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Young 'to be poorer than parents at every stage of life'
- carsongross 11y agoThe Great Intergenerational War has been a one-way fight thus far. How do you do, fellow kids? https://media4.giphy.com/media/ifxLK48cnyDDi/200_s.gif https://media4.giphy.com/media/ifxLK48cnyDDi/200_s.gif Gen X stands ready to assume out natural leadership position in the counterrevolution. Our cynicism coupled with your enthusiasm... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBQVrCflZ_E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBQVrCflZ_E
- mc32 11y agoIt's probably related to the relative maturity of an economy. In a growing economy, the odds of offspring doing better than parents is a function of the economy as many new avenues to prosperity open up. On the one hand is China where children have more opportunity than parents, on the other hand is Japan, a mature economy where growth has plateaued so there aren't massive opportunities for newer generations. Also, after a certain level of achievement, there isn't much more to be had. So the progress would be incremental, on average, rather than tectonic, after the plateauing. In other words, it's not expected that in large diversified economies there is the possibility for everyone to become a magnate.
- rayiner 11y agoThe caveat is that it's only true in certain developed nations. Maybe real life proof that free trade is not Pareto optimal.
- pasiaj 11y agoHow do you reach that conclusion? Doesn't it seem more likely, that rapidly expanding population in the face of scarce resources leaves a decreasing share of a smaller pie for the newcomers?
- rglullis 11y agoNot really. The developed nations do not have increasing population. Aging, yes. But population is not really growing.
- evanpw 11y agoPopulation growth is slowing, and previous generations in developed countries have been richer than their parents, so the evidence seems to point in the opposite direction.
- RobertoG 11y agoIf the problem is that the pie is smaller, shouldn't we see how the GDP per capita goes down? https://www.google.fr/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=ny_gdp_pcap_cd&idim=country:USA:GBR:CAN&hl=en&dl=en https://www.google.fr/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&m...
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- harryh 11y agohttps://twitter.com/BrankoMilan/status/668196138332327936 https://twitter.com/BrankoMilan/status/668196138332327936 You should look at this too rayiner. It's my new favorite chart. It explains so so much.
- laotzu 11y agoThe concept of "free trade" has been obfuscated to the point of being a mythological idol.
- rayiner 11y agoHard to really make a case for that considering almost everything you buy is made in China.
- untog 11y agoThis is interesting to me because (as a 30 year old) it never occurred to me that I would be more prosperous than my parents. I'd like to be, of course, but it seems alien to me that there was an era where that was all but guaranteed. It doesn't matter, except that it explains where a lot of this older generation's resentment of "the youth" comes from - they haven't faced the situation we face, so the only way they can make sense of us not succeeding is that we're simply not trying. When that generation is a large voting bloc, that poses a problem. (That said, I suspect most of us HN readers will not be poorer than their parents. Tech is an area of boom in an economy of bust, after all, so factor that in when reading responses on here)
- Scarblac 11y agoI'm 40 and way poorer than my babyboomer parents. My savings got wiped out in a housing market crash in 2008, they have made over half a million euro in their lives just from their houses becoming worth more over time. They've also both had work most of their adult life, and their pensions funds have always done well on the stock market, whereas my wife has been without a job since the financial crisis hit and government in the Netherlands went in austerity mode.
- laotzu 11y agoMay I ask what your savings were in that caused them to be be wiped out in 2008? I would have to guess retirement funds invested in mutual funds which were invested in the housing bubble?
- Scarblac 11y agoWe bought a house for 300k, about 60k of it our savings and 240k mortgage. In the next two years, the value of the house went down by 60k. To be honest that wasn't _all_ our savings, and they were already spent on the house of course, but it was a financial loss equal to most of our original savings.
- esteth 11y ago
- cryoshon 11y agoThe article mentions pensions at the end... what's a pension? Joking aside, I haven't seen outward bitterness regarding their poor lot from the current young generation so much as doubling-down on the rat race in an attempt to still top their parents somehow. It's pretty bad for their mental health, and not very effective so far, but may pay off in the long run.
- JustSomeNobody 11y agoA pension is something companies used to provide to their employees. Employees used to be able to stay their entire career with one company and amass a pretty decent retirement pension with said company. Then Wall Street got corrupt. They demanded ever more from companies. Each quarter had to show more profit from the last otherwise they punished the company. Wall Street found ways of funneling any profits directly to investors instead of investing in the company (and, more importantly, it's employees). Pensions took a hit. Companies stopped offering them. Some companies 'borrowed' from pensions and lost it all. The employees did suffer. Employee loyalty dropped. Companies took that as an opportunity to treat employees as temporary; replacing them regularly with cheaper ones. You'll have to wait until tomorrow night to hear the rest of the story. G'Night.
- raverbashing 11y agoOh how funny You just forgot to mention how pensions funds invest heavily in 'evil' Wall Street And how Wall Street has not been invented in the last couple of years. And how people happily wound a rope on their necks for a bigger house.
- ionised 11y agoThis is a BBC article and in the UK, pensions are still very much alive. We receive a state pension at retirement that is dependent on national insurance contributions over the course of your working life. You can also contribute to (and have recently probably been automatically opted into) private workplace pensions that your employer will probably match (up to a point).
- dkonofalski 11y agoWhat do they mean by "to be poorer"? The current generation already is poorer than previous generations. Income has not kept up with inflation and the income gap has widened tremendously. That previous generations could afford a single-family house with 1 person working and with multiple kids. Now, a double income is almost required, even with renting and not owning, and the rate of couples without children is rising too. How can anyone be surprised that a candidate who decries all these things is having such success? Everyone in the newer generations know that they're getting the short stick and that we gave it to them. Bernie Sanders is just pointing out the obvious. http://www.dol.gov/wb/factsheets/Qf-ESWM07.htm http://www.dol.gov/wb/factsheets/Qf-ESWM07.htm http://www.bls.gov/news.release/famee.nr0.htm http://www.bls.gov/news.release/famee.nr0.htm
- austenallred 11y agoI'm probably only slightly less "poor" than my parents were at my age, but I'm vastly more wealthy.
- roymurdock 11y agoInterested to hear what you mean by this... "Wealth" in economics is the sum total of all of your physical and intangible assets, including a calculation of discounted future earnings. So being rich and being wealthy are very similar concepts in economics - large NPV of assets and income. But in normal parlance, rich and poor can also refer to standard of living/quality of life/happiness. So are you wealthier? Happier? Earning less?
- austenallred 11y ago"Wealth" and being "rich" (or making money) are similar but not the same. Adjusted according to inflation I make slightly less money than they do - meaning I have less cash in my bank account. But the prices of everything are being driven down so quickly that I live a much fuller life than they did on a per-opportunity basis. I have access to all the world's information, seemingly infinite entertainment, and a faster computer than they could even imagine in my pocket (not to mention my tablet and laptop). I can travel the world (I actually make money when I do so by Airbnb'ing my house), Amazon drops stuff they couldn't afford on my doorstop for very cheap. So I make slightly more, but what I have access to is much greater than they did. I'd argue my life is much richer (er, wealthier), despite making slightly less.
- pitt1980 11y agothis is so dependent on the macro economy in which you live, its almost completely independent of you http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2013/08/26-years-of-growth-shanghai-then-and-now/100569/ http://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2013/08/26-years-of-growth-... can you imagine having been a 10 year old in Shanghai in 1987?
- jusssi 11y agoMakes sense. More people fighting over the same finite amount of resources, leads to less per person. Eventually, no matter how imaginary money is, it's used to buy non-imaginary resources.
- refurb 11y agoThat makes no sense. Resources are fixed but incomes have grow by what? 5 fold in the last 100 years? Lots more people now than then!
- jusssi 11y agoIn the last 100 years, the advance of science and technology has enabled us to make better use of those resources, making people wealthier. Population growth seems to be catching up with the advance now, leaving less resources per capita. Or maybe it's just slower times before the next big breakthrough. Infinite energy from fusion, and AI doing all our work would certainly allow us to truly fill up the world.
- fatpenguin2015 11y agoHow does one define poorer? If you were given the choice to go back in time and live in your parents generation INSTEAD of the present, your life expectancy is lower, you dont have the Internet for information. Overseas Phone Calls were a luxury back then, so was airplane travel. It seems to me inn absolute terms, the vast majority is better off vs if they were the same age in the 1980's
- nocman 11y agoAnd the US wasn't 19 Trillion dollars in debt either.
- pnut 11y agoYour statement presumes a lot, for instance that sovereign debt under all circumstances, is an existential threat. The United States has been in deeper debt (as a percentage of GDP) before.
- nocman 11y agoA huge amount of debt is always a threat to prosperity (both personal and national). The fact that so many people seem to think it is "no big deal" is part of the problem (on both a personal and national level).
- hwstar 11y agoYes, the amount of debt was much larger in WW2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States_public_debt#/media/File:Federal_Debt_Held_by_the_Public_1790-2013.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States_p...
- nocman 11y agoOnly if you are measuring against GDP. Even adjusting for the value of a dollar in 1950, the $260 billion owed was equivalent only to about 3.5 trillion dollars. Nothing to sneeze at, but nowhere near 19 trillion.
- atinybitanon 11y agoI make more than my parents combined ever did, even if you count for inflation. Though they seemed to have a higher quality of life. I suspect this has to do with other factors, mostly my own short commings.
- merpnderp 11y agoPeople eat out quite a bit more than their parents did. This is probably the single biggest cost difference between this generation and their parents. $20 a plate at Applebees versus $3 a plate at home.
- zbyte64 11y agoFactor in time spent cooking. $3 a plate would either mean cooking up a large batch or eating mac&cheese. You couldn't drag me into an Applebees...
- AnimalMuppet 11y agoBut what do you do with the time if you don't cook? Do you sit in front of the TV, searching for something worth watching so that you're not bored? If so, then taking the time to cook is free, because you're essentially valuing your time at zero.
- merpnderp 11y agoYou sit at a table waiting an hour for your food to arrive. I cook a majority of the meals for my family, and they are healthy, cheap, and never take me more than 30 minutes, and most of that is waiting for water to boil or stirring something occasionally.
- johngalt 11y agoHouses are bigger, cars are safer, faster and more efficient, medicines are more prevalent, entertainment options have increased incalculably. I guess I don't feel poorer.
- irox859 11y agoMy grandfather was a carpenter working in a factory that made piano benches. He worked there his entire career. He was in his early fifties when he retired and was actually retired longer than he worked in terms of time, and when he died he still had 6 digits in assets (not including his house.) He didn't do anything special except live modestly, save, and buy stocks. Who can say they'll have the same experience working a blue collar job today?
- austenallred 11y agoI think as a rule of thumb anybody working a blue collar job today is in trouble.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- fatpenguin2015 11y agoJust a quick informal poll if its allowed. For users/people who think you are "worse off" vs back then, could you let us know which country you are in? For users who grew up in Asia/developing countries, I would think the young nowadays have a lot more opportunities/chances to strike it rich. What seems to be occurring at this stage = there used to be a income/price discrepancy for work done, solely because most work had to be performed by locals. The main change now is a lot more of this work can be given/outsourced to employees who have lower wages in developing countries. It would be interesting to see the results of the poll.
- rwallace 11y agoIreland here. Peaked maybe two or three decades later than the US did, but yes, my countrymen seem determined to import all the systemic corruption and waste and follow the Americans on their downward spiral, so unless that changes, we are now at the stage where each generation is fewer and in real terms poorer than the last.
- evanpw 11y agoHere's a post with some actual charts and numbers: http://www.forbes.com/sites/ashleaebeling/2013/03/15/gen-x-and-gen-y-wealth-stagnates/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/ashleaebeling/2013/03/15/gen-x-a.... The conclusions looks like: 1) People in the age range 29-37 (cherry-picked?) are less wealthy than the previous generation. The Great Recession explains a lot of the difference. 2) All other age groups are wealthier than the previous generation, but the gain is much smaller than it has been in the past.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- hyperventilator 11y agoPeople think they have it hard but have no inkling of struggle. The slight flattening of wages, that frame their 'epic' struggle, has brought hundreds of millions out of actual poverty. The default victimology mindset is quite unseemly. No understanding of how fortunate they were to be born in the West.