Joe Biden and the Political Left Were Correct.......

[asher2789]

a corporations job is to make profits for their shareholders so their shareholders dont have to get a real job, and dont need a pension or social security or anything else because theyre just gonna live off the labor of others. its absolutely laughable that yall think the working class has money to invest in the stock market... so out of teach limosuine neoliberal nonsense. there is no saving when wages dont keep up with inflation and havent since the 1970s. if the minimum wage had it would be $25 an hour... which is more than i currently make. and my wage is "high" for the area. my partner, a skilled tradeswoman, makes even less. its a f*** joke.

Who are you talking about, Paris Hilton? In that case you're right, she doesn't need to work. However, she and people like her put money in banks and it's that money people borrow to buy their first house. She and people like her invest money to start companies, and those companies hire folks to do the work. Say what you will about rich vs poor, there would be vastly fewer jobs without capital forming corporations and hiring people.

Additionally it's not just rich people that own stock. Employees sometimes get stock. You might get matching contributions if you work for a company that has a 401k plan. If you stop watching cable TV you can invest over $1,000 a year. I don't know if you watch cable TV, pay for streaming, or what plan you're on, but you get the idea.

My grandfather was a railroad worker, and he owned a few stocks. When we were 10 years old he gave the grand kids - are you ready - 1 share of AT&T. Big whoop. Every quarter I got a check for 12 cents, and every year I got a thick annual report. But he planted a seed. I learned what stocks were. My grandfather knew corporations were more than just "The Man". They were gateways to his savings plan. He was a worker that also knew how to participate in capitalism.

You are way off base if you think stocks are just for the rich. They are for anyone, anyone who wants to invest and put something away for the long haul. They do carry market risk, so you do need to invest carefully. Lots of books out there on it.

I graduated to a horrible job market also. It sucked. I drove a $150 car. Life went on. I learned how to fix that car when it broke instead of paying a mechanic. Things got better. You can make choices, and you can realize you're not the only one that scrimped.

Working conditions have improved steadily over the years. 40 hour work weeks, child labor laws, sick pay, vacation days, child care, have all evolved. And while minimum wage has varied, it's not as bleak as you state. Here's a historical look:

1min wage.png

Yes, minimum wage in constant dollars peaked in 1968, but has been in the same plus or minus 12% range since 1980. You have had the same labor rate environment your whole working life, subject to various cycles.

1. paris hilton is an heir of the hilton dynasty and has plenty of family money to invest and lose should she misjudge the market. pretending that i - somebody who lost a parent and was homeless for a short stint - am anywhere near the level of privilege of paris hilton is a goddamn f*** joke you should be embarassed to be making a comparison from. it negates the rest of your "i worked hard and got by just fine because im from a previous generation, you can do it too" argument.

2. your grandfather was a railroad worker? thats great! hes guaranteed a pension and healthcare. fantastic union job with special government protections just for railroad workers and their families. i get 5 cents every quarter from owning a tiny portion of comcast stock. big f*** whoop. you need capital to make capital.

3. because of predatory markets, i couldnt afford to buy a used car because i couldnt get credit for it and couldnt get cosigners. so i got a lease. but since i have "bad credit" thanks to student loans, my $18,000 car was a $350 a month lease before insurance. long story short, i had to buy out my car with an underwater loan after it got keyed to sh*t a couple months into the lease. my partner, her brother, and her dad all work on cars. i have a great mechanic (PM me if you want details, hes local and really really great, like best ever) for the stuff thats beyond their capabilities. my partner is in the market for a car currently, and the rates for used cars are completely outrageous. she too has bad credit because of student loans.

which reminds me, THE FICO SCORE WAS NOT INVENTED UNTIL 1988. before 1988 if you went to a bank and proved you had a dependable job, you got a loan for a car. now you get to jump through automated hoops.

again, boomers dont know a flying f*** thing about what they are talking about. straight up f*** gaslighting.

[asher2789]

Blaming others for your failure s very telling, try not spending so much time on here and get another job! I worked my tail off to have a nice life for my family, you can’t even help yourself? Looking forward to hearing your answers to questions 1, 2 & 3

get another job?! i already work two. and i share a vehicle with my partner, who also has a full time job. so thats two vermont commutes on one car, juggling three schedules, and you want me to add to that?

how about dont be a greedy piece of sh*t voting for greedy pieces of sh*t who mortgaged an entire generation and sold them into debt slavery? how about that? did you ever think of that?

[XtremeJibber2001]

I am ~4 years your senior, graduated college in 2006 also in tech field, and live/worked through the economic mess in ~2008 with just two years out of college. I didn't have to go through the difficulty of losing my father at a younger age and they/we never lost our home. I can't speak to how hard that is and won't pretend to try.

I am only posting to share that our generation can succeed. I worked 2-3 jobs varying between McDonald's, local pizza joint, CVS, bank rep, and lifeguard before and during college. My college loans totaled $75k upon graduation, despite getting my gen ed requirements at the local community college. I paid the last of my student loans off a few years ago. I'm not an aberration. Many in my circle of friends and those I graduated with have done the same. It's possible to succeed.

[easyrider16]

There's too many examples of people in my own life who I've seen come up from nothing to do remarkably well for me to believe that capitalism doesn't work. I have a friend whose parents were uneducated portuguese immigrants, and he himself never got a degree, but he started an IT company in his early 20s and now makes more than most people on Kzone. It didn't happen overnight, in fact it took decades of hard work.

I know another guy, also the son of immigrants who started with little, and spent years building a construction business. He now owns a second home in NH and does very well. Another guy who went to trade school, became an electrician, and makes six figures. My father and two uncles who came here with nothing toiled for decades but now own large homes and are retired comfortably. There are many more examples I can cite.

The body of evidence is too big to deny. I know not everyone has the capability or drive to reach those levels, but capitalism has been the best system so far for getting people out of poverty. Its not perfect, and it requires regulation. But what would you replace it with that works as well or better?

I'll agree that student loan debt and higher education badly needs reform, and it's an area where capitalism is currently failing. I'd say the same about US health care. But again I say lets not throw the baby out with the bathwater - fix the problems, yes, but don't break the system until you've found something better.

[Mister Moose]

1. paris hilton is an heir of the hilton dynasty and has plenty of family money to invest and lose should she misjudge the market. pretending that i - somebody who lost a parent and was homeless for a short stint - am anywhere near the level of privilege of paris hilton is a goddamn f*** joke you should be embarassed to be making a comparison from. it negates the rest of your "i worked hard and got by just fine because im from a previous generation, you can do it too" argument.

It's not a comparison. You're reading with an agenda. I was talking about the effects of wealthy people investing, not comparing you to the Hilton family.

2. your grandfather was a railroad worker? thats great! hes guaranteed a pension and healthcare. fantastic union job with special government protections just for railroad workers and their families. i get 5 cents every quarter from owning a tiny portion of comcast stock. big f*** whoop. you need capital to make capital.

No you don't. Every journey starts with a step. And then many steps after that. It's a journey.

What you need is to spend less than you earn.

3. because of predatory markets, i couldnt afford to buy a used car because i couldnt get credit for it and couldnt get cosigners. so i got a lease. but since i have "bad credit" thanks to student loans, my $18,000 car was a $350 a month lease before insurance. long story short, i had to buy out my car with an underwater loan after it got keyed to sh*t a couple months into the lease. my partner, her brother, and her dad all work on cars. i have a great mechanic (PM me if you want details, hes local and really really great, like best ever) for the stuff thats beyond their capabilities. my partner is in the market for a car currently, and the rates for used cars are completely outrageous. she too has bad credit because of student loans.

So for starters, I'm driving a used car that cost less than yours. You're driving a more expensive car than me. Let that sink in. And then consider I'm putting the difference into investment. Yes I saw your explanation. There's obviously more detail missing. I'm not asking you to publish the details, but I'm going to say there were alternatives. There are almost always alternatives. Being so unlucky so that you HAVE to buy/lease an $18,000 car just doesn't sound thoroughly researched. And wasn't the car insured? The comprehensive portion would cover vandalism. If you have an outrageous interest rate, accelerate the payments all you can. Find some expenses to slash.

Life is about choices. Recognize that you have had different options in the past, and continue to have options in the future.

[Bubba]

@ GIS

Capitalism is not the enemy. I'll agree that it requires regulation to work effectively and limit exploitation. But can you honestly tell me you don't own any stocks/ETFs/mutual funds? Millions of very middle class people depend on these securities for their retirements, pensions, etc. Google says more than half of Americans own stocks.

A corporation's job is to maximize profits. It's the government's job to keep an eye on corporations and make sure they're not exploiting people. When they're working right, these mechanisms produce extremely positive results for society. Of course they don't always work right and require constant monitoring and tweaking, but I don't think we should throw out the baby with the bathwater unless you have something better to replace it.

no, ive always been paycheck to paycheck, and dont own anything. and i make a "high" wage for the area. the high wage is a f*** joke. i havent gone on a vacation in 15+ years, and no, the problem isnt avocado toast or lattes, the problem is capitalism.

where i went to college it was free until saint reagan. credit scores didnt exist until 1988. boomers mortgaged my generation so they could live a freewheeling lifestyle, then gaslight us when were making the same wage as they did in the early 90s yet they claim its a "good" wage. its a load of sh*t. capitalism has always been the problem, youre just lucky enough not to be part of the exploited class. ill never be able to own anything because of student loans. cant even get a car loan because credit isnt good enough - so partner and i have to share a car and a commute, holding us back from finding a better situation or working more hours.

my sin? i went to college. PUBLIC COLLEGE, that was FREE before the boomers elected SAINT REAGAN. not that i have tons of credit cards and live outside my means - no, i committed the terrible sin of graduating college into a job market where you couldnt even get a job at mcdonalds if you tried. im lucky to have the living situation i do, because if my landlord had checked credit scores i would of been denied and homeless. already i have one friend whos homeless, and another who is struggling to make ends meet despite "doing everything right".

a corporations job is to make profits for their shareholders so their shareholders dont have to get a real job, and dont need a pension or social security or anything else because theyre just gonna live off the labor of others. its absolutely laughable that yall think the working class has money to invest in the stock market... so out of teach limosuine neoliberal nonsense. there is no saving when wages dont keep up with inflation and havent since the 1970s. if the minimum wage had it would be $25 an hour... which is more than i currently make. and my wage is "high" for the area. my partner, a skilled tradeswoman, makes even less. its a f*** joke.

cant play the capitalism game if you dont have capital. my generation has no capital, because we were robbed to fund the lifestyle of previous generations. its sickening, the gaslighting and denial of reality. im also sick of liberal excuses about how the government just needs to regulate things more - what the end up doing is hurting the little people trying to be their own small business owners, they never go after the big guys who fund their election campaigns. this country has been completely off the f*** rails since the citizens united decision. and the sheep keep marching off a cliff thinking if we just vOtE bLuE nO mAtTeR wHo it will all be fixed. as if senator mastercard who made student loans unforgivable in bankruptcy has my best interests in mind... sick of the f*** 80 year old neoliberal dinosaurs running the show, its time for them to get the f*** hint and RETIRE. they just voted themselves a big pay raise, where's ours?

Questions:

1. Where did you go to school?

2. What years?

3. What did you major in?

1. SUNY plattsburgh for 1.5 years on partial scholarship, CUNY city college for the rest... where my grandfather went for free until he got sent to WW2, my aunt went to CUNY queens college for free, my mom went to CUNY queens then SUNY buffalo (a ~decade younger than my aunt) for a couple hundred dollars per year, my dad, also a CUNY queens/SUNY buffalo alumni, went for free thanks to social security because he lost his dad as a teenager. i also lost my father when i was in my final year of school, and the death benefits were killed thanks to SAINT REAGAN! (in case it isnt obvious, im a NYer who transplanted to VT, and all of this was in state tuition... ironically i wanted to go to UVM but they didnt have my major and i would of been out of state tuition).

CUNY was free until the mid 1970s when tuition was instituted during the era of NYC going bankrupt. SUNY has had tuition for as long as I've been familiar with it and, as a graduate of Stony Brook, I paid for each and every credit, room and board and books. If you went for free or paid partial tuition it was because you took the test to be eligible for scholarship money from the state. As for death benefits, I lost my father when I was young and received death benefits until I was either 18 or 21, I can't recall which at this point. Death benefits are still paid by SSA, at least it says so on all my annual SSA benefit summaries.

UVM is one of the more expensive state schools to go to but they belong (or at least belonged) to some kind of New England states arrangement where if one state's school doesn't offer your major, you can go to another state and pay in-state tuition and still receive scholarship and grant money. One of my step daughters went to UMass Amherst rather than UVM for that reason.

2. august 2007 - may 2012. i went one extra year thanks to BUREAUCRACY (higher education is a for profit racket regardless of their "nonprofit" status) and lies about what credits would transfer. spent a semester at SUNY community college because my mother didnt want my education or health insurance interrupted, only to find out that NONE of the credits transferred.

Interesting...I went to an out of NYS school, then transferred to a private college in NY, then transferred to Stony Brook and most of my credits were transferred. I still had to take additional courses due to a change in major but otherwise credits were transferred based on my grade in each course. Not sure why yours didn't transfer but, having transferred twice as an undergrad and once as a grad student, my experience was clearly different.

3. design. a TECH field. i work with computers. i can do some coding. i work in design currently. my bachelors was unnecessary, i didnt want it, i was already self taught from 14 on and already making money in the field before i left high school. but if i didnt go to college id get disowned by my family. community college was 13th grade, and unacceptable. trades were for men, not women (interestingly enough, i ended up in the trades when i moved to VT and swore off design, before accidentally getting a job in design). i graduated from my program right as the design world completely changed from print-based to completely online, and i was wildly unprepared for it despite being in a "good" program at a "good" school that was public. timing is everything, if i was 10 years older id probably have a house and land by now as i would of been established in a career by the time the market crashed.

4. when i graduated, there were NO JOBS. not even f*** mcdonalds. i was unemployed for a year (and when that ran out, working stupid service industry jobs that paid next to nothing and had nothing to do with my "career") and sent out HUNDREDS of resumes a MONTH. the only "jobs" that existed were unpaid internships for PRIVILEGED people who could afford to work for free, or "entry level" jobs that required a graduate degree and three years experience for $40k a year. at that point, i lost my dad and i lost my house, my mother and i were scrambling to get a roof over our heads in the NY metro area. and my parents were old school, reagan voting, business owning capitalists. they learned the hard way that capitalism f*** everyone but capital over. medical debt is one hell of a life ruin-er. eventually, about a year and a half after graduating i got a design job for $32,000 a year. in an area where a basement studio apartment went for $2000 a month. i didnt choose to be born in the NYC metro area... after considering suicide and spending a week in a mental health ward where i was told my problem was i smoke two joints a day to keep the migraines at bay, and not our sociopathic and abusive society being the problem, i moved to VT, swore off design, and said f*** it, im never gonna own anything, im not gonna pay back any of my student or medical debts, the man can go f*** himself and i will ride 100 days a year and get by on whatever jobs pay the best in the area. because you cant succeed in a system that sets you up to fail. they cant win the game if you refuse to play. im banking on the market crashing, because if they dont forgive student debt and medical debt thats exactly whats going to happen, or worse. when an ENTIRE generation cant afford to buy houses and have kids, were in for societal collapse and the cracks are already showing.

Hey, guess what. Loads of people graduated into bad economies or had other issues. People graduating during the Vietnam era had to contend with getting jobs when they were 1A for the draft. Engineers graduating in the early to mid 1970s graduated into an era when engineers were a dime a dozen due to the winding down of the space program at the time. People graduating in the late 70s and early 80s, or looking to buy a house during that period had to contend with double digit mortgage rates. My niece graduated from the SUNY system in the early 1990s and had trouble getting a teaching job, her chosen path. She had to move to Maryland to get her first job. Every generation has its issues getting started, some more difficult than others. Sorry if that doesn't sit well with your view of history, education and capitalism but that's the way it is.

college was advertised to millennials as an "investment" in their future, that their jobs would more than pay for it. that was a LIE. college was actually just a form of selling an entire generation into debt slavery and our debts are packaged up and bought and sold as speculative assets (known as SLABs, and im looking forward to them crashing the market even worse than 2008 - article that links to is written in 2019 before the COVID pause of loan repayments). all but one of my friends (who was extremely aggressive in paying off her bills, lived at home the entire time, and went to school on scholarship) are still completely saddled with debt no matter what they went to school for. most are stuck living in the NYC metro area because thats where the jobs are, so despite having "high" paying jobs they have extraordinary cost of living thanks to corporate rent seeking and speculation of real estate that eats up 50% of their income.

something is going to give in this completely unsustainable system, and if you enjoy your privileged little ski bubble living on stock market returns and short term rental investments you should be paying attention to the fact that millennials no longer believe in capitalism or democracy. we're collectively in the mood for guillotines since weve been denied a future. and thank god i dont want kids because if i couldnt have kids thanks to government and economic policies making it financially impossible, that would radicalize me to violence. and theres a lot of "me"s out there being radicalized to that point right now.

I LOVE THE GASLIGHTING FROM BOOMERS WHO PAID AT MOST A COUPLE HUNDRED BUCKS A YEAR FOR COLLEGE AND DIDN'T NEED A NON-EXISTENT CREDIT SCORE TO GET A LOAN FOR ANYTHING SUBSTANTIAL WHILE THEY WERE YOUNG ADULTS!

Your last statement is a joke. Most people didn't pay "at most a couple hundred bucks a year for college". As for credit scores, they were instituted as a way to eliminate racial and other bias from the loan approval process, supposedly making the process more objective as a result. That's a good thing, no?

[asher2789]

I am ~4 years your senior, graduated college in 2006 also in tech field, and live/worked through the economic mess in ~2008 with just two years out of college. I didn't have to go through the difficulty of losing my father at a younger age and they/we never lost our home. I can't speak to how hard that is and won't pretend to try.

I am only posting to share that our generation can succeed. I worked 2-3 jobs varying between McDonald's, local pizza joint, CVS, bank rep, and lifeguard before and during college. My college loans totaled $75k upon graduation, despite getting my gen ed requirements at the local community college. I paid the last of my student loans off a few years ago. I'm not an aberration. Many in my circle of friends and those I graduated with have done the same. It's possible to succeed.

you're lucky. i lost three friends to drug overdoses / suicides, i have another friend i am in the process of talking off a cliff (who btw, was young and healthy, then caught long COVID despite being vaccinated and now would rather be dead - take it seriously), another friend who struggled for years with opiates before coming clean, and two more friends with alcohol problems that theyre still struggling with. nearly all my friends suffer mental health issues anxiety/depression, even the "happy" "popular" and "pretty" ones. i came from a middle class area, with good schools, and most of my friends parents were together and not even divorced. a few of my friends are finally - in their mid 30s - getting on their feet. one just had a baby, and she was pushing 40 and very politically conservative, even she couldnt make ends meet to make that happen till now. the generational effects of graduating into the worst recession since the great depression and another decade of austerity in response while the rich get richer than ever... the deaths of despair are real, and youre lucky you managed to not be touched by it.

sure, you succeeded. so did mark zuckerberg (or any of the other tech bros that are older millennials). that does not negate my point that many more did not, and some are sadly no longer with us as a result.

this is what late stage capitalism looks like. surplus people that are no longer "useful" to society based on completely arbitrary definitions die.

[asher2789]

There's too many examples of people in my own life who I've seen come up from nothing to do remarkably well for me to believe that capitalism doesn't work. I have a friend whose parents were uneducated portuguese immigrants, and he himself never got a degree, but he started an IT company in his early 20s and now makes more than most people on Kzone. It didn't happen overnight, in fact it took decades of hard work.

I know another guy, also the son of immigrants who started with little, and spent years building a construction business. He now owns a second home in NH and does very well. Another guy who went to trade school, became an electrician, and makes six figures. My father and two uncles who came here with nothing toiled for decades but now own large homes and are retired comfortably. There are many more examples I can cite.

The body of evidence is too big to deny. I know not everyone has the capability or drive to reach those levels, but capitalism has been the best system so far for getting people out of poverty. Its not perfect, and it requires regulation. But what would you replace it with that works as well or better?

I'll agree that student loan debt and higher education badly needs reform, and it's an area where capitalism is currently failing. I'd say the same about US health care. But again I say lets not throw the baby out with the bathwater - fix the problems, yes, but don't break the system until you've found something better.

your father and uncles (assuming no big age gaps) grew up in a completely different time frame where one could get by on a janitors salary and support a family on it. the comparison is irrelevant. cant speak of the other people without knowing their ages.

capitalism has been the best system so far for getting people out of poverty

gets who out of poverty at the expense of who? capitalism requires imperialism to function. so a "poor" family can afford an iphone, if its split into monthly payments over two years. how? at the exploitation of the factory workers in china who are literally worked to their deaths. and lets not forget the definition of a banana republic... or all the undocumented farm workers working for sub minimum wages picking the foods you eat. capitalism is just a system where the cream is skimmed off the top for the elites to profit from. the actual laborers get squat.

It's called the American Dream,because you have to be asleep to believe it. - George Carlin

this system cant be reformed, it was designed to be this way and its working as intended.

as for what to replace it with, that is a tough question. something closer to anarchism/syndicalism/communism, but without the authoritarianism or ideally, the state. im far left/ far libertarian on that political compass thing. without getting too deep into theory, what i would do practically if i was made ruler (LOL) tomorrow (this is really just reforming capitalism and adding a little bit of mixed market features to it, and would never actually be allowed to happen under current conditions, hence "ruler"):

1. establish UBI funded by taxing financial speculation and automation (andrew yang ran on some ideas related)
2. tax the living sh*t out of anyone who buys more than two homes to the point where buying three is prohibitive and not profitable
3. raise the minimum wage up to a living wage and tie it to inflation, same with SSI/SSDI payments so 90 year olds arent working at walmart because they are "bored"
4. get rid of all tax loopholes that go against the spirit of the laws written
5. bring the top marginal rates back up to 90% like it was during the MAGA 1950s but with more brackets and more progressive in taxation so the extreme wealthy get soaked yet the neurosurgeons and below would see their rates go down. billionaires would not be able to exist under my rule, and if they dont like it i hear the french came up with a crafty solution for that in the 1700s
6. nationalize the healthcare industry - i mean full on socialism, no health insurance industry at all
7. nationalize the energy industry especially fossil fuels, we should be working on weaning ourselves off of it and coming up with new solutions, not finding ways to profit as much as possible while making future generations of human life on earth implausible. (this is already partly a thing, in alaska of all places, where alaskans get a check every year for the use of their natural resources by the fossil fuels industry)
8. enforce anti-monopoly laws
9. legalize all drugs and put the harder ones under doctors care, legalize prostitution, legalize gambling/sports betting, and make small personal loans easier to access (essentially, kill organized crime financially and kill petty crime of desperation)
10. (should be #1 because nothing else would be possible) overturn citizens united, publicly fund elections and prohibit private funding, automatic voter registration and voter ID before a citizen turns 18, open primaries, ranked choice voting, and bringing back the fairness doctrine in public broadcasting, term limits for politicians.
11. nationalize social media companies, so that all speech is protected under first amendment rights (with the usual exceptions for threatening/hate speech, libel, slander) - and implement center for humane technology's content neutral suggestions for curbing mis/disinfo
12. restart a CCC for building out infrastructure and researching/implementing solutions for climate change. wildly fund public transport since most of our emissions (at least in VT) are from commuting.
13. cut our military budget into a fraction of what it currently is, and generously fund veterans benefits. reinstate the draft, gender neutral, for 19-20 year olds, and place them mostly in CCC projects and national guard for non-combat uses (and of course, should we be attacked on our soil, we would have a massive well trained force). no more imperial wars for oil.
14. remove as much of the "red tape" for starting a small business as possible, and lower all the start up fees as much as possible, perhaps fund a small business loaning program for sole proprietors to 10 employees. commerce is not the same thing as capitalism, despite the brainwashing.

[asher2789]

1. paris hilton is an heir of the hilton dynasty and has plenty of family money to invest and lose should she misjudge the market. pretending that i - somebody who lost a parent and was homeless for a short stint - am anywhere near the level of privilege of paris hilton is a goddamn f*** joke you should be embarassed to be making a comparison from. it negates the rest of your "i worked hard and got by just fine because im from a previous generation, you can do it too" argument.

It's not a comparison. You're reading with an agenda. I was talking about the effects of wealthy people investing, not comparing you to the Hilton family.

2. your grandfather was a railroad worker? thats great! hes guaranteed a pension and healthcare. fantastic union job with special government protections just for railroad workers and their families. i get 5 cents every quarter from owning a tiny portion of comcast stock. big f*** whoop. you need capital to make capital.

No you don't. Every journey starts with a step. And then many steps after that. It's a journey.

What you need is to spend less than you earn.

3. because of predatory markets, i couldnt afford to buy a used car because i couldnt get credit for it and couldnt get cosigners. so i got a lease. but since i have "bad credit" thanks to student loans, my $18,000 car was a $350 a month lease before insurance. long story short, i had to buy out my car with an underwater loan after it got keyed to sh*t a couple months into the lease. my partner, her brother, and her dad all work on cars. i have a great mechanic (PM me if you want details, hes local and really really great, like best ever) for the stuff thats beyond their capabilities. my partner is in the market for a car currently, and the rates for used cars are completely outrageous. she too has bad credit because of student loans.

So for starters, I'm driving a used car that cost less than yours. You're driving a more expensive car than me. Let that sink in. And then consider I'm putting the difference into investment. Yes I saw your explanation. There's obviously more detail missing. I'm not asking you to publish the details, but I'm going to say there were alternatives. There are almost always alternatives. Being so unlucky so that you HAVE to buy/lease an $18,000 car just doesn't sound thoroughly researched. And wasn't the car insured? The comprehensive portion would cover vandalism. If you have an outrageous interest rate, accelerate the payments all you can. Find some expenses to slash.

Life is about choices. Recognize that you have had different options in the past, and continue to have options in the future.

1. if youre paycheck to paycheck, you cant afford to lose your investment. its not a lack of savvy... for example, i would be a billionaire right now if i bought a pizza's worth of bitcoin when i first heard about bitcoin, which was before anybody used it to buy a pizza. back then i needed the money to survive, i couldnt afford to risk it on speculative things. in fact, i actually bought ethereum years ago, but couldnt hold onto it because i needed the money for bills, so i was forced to sell for a small loss. if i held on, i would have a car's worth of money right now. again, its not the lack of intelligence. its the lack of f*** opportunity, something MY GENERATION WAS ROBBED OF.

2. to further the point about needing capital to play the capitalism game, the wealthiest 10% of the population owns 90% of the stocks. shocking. one only needs to play the game monopoly to understand this simple fact.

3. i wanted a cheaper used car. I COULDNT GET A LOAN FOR ONE, THANKS TO STUDENT LOANS! the only way i could get a car without a cosigner or family help that wasnt a beater that would breakdown was via a LEASE. thank you for proving my point that the system is completely f*** rigged, and if i wanted a car in 1987 i could of just gone down to the bank, shown that i had a stable job, and gotten a loan that was appropriate to my income and would of more than covered a dependable car. now, thanks to a private, for profit, answerable to no one, monopoly, i have a black box FICO score instead, that might as well be based on a f*** mood ring. i got the cheapest lease i could. as for the insurance, it was a $2000 deductible to repair the scratches. $2000 i didnt have. so i bought out the car, and it just now, 9 years later, is finally paid off. and my FICO score? it went down!

f*** your boomer "choices", there were no choices, only an illusion of "choice". i love the boomer gaslighting, its so f*** incredible. yall wouldnt survive a day as a millennial.

[asher2789]

@ GIS

Capitalism is not the enemy. I'll agree that it requires regulation to work effectively and limit exploitation. But can you honestly tell me you don't own any stocks/ETFs/mutual funds? Millions of very middle class people depend on these securities for their retirements, pensions, etc. Google says more than half of Americans own stocks.

A corporation's job is to maximize profits. It's the government's job to keep an eye on corporations and make sure they're not exploiting people. When they're working right, these mechanisms produce extremely positive results for society. Of course they don't always work right and require constant monitoring and tweaking, but I don't think we should throw out the baby with the bathwater unless you have something better to replace it.

no, ive always been paycheck to paycheck, and dont own anything. and i make a "high" wage for the area. the high wage is a f*** joke. i havent gone on a vacation in 15+ years, and no, the problem isnt avocado toast or lattes, the problem is capitalism.

where i went to college it was free until saint reagan. credit scores didnt exist until 1988. boomers mortgaged my generation so they could live a freewheeling lifestyle, then gaslight us when were making the same wage as they did in the early 90s yet they claim its a "good" wage. its a load of sh*t. capitalism has always been the problem, youre just lucky enough not to be part of the exploited class. ill never be able to own anything because of student loans. cant even get a car loan because credit isnt good enough - so partner and i have to share a car and a commute, holding us back from finding a better situation or working more hours.

my sin? i went to college. PUBLIC COLLEGE, that was FREE before the boomers elected SAINT REAGAN. not that i have tons of credit cards and live outside my means - no, i committed the terrible sin of graduating college into a job market where you couldnt even get a job at mcdonalds if you tried. im lucky to have the living situation i do, because if my landlord had checked credit scores i would of been denied and homeless. already i have one friend whos homeless, and another who is struggling to make ends meet despite "doing everything right".

a corporations job is to make profits for their shareholders so their shareholders dont have to get a real job, and dont need a pension or social security or anything else because theyre just gonna live off the labor of others. its absolutely laughable that yall think the working class has money to invest in the stock market... so out of teach limosuine neoliberal nonsense. there is no saving when wages dont keep up with inflation and havent since the 1970s. if the minimum wage had it would be $25 an hour... which is more than i currently make. and my wage is "high" for the area. my partner, a skilled tradeswoman, makes even less. its a f*** joke.

cant play the capitalism game if you dont have capital. my generation has no capital, because we were robbed to fund the lifestyle of previous generations. its sickening, the gaslighting and denial of reality. im also sick of liberal excuses about how the government just needs to regulate things more - what the end up doing is hurting the little people trying to be their own small business owners, they never go after the big guys who fund their election campaigns. this country has been completely off the f*** rails since the citizens united decision. and the sheep keep marching off a cliff thinking if we just vOtE bLuE nO mAtTeR wHo it will all be fixed. as if senator mastercard who made student loans unforgivable in bankruptcy has my best interests in mind... sick of the f*** 80 year old neoliberal dinosaurs running the show, its time for them to get the f*** hint and RETIRE. they just voted themselves a big pay raise, where's ours?

Questions:

1. Where did you go to school?

2. What years?

3. What did you major in?

1. SUNY plattsburgh for 1.5 years on partial scholarship, CUNY city college for the rest... where my grandfather went for free until he got sent to WW2, my aunt went to CUNY queens college for free, my mom went to CUNY queens then SUNY buffalo (a ~decade younger than my aunt) for a couple hundred dollars per year, my dad, also a CUNY queens/SUNY buffalo alumni, went for free thanks to social security because he lost his dad as a teenager. i also lost my father when i was in my final year of school, and the death benefits were killed thanks to SAINT REAGAN! (in case it isnt obvious, im a NYer who transplanted to VT, and all of this was in state tuition... ironically i wanted to go to UVM but they didnt have my major and i would of been out of state tuition).

CUNY was free until the mid 1970s when tuition was instituted during the era of NYC going bankrupt. SUNY has had tuition for as long as I've been familiar with it and, as a graduate of Stony Brook, I paid for each and every credit, room and board and books. If you went for free or paid partial tuition it was because you took the test to be eligible for scholarship money from the state. As for death benefits, I lost my father when I was young and received death benefits until I was either 18 or 21, I can't recall which at this point. Death benefits are still paid by SSA, at least it says so on all my annual SSA benefit summaries.

UVM is one of the more expensive state schools to go to but they belong (or at least belonged) to some kind of New England states arrangement where if one state's school doesn't offer your major, you can go to another state and pay in-state tuition and still receive scholarship and grant money. One of my step daughters went to UMass Amherst rather than UVM for that reason.

2. august 2007 - may 2012. i went one extra year thanks to BUREAUCRACY (higher education is a for profit racket regardless of their "nonprofit" status) and lies about what credits would transfer. spent a semester at SUNY community college because my mother didnt want my education or health insurance interrupted, only to find out that NONE of the credits transferred.

Interesting...I went to an out of NYS school, then transferred to a private college in NY, then transferred to Stony Brook and most of my credits were transferred. I still had to take additional courses due to a change in major but otherwise credits were transferred based on my grade in each course. Not sure why yours didn't transfer but, having transferred twice as an undergrad and once as a grad student, my experience was clearly different.

3. design. a TECH field. i work with computers. i can do some coding. i work in design currently. my bachelors was unnecessary, i didnt want it, i was already self taught from 14 on and already making money in the field before i left high school. but if i didnt go to college id get disowned by my family. community college was 13th grade, and unacceptable. trades were for men, not women (interestingly enough, i ended up in the trades when i moved to VT and swore off design, before accidentally getting a job in design). i graduated from my program right as the design world completely changed from print-based to completely online, and i was wildly unprepared for it despite being in a "good" program at a "good" school that was public. timing is everything, if i was 10 years older id probably have a house and land by now as i would of been established in a career by the time the market crashed.

4. when i graduated, there were NO JOBS. not even f*** mcdonalds. i was unemployed for a year (and when that ran out, working stupid service industry jobs that paid next to nothing and had nothing to do with my "career") and sent out HUNDREDS of resumes a MONTH. the only "jobs" that existed were unpaid internships for PRIVILEGED people who could afford to work for free, or "entry level" jobs that required a graduate degree and three years experience for $40k a year. at that point, i lost my dad and i lost my house, my mother and i were scrambling to get a roof over our heads in the NY metro area. and my parents were old school, reagan voting, business owning capitalists. they learned the hard way that capitalism f*** everyone but capital over. medical debt is one hell of a life ruin-er. eventually, about a year and a half after graduating i got a design job for $32,000 a year. in an area where a basement studio apartment went for $2000 a month. i didnt choose to be born in the NYC metro area... after considering suicide and spending a week in a mental health ward where i was told my problem was i smoke two joints a day to keep the migraines at bay, and not our sociopathic and abusive society being the problem, i moved to VT, swore off design, and said f*** it, im never gonna own anything, im not gonna pay back any of my student or medical debts, the man can go f*** himself and i will ride 100 days a year and get by on whatever jobs pay the best in the area. because you cant succeed in a system that sets you up to fail. they cant win the game if you refuse to play. im banking on the market crashing, because if they dont forgive student debt and medical debt thats exactly whats going to happen, or worse. when an ENTIRE generation cant afford to buy houses and have kids, were in for societal collapse and the cracks are already showing.

Hey, guess what. Loads of people graduated into bad economies or had other issues. People graduating during the Vietnam era had to contend with getting jobs when they were 1A for the draft. Engineers graduating in the early to mid 1970s graduated into an era when engineers were a dime a dozen due to the winding down of the space program at the time. People graduating in the late 70s and early 80s, or looking to buy a house during that period had to contend with double digit mortgage rates. My niece graduated from the SUNY system in the early 1990s and had trouble getting a teaching job, her chosen path. She had to move to Maryland to get her first job. Every generation has its issues getting started, some more difficult than others. Sorry if that doesn't sit well with your view of history, education and capitalism but that's the way it is.

college was advertised to millennials as an "investment" in their future, that their jobs would more than pay for it. that was a LIE. college was actually just a form of selling an entire generation into debt slavery and our debts are packaged up and bought and sold as speculative assets (known as SLABs, and im looking forward to them crashing the market even worse than 2008 - article that links to is written in 2019 before the COVID pause of loan repayments). all but one of my friends (who was extremely aggressive in paying off her bills, lived at home the entire time, and went to school on scholarship) are still completely saddled with debt no matter what they went to school for. most are stuck living in the NYC metro area because thats where the jobs are, so despite having "high" paying jobs they have extraordinary cost of living thanks to corporate rent seeking and speculation of real estate that eats up 50% of their income.

something is going to give in this completely unsustainable system, and if you enjoy your privileged little ski bubble living on stock market returns and short term rental investments you should be paying attention to the fact that millennials no longer believe in capitalism or democracy. we're collectively in the mood for guillotines since weve been denied a future. and thank god i dont want kids because if i couldnt have kids thanks to government and economic policies making it financially impossible, that would radicalize me to violence. and theres a lot of "me"s out there being radicalized to that point right now.

I LOVE THE GASLIGHTING FROM BOOMERS WHO PAID AT MOST A COUPLE HUNDRED BUCKS A YEAR FOR COLLEGE AND DIDN'T NEED A NON-EXISTENT CREDIT SCORE TO GET A LOAN FOR ANYTHING SUBSTANTIAL WHILE THEY WERE YOUNG ADULTS!

Your last statement is a joke. Most people didn't pay "at most a couple hundred bucks a year for college". As for credit scores, they were instituted as a way to eliminate racial and other bias from the loan approval process, supposedly making the process more objective as a result. That's a good thing, no?

1. death benefits stopped being paid out to 19-22 year olds in 1985 thanks to saint reagan
2. like i said, the credits didnt transfer because school is a business. i have many friends who went through similar struggles, and worse, couldnt complete their degrees in 4 years even without transferring because their required classes were unavailable on a proper schedule to make it possible.
3. actually, average public tuition costs in the 1970s when my boomer parents were in SUNY was indeed a few hundred bucks a year. SUNY didn't charge tuition until 1961...
4. credit scores perpetuate inequality and make racial disparities worse.

[daytripper]

All you do is blame the world for your problems, boo f*** hoo. Stop blaming the world and do something about it. You can if you really put the effort in but instead you boast about skiing 100 days a year.

[easyrider16]

your father and uncles (assuming no big age gaps) grew up in a completely different time frame where one could get by on a janitors salary and support a family on it. the comparison is irrelevant. cant speak of the other people without knowing their ages.

I'm not sure times were so different, but in any case the other examples I cited are all gen-Xers born around 1980 or so, which I believe is the same time frame you grew up in. There are many more examples. If you look at the big tech elite, many of them like Dorsey, Zuckerberg, Cuban, and many others came from decidedly working-class families. That kind of rise from working-class to uber-elite does not happen in a system that is rigged in favor of elites at the expense of the working class.

I also wonder how much your view is colored by the fact that you live in an area of the country with many fewer opportunities than more urban areas. If you entered the IT business in the greater Boston area you'd have found a world of possibilities. In rural Vermont, I imagine the opportunities are far fewer. That's not a function of capitalism, that's a function of population density. If you choose to live in a resort area where you can ski 100 days a year, that's great, and if it makes you happy, I'm all for it. But you have to recognize that by choosing that lifestyle, you are choosing to forgo other opportunities.

[Heywood jablowmee]

Bullseye.....not that ERider and I often see the same.....this "Boomers" sh*t is old.....stop blaming others for YOUR failures...

[Bubba]

1. death benefits stopped being paid out to 19-22 year olds in 1985 thanks to saint reagan
2. like i said, the credits didnt transfer because school is a business. i have many friends who went through similar struggles, and worse, couldnt complete their degrees in 4 years even without transferring because their required classes were unavailable on a proper schedule to make it possible.
3. actually, average public tuition costs in the 1970s when my boomer parents were in SUNY was indeed a few hundred bucks a year. SUNY didn't charge tuition until 1961...
4. credit scores perpetuate inequality and make racial disparities worse.

So...

1. Survivor benefits continue until you're 18 rather than 21? I'm assuming that was part of the deal made to reform Social Security, a deal made between Republicans and Democrats as part of a compromise to fix what had been a program that was unsustainable in its then current form.

2. I didn't graduate in 4 years either as a result of transfers and a change in majors. Many students, even without transfers, don't graduate in 4 years. That's not a big deal and is not unusual.

3. SUNY didn't charge until 1961? Cool...boomers didn't get to college age until after that. In other words, boomers didn't get to go for free. The WW 11 generation went for free, mostly under the GI Bill. Part of the reason college costs subsequently increased over time was the increase in demand. Millions of people now go to college where, prior to WW 11 and the post war era, most did not. Do all HAVE to go? Obviously not, but many more do today and facilities have to be built. It was the same with K-12 schools having to be built en masse post WW 11 due to the baby boom years.

4. Criticisms of credit scoring mechanisms are valid, but what came before was also a problem. It's not the first time nor will it be the last where the law of unintended consequences applies.

As for how you would replace capitalism..."as for what to replace it with, that is a tough question. something closer to anarchism/syndicalism/communism, but without the authoritarianism or ideally, the state. im far left/ far libertarian on that political compass thing."

You have to realize this is somewhat of a contradiction, unless you're talking about Communism in its ideal, unreachable form. Communism as an ideal and theory assumed the state would eventually dissolve and the proletariat would run themselves for the benefit of all. Good luck with that. Human nature being what it is, homo sapiens will need to evolve well past where we are today or any time in the foreseeable future to achieve that vision of utopia. Until then, Communism requires the state and the state will not give up control.

Anarchism is the elimination of the state and, with it, the rule of law unless, of course, you again ignore human nature.

Syndicalism is, at least as I understand it, workers owning their own companies, i.e. the means of production. Of course, someone has to run the companies, at which point we get the equivalent of Animal Farm.

Your idealism is wonderful. Reality bites.

[XtremeJibber2001]

I am ~4 years your senior, graduated college in 2006 also in tech field, and live/worked through the economic mess in ~2008 with just two years out of college. I didn't have to go through the difficulty of losing my father at a younger age and they/we never lost our home. I can't speak to how hard that is and won't pretend to try.

I am only posting to share that our generation can succeed. I worked 2-3 jobs varying between McDonald's, local pizza joint, CVS, bank rep, and lifeguard before and during college. My college loans totaled $75k upon graduation, despite getting my gen ed requirements at the local community college. I paid the last of my student loans off a few years ago. I'm not an aberration. Many in my circle of friends and those I graduated with have done the same. It's possible to succeed.

you're lucky.

Why do you assume it's luck? My dad always said luck is what you get when planning and opportunity meet. In that sense, luck doesn't really exist.

Just an example of 'luck'. When I went to school (graduated 2006) you could get a Bachelors in Accounting and have a ~55k/yr job offer in hand before graduating. This is what a lot of my buddies did. It's still like this today, but the starting salaries are higher. Of course there's an Emotional Intelligence variable to all of this. These Accounting firms are seeking graduates that are well spoken, motivated, have the right attitude, social skills, effective communication, etc. This is probably no different than a lot of other fields. As a hiring manager, I can tell you there are a lot of Millennials that have poor Emotional Intelligence (I've never interviewed a non-Millennial so can't speak to comparing generations).

Heard a TED talk a decade ago or so and jotted down this quote from the speaker (don't remember who) that I found to be relevant in my career:

90% of your long-term happiness is predicted not by your external world but by the way your brain processes the world. If you change your formula for happiness and success, you can change the way it affects reality. Only 25% of job success is predicted by IQ .... research shows that 75% of job success is defined by (1) optimism level, (2) social support level, and (3) ability to see stress as a challenge instead of a threat.

sure, you succeeded. so did mark zuckerberg (or any of the other tech bros that are older millennials). that does not negate my point that many more did not, and some are sadly no longer with us as a result.

I don't think it's fair to dismiss my experience as an aberration. I think this is a form of Experience Bias, where you take your experience as the average experience of others. Just an example, look at the recent US Census (here). They found the median millennial household pretax income was $71,566 in 2020. This doesn't seem to align with your experience.

I do agree the salary of a Millennial is lower (in real terms) than the boomers at the same age (they had lower debt, too). This is indisputable. However, it's not as big a difference (~15-20%) as you make it seem when we look at a Millennial's at a National Level.