9 ms·

Millennials Are Screwed

103 points by acjohnson55 9y ago

nixpulvis 9y ago
I can only skim these kinds of articles. Mixture of truth and sensationalism makes me upset and uneasy.
- giggles_giggles 9y ago
  That combination should make you uneasy, because it's a red flag that you're reading propaganda of one sort or another. Propaganda always contains some truth, but usually not all of the truth, and an appeal to your emotions..
  - eplanit 9y ago
    You've described modern Journalism in America quite succinctly.
    - crpatino 9y ago
      therefore, modern journalism is....????
- acjohnson55 9y ago
  I submitted the article because I thought they executed some really stunning design [1], but gotten through most of it yet. But it would be more constructive for a discussion if you cited something specific that you felt was inaccurate or hyperbolic. [1] I helped launch Highline when I worked for HuffPost. I'm certainly proud of that fact, but I don't go out of my way to share its content.
- bllguo 9y ago
  I'd identify with this in the past, but now I'm coming to dislike this mindset. How do you effect change without extreme, dramatic examples or tone? It's all well and good to promote moderation and cooperation until you actually want to see something done. If you can concretely point out what is false or sensationalist, that's a different story... obviously lies should not be tolerated.
  - mcguire 9y ago
    Like most such articles, it mentions student loan debt, making it appear to be a massive problem. https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-typical-household-with-student-loan-debt/ https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-typical-household-wit... "The average balance of outstanding student loan debt for households with some debt was $25,700. The median debt was $13,000, and seventy-five percent of borrowers had less than $29,000. These burdens are relatively modest given the annual earnings of these households. The average annual wage earnings among this population was $71,700." There same example involved a man who couldn't get a job as a bank teller, but apparently had no trouble getting one making more money as a bus driver. (I guess the implication is that blue collar jobs are bad?)
    - coltonv 9y ago
      Wait back up. That statistic used median values and quartile values to describe debt, and an average to describe income. This is how people mislead you with statistics. Average income is going to be higher than median if the highest earners earn several times more than the median (which they do).
- tomc1985 9y ago
  Well, it is HuffPo
meddlepal 9y ago
Millennials are learning as a generation that the real world isn't as happy, meritous, equitable and safe as school and that the world is and will always likely be pay to play. If Millennials want to change the world and succeed they need to start doing it with money.
- khalladay 9y ago
  What parts of the article drove this comment? I admittedly skimmed it, but the whole thing seemed to be about why millenials aren't just "doing it with money," and that reason wasn't that they wanted life to be like school.
- leggomylibro 9y ago
  ...Which is why the large incumbents and aging boomers without sufficient retirement savings are currently bleeding off as much money and future earnings as they can in an audacious eleventh-hour raid. Y'know, if it's too audacious, the reprisals are gonna be financially brutal once the pendulum swings back. Two can play at the game of literal and baldly-stated wealth redistribution, if that becomes the norm. But by then most of the current decision makers will be dead, so who cares?
  - cmurf 9y ago
    Indeed. I point to Half Life (ST:NG), the Resolution. That's the compulsory suicide episode once you reach a certain age. As an Xer over 40, I'm definitely more sympathetic to Millenials than the Boomers. My stereotyping: The Baby Boomers politically have bought off Democrats and Republicans to get the lowest top bracket tax rates seen since income taxes began, but they demand complete payout of Medicare and Social Security benefits without any haircuts, while also exploding the national debt, and supporting optional wars of aggression. This compared to the prior generation who taxed themselves like crazy while still building massive private and public infrastructure, balancing the budget, and having middle class wealth that was the envy of the world. At best, Baby Boomers are coasters. At worst, Baby Boomers are a useless generation that has given us nothing terribly useful or innovative. Millenials early on grew up with the idea they could coast like the boomers, and then the 2008 financial crisis happened, and they had a rude awakening. Why do I give more crap to Baby Boomers? Because they've had their chance and they pissed it away. They have left the country far worse off financially, and massively wealth disproportionate, compared to the country they were handed. Whereas the Millenials had been, up until about now, young and entitled to be a little stupid and irresponsible - but they did not make this bed at all. Anyway, it's going to be up to Millenials and Xers to deal with it.
CodinM 9y ago
Can someone enlighten me on the tech used to create such pages? I vaguely remember someone posted about it but lost the bookmark.
- vichu 9y ago
  The technique is known as "parallax scrolling". Not sure on the exact tech, but here's an example library: https://github.com/Prinzhorn/skrollr https://github.com/Prinzhorn/skrollr
lagadu 9y ago
Is there a version in regular, normal text available to read? Shitting all over your content with useless animations that do nothing but take my time, force me to scroll excessively and annoy me is a fantastic way of having me move on to some other, better presented content.
- acjohnson55 9y ago
  If you use Firefox, try Reader View. I tried it after reading your comment, and it appears to render a stripped down version really nicely. I'm guessing something similar exists in other browsers, if you're not a Firefox user.
yathern 9y ago
> Mention “millennial” to anyone over 40 and the word “entitlement” will come back at you within seconds And then a paragraph later... > Generalizations... fall apart under scrutiny. As a 24 year old millennial - this article painted with a very emotional and us-vs-them brush which detracted from it's core. These sorts of articles love to blame baby boomers for the problems of the world - and while that's not necessarily incorrect, it's a convenient way to avoid blaming human nature - something we all share. It makes me wonder if in 40 years, the "Cyborg Generation" or whatever will be talking about how those crusty old millennial ruined the world by not doing XYZ which we all know now we should've.
- vkou 9y ago
  > It makes me wonder if in 40 years, the "Cyborg Generation" or whatever will be talking about how those crusty old millennial ruined the world by not doing XYZ which we all know now we should've. They almost certainly will. But thanks to climate change, I doubt they'll be called the cyborg generation.
  - __s 9y ago
    Why not? Humanity can survive famine by replacing their need for food with cybernetic implants. Potentially live underwater, why not
    - vkou 9y ago
      We might also discover that unicorns and elves are real, but I wouldn't bet our future on it.
    - stcredzero 9y ago
      Asps. Very dangerous. You go first!
- kazinator 9y ago
  Also, you're not magically protected from everything that a 35-year-old faces just because you're 45 or 50.
austincheney 9y ago
Yes, millennials are screwed. I do also largely agree with all the mentioned stereotypes against millennials, which largely explains just why they are so screwed. After having lived in third-world countries for some time I don't feel sorry for them either. I know that sounds cold and callous, but I don't care. They still have it better than most people in the world. Suck it up. I see this in my own kids too. I warn them about wasting time on stupid crap, but they largely blow it off. At some point they will be out the door, on their own, and poor. Hopefully they make it on their own, because they aren't moving back in. They have had sufficient warning and preparation which they dutifully ignore. If rent is half your pay check then either increase your income or move to a different location with a lower cost of living. I have known numerous people who have moved from California to Texas for exactly that reason and I have also met some people who have completely left the US for this reason. As a software developer I see where entitlement creeps in at various places. Sometimes it is from young people who cry because they suddenly realize they are drowning just need a little life raft, which because a crutch for their next life raft. Sometimes it is from old people who are tired of keeping up and just want to retain their position in life. At the end of the day it all comes down to being competitive with your quality of output. Here is a simple way to identify the behavior behind the problems many millennials face. Ask a simple question: "Should I feel sorry for you?" Clearly, the answer is yes, but that an affirmative answer challenges the cognitive complexity that allows a person to exist in that state in the first place. Again, don't care.
- vkou 9y ago
  One day, you will grow old, and less-able. You may need the kids that you blew off to take care of you.
  - austincheney 9y ago
    I was careful to mention that I am not blowing them off.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
ivraatiems 9y ago
A lot of this is not new information to me, but it's a great succinct summary and the design is cool (though, to be honest, I think some of the animations are a little too 'showy' and take a little too long, distracting from the content). What I'd love to be able to do is find a way to break out of the traditional debate about this topic: One person (usually a millennial) brings up the issues the article raises, then another person (usually not, often a boomer) counterpoints with the "participation trophy" or "what about motivation" or "the Internet" responses. But in many of these cases, both exist at once: Millennials feel entitled because they were told to be by parents who told them they were entitled, either explicitly or through teaching, because those parents grew up in a world that made those entitlements possible. As the article points out, the system is complicated. It's so complicated that both sides are right, but neither is fully comprehending the consequences. I think the question therefore must be not "how did we get to this place and who is to blame?" but rather "what societal changes are necessary to fix it?" Presuming enough of each generation want to fix the problem, by asking the latter question rather than the former, it may be possible to effect the kind of change that will prevent the genuine collapse we seem to be racing towards.
- adrr 9y ago
  Not sure if its fixable in the millennial's lifetime. Government can't do anything as boomers ran up the national debt by slashing their taxes. There's no money to go around. There's also a huge infrastructure bill thats also coming due as it wasn't upgraded. Bridges, public utilities, dams, mass transit all need to be fixed at they are past their lifespans. Lot of it was built during "greatest generation" period and not touched afterwards. American Society of Civil Engineers estimate at least $2 trillion to fix our infrastructure over the next 10 years.
  - peatmoss 9y ago
    > at least $2 trillion to fix our infrastructure over the next 10 years. I can only hope that some of this translates into some kind of New Deal work. Being just older than the millennials, I have felt for some time that I grabbed the last rung of a ladder being dangled from a helicopter as the building under me was crumbling into flames.
junkscience2017 9y ago
...and yet they still line up to go to university to study humanities instead, enroll in a community college program for anything construction related...in Santa Rosa, home builders are naming their prices. the same will soon happen in Ventura. in the Bay Area, construction tradespeople turn down work due to demand. there is work to be done that will earn you a comfortable living that does not require a university degree.
tzar 9y ago
A recent review on the same topic, with a more serene presentation: https://nplusonemag.com/issue-30/reviews/not-every-kid-bond-matures-2/ https://nplusonemag.com/issue-30/reviews/not-every-kid-bond-....
RmDen 9y ago
>>My rent consumes nearly half my income When I was younger... I had 4 roommates in Astoria.. This allowed me to save a lot of money. Why do people insist on living alone and then bitching about rent being high??
- sizzle 9y ago
  Oregon coast? Beautiful place to visit I hear?
  - RmDen 9y ago
    nope..Queens, New York
baybal2 9y ago
>We will never retire Pretty much it, work your own pension fund. That looks to be the only solution after "havings lots of kids" who will look after you
jancsika 9y ago
> Spiritual Guide - Becky > Becky is an 8-bit creation living in Brooklyn. You can find her Kickstarter here. This links to a sign-up for an email newsletter. Is this an inside joke? Is Becky the name of the artist or not? Why do I have to ask questions like this about the credits for a piece of professional journalism?
- synicalx 9y ago
  > piece of professional journalism? Does the Huffington Post count as professional journalism though?
  - jancsika 9y ago
    I want to sharpen my teeth, so I'm going to ignore the fact that this response is a joke. Yes, it does count as journalism. * It is written by a Michael Hobbes, a contributing editor of Highline which is a new online magazine apparently owned by Huffpost * It credits an additional reporter-- Gregory Barber, who appears to have written previously for the Washington Post-- plus two additional research assistants. (Ignoring for the moment the enormous team of designers who I guess put together the novel scrolling system.) * I'm seeing fairly standard/reputable references for some of the stats-- The College Board for the stat about how much debt. students are taking on, some U.S. census references, Journal of Labor Economics out of the University of Chicago, etc. * looks to be structured as a broad advocacy piece interspersed with "slice of life" stories about millenial's struggles to get jobs with decent wages and benefits to be able to support themselves
default-kramer 9y ago
> The median white household will have 86x more wealth than the median black household by 2020. I had to look up median to make sure I wasn't confusing it with the mean. This is almost unbelievable. I would have guessed 10x at most.
- tanderson92 9y ago
  Foreclosed: Destruction of Black Wealth During the Obama Presidency http://peoplespolicyproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Foreclosed.pdf http://peoplespolicyproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/F... This white paper goes a long way to explain why this occurred.
partycoder 9y ago
Millennials joined a monopoly game in its late stage.
runako 9y ago
As a proud member of Generation X, I hate how articles like these show a neat handoff from the Boomers to the Millennials. Many of these same problems bit Gen X, but at least the millennials are big enough to have articles written about their plight!
- larzang 9y ago
  Gen X gets rightfully ignored in these discussions because they're less affected by it, having come of age before the big downturn, and less responsible for it, having come of age after the damage was done. I'm 34, I graduated high school just in time to watch the economic prosperity I had viewed through the eyes of older friends and relatives immediately explode out from under me. I can remember when everything wasn't totally doomed forever, but I never got to experience it first hand. Gen X did, and while it's not like they haven't suffered along with us since, it's not quite the same. You don't get our sympathy, but you don't get our anger either.
foofoo55 9y ago
What if equity purchases were forced to occur more slowly? Such as being locked into that equity for a cooling off period before it could be sold? What about other ways to allow, if not coax, investors and corporations to think long term again? You know, force greed to chill out a bit. From my perspective as a parent and employer of several millenials here in the Vancouver BC area, those that go into a skilled trade seem to do far better right now than those getting a desk or general labor job.
jzawodn 9y ago
Is there... like a text only version of that article? WTF with all the retro-video-game animation and crap?
saas_co_de 9y ago
Am I the only one who finds it ironic that an article about how millennials are financially screwed is elaborately animated and credits order a dozen people for its production?
apo 9y ago
Contrary to the cliché, the vast majority of millennials did not go to college, do not work as baristas and cannot lean on their parents for help. Maybe the vast majority don't graduate from college, but the majority enroll according to BLS, and have for some time: https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2017/69-point-7-percent-of-2016-high-school-graduates-enrolled-in-college-in-october-2016.htm https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2017/69-point-7-percent-of-2016... One of the hallmarks of a bubble is that the conventional wisdom support it wholeheartedly. The early 2000s US housing market is a case in point. I remember vividly discussions with prospective first-time home buyers at the time. I told them they were taking a big risk borrowing money to pay for something that could quickly decline in value. Let's just say the conversation didn't go much further than that. Today I have similar discussions with parents of high school children. Debt is still the funding mechanism, but the asset is a 4-year college degree. As before, this is a guaranteed conversation-killer. There are many causes for the challenges faced by millenials, but worship at the altar of 4-year degrees, and especially the appetite for debt financing, is one of the biggest.
- wahern 9y ago
  During the bubble homeownership rates deviated from the 50-year average by a whopping 5%, more-or-less.[1] And for that entire time taking out a mortgage was also the norm.[2] The bubble wasn't so much in ownership rates but in prices. I appreciate your link to college enrollment. I never realized it was so high. But at the same time it's been relatively high--at least, much higher than I believed--since long before there was a so-called bubble in college enrollment. I appreciate your points but I feel like you're trying too hard to affirm the current narrative among millennials that eschew both home ownership and college. Whatever the merit of that argument, the premise that there's a recent bubble in the numbers of people pursing those things is belied by the evidence. The only concrete thing we can say in both cases relates to price inflation. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home-ownership_in_the_United_States#/media/File:Historic_U.S._Homeownership_Rate,_as_of_2014.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home-ownership_in_the_United_S... [2] I couldn't find historical numbers on the percentage of first-time home buyers taking out a mortgage. I feel like this point is uncontroversial, but I could very well be wrong.
- revelation 9y ago
cortexio 9y ago
Millennials should stop overloading their brains with dopamine. It's the root of all their depression and laziness. Atleast that was the case with me. Life isn't becoming harder, we are just becoming more & more like zombies. Uncreative and lazy.
artur_makly 9y ago
there’s pure nuggets of wisdom here from Chamath Palihapitiya, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMotykw0SIk&app=desktop https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMotykw0SIk&app=desktop
RickJWag 9y ago
Life gives us all different cards to play. In some ways, I agree today's kids have it tougher. In other ways, there are opportunities that did not exist in the past. I have hopes for today's recent grads in that things remind me somewhat of the mid 80s. (That's when I graduated college.) The economy was ready to boom for a good long time. Some jobs were going away, some were opening up. I was lucky enough to get a job in programming, the economy carried me forward to this day. I wish the same good luck to future generations.
tatersolid 9y ago
As a Gen X, I have to say: Grow up. Guess what: despite a CS degree from a fairly prestigious school, I started out my career sucking shit on the help desk and fixing bugs in legacy code. You need to suck shit at the start of your career, learn, and advance. This also means living in a shithole apartment and eating Ramen instead of blowing your cash at da club or on a new car. It’s been that way since the industrial revolution. You are not special. You are not snowflakes. We cannot hold your hands. Work it out for yourselves, just like we did, and the boomers did before us.
- ivraatiems 9y ago
  This comment makes me think you didn't read the article. Do you understand how difficult it is to even get a job "sucking shit" right now? Do you understand that if you get that job, it doesn't pay as much as you got paid when you had it, because wages haven't risen with inflation? Do you understand the years of experience and massive student debt you'd have to get into to get the college degree to even get your foot in the door of this job with inferior wages and benefits to the job you got just out of school? > You need to suck shit at the start of your career, learn, and advance. It’s been that way since the industrial revolution. For many - perhaps most - millennials, there simply are no opportunities for advancement. There is no reward. People like me, who are software engineers and do well for themselves, are the exception. The arguments in the article are economic, and grounded in economic data and realities. Ignoring those systemic problems because you're doing just fine is just willful ignorance. > You are not special. You are not snowflakes. We cannot hold your hands. Work it out for yourselves, just like we did. Nobody's saying anyone's "special." The whole point of the article is that no millennial is getting what previous generations got - nobody is asking for special treatment. The ask is for treatment equivalent to what their parents got, the same treatment that you received. We can't "work it out for ourselves" when we have no power, no money, massive debt, poor wages, no benefits, no retirement plan, and no way out. We can't "work it out" when your generation - and those before you - are draining and then destroying the social safety nets that you relied on to get where you are. We don't deserve the privileges your generation had any more than you did. We deserve it exactly the same amount. Why do you blame us while you rescind them?
RestlessMind 9y ago
> And unless something changes, our calamity is going to become America’s. Yes, there is one thing which Millennials can change. It is very easy and should take less than 1 hr (on average) per year. Go and VOTE in the elections. The reason why policies favor Boomers is because Boomers go and vote. Politicians are scared to touch social security and medicare for anyone over 55 because those folks turn out and vote. There is simply no excuse for Millennials to have a huge turnout disparity when compared against Boomers[1]. [1] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/05/16/millennials-match-baby-boomers-as-largest-generation-in-u-s-electorate-but-will-they-vote/ft_16-05-13_millennialvoters_turnout/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/05/16/millennials-...
candiodari 9y ago
One might wonder why huffington post is a) ridiculing the people who complained that ever since the great recession job statistics are made up [1] b) publishes large and beautifully animated articles about how millenials face "never ending job insecurity", facing years of unemployment between jobs they lose for the slightest of mistakes (see post these comments are about) I mean exactly one of these articles is not a complete lie. Unfortunately, both are published by the same news organisation ... (perhaps because we currently no longer have Obama's government ? [2]) Frankly, I got my first real job in July 2001. Yes, that 2001. As a tech consultant. It almost sounds like a joke. I had colleagues who made 10 TIMES my wage just because they were hired a year earlier, and I was far, far more capable than some of them. And let's not mention the company cars. Let's just not. Granted, they fired some of those, but still. Tell me about unfairness. [1] http://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/trump-unemployment-jobs-numbers-poll_us_58c6f7bde4b0428c7f12566f http://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/trump-unemployment-jobs-n... [2] https://successstory.com/people/arianna-huffington https://successstory.com/people/arianna-huffington
- lucozade 9y ago
  > Tell me about unfairness Well. My grandfather lost an eye in WWII so was a fitter for Czech pilots. They'd been kicked out of their country by a genocidal megalomaniac. When the war finished and they returned, a new megalomanic wouldn't let them leave again. Occasionally by using tanks. My father grew up in Egypt where the only source of income was sand crabs and running errands for Italian PoWs. He got kicked out too eventually as he wasn't of the appropriate religion. The only country that would take him was the other side of the world. Me? I've had it easy. The Cold War and the odd IRA bomb aside, I thought my life has been a bed of roses compared to my forefathers. I've never had a company car. I had no idea I was so hard done by until now.
  - candiodari 9y ago
    Whilst I cannot claim anything like your grandfather I have spent time doing the dishes (in too hot water) for 8 hours a day for minimum wage. I have been very lucky since.
  - 9y ago
SQL2219 9y ago
...This worked well when rents were low enough to save and homes were cheap enough to buy. In one of the most infuriating conversations I had for this article, my father breezily informed me that he bought his first house at 29. It was 1973, he had just moved to Seattle and his job as a university professor paid him (adjusted for inflation) around $76,000 a year. The house cost $124,000 — again, in today’s dollars. I am six years older now than my dad was then. I earn less than he did and the median home price in Seattle is around $730,000. My father’s first house cost him 20 months of his salary. My first house will cost more than 10 years of mine.
- 3pt14159 9y ago
  I keep saying it, but I don't really ever think it changes anything, but it is the interest rates. You can't keep interest rates at 3% for 30 years and expect things to keep working like they used to.
  - mixmastamyk 9y ago
    And nimbys.
throwaway2016a 9y ago
Off topic: this page design is truly a work of art. Please don't let this be a trend though.
squozzer 9y ago
Keep in mind the world is not frozen in its current disadvantaged-for-millenials state. A couple of forces might actually work to millenials' favor -- 1) Boomers are retiring and dying off. Somebody will buy their homes. Right now it seems investors are buying them all but as the demographic trend continues, the supply might outpace investor demand, the second-derivative will go negative, which will slow investor demand, and probably cause the first-derivative to go negative. This trend will also affect other forms of investments as boomers cash out their portfolios. 2) Social movements such as #metoo will probably make certain types of people hiring liabilities (too "old-school"), and younger people might benefit. OTOH, other forces might work against millenials -- 1) Human obsolescence, especially if current social assumptions hold and keep programs such as basic income politically untenable.
romdev 9y ago
EPILEPSY WARNING: this page flashes rapidly with multiple colors. This comment is unlikely to protect anyone, but hopefully raises awareness that fast-blinking text has been known to induce seizures: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/epilepsy-site-hacked-with-seizure-images/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/epilepsy-site-hacked-with-seizu... Please be responsible.

103 points by acjohnson55 9y ago

nixpulvis 9y ago

I can only skim these kinds of articles. Mixture of truth and sensationalism makes me upset and uneasy.

giggles_giggles 9y ago
That combination should make you uneasy, because it's a red flag that you're reading propaganda of one sort or another. Propaganda always contains some truth, but usually not all of the truth, and an appeal to your emotions..
- eplanit 9y ago
  You've described modern Journalism in America quite succinctly.
  - crpatino 9y ago
    therefore, modern journalism is....????
acjohnson55 9y ago
I submitted the article because I thought they executed some really stunning design [1], but gotten through most of it yet. But it would be more constructive for a discussion if you cited something specific that you felt was inaccurate or hyperbolic. [1] I helped launch Highline when I worked for HuffPost. I'm certainly proud of that fact, but I don't go out of my way to share its content.
bllguo 9y ago
I'd identify with this in the past, but now I'm coming to dislike this mindset. How do you effect change without extreme, dramatic examples or tone? It's all well and good to promote moderation and cooperation until you actually want to see something done. If you can concretely point out what is false or sensationalist, that's a different story... obviously lies should not be tolerated.
- mcguire 9y ago
  Like most such articles, it mentions student loan debt, making it appear to be a massive problem. https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-typical-household-with-student-loan-debt/ https://www.brookings.edu/research/the-typical-household-wit... "The average balance of outstanding student loan debt for households with some debt was $25,700. The median debt was $13,000, and seventy-five percent of borrowers had less than $29,000. These burdens are relatively modest given the annual earnings of these households. The average annual wage earnings among this population was $71,700." There same example involved a man who couldn't get a job as a bank teller, but apparently had no trouble getting one making more money as a bus driver. (I guess the implication is that blue collar jobs are bad?)
  - coltonv 9y ago
    Wait back up. That statistic used median values and quartile values to describe debt, and an average to describe income. This is how people mislead you with statistics. Average income is going to be higher than median if the highest earners earn several times more than the median (which they do).
tomc1985 9y ago
Well, it is HuffPo

meddlepal 9y ago

Millennials are learning as a generation that the real world isn't as happy, meritous, equitable and safe as school and that the world is and will always likely be pay to play. If Millennials want to change the world and succeed they need to start doing it with money.

khalladay 9y ago
What parts of the article drove this comment? I admittedly skimmed it, but the whole thing seemed to be about why millenials aren't just "doing it with money," and that reason wasn't that they wanted life to be like school.
leggomylibro 9y ago
...Which is why the large incumbents and aging boomers without sufficient retirement savings are currently bleeding off as much money and future earnings as they can in an audacious eleventh-hour raid. Y'know, if it's too audacious, the reprisals are gonna be financially brutal once the pendulum swings back. Two can play at the game of literal and baldly-stated wealth redistribution, if that becomes the norm. But by then most of the current decision makers will be dead, so who cares?
- cmurf 9y ago
  Indeed. I point to Half Life (ST:NG), the Resolution. That's the compulsory suicide episode once you reach a certain age. As an Xer over 40, I'm definitely more sympathetic to Millenials than the Boomers. My stereotyping: The Baby Boomers politically have bought off Democrats and Republicans to get the lowest top bracket tax rates seen since income taxes began, but they demand complete payout of Medicare and Social Security benefits without any haircuts, while also exploding the national debt, and supporting optional wars of aggression. This compared to the prior generation who taxed themselves like crazy while still building massive private and public infrastructure, balancing the budget, and having middle class wealth that was the envy of the world. At best, Baby Boomers are coasters. At worst, Baby Boomers are a useless generation that has given us nothing terribly useful or innovative. Millenials early on grew up with the idea they could coast like the boomers, and then the 2008 financial crisis happened, and they had a rude awakening. Why do I give more crap to Baby Boomers? Because they've had their chance and they pissed it away. They have left the country far worse off financially, and massively wealth disproportionate, compared to the country they were handed. Whereas the Millenials had been, up until about now, young and entitled to be a little stupid and irresponsible - but they did not make this bed at all. Anyway, it's going to be up to Millenials and Xers to deal with it.

CodinM 9y ago

Can someone enlighten me on the tech used to create such pages? I vaguely remember someone posted about it but lost the bookmark.

vichu 9y ago
The technique is known as "parallax scrolling". Not sure on the exact tech, but here's an example library: https://github.com/Prinzhorn/skrollr https://github.com/Prinzhorn/skrollr

lagadu 9y ago

Is there a version in regular, normal text available to read? Shitting all over your content with useless animations that do nothing but take my time, force me to scroll excessively and annoy me is a fantastic way of having me move on to some other, better presented content.

acjohnson55 9y ago
If you use Firefox, try Reader View. I tried it after reading your comment, and it appears to render a stripped down version really nicely. I'm guessing something similar exists in other browsers, if you're not a Firefox user.

yathern 9y ago

> Mention “millennial” to anyone over 40 and the word “entitlement” will come back at you within seconds And then a paragraph later... > Generalizations... fall apart under scrutiny. As a 24 year old millennial - this article painted with a very emotional and us-vs-them brush which detracted from it's core. These sorts of articles love to blame baby boomers for the problems of the world - and while that's not necessarily incorrect, it's a convenient way to avoid blaming human nature - something we all share. It makes me wonder if in 40 years, the "Cyborg Generation" or whatever will be talking about how those crusty old millennial ruined the world by not doing XYZ which we all know now we should've.

vkou 9y ago
> It makes me wonder if in 40 years, the "Cyborg Generation" or whatever will be talking about how those crusty old millennial ruined the world by not doing XYZ which we all know now we should've. They almost certainly will. But thanks to climate change, I doubt they'll be called the cyborg generation.
- __s 9y ago
  Why not? Humanity can survive famine by replacing their need for food with cybernetic implants. Potentially live underwater, why not
  - vkou 9y ago
    We might also discover that unicorns and elves are real, but I wouldn't bet our future on it.
  - stcredzero 9y ago
    Asps. Very dangerous. You go first!
kazinator 9y ago
Also, you're not magically protected from everything that a 35-year-old faces just because you're 45 or 50.

austincheney 9y ago

Yes, millennials are screwed. I do also largely agree with all the mentioned stereotypes against millennials, which largely explains just why they are so screwed. After having lived in third-world countries for some time I don't feel sorry for them either. I know that sounds cold and callous, but I don't care. They still have it better than most people in the world. Suck it up. I see this in my own kids too. I warn them about wasting time on stupid crap, but they largely blow it off. At some point they will be out the door, on their own, and poor. Hopefully they make it on their own, because they aren't moving back in. They have had sufficient warning and preparation which they dutifully ignore. If rent is half your pay check then either increase your income or move to a different location with a lower cost of living. I have known numerous people who have moved from California to Texas for exactly that reason and I have also met some people who have completely left the US for this reason. As a software developer I see where entitlement creeps in at various places. Sometimes it is from young people who cry because they suddenly realize they are drowning just need a little life raft, which because a crutch for their next life raft. Sometimes it is from old people who are tired of keeping up and just want to retain their position in life. At the end of the day it all comes down to being competitive with your quality of output. Here is a simple way to identify the behavior behind the problems many millennials face. Ask a simple question: "Should I feel sorry for you?" Clearly, the answer is yes, but that an affirmative answer challenges the cognitive complexity that allows a person to exist in that state in the first place. Again, don't care.

vkou 9y ago
One day, you will grow old, and less-able. You may need the kids that you blew off to take care of you.
- austincheney 9y ago
  I was careful to mention that I am not blowing them off.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]

ivraatiems 9y ago

A lot of this is not new information to me, but it's a great succinct summary and the design is cool (though, to be honest, I think some of the animations are a little too 'showy' and take a little too long, distracting from the content). What I'd love to be able to do is find a way to break out of the traditional debate about this topic: One person (usually a millennial) brings up the issues the article raises, then another person (usually not, often a boomer) counterpoints with the "participation trophy" or "what about motivation" or "the Internet" responses. But in many of these cases, both exist at once: Millennials feel entitled because they were told to be by parents who told them they were entitled, either explicitly or through teaching, because those parents grew up in a world that made those entitlements possible. As the article points out, the system is complicated. It's so complicated that both sides are right, but neither is fully comprehending the consequences. I think the question therefore must be not "how did we get to this place and who is to blame?" but rather "what societal changes are necessary to fix it?" Presuming enough of each generation want to fix the problem, by asking the latter question rather than the former, it may be possible to effect the kind of change that will prevent the genuine collapse we seem to be racing towards.

adrr 9y ago
Not sure if its fixable in the millennial's lifetime. Government can't do anything as boomers ran up the national debt by slashing their taxes. There's no money to go around. There's also a huge infrastructure bill thats also coming due as it wasn't upgraded. Bridges, public utilities, dams, mass transit all need to be fixed at they are past their lifespans. Lot of it was built during "greatest generation" period and not touched afterwards. American Society of Civil Engineers estimate at least $2 trillion to fix our infrastructure over the next 10 years.
- peatmoss 9y ago
  > at least $2 trillion to fix our infrastructure over the next 10 years. I can only hope that some of this translates into some kind of New Deal work. Being just older than the millennials, I have felt for some time that I grabbed the last rung of a ladder being dangled from a helicopter as the building under me was crumbling into flames.

junkscience2017 9y ago

...and yet they still line up to go to university to study humanities instead, enroll in a community college program for anything construction related...in Santa Rosa, home builders are naming their prices. the same will soon happen in Ventura. in the Bay Area, construction tradespeople turn down work due to demand. there is work to be done that will earn you a comfortable living that does not require a university degree.

tzar 9y ago

A recent review on the same topic, with a more serene presentation: https://nplusonemag.com/issue-30/reviews/not-every-kid-bond-matures-2/ https://nplusonemag.com/issue-30/reviews/not-every-kid-bond-....

RmDen 9y ago

>>My rent consumes nearly half my income When I was younger... I had 4 roommates in Astoria.. This allowed me to save a lot of money. Why do people insist on living alone and then bitching about rent being high??

sizzle 9y ago
Oregon coast? Beautiful place to visit I hear?
- RmDen 9y ago
  nope..Queens, New York

baybal2 9y ago

>We will never retire Pretty much it, work your own pension fund. That looks to be the only solution after "havings lots of kids" who will look after you

jancsika 9y ago

> Spiritual Guide - Becky > Becky is an 8-bit creation living in Brooklyn. You can find her Kickstarter here. This links to a sign-up for an email newsletter. Is this an inside joke? Is Becky the name of the artist or not? Why do I have to ask questions like this about the credits for a piece of professional journalism?

synicalx 9y ago
> piece of professional journalism? Does the Huffington Post count as professional journalism though?
- jancsika 9y ago
  I want to sharpen my teeth, so I'm going to ignore the fact that this response is a joke. Yes, it does count as journalism. * It is written by a Michael Hobbes, a contributing editor of Highline which is a new online magazine apparently owned by Huffpost * It credits an additional reporter-- Gregory Barber, who appears to have written previously for the Washington Post-- plus two additional research assistants. (Ignoring for the moment the enormous team of designers who I guess put together the novel scrolling system.) * I'm seeing fairly standard/reputable references for some of the stats-- The College Board for the stat about how much debt. students are taking on, some U.S. census references, Journal of Labor Economics out of the University of Chicago, etc. * looks to be structured as a broad advocacy piece interspersed with "slice of life" stories about millenial's struggles to get jobs with decent wages and benefits to be able to support themselves

default-kramer 9y ago

> The median white household will have 86x more wealth than the median black household by 2020. I had to look up median to make sure I wasn't confusing it with the mean. This is almost unbelievable. I would have guessed 10x at most.

tanderson92 9y ago
Foreclosed: Destruction of Black Wealth During the Obama Presidency http://peoplespolicyproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Foreclosed.pdf http://peoplespolicyproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/F... This white paper goes a long way to explain why this occurred.

partycoder 9y ago

Millennials joined a monopoly game in its late stage.

runako 9y ago

As a proud member of Generation X, I hate how articles like these show a neat handoff from the Boomers to the Millennials. Many of these same problems bit Gen X, but at least the millennials are big enough to have articles written about their plight!

larzang 9y ago
Gen X gets rightfully ignored in these discussions because they're less affected by it, having come of age before the big downturn, and less responsible for it, having come of age after the damage was done. I'm 34, I graduated high school just in time to watch the economic prosperity I had viewed through the eyes of older friends and relatives immediately explode out from under me. I can remember when everything wasn't totally doomed forever, but I never got to experience it first hand. Gen X did, and while it's not like they haven't suffered along with us since, it's not quite the same. You don't get our sympathy, but you don't get our anger either.

foofoo55 9y ago

What if equity purchases were forced to occur more slowly? Such as being locked into that equity for a cooling off period before it could be sold? What about other ways to allow, if not coax, investors and corporations to think long term again? You know, force greed to chill out a bit. From my perspective as a parent and employer of several millenials here in the Vancouver BC area, those that go into a skilled trade seem to do far better right now than those getting a desk or general labor job.

jzawodn 9y ago

Is there... like a text only version of that article? WTF with all the retro-video-game animation and crap?

saas_co_de 9y ago

Am I the only one who finds it ironic that an article about how millennials are financially screwed is elaborately animated and credits order a dozen people for its production?

apo 9y ago

Contrary to the cliché, the vast majority of millennials did not go to college, do not work as baristas and cannot lean on their parents for help. Maybe the vast majority don't graduate from college, but the majority enroll according to BLS, and have for some time: https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2017/69-point-7-percent-of-2016-high-school-graduates-enrolled-in-college-in-october-2016.htm https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2017/69-point-7-percent-of-2016... One of the hallmarks of a bubble is that the conventional wisdom support it wholeheartedly. The early 2000s US housing market is a case in point. I remember vividly discussions with prospective first-time home buyers at the time. I told them they were taking a big risk borrowing money to pay for something that could quickly decline in value. Let's just say the conversation didn't go much further than that. Today I have similar discussions with parents of high school children. Debt is still the funding mechanism, but the asset is a 4-year college degree. As before, this is a guaranteed conversation-killer. There are many causes for the challenges faced by millenials, but worship at the altar of 4-year degrees, and especially the appetite for debt financing, is one of the biggest.

wahern 9y ago
During the bubble homeownership rates deviated from the 50-year average by a whopping 5%, more-or-less.[1] And for that entire time taking out a mortgage was also the norm.[2] The bubble wasn't so much in ownership rates but in prices. I appreciate your link to college enrollment. I never realized it was so high. But at the same time it's been relatively high--at least, much higher than I believed--since long before there was a so-called bubble in college enrollment. I appreciate your points but I feel like you're trying too hard to affirm the current narrative among millennials that eschew both home ownership and college. Whatever the merit of that argument, the premise that there's a recent bubble in the numbers of people pursing those things is belied by the evidence. The only concrete thing we can say in both cases relates to price inflation. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home-ownership_in_the_United_States#/media/File:Historic_U.S._Homeownership_Rate,_as_of_2014.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home-ownership_in_the_United_S... [2] I couldn't find historical numbers on the percentage of first-time home buyers taking out a mortgage. I feel like this point is uncontroversial, but I could very well be wrong.
revelation 9y ago

cortexio 9y ago

Millennials should stop overloading their brains with dopamine. It's the root of all their depression and laziness. Atleast that was the case with me. Life isn't becoming harder, we are just becoming more & more like zombies. Uncreative and lazy.

artur_makly 9y ago

there’s pure nuggets of wisdom here from Chamath Palihapitiya, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMotykw0SIk&app=desktop https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMotykw0SIk&app=desktop

RickJWag 9y ago

Life gives us all different cards to play. In some ways, I agree today's kids have it tougher. In other ways, there are opportunities that did not exist in the past. I have hopes for today's recent grads in that things remind me somewhat of the mid 80s. (That's when I graduated college.) The economy was ready to boom for a good long time. Some jobs were going away, some were opening up. I was lucky enough to get a job in programming, the economy carried me forward to this day. I wish the same good luck to future generations.

tatersolid 9y ago

As a Gen X, I have to say: Grow up. Guess what: despite a CS degree from a fairly prestigious school, I started out my career sucking shit on the help desk and fixing bugs in legacy code. You need to suck shit at the start of your career, learn, and advance. This also means living in a shithole apartment and eating Ramen instead of blowing your cash at da club or on a new car. It’s been that way since the industrial revolution. You are not special. You are not snowflakes. We cannot hold your hands. Work it out for yourselves, just like we did, and the boomers did before us.

ivraatiems 9y ago
This comment makes me think you didn't read the article. Do you understand how difficult it is to even get a job "sucking shit" right now? Do you understand that if you get that job, it doesn't pay as much as you got paid when you had it, because wages haven't risen with inflation? Do you understand the years of experience and massive student debt you'd have to get into to get the college degree to even get your foot in the door of this job with inferior wages and benefits to the job you got just out of school? > You need to suck shit at the start of your career, learn, and advance. It’s been that way since the industrial revolution. For many - perhaps most - millennials, there simply are no opportunities for advancement. There is no reward. People like me, who are software engineers and do well for themselves, are the exception. The arguments in the article are economic, and grounded in economic data and realities. Ignoring those systemic problems because you're doing just fine is just willful ignorance. > You are not special. You are not snowflakes. We cannot hold your hands. Work it out for yourselves, just like we did. Nobody's saying anyone's "special." The whole point of the article is that no millennial is getting what previous generations got - nobody is asking for special treatment. The ask is for treatment equivalent to what their parents got, the same treatment that you received. We can't "work it out for ourselves" when we have no power, no money, massive debt, poor wages, no benefits, no retirement plan, and no way out. We can't "work it out" when your generation - and those before you - are draining and then destroying the social safety nets that you relied on to get where you are. We don't deserve the privileges your generation had any more than you did. We deserve it exactly the same amount. Why do you blame us while you rescind them?

RestlessMind 9y ago

> And unless something changes, our calamity is going to become America’s. Yes, there is one thing which Millennials can change. It is very easy and should take less than 1 hr (on average) per year. Go and VOTE in the elections. The reason why policies favor Boomers is because Boomers go and vote. Politicians are scared to touch social security and medicare for anyone over 55 because those folks turn out and vote. There is simply no excuse for Millennials to have a huge turnout disparity when compared against Boomers[1]. [1] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/05/16/millennials-match-baby-boomers-as-largest-generation-in-u-s-electorate-but-will-they-vote/ft_16-05-13_millennialvoters_turnout/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/05/16/millennials-...

candiodari 9y ago

One might wonder why huffington post is a) ridiculing the people who complained that ever since the great recession job statistics are made up [1] b) publishes large and beautifully animated articles about how millenials face "never ending job insecurity", facing years of unemployment between jobs they lose for the slightest of mistakes (see post these comments are about) I mean exactly one of these articles is not a complete lie. Unfortunately, both are published by the same news organisation ... (perhaps because we currently no longer have Obama's government ? [2]) Frankly, I got my first real job in July 2001. Yes, that 2001. As a tech consultant. It almost sounds like a joke. I had colleagues who made 10 TIMES my wage just because they were hired a year earlier, and I was far, far more capable than some of them. And let's not mention the company cars. Let's just not. Granted, they fired some of those, but still. Tell me about unfairness. [1] http://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/trump-unemployment-jobs-numbers-poll_us_58c6f7bde4b0428c7f12566f http://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/trump-unemployment-jobs-n... [2] https://successstory.com/people/arianna-huffington https://successstory.com/people/arianna-huffington

lucozade 9y ago
> Tell me about unfairness Well. My grandfather lost an eye in WWII so was a fitter for Czech pilots. They'd been kicked out of their country by a genocidal megalomaniac. When the war finished and they returned, a new megalomanic wouldn't let them leave again. Occasionally by using tanks. My father grew up in Egypt where the only source of income was sand crabs and running errands for Italian PoWs. He got kicked out too eventually as he wasn't of the appropriate religion. The only country that would take him was the other side of the world. Me? I've had it easy. The Cold War and the odd IRA bomb aside, I thought my life has been a bed of roses compared to my forefathers. I've never had a company car. I had no idea I was so hard done by until now.
- candiodari 9y ago
  Whilst I cannot claim anything like your grandfather I have spent time doing the dishes (in too hot water) for 8 hours a day for minimum wage. I have been very lucky since.
- 9y ago

SQL2219 9y ago

...This worked well when rents were low enough to save and homes were cheap enough to buy. In one of the most infuriating conversations I had for this article, my father breezily informed me that he bought his first house at 29. It was 1973, he had just moved to Seattle and his job as a university professor paid him (adjusted for inflation) around $76,000 a year. The house cost $124,000 — again, in today’s dollars. I am six years older now than my dad was then. I earn less than he did and the median home price in Seattle is around $730,000. My father’s first house cost him 20 months of his salary. My first house will cost more than 10 years of mine.

3pt14159 9y ago
I keep saying it, but I don't really ever think it changes anything, but it is the interest rates. You can't keep interest rates at 3% for 30 years and expect things to keep working like they used to.
- mixmastamyk 9y ago
  And nimbys.

throwaway2016a 9y ago

Off topic: this page design is truly a work of art. Please don't let this be a trend though.

squozzer 9y ago

Keep in mind the world is not frozen in its current disadvantaged-for-millenials state. A couple of forces might actually work to millenials' favor -- 1) Boomers are retiring and dying off. Somebody will buy their homes. Right now it seems investors are buying them all but as the demographic trend continues, the supply might outpace investor demand, the second-derivative will go negative, which will slow investor demand, and probably cause the first-derivative to go negative. This trend will also affect other forms of investments as boomers cash out their portfolios. 2) Social movements such as #metoo will probably make certain types of people hiring liabilities (too "old-school"), and younger people might benefit. OTOH, other forces might work against millenials -- 1) Human obsolescence, especially if current social assumptions hold and keep programs such as basic income politically untenable.

romdev 9y ago

EPILEPSY WARNING: this page flashes rapidly with multiple colors. This comment is unlikely to protect anyone, but hopefully raises awareness that fast-blinking text has been known to induce seizures: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/epilepsy-site-hacked-with-seizure-images/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/epilepsy-site-hacked-with-seizu... Please be responsible.