8 ms·

I shudder when I think about the strain that will be placed on millenials when we inevitably become our parents' safety net. It's a perfect storm: a housing bub

I shudder when I think about the strain that will be placed on millenials when we inevitably become our parents' safety net. It's a perfect storm: a housing bubble that will pop when everyone tries to sell their house at the same time, unreliable pensions, non-existant retirement savings, high levels of undischargable student debt, and dwindling job prospects for young people. It's not going to be pretty.

cmarschner 11y ago
your statement implies a conflict-ladden connection with your parents. Family can also mean: safety net, love, time. My wife's family comes from a mid-sized town where grandmothers, aunts and cousins live in vicinity. This means houses where built without any loan from a bank and parents could go to work with their children being watched and cared for when they were sick. On Christmas eve family gathers at a large table and there is more food than anyone can eat. We are the only ones who live abroad and need to spend a good chunk of money to buy the services we would get from a family for free. Sometimes I think we should de-economize our lives.
- sholanozie 11y ago
  I agree with your conclusion, but disagree with your suggestion that you have any insight into my relationship with my parents. I also advocate a shift back to "family-orienting" living, and live my life accordingly. I'm just looking at big picture trends and simple demographics.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
tw04 11y ago
That seems like a pretty gross overgeneralization. An entire generation that hasn't saved any money for retirement? Seriously? I guess I can count almost every one of my family members as "unique" then. I can think of only 1 of them I would expect to be in financial trouble post retirement.
- atom-morgan 11y ago
  I would say your family is unique in this case based on this article I read earlier this year. "Approximately 62% of Americans have no emergency savings for things such as a $1,000 emergency room visit or a $500 car repair, according to a new survey of 1,000 adults by personal finance website Bankrate.com. Faced with an emergency, they say they would raise the money by reducing spending elsewhere (26%), borrowing from family and/or friends (16%) or using credit cards (12%)." http://www.marketwatch.com/story/most-americans-are-one-paycheck-away-from-the-street-2015-01-07 http://www.marketwatch.com/story/most-americans-are-one-payc...
  - tbrownaw 11y ago
    GP's family being in a 38% "minority" hardly makes them unique.
    - kiiski 11y ago
      That 62 % was "people with no emergency savings", not "people without enough savings to retire". The latter number would be somewhere above 62 %.
  - tw04 11y ago
    That says nothing about whether or not they have a retirement fund. When I was fresh out of college for the first few years that described me to a T, but I still had money going into a 401k every month.
  - superuser2 11y ago
    Nope. Retirement savings are typically in 401k and IRA accounts, which are untouchable (without enormous penalty) until age 59.5. It's entirely possible (though irrational) to have six or seven figures in retirement savings but no emergency fund.
    - nommm-nommm 11y ago
      People who go broke if they had a $1000 emergency are not the same people maxing out their 401(k)... plus about half of Americans have no retirement accounts at all.
devonkim 11y ago
The children will likely end up moving into their parents' homes and paying off their parents' medical bills with reverse mortgages leaving the once young at mid-life or later with nothing to inherit and no job prospects in these areas typically away from major metro (and increasingly, employment-availability) areas. This will leave most Americans in the positions before WW2 about given there will be few assets in the hands of most Americans again. I'm seeing housing prices in suburbs, exurbs, and rural areas dropping as lack of viable jobs in these areas combined with crushing commutes to cities makes these locations terrible for those still needing to work. There's an alarming number of people I've heard of commuting from West Virginia into DC and from Richmond into DC enduring 3+ hour commutes as cities that used to be self-sustained economies now become suburbs of the largest cities, and the trend is going to continue with a few deviants that buck the trend like remote workers or homesteaders. Where I live, the local economy is driven by two demographics - tourists and local retirees sprinkled with some of the wealthiest households in the US living here part time to avoid paying state income taxes. Much of the US is eerily similar to this pattern and it's extremely depressing to think of a way out of the spiral where almost all of our money will go into paying outrageous mortgages / rent with lower-paying jobs and the few in the middle class are in finance, tech, or healthcare.
- sholanozie 11y ago
  You pretty much hit the nail on the head here. It really is alarming to think that we have not started to plan for this almost inevitable scenario in ~20 years time. We need to begin re-thinking our role as humans in an economy which increasingly does not require us.
  - partisan 11y ago
    How do you plan for the collapse of the economy?
    - sholanozie 11y ago
      The first step is to invest, as communities, into producing as much food as possible locally in order to lessen our dependence on the global economic system. We have the technology to turn all those shuttered Targets and malls into indoor farms powered largely by renewable sources. An ironic side effect would be the creation of jobs and a reduction in the net cost of feeding a city.
hkmurakami 11y ago
Look no further than Japan to see exactly what you describe in action.
jmspring 11y ago
I am still forming my opinion on this as a Gen-Xer, but I hear a lot of people concerned about when millennials become the majority/the responsible ones and have a greater impact than the baby boomers on this country (the US). On the other side, I also hear people talk about how entitled and shallow the baby boom generation has been and the enormous burden this group will bring upon the social net (social security, etc) because they didn't plan (in general), don't have the savings to survive major health issues, etc. I hate labels, but as someone from Gen-X, I've already got obligations supporting family, pretty much plan on making sure my immediate family is not dependent upon others, etc. For saving up, moving to Europe isn't really an option (in another thread, someone indicated the huge difference in upper end engineering salaries between Europe and the US); however having an EU national spouse, we are definitely looking at retiring in Europe down the road. It is going to be interesting to see how it plays out over time.

cmarschner 11y ago

your statement implies a conflict-ladden connection with your parents. Family can also mean: safety net, love, time. My wife's family comes from a mid-sized town where grandmothers, aunts and cousins live in vicinity. This means houses where built without any loan from a bank and parents could go to work with their children being watched and cared for when they were sick. On Christmas eve family gathers at a large table and there is more food than anyone can eat. We are the only ones who live abroad and need to spend a good chunk of money to buy the services we would get from a family for free. Sometimes I think we should de-economize our lives.

sholanozie 11y ago
I agree with your conclusion, but disagree with your suggestion that you have any insight into my relationship with my parents. I also advocate a shift back to "family-orienting" living, and live my life accordingly. I'm just looking at big picture trends and simple demographics.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

tw04 11y ago

That seems like a pretty gross overgeneralization. An entire generation that hasn't saved any money for retirement? Seriously? I guess I can count almost every one of my family members as "unique" then. I can think of only 1 of them I would expect to be in financial trouble post retirement.

atom-morgan 11y ago
I would say your family is unique in this case based on this article I read earlier this year. "Approximately 62% of Americans have no emergency savings for things such as a $1,000 emergency room visit or a $500 car repair, according to a new survey of 1,000 adults by personal finance website Bankrate.com. Faced with an emergency, they say they would raise the money by reducing spending elsewhere (26%), borrowing from family and/or friends (16%) or using credit cards (12%)." http://www.marketwatch.com/story/most-americans-are-one-paycheck-away-from-the-street-2015-01-07 http://www.marketwatch.com/story/most-americans-are-one-payc...
- tbrownaw 11y ago
  GP's family being in a 38% "minority" hardly makes them unique.
  - kiiski 11y ago
    That 62 % was "people with no emergency savings", not "people without enough savings to retire". The latter number would be somewhere above 62 %.
- tw04 11y ago
  That says nothing about whether or not they have a retirement fund. When I was fresh out of college for the first few years that described me to a T, but I still had money going into a 401k every month.
- superuser2 11y ago
  Nope. Retirement savings are typically in 401k and IRA accounts, which are untouchable (without enormous penalty) until age 59.5. It's entirely possible (though irrational) to have six or seven figures in retirement savings but no emergency fund.
  - nommm-nommm 11y ago
    People who go broke if they had a $1000 emergency are not the same people maxing out their 401(k)... plus about half of Americans have no retirement accounts at all.

devonkim 11y ago

The children will likely end up moving into their parents' homes and paying off their parents' medical bills with reverse mortgages leaving the once young at mid-life or later with nothing to inherit and no job prospects in these areas typically away from major metro (and increasingly, employment-availability) areas. This will leave most Americans in the positions before WW2 about given there will be few assets in the hands of most Americans again. I'm seeing housing prices in suburbs, exurbs, and rural areas dropping as lack of viable jobs in these areas combined with crushing commutes to cities makes these locations terrible for those still needing to work. There's an alarming number of people I've heard of commuting from West Virginia into DC and from Richmond into DC enduring 3+ hour commutes as cities that used to be self-sustained economies now become suburbs of the largest cities, and the trend is going to continue with a few deviants that buck the trend like remote workers or homesteaders. Where I live, the local economy is driven by two demographics - tourists and local retirees sprinkled with some of the wealthiest households in the US living here part time to avoid paying state income taxes. Much of the US is eerily similar to this pattern and it's extremely depressing to think of a way out of the spiral where almost all of our money will go into paying outrageous mortgages / rent with lower-paying jobs and the few in the middle class are in finance, tech, or healthcare.

sholanozie 11y ago
You pretty much hit the nail on the head here. It really is alarming to think that we have not started to plan for this almost inevitable scenario in ~20 years time. We need to begin re-thinking our role as humans in an economy which increasingly does not require us.
- partisan 11y ago
  How do you plan for the collapse of the economy?
  - sholanozie 11y ago
    The first step is to invest, as communities, into producing as much food as possible locally in order to lessen our dependence on the global economic system. We have the technology to turn all those shuttered Targets and malls into indoor farms powered largely by renewable sources. An ironic side effect would be the creation of jobs and a reduction in the net cost of feeding a city.

hkmurakami 11y ago

Look no further than Japan to see exactly what you describe in action.

jmspring 11y ago

I am still forming my opinion on this as a Gen-Xer, but I hear a lot of people concerned about when millennials become the majority/the responsible ones and have a greater impact than the baby boomers on this country (the US). On the other side, I also hear people talk about how entitled and shallow the baby boom generation has been and the enormous burden this group will bring upon the social net (social security, etc) because they didn't plan (in general), don't have the savings to survive major health issues, etc. I hate labels, but as someone from Gen-X, I've already got obligations supporting family, pretty much plan on making sure my immediate family is not dependent upon others, etc. For saving up, moving to Europe isn't really an option (in another thread, someone indicated the huge difference in upper end engineering salaries between Europe and the US); however having an EU national spouse, we are definitely looking at retiring in Europe down the road. It is going to be interesting to see how it plays out over time.