Generation Commie

[Scout26]

Back when Bernie announced he was running for President, I incorrectly predicted he'd get 4-5% of the vote.  Boy was I wrong.  It actually scared me that Bernie was getting 50+% of the D vote (which I figured was 25% of electorate).  I witnessed it in my polling place when hundreds of College kids, came to register and vote same day.
 And he actually bested Hillary in my polling place.

And I'm seriously concerned that the D party will go full blown commie-socialist retard in 2020 (unless Hillary declares that a third time is a charm...)  Anyway, I seriously worry.

http://usdefensewatch.com/2017/11/generation-commie-why-millennials-are-embracing-communism/

[K Frame]

Friend and I were talking about that this weekend.

He and I both grew up in the 1970s/80s. The 1970s and early 1980s absolutely SUCKED economically.

Yet our generation, in college or getting ready to go to college, didn't go full bore "GIMMIE FREE GOVERNMENT *expletive deleted*it!" and it certainly didn't buy in to the concept that there are magical money trees that can be harvested to pay for all of this free government *expletive deleted*it.

Even worse, the little shits completely ignore the numerous examples -- Greece, Spain, Portugal, France, Ireland -- of what happens when governments keep handing out more and more free *expletive deleted*it as a way of buying their way into power or staying in power.

It's almost as disgusting as seeing all of these recent graduates screaming about how much their student loan debt is and then realizing that they have an advanced degree in Socioethographics of Lesbian Underwater Basket Weaving... which is nothing more than an advanced education in being able to ask someone if they want fries with their double cheeseburger and cola.

[dogmush]

This is why it's important to keep hammering home the difference between a democracy and a constitutional republic.  There are things that you don't get to vote in even if you magically get 97% of the vote.  Communism is one of them.


I say this with no internet bravado or hyperbole:  If the legislature starts passing the laws needed to go Communist (widespread seizing of wealth/property, seizing the means of production, seizing and/or taking over farms and food production) then we need to, and should, put them against the back of the capitol building and shoot them.  Leave the holes as a warning to the next set of elected representatives.

FWIW, Even Bernie, who claims to be Socialist isn't in the way Marxism/Leninism means.

[French G.]

Thing is all these little social utopianists fail to realize there won't be any place for them in the new kingdom. If only someone had a pithy name for people who while not quite as aware as they could be, but are still handy.

[K Frame]

"If only someone had a pithy name for people who while not quite as aware as they could be, but are still handy."

Fast food industry service workers...

[agricola]

It's almost as disgusting as seeing all of these recent graduates screaming about how much their student loan debt is and then realizing that they have an advanced degree in Socioethographics of Lesbian Underwater Basket Weaving... which is nothing more than an advanced education in being able to ask someone if they want fries with their double cheeseburger and cola.

They do have a point though - the cost of college over your side of the pond has gone up 538% since the mid-80s, you now have more than a trillion dollars worth of student debt floating around, plus of course you've gone from having the best college system to having the 12th best.  

Over here we have gone from a publicly-funded system (cost around £10k for three years, all of which and more paid back by subsequent taxation) to a state-backed loan system (cost around £40k for three years, which doesn't have to be paid back if you earn below a set figure) and we have just got past the magic figure of £100 billion worth of outstanding student loans ourselves (and the system has only been going for 23 years).  The only people who have actually benefited from it is the Government (since more people go to University it means less of them appear on the unemployment register) and University Vice-Chancellors.  It is hard to look at how University / College education is funded and come to the conclusion that it isn't a massive scam at our expense.

  

[dogmush]

They do have a point though - the cost of college over your side of the pond has gone up 538% since the mid-80s, you now have more than a trillion dollars worth of student debt floating around, plus of course you've gone from having the best college system to having the 12th best.  

Over here we have gone from a publicly-funded system (cost around £10k for three years, all of which and more paid back by subsequent taxation) to a state-backed loan system (cost around £40k for three years, which doesn't have to be paid back if you earn below a set figure) and we have just got past the magic figure of £100 billion worth of outstanding student loans ourselves (and the system has only been going for 23 years).  The only people who have actually benefited from it is the Government (since more people go to University it means less of them appear on the unemployment register) and University Vice-Chancellors.  It is hard to look at how University / College education is funded and come to the conclusion that it isn't a massive scam at our expense.

  

Indeed.  That's much of our problem as well.  Feel good, easy loans so that "everyone can go to college" has decoupled the price of our college degrees from their worth in the employment market place.

A college degree has a specific value to it.  It's the difference you will make between a job with that degree, and just getting work with the skillset you have.  That's it.  If you pay more for the degree than it will earn you, you got hosed.  Honestly, I'd say break even time is more than 10 or so years you might want to think very carefully.

But gov backed student loans coupled with consumers (students and their families) that over inflate the need for a degree and don't look at it's value, have created a climate here where Universities can charge pretty much whatever they want without a whole lot of effect on their enrollments.

[Sideways_8]

Socioethographics of Lesbian Underwater Basket Weaving...

Pretty sure I've watched that, uh, movie once.

Millennials were also more likely to take a favorable view of communist leaders. According to the poll, “Nearly one-in-five Millennials consider Joseph Stalin and Kim Jong-un ‘heroes,’ Twenty-three percent of Americans between 21 and 29 consider Stalin a hero. Twenty-six percent of them consider Lenin a hero. These are two of the biggest mass murderers in world history. Thirty-four percent were favorable to Karl Marx, and 37 percent were favorable to revolutionary and T-shirt fixture Che Guevara. One-fifth of Millennials surveyed had a positive opinion of Karl Marx.

It all goes back to education, or lack thereof. History classes are a joke. Ask a Millenial how we got out of the Great Depression. 9 times out of 10 the answer will be FDR. I got lucky. One of my favorite teachers was an ornery old lady who grew up in East Germany. Communism wasn't a subject you brought up in her class in a positive light. She lived through that hell. Consequently, my final paper was a guaranteed pass since I picked the dangers of Communism.

[Scout26]

"If only someone had a pithy name for people who while not quite as aware as they could be, but are still handy."

Fast food industry service workers...

I think he was going for "Useful idiots".

[Scout26]

I think he was going for "Useful idiots".

Re: the 538% increase in tuition.   I wonder how and why that happened...Could it have been more .gov interference, to include the take-over of the entire student loan/lending programs....

[Ned Hamford]

Re: the 538% increase in tuition.   I wonder how and why that happened...Could it have been more .gov interference, to include the take-over of the entire student loan/lending programs....

Any in New York with the whole 'free tuition' lie they are also taking over the colleges directly.  The number one employer in the state is now state colleges. 

[MechAg94]

Indeed.  That's much of our problem as well.  Feel good, easy loans so that "everyone can go to college" has decoupled the price of our college degrees from their worth in the employment market place.

A college degree has a specific value to it.  It's the difference you will make between a job with that degree, and just getting work with the skillset you have.  That's it.  If you pay more for the degree than it will earn you, you got hosed.  Honestly, I'd say break even time is more than 10 or so years you might want to think very carefully.

But gov backed student loans coupled with consumers (students and their families) that over inflate the need for a degree and don't look at it's value, have created a climate here where Universities can charge pretty much whatever they want without a whole lot of effect on their enrollments.

Yep, colleges have no incentive to keep costs under control or charge less.  The lenders have no incentive to not sell these loans since the govt backs them.  It is a catch 22 since getting the govt money and loans out of the picture is the answer, but no one wants to do that. 

[Scout26]

I sounds a lot like the housing bubble... I keep hearing of a student loan bubble....

[French G.]

I think he was going for "Useful idiots".

Eh, they want $15 from the bougies to make the burgers, so I think he got the gist.

[charby]

I can see how some of them feel that way, it's not wanting $15 to flip burgers either or getting a niche degree and demanding $100k starting salary.

A larger percentage of wealth has been moved into a smaller percentage of people in their life, so there is less money to go around in the larger percentage. Almost like the gilded age at the beginning on the last century, I have a feeling I this continues your going to see a lot more Bernsters, they will get in charge and government will be involved (and not in a good way).


Wages have been stagnated for decades, pretty hard just to look at historic wages and see $18-20/hr union jobs from the 70's in smaller Midwest cities. (Caterpillar in my hometown of 27,000 people paid $18/hr for a production welder in 1979). Housing is expensive for many, you move to a new town out of college and over half your take home pay is paying rent, doesn't leave a whole lot of money at the end of the month. Many places it is hard to live the American dream without both spouses working average jobs.

Trade jobs until recently was shunned as a bad, you need to go to college. Apprenticeship programs are not very common (appears they are making a comeback), or you go to trade school for 2-3 years and hope for a job when you're done. etc. etc.

If I was 18-25, I wouldn't be seeing a rosy picture either. Expense of college, health insurance costs, trying to make rent, car payment, etc.

 

[K Frame]

"A larger percentage of wealth has been moved into a smaller percentage of people in their life, so there is less money to go around in the larger percentage."

They only believe that because they've bought into the concept, fronted by useless idiots like Bernie Sanders, that wealth/money can only be redistributed, NOT created, and they believe that wealth needs to be redistributed from the oppressor rich 1% to the oppressed poor 99%.

Which is just a massive amount of complete and total bullshit.

But it's serving very nicely to create a generation of useless idiots.

[charby]

"A larger percentage of wealth has been moved into a smaller percentage of people in their life, so there is less money to go around in the larger percentage."

They only believe that because they've bought into the concept, fronted by useless idiots like Bernie Sanders, that wealth/money can only be redistributed, NOT created, and they believe that wealth needs to be redistributed from the oppressor rich 1% to the oppressed poor 99%.

Which is just a massive amount of complete and total bullshit.

But it's serving very nicely to create a generation of useless idiots.

True, but from Wikipedia about the Gilded Age (History repeats itself....)

The unequal distribution of wealth remained high during this period. From 1860 to 1900, the wealthiest 2% of American households owned more than a third of the nation's wealth, while the top 10% owned roughly three fourths of it.[61] The bottom 40% had no wealth at all.[59] In terms of property, the wealthiest 1% owned 51%, while the bottom 44% claimed 1.1%.[59] Historian Howard Zinn argues that this disparity along with precarious working and living conditions for the working classes prompted the rise of populist, anarchist, and socialist movements.[62][63] French economist Thomas Piketty notes that economists during this time, such as Willford I. King, were concerned that the United States was becoming increasingly in-egalitarian to the point of becoming like old Europe, and "further and further away from its original pioneering ideal."[64]

[K Frame]

The Gilded Age took place in a time when wealth WAS far more difficult to create, the result of an economy tied directly to precious metals.

The Gilded Age was also far different from conditions today in that massive number of immigrants served to keep wages artificially low.

I really question the direct comparisons of today's national economic profile to that of the Gilded Age.

[charby]

The Gilded Age was also far different from conditions today in that massive number of immigrants served to keep wages artificially low.

I see similarities right there, but we have entitlements that payout better than working for a wage under a certain dollar amount. I think someone said a family on full governmental assistance was had a value of $52k a year. That is about $25 an hour on a 40 hour week, for a single worker.

[mtnbkr]

The Gilded Age was also far different from conditions today in that massive number of immigrants served to keep wages artificially low.

We have large numbers of immigrants (illegal and otherwise) entering the country and sucking up blue collar jobs or depressing the wages of those jobs.  For "skilled" folks like you and I, we are increasingly having to compete with people in "lower cost economies" where a person with a fancy resume can get an offshored job at 1/5 US salary for the same role in the US. 

Employers and customers are increasingly willing to ignore the quality differences in favor of the huge cost advantage of buying immigrant or offshore labor.

Chris

[Scout26]

A larger percentage of wealth has been moved into a smaller percentage of people in their life, so there is less money to go around in the larger percentage. Almost like the gilded age at the beginning on the last century, I have a feeling I this continues your going to see a lot more Bernsters, they will get in charge and government will be involved (and not in a good way).
 

Horseshit.

Look at what you have in your 401k.  How much equity you have in your house?   There is more wealth spread around more people then any other time in history.  Period. 

Wages have been stagnated for decades, pretty hard just to look at historic wages and see $18-20/hr union jobs from the 70's in smaller Midwest cities. (Caterpillar in my hometown of 27,000 people paid $18/hr for a production welder in 1979). Housing is expensive for many, you move to a new town out of college and over half your take home pay is paying rent, doesn't leave a whole lot of money at the end of the month. Many places it is hard to live the American dream without both spouses working average jobs.

Trade jobs until recently was shunned as a bad, you need to go to college. Apprenticeship programs are not very common (appears they are making a comeback), or you go to trade school for 2-3 years and hope for a job when you're done. etc. etc.

If I was 18-25, I wouldn't be seeing a rosy picture either. Expense of college, health insurance costs, trying to make rent, car payment, etc.

 

And what is causing this stagnation of wages ??  Rising taxes, mostly.   Look at what you pay in taxes across the board, and for most married couples at least one of those incomes goes simply to cover taxes of all kinds. 

[charby]

Horseshit.

Look at what you have in your 401k.  How much equity you have in your house?   There is more wealth spread around more people then any other time in history.  Period. 

I don't think so, maybe for folks who planned well/never had an extended lay off that are over 50.

And what is causing this stagnation of wages ??  Rising taxes, mostly.   Look at what you pay in taxes across the board, and for most married couples at least one of those incomes goes simply to cover taxes of all kinds. 

Actually overall we are probably in a period of lowest taxes in a century, so I call bullshit too. Have to exclude the tempory tax cuts to save us from the great recession.

A quick google will show that.

[charby]

From investopedia

A 2015 Government Accountability Office study found that show that 29% of Americans 55 and older don’t have any retirement nest egg or even a traditional pension plan. Those who do have retirement funds don't have enough money: 55 to 64-year-olds have an average of $104,000 and those 65 to 74 have $148,000 in savings.  If that money were turned into a lifetime annuity, it would only amount to $310 and $649 respectively per month.

Read more: What's the Average 401(k) Balance by Age? | Investopedia https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/010616/whats-average-401k-balance-age.asp#ixzz50Vivh69b
Follow us: Investopedia on Facebook

[charby]

Read this to

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_inequality_in_the_United_States

[K Frame]

We have large numbers of immigrants (illegal and otherwise) entering the country and sucking up blue collar jobs or depressing the wages of those jobs.  For "skilled" folks like you and I, we are increasingly having to compete with people in "lower cost economies" where a person with a fancy resume can get an offshored job at 1/5 US salary for the same role in the US. 

Employers and customers are increasingly willing to ignore the quality differences in favor of the huge cost advantage of buying immigrant or offshore labor.

Chris

Yes, we do, but those numbers are NOTHING like they were in the 60 years after the Civil War, when nearly 30 million immigrants arrived in the United States.

You're correct, though, that job pressure by immigrants has been somewhat replaced by job pressure from moving jobs overseas, but I still contend that it's nothing like it was during the Gilded Age.