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Your little diatribe has little to do with the article. Happiness is obviously a state of mind and any of us can be happy with any amount of income above abject

by ohyes 8y ago

Your little diatribe has little to do with the article. Happiness is obviously a state of mind and any of us can be happy with any amount of income above abject poverty. That’s not the point. This isn’t a morality parable. The point is that people of my age are set back economically compared to generations prior at the same stage in life. Not us bourgeois tech dweebs, but normal people who aren’t in industries that have had unprecedented growth over the last 30 years. Think about that for minute. Even wages in tech have been mostly stagnant, keeping up with inflation but not really growing, despite the incredible, staggering wealth creation of the last 30 years. No. This isn’t keeping up with the Joneses, this is the system being broken in a fundamental way for the common person. The few get rich and the rest are left behind to toil in financial uncertainty until an inevitable hardship wipes out their savings and they’re back at square one, or more likely in great debt. I own a 15 year old car, haven’t been on a vacation in 10 years, and work as a software engineer making 120k in a major metro. I put the max into my investment/ savings account. If I feel concerned about this in my admittedly comfortable lifestyle, I can’t even imagine the level of stress that the other person who doesn’t have my skills/advantages feels like. The person who works a minimum wage job must be in constant complete financial terror. The type where you give up and shut down and stop trying to dig out of the financial hole, because it’s bottomless and endless and it keeps getting deeper.

jimmies 8y ago
>The point is that people of my age are set back economically compared to generations prior at the same stage in life. That is what I was trying to tease out: Some of the problems are serious because of the relatively high cost of living. I think that's true for land, housing, health care, education. But part of it is the programmed "lifestyle," for example, eating out, depending on credit cards, buying new cars, living paycheck to paycheck. Those are not what the baby boomers did. Food is clearly cheaper, yet you hear complaints about food being expensive. Moving around is cheaper, yet you hear complaints about transportation being expensive. Communication is cheaper, yet you hear complaints about cell phone bills being expensive. In a sense, I even dare to argue that education is generally cheaper (if you factor in how much you can learn online), yet people complain about it being expensive: It is if the only solution to education is to go to expensive colleges. Part of your financial stability is because you drive a 15-year-old car. How many people do you think who make less than you who drive a shinier much more expensive car and would be terrorized because they need $500 tomorrow and they can't come up with it [1]? Do you think that's entirely because they aren't paid enough? If so, how much do you think a person should be paid to have $500 in their savings account? 1: http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/12/pf/americans-lack-of-savings/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/12/pf/americans-lack-of-savings...
- ohyes 8y ago
  I agree that people tend to over-extend themselves financially, but is that a symptom or a cause? My take is this: There's no clear path to home ownership, so you put off having a family. Because you put off having a family you don't get married and you continue in a prolonged adolescence through your twenties. Because you're not bothering with a family you're also not worried about saving for the future, so you focus material pleasures and the present. You eat out, you get a nice car, you use the charge card for stuff that you happen to want. You're comfortable and you're not concerned about what happens to you financially because the consequences don't extend beyond your own sort of vapid existence, that isn't really that fulfilling anyway except for the creature comforts that you're spending your paycheck on. You date but it's all casual because love and marriage is for suckers. Additionally any attempt to save money is inherently risky. You would give up the few comforts you do have, that are keeping you from having a life (that you believe to be) devoid of pleasure. You're genuinely trapped on the hedonic treadmill. Any emergency would wipe out your savings anyway, or if you die you wouldn't have been able to spend it, which is now the point of your life. So i agree with you, the lifestyle is a problem. But I also disagree with you that it is the cause. The cause is an inherent despair that are lot of us are going through. If anything we're the "Why Bother?" generation. We know the things that our parents had are impractical for us the afford, so we ignore lofty goals that involve saving and budgeting, and most of all planning, and you find ourselvs stuck in an instant-gratification lifestyle.
  - jimmies 8y ago
    You made a really good point: I think the single life is somewhat to blame for financial irresponsibility. Is that because "I can't afford a house/land ever" or is it because of something else? My anecdotal experience seems to hint that it's because of the more liberal thinking among millennials when it comes to choosing "the right one."

by ohyes 8y ago

jimmies 8y ago

>The point is that people of my age are set back economically compared to generations prior at the same stage in life. That is what I was trying to tease out: Some of the problems are serious because of the relatively high cost of living. I think that's true for land, housing, health care, education. But part of it is the programmed "lifestyle," for example, eating out, depending on credit cards, buying new cars, living paycheck to paycheck. Those are not what the baby boomers did. Food is clearly cheaper, yet you hear complaints about food being expensive. Moving around is cheaper, yet you hear complaints about transportation being expensive. Communication is cheaper, yet you hear complaints about cell phone bills being expensive. In a sense, I even dare to argue that education is generally cheaper (if you factor in how much you can learn online), yet people complain about it being expensive: It is if the only solution to education is to go to expensive colleges. Part of your financial stability is because you drive a 15-year-old car. How many people do you think who make less than you who drive a shinier much more expensive car and would be terrorized because they need $500 tomorrow and they can't come up with it [1]? Do you think that's entirely because they aren't paid enough? If so, how much do you think a person should be paid to have $500 in their savings account? 1: http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/12/pf/americans-lack-of-savings/index.html http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/12/pf/americans-lack-of-savings...

ohyes 8y ago
I agree that people tend to over-extend themselves financially, but is that a symptom or a cause? My take is this: There's no clear path to home ownership, so you put off having a family. Because you put off having a family you don't get married and you continue in a prolonged adolescence through your twenties. Because you're not bothering with a family you're also not worried about saving for the future, so you focus material pleasures and the present. You eat out, you get a nice car, you use the charge card for stuff that you happen to want. You're comfortable and you're not concerned about what happens to you financially because the consequences don't extend beyond your own sort of vapid existence, that isn't really that fulfilling anyway except for the creature comforts that you're spending your paycheck on. You date but it's all casual because love and marriage is for suckers. Additionally any attempt to save money is inherently risky. You would give up the few comforts you do have, that are keeping you from having a life (that you believe to be) devoid of pleasure. You're genuinely trapped on the hedonic treadmill. Any emergency would wipe out your savings anyway, or if you die you wouldn't have been able to spend it, which is now the point of your life. So i agree with you, the lifestyle is a problem. But I also disagree with you that it is the cause. The cause is an inherent despair that are lot of us are going through. If anything we're the "Why Bother?" generation. We know the things that our parents had are impractical for us the afford, so we ignore lofty goals that involve saving and budgeting, and most of all planning, and you find ourselvs stuck in an instant-gratification lifestyle.
- jimmies 8y ago
  You made a really good point: I think the single life is somewhat to blame for financial irresponsibility. Is that because "I can't afford a house/land ever" or is it because of something else? My anecdotal experience seems to hint that it's because of the more liberal thinking among millennials when it comes to choosing "the right one."