patrick.net

jojo says

They used to be. Before 1976, all education loans were dischargeable in bankruptcy. That year, the bankruptcy code was altered so loans made by the government or a non-profit college or university could not be discharged during the first five years of repayment.

And I saw the reason for this happen. I remember watching a TV special in the mid-70's about this very thing, it showed a number of recent college graduates, Boomers all, smirking into the camera and saying essentially "I got my degree and then immediately declared bankruptcy! Ya! Ya! Ya!" as though that were the most natural thing in the world to do, turn around and rineg on a legal obligation simply because you could, an attitude that would have horrified their Greatest Generation and Silent Generation parents.

jojo says

We as a society (you and me and everyone else) decide how we will run things. The Greatest Generation knew this.

It's interesting to compare what kind of stewards those born at the beginning of the 20th century as my parents were in 1898 and 1902 and the Greatest Generation were of what they received versus those born mid-20th century. The earlier generations handed off a strong, productive economy to the up-coming generation and about all the younger generation did was plunder it for their own benefit and to hell with everyone in the future.

I'm also seeing the children of my sister and others around me, as completely unmotivated or uninspired.

Remember, as an Xer, growing up under the aegis of Star Wars, made me want to study the sciences & also write screenplays. Likewise, in the real world, outside of cinema, there was the 'Miracle On Ice' phenomena, which had impressed upon us, the idea that a bunch of diligent and focused American upstarts could beat both the dominant Soviet and Finnish Olympic hockey teams.

Thus, I don't think the skip generation phenomena, like Boomers-Millennials, will repeat. Thus, the kids of Gen X, the Gen Z-ers, will probably be the cyberpunk version of the Millenials.

Rin says

Thus, I don't think the skip generation phenomena, like Boomers-Millennials, will repeat. Thus, the kids of Gen X, the Gen Z-ers, will probably be the cyberpunk version of the Millenials.

In other words, I most likely won't be having kids.

Call it Crazy says

Rin says

Thus, I don't think the skip generation phenomena, like Boomers-Millennials, will repeat. Thus, the kids of Gen X, the Gen Z-ers, will probably be the cyberpunk version of the Millenials.

In other words, I most likely won't be having kids.

Chicken!!! You need to suffer through it like we did!!!

Sorry pal, but I'm doing scientific research in my old age, not tending to some 35+ year old kids, sacking out in the living room & attempting to hack into neighbors' computers for kicks.

Chris Elliott was in this show, "Get A Life", back in the 90s, of a 35 year old, who's still doing the same paper route, as a 12 year old, and never grew up ...

http://www.youtube.com/embed/P-7pgeD__qU

Call it Crazy says

But who's going to change your Depends and clean up your drool when you're older???

There's a movie on this ...

http://www.youtube.com/embed/FAGxBbuRgqk

Call it Crazy says

I don't even have a basement here....

No basement? What are you going to do, if a tornado hits?

Rin says

Sorry pal, but I'm doing scientific research in my old age, not tending to some 35+ year old kids, sacking out in the living room & attempting to hack into neighbors' computers for kicks.

Get into cloning and you CAN have it all!

Rin says

Rin says

Thus, I don't think the skip generation phenomena, like Boomers-Millennials, will repeat. Thus, the kids of Gen X, the Gen Z-ers, will probably be the cyberpunk version of the Millenials.

In other words, I most likely won't be having kids.

Good plan. Leave it to the stupid and unmotivated to create the next generation!

Gen Z-ers will never understand the following ... Miracle On Ice Lake Placid 1980

http://www.youtube.com/embed/qYscemhnf88

What the above was ... from our p.o.v., is the equivalent of a bunch of high schoolers, getting together, practicing hard, playing focused at all times, and beating Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls. And then, two days later, beating Magic Johnson's Lakers.

jojo says

Yes. I agree. Very inspirational.

So when I told that GenY lazy kid, that if he really loved coding, that nothing (or no one) could stop him, in essence, I gave him the coach Brooks challenge and that was to prove everyone wrong and make something happen in his life/career.

Well ... end result, he whined and did nothing. And even today, he's in QA and can't advance to writing code.

jojo says

We as a society (you and me and everyone else) decide how we will run things. The Greatest Generation knew this. It wasn't the bankers who did this. WE did this. And WE can change it.

Yes, but wait, if you really were in charge of smashing the middle-class or robbing the next two generations. How would you do it? What if it was your job to do it? Where would you start if you wanted to screw someone? Hmmm...
Well, I'd start with ruining their childhood, always a good start; ruin the foundation:
1. I would make sure the enemy grows up without any real community and let the TV raise them while they eat crap food and stare slack jaw at the screen.
2. Destroy their family life. Make sure the parents both work late hours and hopefully divorce. Divorce really screws with kids. Better yet, step parents. They should feel no real connections to anyone. Isolation is key on destroying a person.
3. Encourage them to go to stressful and competitive universities for years. Make sure that all that stress was actually for nil. The degree will not get them a job. Ha, ha, ha.
4. Once in the job market (Now this is where we can really do our work) No benefits for our little work slaves. We don't need some whiny advocate for health benefits, safe work spaces and retirement. Kill the unions. Also, if we want them to really be stressed we need to make them feel absolutely no sense of job permanence. We need hopeless and depressed work slaves. We will create slogans and propaganda that drill into every worker that all abuse is fair game in business. Business is above morality, or even God. Yes! Business has no heart, they will be our bees, we are Queen! This is awesome.
5. Make shelter so high that their entire wage after groceries and taxes goes to rent or a mortgage. That's what they do in China. It's not slavery you see if you pay the worker, just make sure that rice bowl and closet they live in costs exactly the wage we give them. Then I will be a job maker, and not a slave owner! Cool. Oh, I am good at this oppressive thing. Let me see, my home cost twice my income, the workers should be, I don't know ten times as much? They should take out loans, from me of course.
6. Make it impossible to build a home. We should create a department that taxes our enemy every time they change anything on their home. We can't have them building their own stuff. We will claim that the thousands we collect are for their own safety. Oh, my gosh I am good at this.
7. No benefits and no pensions should be the norm. There must be some way to turnover that silly law about overtime and work safety. How is a valient job maker like myself supposed to survive with red tape like this?
8. Tax the heck out of them, just make sure my group doesn't get taxed too much. We are above that, we are job makers. Snicker, Snicket.
9. We really need to take spouses off the medical free lunch. We can't have them staying home or running their own business. See step 1#. Better yet, take the little free loading children off of medical. The only person who needs to stay healthy is my little worker bee.
10. Make all necessities expensive as heck, and all wants/desires cheap as heck.
11. Take away any form of retaliation. No more allowing protests. No free speech and no petitioning for a redress of grievances. We need police kicking the whiny worker bees in the teeth. No weapons for our workers, only we have the weapons.
12. Should keep tabs on them. No privacy. Privacy is a luxury for the deserving, meaning: ME!
13. We should create an act that takes away their right to a fair trial. Make sure taxes and laws are far too complicated for anyone to understand, and then just do what we please. No one will know if it's illegal or not!
14. They should spend at least two hours in their car each day, hopefully listening to some of my propaganda.

Oh there must be more we could do to screw this generation over and make them feel hopeless. I know I am missing a few things. Any ideas? There has to be a way to demoralize this generation further? If you are going to accomplish something, one must be thorough. Help me out, I am tired today and can't think. My maid was sick, my nail appointment was canceled, my golfing buddies are busy with landlord duties, my pension is late, my stay at home spouse is upset because Pilates was canceled (stupid teacher had sick kids, selfish lazy generation x as usual) and my cruise was postponed because of some lazy union people striking, again.

Hint: Marijuana is more popular than Tomatoes, Broccolli and even Mangos............

I completly agree Jojo! At the very least, we can make choices that help the next generation. Everyone believed that the generation of the Enlightenment Age could never accomplish any of the goals they set, but they did. There were plenty of people during the time of the constitutional framers that believed the people of the revolution to be crazy dreamers. They thought the framers lived in a fantasy world if they believed they could create a democratic republic. They created the impossible, and we are their inheritors, and I believe we can create something just as "impossible" or at the very least, we could become the generation to clean up the mess and restore the republic.

jojo says

I gave him the coach Brooks challenge and that was to prove everyone wrong and make something happen in his life/career.

Well ... end result, he whined and did nothing. And even today, he's in QA and can't advance to writing code.

It is admirable that you tried to help him. Once of the big problems that i see is Gen Y is terrified of failure and embarrassment. That may explain part of his reluctance to try.

I think it's a little more than that.

In essence, I gave a simple assignment ... basically, convert an *apply patch* shell script, into a more robust windows console app, using Java, Python, or C#. It was his choice on how he did it.

What I think he was most afraid of, is that at best, he'd basically do the equivalent of a code conversion tool, like awk to C, and that would show to others that he's got no creative potential in the area of computer programming.

Realize, he's a dreamer a/o pretender. He likes to show off Web demos and other widgets, but doesn't like to delve further, as it would either one, expose his lack of knowledge, or two, show that he can't innovate out of a box.

jojo says

Agreed, his strategy is to not fail by not trying. He probably learned this from dealing with his helicopter parents.

In fact, although he's still got a QA job, even today, he's boomerang-ed back to his parent's house. He says that it's to save money but I have a sneaky suspicion that some of his other semi-professional former housemates, have outgrown living around a permanent kid and he doesn't fit in with ppl in their late 20s & thus, has to go back to the nest to belong. Basically, he's 18 for life, despite turning ~28.

Do we really need, intentionally or unintentionally, to ramp up a system of selecting the best competitors, erecting a system that weeds out more and more people? Or furthers the unlevel playing field in the USA? To what end?

What appears to be lacking from this thread is a reasonable discussion of what "to fail at becoming adults" means.

The original article states

"studies suggest millennials are having a harder time becoming self-sufficient than any other generation in recent history"

"More are still living at home with their parents and unable to get long-term, full-time employment."

Those are some possible definitions, I would agree. But what is the reason for the inability to get long-term, full-time employment? Is it not to a large extent that THERE ARE NO JOBS AVAILABLE due to the great recession of 2008? The serial boom/busts cycles caused by the bubble-blowing of the Federal Reserve is not exactly a well-kept secret anymore.

APOCALYPSEFUCKisShostikovitch says

ASSHOLES! failed to swim to China to get a job! Whining fucks! don't deserve all the Free food they pull from the dumpster!

Flash back to 20 years ago or so with Chinese and Indian versions of AF berating their local unemployed graduates:

ASSHOLES! failed to swim to America to get a job! Whining fucks! don't deserve all the Free food they pull from the mouths of dumpster rats!

justme says

THERE ARE NO JOBS AVAILABLE

What a concept! It's always presented that people who loose their jobs or can't find a job are doing something wrong when in fact the fault is not theirs. It would be like saying all the people in those lines in the black and white photos of 1931-1933 are just a bunch of lazy loafers who aren't doing enough to get a job.

Quigley says

Rin says

Rin says

Thus, I don't think the skip generation phenomena, like Boomers-Millennials, will repeat. Thus, the kids of Gen X, the Gen Z-ers, will probably be the cyberpunk version of the Millenials.

In other words, I most likely won't be having kids.

Good plan. Leave it to the stupid and unmotivated to create the next generation!

BTW, even President John Adams had disowned his alcoholic son, Charles ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Adams_%281770%E2%80%931800%29

Thus, one can have a productive life and not be saddled with lazy Gen Z-ers.

Genetics plays a major role in determining intelligence and personality traits. But the kids get genes from both parents, so if you want smart, capable children, marry a smart capable spouse. I did, and while living with such a woman isn't always easy, our three kids are amazing, and totally worth the hassle. The fact that she and they are also beautiful is just a bonus. I wouldn't have picked a woman simply for her looks.

Then how do you explain smart people who were raised by third world immigrants with only a 6th grade education education, they got back home in the missionary school?

Either raised by these people as a parent that managed to get here and have kids, or are the Nanny for people who are well off. But never home enough to say they raised the kid.

BTW, Ben Franklin had also disowned his Tory/Loyalist son.

If the founding fathers can do it, then why can't we?

CaptainShuddup says

Then how do you explain smart people who were raised by third world immigrants with only a 6th grade education education, they got back home in the missionary school?

Either raised by these people as a parent that managed to get here and have kids, or are the Nanny for people who are well off. But never home enough to say they raised the kid.

Don't confuse education with intelligence. To put it in terms you can understand: the fastest computer in the world does nothing without an operating system, and then, if it has one, it's still dependent on its programming. Would you argue that an IBM 386 is just as good as a dual core modern machine? Without programming (education), both are just paperweights.
Just as important as intelligence is motivation and desire. A person with a hard working personality who likes to accomplish things is going to do much better than a smarter person with little motivation or drive. Most self made millionaires are only slightly above average intelligence. They just work harder and reach further.

P N Dr Lo R says

What a concept! It's always presented that people who loose their jobs or can't find a job are doing something wrong when in fact the fault is not theirs. It would be like saying all the people in those lines in the black and white photos of 1931-1933 are just a bunch of lazy loafers who aren't doing enough to get a job.

If they are willing to work for $22,400 per year, they can work for a regional airline as a pilot:
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-0303-travel-briefcase-20140303,0,6097149.story

Quigley says

Don't confuse education with intelligence.

Genetics will only tell you that you're going to be fat, and have no hair by time you're 30.

When was the last time you ever saw a Son live up to a legend, or a Legend who had Parents who were above average at what they do?

Not just what their parents scored in school, but what did they achieve in life?

You say one creates the other, yet they don't always align to your belief.

Now in the scheme of things, I don't consider my self necessarily great or anything. But those who have known me all my life, really really really I mean fucking "Really?" hard to believe what I do for a living, from my humble beginnings. I actually get tired of hearing it. I kinda relate to Neil deGrasse Tyson's interview on NPR last week. Where he was talking about his racial victimization by White guys, who hold him as some exception because he's "black guy" who became an Astrophysicist and not a Basketball player. Or the reaction he got when he would tell adults when he was young what he wanted to be when he grew up.

Or the reaction he gets now.
"Really you're an Astrophysicist?"

But really drive is determined, by the limit of crap one reaches doing it the muddling along approach. Eventually you grow up and need more than what you are capable of providing at some point.
For some, they just want a more of a Simple life others want to live large. What they invest their time and energy into the form a passion into, they will be rewarded as a master of that endeavour.

Many people never get that drive, it's not that they are incapable of being driven. They never catch their muse, that inspires them to want more. Or perhaps they aspire for less in a simple life.

Some people are born driven, but it doesn't make them better or smarter, it makes them the exception.

Judging by founding fathers, looks like neither George Washington nor Thomas Paine had any children.

Prominent examples of a lineage of a talented father & son, like Oliver Wendall Holmes Senior & Junior, are not as often as you might think.

The fact that both Franklin and Adams had disowned their kids, hints at me, that I'm making the right decision.

Is it ok if I disown my American Taliban parents?

bgamall4 says

Everybody was robbed by the bankers. Everybody on the face of the earth pays more for whatever they buy because of bankers.

That's my point of view: http://smaulgld.com/millennials-not-part-of-the-club-yet/

So you must know this parasitic system feeds on sucking the marrow from your bones. It will put you in a compromised position, expecting you to push back, and when you do, harvest the fruits of your efforts. What,you won't play along? Well fuck you, then, and rot.

This is damning evidence....

FortWayne says

Debate it all you want, but without a thriving economy young adults, or older folks, we are all screwed. So you liberals, tell Obama to focus on economy instead of Gays, Ukraine, stray dogs, Marijuana, or whatever else liberal priorities are these days.

CaptainShuddup says

Then how do you explain smart people who were raised by third world immigrants with only a 6th grade education education, they got back home in the missionary school?

Either raised by these people as a parent that managed to get here and have kids, or are the Nanny for people who are well off. But never home enough to say they raised the kid.

TV?

My (now 36 year-old) view? My very comfortable, non-degreed parents just stare at me in disbelief when I mention that we won't be able to buy a home in SoCal. It simply doesn't compute, yet these are not people who pushed me to succeed in any particular arena.

They just figured if you could work somewhere for a few decades things would work themselves out and you'd sock some cash away while doing so. Maybe have a few kids and a boat or two along the way. No biggie. Now, where are those grandkids?

I say this because I see the same mentality in some comments here; I don't believe I'm lazy (nor my wife) but even with a full decade of experience under my belt it is still a soul-crushing job market out there. I can't even imagine what it like when you have *zero* experience because I'm already working at half my normal rate (albeit with some nice benefits) because of a dual income. And now you're competing with me, the guy with no debt.

I haven't figured out the solution, but there has been a definite shift over the last fifteen years that doesn't benefit anyone, it's just our own perception/bias that gets in the way of an accord. Boomers hold the key to a lock that doesn't exist anymore, but that's not to say that it can't open something..

sbh says

thinks you're this loser:

http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/04/justice/student-sues-parents-new-jersey/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

Last night, my childless colleagues and I had a huge laugh out of that story.

Yup, that's a typical teenage suburbanite princess. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if she becomes my niece's inspiration down the road.

It is always amusing to listen to some folks who believe they have prevailed against almost insurmountable challenging circumstances. Quite frequently, they have a very selective memory of events as they construct a story of what happened that does not conflict with their belief system, as a true recounting of actual events is sacrificed in the process. Chest-thumping. A complaint that as I have done it (as the faulty narrative tells), by golly others should, too. Full blown narcissism in denial.

sbh says

We laugh about it, but it's truly agonizing to consider what a person, any person, is doing to themselves when they become devoted to a victim persona. They basically become parasitic and abandon themselves.

Well, to some extent, I do believe that scientists and engineers were screwed over by corporate America.

One of the reason why you don't hear so much about it is that getting through a STEM program, in itself, lacks a victim's profile, so many former STEMers go into business, finance, & even manual careers like electrician or woodwork but seldom, do you see them sit around and do nothing for years at a time.

So one can be 'a victim' or one can be a former victim.

freak80 says

Is it ok if I disown my American Taliban parents?

You do realize the NSA reads PatNet?

My thinking is that the last generation to really "take over" was the Early Baby Boomers.

Like for instance, people who fought WWII. They took over. They made the world theirs. They owned businesses and became the execs and hired each other in GM plants and supermarkets because they had this shared experience.

Same with the early Baby Boomers. They created the whole modern economy of high tech and new media. They had a shared culture of marches, anti-Establishment, that let anyone in the "club" be given entrance.

Everyone since then has been a kind of leech. Note the character of Michael J. Fox in "The Secret to my Success". He does not want to remake the world...he just wants a really good job! This has been the paradigm of almost every teen movie of that sort up until this day of Jonah Hill playing the perennial intern.

"There's not a worse decision a young American can make than attending college sans parental money or massive scholarship," wrote Matthew Saccarro for Salon last month. "You're paying for nothing that you can't get elsewhere for less money or free, save for the piece of paper with a con man's signature on it."

Precisely. College is a con job, but one forced onto people.