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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

poweRob said:
We as a nation are addicted to slave labor and whatever it is we can get that's closest to that. Which is why there will never be any honest policy put forth to address illegal immigration so long as they can, with a wink and a nod, work under the table here. Which has the added effect of driving the rest of our wages down.
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Yep. I find it very strange how many Republicans voters vote Republican because they believe the GOP actually is against illegal immigration. The GOP is very pro-business, and businesses LOVE immigrants, both illegal, and legal because they work cheaper and they help hold wages down. Your statement about a wink and a nod is a perfect description of what's going on. Even when the GOP has the White House and the chance to push through a workable immigration policy they don't. They talk a good game, but do nothing. Hell Bush 2 wanted to give the illegals amnesty. Reagan did. But the GOP base still believes it's the Republicans who want to fix the immigration problem.
 
Re: Even Baby Boomers Think It's Harder to Get Started Professionally Than It Used to

SenorXm/Sirius said:
Yep. I find it very strange how many Republicans voters vote Republican because they believe the GOP actually is against illegal immigration. The GOP is very pro-business, and businesses LOVE immigrants, both illegal, and legal because they work cheaper and they help hold wages down. Your statement about a wink and a nod is a perfect description of what's going on. Even when the GOP has the White House and the chance to push through a workable immigration policy they don't. They talk a good game, but do nothing. Hell Bush 2 wanted to give the illegals amnesty. Reagan did. But the GOP base still believes it's the Republicans who want to fix the immigration problem.
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Dems wouldn't support GWB's immigration initiative.
 
Re: Even Baby Boomers Think It's Harder to Get Started Professionally Than It Used to

Excon said:
Being a conscientious consumer is demanding pricing that can be affordable.
Higher wages do not support such demands.
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No. Demanding that products and prices support sustainable means, wages, and procedures is what we need. We've already been doing the "race to the bottom" hyper-individualist approach for decades now, with the middle class continuing to lose as a result.
 
Re: Even Baby Boomers Think It's Harder to Get Started Professionally Than It Used to

Gathomas88 said:
Yup. I bought an expensive suit for interviews a couple years ago. With the exception of one job selling insurance which I'm about 95% sure was a pyramid scheme, I've never actually worn it to a real job interview.

None of the companies that would host an interview that would require a suit ever called me back.
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This was very similar to my experience before going to law school. Even with the shady insurance company.
 
Re: Even Baby Boomers Think It's Harder to Get Started Professionally Than It Used to

fmw said:
Really, but I don't have time to write a book for you. You may want to refer to a basic economics textbook.
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According to the economics books I've read helping the common man accumulate more wealth usually works.
 
Re: Even Baby Boomers Think It's Harder to Get Started Professionally Than It Used to

The service level, low paying jobs that are the new bread and butter of America will only be plentiful with a return to a strong middle class. The middle and lower classes need more spending power to drive demand.

The only other option is helping educate and train workers to take as many technology jobs as possible away from foreign competitors. The problem here is that many people are just not interested in or possess the potential for STEM disciplines. The most in demand job over the next 10 years is software development with 30% growth and >100k average salary. Yet very few Americans (relatively) are pursuing this gold mine. We should be doing everything we can with subsidies to train any American that will put in the effort to learn these technologies.
 
Re: Even Baby Boomers Think It's Harder to Get Started Professionally Than It Used to

Verax said:
The service level, low paying jobs that are the new bread and butter of America will only be plentiful with a return to a strong middle class. The middle and lower classes need more spending power to drive demand.

The only other option is helping educate and train workers to take as many technology jobs as possible away from foreign competitors. The problem here is that many people are just not interested in or possess the potential for STEM disciplines. The most in demand job over the next 10 years is software development with 30% growth and >100k average salary. Yet very few Americans (relatively) are pursuing this gold mine. We should be doing everything we can with subsidies to train any American that will put in the effort to learn these technologies.
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Those jobs can be outsourced. Did you flow the link where Disney replaced their employees?
 
Re: Even Baby Boomers Think It's Harder to Get Started Professionally Than It Used to

reinoe said:
Those jobs can be outsourced. Did you flow the link where Disney replaced their employees?
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I did. Even though this is an issue there is still a massive demand and shortage for IT workers among other technologies. If we trained more Americans it would drive the salary premium down and we could better compete with foreign workers. This isn't a perfect solution and would only mitigate the loss but it would be better overall.
 
Re: Even Baby Boomers Think It's Harder to Get Started Professionally Than It Used to

reinoe said:
According to the economics books I've read helping the common man accumulate more wealth usually works.
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Absolutely. Usually that happens through payments for a job which is top-down. Even if it happens through inheritance it is top-down. Even a government gimme is top-down. That is how an economy works. Never happens bottom-up.
 
Re: Even Baby Boomers Think It's Harder to Get Started Professionally Than It Used to

Verax said:
The service level, low paying jobs that are the new bread and butter of America will only be plentiful with a return to a strong middle class. The middle and lower classes need more spending power to drive demand.
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And that can happen and will happen only with a stronger economy.

The only other option is helping educate and train workers to take as many technology jobs as possible away from foreign competitors. The problem here is that many people are just not interested in or possess the potential for STEM disciplines. The most in demand job over the next 10 years is software development with 30% growth and >100k average salary. Yet very few Americans (relatively) are pursuing this gold mine. We should be doing everything we can with subsidies to train any American that will put in the effort to learn these technologies.
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I'm surprised IT isn't a standard part of a high school curriculum. It should be.
 
Re: Even Baby Boomers Think It's Harder to Get Started Professionally Than It Used to

Jack Hays said:
Dems wouldn't support GWB's immigration initiative.
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You're missing the point. GWB wanted to give amnesty and push through an immigration policy. And Reagan actually did it. For a party who constantly uses fear and tells it's base daily about the evils of immigration those 2 Republicans in the WH sung a different tune. Why is that? Because of businesses and Corporate lobbyists and money. Businesses love immigrants, and the GOP loves businesses.
 
Re: Even Baby Boomers Think It's Harder to Get Started Professionally Than It Used to

SenorXm/Sirius said:
You're missing the point. GWB wanted to give amnesty and push through an immigration policy. And Reagan actually did it. For a party who constantly uses fear and tells it's base daily about the evils of immigration those 2 Republicans in the WH sung a different tune. Why is that? Because of businesses and Corporate lobbyists and money. Businesses love immigrants, and the GOP loves businesses.
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Doesn't matter to me. I favor open borders.
 
Re: Even Baby Boomers Think It's Harder to Get Started Professionally Than It Used to

I'm not so sure that millennials are struggling to find jobs. We are the most educated, most employable generation to exist in terms of skill sets. I personally have up and quit jobs simply because I wanted to move to another city because I was bored. Income had no impact on that decision (often times I will go from making more to making less then to making more again none of which impacts my decision to quit or stay).

What is happening is that many millennals do not view employment as previous generations did. The average time with a company or entity these days is less than 4 years and that's even when things are going great that entire time. Millennials do not emphasize income as the sole scale of life happiness. Many of my friends simply tell their boss after a year or two that they're moving to another city not over pay but because they feel like it.


Employment loyalty is a thing of the past both among employees and employers. The jobs market is extremely fluid naturally so. It is almost unheard of, even for the top of their field, to stay with a company more than 3-4 years now.



Quality of life is more important to Millennials than income. I'd rather make $75k and live in Austin Texas than make $95k and live in Houston Texas (humidity oh my god awful + the girls of ATX).
 
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Re: Even Baby Boomers Think It's Harder to Get Started Professionally Than It Used to

Ryan5 said:
I'm not so sure that millennials are struggling to find jobs. We are the most educated, most employable generation to exist in terms of skill sets. I personally have up and quit jobs simply because I wanted to move to another city because I was bored. Income had no impact on that decision (often times I will go from making more to making less then to making more again none of which impacts my decision to quit or stay).

What is happening is that many millennals do not view employment as previous generations did. The average time with a company or entity these days is less than 4 years and that's even when things are going great that entire time. Millennials do not emphasize income as the sole scale of life happiness. Many of my friends simply tell their boss after a year or two that they're moving to another city not over pay but because they feel like it.

Employment loyalty is a thing of the past both among employees and employers. The jobs market is extremely fluid naturally so. It is almost unheard of, even for the top of their field, to stay with a company more than 3-4 years now.

Quality of life is more important to Millennials than income. I'd rather make $75k and live in Austin Texas than make $95k and live in Houston Texas (humidity oh my god awful + the girls of ATX).
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I don't think there's anything wrong with what you're saying here, but it does ignore the remarkable difference in financial well-being of millennials relative to their parents generation and relative to that same comparison 30 and 50 years ago. The scales have tipped dramatically toward more income and wealth for near-seniors and seniors and less and less for younger generations.

It is easy to say at 20-30 years old "quality of life matters to me more than material things," but wait until you have kids in high school and someone in your family has medical expenses and you're trying to save for retirement and the kids' college while paying for all of the various bills. You will wonder how your parents and grandparents' generations did it. The answer is that they voted for politicians and programs that would give them prosperity at your expense. You will get a net negative return on Social Security and Medicare, you will not have defined benefit pensions, and you will be the first generation in hundreds of years that was noticeably worse off (more dependent on external support) to get by than the generation before you.
 
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Re: Even Baby Boomers Think It's Harder to Get Started Professionally Than It Used to

Neomalthusian said:
I don't think there's anything wrong with what you're saying here, but it does ignore the remarkable difference in financial well-being of millennials relative to their parents generation and relative to that same comparison 30 and 50 years ago. The scales have tipped dramatically toward more income and wealth for near-seniors and seniors and less and less for younger generations.

It is easy to say at 20-30 years old "quality of life matters to me more than material things," but wait until you have kids in high school and someone in your family has medical expenses and you're trying to save for retirement and the kids' college while paying for all of the various bills. You will wonder how your parents and grandparents' generations did it. The answer is that they voted for politicians and programs that would give them prosperity at your expense. You will get a net negative return on Social Security and Medicare, you will not have defined benefit pensions, and you will be the first generation in hundreds of years that was noticeably worse off (more dependent on external support) to get by than the generation before you.
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Totally disagree. Every generation has "lamented assured doom" for the younger generations and every single one of those generations was 100% wrong.

What you mean to say is your world, the world you're comfortable with, is crashing down and you can feel that and it scares you. That's okay and frankly an understandable feeling (my grandmother lectures me constantly that the end is near) but both you and her and all past generations that did the exact same thing are and were wrong.
 
Re: Even Baby Boomers Think It's Harder to Get Started Professionally Than It Used to

Ryan5 said:
Totally disagree. Every generation has "lamented assured doom" for the younger generations and every single one of those generations was 100% wrong.
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Statistics disagree with your conjecture.

What you mean to say is your world, the world you're comfortable with, is crashing down and you can feel that and it scares you. That's okay and frankly an understandable feeling (my grandmother lectures me constantly that the end is near) but both you and her and all past generations that did the exact same thing are and were wrong.
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I'm discussing anomalous changes in wealth and income by age over time, which are objective facts that we can easily observe and measure, and which have been meticulously explained and published by, among other sources, the Social Security Board of Trustees, not some subjective doomsday theory.

Your subjective beliefs that "everything'll be fine" intentionally ignores known facts about unprecedented changes in income and wealth as well as the phase out of pensions on this generation's shoulders. These things are objectively known not to be the norm.
 
Re: Even Baby Boomers Think It's Harder to Get Started Professionally Than It Used to

Neomalthusian said:
Statistics disagree with your conjecture.



I'm discussing anomalous changes in wealth and income by age over time, which are objective facts that we can easily observe and measure, and which have been meticulously explained and published by, among other sources, the Social Security Board of Trustees, not some subjective doomsday theory.

Your subjective beliefs that "everything'll be fine" intentionally ignores known facts about unprecedented changes in income and wealth as well as the phase out of pensions on this generation's shoulders. These things are objectively known not to be the norm.
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It was the defined benefit pensions of the mid 20th century that were the anomaly. What is happening now is just a reversion to the mean.
 
Re: Even Baby Boomers Think It's Harder to Get Started Professionally Than It Used to

Jack Hays said:
It was the defined benefit pensions of the mid 20th century that were the anomaly. What is happening now is just a reversion to the mean.
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To guarantee these anomalous benefits to an anomalous population (the boomers) will make life markedly worse for the generations burdened with paying for them, and so reverting to that mean will take a while. This supports the idea that millennials do in fact have it worse.
 
Re: Even Baby Boomers Think It's Harder to Get Started Professionally Than It Used to

Neomalthusian said:
To guarantee these anomalous benefits to an anomalous population (the boomers) will make life markedly worse for the generations burdened with paying for them, and so reverting to that mean will take a while. This supports the idea that millennials do in fact have it worse.
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You're going to have to make a clearer point.
 
Re: Even Baby Boomers Think It's Harder to Get Started Professionally Than It Used to

Jack Hays said:
You're going to have to make a clearer point.
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Age inequality exists and is significantly different in nature and more exaggerated than in generations' past. Millennials have it worse than their predecessors.
 
Re: Even Baby Boomers Think It's Harder to Get Started Professionally Than It Used to

Neomalthusian said:
Age inequality exists and is significantly different in nature and more exaggerated than in generations' past. Millennials have it worse than their predecessors.
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Unproven. Millennials won't take 50,000 dead in a war either. My own children are doing just fine.
 
Re: Even Baby Boomers Think It's Harder to Get Started Professionally Than It Used to

Career challenges are greater (well, any endeavors in life really) when the entire globe now can enter the competition, and is after what you have and have access to.

Let's hope we've equipped our generation of Millennials with the skills and knowledge to succeed and flourish in this new environment. But somehow, I don't think so. I think the public education system, rife with leftists and progressives, have been preaching excessive politically correct crap and the like, spoon feeding these Millennials, making them soft and marshmallows rather than tough and resilient.

May they forgive us for the disservice of their education that we've allowed to be inflicted on them.
 
Re: Even Baby Boomers Think It's Harder to Get Started Professionally Than It Used to

Neomalthusian said:
That's great but anecdotes and war stories don't refute what I'm saying.

You're working against these types of data:

The Rising Age Gap in Economic Well-Being | Pew Research Center
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Vietnam war dead are not a story. The wealth gap is mostly about housing values. No dispute there. That's just cyclical luck of the draw. Ask millenialls how many would enter a lottery on the following terms: 50,000 losers get executed immediately; everyone else gets a 100% increase in house value over ten years.
 
Re: Even Baby Boomers Think It's Harder to Get Started Professionally Than It Used to

Ryan5 said:
Totally disagree. Every generation has "lamented assured doom" for the younger generations and every single one of those generations was 100% wrong.

What you mean to say is your world, the world you're comfortable with, is crashing down and you can feel that and it scares you. That's okay and frankly an understandable feeling (my grandmother lectures me constantly that the end is near) but both you and her and all past generations that did the exact same thing are and were wrong.
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Greetings, Ryan5. :2wave:

No one can know the future with certainty, but most people do pay attention to what's going on and make their decisions based on threats to their future well being and/or survival. My question to you is "What if your grandmother is right?" I assume she isn't a habitual "gloom and doom" person by nature. As an example, we've had a Great Depression in which a majority of people suffered - is there any reason there couldn't be another one? How would your generation react to that? I'm not being snarky...I am interested in your opinion, and any ideas you may have.
 
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