Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Another issue in america that people in more civilized countries may not understand is today many if not most employers demand an applicant sign an ""agreement"" that basically stripes them of all legal protections and rights in event the company abuses them. You are forces to ""agree"" (Yes, double quote marks around ""agreeing"" to this.) to forfeiot your rights to legally sue the company for abuse or injury and instead go thru a rigged, one sided arbitration process that pretty much inevitably fasvors the company.

under the ""agreement"" you are forced to sign, no matter how badly the company wrong you, even if you are severely iunjured by unsafe working conditions because the company decided tosave money on safety, you cannot sue them in aourt before a jury of citizens but must go thru a rigged arbotration process.

Some people refuse to sign these as they are litterally ""Agreeing"" that the company can do anything it wants to them no matter how wrong and they have sacrified their right to legal remedy.

Refuse to ""Agree"" to a completely one sided raw deal and your application goes in the shredder regardless of qualifications.

I know some people in more civilized, less corporate dominated countries are incapable of believing this but it is true.

Now at least one state, california, has declared these ""Agreemnents"" to be null and void in many cases due to the total imbalance of power between the poarties, I.E. a huge corporation and a person needing a job. In cases where there is a huge imbalance of power some feel an actual agreement is impossible and the so called ""agreement"" is nothing but a dictate made under coercion.

Most states have a "screw the workers!" attitude on the matter.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

Jokes on them; the debt crisis is looming and the biggest expense on the chopping block is social security & the like. We'll see who's entitled when baby boomers aren't getting their welfare.

Ha! You know they're just going to write the laws so that they still get their stuff but younger people don't. It's what our government did here in the UK with regards to university tuition fees. A load of older people, who all had free university education paid for by the state, decided the country could no longer afford to do so and young people must pay for it whilst giving those young people loans whose conditions can be arbitrarily changed at any time by the government to pay for the education all those people got for free.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

Jokes on them; the debt crisis is looming and the biggest expense on the chopping block is social security & the like. We'll see who's entitled when baby boomers aren't getting their welfare.

Ha! You know they're just going to write the laws so that they still get their stuff but younger people don't. It's what our government did here in the UK with regards to university tuition fees. A load of older people, who all had free university education paid for by the state, decided the country could no longer afford to do so and young people must pay for it whilst giving those young people loans whose conditions can be arbitrarily changed at any time by the government to pay for the education all those people got for free.

Sad, but so very very true. So much for taking care of the next generation.

At the same time as we are able to say that Millennials are broke, this same generation is also the single largest age group buying homes in 2018.

I just got done with a project involving this, and can talk about some of the issues that are being seen. . . So, for the purposes of studying housing trends/economic trends, many of these studies are looking at those born from 1980-2000.

Yes, many millennials have been renting longer, and opting to live at home with mom/dad longer. But, on the older side of the millennial spectrum, they are buying houses, and in force. 36% of all home purchases in 2017 (and expected to go up in 2018) were by millennials, again, the largest single generation. But there are some additional interesting trends in their home buying:

Millennials, by and large, are skipping the "starter" home, and going straight for the "forever" or "dream" home. over 40% of homes purchased by millennials are in suburbs, etc.

There are still further shifts being seen in economic and spending circles, all being driven by the Millennial segment. And a lot of it is due to the money that Millennials do have.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Techpriestsupport wrote:
Another issue in america that people in more civilized countries may not understand is today many if not most employers demand an applicant sign an ""agreement"" that basically stripes them of all legal protections and rights in event the company abuses them. You are forces to ""agree"" (Yes, double quote marks around ""agreeing"" to this.) to forfeiot your rights to legally sue the company for abuse or injury and instead go thru a rigged, one sided arbitration process that pretty much inevitably fasvors the company.

not true mate. . . SCOTUS has normally and regularly sided with workers where issues of personal rights and pre-existing law is concerned. You literally cannot sign away your rights.

Then why are american workers routineky forced to allow employers access to their Facebook pages or face being fired/not hired and unable to sue over it?

Why would you expect millennials to buy fewer homes than the boomers who already mostly have their homes? Besides the percentage of homebuyers who are millennials is not indicative of the percentage of millennials who are home buyers.

they've also got to cope with spending money on goods and services the previous generation didn't, internet, mobile phones, tv services etc,

and with social media (amongst other things) pressuring them feel the need to take more, and more expensive holidays

they also tend to feel that once they get a new home they have to rebuild about half of it, plus fit it out with brand new furniture, bathroom and kitchen whereas previously when you bought a new house you lived with it as it was (maybe fixing a leaking roof) rather than rearranging walls, and furnished it with castoffs from family, friends and second hand shops

Techpriestsupport wrote:Then why are american workers routineky forced to allow employers access to their Facebook pages or face being fired/not hired and unable to sue over it?

Because you weren't mentioning FB and social media. . . you said RIGHTS.

BobtheInquisitor wrote:Why would you expect millennials to buy fewer homes than the boomers who already mostly have their homes? Besides the percentage of homebuyers who are millennials is not indicative of the percentage of millennials who are home buyers.

Umm. . . because there are reports showing the variations between generations. . . There was that stereotype among boomers that, once done with school, you get married, buy a house and have a career. . . The average age of when boomers started buying houses was fairly low. And many economic studies base material behaviors on what was established by boomers. The simple fact is, Millennials weren't paid as much, did/do have a lot more student loan debt than boomers did, etc. and that resulted in all the "why are millennials destroying everything?" articles we see in the media. My point is, all of that is changing, and its changing VERY rapidly. As in, millennials buying homes in 2015 was barely a blip on the radar and hardly worth mentioning (except in the "why are they ruining everything" articles), but by 2017 are the largest age group purchasing.

Ah but are they buying up much? Ergo they might be the largest % purchasing but are they buying large volumes of properties or is it just that everyone else has slowed down faster.

Of course regional variation is going to come into play here, the UK has a much bigger housing issue than the USA I would wager - esp since the UK has more significant limitations on suitable building space.

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
they've also got to cope with spending money on goods and services the previous generation didn't, internet, mobile phones, tv services etc,

Once you add in all the other bills people have to pay it’d be interesting to see s comparison between now and times gone by of how much people actually pay. If I add up the amount I pay for all the things you mentioned, as a percentage of what I make in a year it’s pretty tiny.

and with social media (amongst other things) pressuring them feel the need to take more, and more expensive holidays

Again it would be interesting to see a comparison. I think there’s always (or since the boomers at least) folks who seem to be compulsive holidayers, and other folk who tend not to go away much or just go on cheap holidays less frequently. Growing up I remember my aunt and her family going on holidays pretty much every school break (I remember because we would talk about seeing them in the school breaks but they were rarely actually there).

they also tend to feel that once they get a new home they have to rebuild about half of it, plus fit it out with brand new furniture, bathroom and kitchen whereas previously when you bought a new house you lived with it as it was (maybe fixing a leaking roof) rather than rearranging walls, and furnished it with castoffs from family, friends and second hand shops

That just seems like an odd generalisation regarding the renovating thing? What are you basing that off? It’s not a trend I’ve noticed.

Buying new furniture I could believe mainly because we live in an age where certain things can be gotten dirt cheap, furnishings being one of them. If you’re willing to live with low quality IKEA and Walmart furniture, it really doesn’t cost much to furnish a house these days.

It’s one of those things that maybe used to be a big ticket item which would be held on to but these days is quite cheap and disposable.

 Overread wrote:
Ah but are they buying up much? Ergo they might be the largest % purchasing but are they buying large volumes of properties or is it just that everyone else has slowed down faster.

Of course regional variation is going to come into play here, the UK has a much bigger housing issue than the USA I would wager - esp since the UK has more significant limitations on suitable building space.

We had a high of around 700k houses sold in october 2017, October 2018 numbers are showing just a bit under 600k houses sold for the month. So. . . you're looking at 200,000 houses being bought by millennials, roughly?

I don't doubt you have major housing issues in the UK, correct me if I'm wrong, but in the UK, isn't the housing issue a number of available units? Here in the US, the usually discussed aspect of housing problems is price.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
That just seems like an odd generalisation regarding the renovating thing? What are you basing that off? It’s not a trend I’ve noticed.

Because based on what research I've done, you're right. . . it isn't a trend. The "House hunters" thing isn't the norm. . . as I mentioned above, the stats bear out that Millennials are more likely to opt to buy a new/newer home that is already suited to their needs, rather than pay full price for a house, and then pay for renovations as soon as they start living there.

 Vaktathi wrote:
I

Edit: also, Millenials are this point are no longer kids, as a society we need to start mentally autocorrecting "millenials" to "adults under 40" to put these things in better context

How time flies: I needed to read it to believe it, but damn, you are right !

I think it is the same everywhere. What is even more annoying is baby boomers telling how hard it was for them and how they managed to get everything and how lazy people are these days....

About the holidays thing, I read a paper once that talked about it telling basically that because they couldn't afford to buy a house, to invest, they use their money an other way: travelling

Actually most baby boomers I've spoken too speak about how when they were really young it was tougher, but it was more about not having much because everything was post-war and there just wasn't much around.
But they had a lot of hope and jobs were so easy they could lose one in the morning and have another by the afternoon.

And that was without having to move counties/towns as well. Even in the countryside there were jobs. Today you can lose your job and spend months if not years sometimes hunting down another steady job.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:


not true mate. . . SCOTUS has normally and regularly sided with workers where issues of personal rights and pre-existing law is concerned. You literally cannot sign away your rights.

Which is nice and all if you can afford a lawyer to not just see the case through trial, but repeated appeals all the way up to SCOTUS. IF you can't (and let's face it, most unemployed or unemployable people cannot), you're boned.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

Jokes on them; the debt crisis is looming and the biggest expense on the chopping block is social security & the like. We'll see who's entitled when baby boomers aren't getting their welfare.

Ha! You know they're just going to write the laws so that they still get their stuff but younger people don't. It's what our government did here in the UK with regards to university tuition fees. A load of older people, who all had free university education paid for by the state, decided the country could no longer afford to do so and young people must pay for it whilst giving those young people loans whose conditions can be arbitrarily changed at any time by the government to pay for the education all those people got for free.

The nature of the budget will make that impossible. Cutting every ounce of student aid would be a drop in the bucket. Cuts will have to be made to social security spending (and military) because no other parts of the budget will be able to compensate even if they were reduced to zero. Or put more simply; they cannot produce results by cutting spending on the younger generation because there is so little spending to cut. And that is why it will come back to bite them no matter what they do.

America needs to cut a lot of military spending. Look at this chart to see why.

 godardc wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
I

Edit: also, Millenials are this point are no longer kids, as a society we need to start mentally autocorrecting "millenials" to "adults under 40" to put these things in better context

How time flies: I needed to read it to believe it, but damn, you are right !

I think it is the same everywhere. What is even more annoying is baby boomers telling how hard it was for them and how they managed to get everything and how lazy people are these days....

About the holidays thing, I read a paper once that talked about it telling basically that because they couldn't afford to buy a house, to invest, they use their money an other way: travelling

Thats twisted logic there though. How are you going to afford to invest if you don't sacrifice certain things eg: travel.

I think the point is people simply aren’t investing because they don’t see the point if even after sacrificing they aren’t going to get anything meaningful out of it. Money that in days gone by might have gone in to paying off a mortgage these days might end up going in to travel.

Though I think that’s an overly simplistic generalisation, I’d like to see the actual evidence that kids these days spend a greater portion of their money travelling than kids of days gone by. Flying internationally is a lot cheaper than it used to be, and if you pick your countries right it doesn’t cost a hell of a lot.

Because a house cost something like 300 000 / 500 000€ while I can travel for 500€ ? So when you have no money, you use it. When you have a lot of money, you can save it.
Not travelling means 0,0016% saved for a house. That's a lot of travels to cancel^^

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I think the point is people simply aren’t investing because they don’t see the point if even after sacrificing they aren’t going to get anything meaningful out of it. Money that in days gone by might have gone in to paying off a mortgage these days might end up going in to travel.

Though I think that’s an overly simplistic generalisation, I’d like to see the actual evidence that kids these days spend a greater portion of their money travelling than kids of days gone by. Flying internationally is a lot cheaper than it used to be, and if you pick your countries right it doesn’t cost a hell of a lot.

As a filthy millennial myself (1991) I notice a major sense of jaded indifference when it comes to things like investment or house buying, even among friends who are mainly upbeat. Other than the odd guy who gets his rocks off to penny stocks or magic cards, there really is this sense of "why bother, it could crash tomorrow and I'd lose everything." And that's if you have the money to invest to begin with, often people would rather just finish off their loans than trying to invest and hope they get lucky.

But that jaded feeling really expands to a lot of things. It's hard to describe, even when things are going relatively well, something always feels off, like you're getting screwed over and just don't realize it yet or something really bad is just around the corner. It's why you see such a dark sense of humor among our generation I think, it's just a natural state for us. It comes in a lot of little ways too. Parents or grandparents want to know when they're getting grandkids, or asking when you're going to get married. Meanwhile you're having a hard enough time just getting dates, not due to being a shut in but because the dating scene is so screwy. Even good looking or well off millennials often talk about how difficult it feels to find people to the point where that's a major point of anxiety. There's worries about work, especially since in order to move up any you often have to be willing to move a good distance, which upsets family who can't figure out why you wouldn't want to stay local. It's not that we want to leave, so much as the only job that called back is 3 states away and you have no choice. You'll also notice people talk about things like houses, marriage, and kids like it's some far off fairy tale the way older generations talk about retirement. Not someone fresh out of highschool mind you, I'm talking people late in their 20's. Compared to our parents we just can't understand how people before did it sometimes. You'll see a movie from the 50's with the nuclear family and everybody will just laugh because the idea of a stay at home mother with a cute house and 2.4 kids just seems completely alien to us. Then you add in this real sense of being talked to by older generations who sometimes don't even realize they're doing it and it's the perfect storm for a generation that is all in all pretty miserable for the most part. And don't even get me started on the political divide, not just between millennials and other generations but amongst ourselves as well. Even idle chit chat can turn heavily political and it wears everyone out, be that at a family function or just a drink with friends.

I know it's kind of rambly there but that's the kind of thoughts we live with every day. I wouldn't even call it depression or anything, since I'd say the vast majority are in that boat to some degree, just kind of disappointed and stressed out. We joke about it a lot but a lot of conversations in private will often turn to stress or feeling like we screwed up because by this age our parents had done so much more. There's a real feeling of betrayl when it comes to how we look at older generations and it's a major cause for why you see millennials starting to outright talk about ending capitalism, embracing socialist policies, and other "downright unamerican sensibilities." I honestly think the damage is done with our generation at this rate, all trust many millennials have in the American ways of doing things like economy, education, healthcare, government practices, etc. is shattered for better or for worse. I'd say if we can save the next generation from all this mess that's a win in my book, but it's not looking good.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

Techpriestsupport wrote:Then why are american workers routineky forced to allow employers access to their Facebook pages or face being fired/not hired and unable to sue over it?

Because you weren't mentioning FB and social media. . . you said RIGHTS.

Ok, how about the right to tell someone what you share with family and fiends is none of their damn business?

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:


I don't doubt you have major housing issues in the UK, correct me if I'm wrong, but in the UK, isn't the housing issue a number of available units? Here in the US, the usually discussed aspect of housing problems is price.

It's both really. The number of units is too few (which isn't helped that we went through a big phase where second and holiday homes were a big thing so that sucked up a lot of houses on its own); which in turn pushes the prices up. The other issue is that quite a few areas get an outflux of people from the big urban areas (esp london) where house prices are at insane values. This gives them a huge amount of money to invest in a new property which pushes local house prices up beyond local earning ability to afford.

So even if we increase housing units we can still hit a huge urban/rural divide in incomes which keeps houses at a high value.

Kids today are broke?...that's a strange way of saying "pampered self centered spoiled uneducated undisciplined little donkey-caves"

 Overread wrote:
And yet there's another sting which is that many employers often won't look at CVs unless there is "some degree" on there in some form. Even for staff moving up within the company there's been many passed over in favour of an inexperienced person who has a degree.

This is exactly what happened to me.. So I left my job after twenty years to get a degree, The other thing is now the top staff try to remove anyone of any people of value..
Money or Knowledge, this allows them to hire someone that only looks to them for answers at half the cost.
Plus the lower the personnel cost means more bonus for them for cutting costs.. well from what I have seen..
Corporate buyouts are a bad trend also.. The buyout company will immediately try to find ways to recover the money spent. Many times is looking at personnel as a cost savings.
Anyone not top management that is making earnings over a certain level is a target no matter what importance they are to the company..
A company that once had a great bunch of experienced knowledgeable people is now a bunch of people that answer every question "I don't know", It is really sad.
If that doesn't work out and everything starts to tank because of bad choices like removing people that know how to do their job..
They fire the top guy and replace him with someone that comes in and does basically the same thing again.. "record profits is my motto"

I also feel College is getting to a point of being a scam and have professors keep talking about the outside world but really have no idea what they are talking about having never worked in a real company, only academic.

ValentineGames wrote:
Kids today are broke?...that's a strange way of saying "pampered self centered spoiled uneducated undisciplined little donkey-caves"

Oh wow, how original.

The inequality between generations is just a wider aspect of the gross inequality in all aspects of modern life. Eventually, something will break.

 Techpriestsupport wrote:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

Techpriestsupport wrote:Then why are american workers routineky forced to allow employers access to their Facebook pages or face being fired/not hired and unable to sue over it?

Because you weren't mentioning FB and social media. . . you said RIGHTS.

Ok, how about the right to tell someone what you share with family and fiends is none of their damn business?

That's not a human right. The simple fact of Facebook is that it you have one people, and employers are going to want to look at it. It's part of the reason I deleted mine (something I highly recommend to anyone who may be considering it.)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MrMoustaffa wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I think the point is people simply aren’t investing because they don’t see the point if even after sacrificing they aren’t going to get anything meaningful out of it. Money that in days gone by might have gone in to paying off a mortgage these days might end up going in to travel.

Though I think that’s an overly simplistic generalisation, I’d like to see the actual evidence that kids these days spend a greater portion of their money travelling than kids of days gone by. Flying internationally is a lot cheaper than it used to be, and if you pick your countries right it doesn’t cost a hell of a lot.

As a filthy millennial myself (1991) I notice a major sense of jaded indifference when it comes to things like investment or house buying, even among friends who are mainly upbeat. Other than the odd guy who gets his rocks off to penny stocks or magic cards, there really is this sense of "why bother, it could crash tomorrow and I'd lose everything." And that's if you have the money to invest to begin with, often people would rather just finish off their loans than trying to invest and hope they get lucky

Ive deleted a big chunk of your post just to save some space, but I agree with your premise. It's good to see some of our generation are self aware. I think a lot of the negative elements of millennials is that we've grown up with a lot of emphasis being placed on the value of opinions, without the ability to question their validity. So nowadays all you have to say is 'Well that's my opinion' and that people should accept it. Whereas in reality, although you have every right to hold whatever opinion you wish, other people have the right to say that opinion is wrong. And that's been quashed in favour of promoting this middle ground compromise culture. Which is ironic when you think about how polarised we are with our politics now. We've lost the ability to see others views, consider and debate with civility, and that's sad.

The general opinion among millenials is that being an adult is stressful, overbearing, and ultimately gakky.

As a sidenote, I gave up on aspirations of buying my own property a long time ago. You can't afford it so put the money into something else. Most of my social circle has no plans to buy housing and will instead just wait 20-30 years until they inherit it. No plans to have kids either.

Added bonus: the world climate is going down the drain and the generation that cause it also denies it's existence. Joke is once again on them though; it's the property they own that stands to be devastated.

I think the issue extends beyond just one generation being broke.
I'm a Gen Xer and don't own a house and have been looking for a low paying job for over 5 months. I have a degree, experience, and skills. I haven't had a single call back.

This is more of an issue of how corporatized the world has become and less of a generational issue.

Unless you have parental help, or got lucky, you don't own a house. I'm 46 and everyone my age that I know was only able to purchase a house because their parents helped them.

This is more about the entire world economy and how it's circling the drain. Something has to give or change before it will get better.

 Da Boss wrote:

ValentineGames wrote:
Kids today are broke?...that's a strange way of saying "pampered self centered spoiled uneducated undisciplined little donkey-caves"

Oh wow, how original.

The inequality between generations is just a wider aspect of the gross inequality in all aspects of modern life. Eventually, something will break.

It's almost like the systematic movement of wealth into fewer and fewer hands has consequences...

Or you know, "them kids are just lazy" I guess

--

Which is ironic when you think about how polarised we are with our politics now. We've lost the ability to see others views, consider and debate with civility, and that's sad.

When the debate is between genocide and not-genocide it's hard to take a "see both sides" approach.

 Ghool wrote:
I think the issue extends beyond just one generation being broke.
I'm a Gen Xer and don't own a house and have been looking for a low paying job for over 5 months. I have a degree, experience, and skills. I haven't had a single call back.

This is more of an issue of how corporatized the world has become and less of a generational issue.

Unless you have parental help, or got lucky, you don't own a house. I'm 46 and everyone my age that I know was only able to purchase a house because their parents helped them.

This is more about the entire world economy and how it's circling the drain. Something has to give or change before it will get better.

Valid point. If anything the focusing of wealth to the hands of the rich can be seen as the root of the problem. The only social class that has always been parasitic to the society it is a part of, it should be no surprise that when the parasite gets fatter the rest of the body suffers.