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A Further Perspective
Diapers for 26-Year-Olds
So long as Millennials fail to grow up, their economic plight is unlikely to improve.
Ask anyone above the age of 50 whether “young worker” has become an oxymoron, and they’ll say yes. Now, there is hard data to back up the assertion.
In the teeth of the Great Recession, recent college graduates — those in the Millennial generation, born in the 1980s and 1990s — are floundering in a hellish job market. Recent Census figures show that the employment rate among young adults is 55.3 percent, the lowest rate since the end of World War II. One-in-five young adults live in poverty. Teen unemployment stands at 25 percent.
The Associated Press dubs it “the lost generation.” But is it really? And if so, who’s to blame? Putting aside the media’s victim meme, there are many reasons for my generation’s predicament (I’m 25), plenty of them a direct result of our own choices.
It’s a given that macroeconomic forces beyond the power of an individual are curtailing Millennials’ opportunities for financial stability. The job market is flooded with older, more experienced workers jockeying for the same entry-level positions that college graduates desire. The cost of basic needs — groceries, housing, clothing, and gas — has spiked. Wages are stagnant. Due to the federal government’s spendthrift ways, my generation faces a debt-saturated future.
But young people also are lagging because of self-inflicted wounds: Massive student-loan debt, high consumer credit card balances, frequent changing of jobs because of boredom, poor work ethic, entitlement attitudes, heightened standard-of-living expectations, preoccupation with self-esteem, and delay of marriage and parenthood.
Consider: In 2009, the average four-year college graduate owed $24,000 in student-loan debt. That’s sustainable if a student leaves school with a degree in a high-demand field — say, nursing or engineering — paying a decent salary right out of the gate. But for liberal arts majors who often spend the first year (if not more) of post-college life waiting tables, it’s financial hara-kiri.
It doesn’t stop at student loans, though. Graduates leave school, on average, with thousands in credit card debt. Throw in an auto loan, and the debt-to-income ratio goes off the charts. It’s tough to get ahead in that financial scenario.
Do we care? Not really. In fact, the debt burden gives Millennials a self-esteem boost. “Researchers found that the more credit card and college loan debt held by young adults aged 18 to 27, the higher their self-esteem and the more they felt like they were in control of their lives,” according to a study published by Ohio State University.
Faced with no job prospects, 20-somethings often go to graduate school, amassing even more student-loan debt. Those who do secure a job are more likely to switch because they’re bored or hope to find the mythical perfect job.
“They have high, unrealistic expectations,” Lee Jenkins, a manager partner of Atlanta Capital Group, told USA Today. “And many of them don’t manage money very well.”
In many cases, there is the expectation of a fat salary in exchange for phoned-in job performance — and we’re not afraid to admit it. A Pew Research Center study found that Baby Boomers’ favorite identifying mark was their work ethic, while only 5 percent of my generation reported the same. In contrast, 24 percent of Millennials chose “technology use,” 11 percent “music/pop” culture,” and 7 percent “liberal/tolerant” as their mark of distinction.
I can think of many things I’d like to be remembered for. “Technology use” isn’t one of them.
A New York Times story from 2009 showed that many college graduates are turning down positions that don’t meet a set of unrealistic expectations. One Syracuse University graduate rejected a $50,000-a-year job at a consulting firm “because he hadn’t connected well with his potential bosses.” Connection is for your spouse or cell phone, not your supervisor in a more-than-decent-paying job.
In a comprehensive review of Millennials’ jobs plight, the Atlantic concluded that my generation has high income expectations mixed with low work expectations:
Jean Twenge, an associate professor of psychology at San Diego State University, has carefully compared the attitudes of today’s young adults to those of previous generations when they were the same age. Using national survey data, she’s found that to an unprecedented degree, people who graduated from high school in the 2000s dislike the idea of work for work’s sake, and expect jobs and career to be tailored to their interests and lifestyle. Yet they also have much higher material expectations than previous generations, and believe financial success is extremely important.
About the Author
David N. Bass is a journalist who writes from the Old North State. Follow him on Twitter.
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k962| 10.11.11 @ 6:35AM
The "you must attend college" idea has been floating around for decades. Yes it's true to a point. If you want to be an engineer, doctor , lawyer that's all true.
However attending a 4 year liberal arts course is a joke! What are you worth to anybody when you graduate? Absolutely nothing! The stupid idea sold to kids attend college= $100,000 a year when you finish. Just a cruel lie! There thousands of jobs now open for people have "technical" skills or can work with their hands ,like plumber, carpenter , welder etc.
Harry the Horrible| 10.11.11 @ 9:49AM
College is wasted on most people. What we need are more apprenticeships and vocational schools.
Heck, there are times when I wish I'd become a plumber, electrician, or brickmason instead of a computer geek.
chuck| 10.11.11 @ 11:13AM
Never too late. Computer geeks are a dime a dozen these days. I'm a contractor, do just about anything and everything these days to make a living. I charge $50/hr for simple repairs, and have set rates for other things. I've made as much as $1500 a day for some things. Sure, it was a long day, but beats the hell out of sitting behind a computer screen all day!
BTW, I've got an engineering degree that I never used. Wish I could sell it for a few bucks.
irish19| 10.11.11 @ 8:04PM
You hiring? I am good with my hands, and can use nearly any tool without injuring myself.
Citizen Jerry| 10.11.11 @ 12:23PM
That would require a rethink. We've been brainwashed into believing the smart kids go to college. The not-so-smart kids go to trade school and end up with the blue collar jobs.
TrueBlue| 10.12.11 @ 10:54AM
Funny thing, the "not-so-smart" kids are the ones with jobs now in most cases, not the other way around.
RND| 10.12.11 @ 4:23PM
And as I run my business, the ones I trust to aid my business along are the guys who enhance my business: The builders, the ones who do wiring, AC, water lines, roofers, IT equipment installs, etc.
Foxfier | 10.13.11 @ 3:33AM
Also, the "not so smart" kids go military.
I shocked the hell out of my school by signing up for the Navy, even though I was one of the smartest kids on paper.
A decade later, looking at the other "smart" kids... I'm still pretty dang smart. ;^p
Foxfier | 10.13.11 @ 3:34AM
On the upside: my husband and I have talked several of my younger cousins into going military for a few years before college. Worst case, they'll hate me forever and have most of college paid for.
Franco| 10.11.11 @ 12:46PM
After undergraduate school with a useless liberal arts degree I very much wanted to join the military for a stint. I allowed my family to shoot down that idea and regretted it for a very, very long time. Eh.
Val| 10.11.11 @ 11:00PM
I feel your pain Franco, I wanted to serve in the Israeli army and already had an enlistment date, my family (mainly mother) and their friends pressured me havily to abandon this idea and stay in Canada. I regret it still and wish I've found the strength to send them all to hell and do my service anyway, now I'm considered a draft dodger and would have problems if I chose to visit Israel in future.
Stefan Stackhouse| 10.11.11 @ 1:29PM
There is a vast difference between the type of "liberal arts" that consists of four years of utterly useless classes like gender and ethnic "studies", art history, etc., and the type of "liberal arts" that inclues courses in statistics, economics, a little computer science, a couple of physical and biological sciences, mastery of a foreign language, and writing. Those getting the latter type of liberal arts degree might not be highly trained to do one particular thing, but they are will prepared to be highly versatile and take on a very wide range of jobs. This could serve them very well in the future. Most people will end up having to change careers at least once, and maybe several times, over the course of their lifetimes.
Appleby| 10.12.11 @ 6:55AM
A classical Liberal Arts degree also included foreign languages, and in my day an option for Latin and/or Greek which helps a person to learn both modern languages, religions and sciences. You would be surprised at the variety of avenues such a degree will open for you -- including the path to meet and network with the sort of people whose background and connections can help you into the international stream.
These degrees are less available than once they were, but can be crafted by the student herself if she is interested. But be warned that such an education requires much more reading and face time than it does binkie-twiddling, and you may have the interesting experience of crafting your own career path in a company once you get hired on. Screaming and crying GIMMEE! in the middle of the playground, or squatting in the dirt and banging a drum are not a career path, by the way.
Alan Brooks| 10.11.11 @ 1:46PM
I don't blame any youths: America is a gerontocracy transferring wealth to the wealthy aged.
Even billionaires get funds from govt. But you are contrarians so it is best the youths overthrow you in educating you the hard way.
Stan Redmond| 10.11.11 @ 1:55PM
The college system is nothing more than a money laundering scheme to fund liberal causes and colleges. Where else will scumbags like Noam Chomsky and terrorists like Bill Ayres get employment without ignorant students ammassing huge debts to fund their ivory towers? And thanks to Obamacare their debts are now the property of the federal government.
By the way, no one forced these ignorant children to attend college. NO ONE!!!
Alan Brooks| 10.11.11 @ 2:18PM
Often their parents and grandparents manipulated them into college.
BTW, in the Reagan era I agreed with you; now I detest the GOP. Youths are correct to rebel in every way save for violence.
I want youths to overthrow the 'system' nonviolently.
Trevor Rumpleteezer| 10.11.11 @ 2:41PM
I want youths to brush their teeth and keep their rooms clean. Sadly, my expectations have come to naught.
a_texican| 10.11.11 @ 3:11PM
Nonsense on stilts from an aging hippie.
Skippy| 10.11.11 @ 4:06PM
Want in one hand and spit in the other, and tell us which one fills up first.
Revolutions and overthrows have a nasty tendency to get real violent real fast.
That's why we have lots of ammo.
Maddox| 10.12.11 @ 8:49AM
You WANT but what did you EARN?
Boomers worked hard, wanted our children to have easier lives, and be better prepared to make a living. So we coddled our children and sent them to college. College filled their heads with liberal mush and they left with a feeling of entitlement. Some grew up, faced reality, and are taking responsibility for themselves. The rest live with their parents, are occupying some city trying to steal what is not theirs or sit at a computer, like Alan, spewing socialist garbage.
RND| 10.12.11 @ 4:34PM
Wait a second.
Didn't you boomer parents:
Overcompensate for your kids' allowance ($)
Not always require chores in and around the home
Often not encourage your kid enough to get a summer job (did family vacations and sent the kid to all-paid summer camps)
Let your kids watch WAY TOO MUCH TV
Rented and watched very dubious VHS/DVD movies for home family viewing
Coddled your kids when they didn't really do the homework or were fairly chastised by their K-12 teachers
Forego too many simply family times together like the daily family together meal at dinner (with no TV or radio on)
Fail to not just send to Sunday School but attend church WITH your children -- all those years
Blaming the perverted liberal colleges (yes, they are) alone for the present-day mind mush is too much of a stretch.
Foxfier | 10.13.11 @ 3:38AM
Excuse me?
Boomers got the gov't to pay for their parents' retirement, chip in for their college, pay for their childrens' college, and now are asking their grandchildren to fund their own retirement. Then you want to blame ALL of the folks under 30 or so for the fraction that followed your footsteps?
Bite me.
Buck Ofama| 10.11.11 @ 2:17PM
Your generalization is generally full of shit.
Alan Brooks| 10.11.11 @ 4:45PM
Shows you how far you-all live in the past, very few today want violent revolution. You talk of ingratitude when funds are transferred from youths to wealthy elders?? one has to admire your gall: you are tough as nails, all of you, with or without ammo.
Alan Brooks| 10.11.11 @ 4:50PM
Sure, from '68- '72 punks were storming barricades; today they storm electronics and clothing, etc., shops.
Today it is consumerdelic not psychedelic or commie-delic.
You've got it backwards.
Skippy| 10.11.11 @ 4:58PM
Today they spend Mommy's money on lattes at OWS events.
Tomm. they storm the ipod stores.
Next day they burn down a CEO's house.
Do you really believe this won't escalate into violence and riots?
History is not your long suit.
Alan Brooks| 10.11.11 @ 7:32PM
First, youths today are not tough enough to do Revolution;
second, FICA transfers from the young to the old. So they get even: the aged take from the young; their latte buying Moms give some of the funds back.
irish19| 10.11.11 @ 8:07PM
"First, youths today are not tough enough to do Revolution;"
This is a valid point. The whiny little self-styled anarchists would last about two minutes if they actually got their wish.
Skippy| 10.11.11 @ 4:53PM
We have transferred trillion$ of our hard-earned wealth to these brat slackers.
Free college, first car, safe haven from bad decisions, etc.
You, Brooks, are consistently the angriest at your parents' generation on this entire site.
Did Mommy and Daddy spend your inheritance?
What makes you think any generation owes you squat?
Do really think your endless whining will make you a dime wealthier?
Resentment; the poison you take to kill me.
Good luck with that, loser.
Doug| 10.11.11 @ 5:59PM
"Transferred FROM youths"? How the hell does that work? By their own admission, they've never owned a single asset in their pathetic young lives, other than what Mom gave them at Christmas. What assets were "transferred" during said heist?
Skippy| 10.11.11 @ 6:27PM
Brooks must mean their dreams, hopes and assumed outcomes were stolen from them by their hard-working parents.
As the #1 Entitlee(izzat a word?)at AmSpec, he is bitter that the pot-o-gold he thought he won, was only printed on his box of Lucky Charms.
He has a major hard-on for Boomers; he thinks we screwed him, and he just can't get over it.
Bongo| 10.11.11 @ 7:09PM
No I believe he is referring to the 14 trillion in debt that this "lazy" generation will have to pay due to greed of the generations (primarily the baby boomers) before us.
Skippy| 10.11.11 @ 8:26PM
We paid for our parents Soc. Sec.
Then Democrats stole the money from the "lockbox".
Now you punks will pay for ours.
And if you ever grow up and have kids, they will pay for yours.
Alan Brooks| 10.11.11 @ 7:34PM
"By their own admission, they've never owned a single asset in their pathetic young lives"
Of course not, America isn't owned by them.
Alan Brooks| 10.11.11 @ 7:37PM
"As the #1 Entitlee"
Skippy, you get PLENTY from the state one way or another. Post scans of your income verification online so we can see exactly how you are a net tax receiver.
Alan Brooks| 10.11.11 @ 7:40PM
Skippy,
hypocrisy only works when it isn't discovered. Now everyone knows America is no longer merely a welfare state for the poor but also for the wealthy. You waste your time trying to hide it.
Alan Brooks| 10.12.11 @ 2:05AM
I know I am right because at 38 years old I am still a full time student and live at home. I'm an american and I am entitled to liv any way I want.
Because of my vast education I am potentially worth millions and the working scum of america should look up to me as they do obama.
Maddox| 10.12.11 @ 8:53AM
Your vast education is worth what someone will pay you. If you are still a full time student, it must be worth nothing.
Skippy| 10.11.11 @ 8:31PM
Thanks for pointing out how I owe you big time, and can never repay you or society for all it has given me.
I do have an idea though.
How about we end Soc. Sec. today, and you and I see if we can survive without stealing from our neighbors.
Then maybe you'll quit whining and start working...or starving.
z| 10.12.11 @ 2:30AM
"Attending a 4 year liberal arts course is a joke!"
I have an English Writing degree, paid for entirely through academic scholarships. What am I worth now? Let me tell you. I am worth the state university I attend paying me to teach freshman writing while waiving the tuition of my Master's degree in Composition and Rhetoric. I am worth dozens of parents' and students' trust - I am trusted with teaching first-year college students how to survive writing in college. In another year, I will be worth another institution's time and money as they invest in me while I earn my doctorate, also while teaching. I will be worth yet another institution's time and money as a professor someday in the near future. Had I listened to people like you, my 17 year-old self with a GED would have gone straight to community college, if even that - fortunately, I firmly put my fingers in my ears and applied for over 70 scholarships, received the most prestigious academic scholarship my university offers, graduated at the top of my department, began making significant professional contributions to my field as an undergraduate, and entered an M.A. program immediately upon graduation with a full teaching assistantship and tuition waiver. Where would I be had I believed that a liberal arts degree would make me worth "absolutely nothing?" I'd probably be waiting tables somewhere, still, at 24.
I'm sorry you don't see the "worth" in someone who chooses not to use her college years to become an engineer, doctor,or lawyer. But please, refrain from calling people like me worthless. I love what I do - I am a writer, researcher, and a teacher. I care deeply for my students and for doing whatever I can to help them succeed in whatever line of study and work they choose to pursue - whatever that may be, they will need to know something about how to write (a skill which, contrary to popular belief, makes one worth quite a bit to quite a lot of people). I may not make a lot of money - even as a full professor I won't. But I WILL have a good job, I WILL be very highly educated, and I WILL continue to work well over 40 hours a week - teaching your children, shaping the systems that shape and educate your children, helping your children reach their goals of being engineers, nurses, lawyers, whatever they want, even when it means spending hours helping them write a papers for another class, or letting them cry in my office because they're overwhelmed and frustrated by college but they know I won't laugh at them, or repairing the damage done by years of public education.
Yeah. I'm really, really worth ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, aren't I?
BobRN| 10.12.11 @ 7:01AM
Z,
I certainly don't think you're worthless. I'm a writer myself, contributing a monthly freelance article to our local paper. I'm also almost finished writing a book introducing people who are not scholars to the Bible. Hopefully, I'll be able to get it published to supplement my income.
The need for excellent writers is so important. My wife, as an undergraduate student, had a boss with a Master's Degree whose writing was so bad my wife had to re-write the letters before sending them out!
Surely, however, you realize that there are few opportunities in your line of work, compared to the numbers of students out there studying in the liberal arts. I have an undergraduate degree in History and Philosophy (double major) and a Master of Arts in Teaching (which cost thousands in student loans). But, the only "degree" I'm using to make income is my diploma in nursing (which cost me nothing because of scholarships and loan payoff plans w/my hospital).
I'm glad you found a wonderful nitch for yourself. I truly am. Writing skills are abysmal today, so we need people like you teaching college kids this important skill. But, in advising my own children today, I will definitely encourage them toward a practical skill in a marketable career, such as elementary education or nursing.
cecla| 10.12.11 @ 9:50AM
But apparently, you've not learned that argument from anecdote is not proof of a larger trend. Get over yourself.
Dave | 10.12.11 @ 11:31AM
As a retired senior with more than a few miles on my resume, I can tell you, first hand, how little many of the now grown and employed kids on my street are when it comes to applying the knowledge contained in their granddad's old college book - Navigating The Real World / 1-A.
After a few casual chats with some of the working kids, still living at home with their folks, I've come to the conclusion that many of them, while basically decent young people, still haven't mastered the complexities of doing laundry, much less applying the knowledge from their granddad's old freshmen courses.
I realize a few readers might look at what I concluded, and with raised eyelid ask: "Oh, yeah? How'd you figure that out? What makes you so smart?" Well, I don't know if I'm all that smart, but my first clue was when the neighbor kid next door happened to stop by the house and asked me about something listed on his Pizza Hut paycheck: "My manager's name is Miguel. So who's this FICA guy?"
Some may blame it on a simple lack of study and focus. Me? I suspect it might be due to teacher's unions and government school systems focusing those young skulls of mush on one-too-many Earth Days, Pro Amnesty parades and the bi-annual Teacher's Strikes.
Having said that, mine are only opinion estimates. Your actual opinions may vary. See dealer for details.
DWSWesVirginny| 10.11.11 @ 7:50AM
I graduated from college in '73 with a degree in the physical sciences (lot's of math required!). Unfortunately, the "energy crisis" was raging at the time and there were no jobs. I wound up working as an assistant manager in a self-serve gas station which I took because I didn't want to face the humiliation of going back home to live with my folks. I didn't have much money and shared expenses with a roomate, but I was independent and never took a cent from mom and pop--which was agreeable to both of us. Looking back, I'm glad I did it. But I see a lot of young college grads today who think they're too good to work in such places and would rather return to the nest to live with mommy and daddy and let someone else serve the lattes. My own experience is that it is good to serve others because it teaches us to respect those by whom we are served. Though he isn't one of the millenials their problem is young Barry O's problem; he thinks the can just command and things are done for him and that being president is all about putting one's fantasies into action. And it's quite obvious he's never gotten any dirt under his well manicured nails, nor have his creases ever been compromised by the manipulations of manual labor. In short, we have a superannuated millenial as president. We can only hope the young millenials will mature with age. We can be less confident about a 50 year old millenial.
Doug| 10.11.11 @ 6:15PM
If my kid came back to live with me post-college, I can guarantee you that my house would be painted and my lawns mowed weekly.
Patrick| 10.11.11 @ 7:58AM
When I moved to DC in my early 20s (back in 1989), I had to work three - yes three - jobs for my first two years while I was looking for my big break. Two years later I was down to two jobs - but persistence paid off and I'm happy and working a fantastic job (yes, down to one!). Today's generation is an entitlement generation - totally alien to me.
Jennifer| 10.11.11 @ 3:15PM
I see your three and raise you FIVE in Massachusetts (in 2008!) 60-70 hour work weeks are not my idea of a good time. But something came along (in, of all states, highly-affordable Michigan! Yes, that state with no jobs!) Is that what I signed on for with six years of (debt-free) college? No. But it paid the bills. Yeah, sometimes you have to work jobs you hate and you don't think are good enough for you. That's how it goes.
Nancy in NC| 10.11.11 @ 8:06AM
Excellent article, David Bass.
In Mark Steyn's new book, "After America" he calls these people "pampered pets". It's a great analogy. My sweet dog sleeps all day, has never had a job (heck, she's not even a good watchdog), eats on a regular basis for free, and goes to the "doctor" when ill and for a regular yearly checkup. She definitely feels entitled to my care. The big difference is that I chose to do that for her.
Now the government is forcing us to provide for these "pampered pets". Plus we have to look at a bunch more whiners camping out on Wall Street, crying about their miserable lot in life. No one mentions the expense to the citizens of New York, via police and sanitation workers, and the inconvenience to those who work in the immediate area. Does anyone think these whiners even consider that?
Then to add insult to injury, the media compares these dirtbags to the tea party. Give me a break. I have never attended a tea party that went on for weeks with hundred of arrests (never even seen one) and enough trash to keep the city busy for days.
When I think of the deaths and injuries sustained by America's finest to defend the rights of these pathetic losers, I almost become physically ill.
Occam's Tool| 10.11.11 @ 5:45PM
Nancy, your dog provides plenty of affection all day long. Much more worthy than these slackers.
PolishKnight| 10.11.11 @ 8:47PM
Nancy, Occam's Tool, I'm going to suggest something radical. Pardon me if I'm offensive.
Perhaps that is your fault and the fault of these nobel soldiers that breaks my heart that I see dying overseas. For what?
Let's say, for a moment, that 911 happened and we didn't go to war. We tried to catch Bin Laden, engaged in sanctions, etc. and that's it.
I doubt most of these snot nosed kids would be much the worse. Nearly all would be alive. We'd lose a few more planes and another landmark or two and ALL the terrorists would be Muslim extremists plus many would come in through Mexico and that would leave President McCain (note, this is an alternate reality) in a quandry similar to what Obama faces today: Illegal immigration and PC prohibitions on profiling.
In other words, we'd be at a similar crisis we're at now. The body count, and I hate to put it in those terms, probably wouldn't be much different than now instead of these thousands of soldiers dying overseas, we'd lose about that or less civilians here.
In the meantime, we'd have saved trillions on war expenses, the economy would be a lot better off, and it would be the Democrats and even the world asking us to go to war.
chuck| 10.11.11 @ 8:06AM
Gee, I think this is Bush's fault!
The problem with these brats is that they never had to work, mommy bought them a car, and then another one after they totaled the first. Their teachers were more concerned about their "self-esteem" than teaching them 2+2=4, not 2+2=5 so long as you feel good about yourself.
Adults accept responsibility for themselves, take the crappy job to get some experience, work their asses off, then take that experience to a better job. They buy starter homes they can afford, not some damned mini-mansion that takes 50% of their income. Adults buy cars they can afford, not having to drive around in BMW's and such. Adults don't blame others for our own failures, and we sure as hell aren't out protesting Wall Street because we don't have "ours"
Grow up, put on some decent clothes, learn to use the language correctly, "like" is not a word that should be used 3 times in every sentence, put down your Ipad, Ipod, Iphone, and every other damned gadget you think you must have, and get a job!
Timothy L. Pennell| 10.11.11 @ 8:16AM
Massive Student Loans? Isn't it strange, that we never hear about BIG SCHOOL? We hear about BIG OIL, and BIG PHARMA. Two Biggies, that actually "Produce Something" we can use. We hear about BIG TOBACCO, and BIG BANKS, and BIG CORPORATIONS. But we never hear about BIG SCHOOL.
Interesting.
Why are our babies, still at home, at the age of 26?
When I was 10, 11, 12? I would grab some gloves, get a rake, and go to every older person's house, in the Summer, and ask if they needed any Yard Work done. In the Winter, I had my Shovel. I never even saw a Mexican, until I was in the Service. Not working on Lawn Crews or Construction Sites.
Now? You can't find anyone who ISN'T from South of the Border.
Thank You, Doctor Spock.
The Bible tells us: Spare the ROD, Spoil the Child. (No, Alan Brooks. Not THAT Rod) Our kids are WEAK. Are kids are SOFT. We don't want their Feeling to be hurt. We lavish them with praise, in hopes that their SELF ESTEEM will be, forever, strong.
They're weak, and soft, and they're STUPID. They're being systematically programmed, by their parents, by their Educators, and by their shows on the television, that WORK, is for SUCKERS.
They've been convinced that COLLEGE is their ticket to riches. It isn't.
They have been convinced that they need to go to a BIG SCHOOL, if they want the Big Bucks. So, they take out their Loans, and they get their Diplomas, and they find themselves in DEBT, for as far as the eye can see. There are NO JOBS. They're Screwed, and thank God, I'm on Mommy's Health Care Plan, til I get Social Security
Listen to k962. Technical School is the way to go. Everybody needs their TOILET to flush. Everybody can use an Electrician, from time to time. NOBODY needs a MORON, with a Masters in Haiku.
Do they?
chuck| 10.11.11 @ 8:34AM
Spot on! I graduated with a Chemical Engineering degree in 1984. Thought it was my ticket to easy street. Only 1984 was a year that oil prices tumbled, oil production was way down, and oil companies were laying off massive amounts of workers. Including engineers with years of experience. I ended up continuing to work construction, which had put me through college. Almost 30 years later, I'm still in construction, have my own company, and while it is challenging from time to time, I wouldn't have it any other way.
Everybody needs a roof over their heads, want the lights to work, the toilets to flush, and must shell out good money to take care of these things.
A good tradesman can go anywhere and find work. A degree in "gender studies"......... not so much.
Paul from SA| 10.11.11 @ 4:24PM
chuck, good and familiar story. Thanks! I have friends who think all engineers are the same (you can get a job anywhere.)
emilio lizardo, PhD| 10.11.11 @ 9:37AM
Exactly so. Big Academe is a little-recognized player in Corporate America: Universities exist to make money for endowments, fleece students for 50K a year in the pursuit of academic fluff e.g.Womyns and trangender studies and the like, bleed the alumni to support football and basketball para-professional teams (which in turn make even more money thanks to the NCAA, ESPN and its corporate sponsors), all the while maintaining "non-profit" status with the IRS. Coaches, university presidents and the loathsome lice in the academic hierarchy make millions, and are every bit as prehensile and avaricious as any corporate raider on Wall Street
Doug| 10.11.11 @ 6:26PM
When I went to Cal in the 60s, there were ZERO "X Studies" courses, and tuition was a whopping $50/semester. That is until Evil Reagan came along and raised them to $75/quarter. The cad!!!! Now the same school charges 100x that, but you can study any race or gender to your heart's delight. No correlation between tuition rates and the rise in such useless nonsense "studies" programs? Ha!
Falcon Eddy | 10.11.11 @ 1:12PM
Timothy L. Pennell for president! He is so right. Americans in general and young Americans in particular are shockingly weak. Our ancestors conquered a savage and unforgiven continent without Social Security, Medicare, Pell grants, and food stamps. All they had were pickaxes, six-shooters, and an iron-clad will. No, today, our young people are far removed from being conquerors. Their delicate sensibilities would shudder at the thought, no doubt. They much prefer to be occupiers--occupiers of Wall Street, the unemployment line, and their parents' basement.
RND| 10.12.11 @ 5:00PM
Tim, right on.
I live directly in the shadow of BIG UNIVERSITY (Big School).
My job and living here has nothing to do with Big U.; it is happily (in some ways) only happenstance, this proximity.
This situation gives me insights I would otherwise never know.
For, yes, I see the follies on an almost weekly basis.
Example: Isn't it almost one year ago that the freshman (was he only a freshman) boy was videoaped live by his roomate while having male-on-male 'interaction.' (Noteworthy: Adult male on campus significantly older than the freshman) Upon learning that he'd been audioed and videoed live on the internet, freshman boy freaks out and jumps off a NY City bridge to his death.
A tragic? suicide?
My Big U. thought so. Three nights later something like a candelight vigil, memorial, weep-in with speeches and music -- all to sermonize and protest against a world of cold, hard-hearted intolerence.
An officially sanctioned Big U. event. And my Big U. is thousands of miles away from that twerp in NYC.
Numb minds is the only thing my Big U. is creating.
Ivan Ivanovich| 10.11.11 @ 8:38AM
David
The wonder is not these brats you write about, but you! I was your age in 1968. Married 5 years, father of a 2 year old, Journeyman Toolmaker, homeowner, still taking classes in engineering at night. By 30 I was a supervisor and hiring people. Then I was told about how kids were not as good as we were, but I found guys like you that wanted to work for works sake. You will be OK, or should I say Do Well.
hardcard| 10.11.11 @ 8:40AM
Let me remember what it was to be 26 years of age, I was a seasoned police officer on patrol in a violent city, I owned a home with 2 cars in the garage, a wife and 2 children to care for. I was honest and struggled to pay my bills. Never mind.
Occam's Tool| 10.11.11 @ 5:49PM
Age 26 was my internship in Pediatrics before becoming a Psych resident. It was painful and miserable and 100 hrs a week.
Old Soldier| 10.11.11 @ 8:52AM
I interview and occasionally hire college students and recent grads. We (HR and I) weed out the pamper entitled whiners.
After weeding out the whiners, I have met some wonderful young people. Engineers, math majors, statisticians, etc... I've seen them work hard with real enthusiasm. They give me hope.
Doug| 10.11.11 @ 6:31PM
I work at a very well-known high tech firm. We're constantly on the lookout for new blood. Honestly, some of the guys who come through here ... I don't know how they managed to get their engineering degrees. I knew more about my subject matter going IN to college than some of these kids do coming OUT. Many are positively pathetic. And the grammar! The horror! They couldn't properly compose a simple sentence if their lives depended on it. And I'm talking about some of the big-name colleges, too. Just because you get your degree these days no longer means you're qualified for the job. Some are, some aren't. Those who aren't are probably the ones out there on the lines at OWS, blaming us (the outfit I work for) for their own personal deficiencies.
Jabber3| 10.11.11 @ 8:52AM
David, there is no question today's graduate is having a tough time finding employment in an Obama economy. You make a good point when you say there are many experienced workers with proven resumes' competing for the same entry level jobs making it very difficult for those who represent the inexperienced workforce. That is why it is so important to get this economy growing again at a rate that can accomodate these new workers.
Doug| 10.11.11 @ 6:44PM
I don't dispute your point. However, it does point out the obvious: to get the economy growing, we're going to need CORPORATIONS hiring again. Rather than demonize them as to commies are doing, we should be embracing them. Dramatically lowering, if not eliminating, the corporate tax would immediately open the flood gates. But since it would let corporations actually MAKE MONEY (Gasp!!!!!), this crowd ain't gonna tolerate it. So, we will remain mired in the mud until at least Jan. 20, 2013.
George Leef | 10.11.11 @ 9:34AM
Mr. Bass has nailed an important truth. Not only has college been vastly oversold (as I have been arguing for years), but it prolongs adolescence and gives many college kids (only some of whom should be called "students") a set of false expectations. Some of them never recover -- that's our Occupy Wall Street crowd.
Debra| 10.11.11 @ 9:58AM
My only son was born in 1982. After attending public schools through 3rd grade I started home schooling him. He had been placed in the gifted programs while in kindergarten, but was still not challenged and his teacher used him to help other students after completing his own work. By 5th grade, he was reading on a 12 grade level. Many people criticized my husband and I for making the decision to home school. I cannot count how many times I was told that he would be a social loser if we kept him from his public school peers. After graduating from one of our state universities with a BS in Computer Technology, he interviewed and got a job in his field within a month. After two years, he got a better job with a dynamic company that sells investment programs. He has a wife, a starter home (with a paying boarder), many friends and is almost debt free. I guess the point that I am trying to make is that there might be hope for our country after all, since there are still SOME young people without the entitlement attitude.
Stefan Stackhouse| 10.11.11 @ 1:13PM
I think that this notion that the way to "socialize" kids is to isolate them in a rigidly age-stratified group is about the dumbest idea we have ever seen. If the idea is to prepare them for adult life, then here is a news flash: ADULTS HAVE TO GET ALONG WITH PEOPLE OF DIFFERENT AGES.
Occam's Tool| 10.11.11 @ 5:54PM
Dear Debra:
I have had many people telling me that homeschooling my kids will cripple them socially. I've also had many strangers telling me that my kids are the best behaved they have ever seen---either the first or the second sentence are correct, but both cannot be, and since the second sentence IS correct, the first must not be.
I totally agree with Stefan, below.
Foxfier | 10.13.11 @ 3:42AM
" and his teacher used him to help other students after completing his own work. "
GADS I hated that!
What a wonderful way to set up the students best at a subject to hate it beyond all reason!
Ken (Old Texican)| 10.11.11 @ 10:05AM
Debra,
there are a LOT of great kids out there. I'm getting sick and tired of a few hundred mush-brains in "occupies" taking the spotlight...Screw 'em.
CalMark| 10.11.11 @ 10:11AM
In 2004, following grad school, I was looking desperately for an entry-level job. I'd left the Navy, went back to school, and got a degree to start over in a completely new field. I learned the hard way that "employers love veterans" is an urban legend: I was having trouble just getting interviews, and during those I did get, was treated to long, patronizing lectures (from people who'd never served) about my stupidity for not "doing 20" and getting a military retirement pension. In the end, I got one job offer--for 25% less than the "going rate" for my education level, not even taking into account my past experience. I took the job.
Meanwhile, my much younger grad school classmates and the undergrads were getting lots of offers. They were oh-so-choosy. I overheard several undergrads discussing choices from among many offers, all for a lot more money than I was being offered, with the implication that none of the jobs were quite perfect. Observing my troubles, they were snottily condescending--I even got unsolicited advice from these young sages.
The Millenials were raised to believe that "feeling good about yourself" is the only thing that matters, and that they are Chosen People. Growing up in an era of prosperity unprecedented in the history of civilization, they feel entitled to more of the same. They are completely unequipped to handle hardship, and look down upon those who suffer it as being somehow unworthy and inferior. The intrusion of harsh reality is coming as a very nasty shock to these kids, and one wonders whether even the good ones--who also have a messianic sense of self and an unshakable sense entitlement--can be trusted to continue Western civilization.
VBMax| 10.11.11 @ 11:41AM
CalMark,
The Millenials have no idea what's in store for them during their lifetimes. Adversity is the norm and rarely skips a generation. If they think they have it bad now......
Ken (Old Texican)| 10.11.11 @ 10:54AM
Calmark,
Thank you for your service to America.
God bless.
irish19| 10.11.11 @ 8:18PM
Ditto.
David T| 10.11.11 @ 10:59AM
Mr. Bass--I didn't realize you knew my nephews so well.
Gary| 10.11.11 @ 11:20AM
Marriage does foster responsibility and compels a person to "grow up" and realize that life is more than a beer commercial filled with happy go lucky, unattached pretty and cool looking singles. We all have to work at jobs we don't love or with people we only tolerate, but one must learn to deal with it and hopefully find a better job, instead of living with parents.
CalMark| 10.11.11 @ 2:03PM
Not to change the subject, but feminism rears its ugly head in the case of marriage. The women want to "have it all" and "anything goes," so they "give it up" to the guys, who have no reason to grow up and get married.
And the women don't, either. They play make-believe, I am WOMAN, hear me ROAR department: career, money, partying in Vegas/NYC/wherever with "my girls," eternal diploma mill night-school degrees, and (when they're good and ready, like say their late 30s) marriage to Prince Charming/Mr. Perfect/Soulmate/Sensitive Cowboy who has a a career every bit as fantastic as hers and their life (and that of their one child--have to be Environmentally Responsible) is fabulously wonderful with material things and therefore happiness due to dual income.
So...perpetual adolescence for everyone. Even when the late-30s hit and none of it comes true. Then they just blame whoever is handy, because it can't be THEIR fault.
PolishKnight| 10.11.11 @ 3:34PM
Something to keep in mind, CalMark, is that the "give it up" to the guys scenario goes back beyond the feminist era. It goes back to just the turn of the 20th century when urban families decided to allow young men to take their daughters out to restaurants instead of chaperoning dates at home because the apartments got small.
Thus began a game where women demanded men "pay for them" and men tried to get into their pants. Sadly, the sometimes foolishness of conservativism is that if a tradition, even a bad one, is around long enough many take it as gospel.
If someone wants to court my daughter, they can do it for free but on my property. That doesn't mean I'm going to be holding a shotgun (well, maybe, I often treat guests to shooting sports) but a serious relationship is about seeing the family as well as person they're chasing after.
Note that not all feminists/modern career women are party girls. Many of them are quite sensible in some ways. They buy homes (which turned out to NOT be a good idea for them between 2003 and 2006), they often have big bank accounts, and I dated quite a few of them. Sadly, they had about as much heart a local banker and they didn't GIVE you a dime of it. What good are these careers for women when it doesn't mean anything for us men as breadwinners other than more lavish homes (which are really hers in the event of a divorce?) or fancier schools for the kids? Ok, that's better than nothing, but you get the point.
CalMark| 10.11.11 @ 4:40PM
Young women's date conversation these days consists of how well-to-do and successful they are, how great their jobs are, how they travel all over the world. Then they expect (no, demand!) that the man to pay for the date--well, just because.
However, Liberated Woman often makes abundantly, even nastily, clear that this will be the only date because the man just doesn't measure up. (As they say to each other, it's because they "won't settle"--whatever the hell that means.)
Who's to blame? The ex-hippies who got married before age 30 and had a bunch of kids, then hypocritically taught young women to "self-actualize" above all else. Now the indoctrinated women, self-actualized to the gills, are hitting age 40: never-married, biological clock long since expired--and (surprise!) unhappy.
Actions have consequences. Unfortunately, that's not the lesson being learned. No, it's men's fault, of course: none of the available young men (some of whom were perfectly presentable) didn't meet the young feminists' stratospheric standards. We have a very real "lost generation" for marriage, men AND women. Imagine the number of phantom children, future Americans, who were never even conceived because the women were looking for perfection.
PolishKnight| 10.11.11 @ 8:39PM
I'm amused by the phrase "refuse to settle". Life is about settling. What guarantees are there that the child they (will most likely) have to buy via sperm bank donor) and bear via expensive surrogate will be perfect? What happens if, gasp, it looks horrific (like me? :-)
Then, of course, the men are settling as well. Once a woman hits above the age of 25, she's no longer optimal. That doesn't mean that plenty of women aren't great after 30, they're just not optimal. If life is about perfection, then no man would want them.
Sadly, these aren't women raised by hippies or leftists. More often than not, they're young women from "traditional" conservative homes who go to college, get a good degree and even good, practical job, and then proclaim they're "traditional" when it comes to men being 1950's breadwinners and their conservative fathers don't dare suggest that June Cleaver didn't have a $120K a year job.
CalMark| 10.11.11 @ 9:21PM
They want to "have it all." Then reality intrudes. They're aging, tired, unhappy, and nowhere near as high in their careers as they'd planned--propaganda notwithstanding, not everyone can make it to the top, where space is limited, regardless who's in charge.
The transformation of savage young feminists into barren, lost, angry, unlovable middle-aged women is the shared tragedy of men and women in our time.
Val| 10.12.11 @ 12:59AM
PolishKnight, you're complaining about paying for your dates?! You don't sound like a conservative gentleman rather like a new-age moonbat, besides a lot of these feminists prefer to split the bill (or even pay it in full) and take it as an offence if a man pays for them, normal conservative guys have a problem with that they don't get to feel like gentlemen (paying the entire bill) not the opposite (which seems to be your case). If you were to tell someone in Eastern Europe (in some ways much more socially conservative region than North America) that you expect the woman to pay, they would laugh at you. Are you really Polish? If so, it must've been a very long time since you've been there.
PolishKnight| 10.12.11 @ 10:06AM
Nonsense Val. I've paid for "dates" before. They're called hookers. In Germany, they are quite polite, sophisticated, great in bed, and a far lot more interesting than pseudo liberated meal whores who drone on about their boring jobs and then play games with the check.
The "feminists" who are offended if a man pays for them haven't been around since 1970's platform shoes (although the shoes do seem to be coming back.) We all know about the "fake" offer to pay. The liberated lady pretends to offer and does a "half reach" into her bag while staring at him with a cold look "be a man!" Then if he doesn't reach for his wallet and say "I LOVE paying!" she'll get all cold and nasty. It's a little game but hey, we love you for your mind. Sound familiar?
Indeed, Eastern European women are more traditional but most of them also regard feminism as synonymous with manhating. Heck, as most women in the states are realizing that more and more men are not bothering to be "gentlemen" since they can still get laid, the word feminism is also getting a bad rap.
The question is what women really want. They LIKE high paying jobs but they LOVE traditional men paying for them. If women want equality, they should earn it rather than chivalrous men propping them up.
Seek| 10.11.11 @ 5:17PM
A lot of feminists married early; that's part of the reason why they became feminists.
CalMark| 10.11.11 @ 5:28PM
What an--er--fascinating illogical non-sequitur.
So the feminists got married (too young, you imply) and taught their daughters stupid stuff, so that their daughters never got married and had a family, and are now miserable. There's wisdom at work for you!
PolishKnight| 10.11.11 @ 8:57PM
Guys, I long observed that most feminists were basically either spoiled rich women with nothing to do OR married rich or middle class women with wayyy too much time on their hands.
Working class women who actually had to earn a living like their husbands simply didn't have the time or inclination to engage in such frivolity.
Feminism is the ideology of spoiled, wealthy women.
Appleby| 10.12.11 @ 7:17AM
Feminism (as practiced in the Victorian Age) allows a woman to live a happy life and have a demanding career without marriage and children. This also allows us to be active in charities and not incidentally to care for our aging parents and bail out our sisters who are going through their second and third divorces.
The idea that a woman might be happy without a man is one that men have not been able to grasp in any age, and a successful spinster is still vilified as an *emasculating lesbian b***h* by men who liked it better when women knew their place. Dont get me wrong; I work well with men and enjoy their company -- but over the past many years it has become clear to me that they cannot handle the competition -- or believe a successful woman wouldnt chuck it all to become his obedient servant.
PolishKnight| 10.12.11 @ 9:44AM
Appleby, really? How could she work at the red cross caring for lepers while taking care of divorced sisters and a sick mother? Seriously, it sounds a bit much. And thrice divorced sisters in Victorian times? It happened, I suppose, but it was rare to say the least! Plus, among the wealthy, such sisters would have gotten support and alimony.
Whatever happened in the Victorian era, certainly most modern career spinsters are not so magnanimous but blow their "mad money" on fashion designers and diamond jewelry (I refer to it as shopping masturbation.) Many of these women are actually higher maintenance than housewives since they often overspend their generous income.
Regarding men trying to get women to know their place: It's women, especially feminist women, who play the "be a man" card when demanding he pick up the tab and then transform back into "liberated" women again when there are dishes to be done or housekeeping. One such woman explained it to me: During courtship, the man should spoil the woman. Then when the marriage is in place and incomes are shared, he should help out around the house. Unless she wants to quit her job and become a SAH mother, then they are old fashioned again. In other words: gimme gimme gimme.
Indeed, and sadly, most of these women aren't lesbians. That would explain something. Most are just plain selfish, spoiled, and even sociopathic heterosexual women who have been taught by the culture and even conservative chivalrous men to b*tch and view other people, even other women, as objects to be exploited for their pleasure.
Regarding handling the competition: Us men don't cry and collapse in the Victorian bathroom needing smelling salts if someone says a fart joke in the workplace or require reverse discrimination and quotas to get our jobs AND welfare and alimony lest our children in our homes starve to death. What has changed since the Victorian era, really other than one knight in shining armor protecting damsels in distress being replaced with another protector?
Men don't want successful women to chuck it all and become his servant but certainly the men might want SOMETHING in exchange for him paying for everything while she says her money is "hers". Successful women think they deserve something even most successful men couldn't get: A rich spouse whose also super attractive AND also agrees with them on every ideological point. Most successful guys are just happy if they can get a pretty model who isn't on drugs. When the successful woman is unable to find a white buffalo, they gripe that 'men', as in all men, are jerks, etc. even if she's only talked to a few bad boys.
Finally, it's not us men who are perpetuating the notion that women can't be happy without men. Even after feminism and all this pseudo-equality, the news is constantly full of women griping about how miserable they are because they can't "have it all" and how everything is all men's fault and how men don't respect their ability to be independent. Face it, feminism is so over and it's revealed itself as a total joke. A fabrication of over-indulgent chivalrous white males.
Appleby| 10.12.11 @ 3:17PM
Now you're just being sillly. I was referring to the Victorian definition of a feminist, which was a woman who looked after herself and did, indeed, manage to look after ailing parents and speed the plough, and a good many of them travelled the world as well. And they did it without husbands and were content. That was before men turned "spinster" into a term of mockery (while "bachelor" is a term of admiration. Interesting, eh?)
If your experience of spinsters is different from my own (I have been one for 60-something years now, and counting), well and good. However, be assured that without us spinsters, there would be far fewer hands putting money int0 the till, rather than "families" grabbing it out. (Have you noticed that all the Goodies promised by the slicksters are aimed at TheFamilyOfFour?)
Now go home and take your blood pressure pill and try to relax. I'm sorry you don't have a girl to look after you, but the Fifties ended more than fifty years ago and the supply of Girls dried up just about then.
Have a nice day.
PolishKnight| 10.12.11 @ 3:39PM
Appleby, I don't take blood pressure pills. I take cholesterol pills. And they work great! I told you, I'm married. There are still plenty of "girls" around if by "girl", we are referring to heterosexual women who crave 1950's breadwinners and protectors. I accept that society has created an unfair, and unrealistic expectation of men and promises towards women, but I got over it enough to have a relationship. And indeed, if the modern spinsters accept the responsibility that they're casting dice waiting for the perfect "soulmate", good for them.
But sadly, most are not hence the reason they vote for Obama in droves hoping for government to become their new "husband" which means so much for your claim that spinsters are a net social good. All they do is blow their mad money at the mall and demand the state pay to take care of their parents and welfare and "child" support for their divorced (or unwed) sisters.
And that's the problem here: We can't have so-called "conservative" values in combination with spoiled party girls demanding the world revolve around them doing as they please. Pick one. In the meantime, womens lib really hasn't made women more independent and hasn't really gotten them much either since any extra money they "double dipped" on has been made up in taxes to the welfare state and reduced wages. Stupid girls! That's why you weren't allowed to vote!
Val| 10.12.11 @ 12:31AM
Ah, CalMark, you've started so well with that story about your struggles during/after the grad school, I was feeling a lot of empathy towards you....but then you had to go on a rant about women, it wasn't only about the feminists (whom I dislike myself), underneath it all it was a rant about modern women in general. It looks like you and PolishKnight were projecting your own insecurities on an entire female population and in process coming to some illogical conclusions. Real, confident conservative men do not talk like that. By the way, some of the 60's bitter feminists became so because they were married young to bad spouses.
PolishKnight| 10.12.11 @ 10:12AM
Val, perhaps that's why conservative men are dying out. There aren't too many cowboys out on the open plains anymore either.
If being a gentleman means handling a woman, or "lady", with kid gloves while she bites and kicks you as hard as she can and curses like a sailor and giving her everything she wants, then I'm not one.
Being a MAN isn't the same as being a "gentleman". A MAN (not the one used as a shaming ploy by selfish women) does things dirty sometimes, gets the job done, and accepts that he won't always win a popularity contest.
If Appleby and you aren't gushing with happiness over how I treat women, well, I can live with that. I'm being more than fair with them.
And yes, we need to generalize about the female population in the states because they're the ones voting for Obama and bashing their husbands as oppressors more often than not. What's the point of these men dying overseas to protect our freedoms when they're on the welcoming committee for the barbarians?
JFGalt| 10.11.11 @ 12:05PM
Another problem that is often overlooked with these kids is that they are killing the job market for older adults that get knocked out of work particularly in administrative fields. Jobs in admin that used to pay as much as $20/hr are going for $10-$12/hr and are being snapped up by college grads with 4yr degrees. They are answering phones and filing. A lot of jobs that never required it in the past are demanding 4yr degrees for jobs where those degrees are useless. Thus older workers that are more qualified to do the jobs and tend to stay longer are losing out to kids that will be gone the moment they get something more relevent to their training. I've also noticed that they don't seem to like to work hard at doing "grunt work". Who's pushing this trend? HR managers with 4yr degrees. We can't get the good help we need because we get saddled with these lunkheads.
Col Bat Guano| 10.11.11 @ 12:38PM
"Adults find a job and stick with it, even on bad days when it doesn't help them self-actualize."
YES!!! David, could I intro you to our daughter? She has this figured out. However, her brother could use a swift kick in the pants from you. I'm about to cut him off - except I was stupid enough to cosign his student loan. I'll have to trade his rent coverage for student loan payments I guess. I don't know where he got this sense a non-"BS"job was his due after graduating. Certainly not from us.
This phenomenon started about 25 years ago in my experience. I was assigned a college intern to mentor at work. I was amazed at his pickiness towards work assignments and sense of entitlement. Back then we called them spoiled brats, because they were easy to pick out of the crowd. Now they are the crowd.
Paul from SA| 10.11.11 @ 12:49PM
The importance of a college degree is exaggerated. It became important when the gov't began outlawing pre-employment IQ tests, in an attempt to stop discrimination against blacks. The one major difference I see in college grads is their English skills, reading and speaking, but mostly writing.
These OWS kids want my money, property and wealth that I've worked 30 years for.
When I was their age, I worked nights for $2.10/hr as a janitor at a beauty salon. I worked summers as lifeguard for $3.00/hr. After graduating from college, I suffered and sacrificed for years paying off loans before saving up money to buy a new car, then a condo, then began a 401K, then a house.... These kids want it now, for free.
They cannot take my wealth. I will protect my money and property with force, if necessary.
Lizard King| 10.11.11 @ 12:49PM
I suppose 25% of a CENTURY is not an extended enough childhood for these cretins! Too bad, so sad, get a freakin' life!!!!!
Mick Lee| 10.11.11 @ 12:57PM
Wait a minute, folks. I am a baby-boomer and I clearly remember our elders took a very dim view of our "work ethic". Remember “hippies”, people? Check out some of the music and writing--say from 1965 to 1975. You will find baby-boomers saw the work world as "soul killing" and worried about the deadening impact slaving for money would have for our lives.
Now we boomers are paragons of hard work and stick-to-it-tiveness? Little wonder the generations that follow us can hardly wait for us to shut up and die so they don't have to listen to us blather on about our "wisdom."
OK. Maybe not die. Just shut our traps.
Stefan Stackhouse| 10.11.11 @ 1:19PM
The Hippies were never more than a small minority. Because they were so purposely and shockingly flamboyant, they got attention that was out of all proportion to their numbers. For example, it seems that few realize that over 75 million Boomers were NOT at Woodstock.
Most of us were normal kids living normal lives, more-or-less obedient to our parents, going through school and then moving into the workplace and adult life. Exactly the type of boring story that doesn't attract the attention of the media. That just happened to be the life story for most Boomers, but you would never know it from the image the media paints of us.
Simon Templar| 10.11.11 @ 1:45PM
Stefan, you may indeed have been just that and yes there were many who did follow normal lives as you put it. The fact remains that the vast majority of boomers have brought us here to where we are today. This generation made a concious decision to reject the values, morality, and wordlview of their parents and replace it with the promotion of liberal big government, a sexual revolution, rejection of religious morality and values, a promotion of hedonism, and a definitive anti-American world view. They now fully control the media, the educational system and most of big government. Sorry, but this is reality.
CalMark| 10.11.11 @ 2:11PM
Actually...the Boomers are at fault more for their passivity in the face of evil.
Radicals like Nancy, Harry, and Barack schemed, screamed, demonstrated, and destroyed. Today, their ilk controls the government and are happily destroying our country.
Meanwhile, the alleged good people--the vast majority of Boomers--stood silently by. "We'll muddle through," was their motto; "Don't make waves," and "Keep your head down," and "This too shall pass," they said.
The 30 and 40-somethings created and drive the Tea Party movement; case in point: look at the average age of the Tea Party Patriots national coordinators. The Boomers come along for the ride--finally. But even so, they'll only go so far--after all, can't endanger their precious pensions.
Simon Templar| 10.11.11 @ 2:27PM
Calmark, I agree with you. Thanks for filling out the picture even more. I have been to many Tea Partys and have seen a great deal of older 60 plus Americans as well, however. The movement may be lead by those in ther 30's and 40's but it really is made up of a very diverse age group. Bear in mind much of what we 'know' of the TEA is filtered by the MSM. Their pensions are not on their minds solely. They are very concerned about the insane spending relative to bail outs, government interference in the private sector and business regulations, and increased tax burdens. Many have 401 k's and retirement funds that have been swallowed up by government inflation and falling investment markets directly caused by big government. Their houses are worth shit now as well because of government interference in housing markets for the last thirty years. Remember we all grow old and retire..we will be in their shoes very soon.
Doug| 10.11.11 @ 6:58PM
All you've done is describe most of today's democrat party office holders. This Boomer thought these people were goofballs then. Even more so now.
Simon Templar| 10.11.11 @ 2:12PM
America is tearing itself apart. Much of this self hatred, divisiveness, and lack of opportunity is coming and has come from the Left and the progressives that have taken full control of the government, the media, and the educational system.
Many of you in this thread made some very interesting personal observations about the state of work and the workplace in this country.
If you step back from all of these personal observations you will see they follow a pattern, a larger picture, and can be traced back to root causes that stem from a common root.
Ratherer than just give you the answer, let's see if you can connect the dots.
Why will there be 10 million skilled trade worker jobs unfilled in the year 2020?
Why are we supporting a massive H1-B visa program bringing in millions of Indians and Chinese to take high paying IT jobs in the US in every single corporation and company in this country?
Why are we allowing millions of Mexicans to invade the southwest and take millions of jobs and not pay taxes?
Why did we lose another third of our manufacturing base since 2001?
Why do we now hear of older skilled workers being thrown out of there jobs at age 5o now?
Why are GE electrical bulbs being manufactured in Mexico?
Why are banks and companies sitting on trillions and refusing either to loan or expand operations?
Why do we hear of strange lop sided trading treaties with other nations?
Why are our schools crumbling and failing despite the trillions were dumping into them?
Why is it that engineers can not even find work?
Why is it that calmark above has to be harassed and lectured by a job employer about his military background and has to explain himself.
Good call| 10.11.11 @ 3:04PM
I'm a Millenial, though an older one ('81). The problem my generation faces is an absence of jobs. Unlike 50 years ago, you can't graduate from high school and into a middle-class union job -- they don't exist. And you can't take a job in the mail room and work your way up to middle class -- there is too much competition in middle management.
As good entry level jobs (whether good due to pay or potential) have dried up, we've been forced to turn to higher education more and more. And our doing that has de-valued college and graduate degrees, particularly in liberal arts but truthfully in most fields, and dramatically de-valued high school degrees. So the downward spiral continues.
If we, as a generation, are properly considered whiners or idiots or weak, so be it. We were told by older generations that college was for everyone (while they were selling our jobs overseas). We were told by older generations that credit was cheap and plentiful (while they were running up irresponsible debts as part of the credit crisis). And we believed them. Maybe we are idiots...
CalMark| 10.11.11 @ 3:32PM
To summarize your post briefly: "Life is hard and the bad stuff is all older people's fault!"
"Selling our" --YOUR?-- "jobs overseas," is leftist nonsense; unemployment was below 5% for most of the Bush years. Blame Obama and the Democrats, and the folks who voted for them--like, say, 2/3 of the people your age.
Nobody's life is easy--not even the rich and famous escape hardship.Your generation is encountering the defining period of an era, and such periods always consist of great hardship.
How you choose to act is up to you. Chanting leftist slogans accomplishes NOTHING. Your parents and other leftist "adult" enablers have sold you out with happy-talk about college and automatic prosperity.
But...in the end, you have the most precious of earthly gifts: you're an American. During times of hardship, previous generations of Americans have stood up to be counted and found a solution. Other than complaining, demanding, demonstrating, and sleeping in the street to "make a point," what is YOUR generation going to DO?
Simon Templar| 10.11.11 @ 3:44PM
Wow! Calmark. You nailed it!
Doug| 10.11.11 @ 7:06PM
Right on. Why is it that we could have 4.5% unemployment in 2006 but yet have 16% (real) unemployment today? In a mere 5 years' time, what's different? Anyone who has been watching politics for the last 5 years knows the answer.
PolishKnight| 10.11.11 @ 7:39PM
One of the things that puzzles me is that these elitists protesting on wall street and in love, gushing love at that, with Canada and Western Europe don't just move there. They certainly qualify if they have higher degrees. Since so many of them pride themselves on having ipads, they could get a copy of Rosetta stone for about the price of a dinner at Manhattan and learn Swedish, French, German, or Dutch.
Here are the possibilities:
1) They're lazy (intellectually) and haven't bothered to consider the possibility.
2) They're scared and cowardly and unable to handle the concept of moving.
3) These countries don't have room for them. There's already enough overeducated, slacker talent over there.
and the last and least:
4) They love America and want to stay here.
That's pretty funny, isn't it? But I hear that from leftists when I ask them why they haven't moved.
CalMark| 10.11.11 @ 8:16PM
"Why don't they move?" Although they realize how good it is in the USA, they are spoiled, self-destructive children.
I once had to attend a Kurt Vonnegut seminar for a class. It featured a professor whose entire professional life was based on being a "Vonnegut expert" (insert your joke here), playing the role of Kurt Vonnegut. Everything he said was hatefully, viciously anti-American. At one point, he ranted at length about Canada's health-care system and its alleged superiority to ours.
I was 19 and normally careful not to offend leftist professors, but this time, I boiled over. "If it's so damn good in Canada, why don't you move there?" I demanded ferociously. Everyone else in the room pretended not to hear.
But "Kurt Vonnegut" looked stunned. Taken aback, he stuttered incoherently, then admitted he was "very comfortable" in the USA. The seminar went for another hour--he never said another word.
PolishKnight| 10.11.11 @ 8:31PM
Leftist professor was honest in that he, personally, is very comfortable. He probably had great health care at the time with the university giving him effectively "free" healthcare. He lives quite well as an elite and doesn't think he can compete with the elite in Canada, for instance. And he would be right.
So in other words, this is all a bluff on his part. Same thing with taxing the "rich millionaires" (those who make more than 250grand) If the Republicans really did that, it would be blue stater beltway and Wall Street Democrat professionals who would get hit.
Hey, I would LOVE to go to NYC and join in the protest: Bring down Goldman Sachs! Go get Fannie Mae!
PolishKnight| 10.11.11 @ 3:51PM
Folks, I have a suggestion that's radical but would certainly work. It wouldn't involve anything unethical but it would be distasteful to modern sensibilities.
It would effectively DOUBLE the number of high paid jobs, eliminate traffic congestion, and would probably eliminate the need for a welfare state overnight.
Ready? Read on and be shocked:
Turn back feminism and women's equality in the workplace. Allow women, especially unmarried or widowed women, to work at professional jobs but for the most part, have them work part-time in clerical work.
Immediately, 1/2 of the high paid jobs would open up. The women who needed the jobs (widowed or divorced) would be able to get them and marriage rates would soar as the number of eligible bachelors increased and the comparative ratios of earnings between men and women grew again.
Rush hour traffic would be cut almost in half (do you remember that traffic when you were growing up seemed better? Maybe there was a reason.)
Even many conservative men are proud to send their daughters off to college to become successful, high paid professionals and many of them wind up marrying (especially if they are taught the conservative values of being responsible in their personal life rather than playing a waiting game and being materialistic) but overall, the middle class is being killed by millions of childless career women and drifter, "slacker" men flooding society.
Appleby| 10.12.11 @ 7:30AM
*Turn back feminism and women's equality in the workplace. Allow women, especially unmarried or widowed women, to work at professional jobs but for the most part, have them work part-time in clerical work.*
ALLOW women? Just when did you get any say over what more than half the population is ALLOWED to do for a living? What do you think women will be doing while you guys are trying to rewrite the Constitution so as to ALLOW men to own slaves once again?
Look, buster, if you cannot get a nice old fashioned Girl like the one that married dear old Grandad, thats not my problem, and you are not going to buy one in the marketplace after you have tried to force her into slavery -- because as you have discovered to your dismay, its not as easy to fool little girls as it used to be!
PolishKnight| 10.12.11 @ 9:54AM
Appleby, if women viewed protection and support from men as slavery, they wouldn't fantasize about them in romance novels (female porn) or fret about the lack of "successful" "old fashioned" men to marry and date...
FYI, when I turned 30, it was amazing how all these women came out of the woodwork. They'd get into a burka for the right price. So if you want to make this about me, don't bother. I'm happily married. I am bitter though that I actually believed in this equality nonsense in my early 20's because it wasted a lot of my precious time and I see society having to foot the bill for irresponsible women and propping up fake equality.
And sure, women's equality is totally artificial. Hint: You can't be a helpless victim in constant need of protection from men putting you back into the kitchen while simultaneously heroines able to leap tall building a single bound. If you ladies were more logical, perhaps you'd have more Nobel prize winning scientists...
Indeed, that's what men would like: a NICE old fashioned girl. Instead, the feminists have made women who have all the bad traits of men with none of the good stuff: They're helpless while simultaneously lacking empathy towards others. They look and act like men at a construction site while still expecting men to treat them like "ladies". And they're hungry for power and money while unable to handle it. They're like Lindsay Lohan.
Speaking of being fooled: Keep in mind that this whole fantasy we live in was brought to you by chivalrous white males. The same guys who brought you comfy lifeboat seats and indoor plumbing. When THEY stop holding doors for you while you spit in their face, that's the end of it. The rest of the men out there are less... chivalrous.
Pat| 10.11.11 @ 3:58PM
Good call: Perspective changes everything – as someone nearing retirement, I find nothing inherently wrong among Millennials within corporate America today (except silly names for generations). The Boomers of my generation laid a lot of self-serving boogie-woogie on you younger folks – and when you’re deciding on the quality of their retirement homes and their future health care handouts your revenge can be very sweet – smack them around with a song on your lips, they deserve the back of your hand.
Part of our Boomer induced scam was this greatly extended adolescence, you must be properly credentialed nonsense we forced on you. At grade 16 today, you face another one, maybe two years of education to obtain a Master’s degree so your “credentials” will give you a slight edge when landing a mediocre starting position within Big XYZ Corporation.
You could – and should - have obtained a decent education in far fewer years but where’s the lifelong tenure, the generous pensions and the 10 hour work weeks for aging professional educators within that straightforward process? You could have added years of personal wealth building within our nation’s workforce, but older and wiser heads decided that wasn’t in their financial interest – better that you remain in school. As Mark Steyn pointed out, the average education for all Americans during an era when we invented new products on almost a weekly basis and successfully waged a world war on 3 fronts was a mere 8 years – an average 8th grade education produced an American society which significantly changed this world.
Nowadays, a $100,000 education debt, a grade 18 education and a mouthful of straight, white teeth lands you a $50,000 a year starting position. And without these expensive education credentials of little practical value you haven’t a prayer of doing even that well. You weren’t given a vote on whether to participate in the Boomer’s education experiment featuring your generation as the official lab rat. But your day is coming when the Boomers can no longer vote themselves a mortgage on everyone else’s future.
Simon Templar| 10.11.11 @ 4:26PM
So what are you advocating? Ageism and generational warfare along with class warfare?
The problem is much larger than the boomers. Yes, they bought a whole store of rotten goods themselves and sold it to the next generation. That, however, is not the whole picture.
You are also forgetting the 46 percent of this country that has been fighting these trends and progressive self serving forces. Not all of us bought this bullshit.
Pat| 10.11.11 @ 5:56PM
Simon: Inter-generational warfare, polite but also vicious, will occur with or without my advocacy. And this “whole picture” you refer to is what exactly? One generation making life better for the next generation is the sole and only “whole picture” – it’s been that way for thousands of years - until we forgot that lesson these past decades.
I think the Millennials may turn out to be better Americans than the worthless Boomers, but they will have learned the lesson consistently taught them by that older generation – "it’s all for me, nothing left for you, sorry about that". Progressivism contains the seeds of its own destruction but that eventual destruction won’t differentiate between those who embraced Big Government and whatever percent fought against this sick philosophy – sorry about that too.
Simon Templar| 10.11.11 @ 7:16PM
It is never been about one generation making it better for the next. That is a fantasy. It is about each generation willing to fight for what is right and true whatever the cost. The next generation will have their own struggles and demons to contend with. Our founding fathers knew this all too well. Franklin wondered if they could keep this Republic and whether they would fight to preserve it. Jefferson knew it all to well when he cried out that each generation would have to make a blood sacrifice to the tree of liberty to nourish it and keep it alive.
Human nature does not change. Nothing except technology has changed since they signed that document pledging their lives and sacred honor.
There is nothing that tells me that this generation will do anything better. They are lacking in more than a job. They have no morality, no religious foundations, no history beyond 1980, suffered nothing, have been ill informed, taught to hate their country and its institutions, and have no critical thinking skills or individuality. They are legion...look at they way they so easiliy parrot and chant.
Nothing has to happen with certainty. We have it in our hands to not be victims of progressivism or any of this. Our fate is not pretermined and those that are willing to fight it will be rewarded.
Val| 10.12.11 @ 1:46AM
Pat, you've made some very poignant points. Thank you.
Simon Templar| 10.12.11 @ 12:43PM
Great, now you can go and take your nap. You need your rest.
Pat| 10.12.11 @ 3:27PM
Val, thanks, but nothing I wrote is original, it’s all been said before. It’s just that in recent years the masses of Boomers, and the preceding generation, the Silents, experienced a very rude shock. They watched from the sidelines as our Western financial system made several trillion dollars disappear into thin air. Then they watched as their 401-K statements began a rapid downward spiral, watched as their overvalued homes lost significant paper equity and expressed their dismay when the formerly spendthrift American government began to turn financially manic in response. Boomers and Silents alike had no clue as to what credit default swaps or derivatives actually were but, so long as their most recent 401-K statement showed the normal modest increase, it didn’t really matter – did it?
Their plan for the next generation was to throw a few bucks into an “Education Trust” and put the grandkids’ names in their wills, what more did these spoiled darlings expect from them? But today their collective confidence is severely shaken. You can’t fight old age, the twin specters of increasing physical infirmity and a poverty stricken old age dance within the periphery of their vision. Their golden years future is much less sure today, the sudden realization they must depend on the next generation for a comfortable subsistence is much more immediate within their daily thoughts.
Those double income, no kids DINK couples now forced to realize the stock market is merely abstract electronic wealth, transient and capable of quickly vanishing into the mists. Those 50 year old career women who didn’t bother to have children wonder who will provide for them if their carefully nurtured Stock Market progeny should abandon them in their old age – the Market may turn out to be a poor substitute for an extended family after all – who would have suspected that?
What the Boomers and Silents should have done is hold the country in trust for the following generations, to try to improve our political process, to take the personally painful, perhaps even violent, steps needed to ensure the follow on generations would see a better world. But they didn’t believe it was necessary, these youngsters were never more important to them than they were to themselves. Now the stark realization is starting to sink in, it isn’t about altruism after all, you improve the country for the next generation so your own old age won’t be ugly and bleak – growing old has enough related problems without suffering through a major depression lasting a decade or more.
There are those aging Conservatives who quote the Constitution in every other line they write – and who constantly demand we take back our country. But their time to fight for our country is long past, ugly battles which should have been fought in their 30’s and 40’s won’t be won now in their 50’s and 60’s. The Millennials will in truth decide on their old age homes, let’s just hope these youngsters recall how grandpa took them to Baskin & Robbins and not how the old guy did nothing more strenuous than write blistering Letters to the Editor pompously quoting the Federalist papers.
Simon Templar| 10.13.11 @ 1:06PM
My lord, that was probably the biggest load of drivel I have ever read here. The millenials will decide nothing at the rate they are going, nor will they produce or create a damn thing. You yourself are a fraud. The last paragraph gave yourself away. No one over 40 would have written that.. you are a some punk poser posing as a soon to be retired and just another liberal troll.
You improve the country for the next generation so your old age won't be bleak? What utter nonsense.
You make less sense than our troll, Alan Brooks.
PolishKnight| 10.13.11 @ 1:23PM
I'm hurt Simon. I thought I held the record on delivering the biggest load of drivel here. Sigh.
Pat is right though: nothing in the post was original sadly.
Simon Templar| 10.13.11 @ 2:35PM
I never said that but just the opposite about you.
You have made some of the best comments here and insights.
Simon Templar| 10.11.11 @ 4:11PM
First, you are not the only generation told this. Just about everyone has heard this since world war two. You are not the only generation who faced no jobs. Try looking up what it was like in 1978 during the Carter years. Or the generation of the 1930's. You are correct about less entry level jobs and the devaluation of the college degree... all of us are being impacted by this.
Your generation just does not seem to be able to see the big picture. It is not about getting an education or not getting one or about unions or no unions. Get this in your head. There is nothing unique about you nor the circumstances you are in right now.
What was the common root for all the things that I listed above? Think!
THE GROWTH AND EXPANSION OF GOVERNMENT VIA THE PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT INTO EVERY SECTOR OF OUR NATION FROM EDUCATION, THE FAMILY, PRIVATE ENTERPRISE, AND PUBLIC WORKS UNIONS. THE VERY DISEASE THAT HAS WROUGHT THESE PROBLEMS, YOU WANT TO INCREASE.
If you want answers then go to the library, study our founding fathers, read everything including the Federalist Papers. Then you will understand that the issues we face today are the same one's that they faced. You will the understand what a self governing constitutional republic really is and you will know what the prescription is to cure this illness.
When that government gets so powerful it will collude with any force and command tribute from any corner. Our founding fathers warned us about those industrial and commercial interest that would collude with big government to further their monopolistic aims.
You have a lot of reading to do, so get going.
Val| 10.12.11 @ 1:44AM
Simon, you're angry because the blame was put on your generation too, the way the world is today has to do a lot with the way millennials were raised by baby boomers, however some blame lies with the youngins too, but mostly their parents who shielded and coddled them for too long from the realities of the world.
Simon Templar| 10.12.11 @ 12:38PM
You apparently did not understand a single thing that I wrote. I am not interested in blame or whether my generation is being blamed. That is the problem. Everyone is looking to blame, no one is taking responsibility nor are they willing to look at either history, the big picture, and the forces that have been at play that have led to our destruction. It is rather a silly analysis to lay it all on child rearing. They said the same thing about Spock and the generation raising the baby boomers. Before that it was the generation of the 1920's.
You need to widen your scope if you really want to understand what is going on.
Val| 10.12.11 @ 1:53AM
Good call, great comment, the blame lies with both generations. I'm sorry to see that you got so many negative responses to simple truths.
Simon Templar| 10.12.11 @ 12:40PM
It is not about blame. Simple ideas parading as simple truths often come from simple minds.
Buck Ofama| 10.11.11 @ 2:15PM
As a poor college student in 1976, I adopted the following simple philosophy which has served me well: "Never charge to the future what the present still lacks."
Michael| 10.11.11 @ 2:32PM
College graduate. Grown up. Still living under the poverty level. (Paragraph) Mr. Bass, you were saying?
Dimitri Aleksandrovich| 10.11.11 @ 2:38PM
The younger generation has been dealt a bad hand. When my father graduated high school in 1965 he had any number of places he could get work at a decent union wage to raise a family. Now in 2011 that is definitely not the case. Globalist free trade economics has gutted our industrial base and the white collar jobs that are left are being outsourced to India or to Indian immigrants who are willing to work at a fraction of the wage of their college educated American counterparts. This is not to say that the younger generation doesn't have responsibility in their own demise. They are far too unorganized and self centered and pre-occupied with living the life of MTV's Jersey Shore to change the current economic tide against them. However you can blame this on their parents who told them do whatever makes you happy rather than hold to the traditional values of finding a good job, getting married, raising a family and saving for retirement.
Simon Templar| 10.11.11 @ 3:42PM
"immigrants who are willing to work at a fraction of the wage of their college educated American counterparts.'
Apparently, you never worked in IT or have been to a college campus. These people are here for two reasons. First, the spoiled brats refuse to want or fight for these high paying jobs. It just is too boring and unfulfilling. Second, the companies hire the Indians to insure that no labor unions are started in this sector and to keep wages suppressed. By the way, they make very comparable salaries and for the most part are being paid the same as their American counterparts. These Indians are trained by Indian consulting firms and training schools overseas that pick up the tab and pay their way here. This also gives flexibility to employers to get rid of them easier than Americans who might litigate, form unions, or demand better treatment. They do not complain.
Big government regulation and taxation, liberalism, and greedy unions are at the root of all of this.
PolishKnight| 10.11.11 @ 4:24PM
Funny story about an Indian consulting firm: A major US company was sold on the possibility of getting rid of their mostly white male IT department. It was costing them 10 million a year in salaries and 2 million in total hardware investment.
So they went to TATA and signed off on a 300 million, that's right, 300 million dollar contract to transfer over 1500 business customers from the evil mainframe.
2 years later, they quietly let the project die after 100 million was spent. How many customers were transferred over? _5_. That's right: 5.
One of the full time employees overseeing the programming showed me the code: They either took java code off of google and tried to hack it OR they wrote basic code from scratch that was easily available online (such as country and zip code converters.)
In the meantime, and this doesn't mean all of them are like this, entire IT departments would be taken over by Indians who would call up other non-Indian workers and ask them for help with the most basic tasks. One asked how to list files in a filesystem. Another C programmer asked what "pointers" are. The VP's of engineering bragged about their increased "diversity" when nearly all their H1B's were from the same country.
Regarding the training colleges: They are run out of people's homes and they bribe officials to get them accredited as 4 year schools. The students pay $2000 and go for 6 months and they get a master's degree.
When Republicans welcome this kind of "free market" behavior, I kind of sympathize with the way the Bolsheviks treated the Romanov's in the basement. But that would be too good for them. Take Romney's and Fiorina's children and send them to Mumbai and sell them to professional beggars.
CalMark| 10.11.11 @ 4:54PM
Outsourcing, nothing. Try being in a technical profession in the U.S.
All foreigners (especially from India, Pakistan, Arab countries, and Communist China) are inherently wonderful and utterly brilliant, far superior to us racist, bigoted, horrible Americans. Many of these geniuses, with perfect undergraduate records (at obscure schools of unknown reputation, but never mind that) somehow find it impossible to learn even marginally coherent English.
Yet they come here for grad school on a student visa, taking the place an American might have , often on U.S. government grants. Then their ethnic network gets them a good job (which is then not available to an American) and a work visa. Then through various strategems, they get a Green Card, and citizenship. All the while helping their own and hindering, sometimes maliciously, native-born Americans. Do they assimilate? Hell, no! They become loud, aggressive Leftist Democrats and are slowly re-establishing the horrible systems they left behind in their old countries, except with themselves in charge.
Meanwhile, American citizens can't get a look. It's a double-whammy. First, because we are shut out by the ethnic "old boy networks" that would be denounced (rightly) as hateful bigotry if white men did it; second, these people have no Judeo-Christian ethics, as we understand them, so just about anything goes: as anyone who's watched Team Obama in action understands, it's tough for the law-abiding to do anything against the brazenly lawless while the "watchdogs" stand by, grinning.
And the worst thing? These people are nowhere near as good as their publicity. Many are little better than their foreign-based "outsource" counterparts. But hey, at least we're being Inclusive and Race Neutral.
John Navratil| 10.11.11 @ 5:45PM
CalMark,
I've seen the Indian "clans". They only think they work.
CalMark| 10.11.11 @ 6:05PM
Their effectiveness, or more usually lack thereof, is even scarier because the idiots who are responsible for the mess take orgasmic pleasure in their "diverse" work force. Which usually depends on Americans, who do the actual work but don't get rewarded for it.
Pardon my cynicism--I've seen this terrible stuff far too often. A couple of these clowns even sneered at me both for being a veteran (on Veteran's Day!) and for not being shot at in a war, while they complained about the War on Terror.
PolishKnight| 10.11.11 @ 7:24PM
I was chucking when Carly Fiorina's campaign went up in smoke. All that money she could have spent on private jets and shopping trips on Saks Fifth, blown! I guess all those foreigners were about as loyal to her as she was to her workers...
John Navratil| 10.11.11 @ 5:41PM
Polish Knight,
I've been programming since the days of punch cards and have seen the Indian outsourcing you lament. I have NEVER seen it work. Perhaps a few companies large enough to actually establish a department in India can benefit. Now it's Brazil. However, a certain consulting operation which used to be a branch of one of the Big-8 accounting houses is a home grown version of the same.
When Microsoft produced Visual Basic and any fool could sit in his underwear with a Sam's book for a few days and call himself a programmer, the industry took a dive. I redirected to an area where the "many" weren't (embedded Linux) and, for the moment, keep the wolf from the door.
I'll leave the Fiorina's of the world to their boards. I'll still take the Republican free market approach where I can, at least, retrain myself to the alternative.
Vern Crisler| 10.11.11 @ 2:46PM
I think conservatives are being a little too harsh on our unemployed young people. Finding a job during this Great Recession is not just hard; it's nearly impossible. I have a job but I've been looking for another; however, all I get from online sources are sales job offers. I think it's great young people are out protesting. I question some of their solutions (tell North Korea how great socialism is), but sometimes it's okay to vent.
Jennifer| 10.11.11 @ 3:05PM
Oh, please. It's hard to find a GOOD job. Suck it up and work part-time. Start a home businesss on the side. And it's not okay to vent when it involves whining about people who are more successful than you. They should be ashamed of themselves, clean up, and learn to behave like respectful human beings aware of their place in the food chain of life. Amazing how much farther that gets you than protesting anything.
Vern Crisler| 10.11.11 @ 4:39PM
No, it's hard to find ANY job. I already have a job, but I want a different one. There just aren't any, so a lot of us have that feeling of being "stuck" in a dead-end job. Is this what we signed up for? What I would be saying to these protestors is that we ought to have freedom -- capitalism -- rather than our current crony capitalism and quasi-socialist policies. Talk to them rather than down to them. Stop being a scold; it turns everyone off to whatever else you might have to say.
CalMark| 10.11.11 @ 4:57PM
People are frustrated. Talking "to" them won't work, because they won't listen. They just chant slogans.
You disagree? Fine: travel to Wall Street and reason with the little darlings.
CalMark| 10.11.11 @ 5:00PM
Last post was unclear. Clarification:
People like Jennifer are frustrated. Talking "to" the protesters won't work, because they won't listen. They just chant slogans.
You disagree? Fine: travel to Wall Street and reason with the little darlings.
Vern Crisler | 10.11.11 @ 9:23PM
Chant back at them....
Doug| 10.11.11 @ 7:34PM
Ah! So you think 1) the employees should tell the employers how to steer their ships, 2) chrony capitalism and quasi-socialist policies are the reasons you can't find work, 3) drumming and chanting and crapping on cars are today's forms of communication and persuasion. Fix all of that, and we'll have full employment. I got that right?
Vern Crisler | 10.11.11 @ 9:22PM
I'd love to protest with them, send a message of outrage to those who oppress and steal. I'd also love to hang around New York city for awhile and pass out Hayek and Mises books, something really radical. Encourage these young folk in their protests, but show them that their "solutions" are part of the problem. Chant back at them: freedom, freedom, freedom.
Can't get away from work, though.
Little Round Top| 10.11.11 @ 2:55PM
When I was in high school in the early 80s, I had a civics teacher who had an idea I had never heard before or since. She proposed that the government hand everyone a check for $100,000 on their 20th birthday. You would not be expected to work until you turned 30. Once you turn 30, you enter the workforce where you remain until your death. No welfare. No Medicare. No Social Security. I grew up thinking she was nuts. Now I think she was a prophet.
PolishKnight| 10.11.11 @ 4:27PM
The problem with that, Little Round Top, is that it wouldn't just be these 30 year olds out on the street begging for change or going to work, it would be them and their kids.
Will someone think about the children?!?!
Seriously though, nobody has the "heart" (as Perry put it) or guts to deal with the situation directly. Put the kids into orphanages? Who are you? Dickens? Yet, keeping them in welfare mother households isn't much better.
Anthony| 10.11.11 @ 4:32PM
Actually I had a similar concept. It was $500,000 and all you had to do was get educated, then either do various forms of community service or military. Whatever you saved was yours for the future.
At age 40, it was work until you drop.
Doug| 10.11.11 @ 7:49PM
We had something similar. It was called the draft. It was never very popular. I fail to see why a $0.5M sweetener would make conscription more popular. Kinda strikes me as slavery with a lemon twist. Let's see ... 76M Boomers times $0.5M ... a mere $38T. Sure ... why not?
Jennifer| 10.11.11 @ 3:10PM
Were my parents the only ones who taught me (late Gen X; my parents were "Silent Generation", missing the Boomers by a couple weeks/several years) that going into debt is something to be ashamed of? And am the only one whose (white-collar, salaried) father got way more aid for me as a college student from the EEEEVIL corporation he worked for than from the government? In fact the government has never done a thing for me except tax me to pay for other people in my own income bracket because they were stupid enough to breed children they can't afford.
Enough. The turnip has no more blood. Your sorry life is NOT my problem. I'll stay on the side of the corporations and stock brokers who've done more to help ME than any government agency, and I'll happily vote for someone who'll slap a sales tax on your whiney latte you sip while waving a sign. I don't mind paying as long as that bottom 50% finally coughs up and pays their own way.
Simon Templar| 10.11.11 @ 3:28PM
Let me remind all of you who are playing the violins for these 20 year olds. This demographic group is WHAT elected this socialist big government poser to the white house. Have you already forgot how they put him over the top, fainted at his rallys, campaigned on campuses, made youtube videos of their support, and twittered their heads off about the savior?
Now, they sit there and whine about no jobs and a screwed up economy? They rail against capitalism while they twitter on the latest device, laptop, phone and gizmo produced by this capitalism?
The idiot above me wants a hundred thousand at 2o and does not want to work until he is thirty. It seems to think that money grows on trees that the government has in its public treasury forest.
This is the kind of asinine and childish thinking I am suppose to relate to and feel sorry for?
I spent thousands of my dollars to educate this moron. This teacher of his/hers was just as stupid.
They are so ill informed and stupid they can not even figure out that this jobs bill their jackass wants passed will not do anything for them as none of them have the skills to build anything let alone a road, bridge, or public infrastructure.
Those jobs that will be funded will only last a year, then what? They are absolute idiots and really an embarassment. They do not even make good revolutionaries.
Drunken Sailor| 10.11.11 @ 3:51PM
Simon,
It is hard to take them seriously when they are using their Iphones and laptops to entertain themselves. Not to mention some of them going to $200,000 in fees. Or are wearing $300 jeans.
I find it amusing that they are protesting the very same policies passed by the guy they voted for. And your right, even Obama says his jobs bill will help promote shovel ready jobs. How many of these protestors will dirty their hands in manual labor?
Drunken Sailor| 10.11.11 @ 3:52PM
Interesting link showing the protestors hypocrisy.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new.....tests.html
Simon Templar| 10.11.11 @ 6:33PM
Thanks DS, excellent link. Everyone should see this....
CalMark| 10.11.11 @ 3:44PM
Exactly. Obama won close to 70% of the "youth vote." Now his zombies are upset because "Hope and Change" isn't delivering what was promised, just what is to be expected.
For the first time in their sheltered lives, these kids are getting a taste of consequences for actions. Yes, I'm hard on them: lots of them worked for me as sailors 10-15 years ago, and the vast majority demanded respect from their elders but withheld their own respect until older people "earned it."
To hell with them.
Foxfier | 10.13.11 @ 3:57AM
To be fair: a decent number of those idiots weren't old enough to vote, the first time around.
Secondly, a lot of "youth" just don't vote. (not that I'm complaining-- it let my conservative "youth vote" have a punching weight far beyond what it should've!)
Darin| 10.11.11 @ 4:49PM
Slogan for these people:
"IT'S YOUR MONEY, AND I WANT IT NOW!"
Wayne| 10.11.11 @ 5:05PM
Never thought I'd say it, but time to bring back the draft.
CalMark| 10.11.11 @ 5:32PM
A few months with a rough-and-tough, no-nonsense drill sergeant (hey, wait--are those still allowed in today's touchy-feely, lavender-friendly military?) would do wonders.
Skippy| 10.11.11 @ 6:19PM
Yes!
Agreed!
Three years of service(or chain-gang hacking weeds and shoveling mud)earns full citizenship.
PattyMor| 10.11.11 @ 6:08PM
The ill-informed students help propel Mr. Hope N Change into the WhiteHouse. Now they're lamenting that there isn't any hope. Ironic isn't it? Didn't it occur to them to use their computers or IPads to investigate the true background of BHO? No, they were too lazy.
What do you expect from a generation where they don't want the sports teams to keep score, don't want to have class rankings, or trophies for everyone, even the losers. Everyone is told they're wonderful lil darlings, even if they're not. Parents march into the schools if the tykes are disciplined.
Everyone has their "rights"; but no one has responsiblities. The labor market is being squeezed from the bottom by the illegal aliens.
Top maufacturing jobs were outsourced to China by Clinton with his trade deal. Betcha it was part of the New World Order's agenda to impoverish us. Good paying jobs in the energy market are not filled because they can't get permits. The whole system is bottled up by regulations, by design.
Pressure will build and the sits in will increase in violence. Don;'t fall into the arms of the "strong man" to make it all go away.
Simon Templar| 10.11.11 @ 6:20PM
John, Calmark, and Polish Knight:
It is really a great deal of comfort for me that you guys are out there. I can not express my gratitude and the describe bolstering of my hope for this country when I read your comments and listen to your insights and experiences.
Man, you were all spot on the mark about the IT industry and what has happened to it.
In many ways it is a microcosm and a case example of what has gone wrong with this nation.
Yes, I have met dozens of these new citizens that actually told me, right to my face, that they were going to throw this past election for Obama and take over this country. They have become so confident, bold and comfortable they don't even hide the agenda anymore. One of them told me that they thought Americans were the stupidest people they ever met in their travels.
In fact, a CEO of a large midwest company actually told the staff of 5,000 that his fellow Americans were inferior to the Indians and that they were planning on expanding operations overseas. This was at the high of the IT exlposion and inventiveness right here in the US.
We are destroying ourselves and it directly stems from 60 years of liberalism, anti-americanism, self loathing and self hatred taught in universities.
We long longer respect ourselves, each other, our common bonds, our shared history, or our shared identity. There is envy, bitterness, division, a lack of trust, a lack of integrity, and a 'look out for no one but my self' attitude that runs so deep from the top to the bottom, from the board room to the front line worker. The political correctness is a disease that is insuring our death as a nation.
Government is at the throats of business, corporations at the throats of workers, blacks against whites, the rich against the poor, Americans against each other, and young against old. This how the progressive rulers rule and and how liberalism survives and fuels itself.
Anyrate, thanks for speaking your minds on these matters and sticking up for that which is good and true.
PolishKnight| 10.11.11 @ 7:55PM
Simon, you forgot one key demographic: Women against men.
Single women vote overwhelmingly Democrat and even married women have also tended to do so. Think about the craziness of that. During college, women friends told me that they said they didn't want to marry because marriage was "oppression" because they said that they could get away with that attitude. Men would always be there to protect and provide for them, so why not gripe and demand even more goodies?
And for many women, they're still getting away with it. For now.
The leftist men protesting on wall street and engaging in self-hatred for a higher cause are one thing, but conservatives continuing to endorse feminism and "women's equality" while still bending over backwards to live up to 1950's breadwinner standards isn't much more insane. Is it?
Simon Templar| 10.12.11 @ 4:52PM
Once again, very illuminating, you are correct, sir!
Skippy| 10.11.11 @ 6:26PM
Brooks must mean their dreams, hopes and assumed outcomes were stolen from them by their hard-working parents.
As the #1 Entitlee(izzat a word?)at AmSpec, he is bitter that the pot-o-gold he thought he won, was only printed on his box of Lucky Charms.
He has a major hard-on for Boomers; he thinks we screwed him, and he just can't get over it.
John Hargreaves| 10.11.11 @ 7:11PM
Liked the article and looking forward to read your take on 60 year-old bankers in diapers.
Mrs Vito| 10.11.11 @ 8:04PM
Excellent article, David Bass. You are wise beyond your years, and good for you! My husband and I are 'baby boomers', and we're continually incredulous about the attitudes and expectations of these young folks compared the way we were raised. I also think you were right on when you discuss the fact that 'technology' has dumbed them down, so much so that critical thinking (or serious thinking of any kind) has eluded them. I just pray I'm not around when the leadership of this country is handed to them!!!
CalMark| 10.11.11 @ 8:38PM
You are absolutely right. Critical thinking has disappeared for tech-dependent young people.
In engineering school, I'd sometimes do "quick and dirty" calculations in my head for a "ballpark" estimate of the answer. Knowledge trumped technology 25 years ago, when I was taught this in high school.
The kids in my group, much younger than me, stared incredulously while one of them punched numbers into a calculator for several minutes, then sneeringly announced the answer, usually within 10% of my estimate.
I told them I was "guesstimating" to compare to the real answer. Despite their intelligence, they didn't get it; the most talented of the bunch routinely called me a fool. Most of them are now licensed Professional Engineers in structural or soil engineering.
markie| 10.11.11 @ 10:18PM
Mre Vito what about outsourcing jobs aboard...hiring Indian workers in India for cheap wages-for example? I am so surprised that you did not consider the increasing poverty in the US...and that we are human beings with feelings. We need decent wages instead of fat salaries for CEOs...they want more money...what about an act of kindness?
CalMark| 10.11.11 @ 10:39PM
Hello, troll.
She was talking about expectations and reality. That has nothing to do with the ability to find a job.
Take your Marxism and go away, troll.
PolishKnight| 10.11.11 @ 8:19PM
I know I'm going to get a lot of trouble for saying this because it's heresy here. But here goes:
In the discussion about the outsourcing to India, the comfy love affair Obama has with wall street, etc. I think there's a fundamental problem with so-called "free market capitalism" as it's now being practiced in the USA and endorsed by the Republican elite. They consider "free market" capitalism to be to bring in Latino labor who will be subsidized by taxpayer education and emergency room healthcare. The H1B's are brought in to supposedly lower costs (they really don't) but the management is in love with the idea plus it helps them with their diversity quota even as they're mostly white males or white females such as Carly Fiorina.
In other words, the Republican leadership and much of the capitalists that continue to work with them are sellout scum.
What's the "free market" under them supposed to be? If you're a CEO or executive, you get a private jet and your own big mansion with a dozen mafioso guards just like in South America. The rest of the population are either bureaucrats or peasants living in shacks. Don't own your own fortune 1000 company? Then you're a loser who should live in a shack. Simply being good at your job means you're a loser. Unless you have your own business and political contacts, you're nothing.
So you know, I wonder if the former USSR was better by comparison. It certainly was more HONEST.
Yeah yeah yeah, I know. I"m a commie and loser for saying all that and that's why we need to vote for McCain, er, Romney. If it goes like that again, history may yet repeat itself.
Tony in Central PA| 10.11.11 @ 9:24PM
Knight, you touched on something that is very significant and it didn't just happen. There are many jobs now that young Americans simply will not perform. And why should they ? They can get 99 weeks of unemployment. They can go back home and live with Mom or Dad ( its not Mom and Dad so much anymore ).
I used to work for a moving company in college. It was the early 80's and unemployment levels were similar to what they are now. I thought it was a great job. It was very hard in terms of being physically demanding and sometimes long hours. But the pay was great at that time and the work was steady. I occasionally run into people from the business and for over a decade they have been unable to find young people willing to do the work. Same for most of the agricultural businesses.
We hire people just out of school where I work and you want to know their top priority ? Text messaging. We had a typical, young Physician's Assistant who'd show up to see patients dressed as if she was on Spring break in Cancun. The first Major Concern for this Employee of the Month involved getting all of her Continuing Education money and time off to go to Puerto Rico before completing one day on the job. She quit after three months. It was her fifth job in less than two years. Will she get rehired ? Sure. Who else are they going to hire ?
PolishKnight| 10.11.11 @ 9:33PM
I thought you were going to refer to jobs such as restaurant kitchen, hotel maid or agriculture which are very hard, or at least long hours, with very little pay.
Looking back, when I did this kind of work, I realized after a while it wasn't worth my time for the reasons you mention. I didn't get 99 weeks unemployment but when I did, I realized that by economizing it was better than killing myself to feel drained.
As I pointed out above though, there were working class people who did this work. Either their kids or their wives but now with feminism giving women the same demands of salary as their husbands (without the same provider role model expectation), there is a seeming shortage of labor. In addition, the moment illegals qualify for welfare or unemployment, why should they continue to do hotel, restaurant, or agriculture work?
This is a similar problem they're facing in Europe.
Val| 10.12.11 @ 3:06AM
No USSR wasn't better by comparison, if you had lived there you wouldn't write such foolishness.
Simon Templar| 10.12.11 @ 12:50PM
It is called sarcasm. It is a form of irony in which apparent praise conceals another, scornful meaning. He did not mean that literally. How old are you?
Simon Templar| 10.12.11 @ 12:52PM
Me smells a troll of the liberal kind.
PolishKnight| 10.12.11 @ 1:33PM
I should clarify my remark. It was partly sarcastic but simultaneously urgently sincere based UPON WHERE THE COUNTRY IS GOING including FROM THE RIGHT. If the country is to be made into another India or Mexico where there is fundamentally no middle class except connected bureaucrats and mid-range entrepreneurs and the rest of the people not ultra-wealthy are peasants or criminals, then yes, the USSR might be preferable.
That's a wake up call.
Conservatives need to make up their own minds about whether they're going to address social issues rather than leaving a power vacuum for the left and address the feminism problem. Few here are even willing to view them as issues which not only allows the left to direct them maliciously towards their ends, but makes it impossible to stage an effective, coherent policy.
We can say "no" to new socialist programs and agendas which really is just slowing the panzers down but that's not a viable policy since it's gotten us to here where society is about to break down. It's at best a delayed "MAD" scenario from the 80's but on a cultural level. It also makes it difficult to have credibility when the right has adopted so many leftist "progressive" agendas.
Joe | 10.11.11 @ 11:19PM
I don't have a problem with Millennials opting to spend more of their 20's and even their 30's pursuing endeavors that help them self-actualize. I am, however, vehemently against the higher education system (and educational system in general) that we've created which allows a person to reach their 20's and 30's and still think/believe that self-actualization is a good, positive choice over getting a job and making a living!
The example in this commentary where the Millennial opted NOT to take the $50,000 consulting job is the perfect example of how the education system in this country has failed its graduates. It's a shameful state of affairs and has been for decades... and no political party's hands are clean.
POST American| 10.11.11 @ 11:38PM
----As arch Globalist front man par excellance,
David Rockefeller, calls publicly for MASSIVE
and RAPID depopulation via 'ANY and ALL
means'---------------------------------------------
Keep a goin' kiddies! ---Keep a goin'!
-------------World govern--ANTS is on the way!
-----------------JUST KEEP A GOIN'-------------------
wodiej| 10.12.11 @ 5:44AM
do these protesters know that when you have a job that you have to use indoor toilets and you can't shit outside on the sidewalk?
BobRN| 10.12.11 @ 7:07AM
I am a nurse at a mid-size children's hospital in the south. Every year we hire a number of young people fresh out of nursing school. Generally, they are hard working, intelligent and gifted people. Many of them are already married or engaged.
If you have a high school kid at home, encourage them to consider nursing, especially pediatric nursing. It is intelligent, fulfilling work that pays well and is in great demand.
Another field I understand with great needs is elementary education.
Just my two cents!
PolishKnight| 10.12.11 @ 11:36AM
I have a friend (male) who went into elementary education. He left to go into tech support. When I grew up in the 70's, I remember about 1/2 of my elementary school teachers were men and it probably meant a big deal to the (few at the time) children from homes with no fathers and helping to instill a life of discipline. The men laid down the law to the little ruffians but they also were clear and tended to be no-nonsense. Perfect for preparing the young kids for a transfer to middle school.
When my friend went, in the late 90's, he was the only man on the whole floor. He worked with disabled children from broken homes and had to stop a rape, yes a rape, by a 10 year old against a female teacher. Nonetheless, all men in elementary education are under suspicion as possible child molesters and sexism against men helped push him out. Pity, from what he told me, he was making a real difference.
swan song| 10.13.11 @ 1:28AM
College once was a growing up place. Now it is a postponing adulthood place.
As for graduates not getting a return on their investment - - Warren Buffet could go down on Wall Street and give every last one of them $200,000 each and check in 5 years to see what they did with it and how they were prospering from that "leg up".
They all know how to spend it - few know how to or wish to earn it. Most possess the mentality of a lottery winner. Or they would not be down on the street today. My guess is they would all be stone broke and in drug addiction re-hab. Why do I assume that? By observing their behavior today.
Read the life of Ben Hogan. Hogan's dad committed suicide in the child's presence, leaving the family without a provider. Ben didn't go to a child psychologist. He went to work selling newspapers at the train station. And then he heard about caddying. The golf course was a long way from home - so he got up every morning when it was still dark and walked miles to get there first so he was sure to get a job that day. He helped out at home with his earnings. He became a championship golfer.
Read the life of Frank Capra. (Who's Frank Capra, you say?) Both sold newspapers on the street for 3 cents a copy - - imagine their profit! Capra polished the brass fittings on downtown buildings early in the morning before business people arrived at work.. He gave every penny to his mother to feed his brothers and sisters.
Audie Murphy lied and joined the Army at 16, to provide for his orphaned siblings.
Why did these men possess a sense of responsibility at such an early age?
Why do the crybabies,today, who have already squandered their parents' or some bank loan they never intend to repay, believe it is somebody else's responsibility to create a high paying job for them?
PolishKnight| 10.13.11 @ 9:30AM
There's one job that 100% (according to fedstats statistics) of women can't do: Financially support a two parent family.
Indeed, times have NOT changed since the 1930's have they? All the affirmative action and trillion dollar stimulus plans haven't changed that reality.
It pains conservative men when I point this out about their highly educated, high earning daughters: That they're as much a part of the problem as anyone. If they're not at home making babies, then someone overseas will do that "job" for them and come over here. And maybe they should the way things are going...
swan song| 10.13.11 @ 2:05AM
Polish Knight sounds like the guy who knows 1,000 ways to make love to a woman - - but he doesn't know a woman!
PolishKnight| 10.13.11 @ 9:27AM
I'm amused by your shaming ploy for 2 reasons:
1) The "pay for women of you won't get laid!" says a lot, doesn't it? Did you think out what that means?
2) Just above, you're lecturing about being responsible and telling whiney boys sitting in the street to start working. Yet, here are "conservative" women who can't use their mad money to pay for their own meal. Again, you didn't think it through.
As hippies know, it's probably easier to get laid by spending the 50 bucks on guitar lessons than on playing dinner date games with "conservative" women. I personally found that it was best to take them out on the beach just after all the kiosks closed then back to my place. Wink. The "conservative" women thought they were getting the "free" meal the next day...
swan song| 10.13.11 @ 5:17AM
My apologies to Mr. and Mrs. Polish Knight - I just noticed somewhere else he mentions his Ukranian wife. I was misled by his ,uh - thrifty dating rules of going "Dutch" and assumed it left him with slim pickin's. Must have gone to Ukraine and explained to the ladies that American Dating Etiquette called for dividing the check and leaving no tip.
Depending on how worldly Mrs.Knight is (if she in fact exists) here is a bit of advice. With Americanization, comes liberation and with citizenship, if one has lived under several years of listening to you preaching the Gospel of St. Parsimonious, she is apt to take a hike on you .
My career Army brother told me this is so. And he said he didn't blame most of the ones he knew. Their husbands treated them like servants, making them shine boots, etc.
PolishKnight| 10.13.11 @ 9:21AM
My oh my, in my debates with leftists I know that when they begin taking personal jabs at me, I know I've gotten them to seriously think. I'm flattered.
You can choose to believe whether or not she, or even I, exist if you please. I don't spend a lot of time worrying about her jumping off to become a liberated American woman much of that is because times have changed where in the past, foreign women sought to assimilate and now they don't. Nearly all of our friends speak English as a second language and that includes Chinese, German, and Spanish. When I come back to the states, security initially thinks I'm going through the foreigners line. In addition, she doesn't want wimpy men. That doesn't mean she wants a military soldier telling her to shine boots all day either. Hmmm, this is a great example: What's the fundamental difference between a "servant" who shines boots versus one who holds open doors? At least a woman servant can still remain feminine. But a GENTLEman who can't stand up to his old lady?
Let's go back to the dinner date scenario: If I'm a cheapskate for not throwing around money to avoid being called cheap, what does that make these "ladies?" Hmmm? If women are demanding men pay for them even if they earn a decent income, what kind of "lady" does that make them? (Hint hint).
I paid for my wife, so to speak, but I was quite honest about my opinions of women's equality and she's ok with that. After all, let's turn this around: Lots of "liberated" "ladies" in the states have conservative husbands who foot THEIR bill while she votes for Obama. Yes? The difference is that I'm allowed, and have earned, a right to my opinion.
And about leaving no tip. Indeed, when an American "lady" offers to split the check (usually a fake offer) and they get called on it, they usually wind up splitting it down to the penny and not tipping. If we continue to support this fake equality for them, shouldn't they be responsible with their mad money?
swan song| 10.13.11 @ 5:05PM
Odd, how our opinions pigeon-hole us as one thing or another. According to you, I am a liberated lefty because I remarked on your thriftiness. I was born with all the liberation I have ever needed.
I am a Texas born 84 year old woman who married a 21 year old Navy blimp pilot in 1945, at the tender age of 18+4 months. Moved to California, went the first four years of my married life sole support of our family of two, while my husband went to school on GI Bill. Method to my madness - I wanted him out of school in a hurry, so he could have the prestige of being the breadwinner in our family!
The only Democrat I ever voted for was Harry Truman when I was 21 and that was because I would not vote for a man with a moustache, Tom Dewey - - if that is not a good reason for never lowering the voter age, I don't know what is.My husband graduated magna cum laude and received a scholarship to Stanford - - my time investment paid off.
We were married 63 years until his death 2 years ago. He was a good husband, good provider, a good father, a generous man and I miss him.
I have two sons age 53 and 57 who have never been unemployed in their lives. One has been married 29 years and the other 16.
I don't have grandchildren scattered all over 3 counties from multiple failed marriages. My sons married once, as I did.
I have three grandsons, One is a college graduate, has two jobs. The middle one just entered college yes, even in these bleak times. Neither of my grandsons have availed themselves of student loans. The 24 year old and 18 year old are Eagle Scouts and do community work for the little coast town they live in. Every Memorial Day for the past 15 years has found them at Golden Gate Cemetery placing flags on graves. They volunteer small chores of upkeep there, at other times during year. On July 5, they are at the beach early in the morning cleaning up spent fireworks. At Christmas time their troops all go to senior living establishments and sing carols. They hold car washes and make up "care" packages to send to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. At Thanksgiving they go form door to door collecting canned goods to make grocery bags for needy families. They got "credit" by weight for how much they turn in . So I always make mine heavy with canned tuna,big cans of clam chowder, vegetable soup, and holiday tins of cookies. I tuck in a few bars of soap and some children's toothbrushes.
Three years ago a few months before Christmas, my middle grandson chose as his project for earning his Eagle, to collect and rehab bicycles for the children of poor migrant workers near Watsonville. He collected 42 bicycles and he and two other scouts, fixed those bicycles and painted them to look like new. Their logic being even a poor kid doesn't want a piece of worn out junk for Christmas.
Then my son, (the big tipper) rented a U-haul truck, trimmed a Christmas tree, put the tree and all the bikes in the truck - followed by a three car caravan of Scouts to do the presenting.
If you are opposed to tipping, how do you feel about charity?
I should not have criticized you for stiffing waitresses anymore than I should question my son's lavish tipping for good service. And I don't. I share his philosophy. It makes him feel good to brighten a server's day. He tips because he knows their base pay is low and their tips are like little bonuses for doing their job well.
I do the same - but it is your privilege not to.
PolishKnight| 10.13.11 @ 10:34PM
I have to go to bed so I'll keep this short. I'm happy for you and it sounds like you had a great life. I've had a considerably harder one (won't go into detail) and much of the hardship was due to feminist policies where I had to work my fanny off to compete with career women and then were told by the career women they were "old fashioned" and expected me to pay for everything. Then they had the nerve to claim that they were "historically" oppressed. I'm at loss as to choose to be enraged with them or amused. It's so delightfully preposterous and obscene.
I never talked about stiffing waitstaff. Ever. I don't lavishly tip but I don't undertip either. That isn't the issue. I am not lying when I say that when women insisted upon splitting the check, they didn't tip. They didn't perhaps because they were bluffing and seeing if the guy would "insist" upon paying because he's insecure and hopes to impress her. (And really, do you think that such a man is impressive if he's so easy to shove around?) Anyways, these women usually didn't account for the tip perhaps because they were used to the man paying or, well, they're cheap because after all, someone who says she's liberated and still tries to get men to pay for her _IS_ a mooch. Yes? If a man insisted upon making good money and then tried to stick his bills on someone else, you'd call him on it. I'm calling these women on it.
So after all that, seeing that women's lib hasn't made women one bit more truly liberated than 50 years ago, I remain in doubt. That's how I see it based upon what I've seen, and I have a wide spectrum of experience, and what I've heard and read and discussed.