautiful town of Royal Tunbridge Wells. And my job is in London. For that first month, I had to get the train. And that ticket cost £432.00. Not a misprint, £432.00.
That was for a ticket for the month, right? That's about 11 pounds one way. It's 40 miles to London? 30 pence a mile.
My father grew up just up the A26 from you, in Tonbridge. I visited a few times over the years. It's a beautiful area, lots of old estates and farms and oasts to explore. Bodiam and Tonbridge Castles, too.
gorgon wrote: II'll just close by saying that there are people here who have started quite humbly and come out the other side.
Of course they have. We probably will too somehow.
But I'd like to hope that whenever we work through our struggles we won't spend our later adulthood lecturing our children and grandchildren about how easy they have it and how they should stop wanting everything for free. EDIT: I mean seriously. Can we make that like a generational quest? To minimize our dickishness when we're older? So yeah we're kind of griping here (and that gets emotional), but it's not like we're making this stuff up. A college grad being in my situation would be a complete fringe element 50 years ago, but today it's surprisingly common. Millennials are the most educated generation of Americans thus far, and millions of us are working jobs that don't even require a highschool diploma after getting college degrees! There are people who sometimes with good intention offer outdated and non-applicable to the current economy advice, who seem to have confused having cool tech toys at our finger tips with having an easy life, and however good their intention are the way its playing out comes off as pretentious and insulting. So yeah, some of us are gonna gripe
gorgon wrote: Sometimes you need to take risks, especially if nothing much is going on for you anyway.
Oh, thanks. Sage advice there.
Amusingly, it comes down to people giving 'advice' like that are just plain lazy.
"Take a risk!" "You just need to learn to live leaner and sacrifice!" Let's them feel smugly superior that they know the answer, and let's them write off any greater systemic problems, or any lack of knowledge they have about real problems.. It's all on the other person not trying hard enough!
It reminds me of the last election cycle where a congressmen castigated 'kids these days,' for whining about college debt and the college loan crisis, supporting his viewpoint by the fact that he put himself through college by working a summer job, instead of going on vacations and buying video games.
Which shows profound laziness on his part about knowing anything about anything. He certainly had no idea how much college tuition cost, and how many job are out there that a kid can work for a summer and pay a whole year's tuition.
For what little effort they're willing to put into saying, 'take a risk!' they're not willing to take the time or effort to think it through. There's a reason why it's called, 'a risk; and if they put in the modicum of effort to check dictionary.com first, they might understand the problem with their line of thinking. Let's simplify things - let's say that two qualified people 'took a risk' for one opening. One of them gets it, and the other one? The statistics on how many Americans are living paycheck to paycheck with almost no savings shows why 'take a risk!' is such a pile of tripe. Taking a risk and losing means the person is pretty well fethed, and the systematic dismantling of the social safety net (in the U.S. at least) means there are no guarantees of any help to keep things from ending in utter disaster.
It's something my office has a typical problem with - a few years ago, they tried to hire 125 people for some jobs. They ended up with 20.
So, anyhow. There was a bunch of posting, usually people complaining about pay (our pay, in professional terms, is pretty bad, but is broadly speaking, preferable to minimum wage style jobs being in an office and is fine for entry type jobs. It's mid-career that the problems start).
Anyhow, the way some of the conversation was going, my ears started twigging a bit.
"When I started, I was reimbursed for travel expenses, that still happens, right? Cause, if you're trying to recruit country wide (or wider) and, you're not, that'll be a problem.
Fortunately, I've been in work for a while, so I don't know the exact details but... Universal Credit (Which I knew as Jobseekers Allowance) is:
Your circumstancesMonthly standard allowance Single and under 25 £251.77
Single and 25 or over £317.82
It's not unreasonable to assume that to get to an interview and back, again, assuming you're wanting recruitment for the breadth of the country, that it costs a tank of petrol, or equivalent in train/bus, there and back, plus, say, £25 for a night in a BnB.
That would be £125, half of a months JSA/universal credit, for a completely new, fresh graduate just for an interview. Even reimbursing, that's a fair chunk of cash to keep in a bank account."
It turns out, no, as part of cost saving, they took away that policy of reimbursement shortly after I joined.
I think it's something that's slowly changing. I'm hearing of some tech companies now that actually pay you to go to interviews and pay for the costs. I imagine that probably won't filter down through all sectors, but hey, it's better there than not. Of course it also probably doesn't help anyone having issues finding jobs right this minute.
I've noticed some odd things about job calls myself. The local Walmart never has enough enough employees, and if you ask management they'll tell you they can't find anyone. if you ask the employees, they'll tell you they won't hire anyone. I have no idea what's up with that. Is that there aren't enough qualified applicants? How can anyone not be qualified to work at Walmart? Does management just want to save on costs but doesn't want to tell that to anyone?
No idea but it's bizarre. When I was working for Fed-Ex I could actually see a struggling to find people to do the work cause it was actually pretty hard labor, way harder than you'd think going in, but Fed-Ex offers pretty good wages for menial work (if only it came with the hours). They never seemed to struggle to find people. I worked three different facilities and we were never understaffed.
Same thing when I worked at Target and Target paid its employees gak and threated them like gak. No problem finding staff. The McDonalds meanwhile across the street, which paid above minimum wage by a few bucks, never seemed to have enough people inside...
gorgon wrote: Sometimes you need to take risks, especially if nothing much is going on for you anyway.
Oh, thanks. Sage advice there.
Amusingly, it comes down to people giving 'advice' like that are just plain lazy.
"Take a risk!" "You just need to learn to live leaner and sacrifice!" Let's them feel smugly superior that they know the answer, and let's them write off any greater systemic problems, or any lack of knowledge they have about real problems.. It's all on the other person not trying hard enough!
Please.
Point #1: This "you don't understand how things are now" line of reasoning I'm seeing here is horse gak. That's the kind of thing pimply-faced teenagers wrongly say to parents. We all want to believe our problems are unique, because it makes us feel special. They aren't -- at least not wholly -- and sometimes people who have been through difficulties of their own know a thing or two.
Point #2: Because THE SYSTEM is what it is, there probably aren't any immediate solutions to be had there, right? Bernie Sanders isn't coming through that door carrying sacks full of universal income for everyone. So let that go, and focus on anything that you can control -- that's all I'm saying.
*IF* we're talking about underemployment, then switch something up to try to change your position. Some "somethings" may not be feasible for everyone, but whatever is within your power to change...try it. Making changes to resumes, interviewing approaches, networking, etc. are all things that can be done without a large price tag attached.
There are people in bad situations who have done all the right things and haven't had anything work for them. However, there are things that I've seen here and heard elsewhere that scream "paralyzed by fear" to me. Maybe the entire Millennial generation is suffering from some kind of PTSD, I don't know. Maybe this is a bonafide generational divide. Gen Xers know that THE SYSTEM sucks. We invented that attitude. "Reality Bites," anyone? But we're also the generation that usually gets labeled as the most independent and entrepreneurial, because we had to be. It's not the struggles that I can't understand, but the ways in which those struggles are approached by some in younger generations.
Compel wrote: On the other side of the coin, my office recently had a general callout asking for ideas of:
I've read some things about this recently. The best explanation I've seen is that while employers have openings, they aren't always as competitive as they could be with their wages because they don't trust that workers will stick around, etc. Meanwhile, workers aren't willing to move to where jobs are or leave current positions because they don't trust that employers and positions are stable, and aren't impressed with the wages.
So basically a cold war of sorts between employers and prospective employees fueled by distrust. At least in some industries and situations.
LordofHats wrote: I've noticed some odd things about job calls myself. The local Walmart never has enough enough employees, and if you ask management they'll tell you they can't find anyone. if you ask the employees, they'll tell you they won't hire anyone. I have no idea what's up with that. Is that there aren't enough qualified applicants? How can anyone not be qualified to work at Walmart? Does management just want to save on costs but doesn't want to tell that to anyone?
No idea but it's bizarre. When I was working for Fed-Ex I could actually see a struggling to find people to do the work cause it was actually pretty hard labor, way harder than you'd think going in, but Fed-Ex offers pretty good wages for menial work (if only it came with the hours). They never seemed to struggle to find people. I worked three different facilities and we were never understaffed.
Same thing when I worked at Target and Target paid its employees gak and threated them like gak. No problem finding staff. The McDonalds meanwhile across the street, which paid above minimum wage by a few bucks, never seemed to have enough people inside...
It mostly because companies dont pay enough. For example the water park I used to work at has 2 security guards
Why not more? Because no one is willing to work the that little. its around 11.00$ an hour in the blistering heat. and many guard would rather take better jobs
They also refused to hire perfectly qualified EMT who asked for more because she was a registered nurse looking for quick work before her certificate comes
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Oh everyone has to work at it. But Baby Boomer absolutely had it easier.
All the stress and insecurity a person feels now gets forgotten in time. That's a large part of what nostalgia is.
Look, I'm not looking to dismiss any of today's pressures. I feel them to, though I admit I'm luckier than most. And I completely agree that any person who says the pressures on today's generation is because they don't work hard enough or anything like that is full of it, and probably an donkey-cave.
I'm just saying that you shouldn't push it to far the other way. Just because they're ignorant of the realities that make life difficult today, it doesn't mean we should be ignorant of the realities that made life difficult then. That just turns it in to a pissing contest.
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hotsauceman1 wrote: Millinial Here
as a 20-30 year old, im often told that im horrible with money and that i spend all my savings on too many trips(I do, but lets see why)
Sociology tought me that quite a bit of your formative years are your 14-21 when it comes to alot of stuff. What happened when I was 16?
The market crashed. So I saw alot of people lose their home, lose their car and lose alot of stuff
Why should I spend so much money for something that will just up an disppear. Why should I save when the savings might just disappear because the previous generation gakked up. Maybe I want to spend it on a nice sandwich now, then nothing later on?
Im honestly so scared for the future now that it fills me with dread. Because I know its gonna get worse. Especially here in the bay when it comes to housing. It used to be my 18.50$ n hour job would help me get an apartment with a friend. now im lucky if I can give my mom rent.
There's a bunch of research in behavioral investment that has found exactly what you just posted. That high profile events that happen when people are in their late teens and through their 20s define how they understand the world. This is why so many people in their 50s and 60s are paranoid of inflation, despite almost all of the western world having extremely stable currency for almost 40 years. It's why so many people who are in their 40s love housing but hate stocks, because their understanding of investment was defined by the '87 crash.
It's led to predictions of a whole generation who will possibly be scared off investment of any kind, following the housing and market crashes of 2006-08. Which is the view you've pretty much perfectly captured above.
Given we are also moving in to a new world of small and unreliable pensions, having a whole block of people who won't build their own asset base could be a serious issue.
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daedalus wrote: Sure. Maybe it's society's fault. It's YOUR life. You get to choose how you respond to whatever forces that caused whatever issues you have..
It is possible to act within the system and work as best you can, while also recognising the system isn't working as well as it should and talking about possibly improvements.
For a 40K analogy (and bare in mind I know little about the new version), as I understand it taking a huge number of conscripts is a pretty powerful option. People will play within those rules, either by taking loads of conscripts, or building armies that can kill large numbers of crappy troops, while at the same time having a conversation about how the rules are sub-optimal and need to change.
hotsauceman1 wrote: It mostly because companies dont pay enough. For example the water park I used to work at has 2 security guards
Why not more? Because no one is willing to work the that little. its around 11.00$ an hour in the blistering heat. and many guard would rather take better jobs
They also refused to hire perfectly qualified EMT who asked for more because she was a registered nurse looking for quick work before her certificate comes
I think work condition relative to pay is more accurate. When I had to choose between two jobs because scheduling wasn't working out, I picked the one where the supervisors showed the employees a modicum of respect (i.e. not Target) even though I made more in a week working there*. No one wants to work in blistering heat period. You might do it for the right amount, but lacking that why would you choose to? Having worked a flat top in high school, it kind of sucks so I can see why people would choose moving items from point A to point B in an air conditioned store over working a fryer even if the former paid a few bucks less. In my university town the McDonalds had a similar issue but from what I heard the whole issue there was the manager people who had worked there told me she'd yell and curse at employees, and who wants to work with that even for a nice hourly rate?
The thing I really don't get though is my current local Walmart. People come in asking if we're hiring. I field the question maybe two or three times a week. The local area used to depend on a jeans factory for work but the factory closed down so the economic outlook is pretty bad and lots of people are still looking for steady jobs. We say we're hiring, because we're told we need more associates, but hardly anyone gets hired. We've brought on maybe two new employees in the past three months and one of them already got fired for not coming to work XD
I don't know what the dealio is
*Target paid exactly minimum wage, but gave a full 40 hour work week, 15 more than I was getting at my other job that paid several dollars above minimum, so Target ended up paying more total with the extra hours.
I've read some things about this recently. The best explanation I've seen is that while employers have openings, they aren't always as competitive as they could be with their wages because they don't trust that workers will stick around, etc. Meanwhile, workers aren't willing to move to where jobs are or leave current positions because they don't trust that employers and positions are stable, and aren't impressed with the wages.
So basically a cold war of sorts between employers and prospective employees fueled by distrust. At least in some industries and situations.
This seems really plausible too though. Hadn't quite thought of that, cause I sure do often look at potential openings and ask myself "how long might this last?" I've thrown out applying for some that I thought were too iffy, mostly sales and marketing positions that seemed kind of shady.
I was born in the early 80s, I got my first cellphone for Christmas in 2000, September 11th happened after I graduated high school, I went straight into the workforce with a union job immediately after high school, I moved out at 18, I got married young (24), bought a house, and had kids young (25). The closest I come to being a "stereotypical Millennial" is the fact that I moved back home shortly after I turned 20. I was living in Las Vegas when I got out of high school and my family decided to move back to Virginia and I didn't want to go because I had a serious girlfriend, I was already in an apprenticeship, and I had a band. I lived out there for a year and a half by myself, but neither the girlfriend or the band panned out so I left. I stayed with my parents for a little while (and paid rent) so I could save up some money to get a decent apartment (rent was almost double in Northern Virginia compared to Las Vegas).
My wife and I have a good jobs, a nice townhouse, and most importantly, a decent retirement plan. I lucked out by having family in the building trades otherwise I probably would have never heard about it.
Obviously it depends on one's particulars. But you can at least search for jobs in other areas thanks to the wonders of the interwebz. Even back when I was young, struggling, and looking for the right kind of work, I had a phone interview for a job 700 miles away. I didn't necessarily want to move there, but if it was going to be an opportunity for me, then it was worth exploring. And if one is actually poor with a small apartment, then a U-Haul rental should suffice for getting one from point A to point B. That's what I did when I ultimately moved 300 miles for a job that was a lateral move (and overall a loss for me since I was going from a shared apartment to footing the bill on my own). But that move also had the promise of more opportunity and it ultimately paid off.
If you can afford the internet, and have some means to apply for a job in another area (you presumably need to travel on your own dime for any in-person interviews).
Then it assumes you can afford the U-Haul rental, can afford to afford to drive (less youth in the UK are learning to drive because it's so expensive), and can afford the various additional trips you'd need to get the U-Haul back to where you started or go and get your own car (if you have one).
Sure, the bar on that stuff is all pretty low, but for the people who are already struggling to get by, an extra bus fare might be out of reach for them.
I am in full agreement re: the issues of successfully finding work in the current climate and the total lack of familiarity with the problems impacting the world of Gen Y and Millennials often exhibited by the generations above, but how many people really can't afford access to the internet? The people we get to help us excavate in Iraq that live in the nearby farming villages have the internet - most of the kids have smart phones.
Whether you can utilise the access to applications and jobhunting it gives you is another matter, of course, but the number of people who can't afford to get online in a G20 country must be infinitesimally small.
Surely a lot of these complaints are based on being working class rather than being a from a particular generation though?
I've seen enough 'grim oop north' dramas to know that being a working class family in the 60's 70's and 80's was pretty gak, so I don't it also being tough now is any evidence of a generational shift.
I think comparing middle class baby boomers to working class people now is a false equivalence.
I think what the baby boomers are picking up on is that the hoi polloi are a lot more willing to speak out and identify where they are being taken advantage of nowadays, instead just relying on the unions to flight their battles.
I'm all for a bit of stiff upper lip, but highlighting where people are being exploited is a good thing and shouldn't be criticised.
I think there are people who want an easy ride, and when you see things in the paper like recently were a chap was claiming benefits whilst claiming Mt. Kilimanjaro it is easy to pounce on the exceptions, rather than considering the majority who do work hard and kick on in life.
Working class does have something to do with it. Up North in the good old days of black lung and TB had young workers often following in the family trade. Textiles, metal work and all forms of complex manufacturing were carried out in what was genuinely a northern power house. That's before we mention the distribution of coal fields in the UK.
A few generations ago a young man would now what his career was going to be before he left school (wasn't that optional as young as 14 back then?). He knew he'd never be rich, but he'd earn enough to have a wife and family.
Now those industries and traditional work roles have gone. As too have the days of only needing one person in the family to be the bread winner (it isn't sexism that made me specify man in the previous paragraph). It is easy, and lazy, to blame government at the time for that loss of industry, but the march of future history is not well known for its sentimentality and no governent can stop it.
There's a reason that people back in the day were willing to work all hours down a pit but nobody today wants to flip burgers in a McGrease (hint for anyone who's not keeping up, it's not because the youth of today are lazy).
Kroem wrote: Surely a lot of these complaints are based on being working class rather than being a from a particular generation though?
That's because everyone bought into the narrative that if you strive and work hard anyone can be middle class. While in real life many people born into middle class struggle to fit the definition without assistance from the previous generation.
nfe wrote: how many people really can't afford access to the internet?
Probably most of us at the rate the cable companies are beating down the barrier to price increases
Whether you can utilise the access to applications and jobhunting it gives you is another matter, of course, but the number of people who can't afford to get online in a G20 country must be infinitesimally small.
Even if you can't afford your own internet there's so many places at the moment offering free wifi that I don't think not owning your own connection would prevent you from being able to check email and send in applications. Just go to the closest McDonalds and get something off the dollar menu... you know before our "aversion" to fast food sends the whole industry out of business
Kroem wrote:Surely a lot of these complaints are based on being working class rather than being a from a particular generation though?
Part of it, but you have to look at how the economics have worked out over the last 30 years.
Used to be one person with a rudimentary 9 to 5 job could support a family, own a home, a car, and save/invest money all at once. That of course wasn't everyone in the Boomers generation. People were still living in poverty and always have, but the 40s, 50s, and 60s saw an unprecendented burst of upward mobility in much of the Western World and especially in America. Every generation might have its struggles but I don't think there's any denying that when Boomers were young they were entering into one of the most open and upwardly mobile economic landscapes of any Americans who ever lived. By the tail end of Gen X that had begun drying up, and now that Gen Y is hitting the beaches we're quickly finding that the landscape is much harsher and many of us are sliding down the class ladder. Today two people working a combined 80 hours a week might be able to scrape by with two kids, a house, two cars, and then have nothing left over because they're living pay check to pay check (now 33-45% of the American population depending how you calculate "pay check to pay check", but over 50% of Millennials are in this bracket). That's not everyone sure, but it's a complete reversal of the kind of life style that became the standard of American culture and the ideal 50 years ago.
If more Millennials are living working class than the generations before them, it's not really an inapt comparison especially since those of us stuck there are likely the ones complaining about it XD. And in a sort of way the trade off there is that Gen Y has entered into an America where you can actually live a really high standard of living compared to much of the world even while making absolute gak for money. I can still afford nice luxuries here and there, and I don't exactly have to starve myself to make ends meet. The issue is that a single unforeseen expense can completely destroy me, and I have no capability to save or invest money or build a better life lacking a better job or higher wage.
You know the UN defines poverty as having too little money to make choices. While the US Census calculates its poverty threshold based on a 60s originated algorithm fixed to food prices that says the poverty rate is 14% and the absolute poverty rate is something like 1.5%, if we were to use the UN definition then over 1/3 of the American population lives in poverty because it is unable to make choices. The choices are fixed by the limitations of income, and while proposing that is quite hyperbolic I think it reveals a lot about how much things have changed. Food is no where near my highest expense. I pay more in car insurance alone than I do on food each month.
To get to that post-war level of prosperity again, we just need to destroy all competition through carpet bombing the industrial heartlands and killing most of their work force age populations without them doing the same back to us. Just like what happened in WWII for the U.S.!
I actually think the Boomers and the economic growth and prosperity of that time was the historical exception and not the rule.
That said, I have never seen wage increases in my lifetime. We have only seen wage erosion since their height in 1977. That is going to leave a big impact on a generation of workers, even if some break out of the averages.
The post-war boom was due to massive amounts of Keynesianism through the Marshall Plan, the need to rebuild vast amounts of infrastructure, and absorb demobbed servicemen back into the civilian economy, largely directed (in Europe) by government intervention.
It also helped that women were sent back to the kitchen sink in their millions.
Once austerity was over, things went pretty well until the oil shock of the 1970s.
Easy E wrote: To get to that post-war level of prosperity again, we just need to destroy all competition through carpet bombing the industrial heartlands and killing most of their work force age populations without them doing the same back to us. Just like what happened in WWII for the U.S.!
I actually think the Boomers and the economic growth and prosperity of that time was the historical exception and not the rule.
Indeed, also dont forget that the economic elite in the west was deadly afraid of the soviet union and what they symbolised. Which made them more willing to share the spoils of the economic growth with the rest of society, rather then keeping it to themselves which they have done historically.
I'm 32, working as a teacher in London, and like most teachers any age I cannot afford to buy a home. Many of my colleagues live month to month on their wages, in a job you'd think was traditionally middle class. Years and years of barely 1% pay increases (note 1% is the cap, you'll be lucky to get close in reality) while the cost of living soars means that we're all worse off. If must be crucifying being on minimum wages.
The state of housing has a lot to answer for in this country, and the lack of any regulation by successive governments, Tory and labour. Even in the early 2000s the housing market was spiralling out of control and Labour did nothing about it. End of boom and bust we were told, assuming the music would never stop and no one would be caught holding a ton of debt. Prices kept going up so it was safe for banks to keep giving bigger mortgages. When my parent say got a mortgage it was capped at 3-4 times their salary, but in the 2000s people were taking mortgages ten times their salary, they didn't have deposits so they took 100% mortgages, or even 105% mortgages to help buy furniture when they moved in.
When the economy took a nose dive nearly a decade ago interest rates were cut to the bone because suddenly all these people has colossal debts that if interest rates went up 0.5% they'd all be broken. Yet now, those rates serve to punish savers, and reward those taking on credit and debt. We should be ashamed of the debt mountain in this country, the average debt on credit cards not paid off each month averages in the thousands. A mix of the irresponsible or the unavoidable economic pressures people find themselves under. Where people can't get credit there are payday loans companies queuing up to lend at extortionate rates, these have only boomed in he last five years. Another 'industry' the government should aggressively regulate but doesn't because it says something about the state of living costs that people are this desperate.
Back to housing, the buy to let market is even more toxic. Those of us without many tens of thousands of pounds to cover a house deposit have to rent. Rent from those people who bought a second or third home with some vast mortgage, which we then are passed the monthly bill in rent. Renters today are paying so much because they're paying someone else's huge mortgage all because they don't have the deposit to start their own home and start their own mortgage, and now never will because the costs of living and rent take up all their money every month meaning they cannot save. Yet people living at home well into their 30s are treated like failures in life. Last time this culture was normal was the Victorian era, when several generations were trapped under he same roof.
As a country we now can't afford to have a housing market crash because wealthy people in the UK and foreign investors will hoover up all the cheap housing stock and screw the public into the ground. Because the government won't regulate the market for the public good.
What we need in the UK is a house building programme, rent controls and control over housing sales, so that houses become primarily people's homes putting a secure roof over their head, instead of money spinners for a wealthy few that become financial prisons for those in them.
Easy E wrote: To get to that post-war level of prosperity again, we just need to destroy all competition through carpet bombing the industrial heartlands and killing most of their work force age populations without them doing the same back to us. Just like what happened in WWII for the U.S.!
I actually think the Boomers and the economic growth and prosperity of that time was the historical exception and not the rule.
Indeed, also dont forget that the economic elite in the west was deadly afraid of the soviet union and what they symbolised. Which made them more willing to share the spoils of the economic growth with the rest of society, rather then keeping it to themselves which they have done historically.
And after the post WW2 novelty of that wore of they are doing it again since the 70s or 80s. Wages for the average worker have stagnated since then while a ever increasing share of the wealth created since then is being funnelled towards the rich.
To be fair, when a generation begins and ends is highly nebulous.
A review of various studies, surveys, newspaper articles and demographers' statements provides a wide range of ages that so-called millennials fit into. Based on these analyses, a millennial could be anyone born between 1976 and 2010, a 34-year time span that includes Apple's founding and the IMF's Greek bailout.
From this 2015 article. Most studies I've seen identify Millennials as born between 1984 and 1997, but I've seen dates as early as 1977 and as late as 2004 used.
The term Xillennial I hadn't heard before this thread, but seems a valid way of identifying particularly those persons born between 76 and 84 who occupy that fuzzy space between the most arbitrary divisions demographers draw between generation groups
Ketara wrote: I'm not sure any financial comparison that ranks Ireland ahead of the USA is worth much as a general economic indicator.
It's GDP per capita. At the moments in time when Ireland's GDP per capita is higher than the US, then Ireland ranks higher. I have literally no idea what your complaint is.
I think he is saying that Ireland's economy is no where near as good as the US economy. However, that is the thing about statistics, they are the worst way to measure things except for all the other ways.
I was in eastern Virginia a little while back and reading one of the papers over breakfast read something pretty funny. It was an editorial, so of course it was bs written by a moron, but they also seemed to be quite sincere in their lack of awareness.
It was decrying irresponsible millennials and their selfish ways, because after the writer retired, property taxes on their home would be to high so they needed to downsize to a nice 'grandparent's bungalow.' But the market is depressed and they can't sell for a reasonable cost because millennials are selfishly indulging themselves and spoiling their kinds, instead of settling down and being responsible. And now the writer is being forced to subsidize the lives of other peoples' spoiled kids with taxes on a home they're being prevented from selling!
Like I said, it was an editorial, so expecting an intelligent argument out of it isn't fair, but it's also not an uncommon opinion. Just look at Gorgon's posts in this thread for the same kind of stupid, if not deliberate, ignorance
gorgon wrote: Sometimes you need to take risks, especially if nothing much is going on for you anyway.
Yes, but with the way so many social safety nets have been gutted or restricted, if you take a risk and fail, you have nothing to fall back on. Hopefully, you're on good relationship with your parents and can crash in their basement for a while. Which then ties into the 'millenials are moochers, look at how many still live at home!' finger wagging.
That's why people don't want to take risks, and it's pretty myopic and ignorant to blame them for it, when it's a choice between between a bad or unpleasant situation or a catastrophic one. At least bad can mostly keep a roof over their heads.
Prior to 'hahaha, you have to pay for Uni' unfairness, I could have done an access course, and nicked off to improve my standing, even at my age. But no. No I can't. Because Student Grants are gone, and I'd just wind up with a ton of debt it's not worth incurring at this stage of life when there's no guarantee the degree will land me anything but my current job.
I daren't move jobs either. Where I am now has the 'next best' to a final salary pension, and I consider myself to get a fair enough wage. So I could jump ship for bigger money, but lose a lot of benefits which are going to make my later life easier - because so few employers bother with decent employee pensions these days.
Pensions period, are gone in most places in the U.S. My grandfather split his adulthood between being an electrician's mate in the Navy, and then working for Ma Ball until her retired.
In comparison, I was an engineering consultant for a major U.S. toolmaker, and after a merger, all the senior engineers were offered early retirement packages because their salaries and benefits cost so much. These were guys who'd spent their entire working lives with the company, many of them having started working there on apprenticeships. The company invested in their growth, and got the benefit of experience and knowledge.
Which it then all threw away in the span of four months (but that's a grip for another time).
They were replaced with much younger engineers, on much leaner salaries, and then I got to hear management complain about the amount of churn they had, because these young guys had no loyalty.
Again, total lack of self awareness, expecting loyalty and dedication from their employees, while making it abundantly clear that employees were just a dollar figure to be subtracted as needed.
At least it's better than Japan (another country with lots of 'why are this generation so irresponsible and selfish? Why are they so bad with money, and won't buy homes and settle down?) . I know one major electronics manufacturer over there that went from 200 full time employees to 6. There are actually now about 300 people working there, but the other 294 are all 'contract' employees. One year, six months, one month, whatever, they are employed for the term of their contract. When it's up, it gets renewed. But say business is way down and they need to lay off 100 employees. Just don't renew their contracts. They're not 'fired' so none of the protections or assistance from being laid off apply. For an added scoop of gak, if six months later, a contract worker is offered a new contract because business is up, but they had the disloyalty and temerity to get a job elsewhere in the meantime? They're never going to work for that manufacturer again.
I cringe at the thought of how sooner or later, someone in the U.S. is going to think this is a wonderful system and start trying to use it over here.
And that's not to say that Gorgon was completely wrong. There's always SOMETHING an individual can do, but when you're asking a question that applies to tens of millions of people, it's like focusing on one sick tree, ignoring the malady that's affecting the whole forest.
Prior to 'hahaha, you have to pay for Uni' unfairness, I could have done an access course, and nicked off to improve my standing, even at my age. But no. No I can't. Because Student Grants are gone, and I'd just wind up with a ton of debt it's not worth incurring at this stage of life when there's no guarantee the degree will land me anything but my current job.
I daren't move jobs either. Where I am now has the 'next best' to a final salary pension, and I consider myself to get a fair enough wage. So I could jump ship for bigger money, but lose a lot of benefits which are going to make my later life easier - because so few employers bother with decent employee pensions these days.
As a greedy, capitalist, executive I have you exactly where I want you! Mwahahahahahahahahahaha! Bow before me you Xillenial dog and worship your new master!
Bookwrack wrote: Pensions period, are gone in most places in the U.S. My grandfather split his adulthood between being an electrician's mate in the Navy, and then working for Ma Ball until her retired.
In comparison, I was an engineering consultant for a major U.S. toolmaker, and after a merger, all the senior engineers were offered early retirement packages because their salaries and benefits cost so much. These were guys who'd spent their entire working lives with the company, many of them having started working there on apprenticeships. The company invested in their growth, and got the benefit of experience and knowledge.
Which it then all threw away in the span of four months (but that's a grip for another time).
They were replaced with much younger engineers, on much leaner salaries, and then I got to hear management complain about the amount of churn they had, because these young guys had no loyalty.
Again, total lack of self awareness, expecting loyalty and dedication from their employees, while making it abundantly clear that employees were just a dollar figure to be subtracted as needed.
At least it's better than Japan (another country with lots of 'why are this generation so irresponsible and selfish? Why are they so bad with money, and won't buy homes and settle down?) . I know one major electronics manufacturer over there that went from 200 full time employees to 6. There are actually now about 300 people working there, but the other 294 are all 'contract' employees. One year, six months, one month, whatever, they are employed for the term of their contract. When it's up, it gets renewed. But say business is way down and they need to lay off 100 employees. Just don't renew their contracts. They're not 'fired' so none of the protections or assistance from being laid off apply. For an added scoop of gak, if six months later, a contract worker is offered a new contract because business is up, but they had the disloyalty and temerity to get a job elsewhere in the meantime? They're never going to work for that manufacturer again.
I cringe at the thought of how sooner or later, someone in the U.S. is going to think this is a wonderful system and start trying to use it over here.
Already happening. Been happening for at least 10 years at the company I work at. (Fortunately I work for a supplier now so don't have to worry about that any more) Though you can collect unemployment when your contract ends.
Bookwrack wrote: At least it's better than Japan (another country with lots of 'why are this generation so irresponsible and selfish? Why are they so bad with money, and won't buy homes and settle down?) . I know one major electronics manufacturer over there that went from 200 full time employees to 6. There are actually now about 300 people working there, but the other 294 are all 'contract' employees. One year, six months, one month, whatever, they are employed for the term of their contract. When it's up, it gets renewed. But say business is way down and they need to lay off 100 employees. Just don't renew their contracts. They're not 'fired' so none of the protections or assistance from being laid off apply. For an added scoop of gak, if six months later, a contract worker is offered a new contract because business is up, but they had the disloyalty and temerity to get a job elsewhere in the meantime? They're never going to work for that manufacturer again.
God damn. What does the employer expect the contract employee to do between contracts? Since their contract wasn't renewed is it safe to assume the employee wouldn't be eligible for any sort of public assistance? So are they just supposed to honorably starve?
Easy E wrote: I think he is saying that Ireland's economy is no where near as good as the US economy. However, that is the thing about statistics, they are the worst way to measure things except for all the other ways.
Is true. And there are issues with Ireland's measurement, because of their status as the world's most acceptable tax haven you get a lot of multi-nationals based there and looking to have revenue recognised in Ireland instead of higher tax countries. This grows GDP stats a lot more than it grows the real prosperity of the Irish economy. So there's that.
But to make a blanket claim that it is inconceivable that Ireland could be richer than the US seems kind of outdated. This isn't the 60s anymore, where the US was just streaks ahead of any other country. Sure, the US is clearly the most powerful nation with the largest economy overall, but that's because it is far and away the biggest of the rich countries. But looked at per person, there's actually a lot of countries which are about the same as the US, including Ireland, Australia and the others in the graph I linked.
To bring it back to the topic at hand, what was interesting wasn't that for a brief period Ireland pipped the US. What's interesting is the UK underperforming all but one of its former colonies, and having a trend line worse than all of them.
Bookwrack wrote: At least it's better than Japan (another country with lots of 'why are this generation so irresponsible and selfish? Why are they so bad with money, and won't buy homes and settle down?) . I know one major electronics manufacturer over there that went from 200 full time employees to 6. There are actually now about 300 people working there, but the other 294 are all 'contract' employees. One year, six months, one month, whatever, they are employed for the term of their contract. When it's up, it gets renewed. But say business is way down and they need to lay off 100 employees. Just don't renew their contracts. They're not 'fired' so none of the protections or assistance from being laid off apply. For an added scoop of gak, if six months later, a contract worker is offered a new contract because business is up, but they had the disloyalty and temerity to get a job elsewhere in the meantime? They're never going to work for that manufacturer again.
God damn. What does the employer expect the contract employee to do between contracts? Since their contract wasn't renewed is it safe to assume the employee wouldn't be eligible for any sort of public assistance? So are they just supposed to honorably starve?
Public assistance yes, but just as in most places, that's no where near as good as an actual job. And the obligations and assistance a company would have to provide to employees downsized through no fault of their don't apply to contract workers who don't get renewed. Plus, there's typically no warning before renewal time if the contract will actually be renewed or not. You don't know if you still have a job until you get your new contract. So it's so much easier and cost effective for companies,, but people get screwed.
Bookwrack wrote: At least it's better than Japan (another country with lots of 'why are this generation so irresponsible and selfish? Why are they so bad with money, and won't buy homes and settle down?)
In Japan 90% of all household net wealth is held by people over 60. The post war generation has basically horded everything.
As with all things, it's a little more complicated than that.
The people over 60 are the ones who were in the middle/late segment of their prime earning years at the height of the Japanese economic bubble, and got the most time to reap the rewards of the mid-late 20th century economy.
The people under 60 are the ones who have spent the past 25-30 years working through recession and economic downturn. Spending your entire adult working life during a period of economic stagnation means that an entire generation has not had the wealth generation opportunities that the previous one did.
Japan also has generally been a slow adopter of easy access credit and credit card culture, preferring to stay more cash-based longer, and encouraged a greater saving culture than in the west. Coupled the above average life expectancy over there, that means older generally had accumulated a more noteable portion of wealth.
Bookwrack wrote: As with all things, it's a little more complicated than that.
The people over 60 are the ones who were in the middle/late segment of their prime earning years at the height of the Japanese economic bubble, and got the most time to reap the rewards of the mid-late 20th century economy.
"Hoarding" implies some kind of nefarious activity. As if elderly people in retirement are otherwise supposed to be giving the money they earned away to young working people.
Bookwrack wrote: As with all things, it's a little more complicated than that.
The people over 60 are the ones who were in the middle/late segment of their prime earning years at the height of the Japanese economic bubble, and got the most time to reap the rewards of the mid-late 20th century economy.
That's what hording is
No.
Hoarding is actively seeking out and retaining a commodity, not 'had the best opportunities presented to them to make money, and thus ended up with most of it.'
gorgon wrote: "Hoarding" implies some kind of nefarious activity. As if elderly people in retirement are otherwise supposed to be giving the money they earned away to young working people.
Lots of grandparents help their children and grandchildren with all kinds of bits of money, from modest or generous gifts to paying the school fees or paying deposits on house purchases, and so on.
You can't take it with you, after all.
At the end of the day, the children will inherit, unless you leave your fortune to Battersea Dogs Home (like one of my great-aunts did.)
I am always surprised at how much so-called "millenials" care what people of any age think of them, and how much attention they want those same people of other generations to devote to them. Hearing that someone of such a young age actually worries that they, by simply being born in a specific span of years, are being blamed for ruining an industry, country or the future because they are lazy, worthless or otherwise is just, odd to me.
Who really cares? Sticks and Stones and all that, or are the words a little too close to the truth not to hurt?
hotsauceman1 wrote:The contract work is already a thing.
Its called temping.
Or the gig economy (Uber and so on).
Bookwrack wrote:Japan also has generally been a slow adopter of easy access credit and credit card culture, preferring to stay more cash-based longer, and encouraged a greater saving culture than in the west. Coupled the above average life expectancy over there, that means older generally had accumulated a more noteable portion of wealth.
Germany is rather similar to Japan in that regard. A slightly different debit card/account system (more secure, if I remember correctly) made credit cards not as useful as in the US and people don't want to give up untraceable cash as easily as in the US.
dracpanzer wrote:I am always surprised at how much so-called "millenials" care what people of any age think of them, and how much attention they want those same people of other generations to devote to them. Hearing that someone of such a young age actually worries that they, by simply being born in a specific span of years, are being blamed for ruining an industry, country or the future because they are lazy, worthless or otherwise is just, odd to me.
I see it rather the other way around. It's the older generations that are heaping a lot attention on the genX to millenials. On the one hand millenials are apparently "killing" all kinds of industries because they don't buy diamonds, big cars, or whatever else the next article throws up and on the other hand it was literary the baby boomers who invented participation trophies for themselves. Sure they gave those to their kids but they were not really for the kids who couldn't care less who was better, won, or got a trophy. The kids just played the sports while the parents were the ones on the sidelines screaming like lunatics. It was the parents who couldn't stand the thought that their precious little snowflake wasn't special enough that they needed to create something that they could give their kids to placate their own egos.
The real crime genx to millienials have committed is that they have seen rather early that they won't be able to have the same life as boomers and they have adjusted to that, and that's hurting the boomers' pension portfolio and they can't stand it.
dracpanzer wrote: I am always surprised at how much so-called "millenials" care what people of any age think of them, and how much attention they want those same people of other generations to devote to them. Hearing that someone of such a young age actually worries that they, by simply being born in a specific span of years, are being blamed for ruining an industry, country or the future because they are lazy, worthless or otherwise is just, odd to me.
Who really cares? Sticks and Stones and all that, or are the words a little too close to the truth not to hurt?
It's your story, tell it however you like...
'I wish you hadn't reaped the benefits of free education and cheap housing and then denied it to us' =/= 'love me and give me attention'.
gorgon wrote: "Hoarding" implies some kind of nefarious activity. As if elderly people in retirement are otherwise supposed to be giving the money they earned away to young working people.
Hoarding is actively seeking out and retaining a commodity, not 'had the best opportunities presented to them to make money, and thus ended up with most of it.'
Oh for feth's sake. First up, here's a definition for you - 'to accumulate for preservation, future use etc'. Nothing inherently nefarious, nor does it involve an active plot, it is merely the act of accumulation.
Yes, hoarding often includes a negative connotation, but in cases where such a connotation would be stupid, such as implying a nefarious act upon an entire generation of people, it is only sensible for the reader to assume the connotation doesn't apply in this case and read the world in a sensible context.
'I wish you hadn't reaped the benefits of free education and cheap housing and then denied it to us' =/= 'love me and give me attanetion'.
But for rizzle, is a little love and attention to much to ask? After all we're all just over grown babies after 1980
I did some great keyboard-mashing at the end there, apparently.
It's tough love, innit? We just need to buckle down like our mums and dads. I mean, my mum and dad bought a house pretty much the day the got married (at 26) and, now at 33, me and my wife earn much the same as them (adjusted for inflation) in a cheaper area and can't hope to do the same, but you know, two generations have only being voting against their childrens' interests to instill a good wholesome protestant work ethic.
I feel like Episode 46 of Code Geass contains the most powerful summation of the sentiment; "Watching from afar. Looking out only for yourselves and your wishes. Forcing on us what you thought right. You, our parents, abandoned us." Right in the feelz man. Right up there with that time in season one when the pink haired chick got shot and we had to watch a full 10 minute scene of her dying Right in the feelz
Well, I think we have to do a little finger-pointing at the parents if their kids who were given everything as children have grown up to think that it's the responsibility of older generations to also share their wealth with them in adulthood.
gorgon wrote: Well, I think we have to do a little finger-pointing at the parents if their kids who were given everything as children have grown up to think that it's the responsibility of older generations to also share their wealth with them in adulthood.
Nobody is obligated to share their wealth with their kids, but if you vote to remove opportunities that you enjoyed from your children's generation you're a dill weed. If you then go on to complain that they're not achieving the things that those opportunities allowed you to do at the same point in their lives just because they're lazy, you're a bigger dill weed.
gorgon wrote: Well, I think we have to do a little finger-pointing at the parents if their kids who were given everything as children have grown up to think that it's the responsibility of older generations to also share their wealth with them in adulthood.
Nobody is obligated to share their wealth with their kids, but if you vote to remove opportunities that you enjoyed from your children's generation you're a dill weed. If you then go on to complain that they're not achieving the things that those opportunities allowed you to do at the same point in their lives just because they're lazy, you're a bigger dill weed.
I'd like to know exactly what dastardly votes were cast with the notion of keeping Millennials down. If you're talking about free higher ed, that never existed in the U.S., and I have no understanding of exactly why things might have changed for you there. I hazard to guess that it was expensive and bound to get more expensive given the size of the Millennial generation.
But is it possible that just because another generation received some benefit or happened to reach working age in a better economy, it's not every generation's God-given right to the same? I find it troubling that these conversations seem to inevitably loop back to what Millennials are owed. Is it a possibility that everything isn't about Millennials?
gorgon wrote: Well, I think we have to do a little finger-pointing at the parents if their kids who were given everything as children have grown up to think that it's the responsibility of older generations to also share their wealth with them in adulthood.
Nobody is obligated to share their wealth with their kids, but if you vote to remove opportunities that you enjoyed from your children's generation you're a dill weed. If you then go on to complain that they're not achieving the things that those opportunities allowed you to do at the same point in their lives just because they're lazy, you're a bigger dill weed.
I'd like to know exactly what dastardly votes were cast with the notion of keeping Millennials down. If you're talking about free higher ed, that never existed in the U.S., and I have no understanding of exactly why things might have changed for you there. I hazard to guess that it was expensive and bound to get more expensive given the size of the Millennial generation.
But is it possible that just because another generation received some benefit or happened to reach working age in a better economy, it's not every generation's God-given right to the same? I find it troubling that these conversations seem to inevitably loop back to what Millennials are owed. Is it a possibility that everything isn't about Millennials?
Obviously I'm speaking from a UK perspective because I'm British - and the OP is written from a UK perspective, too.
That said, you're reading a lot into posts that aren't written. It seems like a pretty hefty dose of confirmation bias. I didn't claim anyone voted specifically to keep anyone else down. Rather that people voted to remove particular opportunities from others after they'd reaped the benefits. More a case of 'I'm alright, Jack' than 'feth you, Jack'. More 'well, it's not going to hurt me if party X treble tuition fees' than 'can't wait till these trebled tuition fees bury kids in debt!'. Millennials don't think they're Cedric Sneer with a dad explicitly trying to ruin their lives. They just wish they'd stop getting told that they're lazy, preening snowflakes with 30-second attention spans because they can't buy buy a suburban three-bed by 30.
Similarly, I (nor anyone else in the thread that I recall) made no claims regarding people having a right to opportunities. The frequent complaint is regarding people who were particularly lucky castigating subsequent generations for struggling, and then claiming that any suggestion that said struggle is related to reduced opportunities is indicative of laziness and a demand to be handed the world on a plate.
Here's how the conversation essentially runs:
I was married with two kids and owned my own home at 26, why can't you?
I don't earn enough. The housing market is such that homes are very expensive and wages are low.
Well you should get better job.
I'd love to, I'm applying for several every month, but jobs are thin on the ground and demand far outstrips supply, so, as I say, wages are generally low. I can't afford to go to university to improve my chances, either.
I worked a part time job to fund university. Why can't you?
A part time job was sufficient to fund you through university. I couldn't do it even if I could keep my full time job.
You just want the world handed to you.
dracpanzer wrote: I am always surprised at how much so-called "millenials" care what people of any age think of them, and how much attention they want those same people of other generations to devote to them. Hearing that someone of such a young age actually worries that they, by simply being born in a specific span of years, are being blamed for ruining an industry, country or the future because they are lazy, worthless or otherwise is just, odd to me.
Who really cares? Sticks and Stones and all that, or are the words a little too close to the truth not to hurt?
It's your story, tell it however you like...
'I wish you hadn't reaped the benefits of free education and cheap housing and then denied it to us' =/= 'love me and give me attention'.
Must be a UK thing, because I never had a free anything at college. Feeling entitled to something you think the baby boomers had that doesn't exist anymore is still feeling entitled to something you didn't earn. You missed my point though, as a Gen X'r, all I ever wanted was for my parents and all elder folks to butt out of my life, leave me the hell alone and get out of my way so I could live my life. I make no excuses for my failures or claim no greatness for my success, I'm not a victim of anything. I just want to be left the alone in my own little part of the world. Millenials seem to be far more interested in what others think of them or want others to be involved in their life to a much greater degree. It seems to me that they suffer because of it.
dracpanzer wrote: I am always surprised at how much so-called "millenials" care what people of any age think of them, and how much attention they want those same people of other generations to devote to them. Hearing that someone of such a young age actually worries that they, by simply being born in a specific span of years, are being blamed for ruining an industry, country or the future because they are lazy, worthless or otherwise is just, odd to me.
Who really cares? Sticks and Stones and all that, or are the words a little too close to the truth not to hurt?
It's your story, tell it however you like...
'I wish you hadn't reaped the benefits of free education and cheap housing and then denied it to us' =/= 'love me and give me attention'.
Must be a UK thing, because I never had a free anything at college. Feeling entitled to something you think the baby boomers had that doesn't exist anymore is still feeling entitled to something you didn't earn. You missed my point though, as a Gen X'r, all I ever wanted was for my parents and all elder folks to butt out of my life, leave me the hell alone and get out of my way so I could live my life. I make no excuses for my failures or claim no greatness for my success, I'm not a victim of anything. I just want to be left the alone in my own little part of the world. Millenials seem to be far more interested in what others think of them or want others to be involved in their life to a much greater degree. It seems to me that they suffer because of it.
Sounds like a typical angsty, Gen Xer apathy. Did you type this from a coffee shop whilst wearing flannel?
I kid, though, because generalizing an entire generation is stupid. As is thinking that your generation holds the license to wanting autonomy from their elders. Or that your generation wasn't self-obsessed and entitled.
I grew up in the 90's. I remember the Gen X label being used and abused for marketing purposes and for shaming purposes just like the Millennial label is now. But please, tell me more about how Gen X shunned the narcissism of the budding internet culture while riding high on the 90's tech bubble. I'd love to hear that yarn.
I think someone has confused annoyance at being a punching bag with being obsessed with what others think. I don't care what others think. I do find it amusing how self-centered many people can manage to be, unable to recognize obvious things. So if someone is gonna bitch at me about how I'm not married with 2 kids and a home yet, I'm going to have some fun with them not because I care what I think but because is someone is going to start being a tool I might as well get a laugh out of them
Long story short though, someone seems to have missed that quite of bit of this thread is self admitted griping
Mario wrote: I see it rather the other way around. It's the older generations that are heaping a lot attention on the genX to millenials. <snip> The real crime genx to millienials have committed is that they have seen rather early that they won't be able to have the same life as boomers and they have adjusted to that, and that's hurting the boomers' pension portfolio and they can't stand it.
I don't necessarily agree that my Boomer parents give a rats behind about my GenX self, a situation I am completely okay with.
It also doesn't seem by the jist of this thread and many other similar discussions outside of Dakka that Millenials have adjusted to the fact that you won't be getting the benefits the boomers had. Reality bites... Embrace the suck my friend. Make your own way.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Flannel and coffee? Nope. Did I say anyone was obsessed? No. Do I think the Gen X label actually applies to me other than being the one given to folks my age? No. Has all your griping gotten you anywhere? No.
Would you be better off not caring what the establishment or your elders, or parents think of you? I would say, yes. Would you be better off not stressing about where you are supposed to be at this point in your life and just go live your life? I would say, yes.
It really isn't all about you, or me, move along. Nothing to see here.
I'd say you implied it pretty heavily that millennials were self-obsessed. Let's see:
dracpanzer wrote: Millenials seem to be far more interested in what others think of them or want others to be involved in their life to a much greater degree. It seems to me that they suffer because of it.
And here:
dracpanzer wrote: I am always surprised at how much so-called "millenials" care what people of any age think of them, and how much attention they want those same people of other generations to devote to them.
dracpanzer wrote: Do I think the Gen X label actually applies to me other than being the one given to folks my age? No.
Bull Gak. You just identified as a Gen Xer right here:
dracpanzer wrote: You missed my point though, as a Gen X'r, all I ever wanted was for my parents and all elder folks to butt out of my life, leave me the hell alone and get out of my way so I could live my life. I make no excuses for my failures or claim no greatness for my success, I'm not a victim of anything. I just want to be left the alone in my own little part of the world.
Sounds like self identifying to me. Or were you "just" using the label given to you by others?
dracpanzer wrote: Would you be better off not caring what the establishment or your elders, or parents think of you? I would say, yes. Would you be better off not stressing about where you are supposed to be at this point in your life and just go live your life? I would say, yes.
Yes, if we could all be zen and not let the stresses of the world overwhelm us we would benefit as individuals and as a society. It is a nice thought but it isn't human nature.
I'm sure it's easy not to stress (or rather stress less cause everyone has stress) when the world favors you, less so when it does not which of course just goes back to all the talk about pretentiousness and being self-centered
Imma go unstress myself and listen to Nirvana while sipping on some Crystal Pepsi and watching MTV's Road Rules! My weekend is set!
Don't forget to tie your flannel shirt around your waist. I'm gonna go for a hike with my backpack slipped over only one shoulder while wearing my entire slap bracelet collection on one arm and my Reeboks fully inflated.
Honestly I think Nirvana has been played so much for me I don't find them entertaining anymore (even the songs I like). Personally my favorites lately have been some of the utterly bizarre techno remixes that sometimes get played on Wal-Mart radio. First off who made a techno remix of the Pokemon theme song, and second who the hell requested it XD
We were in a grocery store a few months ago when the Neverending Story song came on the muzak radio thing. My girlfriend just burst out laughing, and I stared at her like she was crazy.
She told me to listen, and I did. Then I could not stop giggling.
dracpanzer wrote: I am always surprised at how much so-called "millenials" care what people of any age think of them, and how much attention they want those same people of other generations to devote to them. Hearing that someone of such a young age actually worries that they, by simply being born in a specific span of years, are being blamed for ruining an industry, country or the future because they are lazy, worthless or otherwise is just, odd to me.
Who really cares? Sticks and Stones and all that, or are the words a little too close to the truth not to hurt?
It's your story, tell it however you like...
'I wish you hadn't reaped the benefits of free education and cheap housing and then denied it to us' =/= 'love me and give me attention'.
Must be a UK thing, because I never had a free anything at college.
Obviously. If you want to adjust it for the US, replace 'free education' with 'education that you could afford yourself with a sufficiently low hours part time job'.
Feeling entitled to something you think the baby boomers had that doesn't exist anymore is still feeling entitled to something you didn't earn.
As I stated in the post immediately before you replied to this, no one is saying they're entitled to anything. The point is that it is absurd for one generation to castigate another for failing to achieve what they acheived with significant advantages. It's like if Barcelona decided to start giving Peterhead a hard time because they can't win the Champion League and telling them they just nee to pull their socks up and graft harder.
You missed my point though, as a Gen X'r, all I ever wanted was for my parents and all elder folks to butt out of my life, leave me the hell alone and get out of my way so I could live my life. I make no excuses for my failures or claim no greatness for my success, I'm not a victim of anything. I just want to be left the alone in my own little part of the world. Millenials seem to be far more interested in what others think of them or want others to be involved in their life to a much greater degree. It seems to me that they suffer because of it.
I'd be very interested in exactly how you think this is manifested.
I was married with two kids and owned my own home at 26, why can't you?
Who the feth cares?
Fixed that for you.
You've entirely missed the point. The thrust of almost every post you're disagreeing with in the entire thread, is that they'd like to left to their own devices by earlier generations and not harrassed for failing to achieve the things they did with devices they have since removed.
dracpanzer wrote:
It also doesn't seem by the jist of this thread and many other similar discussions outside of Dakka that Millenials have adjusted to the fact that you won't be getting the benefits the boomers had.
Much like how 'I wish you hadn't reaped the benefits of free education and cheap housing and then denied it to us' =/= 'love me and give me attention', 'being slagged off for failing to achieve certain arbitrary goals is annoying and baseless' =/= 'I will not accept that that the world has changed'. In fact, all the evidence would suggest that millennials have wholly accepted the paradigm shift, hence why they aren't all desperately chasing the objectives that others set for them that are no longer appropriate. It's previous generations that tend not to realise how different their context is - or they wouldn't be grumping about their kids not owning houses or paying their way through uni by working weekends in a bar.
Has all your griping gotten you anywhere? No.
Currently, it's actually changing the political narrative in much of Europe. I don't imagine that it'll find the same foothold in the US (though obviously the Sanders-bump is an example of it), but then the starting point is vastly further to the right than anywhere in Europe (probably anywhere in the world bar the Arabian Peninsula?).
Now, I'm sure you're going to read this and think 'oh look, he's still obsessed with what older generations think!' I'd suggest first that A) I don't think of myself as a millennial, though might catch the very start of it according to some date ranges, an B) you really need to listen when people draw a distinction between
Just an aside, so that those from outside the UK (or our younger viewers) understand what we are talking about when it comes to education; up until 1997 not only were you entitled to go to university with no fees, but the government gave you a grant of several thousand pounds a year to help you with living costs, educational materials (or more frequently, beer).
Then, all of a sudden, grants disappeared (except for the very poorest) and we suddenly had to pay fees (initially ~£1000 per year). The thing is for "xilennials" like myself and Mad Doc, who were in our mid-teens, our parents were completely unprepared for this. We had no college funds or savings or any concept that such a thing would be needed, because up until then it wasn't and only a year or two to try and figure out how to make it work. It was a complete betrayal of a social pact, that up until then had been "if you're good enough to go to university, you can, no worries".
Jadenim wrote: It was a complete betrayal of a social pact, that up until then had been "if you're good enough to go to university, you can, no worries".
Wait, so there's no government scholarships or student loans?
The Australian system used to be free many years ago but it hasn't been for ages, the current system is not free but based on performance you get a government supported place (which means you pay less fees than a full fee paying student) and the reduced fees don't have to be paid upfront but are given as a loan with minimal interest that you pay off once you start earning money.
In general I like the Australian system, it's not free, but anyone can get in to it based on performance. It varies from year to year, but as an example to get in to my course required at minimum that you be within the top 5% in your final year of high school.
Oh there's student loans - but previously you didn't have to borrow your way through higher education - and certainly not winding up with £30k of debt before you've even joined the workforce properly.
Yes there are government backed loans, but not scholarships particularly (as far as I'm aware, I'm well past my student days). I also saw something the other week which suggested that we now have the highest average fees in the West (US was second, because although top US colleges charge a lot more, they also have a lot of state colleges that charge a lot less).
UK students (well, English certainly) are leaving university with ~£50,000 debt that attracts interest at commercial rates as I understand it.
I think the government originally hoped to create a market where local colleges would charge less to attract students, but they didn't; everyone just charges the maximum allowable.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Oh there's student loans - but previously you didn't have to borrow your way through higher education - and certainly not winding up with £30k of debt before you've even joined the workforce properly.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Oh there's student loans - but previously you didn't have to borrow your way through higher education - and certainly not winding up with £30k of debt before you've even joined the workforce properly.
It's ridiculous, and frankly obscene.
To be honest I don't really see a problem with that. Maybe there's specific problems with the UK system, but the concept seems fine to me. £30k does seem a bit excessive though, my course (4 year engineering degree with honours) only cost me a bit over $30k AUD, which at the current exchange rate is only about £18k.
You only have to start paying it back when you're earning over a threshold amount.
Education isn't free, I don't really see why it needs to be a problem for society as a whole to pay the bill for individual students' higher education. Society as a whole I think should be trying to level the playing field between rich and poor students, which is what government supported places, scholarships and government loans offer.
Jadenim wrote: UK students (well, English certainly) are leaving university with ~£50,000 debt that attracts interest at commercial rates as I understand it.
If it's commercial rates then that's bad, in Australia the loans for students attract interest, but it's basically just accounting for inflation, not crazy commercial money lender leeching rates.
Personally I have never stressed about the money I owe the Australian government for my University course. My sister does, but that's largely because she dropped out three quarters of the way through, so she has the big loan but not the degree.
But I really don't think society as a whole should have to pay for students in full. Help them out so that poor students can get ahead in life, absolutely, but pay in full? Nah. People don't NEED to go to university, sometimes I think there's too much emphasis on going to university such that people just go there to do crap degrees that won't get them anywhere and don't learn anything along the way anyway.
"as I understand it" is a big problem that has been plaguing most discussions about English tuition fees. In the vast majority of the discussions I've been on, I've asked people about various specifics and, broadly speaking they stumble, unsure., Without real answers.
It's almost always some regurgitated headline from a tabloid, either left or right wing, depending on the person I'm talking to.
Edit: From my experience, for all practical purposes, a student loan is essentially a graduate tax. Lenders (EG mortgage providers) generally go "do you have a student loan?" "Yup" "fair enough". You pay nothing until you earn enough to start paying it back, at which point its means tested - when I started work I was paying £27 back per month. That raised to ~£110 when I got a promotion. You retire without paying it off? Fine, whatever, loans cancelled.
So I'm other words, for all intents and purposes its a graduate tax, paid depending on your level of income.
Edit2: For clarity's sake, it's worth saying as far as my own numbers are involved, I was under a slightly different version of the system that was a hybrid of the old and new systems, please refer to the above link and the SLC website for specifics.
Also I'd like to stress that I'm not saying student loan issues aren't issues for people who have them, I'm more saying, "hey let's all Arthur and discuss points from positions of knowledge and facts."
It could very well be that the £360 per year at 25kis the make or break value in someone's livelihood or maybe my experience with loan providers isn't normal and some really *do* care about the level of student loans you have but at least in that case, we're all discussing from the same page.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Oh there's student loans - but previously you didn't have to borrow your way through higher education - and certainly not winding up with £30k of debt before you've even joined the workforce properly.
It's ridiculous, and frankly obscene.
To be honest I don't really see a problem with that. Maybe there's specific problems with the UK system, but the concept seems fine to me. £30k does seem a bit excessive though, my course (4 year engineering degree with honours) only cost me a bit over $30k AUD, which at the current exchange rate is only about £18k.
You only have to start paying it back when you're earning over a threshold amount.
Education isn't free, I don't really see why it needs to be a problem for society as a whole to pay the bill for individual students' higher education. Society as a whole I think should be trying to level the playing field between rich and poor students, which is what government supported places, scholarships and government loans offer.
Jadenim wrote: UK students (well, English certainly) are leaving university with ~£50,000 debt that attracts interest at commercial rates as I understand it.
If it's commercial rates then that's bad, in Australia the loans for students attract interest, but it's basically just accounting for inflation, not crazy commercial money lender leeching rates.
Personally I have never stressed about the money I owe the Australian government for my University course. My sister does, but that's largely because she dropped out three quarters of the way through, so she has the big loan but not the degree.
But I really don't think society as a whole should have to pay for students in full. Help them out so that poor students can get ahead in life, absolutely, but pay in full? Nah. People don't NEED to go to university, sometimes I think there's too much emphasis on going to university such that people just go there to do crap degrees that won't get them anywhere and don't learn anything along the way anyway.
The only hurdle to higher education should be academic ability. That's how you encourage social mobility.
Way it is now, too many are put off by the fees. And that's a waste of the nation's collective talent.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: £30k does seem a bit excessive though, my course (4 year engineering degree with honours) only cost me a bit over $30k AUD, which at the current exchange rate is only about £18k.
It's worth pointing out that $30k is only part of the cost of your degree. The government does subsidise the university education system in Australia in addition to the HECS system (that the loan system AllSeeingSkink was talking about above). I'm not sure of the exact numbers, but it does represent a significant proportion of the cost of each degree.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: Education isn't free, I don't really see why it needs to be a problem for society as a whole to pay the bill for individual students' higher education. Society as a whole I think should be trying to level the playing field between rich and poor students, which is what government supported places, scholarships and government loans offer.
Thing is though, that 'Society' wants educated people, particularly highly educated ones. It needs (for instance) engineers to design it's buildings/infrastructure/technology, doctors to provide medical care, scientists to develop & research new ideas, etc etc. To put it another way; Society has a vested interest in the educated, and government subsidisation is merely a reflection of that.
It's worth pointing out that $30k is only part of the cost of your degree.
That depends on the degree. If you're a standard humanities (history, english, philosophy, etc) or social sciences (anthropology, sociology, etc) student, the cost of the running the degree course is not expensive. Assuming you're running a standard degree program at a mid-tier University ? You're making a killing.
Let's take History at the University of Leicester as an example. They have about forty academics sitting snug there. Many of them will be on less than great contracts, but for arguments sake, let's say all forty are sitting snug on the £40,000 average salary for academics. That's a salary bill of 1.6 million pounds. They have about eight adminstrative support staff, who will make around £25,000 apiece on average, tacking on another £200,000.
Tack on £50,000 for Library book purchases/journal access (it would actually be about half that, but let's be generous). Rent is free because they own the buildings, but electricity/water/net bills will cost something, as will a proportion of University running costs (janitors, bursaries, etcetc). Altogether, there's no way we're looking at running costs above about two million pounds for their running a reasonably solid academic history department.
Now the income. Leicester averages about 800 history undergrads a year. 800 students paying £9,000 apiece is......a little over seven million pounds! Whew! That's the sort of profit margin that people like Rupert Murdoch and Richard Branson dream of. In other words, trebles all round in the University Chancellor's office!
.....or as they like to say, the sector is under heavy pressure, and they need permission to raise University fees further. After all, don't you peasants understand that the loans are just replacing government funding that they lost? They NEED that money!
As there is a bit of Millenial conversation in here, I have a local news story for you all.
I live in a small town of 8,500 people in rural Iowa. A brand new Dollar Tree store just opened. All the employees are new to Dollar Tree, and went through orientation and initial training together. There were about 24 prospective employees at this orientation. 8 of them were high school aged kids looking for part-time work.
Apparently in these situations, the Dollar Tree playbook states that all new employees will start at $7.50 per hour on a one-month probationary employment. At the end of the month they gauge your abilities, friendliness, dedication to work, etc. and will give EVERYONE raises so they make from $8.50 to $12 per hour. That actually sounds pretty fair to me.
Once this "probationary pay" got mentioned ALL the kids got up and said they were leaving unless the probationary pay was raised to $10 per hour.
When I was in high school I quite my 7.50 job because the money earned wasn't remotely worth the time lost. You can only work 4-5 hours a day max, and you're probably only looking at 20-24 hours realistically. $140 before taxes isn't going to be worth it for the lost time for most kids I imagine. I've seen plenty of articles talk about how younger people don't want to work in school. Bull. Younger people don't want to work for nothing. No one does.
As an adult, I'd still leave (and have) because 7.50 is unlivable and when you have bills to pay waiting a month just get a $1 raise is worthless. There's a reason every dollar store I've ever entered is heavily staffed by SS recipients I suspect The promise of a raise after one month is made by almost every employer I've ever encountered looking for hourly employees. Wal-Mart says it'll give you a .25 to 3.50 raise after six months. Of course a range is given for a reason and that's because the high number is bait. I've never seen anyone get it. On the other hand I think $10 is pretty reasonable a request. What is this, 1966? Oh wait! In 1966 minimum wage was $10!
Though I'd point out in the year 2017, The Millenials aren't really in high school anymore except by the broadest year brackets
It's worth pointing out that $30k is only part of the cost of your degree.
That depends on the degree.
Qualify my statement with: "in Australia". I don't want to speak to the working of the UK system (or indeed any other country's system) as I'm totally unfamiliar with them.
It's worth pointing out that $30k is only part of the cost of your degree.
That depends on the degree.
Qualify my statement with: "in Australia". I don't want to speak to the working of the UK system (or indeed any other country's system) as I'm totally unfamiliar with them.
So long as your academics aren't earning somewhere in the region of £160,000 a year each, the universities out there will be in exactly the same position as the UK ones if they're charging the Australian dollar equivalent of £9,000 plus for a basic degree.
The common argument is that us lot over in humanities are subsidising the people on other degrees, and that's where the excess capital goes. But frankly? Most large scale expensive scientific equipment is paid for from external funding grants on specific projects, not the Uni itself splashing out.
There's a reason why Western Universities the world over are raking it in hand over fist, opening fresh campuses every five minutes whilst simultaneously removing all job security for their staff and gambling with their pension investments. Higher Education has become nothing more than a standard facet of the capitalistic juggernaut that is the Western economy. If Universities were FTSE listed companies, they'd be doing great.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Oh there's student loans - but previously you didn't have to borrow your way through higher education - and certainly not winding up with £30k of debt before you've even joined the workforce properly.
It's ridiculous, and frankly obscene.
To be honest I don't really see a problem with that. Maybe there's specific problems with the UK system, but the concept seems fine to me. £30k does seem a bit excessive though, my course (4 year engineering degree with honours) only cost me a bit over $30k AUD, which at the current exchange rate is only about £18k.
You only have to start paying it back when you're earning over a threshold amount.
Education isn't free, I don't really see why it needs to be a problem for society as a whole to pay the bill for individual students' higher education. Society as a whole I think should be trying to level the playing field between rich and poor students, which is what government supported places, scholarships and government loans offer.
Jadenim wrote: UK students (well, English certainly) are leaving university with ~£50,000 debt that attracts interest at commercial rates as I understand it.
If it's commercial rates then that's bad, in Australia the loans for students attract interest, but it's basically just accounting for inflation, not crazy commercial money lender leeching rates.
Personally I have never stressed about the money I owe the Australian government for my University course. My sister does, but that's largely because she dropped out three quarters of the way through, so she has the big loan but not the degree.
But I really don't think society as a whole should have to pay for students in full. Help them out so that poor students can get ahead in life, absolutely, but pay in full? Nah. People don't NEED to go to university, sometimes I think there's too much emphasis on going to university such that people just go there to do crap degrees that won't get them anywhere and don't learn anything along the way anyway.
The only hurdle to higher education should be academic ability. That's how you encourage social mobility.
And low interest performance based loans are exactly how that's achieved.
I absolutely could not afford to pay for my higher education, so the government loaned me the money and then I could. The only obstacle I had to overcome is that I had to get good enough marks in my high school to get that government supported place.
Way it is now, too many are put off by the fees. And that's a waste of the nation's collective talent.
That's only really a problem if the interest rates on the student loans are too high.
If someone is stupid enough to think "oh geeze, I'll go work at KFC full time for £15k a year instead of going to University which will lead to a £100k/year job because I don't want to have to pay back £30k" well then I'd suggest they aren't that high on the list of the nation's talented people that we'd be scared to lose
Pendix wrote:
AllSeeingSkink wrote: £30k does seem a bit excessive though, my course (4 year engineering degree with honours) only cost me a bit over $30k AUD, which at the current exchange rate is only about £18k.
It's worth pointing out that $30k is only part of the cost of your degree. The government does subsidise the university education system in Australia in addition to the HECS system (that the loan system AllSeeingSkink was talking about above). I'm not sure of the exact numbers, but it does represent a significant proportion of the cost of each degree.
True, I probably should have mentioned that but I didn't want things getting too complicated I actually assumed the UK system was similar because £30k sounded low for a full fee paying place.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: Education isn't free, I don't really see why it needs to be a problem for society as a whole to pay the bill for individual students' higher education. Society as a whole I think should be trying to level the playing field between rich and poor students, which is what government supported places, scholarships and government loans offer.
Thing is though, that 'Society' wants educated people, particularly highly educated ones. It needs (for instance) engineers to design it's buildings/infrastructure/technology, doctors to provide medical care, scientists to develop & research new ideas, etc etc. To put it another way; Society has a vested interest in the educated, and government subsidisation is merely a reflection of that.
All those things you mentioned are high or at least decently paying jobs and prospective students shouldn't be put off from taking out a small low-interest loan in order to go in to those fields.
The system works exactly the way it's supposed to****, you want to go in to higher education but don't have the money? Awesome, go do it and pay us back with all the money you'll earn from the degree! You aren't going to earn money after getting the degree? Err.... maybe you shouldn't bother going in to higher education then
The number of psychology students who do the degree and get nothing useful out of it is scary, people should absolutely be dissuaded from wasting government money doing degrees they have no use for. Not that psychology itself is useless, and I only used psych as an example because for whatever reason I know a lot of people who have done psych (both those who went on to leverage their degree and those that continue to work in low level retail years after getting their degrees ) But the number of people doing it is disproportionately large to the number of people who should be doing it.
I think sometimes we forget people don't NEED to go to University. You can do an apprenticeship, learn a trade, or just go straight in to the workforce. There's no need to take 2 to 4 years out of your life to do a degree if you don't have a passion for the field you're going in to and have no intention of using it afterwards.
If you do have a passion and are going in to a field that society deems useful, awesome, you'll be able to get a job that pays enough money to pay off the loan quickly. IMO there should absolutely be a financial cost to doing higher education because even though education is great and all, people shouldn't be doing courses just for the hell of it, there should be an end goal in mind and a realisation that going to university isn't the only option in life. By having low interest loans, the financial negative is there without excluding people who can't afford to pay it upfront.
If we as a society want to invest more in levelling the playing field education wise, the time, money and effort needs to be spent earlier in the education timeline; high schools in low income areas and such so that kids don't become victims of their environment.
****One thing I can agree with in general is that university fees seem way too high, I think this is true the world over. I'm not convinced universities do a good job of distributing student fees such that students pay far more in fees than they actually inflict expenses to the university. I know my university is endlessly doing construction work, tearing down perfectly good buildings, landscaping what was perfectly good areas, the costs of such constant works would be insane.
cuda1179 wrote: Once this "probationary pay" got mentioned ALL the kids got up and said they were leaving unless the probationary pay was raised to $10 per hour.
That tracks. They're the ones who need the jobs the least, all things considered.
Also, by some of the arbitrary lines in the sand used to define a generation for whatever purposes best fit the definer's needs, the Millennials well possibly have all graduated high school by now.
cuda1179 wrote: Okay, so what is the Generation after Millennials called?
Do we have to wait until the 70's and 80's generation gets old enough to get cranky with the post-millennial generation so they can come up with a new term to make blanket complaints about them?
cuda1179 wrote: Okay, so what is the Generation after Millennials called?
Gen Z, aka Centennials.
While some end dates for Gen Y go into the 2000s, the end date of 1996/1997 is the standard end date for the cohort (with far more consistency in my experience than the start date). Probably because demographers can actually draw a quite not so arbitrary line between Gen Z and Gen Y, defining one as "coming of age in the New Millennium" (hence the name) and "grew up in the new century" (again hence the name).
I'm actually sitting here wondering why Gen X was ever called Gen X in the first place XD I'm not entirely clear on the origin of the name.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: If someone is stupid enough to think "oh geeze, I'll go work at KFC full time for £15k a year instead of going to University which will lead to a £100k/year job because I don't want to have to pay back £30k" well then I'd suggest they aren't that high on the list of the nation's talented people that we'd be scared to lose
Some of them are probably thinking 'I've seen dozens of people I know get degrees and end up working in a call centre for a pound above minimum wage, so I might as well get on with my minimum wage job and miss the £30k in fees and the £15k in living expenses loans'.
Additionally, you're making the classic fallacy that university is meant to get you a job. It isn't. It's meant to educate you. Society wants better educated people, not just people to do particular jobs.
All those things you mentioned are high or at least decently paying jobs and prospective students shouldn't be put off from taking out a small low-interest loan in order to go in to those fields.
The system works exactly the way it's supposed to****, you want to go in to higher education but don't have the money? Awesome, go do it and pay us back with all the money you'll earn from the degree! You aren't going to earn money after getting the degree? Err.... maybe you shouldn't bother going in to higher education then
You're making the same fallacy here.
The number of psychology students who do the degree and get nothing useful out of it is scary, people should absolutely be dissuaded from wasting government money doing degrees they have no use for.
Define 'use for'. In a way that doesn't involve 'to get a job'.
Not that psychology itself is useless, and I only used psych as an example because for whatever reason I know a lot of people who have done psych (both those who went on to leverage their degree and those that continue to work in low level retail years after getting their degrees ) But the number of people doing it is disproportionately large to the number of people who should be doing it.
It's certainly over subscribed relative to the number of jobs in the field, but A) assuming that's a problem is a band thing is fallacious as discussed above, and B) how do you adjust that anyway?
I think sometimes we forget people don't NEED to go to University.
Definitely. But this is a pretty key issue in conversations about generational tensions: millennials being told that they need to go to university to stand any chance of getting anywhere in life, only for hge numbers of them to discover it made no difference to their chances whatsoever.
Additionally, people who want to, and are capable, should be able to.
If you do have a passion and are going in to a field that society deems useful, awesome, you'll be able to get a job that pays enough money to pay off the loan quickly.
Most of society deems most of the traditional academic subjects useful. Most of them will never get you a job outside of academia. So will teach, and never pay their loans back (in the UK, in the US teachers are paid even worse, no idea about Australia).
Definitely. But this is a pretty key issue in conversations about generational tensions: millennials being told that they need to go to university to stand any chance of getting anywhere in life, only for hge numbers of them to discover it made no difference to their chances whatsoever.
The problem is not that it made no difference, but that it has now become a requirement for jobs that were previously non graduate jobs. So go to university and get a job, and pay, that would previously been a non graduate job, or leave school at 18 with a-levels and struggle to get anything other than a dead end job.
Even then employers continue to not understand what university is for. They complain time and again about people not coming out of university ready for work. That is not the point in university, that is the job of the employer.
Let's take History at the University of Leicester as an example. They have about forty academics sitting snug there. Many of them will be on less than great contracts, but for arguments sake, let's say all forty are sitting snug on the £40,000 average salary for academics. That's a salary bill of 1.6 million pounds. They have about eight adminstrative support staff, who will make around £25,000 apiece on average, tacking on another £200,000.
Tack on £50,000 for Library book purchases/journal access (it would actually be about half that, but let's be generous). Rent is free because they own the buildings, but electricity/water/net bills will cost something, as will a proportion of University running costs (janitors, bursaries, etcetc). Altogether, there's no way we're looking at running costs above about two million pounds for their running a reasonably solid academic history department.
Now the income. Leicester averages about 800 history undergrads a year. 800 students paying £9,000 apiece is......a little over seven million pounds! Whew! That's the sort of profit margin that people like Rupert Murdoch and Richard Branson dream of. In other words, trebles all round in the University Chancellor's office!
There's likely a bit of underestimation here because of missing costs. As a rule of thumb doubling the estimated costs to give a figure that is likely to be closer to the true value, for example the wage cost quoted only relates to what staff are paid directly - actual costs to any organisation is usually 25 to 33% higher than this because of national insurance contributions, pension contributions etc. Also there are many hidden costs that aren't directly attributable to a student. So UCAS open day costs, student welfare staff, Student union, security staff, not to mention the army of administrators in the background.
However the general principle that costs in humanities is less expensive than the £9000 is generally correct (just not as extreme as stated). However a lot of this goes to pay for the shortfall in STEM subjects. These costs are nearer to £13,500 to £14,000 per student (and probably more for medicine) because of the lab costs and so on. In essence for every student that takes a STEM subject the university makes a loss -the joke being that if a university wanted to save money just close all its STEM departments. In essence then students of the humanities support STEM students.
Definitely. But this is a pretty key issue in conversations about generational tensions: millennials being told that they need to go to university to stand any chance of getting anywhere in life, only for hge numbers of them to discover it made no difference to their chances whatsoever.
The problem is not that it made no difference, but that it has now become a requirement for jobs that were previously non graduate jobs.
So go to university and get a job, and pay, that would previously been a non graduate job, or leave school at 18 with a-levels and struggle to get anything other than a dead end job.
Which is exactly what I meant, yeah. It didn't open up a new world of work. It allowed them to do the jobs their parents told them would be their limit without university.
Even then employers continue to not understand what university is for. They complain time and again about people not coming out of university ready for work. That is not the point in university, that is the job of the employer.
A definite problem. Also the case between every level of education. High school teachers barely know what anything from primary means. Colleges are bewlidered by high school qualifications. Universities don't know what college qualifications are. Employers don't know what any degree really entails unless they require a vocational qualification, and they'll certainly not know the distinctions between a BA/BA (Hons), MA/MPhil/MRes/MLitt etc.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Oh there's student loans - but previously you didn't have to borrow your way through higher education - and certainly not winding up with £30k of debt before you've even joined the workforce properly.
It's ridiculous, and frankly obscene.
To be honest I don't really see a problem with that. Maybe there's specific problems with the UK system, but the concept seems fine to me. £30k does seem a bit excessive though, my course (4 year engineering degree with honours) only cost me a bit over $30k AUD, which at the current exchange rate is only about £18k.
You only have to start paying it back when you're earning over a threshold amount.
Education isn't free, I don't really see why it needs to be a problem for society as a whole to pay the bill for individual students' higher education. Society as a whole I think should be trying to level the playing field between rich and poor students, which is what government supported places, scholarships and government loans offer.
However the student does pay twice. What is being missed is that the "average" graduate will earn approximately £12000 per year during their working life compared to a non-graduate worker. So take 45 years, that's a total of approximately £540,000 which assuming an overall tax of 30% (tax + NI) is £162,000 of extra tax that student pays. That more than makes up for the £30,000 paid in student fees with plenty to spare (for example it's 20 years of state pension). This is also before we consider that extra £380k likely goes into the economy somewhere so helping support businesses and the such like. The more graduate students the better on this basis. This is before you consider that they are likely healthier, less likely to require benefits and generally be a much lighter cost on the state overall during their lifetime. Compare their costs to pensioners, there is no recoup of the £6000 per annum spent on their pensions and yet this can last 20-30 years. Paying the fees for students is by comparison to pensions a bargain for the country. The only reason pensioners get away with this is that they vote in large numbers whereas historically younger people don't. Hence it is easier to hit this part of society even where it makes no sense to do so. If the voting proportions were the other way round you can guarantee students would still get the paid fees.
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cuda1179 wrote: Okay, so what is the Generation after Millennials called?
There's likely a bit of underestimation here because of missing costs.
You'll note I said you could quite easily put aside £200,000 towards general University running costs. Not only that, but I'm assuming quite generously in favour of the most expensive possible option in several cases ( for example, a lot of 'academic contracts' are now fixed term and a hell of a lot lower in cost accordingly) and ignoring the income generated by postgraduate students and research grants. All of which would cut costs/boost income considerably further to counteract things like pension contributions.
That all being said, it was never meant to be more than a rough figure in the ballpark. Different Universities will have different overall costs and incomes, it's virtually impossible to break it down if you try and look at them all collectively. Some establishments own their buildings, others have to pay rent. Some have vast student housing estates generating profit to draw off of, some do not. Some have far higher postgrad populations (King's has 40%, for example), others just churn and burn the BA's.So you might find that there's plenty of extra income from elsewhere to make up establishment costs, or very little depending on where you're looking.
Consequently, It's why I specified Leicester, they're secure, but not overly wealthy, and generally sit quite nicely in the middle in most regards. It illustrates (roughly) the expenditure and outgoings involved in running a basic undergrad humanities course.
The thought then occurs. Why is it the job for cheaper degrees to subsidise more expensive ones? So long as the loans system is covering the initial cost so anyone who wants to study can, why are some students effectively walking away with three times the debt so that other students walk away with a third as much? You can say 'Ah, that's for the good of society', but when I take out a commercial loan, nobody expects me to officially borrow three times the amount I need so I can give the excess away to charity. Why is it considered the norm here?
There's likely a bit of underestimation here because of missing costs.
You'll note I said you could quite easily put aside £200,000 towards general University running costs. Not only that, but I'm assuming quite generously in favour of the most expensive possible option in several cases ( for example, a lot of 'academic contracts' are now fixed term and a hell of a lot lower in cost accordingly) and ignoring the income generated by postgraduate students and research grants. All of which would cut costs/boost income considerably further to counteract things like pension contributions.
I just think you are underestimating the background costs. As I said previously it is usually best to take the estimate and double it is as usually that is much closer to the actual figure. As a species we are notorious for underestimating costs whether that is revenue or capital works. And for Leicester specifically research grants can't really be counted. The Uni take a percentage of the grant (about 10%) and the rest is then left with the person awarded the grant. This usually also allows them to be 'bought' out of the teaching obligations for the term of the grant. Postgrads (excluding taught masters) also fall under the research aspects rather than the teaching budget. Leicester also has very strict rules about who can teach (effectively postgrads and postdocs can't); you have to be a permanent member of staff to be allowed to teach.
The thought then occurs. Why is it the job for cheaper degrees to subsidise more expensive ones? So long as the loans system is covering the initial cost so anyone who wants to study can, why are some students effectively walking away with three times the debt so that other students walk away with a third as much? You can say 'Ah, that's for the good of society', but when I take out a commercial loan, nobody expects me to officially borrow three times the amount I need so I can give the excess away to charity. Why is it considered the norm here?
I suppose because if fees were at costs (so lets say humanities was £5k and STEM £15k) per annum, then you are likely to end up with less STEM graduates and more students of the humanities, that would generate a shortfall of skilled scientists, technicians, engineers and so on limiting growth of the high tech (and valuable to UK PLC) industries. Secondly it is likely to encourage those that do get these degrees to move abroad. A recently qualified doctor on these fees would have a student fee bill of £105,000 (£15k *7) and that's before you consider living costs. For these students the best way to avoid the bill would be to leave the UK until they are 67 and then return (maybe). This is the same thing that happened with the nursing grants, the UK government withdrew them and there was a 25% drop in applications. However as I've noted previously I don't really believe there is a justification for charging any students fees when over their lifetime, on average, they are going to bring in more tax than the cost to train them. they effectively get charged three times, once in tax, once in the fees, and once in the interest (noting that 2.5% over 25 years effectively doubles the debt).
I just think you are underestimating the background costs. ...Leicester also has very strict rules about who can teach (effectively postgrads and postdocs can't); you have to be a permanent member of staff to be allowed to teach.
I think you're overexaggerating the costs personally. It's also irrelevant to the greater point being made; we can (if you like) assume the course cost literally double the estimate being given above and it would still only equal half the amount made purely through the income from undergrad fees only.
With regards to grants, terms can vary substantially; I was speaking to a gentleman the other day who's about to be made redundant despite being full time employed staff; due to the fact that he was only hired because the funds to pay his salary were made available through a grant. Therefore once the funds had run out, the University in question simply didn't want to keep him on.
I suppose because if fees were at costs (so lets say humanities was £5k and STEM £15k) per annum, then you are likely to end up with less STEM graduates and more students of the humanities,
As I said above though (and I'm aware you're not necessarily advocating this opinion, just mentioning it), we don't hold the 'welfare of society' into the equation when we start taking out commercial loans. Is it really fair to overburden young people with three times as much personal debt in order to attempt some vague, nebulous social engineering in career placement? Because personally? I can't say I think it is.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: If someone is stupid enough to think "oh geeze, I'll go work at KFC full time for £15k a year instead of going to University which will lead to a £100k/year job because I don't want to have to pay back £30k" well then I'd suggest they aren't that high on the list of the nation's talented people that we'd be scared to lose
Some of them are probably thinking 'I've seen dozens of people I know get degrees and end up working in a call centre for a pound above minimum wage, so I might as well get on with my minimum wage job and miss the £30k in fees and the £15k in living expenses loans'.
So students should pay attention to not doing courses that aren't going to advance themselves.
Additionally, you're making the classic fallacy that university is meant to get you a job. It isn't. It's meant to educate you. Society wants better educated people, not just people to do particular jobs.
It's not just "get you a job", it's "advance your ability to get paid well".
On average, college graduates earn more than those with a high school education.
You're making the same fallacy here.
It's not a fallacy, it's demonstrable fact that people with degrees on average earn more money.
Define 'use for'. In a way that doesn't involve 'to get a job'.
There are plenty of ways that you can have a use for something that doesn't involve getting a job in that field, but if you've done, for example, an engineering degree and then turn around and work in retail for 5 years before having kids and becoming a stay at home parent, you do not have a use for the engineering degree you got.
It's certainly over subscribed relative to the number of jobs in the field, but A) assuming that's a problem is a band thing is fallacious as discussed above, and B) how do you adjust that anyway?
How do you adjust for that? Emphasise the fact that for certain degrees the market for the skill set is tiny. Then make people pay their own fees. Tada, you've reduced the number of people going in to that field.
One of my mates recently told me that if he could give realistic advice to his new students it'd be "don't go in to psych unless you're really passionate about it, if you're not in the top 10% then you're wasting your time". He's a psych researcher who finds it depressing how many people are wasting their time, his time and whoever's paying for it's money. Of course it's the 90% that pay tuition fees to give him a pay cheque in the first place, and I accept there's areas like that where government support is probably a better idea than universities just suckering kids in to degrees that aren't going to help them.
The number of people who push the boundaries in a given field such that it's a benefit to society as a whole is small compared to the total number of people who have high level degrees in those fields. Even in technical fields like science and engineering where I teach graduate level courses I'd rather have half as many students that are twice as passionate (using current levels as a baseline) than twice as many students who don't give a feth and are just doing it because it's free and someone told them they need to do a degree.
I certainly don't want my taxes going to some kid who's doing higher education in a field they have no passion for and are not going to leverage later in life. I'd much rather my taxes going to better education at lower levels like high school and primary school.
Definitely. But this is a pretty key issue in conversations about generational tensions: millennials being told that they need to go to university to stand any chance of getting anywhere in life, only for hge numbers of them to discover it made no difference to their chances whatsoever.
Additionally, people who want to, and are capable, should be able to.
Definitely. I think things are slowly changing in that trades are being pushed more. As the booms of prosperity are starting to die down I think people are starting to see the value in trades vs higher education.
In Australia at least, I don't really have any concern that people who are capable are being denied for financial reasons. I'm kept awake more by the thought that people who are capable are being denied for social reasons than financial ones. The smart cookies who get pulled down by going to a bad school in a bad area and end up having their dreams beaten out of them by their social circumstances.
Most of society deems most of the traditional academic subjects useful. Most of them will never get you a job outside of academia. So will teach, and never pay their loans back (in the UK, in the US teachers are paid even worse, no idea about Australia).
High level academia has a slow start but in the end doesn't pay too badly.
If you mean teachers at lower levels, high school, primary school, etc, yeah I think they're definitely underpaid. I tend to think the solution there isn't to hand out free university but rather recognise the value such people play in society and so pay them more. That way they're more encouraged to do a university degree with the plan of teaching even if it means they'll have a loan to pay off at the end.
I also admit there's some degrees that are useful to society as a whole but have limited prospects for getting a better wage down the line, for the most part I'm happy with those being seen as a luxury item for people who enjoy those fields (compared to at the moment where it's just kids doing it because someone told them they need to do a degree of some sort).
The attitude towards teaching is very short sighted. They push the training bursary of '£25k tax free', which is only for certain subjects and dependent upon you having a first/phd. But the bursaries generally are less but still good. But your first year of teaching you start at the bottom rung of the pay scale, this is £22,500 before tax everywhere but London. Suddenly the number of lessons you teach compared to your final training placement has doubled, with prep and marking you work a 60 hour week, and your take home pay is actually less. It's a shock, you will be working a good few years to take home £25k even in London. And this before all the BS starts that makes teaching hard work. Actually teaching a class is the easy bit.
No wonder so many don't make it past the first year or two before packing it in as a career. The government talk up how many join the profession, but not the number they haemorrhage because they focus only on attracting people and nothing on keeping them in. Some of the much vaunted academy chains are a disgrace for this, chewing through new teachers as fast as they arrive.
This was from a a couple years ago, and should be scandalous. While the government talk up how wonderful these academy chains are, they are burning through young teachers so fast. Is a £20+ bursary well spent public money when they go through a meat grinder school and quit after just 1-2 years? And don't believe the BS excuses, I know people who have worked in these places and it's not pretty.
That's not teaching per se. Postgrads get paid to do things like supporting the lecturers in labs, or run through prepared answers from the workshops, or help out at open days, mark some set question work (that doesn't affect final marks) etc. It's basically more of the running around that the lecturers don't have time to do because of all the teaching they are doing. The postgrads have to show as part of their studies that they have also gained wider learning as part of the phd. Assisting in this way helps to meet some of these credits and also earns them some income at the same time. However they don't prepare lectures, seminars and actually 'teach'.
I think you're overexaggerating the costs personally. It's also irrelevant to the greater point being made; we can (if you like) assume the course cost literally double the estimate being given above and it would still only equal half the amount made purely through the income from undergrad fees only.
I didn't make any estimate, you made it. All I noted was that generally speaking if a 'back of a cigarette packet' calculation and estimate is made it is usually too low by a factor of 2. It is a bizarre phenomena but it works in all areas.
With regards to grants, terms can vary substantially; I was speaking to a gentleman the other day who's about to be made redundant despite being full time employed staff; due to the fact that he was only hired because the funds to pay his salary were made available through a grant. Therefore once the funds had run out, the University in question simply didn't want to keep him on.
That's pretty much the life of a postdoc I'm afraid. But postdocs don't teach, they are hired to undertake research. Usually the lecturers apply for grants and they'll be awarded so much for a period of time (a lot which comes from the EU for the sciences). If they are successful they usually hire postdocs to do a lot of this research (and the phd students). After the money runs out the postdoc has to find other work.
As I said above though (and I'm aware you're not necessarily advocating this opinion, just mentioning it), we don't hold the 'welfare of society' into the equation when we start taking out commercial loans. Is it really fair to overburden young people with three times as much personal debt in order to attempt some vague, nebulous social engineering in career placement? Because personally? I can't say I think it is.
Best thing would be to would be get rid of the fees completely.
That's not teaching per se. Postgrads get paid to do things like supporting the lecturers in labs, or run through prepared answers from the workshops, or help out at open days, mark some set question work (that doesn't affect final marks) etc. It's basically more of the running around that the lecturers don't have time to do because of all the teaching they are doing. The postgrads have to show as part of their studies that they have also gained wider learning as part of the phd. Assisting in this way helps to meet some of these credits and also earns them some income at the same time. However they don't prepare lectures, seminars and actually 'teach'.
I'd disagree as to what qualifies as 'teaching' here, but that's a tangent for another day.
That's pretty much the life of a postdoc I'm afraid. But postdocs don't teach, they are hired to undertake research. Usually the lecturers apply for grants and they'll be awarded so much for a period of time (a lot which comes from the EU for the sciences). If they are successful they usually hire postdocs to do a lot of this research (and the phd students). After the money runs out the postdoc has to find other work.
According to you. The gentleman in question also taught (according to your strictly defined standard above), had his own office (nameplate on the door and everything), was listed on the website as full time academic staff, and so on. He wasn't a postdoc by any stretch of the imagination, you don't get many of them in their 60's.
Funnily enough, they're actually letting him keep the office for the forseeable future even though he's officially retiring now. He still wanders in two days a week at the moment he says, and has no plan on changing that.
Best thing would be to would be get rid of the fees completely.
Is that financially feasible whilst retaining a 'anyone can go' approach to University?
That's not teaching per se. Postgrads get paid to do things like supporting the lecturers in labs, or run through prepared answers from the workshops, or help out at open days, mark some set question work (that doesn't affect final marks) etc. It's basically more of the running around that the lecturers don't have time to do because of all the teaching they are doing. The postgrads have to show as part of their studies that they have also gained wider learning as part of the phd. Assisting in this way helps to meet some of these credits and also earns them some income at the same time. However they don't prepare lectures, seminars and actually 'teach'.
That's highly school and program dependent. Where I went to grad school, the graduate teaching assistants in my program were instructors of record for the first and second year courses. We prepared and taught courses on our own. While there are programs that only have graduate TAs supporting labs or discussion groups or workshops, or simply grading papers and tests, it is not unheard of or uncommon for graduate TAs to be teaching full first and second year courses (again, depending on the program in question).
That's pretty much the life of a postdoc I'm afraid. But postdocs don't teach, they are hired to undertake research. Usually the lecturers apply for grants and they'll be awarded so much for a period of time (a lot which comes from the EU for the sciences). If they are successful they usually hire postdocs to do a lot of this research (and the phd students). After the money runs out the postdoc has to find other work.
It's not just researchers, but entire departments, including adminarative and support staff can be hired on this basis. Universities in the UK are full of people on fixed term contracts.
That's highly school and program dependent. Where I went to grad school, the graduate teaching assistants in my program were instructors of record for the first and second year courses. We prepared and taught courses on our own. While there are programs that only have graduate TAs supporting labs or discussion groups or workshops, or simply grading papers and tests, it is not unheard of or uncommon for graduate TAs to be teaching full first and second year courses (again, depending on the program in question).
It's pretty standard these days sadly, to inhale as many PhD students as possible in order to cut down on how many full time staff you need. If you can then get a third to half of the full time staff on fixed term contracts, it lets you cuts costs as far as you can whilst retaining the ability to shed staff at will.
As there are now government subsidies towards PhD study, I suspect this phenomenon will only worsen. There's already four PhD students and two postdocs chasing every single permanent post created, in a decade, it'll be double that.
Best thing would be to would be get rid of the fees completely.
Is that financially feasible whilst retaining a 'anyone can go' approach to University?
From what I remember yes. In Germany you don't pay anything (or much, don't know how it's now) for public universities/technical colleges and you get paid in apprenticeships (but not much). You get all kinds of student discounts (like for for you monthly public transportation ticket, movies, and whatever else) and if you are in financial need there's BAföG (english wikipedia), and after you are finished with your studies you have to pay back half of it but can also defer payment (and, I think, the debt can even be completely removed if you don't find a job within a certain timeframe). It's not much, the linked site says 735€ maximum at the moment. And you can have a part time job while studying (I think it was 20 hours per week maximum or you lose your status as a student so it doesn't get abused). You'll probably live at home or in a dorm and get some help from your parents but you also don't end up with thousands of € in debt just for getting a degree.
From my days (early 00s) and what I read about it the combination of "unpaid" University and BAföG ends up positive for society because people tend to get better jobs and end up paying more taxes and even if you don't consider a better educated workforce a plus it's at least financially at about ±0 (I think it was a bit positive, it's managed by government so they are not out to make the big bucks here).
You need to pass a certain level of education if you want to go to university, the requirements for technically colleges are a bit lower (and so on). But if you finish with a lower qualification then you have access to additional studies to earn the missing parts. If I remember correctly somebody who gets a Hauptschulabschluss (the lowest level of certificate that allows you to enrol in a vocational school) and want to enter University you end up one year later than your age group but have vocational education in a trade and a Meister title (master craftsman) which allows you to train apprentices (like you were a few years ago) and I think it was—but is not anymore—needed to operate your own company in that trade.
The big upside is that colleges and universities don't switch into this worldview where the students are customers. When you see college comparisons some tend to also include points for quality of life features and other types of handholding in their ratings (and german universities tend to end up with about zero points in those categories). You need to be self-reliant and able to manage your own life without somebody looking after you.
Best thing would be to would be get rid of the fees completely.
Is that financially feasible whilst retaining a 'anyone can go' approach to University?
From what I remember yes. In Germany you don't pay anything (or much, don't know how it's now) for public universities/technical colleges and you get paid in apprenticeships (but not much)..
Please do correct me if I'm wrong, but don't German institutions function on much more of a 'long finger' model though? I recall reading an article on it a while back. Few seminars, very large lecture halls crammed full of students for every lecturer, less funding for being on a degree course than corresponding loans in Britain, less assessed work and more emphasis on a few key pieces, etc, etc.
In other words, generally a lot less contact time and a lot more insisting that students are 'self-reliant' as you put it. Which reduces costs considerably, and means the system requires far less funding to function.
Consequently, the answer you've given is more of a 'Yes, you can fund free University degrees for anyone, so long as you're prepared to accept that the degree courses will be run very differently to how they are as of the moment'. An entirely valid answer, but I don't think the educational system here would be willing to adapt to it. Whilst the Oxbridge system isn't exactly replicated in most places (most institutions don't have the cash), there's a general belief in Britain that the contact time is of prime importance.
Myself, I'm half and half on that point. I think it's extremely valuable, but the students need to be willing to engage with it. When they're just slumping in not having done the reading, they're wasting everybody's time. When four or five have done the reading and reached different conclusions though (and are loud enough to voice it), the exchange is very educational for all involved. I never really experienced it until I hit postgrad level at MA (when most of the slackers had been weeded out), but it was absolutely grand when I did finally encounter it.
US seminars are far smaller, and have on the whole remained far more effective, than their German counterparts. In Germany, seminar sizes range on average from around 25 students to 60; during my year in Germany, I participated in a seminar of 90 students and that was not unusual for a mainstream humanities subject(German literature). This difference in size between the US and Germany has led to a significant difference in one particular seminar practice; and it is a difference that has become institutionalized in Germany...........
Most, if not all seminar series now permit or require –if only out of necessity due to excessive numbers of seminar participants –group presentations instead of individual ones. This form of collective work is called the Gruppenreferat.
The task of the Gruppenreferat is for the students to collectively engage with a topic and present their knowledge to their
peers; in reality, the demand is for intellectual consent. This goal of the Gruppenreferat is phrased most explicitly in a 2008 German student survival guide to giving seminar presentations, written by Tim-Christian Bartsch and Berndt Rex. They stress that the Gruppenreferat should be one harmonious presentation to which multiple students contribute. The authors offer four steps to success, but despite their emphasis on student research, they at no point advise questioning of the material –unless the student is questing whether he or she has understood it correctly,
nfe wrote: That said, you're reading a lot into posts that aren't written. It seems like a pretty hefty dose of confirmation bias. I didn't claim anyone voted specifically to keep anyone else down. Rather that people voted to remove particular opportunities from others after they'd reaped the benefits. More a case of 'I'm alright, Jack' than 'feth you, Jack'. More 'well, it's not going to hurt me if party X treble tuition fees' than 'can't wait till these trebled tuition fees bury kids in debt!'. Millennials don't think they're Cedric Sneer with a dad explicitly trying to ruin their lives. They just wish they'd stop getting told that they're lazy, preening snowflakes with 30-second attention spans because they can't buy buy a suburban three-bed by 30.
Even that's loading the question. The actual issue that led to increasing uni fees was 'how are we going to pay for this massive expansion of the tertiary sector?' Govt pours more money in to university education than ever before, but if the money is doubled while the student count trebles, then you still need even more money.
Now in the past it was okay to steadily ramp up student count year on year and pay for it out of growing government revenues because the economy was growing on average at 4% or thereabouts. Now we're hoping to somehow get back to 3% at some point in the future, and in the medium term pretty proud when growth is 2.something. With flat revenues and ever increasing university numbers, the money has to come from somewhere. Govt priorities were tested, and instead of cutting something else or raising taxes, the decision was made to pass some of the cost on to students.
Whether that was short sighted or wrong is a reasonable debate, but it was never really about 'oh that won't hurt me because I've already got my free degree'. If that was truly the motivation they just would have slashed the number of enrollments.
Nor is the solution of passing greater costs on to the student isn't actually that unfair in itself. After all, if the lawyer or doctor is going to command a greater income from his education, why should it be just down to society to pay for it? However, pushing so many more people through uni had a second impact beyond the greater cost of the uni sector - it also depressed the incomes of people with those degrees. With so many more white collar people with degrees, the prestige of that degree declined and no longer commanded a greater income. In many places it's now the minimum for a starting position.
So the result has been a double whammy. Uni students get bigger debt loads, and lower paying jobs.
That sucks, no doubt. I don't think anyone is defending the status quo. But the status quo is best understood as a flawed response to a challenging set of circumstances outside of anyone's control, not a case of 'screw you I've got mine'.
Housing is similar in a lot of ways.
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Pendix wrote: It's worth pointing out that $30k is only part of the cost of your degree. The government does subsidise the university education system in Australia in addition to the HECS system (that the loan system AllSeeingSkink was talking about above). I'm not sure of the exact numbers, but it does represent a significant proportion of the cost of each degree.
I used to work in budgeting at an Australian uni, so I know this. The Commonwealth puts in about three dollars for every dollar the student puts in. When you then factor in Commonwealth funds for non-student activity (research etc), and contributions from state govts, you can stretch that up to 4:1.
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Ketara wrote: That depends on the degree. If you're a standard humanities (history, english, philosophy, etc) or social sciences (anthropology, sociology, etc) student, the cost of the running the degree course is not expensive. Assuming you're running a standard degree program at a mid-tier University ? You're making a killing.
No. Humanities courses run at huge losses everywhere. Student to teacher numbers are horrible, and there's bugger all research money to offset the small class sizes.
Commerce makes stupid money everywhere. Law makes stupid money if it's a prestige course, but otherwise makes okay money. Education is the other cash cow, it's a dirty secret but there is a big reason the uni sector has pushed to make teaching a graduate course - $. In all these cases the teacher ratios are good, and there's no material costs. Commerce also has some insanely lucrative research work.
Science and engineering is typically somewhere between 'break even' and 'losing all the money in God's earth', depending on how tight the programs are managed,
Most of the rest, fine arts, architecture etc, they can be profitable or not, but they're too small to make any real difference to the uni's bottom line.
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cuda1179 wrote: Once this "probationary pay" got mentioned ALL the kids got up and said they were leaving unless the probationary pay was raised to $10 per hour.
Umm, collective action over pay and conditions isn't a millenial thing. In fact such action is less common than it's been in the last hundred years.
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Ketara wrote: The common argument is that us lot over in humanities are subsidising the people on other degrees, and that's where the excess capital goes. But frankly? Most large scale expensive scientific equipment is paid for from external funding grants on specific projects, not the Uni itself splashing out.
Most grant funded gear is research specific, maybe some phd kids will get use of it but that's it. The capital requirements of undergrads are paid for entirely by general student revenue. Thinking back on the projects I helped secure funding for while I was at uni, not one included gear they'd let an undergraduate anywhere near.
And yeah, every faculty thinks they subsidise the rest. Most of them are wrong. Humanities is the wrongestest.
There's a reason why Western Universities the world over are raking it in hand over fist, opening fresh campuses every five minutes whilst simultaneously removing all job security for their staff and gambling with their pension investments. Higher Education has become nothing more than a standard facet of the capitalistic juggernaut that is the Western economy. If Universities were FTSE listed companies, they'd be doing great.
Unis expand because it isn't possible to break even per student without economies of scale. Unis have to expand to maintain their market share, or become relatively boutique & high cost, something the govt system does not make viable. Expand or perish.
Seriously, go look at some uni annual reports. They're not booking the mad surpluses you claim.
sebster wrote: That sucks, no doubt. I don't think anyone is defending the status quo.
Well, maybe not anyone here in this thread, but certainly in the media and politics. I mean, that's what the whole 'avocado toast' and 'Millennials are just lazy' stuff is; a deflection of the younger generations problems in defence of the status quo.
sebster wrote: I used to work in budgeting at an Australian uni, so I know this. The Commonwealth puts in about three dollars for every dollar the student puts in. When you then factor in Commonwealth funds for non-student activity (research etc), and contributions from state govts, you can stretch that up to 4:1.
Wow, I knew it was a lot, I didn't realise it was quite that much.
That's not teaching per se. Postgrads get paid to do things like supporting the lecturers in labs, or run through prepared answers from the workshops, or help out at open days, mark some set question work (that doesn't affect final marks) etc. It's basically more of the running around that the lecturers don't have time to do because of all the teaching they are doing. The postgrads have to show as part of their studies that they have also gained wider learning as part of the phd. Assisting in this way helps to meet some of these credits and also earns them some income at the same time. However they don't prepare lectures, seminars and actually 'teach'.
There are a couple things in the thread I want to come back to, but since I can respond to this swiftly:
Me, and almost all of my PhD candidate colleagues, write and prepare seminars, mark graded essays and exams (that effect final marks and progression from year-year), and, outside of the UK, actually write and do the majority of teaching on entire courses.
I wouldn't describe myself as a 'teacher', but I ewouldn't describe any lecturers as teachers either. For me, that's quite a specific and very distinct thing that people do in schools and some levels of further education.
nfe wrote: That said, you're reading a lot into posts that aren't written. It seems like a pretty hefty dose of confirmation bias. I didn't claim anyone voted specifically to keep anyone else down. Rather that people voted to remove particular opportunities from others after they'd reaped the benefits. More a case of 'I'm alright, Jack' than 'feth you, Jack'. More 'well, it's not going to hurt me if party X treble tuition fees' than 'can't wait till these trebled tuition fees bury kids in debt!'. Millennials don't think they're Cedric Sneer with a dad explicitly trying to ruin their lives. They just wish they'd stop getting told that they're lazy, preening snowflakes with 30-second attention spans because they can't buy buy a suburban three-bed by 30.
Even that's loading the question. The actual issue that led to increasing uni fees was 'how are we going to pay for this massive expansion of the tertiary sector?' Govt pours more money in to university education than ever before, but if the money is doubled while the student count trebles, then you still need even more money.
If we're talking about the UK (and I am), the introduction of tuition fees was specifically intended to allow an increase student numbers. It was not a reponse to it. The trebling was in order to sustain that growth (again, because most voters and virtrually all parliamentarians are still of a generation that think going to university should be the target of every child), not respond to it.
No. Humanities courses run at huge losses everywhere. Student to teacher numbers are horrible, and there's bugger all research money to offset the small class sizes.
Everywhere? That's quite the general statement. You'll forgive me if I take that as 'within my experience at a small subsector of Universities in a specific geographic locale'.
I'm quite happy to concede that I may well be wrong with regards to the capital requirements of STEM courses or their grants (never been in a STEM department after all), but I literally just threw out the student to lecturer numbers in history at one middling institution above. Unless you're literally going to unveil an extra £5 million odd quid in departmental expenditure there from somewhere, the department is subsidising other courses, either directly, or by paying for a far higher proportion of University general infrastructure. 800 undergrads plus whatever postgrad students they have versus 40 academics is a pretty good set of numbers.
That's one member of full time staff for every 20 students, each of which is coughing up £9,000 in fees. Considering just 4-5 of them cover that academic's salary, the remainder is rather a lot of money to not even succeed in covering departmental running costs (which is what you're claiming by saying they run at a loss).
Research money doesn't pay for classes. Research grants are awarded with a budget for costs proposed by the person applying, it pays for the staffing and resources needed for the research. There may be money left over, or resources and equipment that can be used by others subsequently.
In fact some staff who bring in a lot of research contracts don't do any teaching at all! This is why some people get all the glory for research and win more grants improving the prestige of the uni and never do any lecturing, while others end up doing a lot of lecturing and never have time to build their research career. And once you're not regularly participating in research it becomes harder to win research grants. Despite doing the bread and butter of uni work by teaching hundreds of students, they don't get much recognition from the uni because they aren't a big name researcher - those people who do nothing for students below PhD and who will flounce off to another uni taking their grants with them unless they are treated like royalty.
AllSeeingSkink wrote: If someone is stupid enough to think "oh geeze, I'll go work at KFC full time for £15k a year instead of going to University which will lead to a £100k/year job because I don't want to have to pay back £30k" well then I'd suggest they aren't that high on the list of the nation's talented people that we'd be scared to lose
Some of them are probably thinking 'I've seen dozens of people I know get degrees and end up working in a call centre for a pound above minimum wage, so I might as well get on with my minimum wage job and miss the £30k in fees and the £15k in living expenses loans'.
So students should pay attention to not doing courses that aren't going to advance themselves.
Not as straightforward as that. The courses that lead to better paying jobs are pretty rapidly changing, governments and inductry are appalling at communicating what is actually needed to prospective students, and students are terrible at predicting at 16-17 what they'll actually enjoy doing in four years time (I think almost no one should go to university straight from school, but try telling that to the generations pushing their kids about how vital to success university is...).
Additionally, you're making the classic fallacy that university is meant to get you a job. It isn't. It's meant to educate you. Society wants better educated people, not just people to do particular jobs.
It's not just "get you a job", it's "advance your ability to get paid well".
On average, college graduates earn more than those with a high school education.
Averages are extremely unhelpful here. It's true, but severely skewed by certain professions that require vocational degrees.
It's certainly over subscribed relative to the number of jobs in the field, but A) assuming that's a problem is a bad thing is fallacious as discussed above, and B) how do you adjust that anyway?
How do you adjust for that? Emphasise the fact that for certain degrees the market for the skill set is tiny. Then make people pay their own fees. Tada, you've reduced the number of people going in to that field.
One of my mates recently told me that if he could give realistic advice to his new students it'd be "don't go in to psych unless you're really passionate about it, if you're not in the top 10% then you're wasting your time". He's a psych researcher who finds it depressing how many people are wasting their time, his time and whoever's paying for it's money. Of course it's the 90% that pay tuition fees to give him a pay cheque in the first place, and I accept there's areas like that where government support is probably a better idea than universities just suckering kids in to degrees that aren't going to help them.
Top 10%. Ha! I was the top archaeology graduate from the University of Glasgow in at least a decade and top six in the college of arts for my graduating year and when I finish my PhD I'll still have a very slim chance of working in academia (though working somewhere in the field would be easy enough - it would be at the same wage as people who only just passed an undergraduate. We do try and communicate the chances to people but for the most part, teenagers are pretty confident that if they just plug away at university they'll get where they want to get - again, I'd suggest this is largely down to being told that every day by school and parents for 17 years...
That said, as I say, I don't care that the majority of people I teach will never work in the field. They're just they're to learn some stuff and hopefully find it interesting and that's what university is for.
The number of people who push the boundaries in a given field such that it's a benefit to society as a whole is small compared to the total number of people who have high level degrees in those fields.
Well I'd argue all expansion of knowledge is a benefit to society, but clearly only a minute number of researchers ever achieve something that the general public would be aware of in any way. But so what?
Even in technical fields like science and engineering where I teach graduate level courses I'd rather have half as many students that are twice as passionate (using current levels as a baseline) than twice as many students who don't give a feth and are just doing it because it's free and someone told them they need to do a degree.
I'm sure every single one of us would say the same, at all levels, but how do people find out if they're going to be passionate about a field until they start getting wired into it? They vast majority of people in our department doing PhDs did not start off as archaeologists at univeristy. Most of them took at as a third subject in first year at university. On the other hand, tons of the people that come into our department full of beans end up finishing with single honours in history or classics or whatever.
I certainly don't want my taxes going to some kid who's doing higher education in a field they have no passion for and are not going to leverage later in life. I'd much rather my taxes going to better education at lower levels like high school and primary school.
I'd rather plough money into both. And we used to and there was no reason for that to change.
In Australia at least, I don't really have any concern that people who are capable are being denied for financial reasons. I'm kept awake more by the thought that people who are capable are being denied for social reasons than financial ones. The smart cookies who get pulled down by going to a bad school in a bad area and end up having their dreams beaten out of them by their social circumstances.
I do have concerns about university being too expensive for some peoplewho are capable - and I live in Scotland! No question about social factors being another major hurdle though. My wife works in trying to get kids from bad backgrounds (serious family issues as well as seriously underperforming schools) and it's a bleak, bleak future for most of them.
If you mean teachers at lower levels, high school, primary school, etc, yeah I think they're definitely underpaid.
Should have been clearer. If I say teacher I always mean those in primaries and secondaries, or those teaching equivalent qualifications in colleges. I don't think of what we do in universities as teaching, really. I suppose it is, but it's very different to what I think of when I say 'teacher'.
Additionally, you're making the classic fallacy that university is meant to get you a job. It isn't. It's meant to educate you. Society wants better educated people, not just people to do particular jobs.
It's not just "get you a job", it's "advance your ability to get paid well".
On average, college graduates earn more than those with a high school education.
Averages are extremely unhelpful here. It's true, but severely skewed by certain professions that require vocational degrees.
Not just that, but not many people with degrees were ever going to end up at the lower end of the scale. Most people with degrees were going to earn more anyway. Even without going to university they are unlikely to be people that end up in unskilled (or even semi skilled) jobs. For many it is less that university = better job and more intelligence = better job AND intelligence makes you more likely to go to university. Or this was the case until university became a requisite for many non graduate jobs, in which case it's not university letting you earn more, but not going making you earn less.
Ketara: It depends, I studied computer science and the first more generic lectures (linear algebra, analysis, basic statistics, CS1/2/3) were all in the big lecture halls (often in the auditorium maximum) because your start with many students but the secondary lectures and "workshops" with graduate students/teaching assistants were held in smaller rooms and here it depends on what you choose (the bigger ones were 20 to a maximum of 30 while the more obscure ones could be fewer than 10 students, it depends on what you choose and how the students were divided).
Even in the big halls you can talk to the professor (good acoustics!) if you have a question but you usually get the discussion in the smaller secondary lectures that are related to the big ones (this is where you get the "homework" too) and also while doing the problem sets for next week while talking with other students. It's kinda a hub and spoke model where the big lectures are just that: somebody lecturing in front of a few huge blackboards while the discussion and contact with teaching staff happens around that (and they all have office hours if you want to discuss things) and you can easily get in contact with other students to work things out.
My seminars were smaller and we had individual presentations and could always talk with the graduate student (in person, phone, mail,…) about parts where we got stuck, ask for general presentation tips, and everything else. There was just a difference between lectures (big, a lot of people, impersonal) and seminars (small, fewer people, more intimate, direct contact), and then all the extracurricular contact/discussion/office hours with students, assistants, and professors. It just depends on how much contact you want. If somebody wanted to do on their own they could (a few lectures didn't even have mandatory participation and you could download the material and just take the test(s) to pass) and if they wanted to work more with the help of the people working there (or other students) then they could do that too.
The whole group presentations vs individual ones probably just depends on how many students there are and it probably weights heavily towards the first and second semester (here weeding out starts early and not at MA level). The article you quoted is from an at the time undergraduate linguist (so I can't directly compare that) who apparently spent one year here (you can't extrapolated from that to all universities) and the Hauptseminar he mentions were for me under the old system (Diplom and not BA/MA) not exactly Master level (the Diplom was kinda the equivalent of BA+MA but not exactly) but just a seminar after the first two years (in the first two years—called Grundstudium—we had a Proseminar) and even then it doesn't compare to his experience. It may be that it's completely different for linguists (or that things have changed since I was at university) but that just reads like somebody had a bad seminar leader and assumed it's the same everywhere, for all subjects, and in all semesters.
We had at our university for the same lecture (like linear algebra 1 and 2 in the first two semesters) different lecturers each year and they structured the lectures differently (order of things), different reading material (same fundamental stuff just different handouts/books/downloads), they graded differently (how many tests and weighting of those), and sometimes attendance was compulsory (other times not) for technically the same lecture. I don't think that that one experience (from one person) can be used to generalise about all german universities.
Mario wrote: Ketara: It depends, I studied computer science and the first more generic lectures ......
Thanks for the input. Always interesting to hear different perspectives!
For the record though, that article I linked above was not where I first read those sorts of views, I read another similar article a few years ago, which covered the theme of 'larger lectures, less staff and support/activities outside of them'. Doing a brief search reveals other experiences from people who've done both systems which also align with it to varying extents, for example here:-
As I mentioned above, most courses at German universities are graded solely on final exams and no other criteria. It is completely possible to never attend the classes at all and still pass with flying colors, as long as you study what you need to know on your own. Some courses have a practical component, such as a portfolio or a research paper that may take the place of the exam, but the general model is one exam, one grade....
....In Germany, I have only one professor (out of six) who even bothered to learn the students' names at the beginning of the semester. Other professors know a few of their students' names, but most likely because they have interacted outside of the classroom at some point.....
...At German universities, the staff is minimal, basically just enough to keep the university from shutting down. I have already had more than my fair share of troubles with this lack of administration, including trying to deal with a registrar's office that only allows students to come in two days a week for a few hours.
First of all, the concept of “campus life” differs widely between our two countries. German universities consist almost entirely of classroom buildings and libraries—no palatial gyms with rock walls and water parks; no team sports facilities (unless you count the fencing fraternities I will never understand); no billion-dollar student unions with flat-screen TVs and first-run movie theaters. And forget the resort-style dormitories. What few dorms exist are minimalistic, to put it kindly—but that’s largely irrelevant anyway, as many German students still live at home with their parents, or in independent apartment shares, none of which foster the kind of insular, summer-camp-esque experience Americans associate closely with college life (and its hefty price tag). It’s quite common for German students simply to commute in for class, then leave.
The crucial factors are tuition quality and the staff-to-student ratio, which many Germans who have spent time studying in the UK say is excellent. With an average ratio of 1:66, German universities have a hard time standing their ground in this regard against rivals in the UK.
For comparison, Bishop Grosseteste University in England, considered one of the “worst” universities with respect to its staff per student number, has an average ratio of 1:25, a point Kristin stresses as well: “I really like the close teaching relationship between students and academic staff, as well as the often in-depth debates with fellow students in seminars,” she says.
“In the UK, staff and students usually interact on a more equal and respectful level than in Germany, and in my experience UK professors are a lot more approachable than their German colleagues.”
Many of these article are very praiseworthy of the German system, so I don't think they're exaggerating for negative effect. It could potentially be that some courses get better (or worse) treatment perhaps? I found the average ratio of one academic staff member to sixty six students quite illuminating though, with that sort of discrepancy, one would assume it would be difficult to have sufficient full-time staff to lead any substantial number of seminars. Do you find that PhD students completely take up the teaching shortfall over there? If so, that could account for the difference, over here they make up a goodly chunk of that sort of work, but far from all of it. About 65% of my seminars as an undergrad were taken by full-time staff.
I know this is a spot OT, but since a lot of people seem interested in the HE topic, it might be worth exploring as a tangent as to whether or not free higher education for all is a reasonable thing for millennials to expect.
Mario wrote: Ketara: It depends, I studied computer science and the first more generic lectures ......
Thanks for the input. Always interesting to hear different perspectives!
For the record though, that article I linked above was not where I first read those sorts of views, I read another similar article a few years ago, which covered the theme of 'larger lectures, less staff and support/activities outside of them'. Doing a brief search reveals other experiences from people who've done both systems which also align with it to varying extents, for example here:-
I think it's also that, for the exact science anyway, many of the early year classes overlap. For example, physics, astronomy, maths, computer science, chemistry and a few others all need a solid basis of both mathematics (both algebra and statistics) and programming classes before the student can really begin classes in their actual field of study (a few relatively simple ones are given anyway lest the students lose interest).
The university I attended lumped all those students in the same class for those subjects common to them. So, for example, during your first two years, you'd be in huge lecture classes (100+) with students from other disciplines for a good 80% of your subjects. Study classes where you worked out problems based on the theory were smaller (and generally given by a post-grad).
Once past that initial common ground, classes would naturally shrink as the various disciplines diverged in subject matter, giving a somewhat inflated student-"teacher" ratio for the first two years, and quite excellent student-teacher ratios after that.
I don't know if that system is actually good or bad. It certainly weeds out the unmotivated and hopeless students, but it also leaves by the wayside students who just need a little more personal attention whether because they never learned how to study properly or who are motivated, but fall just short of being able to get there on their own.
Pendix wrote: Well, maybe not anyone here in this thread, but certainly in the media and politics. I mean, that's what the whole 'avocado toast' and 'Millennials are just lazy' stuff is; a deflection of the younger generations problems in defence of the status quo.
Yeah, that's fair enough.
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nfe wrote: If we're talking about the UK (and I am), the introduction of tuition fees was specifically intended to allow an increase student numbers. It was not a reponse to it. The trebling was in order to sustain that growth (again, because most voters and virtrually all parliamentarians are still of a generation that think going to university should be the target of every child), not respond to it.
That's all much of a muchness. "How do we continue to expand the sector without pouring in more money we don't have?" is the question, and the answer was "push some of the cost on to the students". You seem to have assumed I was saying the sector expansion was passive, it wasn't, and it doesn't seem to matter either way.
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Ketara wrote: Everywhere? That's quite the general statement. You'll forgive me if I take that as 'within my experience at a small subsector of Universities in a specific geographic locale'.
I'm quite happy to concede that I may well be wrong with regards to the capital requirements of STEM courses or their grants (never been in a STEM department after all), but I literally just threw out the student to lecturer numbers in history at one middling institution above. Unless you're literally going to unveil an extra £5 million odd quid in departmental expenditure there from somewhere, the department is subsidising other courses, either directly, or by paying for a far higher proportion of University general infrastructure. 800 undergrads plus whatever postgrad students they have versus 40 academics is a pretty good set of numbers.
Part of the job we did was international comparisons, including inter-faculty comparisons. Humanities depts everywhere losing money was one of those accepted things. In fact I can remember more than one occasion where people made fun of the lack of insight in a submission or report by pointing out the report made the point that humanities lost money.
It was an actual part of uni financial reform efforts to save money by cutting humanities, but not so much that you risked your Shanghai Ranking.
That's one member of full time staff for every 20 students, each of which is coughing up £9,000 in fees. Considering just 4-5 of them cover that academic's salary, the remainder is rather a lot of money to not even succeed in covering departmental running costs (which is what you're claiming by saying they run at a loss).
Academic salaries are not the only cost of a university, not by a long way. There's support staff, services and club support, grounds & facilities etc. Corporate administration staff is huge - I worked at a uni with a much lower admin staff % than average and I think we could have cut half the staff and not lost anything.
That's not teaching per se. Postgrads get paid to do things like supporting the lecturers in labs, or run through prepared answers from the workshops, or help out at open days, mark some set question work (that doesn't affect final marks) etc. It's basically more of the running around that the lecturers don't have time to do because of all the teaching they are doing. The postgrads have to show as part of their studies that they have also gained wider learning as part of the phd. Assisting in this way helps to meet some of these credits and also earns them some income at the same time. However they don't prepare lectures, seminars and actually 'teach'.
That's highly school and program dependent. Where I went to grad school, the graduate teaching assistants in my program were instructors of record for the first and second year courses. We prepared and taught courses on our own. While there are programs that only have graduate TAs supporting labs or discussion groups or workshops, or simply grading papers and tests, it is not unheard of or uncommon for graduate TAs to be teaching full first and second year courses (again, depending on the program in question).
To be clear I was referencing Leicester's policy not anyone else's as it was the point of discussion.
That's not teaching per se. Postgrads get paid to do things like supporting the lecturers in labs, or run through prepared answers from the workshops, or help out at open days, mark some set question work (that doesn't affect final marks) etc. It's basically more of the running around that the lecturers don't have time to do because of all the teaching they are doing. The postgrads have to show as part of their studies that they have also gained wider learning as part of the phd. Assisting in this way helps to meet some of these credits and also earns them some income at the same time. However they don't prepare lectures, seminars and actually 'teach'.
That's highly school and program dependent. Where I went to grad school, the graduate teaching assistants in my program were instructors of record for the first and second year courses. We prepared and taught courses on our own. While there are programs that only have graduate TAs supporting labs or discussion groups or workshops, or simply grading papers and tests, it is not unheard of or uncommon for graduate TAs to be teaching full first and second year courses (again, depending on the program in question).
To be clear I was referencing Leicester's policy not anyone else's as it was the point of discussion.
There are PhD candidates I know personally teaching classes and grading essays (not sure about exams) at Leicester - a couple might have finished actually, but within the last couple of years. Unless they're all lying when we moan about marking in the pub at conferences but I can't imagine why they would.
Bran Dawri wrote:
I think it's also that, for the exact science anyway, many of the early year classes overlap. ....So, for example, during your first two years, you'd be in huge lecture classes (100+) with students from other disciplines for a good 80% of your subjects. Study classes where you worked out problems based on the theory were smaller (and generally given by a post-grad)....
Once past that initial common ground, classes would naturally shrink...
That's interesting. When I did my undergrad, there was the opportunity to take one or two smaller 'wild modules' a year from other departments (I seized the opportunity to do some archaeology and photography), but otherwise everything was kept purely within your department. If what you've described is the norm, it could help to account for larger lecture sizes in a number of disciplines and the corresponding smaller need for full-time academic staff. Food for thought indeed.
sebster wrote:
Part of the job we did was international comparisons, including inter-faculty comparisons. Humanities depts everywhere losing money was one of those accepted things. In fact I can remember more than one occasion where people made fun of the lack of insight in a submission or report by pointing out the report made the point that humanities lost money....Academic salaries are not the only cost of a university, not by a long way. There's support staff, services and club support, grounds & facilities etc. Corporate administration staff is huge - I worked at a uni with a much lower admin staff % than average and I think we could have cut half the staff and not lost anything.
With all due respect, your argument thus far sums up to 'I worked in a University that had an expensive humanities department, and tried to gauge what other universities did'. Which is fine, and I'm not trying to put down your personal empirical experience of things. But it's difficult enough to compare institutions within the same country (Oxford's finances and departmental layout will be very different to Bolton's). Trying to extrapolate from your one example in Australia across the entire global Higher Education sector is an order of a magnitude higher, and I wouldn't even begin to dream of making large scale generalisations on that basis without considerable data to back it up. Purely within this thread alone, we have the example of the German Universities, who very clearly have a statistical bent towards less staff, and maintain cheaper courses.
What I can extrapolate from the current publicly available data, is that within the UK specifically, at reasonably well performing and financially secure institutions (I looked around at several others), the funds acquired from doing undergrad history degrees substantially outweighs the staffing costs (both academic and administrative). Even given the less obvious expenses (booze for visiting academics, pension contributions, the odd conference held, stationary supplies, etc),and an appropriate proportion of fixed costs (cleaners, registry staff, SU budget allocations, etc), history degrees (and therefore, it is likely most humanities degrees) do not appear to be in the red. Far from it.
When you start talking about things like 'support staff, grounds and facilities', those are fixed costs shared with every other course in the University. Not departmental. The same goes for 'club support', your local SU branches here in the UK handle that end of things, and just get a small budget set by the institution as a whole. The 'History' student society has absolutely nothing to do with the 'History' department, officially. You can't finger the history department specifically because IT's budget is too tight to hire another person due to the history department only generating three times what it cost to run the course instead of three and a half times. Expenditures like those are shared across the institution as whole.
As long as the department is bringing in enough moolah to pay the departmental costs and make a reasonable/proportionate contribution to general running costs? It's in the green. And right now, using Leicester as the example, their history department must be sitting very, very nicely in the green, to the tune of a good few million. After all, if the department that literally needs a few empty seminar rooms and a stack of books in the library can't meet its costs plus a little extra, then the STEM laboratories with their much higher equipment costs must be so far in the red they're practically black!
So. Given that the Uni Of Leicester history undergrad course is generating 7.2 million, staffing costs are likely at the 2 million mark using nation wide averages, and we're knocking off another 3 million for tax, incidental departmental costs, Whirlwind's unexpected overrun, and a reasonable contribution towards fixed costs? You've very specifically stated that 'All humanities courses run at huge losses everywhere'. You now need to indicate where precisely it is, that the History department specifically (so no pointing to the SU or power bill or something) could be shedding at least another 3 million a year.
I'm happy to be proven wrong here, if you can highlight some giant black hole of expenditure I've missed that would be specific to the History Department (that's the criteria you yourself effectively set in your statement), I want to hear about it. It'll help the general discussion along as to whether or not uni education should be free.
Bran Dawri wrote:
I think it's also that, for the exact science anyway, many of the early year classes overlap. ....So, for example, during your first two years, you'd be in huge lecture classes (100+) with students from other disciplines for a good 80% of your subjects. Study classes where you worked out problems based on the theory were smaller (and generally given by a post-grad)....
Once past that initial common ground, classes would naturally shrink...
That's interesting. When I did my undergrad, there was the opportunity to take one or two smaller 'wild modules' a year from other departments (I seized the opportunity to do some archaeology and photography), but otherwise everything was kept purely within your department. If what you've described is the norm, it could help to account for larger lecture sizes in a number of disciplines and the corresponding smaller need for full-time academic staff. Food for thought indeed.
At the ancient Scottish universities, most students (everyone outside of vocational degrees and some degree tracks in the hard sciences pretty much) do three distinct subjects in the first two years. Some people do quite closely related ones (I was archaeology, classics, and religious studies in first year, for instance, then those three plus Classical Hebrew in second year; archaeology, history, and Celtic Civilisation is particularly common) but you do get some really scatter gun ones. Our first year lectures are massive because of the number of historians, classicists, etc, that pick up archaeology as a third subject, plus we run a course in first year called Archaeology of Scotland that always gets a million exchange students that are really studying business or maths or whatever.
LordofHats wrote: I'm actually sitting here wondering why Gen X was ever called Gen X in the first place XD I'm not entirely clear on the origin of the name.
It was a shot by the Baby Boomers who didn't know what to make of that generation. 'X' was like, 'fill in the blank'. It wasn't a compliment.
There's been a lot of excellent discussion in this thread. Probably one of the better threads I've found on Dakka, and I appreciate the honesty on here.
For my own story, I struggled with life for a long time. I was a troublemaker as a kid, took forever to figure out what I wanted to do in life, and therefore, lacked focus the first time I was in college, and eventually dropped out.
I spent some time in the 'real world' learning the value of the dollar, and what I was worth without an education and so I moved to a new city and took another shot at college, and surprisingly, discovered programming and loved it. The last thing I ever expected to be as a kid was a software developer.
But just as I graduated in 2000, the DotCom bust happened. I was fortunate to have two amazing internships on developer teams for a Fortune 100 company my last two years in college, but kept missing out on jobs because more experienced unemployed programmers were willing to work for my starting salary in a recession. After being really frustrated and going into debt, I walked into a developer manager's office for a nearby team I really wanted to be on, and abruptly asked, "What do I have to do to get on this team?"
He sat there a little stunned, then replied, "I'll see about opening a req." (aka Request for Hire). I swear it went down just like that.
A few weeks later I had my dream job. I worked my ass off at that job learning all I could taking on projects beyond my skill set. And while doing so, I paid off my debt and saved money.
I also set out to buy a house, but at the time (pre-housing bust) as some of you might remember, was crazy expensive. I would ride my bike through neighborhoods imagining owning certain homes (with some JUST out of my price range), and eventually bid on one that my Dad said "would be a good starter home". I found the counter offer offensive and said screw him. A few months later, the economy started falling apart.
As I watched the greatest redistribution of wealth I will probably ever see (hopefully), there were for-sale signs in front of almost every home in all these neighborhoods that I used to go through. It was unreal. And here I was, with cash saved up. I learned right there and then that cash is king. Yes, credit is important, but in times of uncertainty its cash that everyone wants. So I took my time (like 3 years), and after searching for 'THE ONE' I found an awesome house in great condition (which was hard to do at the time) with a pool, big backyard, three car garage, more rooms than I know what to do with, and in a great neighborhood that I can't imagine ever going down hill, all at a ridiculous interest rate. I couldn't afford this same house if I tried to buy it at today's prices, and considering what my girlfriend is paying for a brand new two bedroom apartment, this investment is well worth it.
I think about the Great Recession almost every day, as well as the first one I went through when I graduated college, and it effects a lot of decisions that I make. And I was lucky, I was only unemployed for about 2-3 months during that time period. I have known people who lost their houses, others who had great careers but got laid off, and eventually gave up looking for work and now struggle to get a job because of the big gap in their work history. None of that happened to me. As a matter of fact, you could say I excelled in that time period. I had money saved, I made sure I worked even if I didn't like the job, and was able to buy low on what is usually the biggest purchase of our lives.
I am jumping all over the place here, but I do want to say this: I can't imagine the stress of buying a home today. And for those who have yet to buy, understand this (and it was told to me repeatedly over and over again before I did buy, but it really didn't sink in until well after):
Buying a home takes a lot of money, and a lot of responsibility.
That cannot be emphasized enough until you own one and understand. And my house is in great shape, but a lot of things need to be fixed, maintained, etc etc. From painting to cutting the grass, everything has a dollar sign attached to it. EVERYTHING. The price of a home goes way way beyond what the mortgage is. So when you go to buy one, be sure you love it, cause if you don't, you will hate owning it. And make sure you have a lot of cash saved up, because you'll be buying a lot for it.
And for the record, I love my home,
There are many more successful than I am, and I am more successful than others. I think looking back at how I got here, and realize it took a mix of not just hard work, but luck too. Everyone is going to need a mix of both, What you typically can't control is luck, but you can control your work ethic. Successful people didn't become successful saying "I can't do that." As a matter of fact, it was usually them trying to prove the opposite. If you are in a situation where you have limited means and feel like you have limited options, remember that a lot of immigrants come into this country with little more than a suitcase and somehow put their children through college. That doesn't happen by sitting around and telling yourself that it can't be done. You just have to get off your ass and find a way to make it happen. And I am not saying you are lazy, but you definitely lack the motivation. It can be hard at times. Life typically is. You HAVE TO KEEP TRYING. And you don't have to own a big house or drive fancy cars to be happy either. You might be surprised how little you actually need to be happy.
I also invite everyone to check this site out: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/, and more importantly, the forum https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/. You'll find people who have managed to save $5000 being congratulated and encouraged by those who have saved over a million. Its not necessarily about being frugal, although that certainly helps, but also about learning to be financially independent so you don't feel like you are a slave to the system. Every dollar you own is like a little trooper working for you. How you use those troopers will have a huge effect on you. I can only read so much in that forum before it blows my brain up. Some really amazing stuff on there.
Its amazing how high our standards are in western society that we are able to debate on a war-gaming forum about how tough life is, where in many parts of the world, people don't even have clean drinking water.
LordofHats wrote: I'm actually sitting here wondering why Gen X was ever called Gen X in the first place XD I'm not entirely clear on the origin of the name.
It was a shot by the Baby Boomers who didn't know what to make of that generation. 'X' was like, 'fill in the blank'. It wasn't a compliment.
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KTG17 wrote: everything has a dollar sign attached to it.
Dollar, or time. You can't spend your weekends binge watching Supernatural if you have a yard to maintain.
There are many more successful than I am, and I am more successful than others. I think looking back at how I got here, and realize it took a mix of not just hard work, but luck too. Everyone is going to need a mix of both, What you typically can't control is luck, but you can control your work ethic. Successful people didn't become successful saying "I can't do that." As a matter of fact, it was usually them trying to prove the opposite. If you are in a situation where you have limited means and feel like you have limited options, remember that a lot of immigrants come into this country with little more than a suitcase and somehow put their children through college. That doesn't happen by sitting around and telling yourself that it can't be done. You just have to get off your ass and find a way to make it happen. And I am not saying you are lazy, but you definitely lack the motivation. It can be hard at times. Life typically is. You HAVE TO KEEP TRYING. And you don't have to own a big house or drive fancy cars to be happy either. You might be surprised how little you actually need to be happy.
Very true. I am where I am through a combination of good luck, making and maintaining personal connections, and "finding my niche". In my case, my niche is construction.
I also invite everyone to check this site out: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/, and more importantly, the forum https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/. You'll find people who have managed to save $5000 being congratulated and encouraged by those who have saved over a million. Its not necessarily about being frugal, although that certainly helps, but also about learning to be financially independent so you don't feel like you are a slave to the system. Every dollar you own is like a little trooper working for you. How you use those troopers will have a huge effect on you. I can only read so much in that forum before it blows my brain up. Some really amazing stuff on there.
Its amazing how high our standards are in western society that we are able to debate on a war-gaming forum about how tough life is, where in many parts of the world, people don't even have clean drinking water.
I think about that everyday.
It's important to remember the luck involved, just being born to a first world country. A friend of mine did a trip through India, and the biggest "not in Kansas anymore" moment for her was the existence of human roadkill. A dead person on the side of the highway, and no one gave a gak about it at all.
It's important to remember the luck involved, just being born to a first world country. A friend of mine did a trip through India, and the biggest "not in Kansas anymore" moment for her was the existence of human roadkill. A dead person on the side of the highway, and no one gave a gak about it at all.
It's funny you should mention India. I was in Mumbai for work for a week and a half a few years ago, and in Hong Kong this year for vacation (I used to live there as a kid), and both gave great insights to what humanity is going to look like as the populations increase.
You think you have it rough? You should look into what a 700 square foot apartment goes for in Hong Kong (one I read about just went for just under million dollars). Got lucky with a nice view? You'll probably lose it when they build another building a few meters from your window. But even still, Hong Kong/Kowloon is pretty clean for a large Asian city, until that is, the smog rolls in when the wind blows from the north, and all that pollution comes in. Literally made my eyes water.
I didn't see any dead bodies in Mumbai, but I saw a lot of people pissing and crapping on the side of the road, as well, public toilets are practically non-existent. And if there are any, I would just assume burning the facility to the ground by now. I saw one from the road and was grossed out. And seeing the slums (https://www.google.com/search?q=mumbai+slums&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiOntHn3LbVAhUGWz4KHZWyDD0Q_AUICigB&biw=1920&bih=946) in person is another experience. Millions of people live in those conditions. Entire economies, made of the trash of the higher classes, exist there. You'll see a lot of blue tarp in the pictures. I don't know where they get them from, but you'll see that blue tarp in every slum no matter where its at. And I saw plenty examples of how these slums take over an area. You'll see a trail of evidence, from a concrete two story house (basically a single room on top of the other), followed by some single story concrete ones, then followed by some made of sheet metal or other materials, followed by some with frames and tarps, then next some tent like homes, followed by a newly arrived family who has nothing but a pan to cook their evening naan in, and have just claimed their spot. Eventually they too will pull some bricks out from somewhere and build up some walls around them, right on the sidewalk. Meanwhile, cows roam freely in the streets with traffic going around them.
And the rich you ask? How to they live? Well, they build up. I present the Antilia Tower: https://www.google.com/search?q=Antilia+Mumbai&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjfgN-D3bbVAhUGej4KHfIAC-8Q_AUIBygC&biw=1920&bih=946. The richest man in Mumbai, who also comes from the lowest caste (let that be a lesson to some of you), has built his own building with some 400 staff to run it. And, its surrounded by slums. And all the rich in Mumbai loves what this guy has done, and are starting to build their own. Very Necromunda-like, isnt it?
So that's why I said what I did in that post above. Whatever your struggles are, trust me, there are nothing like most of what the rest of the world deals with. There are lots of opportunities here. You might not have your own BUILDING to live in, but you'll definitely avoid the slum.
Oh, on that Living on a Dollar doc, at first I thought the kids were a bunch of privileged douchebags playing poor people for a few weeks, but it was the stories of the people they met that really made an impact on me. Like the guy who has the best job in the village is a janitor, and another kid who has to work in the fields because his dad couldn't afford his books for school, which costs. . . $25. So quite often when I buy something, I think about that, and if what I am buy is really worth it.
Seriously? We are down to "think your self lucky you don't live in a slum"?.
Maybe not, but lack of decent housing and security of tenancy if having a serious impact on people's physical and mental health in the UK. We have a serious housing problem which is disproportionately effecting the young. And this is not a matter of national poverty. There is no need for it if we built enough houses and sorted out the massive number of small time buy to let landlords (who are almost all of one generation). What happens in poor countries or places with very limited land is irrelevant. The relevant fact is that housing costs have gone up for years and years on the back of speculation, and from that the baby boomers have hugely benefited, both through house value increase and through relaxation of legislation around renting and buy to let mortgagees, where as the under 40s have seen housing costs go up and up whilst home ownership goes down and down. None of the reasons for this are real. They are purely governance and legal.
Maybe not, but lack of decent housing and security of tenancy if having a serious impact on people's physical and mental health in the UK. We have a serious housing problem which is disproportionately effecting the young. And this is not a matter of national poverty. There is no need for it if we built enough houses and sorted out the massive number of small time buy to let landlords (who are almost all of one generation). What happens in poor countries or places with very limited land is irrelevant. .
I'm sorry, is the lack of decent housing and security of tenancy having a serious impact on the people's physical and mental health in the UK, or in the slums of Mumbai? Because from what little I know, I'll roll the dice on living in the UK.
I am not saying that the UK doesn't have problems, everywhere has problems. My point is that regardless of how crappy you might think you have it, others have it worse. And if they can get on, so can you. And no I don't say the slum is what you have to measure against, I am saying that you not being born into and currently living in a slum means you are lucky, and already doing much better than many others. You have opportunities many others do not, so make the best of them.
It's rude because you can dismiss anything that anyone thinks or feels with "well, you're not shot and dying in this very moment so you're lucky!!"
Some people do need perspective but we need a much lower floor for being allowed to analyse your life situation and discuss injustices than "currently being carted off to Auschwitz".
Rosebuddy wrote: It's rude because you can dismiss anything that anyone thinks or feels with "well, you're not shot and dying in this very moment so you're lucky!!"
Some people do need perspective but we need a much lower floor for being allowed to analyse your life situation and discuss injustices than "currently being carted off to Auschwitz".
Personally, I thank my lucky stars I was born to a middle class white family in the nicest part of Canada. It helps me when I'm feeling down about my life.
I do not use it as a stick to beat others with. Everyone has their own row to hoe.
Ketara, again from memory (and what I remember, who knows how things are today or even were at the time at other universities):
* most courses at German universities are graded solely on final exams and no other criteria. It is completely possible to never attend the classes at all and still pass with flying colors: Yes and no, It just depends on how the lecturer or professor manages things. Some were exactly like that (and they would provide you with all the files to download), others had weekly quizzes and assignments (that counted for half the grade), other had two exams and attendance was mandatory. Some exams were without supplies, for others you were allowed to use books and/or notes. It's not like there is much discussion to be had about the nature of a "1" or a "0" in early CS/mathematics lectures, that comes a bit later.
* In Germany, I have only one professor (out of six) who even bothered to learn the students' names at the beginning of the semester: Again, it depends. You can't learn the names of students in a big lecure in the Audimax with hundreds of people but in the surrounding seminars, homework groups, office hours, and all that you get to know people naturally.
* the staff is minimal: Yup, and they don't bend over backwards for you (typical german bureaucracy, it probably feels even harsher for somebody who's not used to it). It's up to you to be proactive and organise your life.
* campus life: Yup, there are no dorms as understood in the US (provided by university) but there are dorms in that there are some organisations related to the university that provide them (essentially cheaper than average rent for small rooms), and universities are not in one place (our old main math/CS/geology building was a few minutes on foot away form the main building, some medical/biotech institutes are near hospitals, we had the intro to chemistry across the city early in the mornings ). And yes the university focuses on being an university first (teaching and research) and not a "summer camp" like the post describes. That's part of the "students are not seen as customers that have to be pleased and coddled" thing that seems so normal in the US (because they want your tuition money). They just don't have to care about it here. So when somebody complains about whiny SJW in US colleges (and how it's the end of free speech, if not the whole world) and how the administration bends over backwards to not lose them as customers that just wouldn't happen here like that. There are student organisations and students might protest for stuff but they don't have that type of financial power over the university and have to fit their protesting into their schedule.
* the ratio: I would guess that it depends heavily on your area of study and that the ratio is a bit inflated by the really big lectures in the first semesters (it doesn't cost anything to enter, but some have a numerus clausus and medicine, law, and some others needing a latinum, meaning sufficient proficiency in latin). PhD students work more with students in later semesters the first few semesters have regular students from higher semester (roughly equivalent to somebody working on a masters degree) who help out with homework seminars and stuff like that but the real seminars were dealt with professors or staff from the corresponding research groups (post doc is the term, I think?) and we also had guest lecturers for their specialty who would take over for a few weeks from whoever was the regular lecturer. We had in-depth debates/arguments/discussion from the first semester with everyone (just not during the big lectures with hundreds of students). You could be working on homework between classes on benches outside the lecture halls and fuss out problems with other students, older students might drop by, and a nosy professor would look into what you are doing and start something. The ratio is probably higher but to me it never felt like there was a lack of challenges, feedback, or stimulation.
I really don't know what "equal and respectful level" is supposed to mean in that regard. We were treated respectfully like humans but we were not coddled (like explained above about german bureaucracy). You could have funny discussions with the staff and—as far as I know—nobody was dismissive or abusive (maybe sarcastic?) but one has to be able to take a joke if one feths up exceptionally. Maybe they are talking about administrative staff being overworked during periods of high activity (in my opinion: understandable) or individual people being donkey-caves (maybe having high tuition and students being customers forces them to be more nice to them) but in general I had just normal human interactions (and here we are not used to the perpetual fake smiling US service industry standard and would find that level of friendliness quite off-putting). The article being about the UK kinda makes me wonder how much of that "service sector friendliness" is happening/acceptable in the UK? I don't remember it being as extreme as the US? Because here it's just seen as fake and we would rather have a slightly grumpy but honestly grumpy waiter/helper than a perpetual smiler (that's just creepy).
KTG17 wrote: You think you have it rough? You should look into what a 700 square foot apartment goes for in Hong Kong (one I read about just went for just under million dollars).
Soooo; Hong Kong is cheaper than Sydney. Good to know.
KTG17 wrote: You think you have it rough? You should look into what a 700 square foot apartment goes for in Hong Kong (one I read about just went for just under million dollars).
Soooo; Hong Kong is cheaper than Sydney. Good to know.
Ya'll just need to pitch a tent with a moat of fire...
I have a friend with Crohn's disease who just lost his insurance, but I'll be sure to cheer him up by reminding him at least he doesn't have Locked In Syndrome while burning to death with some parasitic fish living in his pee pee hole.
First world problems.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Xillennials in any circumstances short of I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream should stop complaining, stop making their voices heard in a likely futile attempt to change anything, and be more grateful, says beneficiary from your loss of opportunity.
Automatically Appended Next Post: "Suicide hotline, how may I help you? Yeah. Uh huh. Uh huh. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Listen, you don't know anything about suffering or depression. Call me back when you've seen all your kids die of dysentery, you entitled whiner."
Ketara wrote: With all due respect, your argument thus far sums up to 'I worked in a University that had an expensive humanities department, and tried to gauge what other universities did'.
You've missed a key part. It isn't "I worked in a university". It's "I worked in a university measuring and controlling costs, and part of that included national and international comparisons". This is my direct professional experience.
Which is fine, and I'm not trying to put down your personal empirical experience of things. But it's difficult enough to compare institutions within the same country (Oxford's finances and departmental layout will be very different to Bolton's). Trying to extrapolate from your one example in Australia across the entire global Higher Education sector is an order of a magnitude higher, and I wouldn't even begin to dream of making large scale generalisations on that basis without considerable data to back it up. Purely within this thread alone, we have the example of the German Universities, who very clearly have a statistical bent towards less staff, and maintain cheaper courses.
So you started with;
"If you're a standard humanities (history, english, philosophy, etc) or social sciences (anthropology, sociology, etc) student, the cost of the running the degree course is not expensive. Assuming you're running a standard degree program at a mid-tier University ? You're making a killing."
But now have switched to;
" But it's difficult enough to compare institutions within the same country"
It's almost as if you made a big statement that was mistaken, and are now walking it back while doing everything you can to admit that's what you're doing.
What I can extrapolate from the current publicly available data
That is not a useful process.
When you start talking about things like 'support staff, grounds and facilities', those are fixed costs shared with every other course in the University. Not departmental. The same goes for 'club support', your local SU branches here in the UK handle that end of things, and just get a small budget set by the institution as a whole.
Of course they are institutional. But unless the institution has seperate revenue sources to cover those costs, then each department must bear their own share of the institution's indirect costs.
The 'History' student society has absolutely nothing to do with the 'History' department, officially. You can't finger the history department specifically because IT's budget is too tight to hire another person due to the history department only generating three times what it cost to run the course instead of three and a half times. Expenditures like those are shared across the institution as whole.
Actually cost sharing models will allocate those costs down, or at the very least operate a revenue retention model that takes a % of student fees & govt attached subsidies to cover uni wide costs.
So. Given that the Uni Of Leicester history undergrad course is generating 7.2 million, staffing costs are likely at the 2 million mark using nation wide averages, and we're knocking off another 3 million for tax, incidental departmental costs, Whirlwind's unexpected overrun, and a reasonable contribution towards fixed costs?
Serious question - did you just take a reported student number, multiply it by the tuition fee, and then compare that to what you guess staff numbers might be based on your guess at student teacher ratios? Is that what you did?
I want to hear about it. It'll help the general discussion along as to whether or not uni education should be free.
The question about whether uni should be free is a bad question. Right now government pays too much, and the student pays too much. This is because the real issue is the huge waste in the sector as a whole. This waste is due to poor financial controls and bloated administrations, and also because the institutions are still largely built around traditional 'higher minds' models, despite most activity in the unis now geared towards vocational qualifications.
And its hard to feel bad for people who are doing better than 80% of the rest of the people on the planet.
Why does this have to have anything to do with feeling sorry for people?
I mean, consider if I ride to school every day with a friend. His bike gets nicked, and he will half to walk. He asks if he can ride my old bike that I don't use any more. I reply that I won't give him the bike, I don't feel sorry for him because while he will have to walk it isn't anywhere near as long a distance as some other people half to walk.
It's ridiculous, obviously. We know in that personal story that someone doesn't have to be an objective of absolute pity before we help them out. We are decent people who help others without thinking too much about it. But then if we talk about government programs then suddenly our thinking changes, and we start talking about how one person's suffering isn't so bad because of the abject poverty suffered by people on the other side of the planet.
And for the record, I've been to India, and I didn't see any dead bodies but I did see a lot of poverty. Mumbai has nothing on places like Kolkota. The big thing I took away was the complexity of the issue. Before I went there I thought the slums would be full of people destitute and begging - they're actually giant, ramshackle workshops, full of intense economic activity, albeit low skilled, ultra-low capital economic activity.
And its hard to feel bad for people who are doing better than 80% of the rest of the people on the planet.
Dont you worry, I reckon it aint gonna be too long before we start seeing slumtowns in the west too! Then they will finally have deserved our pity the moochers
And for the record, I've been to India, and I didn't see any dead bodies but I did see a lot of poverty. Mumbai has nothing on places like Kolkota. The big thing I took away was the complexity of the issue. Before I went there I thought the slums would be full of people destitute and begging - they're actually giant, ramshackle workshops, full of intense economic activity, albeit low skilled, ultra-low capital economic activity.
What are peoples thoughts about inheritance? I've been talking to friends and through personal experience there's a definite change in attitude between boomer generations an the previous gen.
My parents both inherited their parents savings and property and my dad also inherited his aunts too. My other half's parents inherited from their parents too. Similar story with many of my friends and co-workers.
When it comes to the boomers (my parents generation) my mum has said she doesn't plan to leave anything to us,my other half's mum is the same to her, and again a bunch of my friends have echoed this.
I've spoken to a few boomer age people about this and they point out about "the bank of mum and dad" they call it. Where they've had to lend money to their children so that they can afford things like deposits on houses, paying for education or a car repair bill stuff like that.
And this is true. I borrowed £10k from my parents so I could fund my Microsoft certifications, the thing is, it was a loan, not a gift and I paid them back for it. Every boomer I've spoken to has send they've loaned money, implying that they do expect it to be paid back.
Others have said that they'd rather wait and decide to give money in later years so they can see the family enjoy it whilst they're alive to see it.
One lady said that they felt sorry for their own mum being so tight with her purse strings and going without so that she could leave more to her family. She said when she gets to her mums age she'll spend the last of her money going on holiday and enjoying her twilight years.
It its their money and they can do what they want with it. I don't need an inheritance from my family and don't begrudge them it.
There just seems to be a big shift in attitudes between those generations.
Every generation up to the boomers has done better economically than the generation before. There has been investment in roads and public services put in place by previous generations. But once we reach the boomers it goes the other way. They had the free education and had it cut for their children, they had the cheap house prices but did not build enough for the next generation.
I'm curious about what may have brought this change about in the last generation that the trend seems to be a focus on the self over their children.
Does anyone else have similar, or differing experiences?
You've missed a key part. It isn't "I worked in a university". It's "I worked in a university measuring and controlling costs, and part of that included national and international comparisons". This is my direct professional experience.
Okay? Appeal to your own authority is less strong a piece of evidence when discussing things online then you seem to believe it is? You worked at one university in one country, and did some benchmarking against whatever data you could get your hands on. Which is great, and totally relevant (no sarcasm). But it's not the be-all and end all that lets you proclaim from the heavens that all humanities courses worldwide are losing money hand over fist. So again, do you have any data comparing humanities departments in different positions across the world? Because if so, I would genuinely be interested to see it.
So you started with;
"If you're a standard humanities (history, english, philosophy, etc) or social sciences (anthropology, sociology, etc) student, the cost of the running the degree course is not expensive. Assuming you're running a standard degree program at a mid-tier University ? You're making a killing."
But now have switched to;
" But it's difficult enough to compare institutions within the same country"
It's almost as if you made a big statement that was mistaken, and are now walking it back while doing everything you can to admit that's what you're doing.
We were discussing universities within the UK at the time for the most part (that was what I was responding to), so I didn't feel the need to qualify it within an international context. I also made the specific point of qualifying 'standard degree program at a mid tier University' to separate out the institutions at the bottom end of the market who are currently struggling due to several unrelated factors.
The minute that switched around and Australian Universities came up, I qualified that if academics there were not earning substantially more, it should be the same. I'd be open to being shown Australian specific factors that make running a humanities course there more difficult though, in the same way that when German institutions came up as a variation, I got quite interested in trying to figure out how they do it more cheaply.
If you'd been following the discussion, you should be aware of this. I'm very happy to be proven wrong by people in other countries that I know less about. Means I learn something. Wouldn't be much of an academic otherwise.
Serious question - did you just take a reported student number, multiply it by the tuition fee, and then compare that to what you guess staff numbers might be based on your guess at student teacher ratios? Is that what you did?
No. I took their actual academic staff numbers, calculated their collective salary using the average academic salary in the UK (which will have overstated it by anything up to a fifth, given the fixed term contract conditions currently prevailing amongst even full time staff here now), then I took the actual number of administrative staff employed within the department, did the same thing, and came up with a collective averaged salary bill (minus things like pension contributions, of course).
Then I took their actual undergraduate numbers (I ignored the postgrad because whilst they're likely to still be making money off of them, the council funding for PhD's would complicate matters), calculated the total fees paid, and set it against the departmental salary costs stated earlier. Then because I know that Leicester own their buildings, I discounted rent. Then I allocated a reasonable sum towards janitorial costs, library costs (which I actually know in detail myself, I've seen the invoices), electric/power bills, and general support towards central administrative expenditure.
And then once I'd done that, I doubled it in line with Whirlwind's theory that everything probably costs twice as much as you expect it to. Which should easily cover pensions, conferences, and various other incidentals on top. Leaving us still with a good two million in the budget.
But then, if you've been following the thread, you should be aware of this. You've also contributed absolutely nothing in support of your very sweeping statement, despite me very politely asking what you think might have been missed in previous discussion. Instead, it feels like you've taken a somewhat aggressive and patronising tone whilst avoiding my queries for specifics.
To cut it simple mate, either play nice and have a proper friendly chat in which we all get to learn things and enjoy ourselves, or find someone else to debate with. I've got better things to do then measure e-schlongs across a timezone over budgetary matters. Christ knows I get enough of that off the web right now.
Yes and no, It just depends on how the lecturer or professor manages things.....Again, it depends.
It seems like there's a lot of variation in the staffing levels and one to one. Perhaps it's a departmental thing? Certain subjects are better staffed and give smaller classes? That or what Bran Dawri said earlier about certain subjects sharing more classes earlier on. Or maybe a mixture of the two? It would be interesting to find out. It certainly seems less clear cut now!
The ratio is probably higher but to me it never felt like there was a lack of challenges, feedback, or stimulation.
That's good to know. Did you ever have much trouble though that could have meant that you needed extra support? If you don't mind me prying that is. Some students have various mental health issues and suchlike that mean that they need a little bit of extra support/interaction to reach their potential, and I can't help but feel like that might be difficult in an institution laid out as the German ones seem to be.
The article being about the UK kinda makes me wonder how much of that "service sector friendliness" is happening/acceptable in the UK? I don't remember it being as extreme as the US? Because here it's just seen as fake and we would rather have a slightly grumpy but honestly grumpy waiter/helper than a perpetual smiler (that's just creepy).
It's not nearly as bad as in the US, but as the Government has been trying to exert greater control over the university sector, they keep trying to pick arbitrary benchmarks to do it with. One of them, sadly, is student satisfaction, and another is how the students do after leaving. Now that there's no limit on how many students a uni can take anymore either, upper administrative university staff are also working to attract quantity over quality also, and the way they try and do that is by ensuring they all have a 'good' time.
So we're not there yet, but we've been moving in that direction for a while (despite the resistance of most academics). We'll have to see how things pan out in the long run.
obsidianaura wrote: What are peoples thoughts about inheritance? I've been talking to friends and through personal experience there's a definite change in attitude between boomer generations an the previous gen.
My parents both inherited their parents savings and property and my dad also inherited his aunts too. My other half's parents inherited from their parents too. Similar story with many of my friends and co-workers.
When it comes to the boomers (my parents generation) my mum has said she doesn't plan to leave anything to us,my other half's mum is the same to her, and again a bunch of my friends have echoed this.
I've spoken to a few boomer age people about this and they point out about "the bank of mum and dad" they call it. Where they've had to lend money to their children so that they can afford things like deposits on houses, paying for education or a car repair bill stuff like that.
And this is true. I borrowed £10k from my parents so I could fund my Microsoft certifications, the thing is, it was a loan, not a gift and I paid them back for it. Every boomer I've spoken to has send they've loaned money, implying that they do expect it to be paid back.
Others have said that they'd rather wait and decide to give money in later years so they can see the family enjoy it whilst they're alive to see it.
One lady said that they felt sorry for their own mum being so tight with her purse strings and going without so that she could leave more to her family. She said when she gets to her mums age she'll spend the last of her money going on holiday and enjoying her twilight years.
It its their money and they can do what they want with it. I don't need an inheritance from my family and don't begrudge them it.
There just seems to be a big shift in attitudes between those generations.
Every generation up to the boomers has done better economically than the generation before. There has been investment in roads and public services put in place by previous generations. But once we reach the boomers it goes the other way. They had the free education and had it cut for their children, they had the cheap house prices but did not build enough for the next generation.
I'm curious about what may have brought this change about in the last generation that the trend seems to be a focus on the self over their children.
Does anyone else have similar, or differing experiences?
Sounds about the experience I have seen. I don't begrudge people spending their money as they wish. Whilst it will impact my generation (my parents had about £200k of inheritance from my grandparents. I don't expect to see anything like that) I also believe that it will make things better for my children, as it releases money in to the wider community, where as inheritance concentrates it. This is one place I see the selfishness as being a good thing in the end.
What I have an issue with is the equity release market. Baby boomers releasing money from their house so they can spend it, whilst retaining control of the asset. Sell up and spend it, and let someone else use the property you no longer need, or you need it then don't go mortgaging it away.
Rosebuddy wrote: It's rude because you can dismiss anything that anyone thinks or feels with "well, you're not shot and dying in this very moment so you're lucky!!"
Some people do need perspective but we need a much lower floor for being allowed to analyze your life situation and discuss injustices than "currently being carted off to Auschwitz".
I am certainly not dismissing everything everyone thinks (Lord knows I have had my ups and downs too, and thought thru some of them that they were the end of the world). What I am saying is that I am constantly reminding myself how good I have it right now, and are thankful of that, as since I have traveled not only around the US, but some 30 countries and have seen how bad poverty is in most of the world. So yes, while some of us might be going through tough economic times here in the developed world, there is a whole host of people out in the world who probably laughs at our hardships, yet they get it on and do the best they can, working much harder than we do. Some of you dream of owning a home, etc, and these people dream of having a job. We have more choices here. If you live in an expensive area, that is your choice. You have the freedom of giving up one career for another and moving somewhere else to work. You may choose not to. Some of you are teachers, and while I recognize that teaching is no doubt one of the most fundamentally important parts of our society, I've known since middle school listening to teachers bitch about their pay that teaching didn't seem like a great career choice, so I chose something else. But you might really enjoy teaching, and that itself is rewarding. Its up to you to gauge what is more important. My dad was in banking and constantly told me, "If you are happy digging ditches, dig ditches." but either way you can't complain about the pay, cause you probably knew going into it that it would suck.
There are many things outside of our control, but we are well informed of the status of most. You have choices. One of the wealthiest people my family knows is a Cuban immigrant who came over in the 60s with nothing and now owns a mansion in West Palm Beach and owns luxury sports cars and several boats. An immigrant. He busted his ass and yes, got some luck. But if an immigrant can come here and do that, you think you can convince me you can't? You choose to be where you are. If you were hungry and more ambitious, you would be doing more.
You can blame the world for holding you back, but if you spend some time thinking about you, you'll most likely find that the number one thing holding yourself back, is you.
I am a bit old fashioned, but much of what I do, is with the thought of generational wealth in mind. I personally will never be a "rich" 1%er. However, I plan to get into the top 20% and then my kid can build fromt here and maybe if she is lucky her kid will be a 1%.
I was lucky to be born in a white, middle class family in a first world country. College/University was an expectation. I was the first in my family to graduate College/Uni. It was expected that I would be a corporate drone with a good job. I lived up to those expectations.
It soon became obvious to me that the way of the corporate drone is just wage-slavery. The best way to create generational wealth is in ownership, but not just ownership in "stuff" but stuff that cretes income streams and ROI. That is why I am an aggressive entrepreneur and business owner. Some are larger than others, but all of them can be passed on to my descendants so they can have a source of income and can mkae true choices about their life.
Income streams= freedom in our society. I want my progeny to have freedom.
Sorry for the crazy talk.
Edit: Between "Luck" and "Hard Work".... luck played a much bigger part. I know tons of people poorer than me that work much, much, much harder. My employees, the services I hire out for, etc. They all are working harder than me, yet somehow I have the money? Luck.
KTG17 wrote: You have the freedom of giving up one career for another and moving somewhere else to work.
Uh, no, you really don't. You have the option to change jobs easily, in the sense that you can go from Walmart to McDonalds, but you aren't changing careers without a massive investment. Most jobs that can fairly be considered "careers" require education and experience, things that cost a lot of time and money. And there are a lot of people with nowhere near enough money to take a few years off and go back to school (or go to college in the first place).
either way you can't complain about the pay, cause you probably knew going into it that it would suck.
Lolwut? Even if you acknowledge that, on a personal level, you accepted a career with low pay you can still point out the fact that we massively undervalue teachers and should pay them much better.
But if an immigrant can come here and do that, you think you can convince me you can't?
You said it yourself, he had luck. You might as well point to professional athletes and say "kids, if you try hard enough you too can make millions to play a sport".
KTG17 wrote: You can blame the world for holding you back, but if you spend some time thinking about you, you'll most likely find that the number one thing holding yourself back, is you.
I think you misunderstand the thread. As I learned pages ago and should have realized from the original post, people aren't participating in this thread to find advice or discuss solutions -- they're here to gripe. Which can be a completely valid thread purpose, as everyone needs to vent sometimes.
The funny part is all the stereotyping of a generation while complaining about generational stereotypes.
So regarding inheritance -- any investment professional will tell you that securing your own retirement comes FIRST. What you don't want to do is pay for your kids' college, support them into adulthood and/or build a nestegg for them, but end up with little retirement savings and become a financial burden in your elderly years for those same children. That's a *worse* situation. Millennials sometimes don't get this because their parents aren't at that age yet.
It's also important to note that Boomers aren't all sitting pretty in retirement, no matter how broad of a brush people in this thread choose to paint with. In fact, many don't have enough saved. This is partly because that generation tends to spend more than save, but also because many were affected when pensions started disappearing a couple *decades* ago and never really made up the difference.
So even if you want it to be all about you, and complain that your parents/grandparents/whatever won't share their money, it's important to consider what the future impact could be on you if they did spread it around. Financially secure older relatives are a *good thing* for you as a younger person.
Uh, no, you really don't. You have the option to change jobs easily, in the sense that you can go from Walmart to McDonalds, but you aren't changing careers without a massive investment. Most jobs that can fairly be considered "careers" require education and experience, things that cost a lot of time and money. And there are a lot of people with nowhere near enough money to take a few years off and go back to school (or go to college in the first place).
Um, yeah, you do. Is it going to be easy? Prob not. But I guess that's the repeating theme here, everyone expects everything to fall into place and be easy. No, you have to bust your ass for it. And if you are busting your ass and NOT succeeding, then you are obviously doing something wrong and need a new plan.
And not all careers involve having to graduate from college. Most of the world doesn't even get the luxury of going to college. And many who have gone, have completely useless degrees.
Lolwut? Even if you acknowledge that, on a personal level, you accepted a career with low pay you can still point out the fact that we massively undervalue teachers and should pay them much better.
Fine. But expecting the world to change and suddenly start paying more for not only teachers, but cops, firemen, garbage men, and so on isn't going to solve paying rent either.
You said it yourself, he had luck. You might as well point to professional athletes and say "kids, if you try hard enough you too can make millions to play a sport".
Your counter-arguments are exactly the self-defeating kind that fill this thread. "I made a choice, I don't feel it was a good one, and it takes too much effort to get me out of this situation and into a better one." Boo-hoo. Sounds like complete BS. You know who makes that argument? Softies. People who lack ambition. People to expect the world to never change. People who vote for Bernie Sanders. Are you going to be a wolf or a sheep? You think living in society is any different than living in nature? There are animals that succeed and fail, only succeeding usually means living long enough to mate and failing means dying. You think our world is any different? There are those who play the game well, and those that don't, and a bunch that don't even try. If you are one of those failing and not changing your game, or not even trying, you think you deserve a piece of the pie? You think its just going to be given to you? Yeah sure, maybe you'll get the basics and some table scraps now and then, but if you want more, you have to be hungry and go out and get it. I am certainly not giving up my piece for free.
Its the difference between being an Alpha and a Beta. You can choose to be one or the other.
I think you misunderstand the thread. As I learned pages ago and should have realized from the original post, people aren't participating in this thread to find advice or discuss solutions -- they're here to gripe. Which can be a completely valid thread purpose, as everyone needs to vent sometimes.
Well maybe so. But feeling sorry for one's self typically isn't enough to change one's situation. You actually have to DO something, which is the point of what I am trying to make.
This conversation is circling the drain. As soon as the alpha/beta shtick is trotted out, it's all but over.
No one is saying it's all hard work, and luck plays no part. Just being born in the wealthy, stable part of the world is incredible luck to begin with, and the doctor hasn't even smacked your arse yet.
Again, for ME PERSONALLY, I remind myself how much, much worse my life could be when I'm feeling discouraged about my life. It helps me.
feeder wrote: This conversation is circling the drain.
I agree...
And since the word "Xillenial" is annoying as all get out, we're really going to need this thread to stay on topic (?) and stop toeing the line of Rule #1 as well.
obsidianaura wrote: What are peoples thoughts about inheritance? I've been talking to friends and through personal experience there's a definite change in attitude between boomer generations an the previous gen.
My parents both inherited their parents savings and property and my dad also inherited his aunts too. My other half's parents inherited from their parents too. Similar story with many of my friends and co-workers.
When it comes to the boomers (my parents generation) my mum has said she doesn't plan to leave anything to us,my other half's mum is the same to her, and again a bunch of my friends have echoed this.
I've spoken to a few boomer age people about this and they point out about "the bank of mum and dad" they call it. Where they've had to lend money to their children so that they can afford things like deposits on houses, paying for education or a car repair bill stuff like that.
And this is true. I borrowed £10k from my parents so I could fund my Microsoft certifications, the thing is, it was a loan, not a gift and I paid them back for it. Every boomer I've spoken to has send they've loaned money, implying that they do expect it to be paid back.
Others have said that they'd rather wait and decide to give money in later years so they can see the family enjoy it whilst they're alive to see it.
One lady said that they felt sorry for their own mum being so tight with her purse strings and going without so that she could leave more to her family. She said when she gets to her mums age she'll spend the last of her money going on holiday and enjoying her twilight years.
It its their money and they can do what they want with it. I don't need an inheritance from my family and don't begrudge them it.
There just seems to be a big shift in attitudes between those generations.
Every generation up to the boomers has done better economically than the generation before. There has been investment in roads and public services put in place by previous generations. But once we reach the boomers it goes the other way. They had the free education and had it cut for their children, they had the cheap house prices but did not build enough for the next generation.
I'm curious about what may have brought this change about in the last generation that the trend seems to be a focus on the self over their children.
Does anyone else have similar, or differing experiences?
I expect 0$ inheritance.... that way, if I do I'd be pleasantly surprised. I even told my folks that... it's their money as they see fit and they shouldn't be obligated or pressured to "leave some scratch" when they're gone.
Granted, if I had to guess, my folks would indeed leave something substantial to me and my siblings... but no, I neither expect nor feel "owed" an inheritance.
KTG17 wrote: [
I am certainly not dismissing everything everyone thinks (Lord knows I have had my ups and downs too, and thought thru some of them that they were the end of the world). What I am saying is that I am constantly reminding myself how good I have it right now, and are thankful of that, as since I have traveled not only around the US, but some 30 countries and have seen how bad poverty is in most of the world. So yes, while some of us might be going through tough economic times here in the developed world, there is a whole host of people out in the world who probably laughs at our hardships, yet they get it on and do the best they can, working much harder than we do. Some of you dream of owning a home, etc, and these people dream of having a job. We have more choices here.
Tl;dr: "Moar Bootstrahps is waht you need".
Seriously though, no one is arguing that people in the west are as bad off as people in third world countries.
What we're complaining about is that the general societal trend is moving in a direction that will create the same kind of wealth disparity in the West as already exist in those countries, and current politics and leadership rather than trying to reverse the process seem to be helping it along - and we don't even get a say in it, because both politics and corporate leadership are dominated by the people wanting it that way. In essence, the entire concept of each generation building on the success of the previous one is being dismantled, and while we seem to be working and paying for their rewards, we can see quite well that we are not or will not be getting our own rewards in turn.
Yes, we still have more choices and wealth here than say Africa, but those choices and wealth are diminishing, and this development has to stop.
With regards to inheritance, I don't want to inherit anything from my parents. Not because I don't want it, but because anything you inherit in the Netherlands is subject to an inheritance tax. That's X% of money that's already been taxed at 30-50% when it was earned being stolen by the taxman.
The issue is that everyone wants to see forward progression in society, whatever country you are born in. People of my generation are worse off than my parents because of housing and wage depression, there are fewer opportunities and chances of owning a home less likely, it's been demonstrated through wage comparisons and other measures that at the same age, our parents were more affluent.
So while I don't quite agree with everything KTG is saying here, I question what alternative is being offered. Not 'pulling on bootstraps', calling the situation hopeless and giving up?
Everyone that came before Millennials didn't have everything just given to them. If the situation is worse for Millennials, it's only by degree and doesn't represent a revolutionary change. Like I said earlier, young people are kinda expected to struggle some early in their careers. My parents (Silent Generation, i.e. one before Boomers) didn't own a house until their 30s. I didn't own a house until my mid-30s. It's not like we were plopping down deposits right out of college.
I can't really speak to the real estate situation those of you in the UK have described, because it's not taking place here in the US. While I'm no expert on real estate, it doesn't seem like a sustainable situation if prices are beyond what most potential home buyers can afford.
gorgon wrote: So while I don't quite agree with everything KTG is saying here, I question what alternative is being offered. Not 'pulling on bootstraps', calling the situation hopeless and giving up?
The problem is that KTG is not saying don't give up, he is saying don't complain.
Complaining and getting angry is part of the answer. Challenging the status quo, questioning why we are where we are. Saying "well others have it worse" is basically saying "give up"
Everyone that came before Millennials didn't have everything just given to them. If the situation is worse for Millennials, it's only by degree and doesn't represent a revolutionary change. Like I said earlier, young people are kinda expected to struggle some early in their careers. My parents (Silent Generation, i.e. one before Boomers) didn't own a house until their 30s. I didn't own a house until my mid-30s. It's not like we were plopping down deposits right out of college.
I can't really speak to the real estate situation those of you in the UK have described, because it's not taking place here in the US. While I'm no expert on real estate, it doesn't seem like a sustainable situation if prices are beyond what most potential home buyers can afford.
It's not, and that's why people are upset. The baby boomers have the highest levels of home ownership, and are also the ones who campaign against new development and changes to green belt, which restricts new house building. Lots of "I'm alright" going on.
It's not just that which upset people. My employers pension schema has a large deficit, meaning that they did not take enough funds to cover the liabilities they had built up. i.e. What they had taken could not cover what they needed to pay out to those people. The solution? To keep benefits for those who had already paid in and increase future payments in whilst reducing benefits. Same with the state pension. Pensioners have seen their state pension go up and up, whilst those in work have wages reduced and national insurance increased. The major benefactors from these? Baby boomers. The major looser? Under 40's.
Whilst I don't think the university system is right (we should be funding key professions, especially those who's main employer will be the state), I accept that the cost of things changes. That is not a major issue of inter-generational unfairness to me. Pensions and housing is.
gorgon wrote: While I'm no expert on real estate, it doesn't seem like a sustainable situation if prices are beyond what most potential home buyers can afford.
High prices are sustainable if you accept that people are going to rent instead of owning. What it means is that ownership is in the hands of a wealthy few, while everyone else is locked into making rent payments forever without ever building up any value in assets from their home. It's a massive wealth inequality, but it can continue indefinitely.
My personal view is to leave my children enough that they won't need to worry, and instill in them a culture of maintaining that money so they can pass it on to their children. I'm not talking vast, mega-millions estates, but enough so that rent and dividends provides enough to live on well, to free them up to work how they want.
Part of this comes from me worrying about exactly what the future of work might hold. I can't take it for granted that my kids, let alone their kids, will be able to find well paying white collar work in future economies. Throughout history having some wealth behind you has been a helpful fallback.
But there's another part that's come from direct life experiences. I know a lot of people who are third or fourth generation middle class, with nothing to show for it. Savings and investment is easier now, but past generations still left houses to their kids. But that money is spent and lost.
gorgon wrote: It's also important to note that Boomers aren't all sitting pretty in retirement, no matter how broad of a brush people in this thread choose to paint with. In fact, many don't have enough saved. This is partly because that generation tends to spend more than save, but also because many were affected when pensions started disappearing a couple *decades* ago and never really made up the difference.
No generation has ever had enough saved up. The boomers have saved more, in large part because they have expectations of a longer retirement, but like every generation as a whole they're a long way short of what would be needed for full retirement.
Ketara wrote: Okay? Appeal to your own authority is less strong a piece of evidence when discussing things online then you seem to believe it is? You worked at one university in one country, and did some benchmarking against whatever data you could get your hands on. Which is great, and totally relevant (no sarcasm). But it's not the be-all and end all that lets you proclaim from the heavens that all humanities courses worldwide are losing money hand over fist. So again, do you have any data comparing humanities departments in different positions across the world? Because if so, I would genuinely be interested to see it.
It’s pretty telling that you write ‘whatever data you could get your hands on’. Absent clear knowledge as to the quality of the data you assume it must be a slipshod process. You’re trying to make things up to solidify your own position.
For what it’s worth, the process involved large amounts of data sharing and a lot of work to make the data as consistent as possible.
The minute that switched around and Australian Universities came up, I qualified that if academics there were not earning substantially more, it should be the same. I'd be open to being shown Australian specific factors that make running a humanities course there more difficult though, in the same way that when German institutions came up as a variation, I got quite interested in trying to figure out how they do it more cheaply.
I already explained the driving factors. It was the first sentence in my response to you that started this conversation. Teacher ratios are really bad in arts. Research is hard to come by, and pays crap when it comes. These are constants across the developed world. There is no place in the world where suddenly there’s mountains of money for sociological studies, no place in the world where graduate year arts courses can be taught to commercially profitable class numbers – the courses become too specialised.
No.
Actually the process you just described is exactly what I speculated.
You've also contributed absolutely nothing in support of your very sweeping statement, despite me very politely asking what you think might have been missed in previous discussion. Instead, it feels like you've taken a somewhat aggressive and patronising tone whilst avoiding my queries for specifics.
I have become fairly annoyed, as anyone would when they spend a few years doing something, comment on line about how that works, and then get a response from someone that they’d actually rather carry on making up their own numbers.
I can’t give the exact numbers, because I don’t actually keep reports and analysis from places I left in 2012. Nor will the report tell you exactly what’s being debated here – it’s purpose wasn’t to assess the profitability of various faculties, that was merely a side product and needed to be interpreted from the raw data. So even if I contacted my old work, found someone who still had the work, or subsequent years and got them to agree to send it to me for the sake of an internet debate, you could still find ways to look past the figures.
You are right that this conversation is now non-productive. If there was ever going to be any real exchange of information coming out of this, the opportunity is gone now. It’s become an ego thing, as you say.
So probably best to stop. But maybe in a day or two think back, and think about next time you’re on the internet. There’s a whole lot of junk opinions out there. We read them all the time, we give them all the time, myself included. But just sometimes someone will chip in and say ‘actually this is a thing in which I have direct professional experience’… maybe next time just listen to that person.
gorgon wrote: While I'm no expert on real estate, it doesn't seem like a sustainable situation if prices are beyond what most potential home buyers can afford.
High prices are sustainable if you accept that people are going to rent instead of owning. What it means is that ownership is in the hands of a wealthy few, while everyone else is locked into making rent payments forever without ever building up any value in assets from their home. It's a massive wealth inequality, but it can continue indefinitely.
Wealth and power.
I don't know about other countries, but the UK has a growing problem of what are effectively Slum Landlords. People who are so intent on profit, they'll rent out homes clearly unfit for human habitation.
And because of their wealth, they feel the can bully their tenants with relative impunity. Especially when our current sadsack of a Government voted down a resolution to ensure all rental properties were indeed fit for human habitation. All that does is reinforce the 'oh you're poor? Well that'll learn you not to be poor' my generation has come to expect.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: And because of their wealth, they feel the can bully their tenants with relative impunity. Especially when our current sadsack of a Government voted down a resolution to ensure all rental properties were indeed fit for human habitation. All that does is reinforce the 'oh you're poor? Well that'll learn you not to be poor' my generation has come to expect.
It's that good old 'have you tried just not being poor?' attitude that goes hand in hand with 'Depressed? Why not just get up and get on with it?' and, indeed, 'I worked to support myself at university, why don't you?'.
Rent controls and house selling controls. I'm aware there's more of a culture towards renting in Europe but they have a different culture with strong tennant's rights and long term or life time rentals. That's not how it is in the UK, your rental is only as secure as your contract, often six months to a year, and you can be pushed out sooner with a notice period. Renting is not a secure life, renewing contracts and having the prices screwed up or being asked to leave. No wonder people wait later and later in life to start a family.
They need to stop the wealthy and businesses in and outside the UK hoovering up the housing stock and keeping everyone under the thumb of renting, forever paying every penny into a property they have no stake in. All you're doing is paying someone else's mortgage and never able to save for your own.
A real risk in times of financial strife and weak pound, is foreign investors leaping all over cheap housing and renting it back to us at exorbitant rates. Last thing we need as a country is the population bound to housing stock at the mercy of vast rentals to foreign companies for decades.
Houses should be primarily homes not investments. Build more and protect their sales for people who need homes not people looking to expand their rental portfolio.
Houses should be primarily homes not investments. Build more and protect their sales for people who need homes not people looking to expand their rental portfolio.
I concur. We're really going to struggle to get rent controls in the UK, rent-to-buy folks are simply too powerful as a bloc, but I think we should be pushing hard for extreme taxation of unoccupied dwellings.
feeder wrote: I feel a lot of hate from Mods upon us Xillenials
We can't help being labeled like a forgettable alien race from a bad episode of ST: Voyager!
Lol
I was born in '83, so right in the middle of this supposed category, and I don't relate to the term at all! I asked a co-worker who is also '83, and they felt the same.
Generation Y, I can give you. But "Xillenial"? A term that couldn't have even existed until a few decades after the generation? Just no
... ya'll need to check the prices in the midwest. (Not near the cities!!).
It's pretty affordable and not assed crazy like you see in DC/Southern Cali/NYC area.
But, again, the government makes it REALLY difficult to get a mortgage because the lender HAS to accurately account all income sources (at the threat of losing their licenses). So, the paperwork is insanely herpity-derpity.
'Tis why you'll see signs everywhere for some folks to outright buy houses with cash, as it bypasses this paperwork insanity.
... ya'll need to check the prices in the midwest. (Not near the cities!!).
It's pretty affordable and not assed crazy like you see in DC/Southern Cali/NYC area.
My wife watches that House Hunters show, and I am amazed at how cheap you can get a massive house there. Massive homes on large blocks for a few hundred thousand. Every time I watch it I start thinking about selling everything and moving to the US, buying a midwest McMansion and retiring
But, again, the government makes it REALLY difficult to get a mortgage because the lender HAS to accurately account all income sources (at the threat of losing their licenses). So, the paperwork is insanely herpity-derpity.
... ya'll need to check the prices in the midwest. (Not near the cities!!).
It's pretty affordable and not assed crazy like you see in DC/Southern Cali/NYC area.
My wife watches that House Hunters show, and I am amazed at how cheap you can get a massive house there. Massive homes on large blocks for a few hundred thousand. Every time I watch it I start thinking about selling everything and moving to the US, buying a midwest McMansion and retiring
Come on over... we don't bite.
[quote
]But, again, the government makes it REALLY difficult to get a mortgage because the lender HAS to accurately account all income sources (at the threat of losing their licenses). So, the paperwork is insanely herpity-derpity.
Those are not unreasonable requirements.
It is when you have to show documentation of your retirement funds, SS, asset holdings, etc... waaaaaaaay more information in the the past when they just simply demand monthing income. It's incredibly onerous. When you're really diversified, you'd need an accountant (not kidding) to ensure everything's kosher for the mortgage company. Mortgage companies hate that as much of that shouldn't factor in your ability to afford the mortgage.
Most Millennials (78%) felt college did not adequately prepare them for career, while the Z Generation (68%) were more likely to be satisfied with higher education and the resources it provided upon graduation.
Hmm...
Gen Z is defined as those who were born between the mid-1990s and the second decade of this century, with the oldest of the cohort embarking on their early 20s
Aha! Found it! Give 'em a couple years and they'll turn just as bitter.
)
his real name isn't Todd).
In the US I could travel 300 miles on that, bring all my stuff with me, and still have change left over XD
). And yes the university focuses on being an university first (teaching and research) and not a "summer camp" like the post describes. That's part of the "students are not seen as customers that have to be pleased and coddled" thing that seems so normal in the US (because they want your tuition money). They just don't have to care about it here. So when somebody complains about whiny SJW in US colleges (and how it's the end of free speech, if not the whole world) and how the administration bends over backwards to not lose them as customers that just wouldn't happen here like that. There are student organisations and students might protest for stuff but they don't have that type of financial power over the university and have to fit their protesting into their schedule.
