Post: #26

The fact that student loans are almost completely non-dischargeable (unique among all other debt in the United States) is flagrantly immoral. It's nothing short of indentured servitude. Quite simply, these kids are being preyed upon. The entire modern higher education system has grossly expanded over the past few decades on the backs of these kids and the debts they shackle themselves to for much of their working lives. Non-dischargeable student loans are the racket that enable the higher education bubble to grow and persist. By the time the kids graduate and realize their degree might as well be toilet paper, it's too late. They're stuck with a five-figure bill they have to pay at gunpoint. Meanwhile, the bankers, school administrators, SJW academics and the whole host of other parasites who have attached themselves to the modern day college racket are laughing all the way to the bank.

It's actually fairly similar to what has happened to the healthcare system over the past two decades. The end result with each is identical: the end user of the service (whether education or healthcare) assumes they are paying for and receiving a product. They don't realize that they are the product, and that they are being served up whole to a system literally designed to extract as much money from them as possible while leaving them with almost no way to fight back legally or financially. The system has no interest in actually educating people or making sure they are healthy. The goal is simply resource extraction: put them into as much debt as possible, turn them into slaves who work their whole lives to pay off the immoral debt.

Almost every major industry in the United States at this point is actively parasitic in this manner, either directly seeking to exploit theirs customer or else indirectly exploiting all taxpayers through government contracts. And we wonder why the economy hasn't recovered?

Post: #27

(12-22-2016 12:48 AM)polar Wrote:  

(12-22-2016 12:41 AM)Aleventure Wrote:  The Millennials were led to believe college guaranteed them a future, the generation of their parents, the media, government, and universities pushed this. So they signed up for college taking tens of thousands of dollars in student loans getting average grades in a run in the mill business or humanities degree thinking they will get some salaried job in a field they have interest in that pays at least 40-50k a year to start out. Only to find out that the degree only really guarantees them a hourly $12 customer service/inside sales job right out of college and they are struggling to make ends meet so they live at home to pay off debt and save some cash. This is the lie that has led to this problem. If you did college right such as getting an applicable degree, respectable GPA, internships, networking you will probably find that salaried job right out of college, but most didn't.

A number of boomers found themselves unemployed. They started going to school for a new degree, but the jobs on the other side did not pan out. They were stuck with loans and no steady income...so, to delay repayment of principal they can keep taking classes. The interest snowballs, but principal is delayed until they're out of school.

They aged out of the job market and are stuck with more (non-dischargeable!) debt than they can repay.

Inside sales is probably the best money that a confident man, with average intelligence, can make directly out of college. You can make $70-80k right off the bat and be making $120-200k a year or two later. Plenty of guys who were inside sales move outside and start pulling in $250k+ in their mid to late 20's.

You don't have to be intelligent to sell over the phone, but you need balls, which is such a rare quality in the 21st century.

Post: #28

^ If you have the sack for it, sales is a great line of work. Also, there are plenty of transferable skills between sales and game, and vice versa.

Post: #29

(12-23-2016 12:18 AM)Graft Wrote:  

(12-22-2016 12:48 AM)polar Wrote:  

(12-22-2016 12:41 AM)Aleventure Wrote:  The Millennials were led to believe college guaranteed them a future, the generation of their parents, the media, government, and universities pushed this. So they signed up for college taking tens of thousands of dollars in student loans getting average grades in a run in the mill business or humanities degree thinking they will get some salaried job in a field they have interest in that pays at least 40-50k a year to start out. Only to find out that the degree only really guarantees them a hourly $12 customer service/inside sales job right out of college and they are struggling to make ends meet so they live at home to pay off debt and save some cash. This is the lie that has led to this problem. If you did college right such as getting an applicable degree, respectable GPA, internships, networking you will probably find that salaried job right out of college, but most didn't.

A number of boomers found themselves unemployed. They started going to school for a new degree, but the jobs on the other side did not pan out. They were stuck with loans and no steady income...so, to delay repayment of principal they can keep taking classes. The interest snowballs, but principal is delayed until they're out of school.

They aged out of the job market and are stuck with more (non-dischargeable!) debt than they can repay.

Inside sales is probably the best money that a confident man, with average intelligence, can make directly out of college. You can make $70-80k right off the bat and be making $120-200k a year or two later. Plenty of guys who were inside sales move outside and start pulling in $250k+ in their mid to late 20's.

You don't have to be intelligent to sell over the phone, but you need balls, which is such a rare quality in the 21st century.

As someone who made, conservatively, over 75,000 phone calls during 5 years of inside sales, I will agree.

Also, after using a little trial and error, make a quick script until you're able to freestyle- works wonders.

I haven't checked to see if there is a data sheet on phone sales- might be worth making for some of our younger entrepreneurs.

Post: #30

This whole system is going to fall and it will happen all at once as people stop believing all at once. The housing bubble , the student loan bubble, the car loan bubble -all symptoms of the same disease. The next big bubble is the belief bubble, once people stop believing,then no more bubbles are possible-and unless Trump turns off the internet , that bubble is already coming. Faith in the system is collapsing, people are letting the truth and traditional media is no longer the gateway. Everyone knows higher education is a scam except for STEM, everyone knows Law School is no longer a golden ticket and people are not going as much, faith in the dollar is low, faith in government is low, no one wants to go to war in foreign countries anymore, no one has faith in the elites anymore, the power of religion is gone (except for Islam), men are checking out and retreating into porn and video games-the list goes on and on.

The people in charge will say everything is fine as it all circles the drain.....until one day you wake up and suddenly everything is all up for grabs, and they cannot hide that it is all over.

Post: #31

Pretty well the same in the UK, with London being the worst case scenario. Young people still living at home, at an age when their parents had long moved out, qualified professionals in their 30's and 40's sharing a house, and even married couples still living in the home of one set of parents.

Further education has also been devalued for many in this country, with increasing fees being charged, although not yet in the same league as the big guns in the USA. From what I can gather, many jobs now demand a graduate education, where no such requirement previously existed, so damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Add to that the insane immigration policies of the previous Labour government, which the new incumbents have done precious little to tackle, and it doesn't look good for many here. In a generation, the aspirations of the ordinary blue collar worker, and increasingly, those further up the pyramid as well, have been trampled on.

The boomers, for the most part, are totally detached from reality, and have no understanding of, or indeed sympathy for, the travails of the young.

Post: #32

(12-23-2016 12:09 AM)scorpion Wrote:  The fact that student loans are almost completely non-dischargeable (unique among all other debt in the United States) is flagrantly immoral. It's nothing short of indentured servitude. Quite simply, these kids are being preyed upon. The entire modern higher education system has grossly expanded over the past few decades on the backs of these kids and the debts they shackle themselves to for much of their working lives. Non-dischargeable student loans are the racket that enable the higher education bubble to grow and persist. By the time the kids graduate and realize their degree might as well be toilet paper, it's too late. They're stuck with a five-figure bill they have to pay at gunpoint. Meanwhile, the bankers, school administrators, SJW academics and the whole host of other parasites who have attached themselves to the modern day college racket are laughing all the way to the bank.

It's actually fairly similar to what has happened to the healthcare system over the past two decades. The end result with each is identical: the end user of the service (whether education or healthcare) assumes they are paying for and receiving a product. They don't realize that they are the product, and that they are being served up whole to a system literally designed to extract as much money from them as possible while leaving them with almost no way to fight back legally or financially. The system has no interest in actually educating people or making sure they are healthy. The goal is simply resource extraction: put them into as much debt as possible, turn them into slaves who work their whole lives to pay off the immoral debt.

Almost every major industry in the United States at this point is actively parasitic in this manner, either directly seeking to exploit theirs customer or else indirectly exploiting all taxpayers through government contracts. And we wonder why the economy hasn't recovered?

I agree that if loans could be discharged in bankruptcy, bankers would probably only extend loans to STEM majors. Unless the government also clamped down on which majors could receive student loans, it will be the taxpayers who will foot the bill for the baristas with SJW oriented majors. With the breakdown of the traditional family unit I can only see these majors becoming more appealing to the increasingly mentally damaged and brainwashed crop of teens. What's left of the middle class would be hit hardest by this. This is the same problem with Obamacare for people with middling incomes - subsidizing health benefits for those who should not be getting them in the first place.

Blue collar middle class jobs (trades, oil industry, manufacturing) that don't require a college education will probably come back in time if things continue on the new path we appear to be on politically. It's the job of both parents to be involved with important life decisions of their children like college. Something that is sorely lacking in most children's lives. As long as women are encouraged to ride the carousel and slave away at worthless paper pushing cubicle jobs to fund their debauchery and any naive man is easily made a victim of divorce rape nothing is going to change.

Bottom line - two problems exist: breakdown of the family unit and globalists who rule for themselves and not the people. The problems start from the top down, and it's going to take decades to reverse the damage done.

Post: #33

There's always a smug undertone in these article about how they don't know why such and such is happening. "Men are checking out of marriage, for video games , no one knows why. Are they afraid of strong women?", "Millenial refuses unpaid internship, needs to pay phone bill. New age entitlement?", "Woman in her 60's tries to have triplets, dies. Is god sexist?". This shit is bonkers. And this society is out its damn mind. Its literally a continuous circle of thought that does nothing to address or treat causes, just cover up symptoms. If the "gig" economy is so great, a lot of these boomers should trade their savings and property titles over to someone they know who's in the this age range and try to live sporadically themselves since the internet makes things "so easy" and "kids are so lazy".

One of the things that doesn't get addressed either is how difficult it can be to set up a business as an alternative in this day and age because of all the legislation and crony capitalism. I was reading the good looking loser site the other day and was reading about how he pays 35% in corporate tax while Amazon only pays 3.5%. This is a system designed to fail, and exclude a large majority. No wonder the elite class panics when people prod and poke at their narrative like a panda in the zoo.

You NEED a 30 year old who's still in the same room he lost his virginity in to depend on the government financially and socially for a lot of these new age agendas to work. Financial mobility and freedom allows you to question what's going on around you. CEO's can have loud opinions, a barista with no benefits, not so much.

Post: #34

I've just heard about a book that really shows how bad the crisis is:

Here is the Amazon summary of the book:

By one reading, things look pretty good for Americans today: the country is richer than ever before and the unemployment rate is down by half since the Great Recession—lower today, in fact, than for most of the postwar era.

But a closer look shows that something is going seriously wrong. This is the collapse of work—most especially among America’s men. Nicholas Eberstadt, a political economist who holds the Henry Wendt Chair in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute, shows that while “unemployment” has gone down, America’s work rate is also lower today than a generation ago—and that the work rate for US men has been spiraling downward for half a century. Astonishingly, the work rate for American males aged twenty-five to fifty-four—or “men of prime working age”—was actually slightly lower in 2015 than it had been in 1940: before the War, and at the tail end of the Great Depression.

Today, nearly one in six prime working age men has no paid work at all—and nearly one in eight is out of the labor force entirely, neither working nor even looking for work. This new normal of “men without work,” argues Eberstadt, is “America’s invisible crisis.”

So who are these men? How did they get there? What are they doing with their time? And what are the implications of this exit from work for American society?

Nicholas Eberstadt lays out the issue and Jared Bernstein from the left and Henry Olsen from the right offer their responses to this national crisis.

Post: #35

(12-23-2016 12:09 AM)scorpion Wrote:  The fact that student loans are almost completely non-dischargeable (unique among all other debt in the United States) is flagrantly immoral. It's nothing short of indentured servitude. Quite simply, these kids are being preyed upon. The entire modern higher education system has grossly expanded over the past few decades on the backs of these kids and the debts they shackle themselves to for much of their working lives. Non-dischargeable student loans are the racket that enable the higher education bubble to grow and persist. By the time the kids graduate and realize their degree might as well be toilet paper, it's too late. They're stuck with a five-figure bill they have to pay at gunpoint. Meanwhile, the bankers, school administrators, SJW academics and the whole host of other parasites who have attached themselves to the modern day college racket are laughing all the way to the bank.

It's actually fairly similar to what has happened to the healthcare system over the past two decades. The end result with each is identical: the end user of the service (whether education or healthcare) assumes they are paying for and receiving a product. They don't realize that they are the product, and that they are being served up whole to a system literally designed to extract as much money from them as possible while leaving them with almost no way to fight back legally or financially. The system has no interest in actually educating people or making sure they are healthy. The goal is simply resource extraction: put them into as much debt as possible, turn them into slaves who work their whole lives to pay off the immoral debt.

Almost every major industry in the United States at this point is actively parasitic in this manner, either directly seeking to exploit theirs customer or else indirectly exploiting all taxpayers through government contracts. And we wonder why the economy hasn't recovered?

So true. I just won a big case last week in a student loan discharge adversary action in bankruptcy court. My clients were modest schoolteachers with over $300K in student loans, on the downslope of their earning years. We wiped out the vast majority of the debt. But the creditor is appealing. So you have to keep fighting.

Students today not only are saddled with ridiculous debt, but some of them can't even afford to pay for decent food. It's a terrible reality that the average person in the US has no comprehension of. Same with the healthcare system.

Where all this is going to lead, we will find out soon enough.

Post: #36

I know of upper middle class boomers who own 2-3 homes.

Post: #37

Not only is the education system parasitic, but the economy has been getting wiped out since the 1970s. It was just held up by private debt expansion and nothing more. Real disposable income was going down since the late 1970s. Real unemployment is also far higher, the you have to keep in mind that the student debt bubble hides a lot of unemployment - students that would have long since worked full time in the 1980s and even 1990s. Now they stay in college longer, but that is also a scam because the jobs are not out there:



5% of unemployment? Really - I spoke with folk who worked in the 1970s with 3-4% unemployment. Employers were scared shitless of folk leaving, because anyone could get a job next week, but employers were hard-pressed to find workers. That is 3% unemployment. 5% is being unemployed for 2-5 weeks at the most.

If they calculated unemployment like in the early 1980s, then it would be above 15%, which explains why you get hundreds or even over 1000 applicants for a janitor job:

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/29574766/ns/us...orial-job/

That hasn't gone away. It's probably worse now.

Post: #38

With the little job security that there is in the US, it doesn't even make sense to buy in many areas. Who knows when you will get laid off, and the next job may require you to move. Plus many industries you have to hop between companies anyway to get what your worth, and thats harder to do if you are tied down to a location. That is a big reason millenials like myself look at big cities, more opportunities in a small area that don't require you to move. If you live out in the boondocks, there may only be a couple choices for a given line of work.

Post: #39

(12-23-2016 03:09 PM)Zelcorpion Wrote:  Not only is the education system parasitic, but the economy has been getting wiped out since the 1970s. It was just held up by private debt expansion and nothing more. Real disposable income was going down since the late 1970s. Real unemployment is also far higher, the you have to keep in mind that the student debt bubble hides a lot of unemployment - students that would have long since worked full time in the 1980s and even 1990s. Now they stay in college longer, but that is also a scam because the jobs are not out there:



5% of unemployment? Really - I spoke with folk who worked in the 1970s with 3-4% unemployment. Employers were scared shitless of folk leaving, because anyone could get a job next week, but employers were hard-pressed to find workers. That is 3% unemployment. 5% is being unemployed for 2-5 weeks at the most.

If they calculated unemployment like in the early 1980s, then it would be above 15%, which explains why you get hundreds or even over 1000 applicants for a janitor job:

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/29574766/ns/us...orial-job/

That hasn't gone away. It's probably worse now.

Good lord posts such as these, as truthful as they are, make my spine shiver in fear.

I'm in my twenties and I am very happy to have chosen to become a healthcare professional in a field which has become more or less dominated by women and thus males are very much sought after.

Besides that I'm also working on side businesses which will provide me with side income and if not at least another valuable skill.

In addition I'm talking with an economist friend of mine which broker to use as a European in order to buy Index Fund ETF's.

I've also made it perfectly clear with my girlfriend that taking a loan for any kind of consumer products are a no. No discussion. If she wants that she can pack her things today and go hunt for greener pastures.

Fuck that hedonistic bullshit which acts as millstone around your neck.

The Government can take my income via taxes but it can never force me to spend on shit I don't need.

Crony capitalists and their advertisements which want to sell me a mindset of scarcity try that - but after reading RVF for more than 2,5 years, Fortress of the Mind, GLL, Bold and Determined, Danger and Play, ROK and a host of other sites I say: good luck.

Reading so many books championed within the Manosphere circles such as the Meditations of Aurelius, Quintus's magnificent translation of On Duties and all of his other works, the Bible, Bogleheads Guide to Investing, Esther Villar, Generation of Vipers, Art of the Deal and so on I've become much calmer as a person.

I don't need nor want shit anymore. The only thing I want now is peace of mind - and that can be achieved with books, strength training, love making and an appreciation for what I have, instead of lusting after what I do not, and of fearing of where I could have been.

Writing this out made me realize how far I've come and how far I still have to go.

And I weep for the common boy who has not been as fortunate as I to have discovered the Manosphere at a crucial point in his life.

I am a Millennial and I know it's nice to shit on us and all of our faults concerning the usual life choices that are made, but when we were shown this as the only way that can be taken what, exactly, is to be expected?

You are told so by your parents.
You are told so by your teachers.
You are told so by your friends.
You are told so by the magazines you glance at.
You are told so by the books you are given to read.
You are told so by the movies you watch.

You are told so by everything which has the capability to disseminate information.

Everything you are told, from when you are born, to be truth is basically a lie.

I count myself lucky. Through the MRA's I've found Roosh and the Manosphere.

Now I'm doing the best I can - slowly planting the seeds within my brother, his friends and my own.

At least I want the people I love to be shown the Truth, so they have a chance to reject it.

Many were never given the chance to see it and have had their lives ruined as result.

Post: #40

(12-23-2016 12:57 PM)Mayweather Wrote:  There's always a smug undertone in these article about how they don't know why such and such is happening. "Men are checking out of marriage, for video games , no one knows why. Are they afraid of strong women?", "Millenial refuses unpaid internship, needs to pay phone bill. New age entitlement?", "Woman in her 60's tries to have triplets, dies. Is god sexist?". This shit is bonkers. And this society is out its damn mind. Its literally a continuous circle of thought that does nothing to address or treat causes, just cover up symptoms. If the "gig" economy is so great, a lot of these boomers should trade their savings and property titles over to someone they know who's in the this age range and try to live sporadically themselves since the internet makes things "so easy" and "kids are so lazy".

One of the things that doesn't get addressed either is how difficult it can be to set up a business as an alternative in this day and age because of all the legislation and crony capitalism. I was reading the good looking loser site the other day and was reading about how he pays 35% in corporate tax while Amazon only pays 3.5%. This is a system designed to fail, and exclude a large majority. No wonder the elite class panics when people prod and poke at their narrative like a panda in the zoo.

You NEED a 30 year old who's still in the same room he lost his virginity in to depend on the government financially and socially for a lot of these new age agendas to work. Financial mobility and freedom allows you to question what's going on around you. CEO's can have loud opinions, a barista with no benefits, not so much.

To be fair, there is a smug undertone amongst the Republican establishment base as well, and I'm glad Trump got them to ditch it.

"Millennials are entitled!"
We dealt with the most dysfunctional economy in modern history, which was inaugurated by the great crash of 2008 and catalyzed by the quantitative easing that followed. Right now, as I finish the first few years of my career, I have to pay record-high rent to a Baby Boomer that purchased the place for 1/5th of it's value. I have to participate in a workforce with record-low participation and comparably pitiful wages. If I want to go back to school, I'll be looking at close to a six figure bill, if not more. This is unprecedented in history. We have the right to bitch a little.

"Those welfare mooches!"
Take all of the above points regarding the instability and disfunction of the modern economy, combine it with globalization, and understand why this term was a losing message for the Republicans. I doubt I could even get welfare as a male, but I have taken unemployment insurance. I had no bad will to cheat the system, but I needed a few checks to survive until my next job. A good portion of Trump's base were struggling working class and had probably taken some form of government assistance before. They weren't so enthusiastic about Ted Cruz types cutting taxes for billionaires and eliminating every entitlement for the working class.

I'll make a data sheet for inside/outside sales.

Post: #41

(12-21-2016 10:03 PM)Excelsior Wrote:  I'm interested in the potential long-term impacts of this trend. As the article indicates, millenials have a difficult time affording homes and are much further away from realizing the "American dream" of home ownership their parents did. Even if they could afford homes, millennials generally have a lower preference for suburban settings than their parents, with many preferring instead to migrate to inner-cities (hence mass gentrification).

I wonder what is going to happen to all of this suburban housing stock that has been built en masse over the course of the last couple of decades (when it was the most desirable housing stock available). Most of it was purchased by boomers and some gen-xers, and the bulk of it is still held by them. Many boomers are gonna wanna be rid of it with their empty nests and impending retirement, though, and there aren't going to be many millennials willing or able to buy. Even if millenials are ready to buy a little more down the road, it is possible that fewer of them will be keen on the suburban mcmansions their parents owned - the demand for this kind of housing might decrease, and then you've got to wonder what happens to it considering how much of it we've built.

Great questions.

My first reaction after your thoughtful post...this is what a free market economy is for. What will happen? Urban housing prices increase, suburban prices decrease, and people will move accordingly. It's worth it to live 30 minutes outside of the city and pay for taxi/uber/train/etc to save on housing.

I know that's a simplified view, but it's definitely how I think.

Post: #42

(12-23-2016 02:18 AM)Atlanta Man Wrote:  This whole system is going to fall and it will happen all at once as people stop believing all at once. The housing bubble , the student loan bubble, the car loan bubble -all symptoms of the same disease. The next big bubble is the belief bubble, once people stop believing,then no more bubbles are possible-and unless Trump turns off the internet , that bubble is already coming. Faith in the system is collapsing, people are letting the truth and traditional media is no longer the gateway. Everyone knows higher education is a scam except for STEM, everyone knows Law School is no longer a golden ticket and people are not going as much, faith in the dollar is low, faith in government is low, no one wants to go to war in foreign countries anymore, no one has faith in the elites anymore, the power of religion is gone (except for Islam), men are checking out and retreating into porn and video games-the list goes on and on.

The people in charge will say everything is fine as it all circles the drain.....until one day you wake up and suddenly everything is all up for grabs, and they cannot hide that it is all over.

Spot on, A.M. Remember how everyone kept saying the old Soviet Union would be around for hundreds of years because it had a command economy with a huge military? And then everyone woke up one day to find that it all evaporated.

The elites have been blocking any meaningful reforms in the politico-economic system here since the 1980s or earlier. The age of turbulence is coming, whether we like it or not.

Post: #43

What's your over/under on number of years? Will it be a market crash first, war first, then market crash, or all of the above simultaneously?

Post: #44

Interesting to see the progression of thought on RVF. I remember the super positive 4 hour week "location independence" phase around 2011-13, build your own business etc. It was very individual centric. "Only 1 job per 5000 grads applying - here's how you be no 1". Now it's more widely recognised that 4999 people just missed out - what's happening to them, what about our society? It's understood that these global gig economy paths are just not that secure and the price for failure is steep.

I was thinking these thoughts back in 2013 as an unemployed law grad, now everyone is. I'm doing well in my career but that's not the point. The economy is fucked in the West and all we are doing is playing a rearguard defensive action to ward off the inevitable implosion.

Post: #45

(12-23-2016 04:09 PM)Kid Twist Wrote:  What's your over/under on number of years? Will it be a market crash first, war first, then market crash, or all of the above simultaneously?

The USSR hosted the Olympics in 1980 and by 1988 could no longer control their caucases or hide their decline. I hope that gives you perspective. As late as 1986 they were assumed to be absolutley stable.

Post: #46

I'm wondering if we're suffering a bit from confirmation bias in this thread. From the OP article:

Quote:What’s more, the percentage of those aged between 18 and 24 living with family has been on the rise since 2005. Before then, just one in three young adults returned to mom and dad’s house.

1. Unless I'm severely misreading the articles linked, the title of this thread is incorrect. The articles mention the age range as (18-24), not (18-34). Huge difference.

2. Age group of (18-24) living with their parents can be explained due to rising costs of attending college. When you take into account that living on campus can easily cost up to $10K, you would expect more people to live at home and attend local schools.

3. The article mentions the percentage of young adults living at home has increased from "just one in three" (I assume it's close to 33%, though probably not exactly 33%) to 40%. A 7% increase is far from alarming considering my previous point.

(12-23-2016 02:18 AM)Atlanta Man Wrote:  This whole system is going to fall and it will happen all at once as people stop believing all at once. The housing bubble , the student loan bubble, the car loan bubble -all symptoms of the same disease. The next big bubble is the belief bubble, once people stop believing,then no more bubbles are possible-and unless Trump turns off the internet , that bubble is already coming. Faith in the system is collapsing, people are letting the truth and traditional media is no longer the gateway. Everyone knows higher education is a scam except for STEM, everyone knows Law School is no longer a golden ticket and people are not going as much, faith in the dollar is low, faith in government is low, no one wants to go to war in foreign countries anymore, no one has faith in the elites anymore, the power of religion is gone (except for Islam), men are checking out and retreating into porn and video games-the list goes on and on.

The people in charge will say everything is fine as it all circles the drain.....until one day you wake up and suddenly everything is all up for grabs, and they cannot hide that it is all over.

Can you elaborate on this? Because this doesn't match up with my personal experiences. My alma mater has seen record enrollment year after year for the past decade. I know a significant amount of people in school pursuing a major outside of STEM or applying to law school. If everyone knows higher education is a scam, except for STEM, than I'm truly confounded by the record enrollment levels.

This is not to say the system won't collapse. As QC aptly pointed out, the Soviet Union collapsed in a blink of an eye. But I'm not convinced faith in the system in collapsing. The manosphere does have a bit of an echo-chamber effect.

Men checking out and retreating into porn? I'm still seeing a ton of wedding pictures on my FB newsfeed. The vast majority of my guys my age are in steady relationships and about to get married. Granted, my arguments are purely anecdotal. It very may be that my social circle is heavy on the people who are actually succeeded in this economy and system. But let us not forget that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. Even if you discount California and illegal immigrants voting, she still got a very sizeable chunk of the total vote. And I think it does say a lot about how much faith people still have in the system. A shockingly large number of people genuinely believe Trump will be the next Hitler. Faith in the Old Media may be low, but that doesn't mean people aren't swallowing that stuff hook, line and sinker.

Also, I'm not sure how to account for Donald Trump as a black swan event. If he can genuinely achieve even a few of his campaign promises - and based on his cabinet picks it seems likely - faith in the system might just strengthen, not weaken. A sudden rise in patriotism and loyalty to American works can have very positive ripple effects. A boom in manufacturing could lead to more jobs for college degree holders as well. His cost-cutting ways might just deflate many bubbles. In terms of education: if he gets the government out of federal aid for higher education, it could drastically change the entire system.

I am under no illusion that every system sooner or later collapses - looking at history no society has ever withstood major societal upheaval. Societal decline is inevitable. I'm just not convinced yet that it's an imminent danger in the United States.

P.S. some of my skepticism comes from personal experience with doomsayers about India. When I was younger I would read these predictions India would collapse into a warlord-run savage wasteland by 1980, 1990, 2000 and so forth. And it's still standing strong. My observation is that every large society has its issues and there's always something you can point at to explain an imminent collapse. Hindsight bias always makes a collapse seem so obvious, yet we forget the scores of predictions that never came true.

Post: #47

(12-23-2016 08:04 PM)Genghis Khan Wrote:  

(12-23-2016 02:18 AM)Atlanta Man Wrote:  This whole system is going to fall and it will happen all at once as people stop believing all at once. The housing bubble , the student loan bubble, the car loan bubble -all symptoms of the same disease. The next big bubble is the belief bubble, once people stop believing,then no more bubbles are possible-and unless Trump turns off the internet , that bubble is already coming. Faith in the system is collapsing, people are letting the truth and traditional media is no longer the gateway. Everyone knows higher education is a scam except for STEM, everyone knows Law School is no longer a golden ticket and people are not going as much, faith in the dollar is low, faith in government is low, no one wants to go to war in foreign countries anymore, no one has faith in the elites anymore, the power of religion is gone (except for Islam), men are checking out and retreating into porn and video games-the list goes on and on.

The people in charge will say everything is fine as it all circles the drain.....until one day you wake up and suddenly everything is all up for grabs, and they cannot hide that it is all over.

Can you elaborate on this? Because this doesn't match up with my personal experiences. My alma mater has seen record enrollment year after year for the past decade. I know a significant amount of people in school pursuing a major outside of STEM or applying to law school. If everyone knows higher education is a scam, except for STEM, than I'm truly confounded by the record enrollment levels.

This is not to say the system won't collapse. As QC aptly pointed out, the Soviet Union collapsed in a blink of an eye. But I'm not convinced faith in the system in collapsing. The manosphere does have a bit of an echo-chamber effect.

Men checking out and retreating into porn? I'm still seeing a ton of wedding pictures on my FB newsfeed. The vast majority of my guys my age are in steady relationships and about to get married. Granted, my arguments are purely anecdotal. It very may be that my social circle is heavy on the people who are actually succeeded in this economy and system. But let us not forget that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. Even if you discount California and illegal immigrants voting, she still got a very sizeable chunk of the total vote. And I think it does say a lot about how much faith people still have in the system. A shockingly large number of people genuinely believe Trump will be the next Hitler. Faith in the Old Media may be low, but that doesn't mean people aren't swallowing that stuff hook, line and sinker.

Also, I'm not sure how to account for Donald Trump as a black swan event. If he can genuinely achieve even a few of his campaign promises - and based on his cabinet picks it seems likely - faith in the system might just strengthen, not weaken. A sudden rise in patriotism and loyalty to American works can have very positive ripple effects. A boom in manufacturing could lead to more jobs for college degree holders as well. His cost-cutting ways might just deflate many bubbles. In terms of education: if he gets the government out of federal aid for higher education, it could drastically change the entire system.

I am under no illusion that every system sooner or later collapses - looking at history no society has ever withstood major societal upheaval. Societal decline is inevitable. I'm just not convinced yet that it's an imminent danger in the United States.

P.S. some of my skepticism comes from personal experience with doomsayers about India. When I was younger I would read these predictions India would collapse into a warlord-run savage wasteland by 1980, 1990, 2000 and so forth. And it's still standing strong. My observation is that every large society has its issues and there's always something you can point at to explain an imminent collapse. Hindsight bias always makes a collapse seem so obvious, yet we forget the scores of predictions that never came true.

Why should we elaborate when you've completely contradicted yourself from just three months ago?

(09-09-2016 02:10 AM)Genghis Khan Wrote:  My parents are lower/middle class (dad never finished high school - owns his own business - we were poor growing up).
I went to a public school with farmers' kids.
I attended one of the very best universities in the US - it's one of the top Ivies.

From my many years interacting with the actual elite (including Nobel prize winning professors and billionaire elites) - it's really simple: they just hate the average person. They cannot relate to the average person at all. Intellectuals by and far are coddled from birth - raised in upper middle-class families, never having to worry about money (think freshman girls getting $150 haircuts on daddy's CC), not understanding that college isn't affordable for most people, etc etc. Three-quarters of 'my friends' went to work at Wall Street/tech companies/top consulting firms. The smugness drips off them. You know the common trope: diversity and single parent families for everyone except themselves.

(Republican) intellectuals don't hate capitalists. They loved Mitt Romney and the dude ran Bain Capital - you can't get more capitalist than that. They hate Donald Trump because the common man loves him. Intellectuals have a strong distaste for the common man. Intellectuals have an idea of what people should be like and the common man is far removed from that idea. My friends - who all hate Trump BTW - would probably mock my dad for being devoutly religious, having a 15-year-old shitty car, wearing $20 sneakers and believing climate change is a hoax. It deeply offends them that people are 'so stupid'. It deeply offends them that Trump could win because people are 'stupid enough' to vote for him. If only everyone was just as clever and smart as they are, if only Trump was as intelligent as they are. The amount of times I've heard my Ivy-League educated friends say "Trump is such an idiot" with a straight face - it's unbelievable how delusional they are thinking that a billionaire with super model wives, amazing kids and a world-renown brand is 'such an idiot'.

That is the crux of the republican intellectuals - they think this entire election revolves around the idiots of America voting for the biggest idiot in America. And it bothers the fuck out of them that they, the smart ones, have to sit and actually watch the biggest idiot (Trump) get elected.

Post: #48

Ask yourself, if you just went through a decade of an absolutely shitty economy where you forced to take jobs WELL below your qualifications levels just to make ends meet, are you going to risk any semblance of stability you may have obtained by moving out when shit is still in "recovery mode?"

FUCK NO.

I love how these high-castle type publications talk about economic recovery. LOL. The American economy has not recovered in any way that means shit to anyone under 35 who doesn't have an extensive network of people willing to hire them and put them in these "newly created" jobs.

It's such incredible nonsense that I'm surprised they get away with publishing this rubbish.

Post: #49

(12-23-2016 08:30 PM)Samseau Wrote:  

(12-23-2016 08:04 PM)Genghis Khan Wrote:  

(12-23-2016 02:18 AM)Atlanta Man Wrote:  This whole system is going to fall and it will happen all at once as people stop believing all at once. The housing bubble , the student loan bubble, the car loan bubble -all symptoms of the same disease. The next big bubble is the belief bubble, once people stop believing,then no more bubbles are possible-and unless Trump turns off the internet , that bubble is already coming. Faith in the system is collapsing, people are letting the truth and traditional media is no longer the gateway. Everyone knows higher education is a scam except for STEM, everyone knows Law School is no longer a golden ticket and people are not going as much, faith in the dollar is low, faith in government is low, no one wants to go to war in foreign countries anymore, no one has faith in the elites anymore, the power of religion is gone (except for Islam), men are checking out and retreating into porn and video games-the list goes on and on.

The people in charge will say everything is fine as it all circles the drain.....until one day you wake up and suddenly everything is all up for grabs, and they cannot hide that it is all over.

Can you elaborate on this? Because this doesn't match up with my personal experiences. My alma mater has seen record enrollment year after year for the past decade. I know a significant amount of people in school pursuing a major outside of STEM or applying to law school. If everyone knows higher education is a scam, except for STEM, than I'm truly confounded by the record enrollment levels.

This is not to say the system won't collapse. As QC aptly pointed out, the Soviet Union collapsed in a blink of an eye. But I'm not convinced faith in the system in collapsing. The manosphere does have a bit of an echo-chamber effect.

Men checking out and retreating into porn? I'm still seeing a ton of wedding pictures on my FB newsfeed. The vast majority of my guys my age are in steady relationships and about to get married. Granted, my arguments are purely anecdotal. It very may be that my social circle is heavy on the people who are actually succeeded in this economy and system. But let us not forget that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. Even if you discount California and illegal immigrants voting, she still got a very sizeable chunk of the total vote. And I think it does say a lot about how much faith people still have in the system. A shockingly large number of people genuinely believe Trump will be the next Hitler. Faith in the Old Media may be low, but that doesn't mean people aren't swallowing that stuff hook, line and sinker.

Also, I'm not sure how to account for Donald Trump as a black swan event. If he can genuinely achieve even a few of his campaign promises - and based on his cabinet picks it seems likely - faith in the system might just strengthen, not weaken. A sudden rise in patriotism and loyalty to American works can have very positive ripple effects. A boom in manufacturing could lead to more jobs for college degree holders as well. His cost-cutting ways might just deflate many bubbles. In terms of education: if he gets the government out of federal aid for higher education, it could drastically change the entire system.

I am under no illusion that every system sooner or later collapses - looking at history no society has ever withstood major societal upheaval. Societal decline is inevitable. I'm just not convinced yet that it's an imminent danger in the United States.

P.S. some of my skepticism comes from personal experience with doomsayers about India. When I was younger I would read these predictions India would collapse into a warlord-run savage wasteland by 1980, 1990, 2000 and so forth. And it's still standing strong. My observation is that every large society has its issues and there's always something you can point at to explain an imminent collapse. Hindsight bias always makes a collapse seem so obvious, yet we forget the scores of predictions that never came true.

Why should we elaborate when you've completely contradicted yourself from just three months ago?

(09-09-2016 02:10 AM)Genghis Khan Wrote:  My parents are lower/middle class (dad never finished high school - owns his own business - we were poor growing up).
I went to a public school with farmers' kids.
I attended one of the very best universities in the US - it's one of the top Ivies.

From my many years interacting with the actual elite (including Nobel prize winning professors and billionaire elites) - it's really simple: they just hate the average person. They cannot relate to the average person at all. Intellectuals by and far are coddled from birth - raised in upper middle-class families, never having to worry about money (think freshman girls getting $150 haircuts on daddy's CC), not understanding that college isn't affordable for most people, etc etc. Three-quarters of 'my friends' went to work at Wall Street/tech companies/top consulting firms. The smugness drips off them. You know the common trope: diversity and single parent families for everyone except themselves.

(Republican) intellectuals don't hate capitalists. They loved Mitt Romney and the dude ran Bain Capital - you can't get more capitalist than that. They hate Donald Trump because the common man loves him. Intellectuals have a strong distaste for the common man. Intellectuals have an idea of what people should be like and the common man is far removed from that idea. My friends - who all hate Trump BTW - would probably mock my dad for being devoutly religious, having a 15-year-old shitty car, wearing $20 sneakers and believing climate change is a hoax. It deeply offends them that people are 'so stupid'. It deeply offends them that Trump could win because people are 'stupid enough' to vote for him. If only everyone was just as clever and smart as they are, if only Trump was as intelligent as they are. The amount of times I've heard my Ivy-League educated friends say "Trump is such an idiot" with a straight face - it's unbelievable how delusional they are thinking that a billionaire with super model wives, amazing kids and a world-renown brand is 'such an idiot'.

That is the crux of the republican intellectuals - they think this entire election revolves around the idiots of America voting for the biggest idiot in America. And it bothers the fuck out of them that they, the smart ones, have to sit and actually watch the biggest idiot (Trump) get elected.

I should've clarified in my post from 3 months ago the Ivy I attended was for grad school. That was my mistake. And yes, a lot of the kids there are out of touch. But my (undergrad) alma mater is a large state school - most students are farmers' kids and 1st generation college students. Sorry if that caused any confusion.

And still, my undergrad alma mater is seeing record enrollment. And when I talk to the kids there and other kids at public universities (through my involvement in my fraternity), I'm not seeing this 'everyone knows higher education, barring STEM, is a scam' belief at all. I don't know if I'm missing something here, it might just be enrollment increases are solely due to international students flocking to the US.

Post: #50

(12-23-2016 08:04 PM)Genghis Khan Wrote:  I'm wondering if we're suffering a bit from confirmation bias in this thread. From the OP article:

Quote:What’s more, the percentage of those aged between 18 and 24 living with family has been on the rise since 2005. Before then, just one in three young adults returned to mom and dad’s house.

1. Unless I'm severely misreading the articles linked, the title of this thread is incorrect. The articles mention the age range as (18-24), not (18-34). Huge difference.

2. Age group of (18-24) living with their parents can be explained due to rising costs of attending college. When you take into account that living on campus can easily cost up to $10K, you would expect more people to live at home and attend local schools.

3. The article mentions the percentage of young adults living at home has increased from "just one in three" (I assume it's close to 33%, though probably not exactly 33%) to 40%. A 7% increase is far from alarming considering my previous point.

18-34 is correct, it's the same thing Pew was talking about earlier this year.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/for-young-am...-the-norm/

Quote:The kids may not be alright, at least when it comes to one traditional mark of growing up: moving out of their childhood homes.

More young adults are now living with their parents than with a spouse or partner, marking a tipping point for the first time in modern history, according to a new study from the Pew Research Center. About 32.1 percent of Americans between 18 to 34 years old lived in their parents' homes in 2014, edging out the 31.6 percent who were married or living with a partner in their own household, the analysis of Census data found. The remaining 36 percent either live alone, are single parents, or live in dorms or with other relatives.

The trend appears to be tied to a few factors, including what Pew calls a "postponement of, if not retreat from, marriage." While changing society norms may be part of the cause, it's likely also tied to economic and labor market trends that have walloped a few demographic groups, such as men, people without college degrees, and people of color. Some might start families and form their own households later in life, but it's clear that for many young Americans, their priorities have shifted, either from choice or necessity.

"Young adults today are having a different transition into adulthood than previous generations," said Richard Fry, a senior researcher at Pew. "In previous generations, setting up new families was a basic thing young adults were doing. Even in the 1980s, half of them were married. Today's young adults are moving away from that."

Young men are now more likely to live with a parent than to live with a spouse or partner; not so for women
While the recession and weak recovery may have fed into the trend, forcing some young Americans to live at home if they had trouble finding a job, the shift started long before the most recent economic downturn, Fry said.

The share of young men and women living with a spouse or partner has been falling since the 1960s, the research found. About 56 percent of young men and 68 percent of young women lived with a partner or spouse in 1960, while only about one out of five still lived with their parents.

But after 1960, the share of young Americans living in their own homes with a spouse or partner started to dwindle. At the same time, the labor market was transforming, becoming less rewarding for men and especially men without college degrees. The labor force participation rate for men of all ages slipped from about 83 percent in 1960 to slightly more than 69 percent now.

Wages for men have also stagnated over the past few decades. On an inflation-adjusted basis, men earned median annual wages of $52,421 in 1973, which had declined to slightly more than $50,000 in 2013. Women's wages and labor force participation, on the other hand, have largely increased during the same period.

"The labor market hasn't been kind to young men," Fry said. "Increasingly they are unable to afford to live independently. It also explains why many fewer of them are married or cohabiting. They are probably less desirable as partners given their sinking fortunes."

Less educated young Americans and people of color are more likely to be living at home than their white and college-educated cohort, the research found.

The share of young black and Hispanic Americans living with their parents hit a record high 36 percent. About 30 percent of white young adults are living with their parents, by contrast.

About 36 percent of young adults without college degrees are living at home with their parents, while only 27 percent are married or cohabiting. Among college-educated young adults, the picture is sharply different, with 46 percent living in their own homes with a partner or spouse and only 19 percent still at home with their folks.

"Generally college-educated adults are doing better in the labor market," Fry said. "They can afford to live independently of their parents, and they are increasingly desirable marriage partners."

The rise in young Americans living at home has implications for the economy, Fry added.

"This is why the housing market hasn't been particularly robust since the recovery," he said. "They aren't forming households. When you form a new household, there's a lot of spending that goes into it. It's not just the rent; there's the furniture, the cable company subscription, the mops and buckets."