What *is* the American dream? And is/has it always been static?

Nope. He’s in the 598 pipeline union Chicago wage scale.

The facts have been posted in this thread.

If you want, I, millennial, can go back and repost them for you.

Facts are: inflation is killing the buying power of younger generations.


Mortgages? Home prices are at all time highs vs dollars earned.

Cars? Again, inflationary policies piled on top of expensive regulations.  Someone gets called a clown for having a 7 year car payment.  

But hey, you do you. I’m just saying this economic situation is worsening.  The amount of debt the government has taken on now is staggering. The amount of money made out of thin air cannot be fathomed.   And the inevitable cycle of interest rates back up will paralyze boomers in retirement, to Gen Z entering the work force.

Don't forget that the percentage of the population that is even qualified for military service is shrinking dramatically. Finding qualified candidates is a problem for the military.

If I'd have had my druthers, I would have attended a service academy and gotten my education "free" (on the taxpayer's dime) in exchange for military service, or by ROTC. Unfortunately, when I was 16 I learned that my asthma would keep me out and while relatively mild, it wasn't mild enough that I would have been able to hide it or get a waiver. The closest thing to the GI Bill that I have is Public Service Loan Forgiveness because I've chosen to work in government positions post-law school, so it's not all bad I guess. Except instead of trading 4-6 years, I have to trade 10 (+/-).

Just don't forget that there are an ever-increasing number of individuals who couldn't join even if they wanted to, for reasons outside of their control.

While I think we’re infested with entitled lazy retards these days… I have zero doubt every generation from today for probably the next 50 years will have a worst standard of living % wise than the one before it.  It’s going to get BAD, QUICKLY. Some will prosper, but the vast majority will have less and less of everything.

In the big picture…. There are ZERO good decisions being made, in fact just the opposite, almost every decision in finance, trade,  budgets, foreign affairs, energy,  etc are being made via huge, shortsighted, selfish , dumbass decisions, by selfish, corrupt, unqualified retards.

This will fuck everyone across the board, cause huge pain that will span generations. It will make the Great Depression look like a small annoyance, vs the decades long shitfest to come.

Boomers elected Carter and Clinton. Young people are typically more liberal. Once they have some things they become more conservative. If you orient your economy so they never have anything, they don’t become more conservative.

Millennials hold more jobs than any other generation and are more likely to be employed than any other generation.

You’re going to have a hard time convincing me that the silent put FDR in office since they didn’t start turning 21 until 1949.

ITT Boomers bash millennials while envisioning Generation Z because they don't know the difference.

Gen X here. I have a great life now and will even be better at retirement. Millennials can do whatever they want. Don’t care.

Boomers can never admit that millennials are right.

Gen X will never admit they played into the globalist plan too selling out the country.

Millennials will never admit that they complain too much.

Gen Z are just debauchery and nihilism because there is nothing left.

The generations after will be Chinese speaking so I don't know what the mandarin character for slave is.

“Apres mois, les deluges.”

It’s not just for Kings and Boomers anymore.

The don't care attitude, really failed being stewards of America. Damn latchkey 70's kids are Gen Z without the autism and internet.

Quantified numbers were an omnipresent topic online from about 2006-2016. I know I spammed them in GD. Boomers didn't want to hear it.

Dudes asking for numbers at this point are arguing in bad faith, IMO. If they didn't learn by now they chose not to.

My fault, brain fart.

I was thinking about Johnson ''great society'' ass that he was. He wasn't wrong in how people would vote if they got welfare even if they stayed poor and in the gutter though.

Fuck 'em

I hope they're broke and miserable.  Insufferable little cunts.

I enjoy when your types have to work for me.

My grandpa always says they told him if he voted for Goldwater we would be at war in Vietnam in a year. He did, and we were.

Burke devised the classical formulation of what society is. It’s the living, the dead, and the yet to be born. So when I call a lot of you liberals for not caring about what comes after, that’s why.

This is funny because i work my "Millennial" ass off..... and get everything ive ever wanted because of it.

Work offered elec linesman testing for ANY group or age employee that wanted to try out. Why you ask? Because they are SCREWED when all the late boomers and early gen X retire because the younger generations can't pull their ears or hands off their fvcking phones long enough to get their hands dirty. We are talking about 150-200 K a year jobs and even moving up you get paid damned well plus beni's are damn good. And the company I work for is not the only utility worrying about who the F is going to do the real physical work very shortly.

Gas side is little different, we are F'ed right now, no younger employee has moved up and stayed their for over a DECADE. I am the only "A" tech in my area, we used to have 12 or so but much has been outsourced because work can't get younger employees to actually train and do the work. Outsourcing hasn't been as great as it's made out to be, customers don't like it and quality is SHIT and I talk to my customers. Outsourcers tend to be younger and don't want to do anything that involves getting technical and ripping stuff apart more then the easier work.

In another 20 years I'll likely be dead and modern society will be holding bowls in their hands asking for some spare electricity and gas so they can stay in their little virtual world and keep their fingers warm as they play reality in their fake on line world.


I got out of the Mil in 1985, it was probably one of the suckiest time possible to get decent employment in Michigan, especially in my area. Hell, I had to take a job as a janitor at a temp employment place initially and that paid shit wages and no beni's at all. I did it to get my foot in the door. It worked.

Is this an NFT cause i've got $50k on it!

Boomer here and getting ready to retire soon.

I worry every day about having enough to live on after my income becomes fixed but I realize time has the most value at this stage in life .

I recognize the challenges facing younger generations but contend those challenges are not unique to them and have to point out that some of those challenges are self inflicted .

Sitting around comparing yourself to the generation that came before you does nothing to get you were you need to be.

To much emphasis has been put on college degrees and always being in a field that makes you happy instead of emphasizing progress and this is where the melinials have missed the boat.

To many young people support socialist ideals and expect government to help them.
Government is not the answer they are the problem.

They tend to ignore the trades in favor of a ridiculously expensive degree and then spend half of their life trying to pay for it while not making as much as their peers are ,in what they see as
less pleasant careers.

I made my way through the trades when they didn't pay shit, hard work in a job I really hated for years to equip myself to finally get a great job in a related industry at 45 yrs old.

Since then I've worked every hour available to me , saved and invested that money to get to a point were it looks like I can retire comfortably.

I truly believe the education system in our country has failed younger people but it has fed off of itself and melinials bare most of the blame for ignoring some of the less comfortable alternatives to a 200k degree.

I stayed in the same small house that I bought in 1986 on a 10.5% mortgage while building my dream home my self with no mortgage. Something I wouldn't have had the skill to do from a college degree.
Home ownership has never been easy and in some ways it's easier now.

I too wondered how in the world we would ever make it when I was young but put my head down and pushed forward.

The boomers didn't have all the same opportunities that the generation before them had either but they had some advantages and the melinials have advantages and disadvantages just like those that came before them.

No doubt the shit show our country is in is making things difficult for all of us but the answer isn't to sit back and feel sorry for yourself while blaming everyone else.

The guys that shake it off and work hard to place themselves in a better position will always come out on top.

Doing that for most will take decades not years .

Fact.

Only sort of related, but why is the damn national debt so high?  Does the government own a $1000 iPhone?  

It's a depressingly common sentiment and often paired with "I got mine - I don't care."

By the way: "Après moi, le déluge" is how it's spelled.

We have a thread full of Boomers telling the lazy Millennial fucks to stop bitching, work harder, and pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Here is one of those vaunted trade jobs that doesn't require a degree with a state average of $16/hr!  Meanwhile, the ones making any money are the same communists that got us in this mess.

Yes, that was general knowledge in elementary school. And we were also told that a 4-year degree was necessary for most people to become successful.

The article this thread is about says that millennials have less hope for their futures than the other generations.  It doesn't say you (individually...YOU) shouldn't have hope, it doesn't say you can't have hope.  Clearly from the pathetically blaming and hopeless attitudes in this thread the article is correct.  It's up to you to fix your attitude.

If you don't fix your attitude, you're going to be exactly the disaster you fear.  My boomer parents taught me that, in addition to teaching me how to work my ass off to not be poor, how to plan for my future, and how to respect others and what they have accomplished. Life isn't easy, and it NEVER has been for 95% of people.  We face the same inflation, the same job losses and wage stagnation, the same recessions, the same $1000 phones, the same $500k houses.  If you don't get your attitude headed in a positive direction, make a plan, and work your ass off to see it through, you probably won't find the American Dream.

Lol this.

And no doubt our generation bitches about some stupid shit and of course there are those who make bad financial choices.

However hearing boomers bitch about how bad my decisions are while stealing money out of every paycheck I make is a joke.

Here's the thing your money is already gone. The .gov fucked you. You're not entitled to mine. Instead of accepting that fact or going after the
Gov for it back. You help them hold the knife at younger generations throat by pretending that your social security payment isn't money that's being stolen from me every other week.

If you can't afford a house in the market you are working, you either need to increase your skills so you can earn more, or move to an area with a lower cost of living.

Sample of two but my brother and I are firmly in the middle of the millennial generation and are doing better than our parents and grandparents, who by the way did really good as well. It's hard work and going for industries in demand. The only thing .gov failed my generation on was being fast and loose with student loans and telling kids, via public school, that they needed to get a 4 year degree to make 50k a year with 100k in loan debt.

“Rock the Vote!” Lol.

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Let’s not forget the increasing number of people who aren’t participating in our economy fully.  There’s a large population of people not having kids, not participating in consumer debt, living in vans, tents, etc…working for short periods of time to get basic needs. People are increasingly making the conscious decisions not to participate in the mess previous generations made.  This will have huge ramifications for the Ponzi scheme that is SS and the plan to have an increasing tax base to facilitate our debt.

i am a millennial and through my experience, I approve this message. our generation has put fun before work and is now feeling the consequences. I've told many of my cohort over the last 10 years that if you don't use discipline now, your future will be bleak. the few that have listened have done extremely well.

This right here. That being said, those crying are the ones who financed a house in student loans to become a bartender in Denver and can’t fathom why they aren’t the next Carrie Bradshaw. ZFG. Hopefully their kids learn from it and those responsible manage to pay off the school note before they kick the bucket.

I am enjoying a much higher standard of living than either of my parents ever have.

Same, but I also didn’t take on many of the liabilities they did. Still they rocked both in principles and practice.

If people would refuse to go into serious debt for everyday college degrees, they would be forced to lower the price to attract students.  They maximize their profit by discovering how much debt you are willing to assume.

I’m a millennial, but I have gen x work ethic. I’m happy as can be financially. I always want more, but who doesn’t?

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Please elaborate on how the " Boomers " are stealing money out of your paycheck.

Show us where the bad Boomer touched you .

I mean... I pay an absurd amount of taxes quarterly.


Fortunately, I've never met FJB. So no touchy by the bad boomer.

This.  You can still buy a $200 phone that is more capable than that old phone.

Medicare and Medicaid.

THIS.

No generation is entitled to easy times. I'm an asshole Millennial who escaped college and grad school without debt, but I took a lot of face punches early in my career (dressings-down, firings, recession layoffs, etc.). In 2008, I remember an older dude from customer service asking me about college. "After all that, don't you feel entitled to a management slot?", he asked. Pfft, old man, it was clear even then: it doesn't matter what I think, or want, or believe about what I do. Our economic system only rewards doing well for others, and rarely does so accurately or proportionally. Even today, after everything I've accomplished from a business perspective, I still feel that way. In fact I'm more nihilistic.

Now for the bitter part:

GD: I believe in personal responsibility and individualism!
Also GD: Everyone else is lazy, stupid, and they're reason why we're fucked!

America is on a dark path. Our generation, us, Millennials, must own and unfuck the choices of the dumbasses who came before. We live in the creaky shell of the world our grandparents/great-grandparents built, and our job is to do the hard shit that sets up the Zoomers and our own kids for a better experience. We will die destitute, but that's our lot—we can either accept it and make shit better, or let prosperity fade.

They would get ahead if they stopped bitching and whining and went to work

I'm a millennial. Own my own house outright, two cars outright, and my wife stays at home with our kid. Plenty of money for bills and fun stuff. Not even 40.

These other whiny fucks in my generation need to actually try working instead of slinging coffee at Starbucks for 4 hours and thinking they have it rough.