5 ms·

The Shallowest Generation

49 points by tortilla 18y ago

tortilla 18y ago
Interesting Graph: CEOs’ average pay, production workers’ average pay, the S&P 500 Index, corporate profits, and the Federal minimum wage, 1990-2005 (adjusted for inflation) http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/ceo-pay.png http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/ceo-...
time_management 18y ago
The problem's not that they're a shallow generation. Actually, I think the Baby Boomers were a very idealistic generation, and this (paradoxically) has led to the corrupt leadership. The civil rights activists, hippies, and leftists (with a few exceptions) didn't swing around to become the yuppies, sellouts, and corrupt political figures. Different people did. My father's pretty similar to me in worldview, ethics, and politics. When he was growing up, he couldn't have even imagined working at a hedge fund; the concept of working for money was considered crass, if not repulsive. (He was actually quite incensed when I first said I was interested in trying out trading.) In 2007, it was perfectly normal for a liberal, idealistic young person to go and work for an investment bank or hedge fund, because that was seen as the best way to establish oneself and go far later (e.g. Jeff Bezos worked at Shaw before founding Amazon). I would note that the problem with the Baby Boom generation isn't that they're "selfish". My parents aren't bad people. Nor were most of my teachers; they were great. On the whole, the Boomers aren't worse than the rest of us. The difference between them and us is that the better half of them almost entirely eschewed the career paths that led to power-- finance and corporate leadership-- leaving the shameless and greedy bastards to take control.
- ojbyrne 18y ago
  I think this is orthodox Neoconism. The baby boomers were hippies who did drugs, attacked the Vietnam war, questioned authority, promoted "free love", and so on. Most importantly, their independence of thought is what makes them "selfish." Contrasting them with the "Greatest Generation," whose lives were basically dictated to them when WW2 started, and supported the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities. Can we call them the "Pleasantville Generation?" instead.
  - anamax 18y ago
    < The baby boomers were hippies who did drugs, attacked the Vietnam war, questioned authority, promoted "free love", How'd that work out? > Contrasting them with the "Greatest Generation," whose lives were basically dictated to them when WW2 started, and supported the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities. And the Soviets later revealed that there were Communists in the US govt and that they were trying to "influence" Hollywood. > Can we call them the "Pleasantville Generation?" instead. Whenever it comes down to "squares" vs "cool", you can be pretty sure that the "cool" will screw things up more. In other news, truth is not beauty and you have to be pretty stoned to think otherwise.
    - ajkirwin 18y ago
      > Whenever it comes down to "squares" vs "cool", you can be pretty sure that the "cool" will screw things up more. How can you be so sure? They've never really had the chance.
    - ojbyrne 18y ago
      I think it's fairly well documented that in amongst the hippies doing drugs were some key people involved in the creation of the computer, software, networking and internet industries.
      - anamax 18y ago
        http://www.amazon.com/Where-Wizards-Stay-Up-Late/dp/0684832674 http://www.amazon.com/Where-Wizards-Stay-Up-Late/dp/06848326... Also, long hair and drugs doesn't make you "cool". (If it did, meth heads would be cool.)
  - time_management 18y ago
    Neocons are an altogether strange phenomenon. Neocons aren't conservative or liberal, so much as they're opportunistic authoritarians. In the 1960s, when they were young and believed the Left stood a decent chance of overthrowing the US government, they were communists. They weren't the same people as the hippies or civil rights activists; they were the ones mobbing and beating up returned veterans in San Francisco. In the 1980s and '90s, when their generation and the conservative movement were firmly in power, they swung from the authoritarian left to the authoritarian right, which really aren't very far apart.
ryanwaggoner 18y ago
Interesting article, but the author's selective memory and faulty logic continually undermines the point he's trying to make. My favorite was this gem: "Past U.S. generations invented the airplane; invented the automobile; discovered penicillin; and built the Interstate highway system. The Baby Boom generation has invented credit default swaps; mortgage backed securities; the fast food drive thru window; discovered the cure for erectile dysfunction; and built bridges to nowhere. No wonder we’re in so much trouble. This completely ignores developments like the personal computer revolution, the Internet, modern telecommunications, satellite technology, space exploration, advances in biotechnology, dramatic reductions in global poverty, etc, etc. I'm sure I'm forgetting some, but you get the idea. The author would have done well to acknowledge that the reality of the situation is more nuanced than the picture he attempts to paint.
- jrockway 18y ago
  the author's selective memory and faulty logic continually undermines the point His chart doesn't help either: http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/debt-to-gdp-ratio.png http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/debt... Yes, if you cut the Y-axis in arbitrary places, you can make small changes seem important. Too bad they aren't. Here is a chart comparing my apples to oranges: 1000.0001 - ****** - ****** - ****** - ****** 1000.0000 - ****** ****** ~ ****** ****** +--------------------- Apples Oranges Wow, there are 3 times as many oranges!
  - newt0311 18y ago
    read the chart again. 0.7 projected vs. 1.0 actual. That is a very significant change. Then just think about the 1.0 number. The total amount of debt is what everybody in the US earned in year. A scary thought in of itself.
    - Retric 18y ago
      Low interest debt is not that important. If you get out of med school with 300k debt at 4% your probably going to be fine. In five years when you still have 250k of medical debt and add a 1Million mortgage at 6% you are going to be fine if your making 350k+.
jd 18y ago
Is it just me, or does the author use a lot of unintentionally funny analogies? Anyway, I'm going to chip in on the issue of CEO pay. Many, including the author, are outraged that they're paid 500 times the wage of the average worker. But the CEO job is generally given to somebody who a) has proven himself (5mm <= net worth < 15mm) b) is willing to work 80 hours per week c) is willing to pick work over family/friends, no matter the circumstances The CEO must: a) focus on quarterlies at the expense of long term vision (maximize shareholder returns per quarter) b) focus on quarterlies at the expense of employees and the company itself Aside from perhaps the prestige and power that comes with the job, it's not going to be a lot of fun. So why would somebody who's already rich be willing to do this? Money. And lots of it. Does that make them sellouts? I guess. But if working for 2 more years means the CEO can retire and sustain his current lifestyle for the rest of his life it's probably pretty tempting. You shouldn't ask yourself - does the guy deserve 500 times the average worker's salary? Ask instead - why did it take 500 times the average worker's salary to convince him to take the job? I think that the CEO should focus on generating true value, both in the short and long term. And I don't think that's possible when you're only held accountable for short term results. Only CEOs like Steve Jobs can work on their vision, short term results be damned. His annual salary is $1. Why? Probably just to prove his independence. Everything boils down to incentives. Whether it's CEO pay, greed on wall street or credit cards (ab)use. People do what's in their best interest. Fix the incentives, and the rest should fix itself.
- blackguardx 18y ago
  I hate to go off-topic, but when did mm come to mean million? When I first look at it, my brain says, "millimeters." I know it is one thousand thousand in roman numerals, but being an engineer I find it hard to recognize mm as such. If anything, you should use capital M for million because that is the accepted prefix.
  - deleted 18y ago
    [deleted]
    - palish 18y ago
theoneill 18y ago
...so far. Wait till everything is run by the generation that grew up on Ritalin and gaming.
mellow 18y ago
'The Baby Boom Generation will never be mistaken for the Greatest Generation that survived the Great Depression and defeated evil in a World War that killed 72 million people', is one of the greatest opening sentences I have ever read. Almost as good as 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us; we were all going directly to Heaven, we were all going the other way'
krschultz 18y ago
He clearly states his bias: "Our Government bureaucracy, which contributes nothing to the advancement of our society, now is a larger portion of GDP than manufacturing." Somehow I don't think our past experience with trying to get roads, power, plumbing, and the Internet into rural areas agrees with statement.
- anamax 18y ago
  > Somehow I don't think our past experience with trying to get roads, power, plumbing, and the Internet into rural areas agrees with statement. "trying" is the important word. And, the federal govt didn't have much involvement in most of those things. And, even if it did, do you really think that they explain or justify 30+% of GDP?
sdurkin 18y ago
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=160218 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=160218 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=340482 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=340482 I'm going to do this every time one of these absurd stories is posted.

49 points by tortilla 18y ago

Interesting Graph: CEOs’ average pay, production workers’ average pay, the S&P 500 Index, corporate profits, and the Federal minimum wage, 1990-2005 (adjusted for inflation) http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/ceo-pay.png http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/ceo-...

time_management 18y ago

The problem's not that they're a shallow generation. Actually, I think the Baby Boomers were a very idealistic generation, and this (paradoxically) has led to the corrupt leadership. The civil rights activists, hippies, and leftists (with a few exceptions) didn't swing around to become the yuppies, sellouts, and corrupt political figures. Different people did. My father's pretty similar to me in worldview, ethics, and politics. When he was growing up, he couldn't have even imagined working at a hedge fund; the concept of working for money was considered crass, if not repulsive. (He was actually quite incensed when I first said I was interested in trying out trading.) In 2007, it was perfectly normal for a liberal, idealistic young person to go and work for an investment bank or hedge fund, because that was seen as the best way to establish oneself and go far later (e.g. Jeff Bezos worked at Shaw before founding Amazon). I would note that the problem with the Baby Boom generation isn't that they're "selfish". My parents aren't bad people. Nor were most of my teachers; they were great. On the whole, the Boomers aren't worse than the rest of us. The difference between them and us is that the better half of them almost entirely eschewed the career paths that led to power-- finance and corporate leadership-- leaving the shameless and greedy bastards to take control.

ojbyrne 18y ago
I think this is orthodox Neoconism. The baby boomers were hippies who did drugs, attacked the Vietnam war, questioned authority, promoted "free love", and so on. Most importantly, their independence of thought is what makes them "selfish." Contrasting them with the "Greatest Generation," whose lives were basically dictated to them when WW2 started, and supported the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities. Can we call them the "Pleasantville Generation?" instead.
- anamax 18y ago
  < The baby boomers were hippies who did drugs, attacked the Vietnam war, questioned authority, promoted "free love", How'd that work out? > Contrasting them with the "Greatest Generation," whose lives were basically dictated to them when WW2 started, and supported the House Committee on UnAmerican Activities. And the Soviets later revealed that there were Communists in the US govt and that they were trying to "influence" Hollywood. > Can we call them the "Pleasantville Generation?" instead. Whenever it comes down to "squares" vs "cool", you can be pretty sure that the "cool" will screw things up more. In other news, truth is not beauty and you have to be pretty stoned to think otherwise.
  - ajkirwin 18y ago
    > Whenever it comes down to "squares" vs "cool", you can be pretty sure that the "cool" will screw things up more. How can you be so sure? They've never really had the chance.
  - ojbyrne 18y ago
    I think it's fairly well documented that in amongst the hippies doing drugs were some key people involved in the creation of the computer, software, networking and internet industries.
    - anamax 18y ago
      http://www.amazon.com/Where-Wizards-Stay-Up-Late/dp/0684832674 http://www.amazon.com/Where-Wizards-Stay-Up-Late/dp/06848326... Also, long hair and drugs doesn't make you "cool". (If it did, meth heads would be cool.)
- time_management 18y ago
  Neocons are an altogether strange phenomenon. Neocons aren't conservative or liberal, so much as they're opportunistic authoritarians. In the 1960s, when they were young and believed the Left stood a decent chance of overthrowing the US government, they were communists. They weren't the same people as the hippies or civil rights activists; they were the ones mobbing and beating up returned veterans in San Francisco. In the 1980s and '90s, when their generation and the conservative movement were firmly in power, they swung from the authoritarian left to the authoritarian right, which really aren't very far apart.

ryanwaggoner 18y ago

Interesting article, but the author's selective memory and faulty logic continually undermines the point he's trying to make. My favorite was this gem: "Past U.S. generations invented the airplane; invented the automobile; discovered penicillin; and built the Interstate highway system. The Baby Boom generation has invented credit default swaps; mortgage backed securities; the fast food drive thru window; discovered the cure for erectile dysfunction; and built bridges to nowhere. No wonder we’re in so much trouble. This completely ignores developments like the personal computer revolution, the Internet, modern telecommunications, satellite technology, space exploration, advances in biotechnology, dramatic reductions in global poverty, etc, etc. I'm sure I'm forgetting some, but you get the idea. The author would have done well to acknowledge that the reality of the situation is more nuanced than the picture he attempts to paint.

jrockway 18y ago
the author's selective memory and faulty logic continually undermines the point His chart doesn't help either: http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/debt-to-gdp-ratio.png http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/debt... Yes, if you cut the Y-axis in arbitrary places, you can make small changes seem important. Too bad they aren't. Here is a chart comparing my apples to oranges: 1000.0001 - ****** - ****** - ****** - ****** 1000.0000 - ****** ****** ~ ****** ****** +--------------------- Apples Oranges Wow, there are 3 times as many oranges!
- newt0311 18y ago
  read the chart again. 0.7 projected vs. 1.0 actual. That is a very significant change. Then just think about the 1.0 number. The total amount of debt is what everybody in the US earned in year. A scary thought in of itself.
  - Retric 18y ago
    Low interest debt is not that important. If you get out of med school with 300k debt at 4% your probably going to be fine. In five years when you still have 250k of medical debt and add a 1Million mortgage at 6% you are going to be fine if your making 350k+.

jd 18y ago

Is it just me, or does the author use a lot of unintentionally funny analogies? Anyway, I'm going to chip in on the issue of CEO pay. Many, including the author, are outraged that they're paid 500 times the wage of the average worker. But the CEO job is generally given to somebody who a) has proven himself (5mm <= net worth < 15mm) b) is willing to work 80 hours per week c) is willing to pick work over family/friends, no matter the circumstances The CEO must: a) focus on quarterlies at the expense of long term vision (maximize shareholder returns per quarter) b) focus on quarterlies at the expense of employees and the company itself Aside from perhaps the prestige and power that comes with the job, it's not going to be a lot of fun. So why would somebody who's already rich be willing to do this? Money. And lots of it. Does that make them sellouts? I guess. But if working for 2 more years means the CEO can retire and sustain his current lifestyle for the rest of his life it's probably pretty tempting. You shouldn't ask yourself - does the guy deserve 500 times the average worker's salary? Ask instead - why did it take 500 times the average worker's salary to convince him to take the job? I think that the CEO should focus on generating true value, both in the short and long term. And I don't think that's possible when you're only held accountable for short term results. Only CEOs like Steve Jobs can work on their vision, short term results be damned. His annual salary is $1. Why? Probably just to prove his independence. Everything boils down to incentives. Whether it's CEO pay, greed on wall street or credit cards (ab)use. People do what's in their best interest. Fix the incentives, and the rest should fix itself.

blackguardx 18y ago
I hate to go off-topic, but when did mm come to mean million? When I first look at it, my brain says, "millimeters." I know it is one thousand thousand in roman numerals, but being an engineer I find it hard to recognize mm as such. If anything, you should use capital M for million because that is the accepted prefix.
- deleted 18y ago
  [deleted]
  - palish 18y ago

theoneill 18y ago

...so far. Wait till everything is run by the generation that grew up on Ritalin and gaming.

mellow 18y ago

'The Baby Boom Generation will never be mistaken for the Greatest Generation that survived the Great Depression and defeated evil in a World War that killed 72 million people', is one of the greatest opening sentences I have ever read. Almost as good as 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us; we were all going directly to Heaven, we were all going the other way'

krschultz 18y ago

He clearly states his bias: "Our Government bureaucracy, which contributes nothing to the advancement of our society, now is a larger portion of GDP than manufacturing." Somehow I don't think our past experience with trying to get roads, power, plumbing, and the Internet into rural areas agrees with statement.

anamax 18y ago
> Somehow I don't think our past experience with trying to get roads, power, plumbing, and the Internet into rural areas agrees with statement. "trying" is the important word. And, the federal govt didn't have much involvement in most of those things. And, even if it did, do you really think that they explain or justify 30+% of GDP?

sdurkin 18y ago

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=160218 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=160218 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=340482 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=340482 I'm going to do this every time one of these absurd stories is posted.