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graham4anything

(11,464 posts)
Mon May 13, 2013, 12:41 PM May 2013

Time magazine=Millennials Are Lazy, Entitled Narcissists Who Still Live With Their Parents

Damn, Joel Stein is 100% correct.
The Me Generation baby boomers gave us the ME ME ME Generation

Millennials: The Me Me Me Generation

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2143001,00.html?pcd=pw-edit


I am about to do what old people have done throughout history: call those younger than me lazy, entitled, selfish and shallow. But I have studies! I have statistics! I have quotes from respected academics! Unlike my parents, my grandparents and my great-grandparents, I have proof.

Here's the cold, hard data: The incidence of narcissistic personality disorder is nearly three times as high for people in their 20s as for the generation that's now 65 or older, according to the National Institutes of Health; 58% more college students scored higher on a narcissism scale in...



Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2143001,00.html#ixzz2TBwot9HC

207 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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Time magazine=Millennials Are Lazy, Entitled Narcissists Who Still Live With Their Parents (Original Post) graham4anything May 2013 OP
Translation: "Get off my lawn, you damn kids!" BlueStater May 2013 #1
Joel Stein is 100% correct. and Mr. Wilson knew best. graham4anything May 2013 #3
Young people voted overwhelmingly for Barack Obama. BlueStater May 2013 #10
Dinosaurs? HappyMe May 2013 #17
graham is the one who called elderly people "dinosaurs". BlueStater May 2013 #20
Dennis the Menace still is in the comics section. N/t alp227 May 2013 #13
and the TV show is on AntennaTV (114 in the NYC area) graham4anything May 2013 #15
Here's what we made for them RobertEarl May 2013 #4
Were there any accomplishments that could be lauded, such as polio vaccine, or a man bike man May 2013 #35
I'm staying out of generational warfare, but boomers had nothing to do with developing either Tom Ripley May 2013 #73
Upon rereading the OP, one can find this tidbit "...The incidence of narcissistic bike man May 2013 #96
I didn't do that... Bay Boy May 2013 #130
No future = no morality.... Junkdrawer May 2013 #146
Trespassing can be a serious matter. Except when it's YOU, right? closeupready May 2013 #12
What do you know? graham actually has ONE supporter in this thread. BlueStater May 2013 #25
The implication of that tired retort is, the rules don't apply when closeupready May 2013 #34
My implication was clear to everyone except for you. BlueStater May 2013 #38
I think you're confusing 'inference' with 'implication'... LanternWaste May 2013 #39
Likely - it is Monday, after all. Anyway, I don't expect closeupready May 2013 #56
"Don't you have about 200 billion 'Hillary 2016' posts to make?" Apophis May 2013 #27
Then there's the seating arrangements for the inaugural ball... JHB May 2013 #85
DLC dems gotta stick together dontcha know?nt SwampG8r May 2013 #147
Garbage marions ghost May 2013 #2
Of course family is important to the ME ME ME, as they still LIVE with the family Me graham4anything May 2013 #7
How long has it been since you actually did a day's work? Marr May 2013 #9
+1 demmiblue May 2013 #42
+1 leftstreet May 2013 #48
WRONG question graham4anything May 2013 #50
You think you're special? Marr May 2013 #66
+1 Joneses generation here, feel so sorry for younger people. LiberalLoner May 2013 #77
+10 for the Generation Jones reference JHB May 2013 #114
Another +1 demmiblue May 2013 #84
+1 L0oniX May 2013 #94
I don't know when you went to college but I do know when I did dsc May 2013 #123
What a surprise. Bonobo May 2013 #161
I like Cher too.(Cher is an oldie but goodie.)Looked up Barakas. Interesting sound graham4anything May 2013 #162
Yeah, 80-20 and Al Sharpton is the only one you listen to. Bonobo May 2013 #163
why not stop being personal and argue the article. 80-20 is the 2013 PEACE symbol. graham4anything May 2013 #165
I agree it's not 50-50. Bonobo May 2013 #166
Before you go all radically and progressively sarcastic on someone, please consider Skidmore May 2013 #177
You think working a minimum wage now Bonobo May 2013 #178
I know that people...young and old... have the same needs for survival. Skidmore May 2013 #179
I have both gray hair and an aching body. Bonobo May 2013 #186
Good for you. Many of us have walked that road but Skidmore May 2013 #193
+1 Thank you for the courage to speak up. graham4anything May 2013 #190
+1 On This JustAnotherGen May 2013 #60
'Gen X'ers are Cynical Assholes' bullet! LondonReign2 May 2013 #88
That's because JustAnotherGen May 2013 #111
Not dodged, it's just implicit in these Millenial vs Boomer catfights. cemaphonic May 2013 #124
Ironic, isn't it? wickerwoman May 2013 #173
+1 000 000 000 kestrel91316 May 2013 #74
+1 Newest Reality May 2013 #78
+1 hammer time L0oniX May 2013 #95
K an R DonCoquixote May 2013 #137
I'd say he's ''working'' right now. I'm starting to Guy Whitey Corngood May 2013 #138
. Junkdrawer May 2013 #143
just one of many nt SwampG8r May 2013 #150
I've had that thought since day one. Apophis May 2013 #170
So wrong marions ghost May 2013 #19
Why are you so determined JNelson6563 May 2013 #187
This kind of crap helps, how? geek tragedy May 2013 #5
This is just another shit stirring thread Rex May 2013 #106
Sometimes I wonder if you're actually *trying* to drive people away. /nt Marr May 2013 #6
This is TIME magazine's cover story. May 20, 2013. sheesh. graham4anything May 2013 #8
The mailman? Didn't you order the subscription? Bluenorthwest May 2013 #52
I bet if one of those whiny alt-media worked for time, others would have posted it graham4anything May 2013 #61
Whiny Alt-Media HangOnKids May 2013 #80
President Obama speaks for the liberal democratic party & so does his first SOS graham4anything May 2013 #102
The act is getting old, nice to see people catching on. Rex May 2013 #107
You are hilarious. Bluenorthwest May 2013 #93
There are a number of possibilities JHB May 2013 #197
You throw around the term "alt-media" burnodo May 2013 #132
there is NO media that supports President Obama. Therefore there is a faux analogy graham4anything May 2013 #135
"alt-media" because you don't like what they have to say burnodo May 2013 #136
The Alt-media is all playing their angle, oh so predictable Ron Paul style. graham4anything May 2013 #139
you have left out SwampG8r May 2013 #154
I'm a young guy in my 20s, y'know in the post-print generation. alp227 May 2013 #98
He's trying to make DU look bad, IMHO. The haters come here to spread their hate and kestrel91316 May 2013 #75
It's all an act to make liberals look like morons Guy Whitey Corngood May 2013 #148
I agree with this. closeupready May 2013 #11
Every generation has it's lazy, self-involved asshats. HappyMe May 2013 #14
The Greatest Generation can claim Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon. BlueStater May 2013 #41
Of course not. HappyMe May 2013 #53
There's selfish people in every generation. BlueStater May 2013 #67
If you don't stand for something, you're graham4anything. HughBeaumont May 2013 #16
Hell, 'the greatest generation' and others said the same thing about boomers, for that matter Cirque du So-What May 2013 #18
Thank you marions ghost May 2013 #22
I hope NObody from ANY generation buys into it Cirque du So-What May 2013 #72
Exactly marions ghost May 2013 #109
I love that quote. sibelian May 2013 #191
You don't like Bob Graham? Why? President Obama is OLD School in a New body. graham4anything May 2013 #23
I'm a Floridian. Bob Graham was my senator at one point. BlueStater May 2013 #29
TIME MAGAZINE cover story, this weeks issue. I didn't write it. graham4anything May 2013 #51
You're agreeing with it, aren't you? I can attribute its words to your own viewpoint. BlueStater May 2013 #65
i have actually met gov graham SwampG8r May 2013 #158
Does anyone have a GPS to the point? HughBeaumont May 2013 #40
Galloping tangent alert LondonReign2 May 2013 #91
Haha, any attacks on Millennials by Boomers is ridiculous. Hosnon May 2013 #21
What utter bulshit. marions ghost May 2013 #24
Not at all. See the rebuttal article posted upthread. Hosnon May 2013 #26
I think that's bullshit too. HappyMe May 2013 #37
Boomers also liberalized the culture and stopped the war in Vietnam flamingdem May 2013 #81
vietnam (with soviet help) stopped the war in vietnam BOG PERSON May 2013 #145
Top of the google list shows you're not right flamingdem May 2013 #168
The boomers were the last generation to have it better off than their parents tabbycat31 May 2013 #90
boomers' parents were handed an incredible society/economy BOG PERSON May 2013 #131
Yep, the "greatest generation" took damn good care of themselves. bemildred May 2013 #195
Horseshit. They cannot even agree on what "narcissistic personality disorder" is. bemildred May 2013 #28
When a person spends all day long with an iPod or cell phone glued to their ear BlueStreak May 2013 #43
Right, young people can be immature, and old people can be grumpy. Big deal. bemildred May 2013 #47
Have you been in a position of trying to hire any of these people? BlueStreak May 2013 #59
What business is it of yours? nt bemildred May 2013 #64
I don't believe it is the usual generational immaturity. BlueStreak May 2013 #116
OK, thank you for an intelligent argument. bemildred May 2013 #127
OK, let's see if we can find some common ground here. bemildred May 2013 #194
I think that's part of it for sure BlueStreak May 2013 #196
Copacetic. bemildred May 2013 #198
Turtle on the fencepost BlueStreak May 2013 #200
I think they gave us a chance to vote on it, and we did. bemildred May 2013 #201
I hear you, but I don't think they are stereotypes. The division is real. BlueStreak May 2013 #202
Well, I get stuck on that, let me think about it. nt bemildred May 2013 #203
Takes an awfully simplistic mind to come up with stuff and an even more simplistic mind to agree... LanternWaste May 2013 #30
I'm right on the cusp of Boomer/GenX RevStPatrick May 2013 #31
Exactly. Thanks for posting this. bayareamike May 2013 #70
Millenials should wait to "save the world" flamingdem May 2013 #83
some courageous millenial must go + start this century's world war cycle BOG PERSON May 2013 #133
good point however flamingdem May 2013 #142
Mostly true snooper2 May 2013 #32
Sending emails at 2AM is not necessarily "working" BlueStreak May 2013 #57
Previous generations did not have to send emails at 2am tabbycat31 May 2013 #100
I actually agree with every word of that. I am talking effect and you are talking cause. BlueStreak May 2013 #119
When I'm on call, sending and receiving phone calls is part of the job description-- hence, it is in LanternWaste May 2013 #113
Odd... I thought only idiots reached a conclusion based on anecdotal and incomplete information. LanternWaste May 2013 #112
Oh look, another "Young people are shit with their Snapples and their skateboards Arkana May 2013 #33
This message was self-deleted by its author Dash87 May 2013 #36
We can't get high paying jobs and the ones we can get don't pay enough that we can afford rent. Initech May 2013 #44
I shared an apt with 4 others. If you don't get along with others then I guess you are on your own.. L0oniX May 2013 #97
Here in Southern California rent averages $1400/month. Initech May 2013 #115
I like the younger generations. Arugula Latte May 2013 #45
Any discussion involving generations is corporate BS, designed to snagglepuss May 2013 #46
You should make this an OP leftstreet May 2013 #49
Yes, it's a cliche, babble. bemildred May 2013 #55
Divide & Conquer Corporatists, Inc. Berlum May 2013 #58
Yes, but I hear negative talk about Boomers by Millenials anyway flamingdem May 2013 #82
It's often BS, but "corporate BS"? Silent3 May 2013 #63
Of course it's corporist. Who but the corporate media create and perpetuate these memes? snagglepuss May 2013 #76
You mean like the corporate media in ancient Rome... Silent3 May 2013 #101
That it was pushed by one interest once upon a time doesn't deny that it is being pushed by another, LanternWaste May 2013 #122
One should also be aware... Silent3 May 2013 #169
yeah, all the generational BS is awful tired n/t fishwax May 2013 #156
Damn It Feels Good To Be JustAnotherGen May 2013 #54
Millenials are lazy? bayareamike May 2013 #62
You're not starting inter-generational warfare. That was done in the OP DisgustipatedinCA May 2013 #68
.... HappyMe May 2013 #69
I'm not sure what this means. bayareamike May 2013 #71
Give me a break. ForgoTheConsequence May 2013 #79
Well said. You said it better than I could've. nt bayareamike May 2013 #108
. JHB May 2013 #86
Social capital is in decline. Is it the millenials fault? Doesn't really matter. lumberjack_jeff May 2013 #87
the generation was also raised to fear strangers tabbycat31 May 2013 #128
The OP and the link both amount to a steaming pantload. Quantess May 2013 #89
Yep +++++ marions ghost May 2013 #110
+++ Starry Messenger May 2013 #118
They've grown up knowing nothing but war MannyGoldstein May 2013 #92
Isn't narcissism part of being young? nt valerief May 2013 #99
103 posts on. BlueStater May 2013 #103
It is funny watching him pretend. Rex May 2013 #104
I hate generation gap type wars. Hate them! lunatica May 2013 #105
Lazy whippersnappers .99center May 2013 #117
And who was it that RAISED THEM to be lazy? Megalo_Man May 2013 #120
I think this article is crap. GaYellowDawg May 2013 #121
Says the generatiok of folks who want the party to roll on until they get theirs... Earth_First May 2013 #125
Given that the millennials were the ones with boots on the ground in Iraq muntrv May 2013 #126
This! They were some of them, maybe most!-NT Anansi1171 May 2013 #134
These kind of articles never refer to the working class nt flamingdem May 2013 #141
that is what they said about my generation back in the 60"s except people didn't use such big words Douglas Carpenter May 2013 #129
What? past generations were alot more cultured than the kids today graham4anything May 2013 #144
"I walked 15 miles to school in the snow with no shoes!" BlueStater May 2013 #149
Same people that hated Abe Lincoln seem to hate Barack Obama. graham4anything May 2013 #151
I have no idea how old you are. BlueStater May 2013 #153
Abraham Lincoln is still alive and living inside Barack Obama angle. graham4anything May 2013 #159
the dream has come to life BOG PERSON May 2013 #164
change headline to cprompt May 2013 #140
i'm a gen-xer who works 10 jobs BOG PERSON May 2013 #152
EVERY generation has its "me" moments SoCalDem May 2013 #155
nonsense (like most generation-based analysis) n/t fishwax May 2013 #157
How did I know this was you? curlyred May 2013 #160
I'm 19. I voted for Obama in the CA Primary and General Elections last year. DEMTough May 2013 #167
A gen X response DonCoquixote May 2013 #171
Message auto-removed Name removed May 2013 #199
Needing attention again, eh graham4cash? Fumesucker May 2013 #172
I still don't know why you're allowed to post on this site Cali_Democrat May 2013 #174
Has it occurred to you that the reason OwnedByCats May 2013 #175
Last time Time Magazine sold out an entire generation... rucky May 2013 #176
I don't buy what Time is selling either fasttense May 2013 #180
Nah, I disagree.Think about past-Now,every minority and every young woman can be President. graham4anything May 2013 #183
Blame the parents and the media malaise May 2013 #181
Two can play the generational warfare game. Demo_Chris May 2013 #182
you make a good point graham4anything May 2013 #184
wow DonCoquixote May 2013 #185
May I humbly add to that? DonCoquixote May 2013 #189
Well said. nt Demo_Chris May 2013 #205
I hate to say this, but damn, Graham, I am really disappointed in you today. AverageJoe90 May 2013 #188
Maybe I should have said he is 100% correct in CERTAIN cases lol graham4anything May 2013 #192
100%... in certain cases... SomethingFishy May 2013 #207
This sort of generational warfare is just one more form of 'divide and rule' LeftishBrit May 2013 #204
-1 demmiblue May 2013 #206

BlueStater

(7,596 posts)
1. Translation: "Get off my lawn, you damn kids!"
Mon May 13, 2013, 12:52 PM
May 2013

Don't you have about 200 billion more "Hillary 2016" posts to make?

 

graham4anything

(11,464 posts)
3. Joel Stein is 100% correct. and Mr. Wilson knew best.
Mon May 13, 2013, 01:01 PM
May 2013

(of course, only us old dinosaurs would know who the jovial Mr. Wilson was.)

BlueStater

(7,596 posts)
10. Young people voted overwhelmingly for Barack Obama.
Mon May 13, 2013, 01:13 PM
May 2013

Your beloved "dinosaurs" were ready to hand the country over to Mitt Zombie. Please, spare us all your bullshit.

HappyMe

(20,277 posts)
17. Dinosaurs?
Mon May 13, 2013, 01:29 PM
May 2013
That's right. Dinosaurs with basements and money.


This is not freeperville, so I doubt that anyone here was voting for Rmoney.

BlueStater

(7,596 posts)
20. graham is the one who called elderly people "dinosaurs".
Mon May 13, 2013, 01:31 PM
May 2013

Hence, why it was in quotations.

 

RobertEarl

(13,685 posts)
4. Here's what we made for them
Mon May 13, 2013, 01:01 PM
May 2013

It took a lot of work and a lot of money and they don't appreciate what we did.

We've driven co2 to over 400!

We have rid the oceans of many fish, corals and other creatures.
Burned down a lot of the Amazon and pumped dry many oil wells.
Made it so that at the push of a button life, as we know it, can end!
Free Nuclear radiation is now available everywhere at increasing doses.

And the kids are pissed?

 

bike man

(620 posts)
35. Were there any accomplishments that could be lauded, such as polio vaccine, or a man
Mon May 13, 2013, 01:47 PM
May 2013

on the moon?

 

Tom Ripley

(4,945 posts)
73. I'm staying out of generational warfare, but boomers had nothing to do with developing either
Mon May 13, 2013, 02:23 PM
May 2013
 

bike man

(620 posts)
96. Upon rereading the OP, one can find this tidbit "...The incidence of narcissistic
Mon May 13, 2013, 03:17 PM
May 2013

personality disorder is nearly three times as high for people in their 20s as for the generation that's now 65 or older, according to the National Institutes of Health..."

Notice "...as for the generation that's now 65 or older..." I believe the polio and moon thing people are in that group.

Bay Boy

(1,689 posts)
130. I didn't do that...
Mon May 13, 2013, 08:22 PM
May 2013

...my parents did. So to sum this up, people older than me fucked up stuff and people younger than me are lazy and selfish.
Me, I'm the responsible one.

Junkdrawer

(27,993 posts)
146. No future = no morality....
Mon May 13, 2013, 10:12 PM
May 2013

I posted an odd thread the other day, but that is what it boils down to.

 

closeupready

(29,503 posts)
12. Trespassing can be a serious matter. Except when it's YOU, right?
Mon May 13, 2013, 01:17 PM
May 2013

Kids think rules do not apply to them. Why, I don't know, but yes, the rules DO very much apply to them.

BlueStater

(7,596 posts)
25. What do you know? graham actually has ONE supporter in this thread.
Mon May 13, 2013, 01:36 PM
May 2013

I was obviously kidding with my first post. No one here except for you takes it as an endorsement of trespassing.

 

closeupready

(29,503 posts)
34. The implication of that tired retort is, the rules don't apply when
Mon May 13, 2013, 01:45 PM
May 2013

I say they don't (i.e., if you are talking about me). Whether it's trespassing, defacing public property with graffiti, loud parties, whatever.

BlueStater

(7,596 posts)
38. My implication was clear to everyone except for you.
Mon May 13, 2013, 01:51 PM
May 2013

It was a sarcastic response to graham's bitter tirade against young people.

 

LanternWaste

(37,748 posts)
39. I think you're confusing 'inference' with 'implication'...
Mon May 13, 2013, 01:51 PM
May 2013

I think you're confusing 'inference' with 'implication'...

 

closeupready

(29,503 posts)
56. Likely - it is Monday, after all. Anyway, I don't expect
Mon May 13, 2013, 02:05 PM
May 2013

anyone here to share my views, or to admit it, but that is how I feel.

Cheers.

JHB

(38,220 posts)
85. Then there's the seating arrangements for the inaugural ball...
Mon May 13, 2013, 02:57 PM
May 2013

...for Hillary 2016
...for Hillary 2020
...for Michelle Obama 2024
...and for Michelle Obama 2028.

Then on to Chelsea Clinton, no doubt.

marions ghost

(19,841 posts)
2. Garbage
Mon May 13, 2013, 01:00 PM
May 2013

The "ME" generation was garbage and the "ME ME ME" generation is also reactionary rhetoric.

---------------------
Here's Ezra Klein on the subject:


"Joel Stein is wrong about millennials, in one chart"

By Ezra Klein, Published: May 9, 2013 at 3:49

The me, me, me generation? Really?

To a large extent, the things that Millennials value in life mirror the things older generations value. Family matters most, and fame and fortune are much less important. When asked to rate how important a series of life goals are to them personally, being a good parent ranked at the top for all four generations. Overall, 50% of the public says this is one of the most important things in their lives. An additional 44% say this is very important but not the most important thing for them personally. Only 5% say this is only somewhat important or not important at all. Although only about a third of Millennials (34%) have children, they are just as likely as their older counterparts to place high value on good parenting. About half (52%) say being a good parent is one of the most important things to them. This compares with 50% of those ages 30 and older.

Seems pretty selfish.

To be fair, Joel Stein’s article is more nuanced than Time’s cover suggests. But Elspeth Reeve’s rebuttal is pretty devastating. And while I’m hardly an unbiased observer, Annie Lowrey’s piece on the economic trends buffeting millennials should really be the starting point for discussions about why millennials are the way they are, and what it means.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/05/09/joel-stein-is-wrong-about-millennials-in-one-chart/

 

graham4anything

(11,464 posts)
7. Of course family is important to the ME ME ME, as they still LIVE with the family Me
Mon May 13, 2013, 01:07 PM
May 2013

and of course fame and fortune don't matter

because who needs money when their old folks will pay for everything (what, throw them out in the streets?)

badabing


and besides, one day the old folks will kick the bucket, and they will inherit the world

(of course, the old folks won't have anything because they spent it all on the
ME ME ME generation who didn't do what every other generation before them did

But it only takes an old folk to see what these young whippersnappers have created



BTW, I wish Stein or Klein asked one more question-
who whines the most?
and why didn't any generation before whine at all when they had things 1000x worse.
(I mean, they didn't even have air conditioning unless they kept their ice box open and their toes inside).

 

Marr

(20,317 posts)
9. How long has it been since you actually did a day's work?
Mon May 13, 2013, 01:13 PM
May 2013

I'm curious, because, as a 40 year old man myself, I look at the job market today and I feel bad for Millennials. They're getting screwed backwards and forwards in ways I didn't have to deal with when I got into the workforce 20 years ago.

I see kids who work their asses off, and have fewer avenues open to them than I had. But you go ahead and sit there making laughing emoticons at them. You got yours, right?

 

graham4anything

(11,464 posts)
50. WRONG question
Mon May 13, 2013, 02:01 PM
May 2013

I paid for MY schooling with a student loan I REPAID
I worked since I was 13 (during the summer) and after school since I was 15.

Back then, worked while going to school at a very low paying job deliving in NYC.
minimum wage

got a really cheap apartment in Brooklyn after marriage because it was cheaper than
Queens or Manhattan, cheapest one we could find

bought a house in NJ, cheapest one in the area we wished to specifically live in

worked hard built the house up as the years went on

don't care if the market value rose high in the 90s, because never wanted to sell or move
as a house was a home not a portfolio piece.

work self employed now
don't whine that my insurance as selfemployed is 10-15 times as high as a person working for a company that pays for the same insurance with same benefits or better.

Neither of us EVER lived with a parent after moving out.
Though probably will live with an elderly parent moving IN with us, when/if that time came they could no longer live and IF they asked.


and, by the way, all the time, I see kids firing those 45 and up to hire under 29 and then hire younger and younger.
That never happened in the past.

Used to be, one worked their way up, and didn't demand to be CEO from day one.
imho.

 

Marr

(20,317 posts)
66. You think you're special?
Mon May 13, 2013, 02:16 PM
May 2013

I was working at 13 myself-- so what.

I asked you how long it's been since you did a day's work, since you're lounging around on your ass late on a Monday morning calling other people lazy losers.

You say you're "self employed". I say that's bull, and I bet you haven't done jack shit in years. If you had-- and I mean actually interacting with people in a working environment, not pulling your pud and calling it "self employment"-- then you'd know that people today are working every bit as hard as you ever did, if not more so, and getting a hell of a lot less in exchange.

These kids don't think they'll *ever* own a home. It's not even on their radar as a possibility. So really, don't sit there and talk about how wisely you handled your home and your money. You have no idea.

dsc

(53,398 posts)
123. I don't know when you went to college but I do know when I did
Mon May 13, 2013, 07:45 PM
May 2013

I went from 1986 to 1990. When I went to that school my nominal tuition, r and b, fees, etc. was under $20,000 a year. I just checked the website, the current tuition, r and b, fees, etc (nominal) is $47,352. Even using the 20k figure and 1986 that is over 6,000 higher and I know for a fact I paid less than 20k even nominally ( I think it was 15k nominal). That would be just over 30k. In addition both the loans for college have gotten more expensive relative to other loans and financial aid has become more scarce. If you went in say the 1970's and to say a state school, then lets take a look. I will use Penn State since it has likely at least tried to keep costs down. Penn State now is 15,562 for the first two years, and 17,824 for the last two years. In 1975 the tuition for a year was 1095. No that isn't a misprint. That is a mere 4,609 in 2012 money. That might explain why you had an easier time paying your loans back than these kids are. Adjusted for inflation, the median income has barely moved since 1975 and is only slightly higher than 1986 but the cost of college, even accounting for inflation, has risen by a factor of about 1.5 to 3 depending on the school. Add in the cuts in financial aid and the increase in student loan cost and frankly the millenials got screwed.

Bonobo

(29,257 posts)
161. What a surprise.
Mon May 13, 2013, 10:48 PM
May 2013

The old "I pulled myself up by my bootstraps" thing.

I NEVER would have predicted that.

Bonobo

(29,257 posts)
163. Yeah, 80-20 and Al Sharpton is the only one you listen to.
Mon May 13, 2013, 10:56 PM
May 2013

Your song has begun to bore me.

Bonobo

(29,257 posts)
166. I agree it's not 50-50.
Mon May 13, 2013, 11:00 PM
May 2013

But the true division should be 90-10. Have's vs. have-nots.

And the truth is that the we have no one representing the 90%.

Skidmore

(37,364 posts)
177. Before you go all radically and progressively sarcastic on someone, please consider
Tue May 14, 2013, 06:56 AM
May 2013

that there are many stories like this in this country. My story is somewhat similar when it comes to how I handled finances and arrived at home ownership. There are different economic dynamics now and the rules have been changing. However, mocking someone who has done the best they can to be responsible in their personal affairs is not progressive at all. Sometimes bootstraps aren't on those style of boots sold by Teabaggers. Sometimes those boots are just plain old workboots. Please stifle your urge to sneer and consider that many in this nation actually earned what they have. It was not handed to them.

Bonobo

(29,257 posts)
178. You think working a minimum wage now
Tue May 14, 2013, 07:04 AM
May 2013

is going to lead to home ownership?? Don't make me laugh.

Things are not as they are and younger people would die for an opportunity to rise up through hard work.

You just don't sound like you know what the reality is like now vs. the world you grew up in.

Skidmore

(37,364 posts)
179. I know that people...young and old... have the same needs for survival.
Tue May 14, 2013, 07:14 AM
May 2013

Last edited Tue May 14, 2013, 10:04 AM - Edit history (1)

Do you seriously think that older people don't have bills? Once you are past whatever age you consider old, do we stop needing food, shelter, clothing, etc.? Do you think these needs are free? Do you think that people are just retiring to lives of leisure? Many are working well beyond retirement at jobs just as crappy. That is reality too. I can't tell you how many people I know who have been forced into retirement to make room for younger people who don't make the same demands on the system and won't organize to ask them. A few lucky ones might be able to get together a freelancing career or work as consultants, but many are taking jobs that pay nowhere near what they earned before or fully utilize the training and years of experience. You see, we all inhabit the same plain. All the angst you experience now will be with you when you have gray hair and the aches and pains of an aging body.

Bonobo

(29,257 posts)
186. I have both gray hair and an aching body.
Tue May 14, 2013, 08:07 AM
May 2013

But I was able to purchase a home and raise a family.

Skidmore

(37,364 posts)
193. Good for you. Many of us have walked that road but
Tue May 14, 2013, 09:54 AM
May 2013

telling our children and grandchildren that they cannot rise is not doing them a bit of good. I grew up dirt poor. We never owned a home. We didn't live in a house with indoor plumbing until I was 16. My mother rented until I was in my 30s and when everyone was grown and out of the house she had a little extra money to purchase a rattle-assed old mobile home. She was proud that she owned something. (Crap, I'm crying now). We never had an automobile and live a mile outside of town. How many school dances and social events do you think we attended as youngsters?

I graduated high school at age 17 and the day after graduation, I put on my one good dress and walked 7 miles, crossing the bridge on the Mississippi, and spent the day going up and down Main Street in Keokuk, IA, putting in applications for jobs that I had no idea how I would get to should I get one. Came home with blisters on my feet and ran to get to the phone first for weeks after that. Job offer came three days before I headed off to college on a scholarship I had received for the first year.

I bought my first car when I was 30--a freaking Pontiac Phoenix piece of crap junk heap. It got me to work to support my kids since I couldn't rely on their father (a man who kept his money off-shore at the time). Point is my siblings and I rose, not because we were looking to our parents but because we needed to tap something within ourselves and understand that there are limits to what we can ask of others, who also have responsibilities. We rose and without networks and doodads.

It wasn't any easier then to work your way up from nothing then than it is now. Cost of living was less but incomes were a lot less too. My first apartment was $125/mo, but I was only making $425/mo to meet all expenses including the needs of a baby. Didn't have health insurance because I couldn't afford it and the place I worked did not provide it. I took all the overtime I could get and squirreled that money away, tried to qualify for grants or scholarships at the time while working long hours and on little sleep. Did that sort of thing all the way through grad school with time out for some difficult living abroad with spouse who felt minimal responsibility. You don't give up and you teach by that example.

Yes, to me there is a whine right now of Me, Me, Me, and where I hear it is in the insistence that somehow the road of life was a guaranteed smooth ride for everyone, free of bumps and potholes. Rising wasn't any easier during my parents' generation, all of them having grown up in the deprivation of the Depression and world wars. What is missing now is the sense of WE, which I think the President has very much tried to tap. WE fell apart after the elections because lots of WE went home and started being Me again.

I have a bunch of other stuff I could say on the sellouts on both sides. Greedy right wing corporate types and those on the left who struck the deal with the devil and it didn't just start in 2008. That's when it was inherited. Check back to the Clinton years. I will never forgive that man for NAFTA and I have little fondness for Robert Reich, who used to daily peddle the claptrap that sending manufacturing jobs abroad would make everyone here a white collar worker. WE have need of all sorts of talents. WE need to rise.

JustAnotherGen

(38,056 posts)
60. +1 On This
Mon May 13, 2013, 02:06 PM
May 2013

40 Year old Gen X'er and I feel the same way for them.

But in the meantime - we dodged another 'Gen X'ers are Cynical Assholes' bullet!

JustAnotherGen

(38,056 posts)
111. That's because
Mon May 13, 2013, 03:58 PM
May 2013

Dude - dude - you are so money.


Should I tiptoe away while singing "Damn It Feel Good to Be A Gangsta" or should I whistle "I touch myself" by the Divinyls?

cemaphonic

(4,138 posts)
124. Not dodged, it's just implicit in these Millenial vs Boomer catfights.
Mon May 13, 2013, 07:56 PM
May 2013

Gen X? Haha, screw those losers!

But I feel like the Millennials are being unfairly stereotyped largely on the crappy economy they've graduated into. The first cohort of Gen X that graduated during the slow economy of the late 80s and early 90s were categorized as ambitionless dependent slackers too. Yet by the late 90s and its strong economy, we were being cast as mercenary workaholic yuppies.

The Millenials I know have a ton of energy, creativity, and passion. What they lack is economic opportunity.

DonCoquixote

(13,963 posts)
137. K an R
Mon May 13, 2013, 09:20 PM
May 2013

I look forward to the day when Ops can be K and Red. BTW, these are the same people that kept hollering "hillary would done it better!" and will use Hillary to say "see, we should have been running the world all along!"

JNelson6563

(28,151 posts)
187. Why are you so determined
Tue May 14, 2013, 08:26 AM
May 2013

to divide? The article you posted is a load of pap and your replies are so offensive.

Why do you serve the 1% with your divisive tactics?

Julie

 

geek tragedy

(68,868 posts)
5. This kind of crap helps, how?
Mon May 13, 2013, 01:04 PM
May 2013

Values change generation to generation, some ways good some ways bad.

 

graham4anything

(11,464 posts)
8. This is TIME magazine's cover story. May 20, 2013. sheesh.
Mon May 13, 2013, 01:09 PM
May 2013

anyone could have posted this.
I am reading my hard copy and found a link and posted.

Blame the mailman. He delivered it this morning.

 

Bluenorthwest

(45,319 posts)
52. The mailman? Didn't you order the subscription?
Mon May 13, 2013, 02:03 PM
May 2013

The mailman forces you to read Time and post about on DU?

 

graham4anything

(11,464 posts)
61. I bet if one of those whiny alt-media worked for time, others would have posted it
Mon May 13, 2013, 02:07 PM
May 2013

because those writers would give their left foot to write for Time.
Not a single one would refuse.
They are, after all, ALL in it for the money and/or the FAME, what's their name?
They want to have their name live forever.

 

graham4anything

(11,464 posts)
102. President Obama speaks for the liberal democratic party & so does his first SOS
Mon May 13, 2013, 03:36 PM
May 2013

the alt-media speaks for Ron Paul, libertarian, republican,John Birch Society.

The PEOPLE voted twice, and they still by 90% plus are in support of Barack Obama and his agenda.

 

Rex

(65,616 posts)
107. The act is getting old, nice to see people catching on.
Mon May 13, 2013, 03:44 PM
May 2013

Ya real interesting what he decides to like and dislike.

 

Bluenorthwest

(45,319 posts)
93. You are hilarious.
Mon May 13, 2013, 03:14 PM
May 2013

Name calling and evasion, again and again. What do/did you do for a living?

 

burnodo

(2,017 posts)
132. You throw around the term "alt-media"
Mon May 13, 2013, 09:01 PM
May 2013

like wingnuts throw around "liberal media"

If yer not with us, yer agin us??

 

graham4anything

(11,464 posts)
135. there is NO media that supports President Obama. Therefore there is a faux analogy
Mon May 13, 2013, 09:14 PM
May 2013

alt-media like the minor leagues in Baseball

just waiting for the coach to give a call and bring them to the big time

btw, Time was a present that keeps on giving for a decade now. Never did I myself pay for it.

 

burnodo

(2,017 posts)
136. "alt-media" because you don't like what they have to say
Mon May 13, 2013, 09:18 PM
May 2013

I thought the media's job, in fact, was not supposed to be a group of cheerleaders.

 

graham4anything

(11,464 posts)
139. The Alt-media is all playing their angle, oh so predictable Ron Paul style.
Mon May 13, 2013, 09:30 PM
May 2013

They ALL are Ron Paul groupies and a look into almost all of them shows libertarian tea party type wants.They MAKE the news, not report it.
There is nothing different between the NY Post and AltMedia all clinging to the 50-50 mantra the public itself is so tired and bored of when the nation is actually 80-20, not 50-50.

Their angle shines brightly like a green light on the other side of the lake in Gatsby.

but this is off topic, so end of discussion here. You can start a new thread on it and I can answer more there.

SwampG8r

(10,287 posts)
154. you have left out
Mon May 13, 2013, 10:23 PM
May 2013

your mindless dribbling about nader and kucinich
i think you are missing your usual talking points

alp227

(33,285 posts)
98. I'm a young guy in my 20s, y'know in the post-print generation.
Mon May 13, 2013, 03:21 PM
May 2013

To me it seems Time is running this cover story just to sell magazines to the "get off my lawn" crowd. I seldom read print periodicals anymore but still like printed books.

 

kestrel91316

(51,666 posts)
75. He's trying to make DU look bad, IMHO. The haters come here to spread their hate and
Mon May 13, 2013, 02:31 PM
May 2013

make it look like we're all that way.

 

Guy Whitey Corngood

(26,848 posts)
148. It's all an act to make liberals look like morons
Mon May 13, 2013, 10:15 PM
May 2013

by portraying a cartoonish version of a liberal.

BlueStater

(7,596 posts)
41. The Greatest Generation can claim Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon.
Mon May 13, 2013, 01:53 PM
May 2013

Baby Boomers can claim George W. Bush and Mitt Romney. Younger people can claim Paul Ryan and Ted Cruz.

Should a few bad apples be held against an entire demographic? Hell no.

HappyMe

(20,277 posts)
53. Of course not.
Mon May 13, 2013, 02:03 PM
May 2013

My sons are in the millennial age group. They themselves are often disgusted with other people their age.
My son had to fire a couple of the kids he went to high school with. My husband's daughter is the most spoiled, lazy, self-involved girl. It isn't all that girl's fault, it's her mom. But this one isn't ever going to learn, it seems.

Not all are like that.

I get a bit peeved when they start quacking away about how easy boomers had it. Nobody handed me anything on a damn silver platter, sorry I don't have a silver platter for you.

BlueStater

(7,596 posts)
67. There's selfish people in every generation.
Mon May 13, 2013, 02:16 PM
May 2013

Some elderly people are EXTREMELY selfish. It's not a trait that's exclusive to young people.

HughBeaumont

(24,461 posts)
16. If you don't stand for something, you're graham4anything.
Mon May 13, 2013, 01:24 PM
May 2013

They said the same shit about Gen X. It was wrong then and it's wrong now.

Cirque du So-What

(29,738 posts)
18. Hell, 'the greatest generation' and others said the same thing about boomers, for that matter
Mon May 13, 2013, 01:30 PM
May 2013

In fact, Plato had a few words about the whippersnappers of his day:

Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.


Sound familiar?

marions ghost

(19,841 posts)
22. Thank you
Mon May 13, 2013, 01:34 PM
May 2013

for putting it in perspective.

Rhetoric that seeks to divide generations is used against us. The evils we face can only be defeated by all generations working together. They know that. Hence the divisive rhetoric.

DON'T buy it, Millennials. We've seen THIS crap before.

Cirque du So-What

(29,738 posts)
72. I hope NObody from ANY generation buys into it
Mon May 13, 2013, 02:21 PM
May 2013

If it's not regional divisiveness, it's generational divisiveness, working class vs middle class, union vs non-union, blue dog vs yellow dog, 2nd Amendment purists vs gun-control adovcates, etc. - anything to keep us squabbling among ourselves instead of focusing on the true 'other,' who would enslave and impoverish all of us if we gave them the power to do so.

 

graham4anything

(11,464 posts)
23. You don't like Bob Graham? Why? President Obama is OLD School in a New body.
Mon May 13, 2013, 01:34 PM
May 2013

President Obama is President Obama.
He did NOT build himself.

He is 2013 to what LBJ was in 1965. What Martin Luther King Jr. was
What Jackie Robinson was.

The mistake people make about President Obama is that he was about him and washing away the past.

NO.

He is about moving forward with the best from the past
King-LBJ-Jimmy Carter-Bill Clinton-Hillary Clinton-Ted Kennedy

He didn't win because he was younger.

John McCain is younger than Jimmy Carter.
Mitt Romney is younger than Ted Kennedy
Both were younger than Dr. King or LBJ or any other hero in the past.

Barack Obama won because moving forward meant taking the best of the past and moving it all forward, village style(the same village Hillary said when she said "It takes a village".

Lincoln-FDR-LBJ-Carter-Clinton-Obama-Clinton
It is all a 125 step ahead process

NOT tearing down the old, but building it up forward.

With NO EGO, NO hatred, NO step in the mud.

Hard work and sweat NO whine.

President Obama did NOT stay at home, he went out into the neighborhoods and DID.


but go ahead, call me names, but my name is proudly based on Bob Graham.
My avitar is proudly based on the legendary Lyndon Baines Johnson, who before Barack Obama was the damn best President of the last 65 years.

BlueStater

(7,596 posts)
29. I'm a Floridian. Bob Graham was my senator at one point.
Mon May 13, 2013, 01:40 PM
May 2013

I can't imagine him making a whiny, bitter post like yours.

 

graham4anything

(11,464 posts)
51. TIME MAGAZINE cover story, this weeks issue. I didn't write it.
Mon May 13, 2013, 02:03 PM
May 2013

and Bob should have been VP in 2004 instead of that young fraud whippersnapper with the $400
haircut.

BlueStater

(7,596 posts)
65. You're agreeing with it, aren't you? I can attribute its words to your own viewpoint.
Mon May 13, 2013, 02:11 PM
May 2013

And what the hell does John Edwards even have to do with your thread?

SwampG8r

(10,287 posts)
158. i have actually met gov graham
Mon May 13, 2013, 10:32 PM
May 2013

i lived in tallahassee for a long time and mr graham would often be in the front yard off the governors mansion and several times we met and spoke there
when he finally was done as a senator he stayed in the hotel i worked in and i cooked his dinner several times
bob graham is a true gentleman and would never associate himself with someone who would indulge themselves in this kind of verbal diarrhea
bob graham is the type of person who believes if its bullshit when a republican does it that its bullshittier when a democrat does it
love you governor you were the best thing florida has ever produced

HughBeaumont

(24,461 posts)
40. Does anyone have a GPS to the point?
Mon May 13, 2013, 01:51 PM
May 2013

Yeah, he went out and did. Unfortunately, between candidate Obama and President Obama, that value got lost. Maybe corporate interests got to him or threatened him, as they pretty much have been doing to all presidents/candidates since 1963, but what happened to the "comfortable shoes"? Why is he more into the CEO larcenists?

Sorry, but President Obama's love for Chi-School economics is about as useful to this country and it's future generations of movers and shakers as a dirt sandwich. America needs less neoliberalism and more economic fairness. We cannot move forward if the plan is to have people like me, the millenials, the Busters and the Boomers work into their seventies because we'll never afford retirement. I thank the Millenials for being the first generation to mostly reject the Cold War red-baiting rhetoric my Generation and those before it unfortunately fell for. If we can get past the Frank Luntz labeling, only then can we move forward.

Hosnon

(7,800 posts)
21. Haha, any attacks on Millennials by Boomers is ridiculous.
Mon May 13, 2013, 01:32 PM
May 2013

Boomers were handed an incredible society/economy by their parents and then proceeded to suck every drop of life out of it. And now that the society/economy they are handing to their children is but a mere shell, they have the gall to attack them.

The Boomers are one of the most self-absorbed generations ever to have existed. Any criticism from them should be taken with an entire mine of salt. Given the difference in opportunity that Millennials received from the Boomers and that Boomers received from the Greatest Generation, Millennials are doing pretty damn well.

Hosnon

(7,800 posts)
26. Not at all. See the rebuttal article posted upthread.
Mon May 13, 2013, 01:37 PM
May 2013

Stronger unions, less debt, affordable education... the Boomers circumstances were much more favorable. And they did not preserve them for their children.

flamingdem

(40,899 posts)
81. Boomers also liberalized the culture and stopped the war in Vietnam
Mon May 13, 2013, 02:49 PM
May 2013

Millenials didn't do so well with social change. Glad they voted for Obama but the rest of it seems of little interest.

tabbycat31

(6,336 posts)
90. The boomers were the last generation to have it better off than their parents
Mon May 13, 2013, 03:06 PM
May 2013

My parents were able to work their way through college with a summer job. That is not possible anymore unless the summer job comes with a winning lottery ticket. The Boomers can count on Social Security and Medicare when they retire, and my generation pays into the system and we may not get anything out of it.

The boomers raised their children as the 'special snowflake' generation and now they're complaining about how the kids turned out (I say this as someone who is borderline Gen X/Millenial but I I identify with the latter). I have many friends who's parents did not let them suffer the natural consequences for their actions. It is not the fault of the children, but instead the parents.

BOG PERSON

(2,916 posts)
131. boomers' parents were handed an incredible society/economy
Mon May 13, 2013, 08:58 PM
May 2013

by incomprehensible destruction of WWII. world economy was riding that wave until the 70s. now the tide has ebbed.

bemildred

(90,061 posts)
195. Yep, the "greatest generation" took damn good care of themselves.
Tue May 14, 2013, 12:15 PM
May 2013

And the current mess is largely their doing, they had the power, and this is what they thought would be good, this is the second time around with the all-war-all-the-time, the corporate feudalism, the political corruption and violence, the lying media circus. "Me me me" is something they understood very well.

bemildred

(90,061 posts)
28. Horseshit. They cannot even agree on what "narcissistic personality disorder" is.
Mon May 13, 2013, 01:38 PM
May 2013

Disclosure: I'm an old fart and I disagree with this argument. This is the same crap they smeared us with 40 years ago.

 

BlueStreak

(8,377 posts)
43. When a person spends all day long with an iPod or cell phone glued to their ear
Mon May 13, 2013, 01:54 PM
May 2013

that might be a clue.

When a person thinks it is a great accomplishment to be the "Mayor" of a particular bar, that may be a clue.

bemildred

(90,061 posts)
47. Right, young people can be immature, and old people can be grumpy. Big deal.
Mon May 13, 2013, 01:56 PM
May 2013

Who really needs to grow up here?

 

BlueStreak

(8,377 posts)
116. I don't believe it is the usual generational immaturity.
Mon May 13, 2013, 05:07 PM
May 2013

I believe it is something fundamentally different, and I base this on 35 years of hiring people from all generations from boomers onward.

I am not without sympathy for this me-me-me generation. We have pretty well destroyed what we fondly call "the American way", so we really should not be surprised when they respond differently from earlier generations. But I do think a lot of them suffer from a world that never expected very much from them, and didn't promise much other than a steady diet of video games from birth.

bemildred

(90,061 posts)
127. OK, thank you for an intelligent argument.
Mon May 13, 2013, 08:04 PM
May 2013

I am tired (gardening) and I don't want to just vent or babble, so I'll try to respond in kind in the morning.

To answer your question: I've worked blue collar, white collar, and run/lead various projects (gov't and private) with many different sorts of fellow employees, including annoying young ones. I'm not the enterpreneurial type, and have refused to move into management on three occasions, and accepted twice to finish projects, and I have done hiring and firing and annual evaluations and made salary recommendations, and I have a 26 year oid son, youngest of four.

(Stifles urge to vent or babble on.)

bemildred

(90,061 posts)
194. OK, let's see if we can find some common ground here.
Tue May 14, 2013, 12:01 PM
May 2013

I agree that there are fundamental differences. I know well what you are talking about. I propose two questions:

1.) Is it nature or nurture? I submit they are simply reacting in a rational way to the lack of support and opportunity they are presented with. Unless you have exceptional abilities and/or economic support, you have little reason to be optimistic about working hard and getting ahead. I remember "Turn on, Tune in, and Drop Out", I only did the first two, but I remember why we felt that way, we were not happy with what our elders thought we should do with our lives either.

2.) What do you, or we, think they should do instead to improve their situation? I expect a second coming of the 60s, but much worse, and I already see the signs, and it has happened here before, and more than once. But the new technical and media environment will change that in unpredictable ways. The world is changing very fast now. Can one not consider Occupy and Anonymous to be Hippie-like in their attitudes and strategies? Can one not compare the governments repressive reactions to this rebellion of the young to be similar too?

 

BlueStreak

(8,377 posts)
196. I think that's part of it for sure
Tue May 14, 2013, 12:33 PM
May 2013

Last edited Tue May 14, 2013, 04:29 PM - Edit history (1)

I would add that they have the misfortune of being the up-and-coming demographic when our country was at the peak of hyper-consumerism. 2008 marked the end -- or at least a pause -- in a decades-long trend to load up the average American with impossible debt. Businesses shoved every possible piece of crap at us and extended practically unlimited credit. That fueled a stock market boom which created a "wealth effect" that added to this willingness to go deeper in debt. And when that ended around 2000 the housing bubble kicked into high gear to create more of this feeling of (false) wealth.

Along the way they did something really insidious, putting student loans out of bounds for bankruptcy. And then they opened the flood gates on student loans -- especially worthless for-profit universities that are nothing by organized crime. It is nearly unfathomable to me that student loan debt could be greater than the total national credit card debt -- second only to mortgage debt. But there it is.

This generation is making all the wrong choices, but our system has pushed them into a corner, taking advantage of the vulnerability of their youth.

And those things do lead to the attitude of "F*** the future, All I care about is myself and what I can have today."

As far as solutions, well, I think the only answer is to systematically take apart the prison that the giant multi-national corporations have built for us. It can be done. Teddy Roosevelt took on the biggest corporate interests and prevailed. So did FDR.

Obama ain't no Roosevelt. Neither is Hillary. Nothing gets better until we have a true progressive in charge.

bemildred

(90,061 posts)
198. Copacetic.
Tue May 14, 2013, 01:05 PM
May 2013

I see you know the score, I think we have little to argue about.

I will add that most young people are tribal, and we need to give them something meaningful to belong to, to work on, and meaningful rewards when they do, and patience when they don't. And a cube farm or flipping burgers will not do the job. When I was young they were concerned about "juvenile deliquency" and this all echoes with that for me. When I was young, it was "safe", and we ran free, the modern urban environment is much more confined. And I have seen my own children go through their troubles and come out the other side, you never know what they will do once they get the bit in their teeth and start to work on something.

And I will add that the media environment is so different now, that although I am highly educated in the old way, so to speak, I can see that that alone will not do for them, they must know as basic a lot of what was special knowledge for me, they have to have technical literacy, the web, computers, as a matter of course, and a lot of the fascination with gadgets is an attempt to do that. One time on a train to Oregon I met a kid with every WiFi PDA there was, and I saw that as a naive attempt to get into that world, to get ahead, and I respect that ambition, even if it fails.

Obama ain't no Roosevelt, but he seems honest as politicians go, and waaaay smarter than most, is not particularly enriching himself, and appears to keep his pecker where it belongs, so I'll take him until something better appears. As Willy Nelson said, like a turtle on top of a fencepost, the real question is how did someone like him ever get up there in the first place?

 

BlueStreak

(8,377 posts)
200. Turtle on the fencepost
Tue May 14, 2013, 04:48 PM
May 2013

Well, that turns out to be a very deep question.

A cynic might say that Obama promised "change we can believe in" and we all filled in the blanks and imagined our utopia world -- which wasn't anything like what Obama had in mind.

That is the cynical answer, and overly simplistic, I think. Here's my answer, and I freely admit many people will think this is complete crap. But here it is. America is mostly decent people, wanting to do right by their neighbors. Most (white) Americans feel, at some subconscious level at least, a deep sadness for what this country did with the African slaves. While we may not feel a personal responsibility for that, there is a deep emotion that a whole race was wronged in the worst possible way. And even though slave ownership is no longer legal, most people understand that there is a lingering legacy from that ugly period. The vestiges still show themselves in lower education levels, drug abuse, lower incomes, poverty, higher incarceration rates, and employment ceilings -- all of which I would submit are actually symptoms of the same problem.

Basically America has been guilty and feeling it for a long time. Obama came along in a set of circumstances that allowed white America to finally make a meaningful gesture of remorse. And that is primarily how Obama got elected.

Of course, it helps that Obama is a fundamentally good and smart man, and his opponents are about as evil as any politicians I have seen in my lifetime. In the past, we had a few -- George Wallace, Joseph McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Strom Thurmond, and others scattered throughout the years. But today, it seems like at least 80% of national Republicans are truly reprehensible people, as bad as anybody on that short list of names I rattled off.

So I am arguing that America decided there was one issue that needed attention, even above the economy, the environment, education, etc. And that was the unresolved story of our national racism. I am OK with that. Taking 8 years off to get some of that behind us is painful, but we are better for it. But from here, we really have to find somebody who will stand up and fight the barbarians. Realistically a black man really can't lead such a fight, and it is clear Obama will not. We haven't put that race thing completely behind us.

bemildred

(90,061 posts)
201. I think they gave us a chance to vote on it, and we did.
Tue May 14, 2013, 05:08 PM
May 2013

All of this consciousness raising stuff has had an effect. Those young people we were discussing earlier do not share the attitudes about race and gender that I grew up with, and they are the future. I have high hopes for them, but I remember a lot of us fell by the wayside back then too, it's risky business trying to change the society you live in.

But what have they got to lose?

I can think of a lot of things we ought to get a chance to vote on, and most of those people you mention are trying to make sure we don't. Racism, like opposition to equality for women, and the Drug War, and the War Lovers, and the Corporate Feudalists, they are all alive and well, but they is losing the argument down among us proles, and they are mad about that.

One of the reasons I oppose these generational stereotypes is that they feed right into the top-down divide-and-rule politics which we are being fed as a substitute for democracy.

 

BlueStreak

(8,377 posts)
202. I hear you, but I don't think they are stereotypes. The division is real.
Tue May 14, 2013, 05:37 PM
May 2013

We don't progress by denying that this generation has already been trained to expect little and achieve little. We didn't create the division, but we have to recognize it is real, and then try to move forward from that point.

 

LanternWaste

(37,748 posts)
30. Takes an awfully simplistic mind to come up with stuff and an even more simplistic mind to agree...
Mon May 13, 2013, 01:41 PM
May 2013

Always convenient to point fingers at another demographic. I imagine it takes an awfully simplistic mind to come up with stuff... and an even more simplistic mind to agree with it 100%.

 

RevStPatrick

(2,208 posts)
31. I'm right on the cusp of Boomer/GenX
Mon May 13, 2013, 01:42 PM
May 2013

I know a hell of a lot of Millenials.
I think they are terrific.
I think they could save the world, if we give them a chance.

Do they have issues?
Of course they do.
But I find them to be confident, caring, savvy and the ones I know don't fall for bullshit.
For the most part, they totally know what's going on, and have the desire to see positive change in the world, and will do things to foment that change.

And yes, a lot of them DO still live with their parents.
Because they have tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars of student loan debt, and there are no fucking jobs for them.

This BoomXer is a fan of the Millenials!

bayareamike

(602 posts)
70. Exactly. Thanks for posting this.
Mon May 13, 2013, 02:19 PM
May 2013

Many of us live at home -- and believe me, I count my blessings that I'm able to -- because in trying to make it these days one must, for the most part, take on a lot of debt. Personally, I have six figures of debt from school. I graduated into a crappy economy and am working my way up. I support my girlfriend who is still in school and works at the same time. I also help pay the bills at home, because my dad lost his job in the recession and my family took a large financial hit as a result.

Yeah, I'm definitely lazy.

flamingdem

(40,899 posts)
83. Millenials should wait to "save the world"
Mon May 13, 2013, 02:51 PM
May 2013

They don't seem to be able to create the necessary push to make social change. There are many reason and faults here but whatever that is they should not wait and be passive.

BOG PERSON

(2,916 posts)
133. some courageous millenial must go + start this century's world war cycle
Mon May 13, 2013, 09:06 PM
May 2013

i wonder who is the archduke ferdinand of our era?

flamingdem

(40,899 posts)
142. good point however
Mon May 13, 2013, 10:01 PM
May 2013

a simple world war ain't nuthin' compared to the disaster looming ahead with climate change.

I won't have to suffer it, but millenials will get a faceful in retirement

Thus, they should chain their texting hands to the White House fence, or something

 

snooper2

(30,151 posts)
32. Mostly true
Mon May 13, 2013, 01:43 PM
May 2013


I've helped interview a few past couple months...

"But, I may be expected to come in on a Friday night at 11:00 to work a maint. window!"



Yeah fool, we aren't going to pay you 40+ dollars an hour to play on your IPad all day
 

BlueStreak

(8,377 posts)
57. Sending emails at 2AM is not necessarily "working"
Mon May 13, 2013, 02:05 PM
May 2013

That is the big problem I see with the set of people he is discussing -- and I stipulate it is certainly not true of the entire age band called "millennial" or "gen-y". But a huge number of them actually believe that sitting at a desk texting their friends all day long is "working". They simply have no concept of the job being about conducting the business of the enterprise profitably. Or if they do understand that concept, they figure it ain't their problem. They don't have an interest in a career, so it just doesn't matter to them whether the place that issues their paycheck is actually profitable. They figure they will be somewhere else next year, or unemployed, or --- whatever.

That really is a sad commentary. It does not apply to everyone from this generation, but my limited view on the world makes me think it might apply to half of them.

And to be clear, every generation has slackers, but it has never been a majority before. That's the difference.

tabbycat31

(6,336 posts)
100. Previous generations did not have to send emails at 2am
Mon May 13, 2013, 03:28 PM
May 2013

This Millenial/Gen X (depending on who you ask, but I ID with the Millenial generation) had to send emails at 2 am with daily reports to her boss. He didn't care that I didn't have internet where I was living and that I did everything from my phone, he just cared that I got the job done. I never 'clock out' of my job as I'm on call 24/7.

As for your paycheck thing. It's really hard to care about the company that you work for when management does everything in its power to screw the worker and gets bonuses for it. That's just a reality of corporate America. I worked for a Big Box store for 6 years, and management rarely took the side of the employee. To Corporate America, a non management employee is simply a number instead of a human being. (Note, I was 19 when I started working for this particular store, I am now 33--- The starting wages at this store are the same as in 2000).

It also used to be that a college degree mattered and it meant you could get a good paying job. Now it means that unless you study engineering then you work at Starbucks.

 

BlueStreak

(8,377 posts)
119. I actually agree with every word of that. I am talking effect and you are talking cause.
Mon May 13, 2013, 05:39 PM
May 2013

I believe we are actually saying the same thing, strangely enough.

If we take the real slackers out of the equation -- every generation has them -- we have a whole lot of other people in these current generations that seem like slackers to the extent that they just don't demonstrate the "traditional work ethic / loyalty to employer".

And you have described the other side of that same coin, which is that the system has fundamentally changed. These generations are getting a raw deal -- and are simply responding in kind.

What is the old Russian saying? "We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us."

It is definitely a 2-way street.

It is sad. And scary. This generation is headed for big trouble in the next 30 years. We need to all pull together somehow to try to restore at least some of the American dream before we truly become a 3rd world country.

 

LanternWaste

(37,748 posts)
113. When I'm on call, sending and receiving phone calls is part of the job description-- hence, it is in
Mon May 13, 2013, 04:31 PM
May 2013

When I'm on call, sending and receiving phone calls is part and parcel of the job description-- hence, it is indeed 'work'.

"but it has never been a majority before. That's the difference...."
You of course have peer-reviewed and objective data to reinforce this premise, yes? Or (and I find this much more likely), you're making up imaginary peer-reviewed and objective data that exists in your head. That's the difference (Part II)

Bless your little heart. You think that your own little observations are actually indicative of the entirety. That is just so precious and adorable.

 

LanternWaste

(37,748 posts)
112. Odd... I thought only idiots reached a conclusion based on anecdotal and incomplete information.
Mon May 13, 2013, 04:26 PM
May 2013

"Mostly true. I've helped interview a few past couple months...

Odd... I thought only idiots reached a conclusion based on anecdotal and incomplete information. Yet giving pause, it may yet be true.

Arkana

(24,347 posts)
33. Oh look, another "Young people are shit with their Snapples and their skateboards
Mon May 13, 2013, 01:45 PM
May 2013

and their Chee-tos" bullshit screed.

Because the baby boomers and the so-called "Greatest" Generation never screwed ANYTHING up, right?

Response to graham4anything (Original post)

Initech

(108,785 posts)
44. We can't get high paying jobs and the ones we can get don't pay enough that we can afford rent.
Mon May 13, 2013, 01:55 PM
May 2013

Ass.

 

L0oniX

(31,493 posts)
97. I shared an apt with 4 others. If you don't get along with others then I guess you are on your own..
Mon May 13, 2013, 03:20 PM
May 2013

with the rent.

 

Arugula Latte

(50,566 posts)
45. I like the younger generations.
Mon May 13, 2013, 01:55 PM
May 2013

I have more problems with people of my parents' generation -- born in the 30s. A lot of entitlement, casual racism, sexism, cluelessness amongst the affluent white people in their peer set/acquaintance set.

Yeah, yeah ... generalizations, exceptions, etc.

snagglepuss

(12,704 posts)
46. Any discussion involving generations is corporate BS, designed to
Mon May 13, 2013, 01:56 PM
May 2013

distract people from the massive disparity between the haves and have nots. Idiotic discussions about one generation srewing another generation is designed to cloak class conflict. It is designed to pit the young against the old. It is designed to keep the serious failings of Capitalism out of the conversation.

leftstreet

(40,720 posts)
49. You should make this an OP
Mon May 13, 2013, 02:01 PM
May 2013


Although I suspect the original poster of the above article thinks class conflict has something to do with rival grade school soccer teams or something

bemildred

(90,061 posts)
55. Yes, it's a cliche, babble.
Mon May 13, 2013, 02:04 PM
May 2013

If they were talking about race or gender they would not get away with it. Because it's generational, the guppies still swallow it.

flamingdem

(40,899 posts)
82. Yes, but I hear negative talk about Boomers by Millenials anyway
Mon May 13, 2013, 02:49 PM
May 2013

and Millenials about Boomers, it's not all media inspired

 

Silent3

(15,909 posts)
63. It's often BS, but "corporate BS"?
Mon May 13, 2013, 02:09 PM
May 2013

Puhlease, that's getting ridiculously conspiratorial. As the point has been made, people have been doing this kind of inter-generational grousing for all of recorded history, in cultures far and wide. It hardly takes the Capitalist Puppet Masters pulling strings to encourage it.

Not every single thing that the powerful can possibly be construed to possibly gain from has to be orchestrated by them.

snagglepuss

(12,704 posts)
76. Of course it's corporist. Who but the corporate media create and perpetuate these memes?
Mon May 13, 2013, 02:34 PM
May 2013
 

Silent3

(15,909 posts)
101. You mean like the corporate media in ancient Rome...
Mon May 13, 2013, 03:30 PM
May 2013

...and ancient Athens and ancient Beijing?

 

LanternWaste

(37,748 posts)
122. That it was pushed by one interest once upon a time doesn't deny that it is being pushed by another,
Mon May 13, 2013, 06:18 PM
May 2013

That it was pushed by one interest once upon a time doesn't deny that it is being pushed by another, specific interest in the here and now...

One should be aware of historicity (and logical fallacies) lest one unwittingly advertises himself as an idiot.

 

Silent3

(15,909 posts)
169. One should also be aware...
Tue May 14, 2013, 01:30 AM
May 2013

...that some shit just happens, instead of donning one's tin foil hat over every stupid fucking thing, as if ordinary people aren't perfectly capable of doing things line grumbling about younger or older people perfectly well on their own, without That Powers That Be carefully orchestrating it for their own benefit.

bayareamike

(602 posts)
62. Millenials are lazy?
Mon May 13, 2013, 02:07 PM
May 2013

Really? I hate to start an inter-generational war here, but this is ridiculous.

Us "lazy" millenials are trying to clean up the boomers' mess. My "lazy" millenial friends are simply trying to stake out a small piece of success in the aftermath of the worst downturn since the Depression. Us "lazy" millenials are dealing with a weak economy and massive amounts of student debt. Most of us are overqualified and underemployed and still trod on, believing that we can secure a better future for ourselves, our children, and our country. Us "lazy" millenials are a huge part of why President Obama is still President Obama.

Jeez, man. I could go on, but I'm feeling a bit lazy.

 

DisgustipatedinCA

(12,530 posts)
68. You're not starting inter-generational warfare. That was done in the OP
Mon May 13, 2013, 02:17 PM
May 2013

I think it boils down to the OP being jealous that there are younger people out there starting to run the world. Some people aren't able to accept that.

-a 44 year old who doesn't hate young adults.

bayareamike

(602 posts)
71. I'm not sure what this means.
Mon May 13, 2013, 02:21 PM
May 2013

I have no problem earning what I have. This isn't some sob story, it's simply a defense against graham4anything's attack (or at least his agreement with the Time article).

ForgoTheConsequence

(5,187 posts)
79. Give me a break.
Mon May 13, 2013, 02:44 PM
May 2013

Millenials didn't bankrupt this country. Millenials didn't sell out unions and ship jobs overseas. Millenials aren't responsible for a decade of constant war. Millenials however ARE PAYING for all of that.

So many of my friends are coming home without arms or legs because of wars brought to us by rich old white men.

So many of my friends and family members are working for 9 dollars and hour because of trade policies that benefit rich old white men.

So many of my friends are in debt because they went to college and tried to do better for themselves.


Baby boomers got theirs. They had living wages, a more progressive tax system, solid union representation. But when they got into power they shut the door behind them.


 

lumberjack_jeff

(33,224 posts)
87. Social capital is in decline. Is it the millenials fault? Doesn't really matter.
Mon May 13, 2013, 03:03 PM
May 2013

The next generations are increasingly separated from civic life and community.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_Alone

tabbycat31

(6,336 posts)
128. the generation was also raised to fear strangers
Mon May 13, 2013, 08:16 PM
May 2013

I can remember assemblies in elementary school where we were brought in to watch videos on 'stranger danger' which basically said that if we even acknowledged a stranger's existence, we would be abducted at gunpoint.

We were taught to never interact with people we don't know. Who do you think produced those videos?

Quantess

(27,630 posts)
89. The OP and the link both amount to a steaming pantload.
Mon May 13, 2013, 03:05 PM
May 2013

graham 4 anything is quickly rising to the top of the Most Obnoxious DUer list.
Unrec!

 

MannyGoldstein

(34,589 posts)
92. They've grown up knowing nothing but war
Mon May 13, 2013, 03:12 PM
May 2013

against them, against the 99%.

Bipartisan, brutal war that seeks to put them in the street.

Who can blame them for drawing into themselves?

 

Rex

(65,616 posts)
104. It is funny watching him pretend.
Mon May 13, 2013, 03:42 PM
May 2013

It is getting pretty obvious by now, even to people that don't normally pay attention.

lunatica

(53,410 posts)
105. I hate generation gap type wars. Hate them!
Mon May 13, 2013, 03:43 PM
May 2013

They just love to pit us against each other any way they can.

.99center

(1,237 posts)
117. Lazy whippersnappers
Mon May 13, 2013, 05:15 PM
May 2013

It's like once they come back maimed and mentally wounded from wars that were started by leaders from superior generations, they aren't worth a damn. Have you seen the unemployment numbers of THESE people? I mean come on, pick yourself up by your bootstraps (or have your caregiver pick you up) and find a job! Don't get me started on the slang words they use! Can one of you whippersnappers describe what the slang word " trolling" means to me, I keep getting accused of "trolling" when I start topics based on prejudiced views.

GaYellowDawg

(5,101 posts)
121. I think this article is crap.
Mon May 13, 2013, 06:13 PM
May 2013

And I'm 45.

You know why I think it's crap? Because I teach on the university level, and I see kids come through every semester who work harder than I did at their stage. There are two things that make this particularly impressive to me:

1. No Child Left Behind. Millenials have really suffered because our generation and the ones before us have allowed schools to suffer terribly and teachers to be targets. I get a lot of students who don't even know how to study. I generally give advice about note-taking and studying the first day of class.

2. Consequences. We studied and worked because we felt like a college education was a guarantee to a good life. Millenials also work hard, but with the knowledge that it may all amount to nothing but debt. Yet they work anyway.

I'm certain that, given a window of opportunity, that millenials will be a transformative generation, in a good way.

Earth_First

(14,910 posts)
125. Says the generatiok of folks who want the party to roll on until they get theirs...
Mon May 13, 2013, 07:59 PM
May 2013

That response is as much garbage as the OP/article.

muntrv

(14,505 posts)
126. Given that the millennials were the ones with boots on the ground in Iraq
Mon May 13, 2013, 08:03 PM
May 2013

and Afghanistan, I'm not going to slam them.

Douglas Carpenter

(20,226 posts)
129. that is what they said about my generation back in the 60"s except people didn't use such big words
Mon May 13, 2013, 08:19 PM
May 2013

back then. Nobody would have known what narcissist meant.

 

graham4anything

(11,464 posts)
144. What? past generations were alot more cultured than the kids today
Mon May 13, 2013, 10:07 PM
May 2013

That me me me generation today can't write script as schools don't teach it
Can't physically write a manuscript without a computer
Fountain Pen? WTH is a fountain pen?
Have never heard about going out and playing chess, that is a foreign concept when they can play whatever

therefore they don't get the chess game as chess is a relic from the past

So is listening to speakers in a county square or park without shouting them down
without saying unrec. Without ignoring anyone or liking them.

Music listening back then was everything, there were no labels like today no narrowcasting because the me me me generation can't wait 4 minutes til the next song comes on.
10 seconds and they flip the station.

Bruce Springsteen said it best(oldie that he is) in his song about all those tv stations with nothing on.
Give me antennatv, metv and TCM and the new Dallas reboot and one can get rid of everything else.

Whatever happened to the true meaning of the Summer of Love, where everyone there was there, regardless of labels? When one took their clothes off, no one knew if one was a democratic,republican, law enforcement or lover. Everyone was one.

Those 15 and under will be the ones to come back.Even their music and tv is different than the me me me. They are living as one and dropping all pretense to their parents and are going to be more like their grandparents

Isn't it odd that people that hate the agenda and capitalism, say they want socialism
but don't want to be social to anyone in the mainstream80?

BTW, Fall Out boy, former alt stars comes back and has a #1 album...(oops mean download) solely because of a duet with Elton OMG IS HE OLD John.
Great song though.But then its the dinosaurs that continue to tour non stop for decades and decades playing sell out shows throughout the world.

Except for Lana Del Rey who at 25 is really a throwback to Brian Wilson in genius and Roy Orbison and Elton John and Elvis P and Elvis C(both of them relics), that once in a generation one of a kind,
I doubt 40 years from now, any of the others will be remembered.

John Mayer who?

as George Jones sang "Who's gonna fill their shoes?"

The me me me need more than a 60 character attention span.
The need to learn patience and that good things come to those that wait
Corny cliche's that are so true from another time and another place

They hate Jay Leno, yet he is #1 as he has since he began
I'll take Carson and Leno over Jimmy Jimmy and Seth any day.

Didn't that last Steve Carrell movie about the magician say the same thing that Time Mag. is saying? The audience picked him over Jim Carrey's satorical take on the kiddies.

 

graham4anything

(11,464 posts)
151. Same people that hated Abe Lincoln seem to hate Barack Obama.
Mon May 13, 2013, 10:20 PM
May 2013

Guess it's because Lincoln had to have support from the other side to get his
long term goal of which LBJ signed/passed and Barack Obama is proof through

BlueStater

(7,596 posts)
153. I have no idea how old you are.
Mon May 13, 2013, 10:23 PM
May 2013

But you sound so stereotypically bitter and cranky that you may very well have actually been around when Lincoln was president.

 

graham4anything

(11,464 posts)
159. Abraham Lincoln is still alive and living inside Barack Obama angle.
Mon May 13, 2013, 10:34 PM
May 2013

as is LBJ, and the Dream lives on in Reality.

cprompt

(192 posts)
140. change headline to
Mon May 13, 2013, 09:48 PM
May 2013

Parents fail to raise generation of decent kids and squander political capital

BOG PERSON

(2,916 posts)
152. i'm a gen-xer who works 10 jobs
Mon May 13, 2013, 10:21 PM
May 2013

a millenial at one of my jobs only has 5 jobs. guess he just doesnt want jobs as much as i do. lazy bum.

SoCalDem

(103,856 posts)
155. EVERY generation has its "me" moments
Mon May 13, 2013, 10:29 PM
May 2013

Everyone who is ANY age past 30, was once a self-involved young person who thought of themselves first and foremost.

That's the way it's supposed to "work".

DEMTough

(90 posts)
167. I'm 19. I voted for Obama in the CA Primary and General Elections last year.
Mon May 13, 2013, 11:25 PM
May 2013

This is a pretty awful thing to do. It's a broad brush on all of us. I sure as hell am not "ME ME ME". I make $10.00 hauling flat screen TVs for the 1% down here in Orange County, CA. I look on all of these things, I don't want them. I don't even own an old tube TV anymore, needless to say A TV. All I care about is a family. Fuck money and the ideal of the 8-to-5. (No longer the 9-to-5, not my fault.) I don't want a good job, because I look at my mom, white collar, talented writer, in her 50s, unemployed, no real security.

I've barely had security in my life. Hell, and I haven't LIVED, either. My mother and I lived in a homeless shelter for 9 months at the beginning of this recession. White collar jobs, these days, look worthless to me. If they can't provide, what can? I can't bear the thought of working 12 hours a day, like she did, five days a week. It's an awful, draining reality. So I look at artistry, film, and become cultured in the process, is that so bad? I want to have some fun. It's already been a hard enough life as it is.

When I get married, and have a few kids (Hey, I aspire the American Dream!), I 100% am willing to fight for a serious job. Which I'm working at. Luckily, I'm in college, studying Political Science. Yet, I'm trying to figure it all out. So are most people my age. There are few opportunities available even for most my age in this job market.

America's youth voted for Obama in '08 and '12 in large numbers, we aren't stupid. And hell, a move by someone my age who becomes disillusioned because of this kind of talk, is that they just won't vote. They are also, far, far more liberal. As I said, Orange County, CA, I know conservatives my age who were for marijuana legalization, Gay marriage and had gay friends earlier than most. And the Democrats my age? For Orange County, there's a lot more of us than you'd think, and we are Liberals. All of us.

Enjoy Social Security and medicare, really. I'm more than willing to pay into those things, people I talk to about payroll taxes, know that I know what I'm giving up a large chunk of my paycheck for, and then they know themselves, and they will agree.

But for god's sake, give us a leg up, as I've said before, try your ass off to prevent half of the state of Florida from sinking, from nearly drowning the Bay Area, (Where I have every intention of living.). I'll help pay off your debts, I have to pay taxes anyways, I don't mind it.

No Child Left Behind, I was a result of it, it didn't work too great for many of my contemporaries, and in some ways, myself, but don't attack us.

I envy the "ME ME MEs" sometimes, because they are happy and have hope, even without everything. Because everything hasn't been given, and it won't be. We just would like to not see our future look like... This. Whatever the hell this weird economic calamity IS.

If I sounded too harsh here, I'm sorry, but this kind of thing REALLY hurts me. I may have been defensive. I truly hold no ill will to those older than me.

DonCoquixote

(13,963 posts)
171. A gen X response
Tue May 14, 2013, 02:49 AM
May 2013

OK, first, let me fire off the standard disclaimers. I do admire a lot of what the Boomers have done. I listen to Bob Dylan, Neil Young, and Pink Floyd. However, most myths, even those with a lot of hard facts behind them, have a very toxic byproduct; a layer of bullshit that can kill.

It is true that the generations after you did not make as much of an impact as you did. There were far less of us than you, and while you came in enjoying the economy and power that the "greatest generation" had handed you, we Xers were around when the tab for the Reagan years was coming due. Granted, many of us would have voted against Reagan if we could, but we did not have the chance to keep him out of office, unlike YOUR generation did. Despite that, we soldiered on, even making a former cold war project called the internet a major part of the economy. Yes, there were companies that went bust, but the fact that you are reading this message showed that what we started did not become a passing fad, to say nothing of the fact that even many boomers have Yahoo, Facebook, and Twitter accounts.

However, you still called us "slackers", even though many of us were working on jobs your greatest gen moms and ads would have never let you work at, much less work two of them. Never mind the fact our college degrees not only became worthless, but an actual burden that kept many of us in debt. Never mind that, especially in the case of the Milennials, they never knew anything but an economy that was wrecked, and a nation always in some war. The world the later generations grew up in was a lot more dangerous than your world, and we were always a lot more disposable, especially since a bunch of Boomer execs feel in love with outsourcing, you know, that industry that put a whole generation of technicians and Blue collar workers out of work:

Here is a Boomer talking about how much she loves outsourcing. She might be familiar, especially to those starting the mere that she should be our next president:



Aw, but but, she woulda fought harder for our jobs, right?

They were not handed the keys, hell, even in pop culture, the same guys that wanted to send their parents off the Ice Floe were ruthless about defending what they got. People mentioned Jay Leno. Jay Leno was handed the Tonight Show, which at that time was an American institution, thanks to Johnny Carson. His manager, Helen Mushnick, kept telling NBC they get to get rid of Johnny, that he was too old, never mind the fact everyone knew him. Well Jay got the job, and Carson was so bitter at NBC he told David Letterman to screw NBC before they screwed him. Fats forward a few years, where Jay Leno gets old. He backs off his publicly stated promise to turn the show over to the Gen X (and popular with Milennials) Conan O' Brien. You see, Carson was old, but he was special. I use this to show an example of the behavior some Boomers have shown, and why those younger than them roll their eyes when they try to enforce their cult of the best generation ever.

I know the post cold war era was supposed to be all about peace dividends, but funny how, even when Bill Clinton, the very embodiment of your generation's hopes, the one that made Doonesbury say "I have waited all my life for this administration", funny, when he came along, all that peace dividend stuff went out in Cigar smoke. Part of the reason the Russians supp rt Putin is that they remember how, after Gorbachev, the US came in and tried to pick the Russian's corpse clean, making it safe for "capitalism."

So, my point is not to say All Boomers are bad, indeed, there are many of you that, to quote Neil Young, "keep on Rocking in the Free World", they keep on making clear, principled, uncompromising stands.Heaven knows I may even butt heads with them, but I know when things go down, they are mentors and comrades. We even did our own little protest called OWS, which failed for many reasons, but part of which is that many rich Boomer Yuppies decided to fling Bullshit at the kids, or were at least silent when the media did. Of course, for the 15th time,we will vote Hillary for 2016 if she wins the primary, that same primary many people are trying to smother in the crib as we speak. Yes we are prepared for the inevitable media which will say she was better than anyone else, ever, because the Boomers will not want their two presidencies to be defined by Bill and W. Bill was someone who could have been great, but he wanted his money, his cigars, and his women. He wagged his finger and lied, and therefore became known as someone you might like, but never trust, especially when he supports the Keystone pipeline. As far as W. goes, really, do we need to got THERE? He was living proof that not all Boomers were principled peace love dope types. This country will be digging out of his mess for decades, and since China is rising (thanks to Bill giving it WTO status) our chances of ever seeing a generation of Americans as wealthy as the Boomers is very likely as dead as the Dodo. Of course, who would want to have that as a legacy, Let Hillary in there, give the Boomers eight more years of running the country to prove they can do things right, or not.

In short, we do not hate you, but some of you frankly are still coasting off of what the Greatest generation gave you. There are Boomers acts like Neil Young, or Eric Clapton, who always try to listen to their times, and be relevant for those times, even if it pisses some of their old fans off who want just want them to play only the old songs. Then, there are the nostalgia acts, the Paul McCartneys that have not written a decent tune since 1980, yet still fill stadiums because fans are hoping he will play "Yesterday."

Response to DonCoquixote (Reply #171)

Fumesucker

(45,851 posts)
172. Needing attention again, eh graham4cash?
Tue May 14, 2013, 02:53 AM
May 2013

Your threads are routinely flamefests, even the lurkers are starting to notice.



OwnedByCats

(805 posts)
175. Has it occurred to you that the reason
Tue May 14, 2013, 06:05 AM
May 2013

so many are living with parents is because of the mess we're in with the economy? I know some people who live at home, not because they live in the basement eating cheetos and playing WOW all day, but because they fell on bad times. Then you have the ones that never moved out in the first place because frankly, they can't afford to, most especially the ones who finished college and can't find an adequate job that pays them enough for living expenses AND those loans that suddenly come due a few months after graduation.

I live with my parents and I'm Gen x, but I have two reasons for this. One is because I can't afford my own place right now, not where I live anyway. I did fine up until a couple years ago. Things are so much more money since then, the wages don't keep up with rising costs. Many families are having to do this. Another reason is my father is disabled and my mother is not getting any younger herself so I stay around to keep my eye on them, help them out when needed. I'd far rather have my own house, even if it was just next door, but I don't see that happening. Heck I'd rather be living in a different (and warmer) state since my state has got to be one of the most expensive to live in. I did read it was in the top 5 most expensive.

There are exceptions, the ones that simply have no ambition but for most of us that do out of necessity, it's embarrassing. Most of the people who do live at home really do wish they didn't have to.

Millenials are having a harder time than us Gen xer's. Used to be if you worked hard you could get somewhere decent, but in recent years, the opportunities for making something of yourself are much harder to come by for them, with lack of money being the primary reason.

rucky

(35,211 posts)
176. Last time Time Magazine sold out an entire generation...
Tue May 14, 2013, 06:41 AM
May 2013

that generation stopped reading Time Magazine.

- GenX-er

How bright is the future for college-aged Americans? Who paved the way for them?

Here's a thought: When you know that even though you're spending a gawd-awful amount of money (debt) for an education, you're likely to be unable to find work, you'll be saddled in debt for years, and yes, you may have to move back in with your parents.

In other words, you're future well-being is being threatened. And when that happens, then people tend to focus on their own well-being. Even good people who, under different circumstances, may be more caring and giving to others if they were in a more secure position.

Here's another thought: Advocates of cheap labor see the advantage in having in insecure (financially or otherwise) populace. It's by design - as long as they can convince the millennials that it's someone else that's holding them back - or some shortcoming of themselves (lazy, etc.). Anybody to blame but the people actually doing holding back.

 

fasttense

(17,301 posts)
180. I don't buy what Time is selling either
Tue May 14, 2013, 07:16 AM
May 2013

I have 2 very beautiful, very loving, millennial children and they are trying their best in this capitalist hell hole we have sunk into.

I have met many of their friends and they are just trying to get by in a world where they will never be as well off as the generation before them. Jobs are a joke, they pay so little that to survive they need 2 and 3 of those jobs.

They see the climate being destroyed by corporate thugs and they don't start lynching mobs, I say that requires great restraint.

The only ones who fit the description in Time are the children of the uber rich. They are describing the pampered babies of the 1%.

 

graham4anything

(11,464 posts)
183. Nah, I disagree.Think about past-Now,every minority and every young woman can be President.
Tue May 14, 2013, 07:37 AM
May 2013

Back in other generations, think about what it must have felt to 80% of the democratic party and 0% of the republican party that they started off knowing they could NOT get to the highest levels.
That would be like 100MILLION people couldn't do it. Now they can.

and I don't know, my mom was tossed out of Austria at a young age due to her being Jewish. Imagine what people in Nazi times had to go through. And then they reach the US and like today a segment of the US population did not want them here. (Which is why I want 100% amnesty and citizenship and voting rights sooner rather than later.)
think about those people what they went through, and in other countries where they would give anything to have the problems we have because it would be so much better than what is in their countries.

I still marvel at what the grandparents of boomers and the great grandparents or great great grandparents of millenium generation went through, say at Operation Neptune.
They went in wave on wave, knowing most would die. For a war almost everyone now thinks should have been entered years earlier.

LIKE 12 years ago, an older generation of hated law enforcement and fire department thought nothing of rushing the WTC to save anyone who could be saved, and how many died that day on 9-11? Those people working law enforcement jobs that some put down daily, gave their all and did not do it for the money or to be heroes.
They just did the job they were hired for.
(and remember it was mostly the boomers that pysically built the WTC in the first place
(Like Elton John's lyricist Bernie Taupin wrote and that old group Jefferson Starship sang
"We built this city&quot

and go back further in American history, and think about what children of blacks must have thought of their life.

or in WW2, about the Japanese who were interred what about their kids and what they thought?

and what about those coming of working age in the early 1980s-90s, those would be either the youngest of the boomers, and the oldest of whatever one calls the generation immediate after, what about them? When AIDS ravaged America with ZERO hope to control it back then and no one knowing what it was and who was getting it (Rightwing media and President Reagan who for some reason alot of Americans including democratic party people voted for over Jimmy Carter) Reagan was asleep at the wheel.

And kids born with a childhood cancer, now there is hope thanks to the healthcare industry doing wonderful thing, and by corporations sponsoring and donating to wonderful places like
St.Jude's so that they could offer free care and free housing for any parent with a childhood illness that decades ago there was no hope.

Others in the past had other obstacles as today's age.

There is something different.

Back in others, a kid didn't think they should be CEO without starting all the way at the lower rings first and work their way up.
There is something now that people think they should be the CEO but then not know how to handle responsiblity with other older and younger people.

The saying Hillary said "it takes a village" and the as President Obama said, that he didn't build it.
That type of reason'd'etre was from the boomers and older.
And it included those up to 65 in the workplace, not with the younger firing anyone over 45.
(and included the generations prior to FDR too.)

back then anything was possible and soon anything again will be.
When one removes the obstructions from being in the way that don't want to go forward.

I think the problem is after 9-11, it took for many reasons, way too long to rebuild the WTC.
It should have been done and rebuilt by 2004 like it would have at any time in the past.
But the empty ugly hole that the terrorists left us was a symbol W used to benefit him.
That is one problem that people of that age, now use W as the one they know.

And have nothing older to base their opinions of, because good or bad, no one in the past was that bad with nothing to offer. So I can understand the hopelessness of 9-11, and it was one of the most horrible immediate events since the interrment of the Japanese in WW2 and the Nazi's. but was it really an entire generation wasted because of it?
Is that the true horrors of OBL and the 19?

W was a very bad motivator.
Postive thinking begets positive
Which is why hope and forward is important.
And why to better mankind, one must not want to complain about those with more, as it leads to self-outcome that is negative.
One can never be the one with the most. One can climb to the top, but there is always someone out there with more.

(look how rich OBL was and how negative he was, he wanted to burn it down.
Didn't help those he thought were his people, he just wanted to burn it down
With his money and riches, he would have been better off working within and building up instead of burning the WTC down. Silly in retrospect that he didn't do that.
He could have.


 

Demo_Chris

(6,234 posts)
182. Two can play the generational warfare game.
Tue May 14, 2013, 07:25 AM
May 2013

Only in the case of young people, our indictments are at least rational.

You want entitled narcisists? That would be the Boomers. When viewed as a generation, they were the first in American history that actively set out to leave nothing behind. They inherited the greatest and most prosperous nation in history, burned it to the ground, and then pissed on the smoldering ashes. It was one hell of a party.

Their parents built infrastructure. The greed generation left it to rot then sold it to the highest bidder. Their parents built a manufacturing base that was the envy of the world, and trade and labor laws that created a middle class unmatched in history and a decent opportunity at life for most. Boomers dismantled it, cashed out, and shipped the jobs away. They inherited the worlds largest creditor nation and turned it into the worlds largest debtor nation. They inherited a total national debt smaller than our defense budget is today, a debt measured in billions, and they turned it into a debt now measured in Trillions.

They spent the money on themselves and left the bill and toxic waste to their kids and grandkids.

They were a generation that said, "Give Peace a Chance!" They were ALL about peace and love -- until the day they were too old to serve themselves, then they discovered that war was freaking awesome when it was other people dying. Once they were too old to serve it has been more or less non-stop war ever since. Boomer's LOVE war. It makes them feel tough, it's great for their portfolios, and they are terrified of everything. Everything.

Where their parents fought and bled for social security and pensions, the boomers voted to have that stuff cut. Not their own benefits, they wanted those, but the benefits for their kids. They KNEW they weren't contributing enough to cover all the people in their own generation, they KNEW there weren't enough kids to foot the bill, and they didn't care. They wanted a BMW, so fuck those kids. They did the same thing with their public pensions. They knew the money wasn't there, but actually paying for their own pensions with taxes would have been unthinkable -- give that bill to the kids as well.

The same applies when they voted for NAFTA and the other FTAs. It's not like they weren't warned. They knew exactly what they were voting to do. They didn't care. They saw an opportunity to cash out at the expense of their children and they took it. Fuck the future, burn it to the ground. Wherever you look its the same. Healthcare, education, the environment, it doesn't matter. They don't even care about protecting the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. There is virtually nothing you can point to that this generation of sociopaths hasn't completely fucked up.

They refused to pay for anything. ANYTHING. Taxes were for chumps. Why pay 90% when you can pay 30%. Or 15%. Or better yet, nothing at all. No need to pay for it, just pass the bill off to the kids. Let those lazy punks pay for our party with their McDonalds and Walmart jobs.

And all that might be forgivable if it weren't for the final insult: They insist that everyone treat them as if they accomplished something special and marvelous. Like a two year old on a sugar high who painted the walls of his room with feces, they now demand that everyone praise them and pretend it's art. It's not art, it's shit, and we are going to have to clean it up if we can.

The boomers, the sociopathic generation, will be remembered forever, and future generations will be forgiven for thinking that the BOOM in boomer refers to what they did to the country.

 

graham4anything

(11,464 posts)
184. you make a good point
Tue May 14, 2013, 07:54 AM
May 2013

that the article is based on a select demographic of the USA.

The NAFTA remark makes that clear.

Boomers thought of the world, not a select part of one greedy country.

That article is in microism, talking about what France/the french and other European countries thinks of America as a whole.

But most of the above would be the generation after the boomers, the Yuppies
(those without heart and just bank accounts).
What is the official name of that generation?

BTW-Al Gore destroyed Ross Perot in the debate about NAFTA. Perot looked like the meglamaniac he was during that unofficial official debate.

The Boomers talking of the world as one.
Those wanting socialism, seem to forget that if they really wanted socialism, they have to include everyone, not just the me me mes.

SO yes, good point, reminded me that the Time Mag article was specific demographically
and not referring to all of America

Where now kids who are Black see they can be President, and 52% of the country, women,
now see they too can be President. Before they grew up knowing it was impossible.
Even Jewish children like mine, now see they can be the VP (though Joe was the wrong choice, Paul Wellstone would have been better), and today, supporters of Alan Grayson don't have a block because he is Jewish, so they believe he can be, which is something fantastic to believe and be.

Same with other minorites which when one blames President Obama, all those positive
motiviational things are forgotten about.
Empowering minorities is one of the single most important thing a "community" organizer can do.
And something the boomers did, who were color blind.

DonCoquixote

(13,963 posts)
189. May I humbly add to that?
Tue May 14, 2013, 08:33 AM
May 2013

Down here in Florida, we have a lot of Boomers that moved down here from parts elsewhere. Many of them have Union Pensions, had a house up north they sold for a lot of money, had good educations with the GI Bill. Now, funny thing, when they moved down here, all of a sudden, unions, taxes, and public schools became evil.
"why should I pay for schools, my kids went to school up north!"
"Why should all these public employees get pensions? they are overpaid, anyway, hire less of them!"

And somewhere in whatever afterlife there may be,their hardworking, greatest Gen parents, who voted for FDR, who paid Union dues, wound up saying "Look you Dummies, those programs you hate are the very thing that kept you from starving to death like we did during the depression! We looked out for you, we wanted you to live better than we did! And you wonder why our grandchildren hate you!"

 

AverageJoe90

(10,745 posts)
188. I hate to say this, but damn, Graham, I am really disappointed in you today.
Tue May 14, 2013, 08:31 AM
May 2013

I'm sorry, dude. I've seen you around a lot and you normally post some pretty great stuff. But this particular TIME article just reeks....badly. There's a few real bad apples in every generation, yes, always have but there isn't much real difference between them in terms of numbers as far as that goes. And about this whole narcissism thing? It's nothing new, either! It's just been recognized more in recent years, that's all.

I went a little easy on you since I like you, but I'd wish you'd realize that this stuff isn't healthy, and neither is the opposite(younger generations attacing the older), either.

And, also, here's a good rebuttal to Stein's baloney (than you, Elspeth Reeve!):

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/05/me-generation-time/65054/

Here's another one for you, btw:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/mar/17/ephebiphobia-young-people-mosquito

 

graham4anything

(11,464 posts)
192. Maybe I should have said he is 100% correct in CERTAIN cases lol
Tue May 14, 2013, 09:13 AM
May 2013

I happen to personally (not on the board) situations this applies to and maybe I was focusing too much on them.
(not to insult New Jersey, but there is a different mentality in NJ as opposed to New York City
and this fits all my nephews who live in NJ and their friends, all of whom don't work have gone to school and live with the parents and my wife and I both read the article and it was so
correct. All of them are non-political, selfcentered and all of them are whiners.

SomethingFishy

(4,876 posts)
207. 100%... in certain cases...
Thu May 16, 2013, 04:15 PM
May 2013

Well then that's not 100% is it. 100% is ALL, EVERYTHING, EVERYONE. But hey I don't expect someone as "clever" as you to understand what 100% means.

Joel Stein, What a source for an article like this. Here's a writer who can't really develop an audience so they bounce him around from Time to Playboy to Entertainment Weekly and any other Time/Warner rag that has space open for a writer who knows about nothing but the small pop culture bubble he lives in.
Then you take his.. delusional rantings, and post them on DU with a claim that you know for sure he is 100% correct.

Two peas in a pod.


LeftishBrit

(41,453 posts)
204. This sort of generational warfare is just one more form of 'divide and rule'
Tue May 14, 2013, 05:52 PM
May 2013

And many 'millennials' are still living with their parents, not because they are lazy or entitled, but because the economic mess means they can't afford their own home.

I am certainly no 'millennial' but I think would count as a late Boomer (the British don't have this preoccupation with labelling the generations, and a good thing too IMO!). But I think this article is ridiculous. It is nowadays fortunately unacceptable in most liberal circles to pass sweeping negative judgements on nationalities; and I think that broadbrushing groups according to when they were born is no better than broadbrushing groups according to where they were born.

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