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The me generation was aptly named, generation X ate the table scraps, and now we millennials are being left with the bill. Edit: I suppose the question now is,

The me generation was aptly named, generation X ate the table scraps, and now we millennials are being left with the bill. Edit: I suppose the question now is, what can we do about it?

knieveltech 11y ago
Gen X was standing on the same rug as you guys when it got pulled out. Take a look around next time you're in WalMart or McDonalds. All those 40ish looking people that look weirdly out of place in their uniform shirt? Yeah, that's us since the boomers nuked domestic manufacturing and construction wages made a run for the bottom. Don't even get me started on retirement. sigh
- justinjlynn 11y ago
  Well, I didn't say that Gen X got nothing at all. We all got hurt in some way by the GFC. Of course to generalise about an entire generation people is egregiously pointless. At the same time, simply due to the luck of timing, it feels as though Gen X had more of a chance to do something about it. However, they did not and in fact they had much more of an opportunity to take advantage of the selfish and short-sighted policies perpetrated during the previous era. They, at the very least, had the potential to come out of it with at least some decent sum of assets. Meanwhile, here we are with a completely upside down economy left to us in tatters and we've no inheritance to help us. Of course, millennials feel shortchanged in a very real sense, we were the hardest hit, we have had little to no chance to do anything about it and we'll likely be known as the impoverished generation -- much like the lost generation, except this time with economic warfare as the driver.
  - pbhjpbhj 11y ago
    >Of course to generalise about an entire generation people is egregiously pointless. // You consider statistics to be pointless? What do you propose instead?
  - SyneRyder 11y ago
    "We all got hurt in some way by the GFC." Worth noting that the GFC was one of the best times in history to buy stocks. I'd be in a terrible situation right now if it wasn't for the GFC: I bought some brand name stocks (supermarkets, mining, banking) at huge discounts. One of them more than tripled in price in 5 years and is still throwing off a 20% cash dividend every year. Don't give up. You never know when a Black Swan event might swing things in a way that benefits you. And Millennials have so much online access to education about stock market trading, E-Trade, online banking, and new things like crowdfunding that just weren't around before. It's not easy for Millennials, but there's a lot of amazing opportunities that other generations would be jealous of.
    - kspaans 11y ago
      Not to mention many indexes completely recovered within a year or two of the GFC.
  - touristtam 11y ago
    > it feels as though Gen X had more of a chance to do something about it But they didn't had that chance to begin with. The predictions were as bad back then than they are now; back in the 80s the collapse of the market economy was predicted for shortly after 2000, and in the 90s, it was pushed back to as early as 2020 and as late as 2040. Last I have checked western countries are still on course to default by the mid to late 21st century. I find this generation view short sighted and you should look at the different strate of the society instead to see who in that generation has managed to get ahead of the game and get a confortable situation for themselves. Those are the one that conformed to the rules and custom of the previous generation. I am sorry to say this, but if you want to see a change you will have to get out of your way and make that change happens.
    - pessimizer 11y ago
      In the US, the collapse has been held off by maintaining a vast trade deficit and inflating asset bubbles. Government borrowing isn't the problem in the US, it's national borrowing. According to traditional trade theory, developed economies should be consistently running trade surpluses. Thanks, Reagan. Allowing the dollar to weaken, and digging out the entrenched interests in US health care would fix everything. It's just that a weak dollar and lower health care spend is a problem for the rich, and the petty bourgeoisie have thus far mindlessly supported them. (Because racists.) http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/balance-of-trade http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/balance-of-tra...
- trhway 11y ago
  >All those 40ish looking people that look weirdly out of place in their uniform shirt? Yeah, that's us since the boomers nuked domestic manufacturing and construction wages made a run for the bottom. technology and economy do change. The changes can't be stopped. The question is how you adapt to them. When many people suddenly lost their job as soldiers 70 years ago there was in particular GI bill created to help manage the transition. What was done to manage the specific transition of domestic manufacturing jobs disappearing and overall transition to globalization and "information" economy? Nothing. Education and safety net are the main missing pieces which would support the transition. Yet, the country during last several decades has been either electing or seriously consider to elect a Republican :) Just think about couple trillions buried in the sands of Iraq and Afghanistan - that was basically total squandering of the humongous peace benefit of ending Cold War. It could have been a humongous improvement in education and medical systems and country infrastructure which would help tremendously to the transitioning GenX-ers as well as to the graduating and entering workforce Millenials... yet the country in 2000 decided that "lower taxes" outweigh it all. Well, you get what you pay for. Blaming all those issues onto the third world countries for using the chance to improve their life just a bit, to stop being hungry every day - well, lets say that blaming is pointless whining at best and pretty heartless at least.
  - ap22213 11y ago
    Or, as they say, hindsight is 20/20. Concepts like exponential change and globalization certainly weren't mainstream in the 80s when I was a child. In fact, I'd bet that most adults at the time still worked at the same company, in the same town, for most of their adult life. Companies at the time were still providing pensions and health care and middle class salaries, and employees (owners, bosses, and workers) generally all still worked in the same place. It is silly in hindsight, yes. We were quite naive. But, I think you're being overly harsh (or maybe I'm just too sensitive). Many of us assumed that changes would happen linearly, not exponentially, and that we would live out our lives differently, but mostly similar to our parents. Hopefully, those under 30 today have been better trained to be highly adaptive. However, at a certain point, even the most well-trained Human will reach an adaptive limit.
    - 11y ago
- fauigerzigerk 11y ago
  I think there is two classes of "us". Those who inherit significant wealth from the boomers and those who don't.
brandonmenc 11y ago
It sounds more like a consequence of global business cycles and growth being "absorbed" by newer economies.
- RyanZAG 11y ago
  Definitely. Just part of globalization. It helps far more people than it hurts, but for those in developed countries, you don't really see the people it is helping because they're across the planet. I'd say it's nice for developed countries to help out like that - but we all know the real winners are the businessmen behind your politicians bankrolling this stuff.
  - pbhjpbhj 11y ago
    I'd assume you're right. Some evidence would be good to see - strikes me that instead of prosperity shifting to less developed nations it could instead be shifting to the already wealthy capitalists?
    - jacobush 11y ago
      Especially since companies externalises environment costs and the poor people in Kerala and Africa etc have to pay.
    - RyanZAG 11y ago
      It's shifting to wealthy capitalists in developed countries (well not shifting, they were always wealthy), as well as creating new wealthy capitalists in developing countries. There is some extra wealth for the poor, but you're right that it is an unequal distribution in developing countries. But those aren't "already wealthy capitalists". They're "newly wealthy capitalists". End of the day it's the same thing - a few wealthy capitalists - but it's still more wealth in developing countries than before. I'd argue that there is zero historical precedent for wealth not to be concentrated though. It's just the nature of wealth - wealth creates wealth, debt creates debt. And that's more of a universal truth than a capitalistic one, and more accurately described as 'value creates value', 'obligation creates obligation'.
tudorw 11y ago
You could assist in the political and economic activity required to improve accountability, governance and social responsibility in global corporations and governments, seek to increase transparency in high value economic affairs to reduce corruption and tax evasion. If that works out our states might have the resources to support us regardless of 'wealth'. Buy less, consume less, recycle more, buy a bike, start a co-op, shop at your farmers market, volunteer at a local charity, get informed about local politics, get involved in local politics, network with your peers and form organisations to protect your interests, talk about wealth and income freely so as to understand your worth, I'm sure the good folks here will have some more ideas...
kabouseng 11y ago
That is a very defeatist and ultimately useless world view. Every generation is mad at the generation before it about something, and argues the previous generation could have solved the problems but now the current generation is left with the problems. Your statement above about millennials being left with the bill, meanwhile gen x feels the baby boomers did them in like another comment here states, the baby boomers is mad at the generation before them (silent generation) about sending them to the disasters that was the vietnam and korean wars, and they in turn is mad about WW1 and WW2 and the great depression that they had to endure because their parents were living it up in the swinging 1910's and 20s.
- cm2187 11y ago
  The amount of debt that the baby boomers will leave behind is a very objective thing. This is the biggest accumulation of debt in peace time in the history of mankind (and objectively the parents indebting their children to buy a shiny new TV, a behaviour that would be universally unacceptable if it wasn't state wide).
  - kabouseng 11y ago
    Sorry this is taking your comment on a tangent, but it is not exactly peace time for the USA, nor has it been since the 1960's or arguably since WW2 if you take the cold war into account. The USA has been involved in one or another war for literally decades now...or does minor wars not count?
    - cm2187 11y ago
      I don't think we can compare the Gulf wars with the all out World Wars. And none of the European countries or Japan were making any war effort, and accumulated as much if not more debt over the same period.
      - Theodores 11y ago
        Didn't the US drop more bombs on Laos in a secret war than all the bombs dropped in WW2? I do not have the figures but in these 'little wars' there has been a lot of silver spent on munitions. The whole process is just a lot more efficient so we are not at total war on the domestic front, just paying our taxes so the military can buy vastly more effective killing machines. Things may have gone away from the unguided bombs of times gone past, war zones may be in different places, but otherwise, there is a lot to compare today's wars with WW1/WW2 when it comes to $$$ spend and devastation caused.
crdoconnor 11y ago
The 0.1% did this to you and blamed it on your grandma. The very least you could do is not believe them.
user10001 11y ago
The most beneficial course of action for our generation would be to just write off our national debt and reboot our currency. But of course that would never happen.
gedy 11y ago
Dude, Gen X is right here working along side, you raising kids, paying bills, etc. What's this "table" you speak of, as we haven't even got there yet.

The me generation was aptly named, generation X ate the table scraps, and now we millennials are being left with the bill. Edit: I suppose the question now is, what can we do about it?

knieveltech 11y ago

Gen X was standing on the same rug as you guys when it got pulled out. Take a look around next time you're in WalMart or McDonalds. All those 40ish looking people that look weirdly out of place in their uniform shirt? Yeah, that's us since the boomers nuked domestic manufacturing and construction wages made a run for the bottom. Don't even get me started on retirement. sigh

justinjlynn 11y ago
Well, I didn't say that Gen X got nothing at all. We all got hurt in some way by the GFC. Of course to generalise about an entire generation people is egregiously pointless. At the same time, simply due to the luck of timing, it feels as though Gen X had more of a chance to do something about it. However, they did not and in fact they had much more of an opportunity to take advantage of the selfish and short-sighted policies perpetrated during the previous era. They, at the very least, had the potential to come out of it with at least some decent sum of assets. Meanwhile, here we are with a completely upside down economy left to us in tatters and we've no inheritance to help us. Of course, millennials feel shortchanged in a very real sense, we were the hardest hit, we have had little to no chance to do anything about it and we'll likely be known as the impoverished generation -- much like the lost generation, except this time with economic warfare as the driver.
- pbhjpbhj 11y ago
  >Of course to generalise about an entire generation people is egregiously pointless. // You consider statistics to be pointless? What do you propose instead?
- SyneRyder 11y ago
  "We all got hurt in some way by the GFC." Worth noting that the GFC was one of the best times in history to buy stocks. I'd be in a terrible situation right now if it wasn't for the GFC: I bought some brand name stocks (supermarkets, mining, banking) at huge discounts. One of them more than tripled in price in 5 years and is still throwing off a 20% cash dividend every year. Don't give up. You never know when a Black Swan event might swing things in a way that benefits you. And Millennials have so much online access to education about stock market trading, E-Trade, online banking, and new things like crowdfunding that just weren't around before. It's not easy for Millennials, but there's a lot of amazing opportunities that other generations would be jealous of.
  - kspaans 11y ago
    Not to mention many indexes completely recovered within a year or two of the GFC.
- touristtam 11y ago
  > it feels as though Gen X had more of a chance to do something about it But they didn't had that chance to begin with. The predictions were as bad back then than they are now; back in the 80s the collapse of the market economy was predicted for shortly after 2000, and in the 90s, it was pushed back to as early as 2020 and as late as 2040. Last I have checked western countries are still on course to default by the mid to late 21st century. I find this generation view short sighted and you should look at the different strate of the society instead to see who in that generation has managed to get ahead of the game and get a confortable situation for themselves. Those are the one that conformed to the rules and custom of the previous generation. I am sorry to say this, but if you want to see a change you will have to get out of your way and make that change happens.
  - pessimizer 11y ago
    In the US, the collapse has been held off by maintaining a vast trade deficit and inflating asset bubbles. Government borrowing isn't the problem in the US, it's national borrowing. According to traditional trade theory, developed economies should be consistently running trade surpluses. Thanks, Reagan. Allowing the dollar to weaken, and digging out the entrenched interests in US health care would fix everything. It's just that a weak dollar and lower health care spend is a problem for the rich, and the petty bourgeoisie have thus far mindlessly supported them. (Because racists.) http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/balance-of-trade http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/balance-of-tra...
trhway 11y ago
>All those 40ish looking people that look weirdly out of place in their uniform shirt? Yeah, that's us since the boomers nuked domestic manufacturing and construction wages made a run for the bottom. technology and economy do change. The changes can't be stopped. The question is how you adapt to them. When many people suddenly lost their job as soldiers 70 years ago there was in particular GI bill created to help manage the transition. What was done to manage the specific transition of domestic manufacturing jobs disappearing and overall transition to globalization and "information" economy? Nothing. Education and safety net are the main missing pieces which would support the transition. Yet, the country during last several decades has been either electing or seriously consider to elect a Republican :) Just think about couple trillions buried in the sands of Iraq and Afghanistan - that was basically total squandering of the humongous peace benefit of ending Cold War. It could have been a humongous improvement in education and medical systems and country infrastructure which would help tremendously to the transitioning GenX-ers as well as to the graduating and entering workforce Millenials... yet the country in 2000 decided that "lower taxes" outweigh it all. Well, you get what you pay for. Blaming all those issues onto the third world countries for using the chance to improve their life just a bit, to stop being hungry every day - well, lets say that blaming is pointless whining at best and pretty heartless at least.
- ap22213 11y ago
  Or, as they say, hindsight is 20/20. Concepts like exponential change and globalization certainly weren't mainstream in the 80s when I was a child. In fact, I'd bet that most adults at the time still worked at the same company, in the same town, for most of their adult life. Companies at the time were still providing pensions and health care and middle class salaries, and employees (owners, bosses, and workers) generally all still worked in the same place. It is silly in hindsight, yes. We were quite naive. But, I think you're being overly harsh (or maybe I'm just too sensitive). Many of us assumed that changes would happen linearly, not exponentially, and that we would live out our lives differently, but mostly similar to our parents. Hopefully, those under 30 today have been better trained to be highly adaptive. However, at a certain point, even the most well-trained Human will reach an adaptive limit.
  - 11y ago
fauigerzigerk 11y ago
I think there is two classes of "us". Those who inherit significant wealth from the boomers and those who don't.

brandonmenc 11y ago

It sounds more like a consequence of global business cycles and growth being "absorbed" by newer economies.

RyanZAG 11y ago
Definitely. Just part of globalization. It helps far more people than it hurts, but for those in developed countries, you don't really see the people it is helping because they're across the planet. I'd say it's nice for developed countries to help out like that - but we all know the real winners are the businessmen behind your politicians bankrolling this stuff.
- pbhjpbhj 11y ago
  I'd assume you're right. Some evidence would be good to see - strikes me that instead of prosperity shifting to less developed nations it could instead be shifting to the already wealthy capitalists?
  - jacobush 11y ago
    Especially since companies externalises environment costs and the poor people in Kerala and Africa etc have to pay.
  - RyanZAG 11y ago
    It's shifting to wealthy capitalists in developed countries (well not shifting, they were always wealthy), as well as creating new wealthy capitalists in developing countries. There is some extra wealth for the poor, but you're right that it is an unequal distribution in developing countries. But those aren't "already wealthy capitalists". They're "newly wealthy capitalists". End of the day it's the same thing - a few wealthy capitalists - but it's still more wealth in developing countries than before. I'd argue that there is zero historical precedent for wealth not to be concentrated though. It's just the nature of wealth - wealth creates wealth, debt creates debt. And that's more of a universal truth than a capitalistic one, and more accurately described as 'value creates value', 'obligation creates obligation'.

tudorw 11y ago

You could assist in the political and economic activity required to improve accountability, governance and social responsibility in global corporations and governments, seek to increase transparency in high value economic affairs to reduce corruption and tax evasion. If that works out our states might have the resources to support us regardless of 'wealth'. Buy less, consume less, recycle more, buy a bike, start a co-op, shop at your farmers market, volunteer at a local charity, get informed about local politics, get involved in local politics, network with your peers and form organisations to protect your interests, talk about wealth and income freely so as to understand your worth, I'm sure the good folks here will have some more ideas...

kabouseng 11y ago

That is a very defeatist and ultimately useless world view. Every generation is mad at the generation before it about something, and argues the previous generation could have solved the problems but now the current generation is left with the problems. Your statement above about millennials being left with the bill, meanwhile gen x feels the baby boomers did them in like another comment here states, the baby boomers is mad at the generation before them (silent generation) about sending them to the disasters that was the vietnam and korean wars, and they in turn is mad about WW1 and WW2 and the great depression that they had to endure because their parents were living it up in the swinging 1910's and 20s.

cm2187 11y ago
The amount of debt that the baby boomers will leave behind is a very objective thing. This is the biggest accumulation of debt in peace time in the history of mankind (and objectively the parents indebting their children to buy a shiny new TV, a behaviour that would be universally unacceptable if it wasn't state wide).
- kabouseng 11y ago
  Sorry this is taking your comment on a tangent, but it is not exactly peace time for the USA, nor has it been since the 1960's or arguably since WW2 if you take the cold war into account. The USA has been involved in one or another war for literally decades now...or does minor wars not count?
  - cm2187 11y ago
    I don't think we can compare the Gulf wars with the all out World Wars. And none of the European countries or Japan were making any war effort, and accumulated as much if not more debt over the same period.
    - Theodores 11y ago
      Didn't the US drop more bombs on Laos in a secret war than all the bombs dropped in WW2? I do not have the figures but in these 'little wars' there has been a lot of silver spent on munitions. The whole process is just a lot more efficient so we are not at total war on the domestic front, just paying our taxes so the military can buy vastly more effective killing machines. Things may have gone away from the unguided bombs of times gone past, war zones may be in different places, but otherwise, there is a lot to compare today's wars with WW1/WW2 when it comes to $$$ spend and devastation caused.

crdoconnor 11y ago

The 0.1% did this to you and blamed it on your grandma. The very least you could do is not believe them.

user10001 11y ago

The most beneficial course of action for our generation would be to just write off our national debt and reboot our currency. But of course that would never happen.

gedy 11y ago

Dude, Gen X is right here working along side, you raising kids, paying bills, etc. What's this "table" you speak of, as we haven't even got there yet.