What is wrong with Millenials?

[Dynamic]

As a millennial and I have already learned that there many in my generation that give us a bad name. And there are also many who are contributing to society in very productive ways. And the same is true for every generation that has ever existed.

I’m also finding there are many people in all generations that love to complain.

[Buckhead]

Originally Posted by ren008

Real wages haven't kept up with inflation never mind the true cost of living, particularly clear when you look at housing costs not all the affordability jargon. When these kids look at what it would cost to get the same deal and lifestyle that their folks had (getting hitched and raising some kids, picket fence, job security/pension etc....) they realize it ain't happening the same way and it's crushingly discouraging.

At worst it leads to overwhelming apathy, a refusal to play the game, and waiting it out in the basement until the folks kick off and it's time to collect. Other side is getting out there and trying, but with a strong commitment towards fiscal caution and fixation on actual costs/prices vs affordability/payments (minimalism, happy with less, etc). Somewhere in the middle is where you see the strong socialist mentality rising out of it all.

Want to make a young person angry?

Tell them you're planning to keep working into your 70's, mostly just for just for something to do, but also that your $500k house (purchased for $45k in the 90's) hasn't quite appreciated enough yet in value to afford a total relocation down south as you never bothered to save a dime for retirement anyways. But it's no big deal, as long as they quit screwing around and get a job and keep paying taxes/CPP/EI/XYZ... All they have to do is go down to the plant or service station, ask to speak to the owner, give'm a firm handshake and a nod, and they will be set for life.

So, in essence they are a bunch of spineless whiney crybabies.

The world is no different now than when I grew up. If they want something go out and get it. Lollygagging about in their parents basement and acting like they are being victimized in some way serves no one - least of all the person that is doing it.

And people older than they are always going to be more well off financialy - thats the way the world works.

[79ford]

When times are good governments and corporations are telling us we make too much money and need foreign workers etc less benefits smaller or no pensions..... when times are bad governments are raising our taxes and corporations are cutting our jobs because we get paid too much because the economic times are lousy? ....and some how we still need foreign workers to take what jobs? Lol

The place i work at used to have in house trades for a large part. Now its contract and they get laid off every year or canned at the flip of a switch or they dye their hair the wrong color or chew the wrong kind of bubble gum. No pensions, less money, less benefits, lousier hours, less job security. All this while the company makes new milestones for operating profit.

The way things are currently allow people to get out of the barely surviving funk if they work on it but for the bulk of people who probably live a few paychecks to six months from disaster life probably is getting worse with the dual burdens of increasing government burden and decreasing job security/money/ benefits from employment.


You got things like photo radar, some meat ball with a camera is taking a picture of your car going a few km's per hour over the speedlimit which is set by the same government that sends you a bill for going 'too fast'.

[bb356]

Can't pigeon hole anybody ... this gen x ... baby boomer ... ect carp ... is a writer's way to make money spewing his or her dreamed up sheep dip ... carry on ... bb just had to add his nickel !!!

[Buckhead]

It's all fine to point the finger at the government or some other "boogeyman",
but in the end it all comes down to personal choice.

One can choose to engage, adapt and thrive - or choose the alternative and sit around fingerpointing.

A lot of people - including millenials are in the situation that they are in due to their own mistakes and personal choices.

[Okotokian]

Originally Posted by Buckhead

The world is no different now than when I grew up. .

Not sure when you grew up. When I grew up my university first year tuition was $400 (Well over $5000 now). While in school my monthly rent for a room in a house was equivalent to about 20 hours of my part time job. Our first home cost less than the equivalent of 18 months wages for my wife and I. And of course my tax bill was WAY lower. Lower income tax, no GST...

[HVA7mm]

Originally Posted by Okotokian

Not sure when you grew up. When I grew up my university first year tuition was $400 (Well over $5000 now). While in school my monthly rent for a room in a house was equivalent to about 20 hours of my part time job. Our first home cost less than the equivalent of 18 months wages for my wife and I. And of course my tax bill was WAY lower. Lower income tax, no GST...

Agreed. Things have changed a lot in the relative short term as well.

We purchased our home 14 years ago (and through being very frugal were able to pay it off in 13 years). Now a similar home will cost about 120% more, home insurance has increased by 300% (never a claim), property taxes have increased at least 50%, utilities up 50%, groceries up 50%, increased personal taxes.........and the list goes on.

The great thing is, my wage has increased by a whopping 30% in the same time frame(insert sarcasm here).

Although I'm happy to still have the same job, I'm less that thrilled that my standard of living continues to decline year over year. And yes, I am fortunate that my biggest investment has increased in value as much as it has, but my home is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it when I'm ready to sell it.

[jstubbs]

Originally Posted by ren008

Real wages haven't kept up with inflation never mind the true cost of living, particularly clear when you look at housing costs not all the affordability jargon. When these kids look at what it would cost to get the same deal and lifestyle that their folks had (getting hitched and raising some kids, picket fence, job security/pension etc....) they realize it ain't happening the same way and it's crushingly discouraging.

At worst it leads to overwhelming apathy, a refusal to play the game, and waiting it out in the basement until the folks kick off and it's time to collect. Other side is getting out there and trying, but with a strong commitment towards fiscal caution and fixation on actual costs/prices vs affordability/payments (minimalism, happy with less, etc). Somewhere in the middle is where you see the strong socialist mentality rising out of it all.

Want to make a young person angry?

Tell them you're planning to keep working into your 70's, mostly just for just for something to do, but also that your $500k house (purchased for $45k in the 90's) hasn't quite appreciated enough yet in value to afford a total relocation down south as you never bothered to save a dime for retirement anyways. But it's no big deal, as long as they quit screwing around and get a job and keep paying taxes/CPP/EI/XYZ... All they have to do is go down to the plant or service station, ask to speak to the owner, give'm a firm handshake and a nod, and they will be set for life.

Lots of great thoughts here. Hilarious final part. Crushingly true.

Originally Posted by Buckhead

So, in essence they are a bunch of spineless whiney crybabies.

The world is no different now than when I grew up. If they want something go out and get it. Lollygagging about in their parents basement and acting like they are being victimized in some way serves no one - least of all the person that is doing it.

And people older than they are always going to be more well off financialy - thats the way the world works.

I'm a young millennial guy. I agree entirely that sitting around, complaining how tough and unfair the world is relative to previous generations isn't going to do much and that a far better use of time would be pulling up the boot straps, buckling down, getting out there and working hard to earn a dollar. Sitting there stewing with a woe-is-me attitude without doing any introspective reflection as to what they can be doing to adapt to how the world has changed is a big part of why "millennials" have gotten a bad name. At some point you have to realize this is the hand you were dealt, now deal with it.

However, you cannot really believe the world is no different than when you grew up, whenever that was. There has been study upon study done regarding current day youth unemployment issues, cost of housing continually skyrocketing, full time jobs being replaced with insecure contract work, wages stagnating, average required education rising and overall tuition costs becoming so inflated that people are putting themselves into tens of thousands of dollars in debt and crippling themselves from being able to then purchase a house for years after graduating.

Of course, with all of that said, there are plenty of young millennials enjoying a high level of success and are moving forward fast in their lives and purchasing homes and adapting to the change in the world. People going into trades, making good money with great employer-employee relations and purchasing their starter homes in their early 20s after receiving their journeymen tickets. And other people working hard at going to school for a degree while also continuing to work part time, graduating with little debt and moving forward quickly into a professional setting where they're earning a great wage and beginning to look into purchasing a home as well. None of these people are complaining how hard it is, they're just sucking it up and given'r. Just you often hear more people complaining that their B.Sc in biology isn't providing them any sort of job opportunities and they never bothered to work or save while in university leading them to massive debt and no career, because those who complain are usually louder than those who keep their head down and work.

[AlbertanSage]

Whatever is wrong with Millennials, it is their parents to blame for it, and their grandparents to blame for their parents' failures, and so on. Instead of pointing our fingers at Millennials and asking what's wrong with them, we should be introspecting about where we collectively went wrong and how we can fix it....

In my view there are many things wrong with our society (eg. feminism, divorce laws, employment laws, taxes, government, education, immigration, etc) and most of them were not caused by Millennials, but inherited by them.

[ak-71]

Originally Posted by jstubbs

I can only imagine young people from every generation of the last 50 years have probably thought socialism would be great, especially those who don't yet pay taxes, or don't earn nearly enough to have their wages so heavily garnished by higher income tax brackets. It's easy to say that socialism would be fantastic if you're not the one fitting the bill but still get to enjoy the benefits and virtue signal about how much of a fantastic, progressive individual you are.

That said, I just don't understand how ANYONE can choose to support Marxism/communism. You seriously have to be certifiably insane to believe it:

A: is possible to even happen
B: won't lead to millions of deaths of innocent lives, like what has happened EVERY SINGLE OTHER TIME IT HAS BEEN ATTEMPTED THROUGHOUT HISTORY.

I seriously don't think there is anything more dangerous than a group hell-bent on implementing communism. Humans, without an unbelievable paradigm shift in how we think and act, will never be able to properly function in a communist society. There are simply too many naturally greedy, evil and corrupt people that will always spoil it. There are people who are inherently selfish, and without the incentive of personal gain for themselves, will not do something simply because it benefits the greater overall society.

I wonder how many people here actually studied works of Karl Marx? I certainly didn't study it in depth, mostly because I lived in a country that, beyond any doubt, proved statement "A" about building communism. But my impression from classes in USSR high school was that his (economic) theory can be presented in a very compelling and logical way, too bad it always leads to item "B" mentioned above in practice as a weird side effect (which led to a severe cognitive dissonance and hindered my progress in this field).
BTW, USSR was not a "communist" country and never claimed to be - it claimed to be on the way to it, but then "A" became obvious.

IMO it's the same thought pattern we observe in wind and solar energy hype - very compelling and seemingly straight forward theory makes people disregard the simple fact that it just doesn't work very well in practice (at least with current approach).

Not a big deal, this generation will overgrow it, unless capitalism will completely screw itself up by then.

[CanuckShooter]

Originally Posted by Newview01

We can probably thank our education system.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/mi...ill-2017-11-01

Those are AMERICAN kids being written about in the article, Canadian millennials are a much different breed.

[79ford]

That whole apple doesnt fall far from the tree thing is true....if you find some dumb whiney loser kids who are lazy, well they learned that from some where.

Two welfare cookies breed and wammo you got 3 welfare kids.

You got hard working parents chances are you have hard worki g kids. Just think of your workplace, usually the farm kids are good workers, or kids that grew up in some sort of family industry.

Though it goes other ways too, some guy grows up worki g his bag off probably wants to steer his kid elsewhere.


There are some pretty ambitious 20 somethings where i am at, full of psv 24/7 and log tonnes of hours of extra shifts. Common theme is paying off cars, getting over 20% down, investing and other things. Most seem very adverse to letting a loan ride, they work things off asap.

Myself being on the older end of millenial, have zero debt, big savings, invest for retirement, and generally enjoy simple things in life... my wife and I are quite content to spend weekends fishing or hiking/camping (in a tent) despite our combined salary being pretty high.

I know of other people around my age probably dragging in a good 200-350 k per year for couples and they are pretty normal, one bikes to work, the other lives in a cheap condo. One guy is still driving his college car despite making 160k per year for the last ten years. The other couplewaited a few years to buy their first place because they thought 375k for a house was nuts and it would be good to get a huge down payment and work to find a better deal.


Lots of progressive mentality too, younger generations usually wont do stuff because 'thats the way it is done' they want logic and reason as to why to continue doing the same thing.

[ReconWilly]

Originally Posted by AlbertanSage

Whatever is wrong with Millennials, it is their parents to blame for it, and their grandparents to blame for their parents' failures, and so on. Instead of pointing our fingers at Millennials and asking what's wrong with them, we should be introspecting about where we collectively went wrong and how we can fix it....

In my view there are many things wrong with our society (eg. feminism, divorce laws, employment laws, taxes, government, education, immigration, etc) and most of them were not caused by Millennials, but inherited by them.

A very fair perspective, i agree that it's harder and harder to just exist let alone succeed in a toxic corrupt environment working against you from day one.

The screws are getting tighter daily.

The laws are a huge contributor to the cause of the issues.

One has to be strong to see through the massive distraction and deception out there, it's so easy to get lost in it all.

I was once very angry towards my parents and their generation for not getting it and doing something about it!, slowly and sadly i have watched my generation not get it and do nothing about it...then i realized my grand parents generation didn't get it and did nothing about it..my anger was a waste of energy...i should have been angry at myself for not doing something about it!

[Stustage]

Originally Posted by Newview01

We can probably thank our education system.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/mi...ill-2017-11-01

we can blame the education system for the confusion about the fact that communism is an economic system not a political one, but after that the blame is squarely on capitalism for creating "legal slavery" anyone who thinks slavery was outlawed 100 years ago needs to wake up because the one thing that changed is the slave master has changed from being a white guy who looks like colonel sanders to a green piece of paper, and slaves have changed from black people to being everyone. Yeah no wonder why communism is far more attractive, you don't have to bust your balls to barely tread water financially.

[Don_Parsons]

Well said, this is one tuff forum to work with,,, it takes a bit of navigating at first, but once I refreshed the mind on tapping it kool and referring to my self as the Ginny Pig, then things started working out.

He said, you said.
You should, and my way only.
Open conversions de-railed.
And on and on.

I try to stick to my own thing and post thanks to those with good kin-ship, some posts I just pass by.
No time for negative stuff since I'm always going forward.
Learning new ideas relating to the out-doors, finding new friends, offering up my hopefully wrong ideas that don't work for my friends and I as we try to wreck their experiences of what could be good times. LOL.

Just kidding.

Life is to short, live quality and quantity to the max.
Read past Kow paddy crap that dosen't apply to our lives, and force ones self to make typing mistakes.

My fav is "too & Any-who." This drives the school teachers off the deep end. Ha.

A one time I cared, then my new idea of "care less" kicked in.

All Web forums need a clown, my job is to be the worser at it,,, dam auto correct.

There is no serious life stuff for me and many others on AO any more.

We get to be who we are, and hopefully become wize at being part of the going forward of good times.

It's the only way I see it. Hopefully I'm incorrect and wrong at the same time.

There is a trophy for first place last loosers.
I hope I hold more of them than anyone on this forum.
When I have enough of them I'll melt them down and make my self a peddle bike tricycle as I ride around the city with a yellow plastic sand pale on my head.

Bring Bring. LOL

Don

[Okotokian]

Originally Posted by Don_Parsons

Well said, this is one tuff forum to work with,,, it takes a bit of navigating at first, but once I refreshed the mind on tapping it kool and referring to my self as the Ginny Pig, then things started working out.

He said, you said.
You should, and my way only.
Open conversions de-railed.
And on and on.

I try to stick to my own thing and post thanks to those with good kin-ship, some posts I just pass by.
No time for negative stuff since I'm always going forward.
Learning new ideas relating to the out-doors, finding new friends, offering up my hopefully wrong ideas that don't work for my friends and I as we try to wreck their experiences of what could be good times. LOL.

Just kidding.

Life is to short, live quality and quantity to the max.
Read past Kow paddy crap that dosen't apply to our lives, and force ones self to make typing mistakes.

My fav is "too & Any-who." This drives the school teachers off the deep end. Ha.

A one time I cared, then my new idea of "care less" kicked in.

All Web forums need a clown, my job is to be the worser at it,,, dam auto correct.

There is no serious life stuff for me and many others on AO any more.

We get to be who we are, and hopefully become wize at being part of the going forward of good times.

It's the only way I see it. Hopefully I'm incorrect and wrong at the same time.

There is a trophy for first place last loosers.
I hope I hold more of them than anyone on this forum.
When I have enough of them I'll melt them down and make my self a peddle bike tricycle as I ride around the city with a yellow plastic sand pale on my head.

Bring Bring. LOL

Don

I like clouds!

[CF8889]

Food for thought...

1 in 2 have done their research on capitalism and seen how terrible it's been to humans around the world. They would rather anything else.

The other %50 have studied communism and seen how terrivle it's been to humans around the world...

You get the picture.

[CNP]

What is wrong with Millenials?

They were raised by Baby Boomers and Gen Xers?

[Okotokian]

Originally Posted by CNP

They were raised by Baby Boomers and Gen Xers?

THE WINNER!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Also accepted as a correct answer: "Nothing more than was wrong with any other generation".

[the11fisherman]

Originally Posted by CNP

They were raised by Baby Boomers and Gen Xers?

I'm a millennial and do not see anything wrong with my parents that raised me and I personally can see why some people would dislike a portion of the group that for whatever reason has come to be known as "The Millennials."

It does get under my skin though when people use this term to encompass my whole generation..... while there are many many dipsticks, it does not mean all of us are.

You don't see me calling every 40 and above the "Big Tub of Lard" generation because a certain percentage is over weight........

[Okotokian]

Originally Posted by the11fisherman

I'm a millennial and do not see anything wrong with my parents that raised me and I personally can see why some people would dislike a portion of the group that for whatever reason has come to be known as "The Millennials."

It does get under my skin though when people use this term to encompass my whole generation..... while there are many many dipsticks, it does not mean all of us are.

You don't see me calling every 40 and above the "Big Tub of Lard" generation because a certain percentage is over weight........

Jeeze, now you got 'em mad. And Millenials know how to cyber-bully better than we do. Great.