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Even Baby Boomers Think It's Harder to Get Started Professionally Than It Used to Be

Re: Even Baby Boomers Think It's Harder to Get Started Professionally Than It Used to

Too much whining. Our three children all launched just fine. My wife and I arrived in northern VA in 1976 with $17 in the bank. Built from there. My impression is that the only things some millennials lack are patience and a tolerance for hard work.
 
Re: Even Baby Boomers Think It's Harder to Get Started Professionally Than It Used to

If by "addicted to slave labor" you mean American consumers are addicted to buying goods and services produced abroad by people whose living standards are much lower than ours, then you have a valid point. If you mean something else by that, you probably don't.

Regulation and labor laws that push wages and benefits higher reinforce all the things you don't actually want for American labor. Promising the baby boomers they will be the last generation in history to benefit from pensions (because after that we'll be broke) is reinforcing generational inequality. Policies liberals support bring about the conditions about which they perpetually complain.

We dont' need cheap, subservient labor to subsist as a nation. There is a balance. A balance at which we, as a nation can produce the goods and services we need without under the table immigrant labor or labor of nations that pay near nothing. There is a balance. We just refuse to find it.
 
Re: Even Baby Boomers Think It's Harder to Get Started Professionally Than It Used to

We dont' need cheap, subservient labor to subsist as a nation. There is a balance. A balance at which we, as a nation can produce the goods and services we need without under the table immigrant labor or labor of nations that pay near nothing. There is a balance. We just refuse to find it.

That's what markets are for.
 
Re: Even Baby Boomers Think It's Harder to Get Started Professionally Than It Used to

That's what markets are for.

I guess I've forgotten to show my gratitude to the markets for they did for us in 1929, 1962, 1989, 1990, 2001 and 2007. Yeah... **** the markets.
 
Re: Even Baby Boomers Think It's Harder to Get Started Professionally Than It Used to

I don't think the government has much to do with it. It all boils down to the advent of container ships in the early 70s. They made it possible to ship massive amounts of goods all over the world exponentially cheaper than ever before. It's been a race to the bottom in terms of labor costs ever since.
I was more arguing on a social level, but there's certainly room for protectionism to combat imports that don't have to meet our environmental/minimum wage/worker safety/ethical testing/etc. and that's not even getting into the anti-union legislation passed in many red states.
 
Re: Even Baby Boomers Think It's Harder to Get Started Professionally Than It Used to

The solution is improving the economy.
Our unemployment rate is low. Corporations have massive cash stores. The stock market is record high. None of these things are being passed down to workers. We need the public to demand that our labor be given a more fair slice of the pie.
 
Re: Even Baby Boomers Think It's Harder to Get Started Professionally Than It Used to

Our unemployment rate is low. Corporations have massive cash stores. The stock market is record high. None of these things are being passed down to workers. We need the public to demand that our labor be given a more fair slice of the pie.

The labor participation rate is nearly at an all time low. Corporations are flush with cash because they view a poor economy and overreaching government as a bad environment for investment. The stock market is at a record high because of government meddling with monetary policy. In order get more money to workers you need to shift the supply/demand situation in their favor. That means developing a better economy.
 
Re: Even Baby Boomers Think It's Harder to Get Started Professionally Than It Used to

I guess I've forgotten to show my gratitude to the markets for they did for us in 1929, 1962, 1989, 1990, 2001 and 2007. Yeah... **** the markets.

The reference was to the labor market, but they are all indispensable.
 
Re: Even Baby Boomers Think It's Harder to Get Started Professionally Than It Used to

The reference was to the labor market, but they are all indispensable.

Well, by all means... elaborate.
 
Re: Even Baby Boomers Think It's Harder to Get Started Professionally Than It Used to

Well, by all means... elaborate.

It's not complicated. Markets bring together buyers and sellers. Markets are the most efficient mechanisms ever devised to establish an agreed price and facilitate the transaction.
 
Re: Even Baby Boomers Think It's Harder to Get Started Professionally Than It Used to

Millennials Are Still Struggling to Find Jobs - The Atlantic
Why is it happening this way? Our society seems to be much more prosperous than a few decades ago due to great technological advancement. There are so many ways to earn money by programming stuff or running your internet based business yet it seems like it's much harder to actualize yourself than a few generations ago. What's the reason behind that? How to solve this problem efficiently?

Why does the title say "even baby boomers" like that group at one time thought it was easier to get started professionally now.

Why the "Even"?
 
Re: Even Baby Boomers Think It's Harder to Get Started Professionally Than It Used to

We dont' need cheap, subservient labor to subsist as a nation.

Domestically or internationally? We don't have cheap subservient domestic labor, for the most part, because our labor laws forbid it. We do however get a lot of our goods and services produced by it abroad.

There is a balance. A balance at which we, as a nation can produce the goods and services we need without under the table immigrant labor or labor of nations that pay near nothing.

Illegal immigrant labor, I have no argument with you. Legal immigrant labor is a function of policy, and maybe that policy is crap in some regards, but this balance you speak of is on a knife's edge. It is easy to embrace one element of protectionism, then world reacts to it in a way you don't want them to, and then the protectionist country's only recourse is more protectionism and trade war, and then you have a positive feedback loop. We could go down that path and be self-sufficient cut off from the rest of the world, but our living standards would plummet relative to what we enjoy now.
 
Re: Even Baby Boomers Think It's Harder to Get Started Professionally Than It Used to

It's not complicated. Markets bring together buyers and sellers. Markets are the most efficient mechanisms ever devised to establish an agreed price and facilitate the transaction.

Buyers and sellers of labor huh?
 
Re: Even Baby Boomers Think It's Harder to Get Started Professionally Than It Used to

The answer is - the degree of globalization has changed. Every POTUS in my lifetime has pushed for increased globalization, almost always in direct opposition to the will of the people.
 
Re: Even Baby Boomers Think It's Harder to Get Started Professionally Than It Used to

Domestically or internationally?

Both

We don't have cheap subservient domestic labor, for the most part, because our labor laws forbid it. We do however get a lot of our goods and services produced by it abroad.

Yes we do. We have Mexican and Central American labor that works under the table regardless of our labor laws.

Illegal immigrant labor, I have no argument with you. Legal immigrant labor is a function of policy, and maybe that policy is crap in some regards, but this balance you speak of is on a knife's edge. It is easy to embrace one element of protectionism, then world reacts to it in a way you don't want them to, and then the protectionist country's only recourse is more protectionism and trade war, and then you have a positive feedback loop. We could go down that path and be self-sufficient cut off from the rest of the world, but our living standards would plummet relative to what we enjoy now.

All we have to do for immigrant labor correction is to give them all easy access to work visas. Then the labor laws will apply to them. As enforcement, we start jailing the white collar criminals hiring them and behavior changes extremely fast in that arena. Then that labor has to compete with a more educated and skilled American labor force at the same price. And to boot, they are paying taxes and contributing to the SS and other benefit funds to offset the baby boomer retirement influx.
 
Re: Even Baby Boomers Think It's Harder to Get Started Professionally Than It Used to

The answer is - the degree of globalization has changed. Every POTUS in my lifetime has pushed for increased globalization, almost always in direct opposition to the will of the people.

Pretty much.
 
Re: Even Baby Boomers Think It's Harder to Get Started Professionally Than It Used to

Both

Yes we do. We have Mexican and Central American labor that works under the table regardless of our labor laws.

Well I'm not defending that.
 
Re: Even Baby Boomers Think It's Harder to Get Started Professionally Than It Used to

The labor participation rate is nearly at an all time low. Corporations are flush with cash because they view a poor economy and overreaching government as a bad environment for investment. The stock market is at a record high because of government meddling with monetary policy. In order get more money to workers you need to shift the supply/demand situation in their favor. That means developing a better economy.
There's always a never-ending circus of apologists to make excuses for top-down economic failures.
 
Re: Even Baby Boomers Think It's Harder to Get Started Professionally Than It Used to

There's always a never-ending circus of apologists to make excuses for top-down economic failures.

Top down is how capitalism works. There is no such thing as bottom up.
 
Re: Even Baby Boomers Think It's Harder to Get Started Professionally Than It Used to

Top down is how capitalism works. There is no such thing as bottom up.

Really? Every other success story Republicans like to trot out regarding the economy involves some person starting from nothing and owning the world. Are you saying that "pick yourself up by your bootstraps" is a right-wing slogan that cons espouse but don't believe?
 
Re: Even Baby Boomers Think It's Harder to Get Started Professionally Than It Used to

Both



Yes we do. We have Mexican and Central American labor that works under the table regardless of our labor laws.



All we have to do for immigrant labor correction is to give them all easy access to work visas. Then the labor laws will apply to them. As enforcement, we start jailing the white collar criminals hiring them and behavior changes extremely fast in that arena. Then that labor has to compete with a more educated and skilled American labor force at the same price. And to boot, they are paying taxes and contributing to the SS and other benefit funds to offset the baby boomer retirement influx.

That's why I support open borders.
 
Re: Even Baby Boomers Think It's Harder to Get Started Professionally Than It Used to

Really? Every other success story Republicans like to trot out regarding the economy involves some person starting from nothing and owning the world. Are you saying that "pick yourself up by your bootstraps" is a right-wing slogan that cons espouse but don't believe?

Really, but I don't have time to write a book for you. You may want to refer to a basic economics textbook.
 
Re: Even Baby Boomers Think It's Harder to Get Started Professionally Than It Used to

Being a conscious consumer and organizing is the solution.
Being a conscientious consumer is demanding pricing that can be affordable.
Higher wages do not support such demands.
 
Re: Even Baby Boomers Think It's Harder to Get Started Professionally Than It Used to

Millennials Are Still Struggling to Find Jobs - The Atlantic
Why is it happening this way? Our society seems to be much more prosperous than a few decades ago due to great technological advancement. There are so many ways to earn money by programming stuff or running your internet based business yet it seems like it's much harder to actualize yourself than a few generations ago. What's the reason behind that? How to solve this problem efficiently?

The problem of the 21st century will be the problem of labor. Because of technology, there are simply not jobs available for large numbers of people who have been left behind. Combine that with the decline of good paying union jobs, we face decades ahead where many people are simply not needed for the labor force and those who can struggle to find bottom level employment work at wages that people cannot live on.

Its recipe for social and political disaster.
 
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