What happens when the most entitled generation ever hits a recession

[Bagor]

Originally Posted by Phanuthier

Yes, and it makes work more efficient. Doesn't mean they don't understand it.

Also - I'm a 24 year old student, and I design circuits that do this math - add, subtract, multiply, even divide (divide is a pain to do in logic), derivatives and so on. When you do stats, and you pull out your handy calculator or if you are doing your stats on a Matlab or whatever, some poor schmuck designer like myself is the one who build the circuit or the FPGA so you could use your calculator to do your stats. I can also do equations no problem, and have had to pull out algabra and math more then a few times in design (or written programs to solve algabra and math) since new technology = new behaviours = new equations and algorithms.

I would argue that the vast majority don't fully understand it.

Your grasp and knowledge of the process basically does the work of thousands of students. As long as they know the correct pathways in the program and a slight understanding of the results they're able to get the same end result as people did years ago with minimal understanding.

Difference is they have no idea of the working process behind the result.

Who's more clever? The person that uses the software and gets a quick result that they don't fully understand or the person that actually sits down, works the nuts and bolts of it out for himself, understands the process but takes longer.

I guess my point is efficiency and cleverness don't necessarily go hand in hand.

[ma-skis.com]

Originally Posted by Bagor

Who's more clever? The person that uses the software and gets a quick result that they don't fully understand or the person that actually sits down, works the nuts and bolts of it out for himself, understands the process but takes longer.

Sounds like the person who can use the software is more clever, since they can spend the rest of their time applying that knowledge in critical situations. I doubt that the person who is using the software spends the difference in time, compared to the pencil and paper guy, doing nothing.

Technology has removed a lot of middlemen from workplaces and now forces workers to get the answer, but to also know what to do with it rather than putting it in an outbox.

Consider the changes in a math classroom where students are looking at what graphs mean today verses plotting points on a graph with paper and pen verses using a graphing calculators. The shift (I won't argue how effective it is being implemented in a classroom) is placed on interpreting rather than making. Those are the skills required in today's market.

[Phanuthier]

Originally Posted by Bagor

I would argue that the vast majority don't fully understand it.

Your grasp and knowledge of the process basically does the work of thousands of students. As long as they know the correct pathways in the program and a slight understanding of the results they're able to get the same end result as people did years ago with minimal understanding.

Difference is they have no idea of the working process behind the result.

Who's more clever? The person that uses the software and gets a quick result that they don't fully understand or the person that actually sits down, works the nuts and bolts of it out for himself, understands the process but takes longer.

I guess my point is efficiency and cleverness don't necessarily go hand in hand.

I think you can say that about both generations. (I'll talk with regards to designers, cause thats whats on my brain right not) A good designer will have to know both the fundamentals and how to use the resources/tools they have, young or old; especially in fields which see lots of change and new ideas (i.e. technology), I've seen lots of older generation designers become expired with the newly educated (up to date) students thrive just as you see new generations who don't always understand whats going on and only know how to apply it. Thats not to say old=useless in highly dynamic industries, as I have a few friends who are 60+ who were able to adapt and incorporate new ideas in their daily work.

[Azure]

I think it will do the most entitled generation EVER(until the next generation of course)....good, if they go through some rough times.

[looooob]

Originally Posted by Phanuthier

More knowledgeable, more innovative, more well rounded and diverse for someone who is 25 now versus someone who was 25 years ago. Innovation via the internet and the sharing of knowledge has allowed people to branch outside of their field, and apply their expertise into fields that they otherwise would not be exposed to; ease of accessing information speeds up learning and design, so I can go grab 30 papers off of the web in 3 minutes rather then spend 3 hrs in a library trying to find; ability for those to learn trivial tasks that would otherwise take much longer without the internet (i.e. learning software); faster sharing of info via email, comm, et al; digital design tools over those sitting at a sketch table, allowing a designer to spend more time focusing on the actual design then the multiple more hours it would take to do by hand; technology to solve iterative tasks that would take much longer to do, allowing us to push previous tasks that would otherwise not be possible - all of these opportunities allow, at least those who pursue it, an opportunity to stretch innovative and creative things, and become more knowledgeable because of accessibility thus the ever evolving generations of more innovative, more creative and more knowledgeable people out there.

Opportunities that present itself to those with a can-do attitude, leading to those who find their "what I want to be when I grow up" to put more of an effort then being segragated to medial tasks that arn't "what they want to do when they grow up" ... accessibility to VC's and angels, accessibility to expertise (i.e. linkedin) and cooporation with experts allowing young people who have a passion to work that much harder because its something they want to do.

And so on

ok thanks for the answer, I'm not sure I would view much of the above as defining someone as overall 'better', nor would I necessary characterize the current generation as more knowledgeable or well rounded than previous (I'm not saying they are necessarily less so either)

[Phanuthier]

Originally Posted by looooob

ok thanks for the answer, I'm not sure I would view much of the above as defining someone as overall 'better', nor would I necessary characterize the current generation as more knowledgeable or well rounded than previous (I'm not saying they are necessarily less so either)

To each there own, for sure, its just my opinion and there are definitely different opinions. I think there is a tendency to compare and look down to the following generations because we "haven't proved" anything, so we are all fat/lazy/stopid/useless/rude/ungrateful but I just think thats really unfair so I made my comment.

I don't think its fair or being mean to say every preceeding generation is better then the last; I know its something I talked about with my grandfather just before he passed away (he knew his time was coming up... he was a great man, RIP) and since I was the only male in my family of 10 grandchildren, he spoke a lot to me about the hope or the goal of every generation making the family name better then the last, so I guess (besides being a little POed about yesterday) there is a certain part of me that takes pride in it. I guess some might see it as anal and might want want to join the dogpile that the young=bad people, but thats ok, I believe what I believe and they can believe what they believe as well. To see an article like today, well I just think thats really unfair, and I know that is not representative of most of my friends my age either (granted, we are all working professionals right now fresh out of university and just starting our careers). Contrary to popular belief, we take our careers and image very seriously and all of us see the work we do as a representative of ourselves, not just filling in the hours till we can clock out. I know the requirement for all of us is to work 40 hrs a week, but as far as the people I know, we are willing to put in much more time to ensure we do a good job because we are there for a job, not to fill in hours.

[Calgaryborn]

Originally Posted by redforever

Sorry to burst your bubble, but I have some sad news for you. You are already the first generation that it has happened to, it won't be your children's generation. The generation that graduated mid 60's to mid 70's were at the peak and it has slowly been going downhill from there.

And yeah, you do sound cold. Do you really think that when those people invested in their retirement funds, they did it knowing full well that those funds would be worthless or worth a lot less now? Do you really think they were that dumb? Circumstances have changed greatly to put them in the situation of having decreased retirment worth, a lot of it none of their fault.

And while the country did accumulate a lot of debt in the last 30 or 40 years, and while you and your generation and the next will be responsible for paying a lot of it off, Canada did achieve a high standard of living within that time frame too. If you want quality in life, you have to be willing to pay something towards that end. By the way, do try and remember that it was not the West that continually voted in Trudeau and company.

Now not taking away anything from the current generation, they are very well educated and very dedicated to their jobs and put in long hours, but so did the generation that graduated 30 and 40 years ago. And yes, you might be innovative and be introducing new ways to do things, but so did the prior generation. Such is life and if that does not happen, you are no longer progressing and stagnation has set in.

The one big thing that I notice is the current generation does run a lot more debt than the generations of 30 or 40 years ago did. I am not talking accumulated debt by the government of Canada or the various governments of the provinces. I am talking individual debt on credit cards, various loans, mortgages etc.

That was something prior generations on the whole were much more prudent about and actually far more regulations were in place to control one even getting into those situations in the first place. So for instance, when we bought our first house, both incomes were not allowed to be used in calculating how much you could get for the mortgage on a house you were buying, only the primary earner's income was allowed.

And another big factor, is 30 or 40 years ago, it was more often the case than not that only one parent was working outside of the home. It just never seemed as hectic. When both parents work, so much has to be juggled, and unfortunately in a lot of the cases, in the long run, it is just easier to say yes to cranky and whiny kids than it is to say no. And when no is not heard enough, in some cases you get children growing up thinking they were entitled.

You make some good points. I don't think one should be expectd to have seen ahead to the of the financial markets tanking. That in itself doesn't intitle the person taking the hit to government help, though.

I also agree that since the 70s personal debt has gone through the roof and in the same time frame actual take home pay has shrunk significantly.
Our high standard of living has been maintained by increasing our debt rather than increasing our wealth.

I do wonder about the notion that our standard of living has increased or even maintained in that time. One income used to buy the house, one car, three weeks vacation somewhere, plus some savings. Today it generally will take two incomes to pay for all of that. We have gained the second car. a second TV, a computer and cell phone. We have lost free time. As you pointed out often we lose time with our children and the time we do have with them is when we are exhausted. We have to wait longer for government services. This is especially true when talking about medical care. We generally have more debt and less savings. I'm not sure we are winning.

[Calgaryborn]

Originally Posted by Phaneuf3

"Your generation should have to eat generic brand dog food and die poor and lonely under a bridge because I want to have enough cash to give my kids whatever they want, go on vacation twice a year and buy my very own hover car. Now stop whining and go drown yourself in your sense of entitlement."

That about sum it up?

Nope not at all. My point was that the Baby Boomers have been the most entitled generation. Part of the evidence for that assertion is that they aren't taking responsibility for their own losses in the financial market;which isn't fair to those of us who will have to pay the bill.

Originally Posted by Phaneuf3

"
<insert my generation> is the greatest generation ever. We're the smartest, best looking and have the best taste in music. The <insert previous generation> and <insert next generation> are so spoiled and have it so easy - my generation should receive more. If they'd just be a bit smarter and work a little harder they'd actually earn their keep and wouldn't have this awful sense of entitlement.

I don't know where you are coming from there. Who has been talking about the greatest generation? If we were I would probably give it to the generation who fought in the World wars or maybe the pioneers who opened up this country. Being entitled or not doesn't seem to me to even factor in to who is the greatest generation.

[guzzy]

Originally Posted by The Yen Man

I work 37 hours a week, I make decent money, but definitely not as much as some other people. And I'm ok with it. Its all about balance.

careful about how you phrase decent money. I claimed I made a decent wage and jumped on by 4 simple-minds for braggin about how much money i make. Just a heads up.
cheers

[Boblobla]

Originally Posted by guzzy

careful about how you phrase decent money. I claimed I made a decent wage and jumped on by 4 simple-minds for braggin about how much money i make. Just a heads up.
cheers

It's all about context champ. He wasn't saying 'I make a lot of money so you shouldn't pay your speeding ticket'...

[Bagor]

Originally Posted by ma-skis.com

Sounds like the person who can use the software is more clever, since they can spend the rest of their time applying that knowledge in critical situations. I doubt that the person who is using the software spends the difference in time, compared to the pencil and paper guy, doing nothing.

Technology has removed a lot of middlemen from workplaces and now forces workers to get the answer, but to also know what to do with it rather than putting it in an outbox.

Consider the changes in a math classroom where students are looking at what graphs mean today verses plotting points on a graph with paper and pen verses using a graphing calculators. The shift (I won't argue how effective it is being implemented in a classroom) is placed on interpreting rather than making. Those are the skills required in today's market.

You deviate from what I would consider clever. Again speed or efficiancy does not equate to cleverness. The individual is not responsible for the efficiancy, the machine/software (or the individuals that designed it) are. Comprehension equates to cleverness IMO. Just because someone like Phanuthier (an individual) can help to provide a tool that makes a task quicker does not make the end user himself cleverer. They exercised significantly less brainpower to obtain the same result.

And what make you think that people that plotted graphs on pen and paper stopped short of the interpretation process?

Ask a 14 year old nowadays some quickfire mental arithmetic questions without a calculator. Ask them can they remember the phone numbers of 10 acquaintances without their cell phone.

A monkey these days can plot a graph. It's takes a certain degree of knowledge to understand the fundamentals behind the workings of the graph.

Technology IMO no doubt has huge benefits. It's also responsible IMO for a lot of dumbing down of society.

And re. entitlement. Phanuthier (and I'm not directing this to you personally), we've already had the conversation regarding entitlement to marks in university. Some students feel that simply because they've paid a fee that they're entitled to pass a degree or get good grades regardless of ability or work put in.

Remember the student story: "I don't understand why I didn't get an A because I sat in the front row for all the lectures" story I told a while back?

Was honour students poster presentations last week. More of the same.

Student:I don't understand why I got a bad mark?
Prof: Remember all the changes I suggested and everything we talked about?
Student: Yes.
Prof: Did you do them?
Student: No.
Prof: Why not?
Student: I was too busy?
Prof: Guess what the main comments were with regards to you getting a poor mark. (external markers)
Student: Ummmm
Student: I still think I should have got a better mark? Can I get marked up? I really need this to get into x grad school.

[redforever]

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

Nope not at all. My point was that the Baby Boomers have been the most entitled generation. Part of the evidence for that assertion is that they aren't taking responsibility for their own losses in the financial market;which isn't fair to those of us who will have to pay the bill.

Those losses in the stock market are spread right across the board of every segment of society. And I see and hear about people of ALL ages crying foul that in some cases, circumstances were beyond their control.

Did you mean to say that the CEO's of those investment firms are not taking responsibility for the poor decisions made by their companies when investing the money of their clients?

[Phaneuf3]

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

Nope not at all. My point was that the Baby Boomers have been the most entitled generation. Part of the evidence for that assertion is that they aren't taking responsibility for their own losses in the financial market;which isn't fair to those of us who will have to pay the bill.

Here's the problem with the whole situation - Who caused their losses?

If you could boil down the entire situation into one sentence: The economy collapsed when the US housing and financial market collapsed.
What caused that? More bad debt than you can shake a stick at. What caused that? People buying houses that they had no hope of affording. What caused that? A sense of entitlement that no matter how poor you are you deserve to own your own home.

Do you think its the boomers that took out a majority of these bad loans?

[Kipru]

I didn't read trough the wholem thread, but here is my opinion:

At least in Finland, this generation that is now to be bound to get some work, has enjoyed the feeling of the growing economy. For that reason, there is thousands of unemployed people who have been studying the history of popular music or history of naked women ( OK, I hope you get what I mean, they study what sounds cool to them.)

Capitalism works in such a fashion that if you aren't productive, you get nothing. And that's the way it should be. So stop your nonsenseus learning and switch to engineering, they keep the world rolling. World needs two types of workers: Engineers and blue-collar workers who make the plans to happen. China has learned this mentality (sorry about my crap engrish, maybe world need some english grammar teachers also, and also some anti- drinking propaganda, at lest in Finland)

[wpgflamesfan]

Originally Posted by Phaneuf3

Here's the problem with the whole situation - Who caused their losses?

If you could boil down the entire situation into one sentence: The economy collapsed when the US housing and financial market collapsed.
What caused that? More bad debt than you can shake a stick at. What caused that? People buying houses that they had no hope of affording. What caused that? A sense of entitlement that no matter how poor you are you deserve to own your own home.

Do you think its the boomers that took out a majority of these bad loans?

Great point. I've tried making this point that "the people who took out these loans are more responsible then those who gave them out" numerous times, but every time I do people always shoot me down saying that it's all the Ceo's/Executives faults. I guess the way I see it is, just because something is available to you, you shouldn't necessarily take it. It's up to each person to not only educate themselves on major decisions such as mortgages, but also ensure that should things turn out bad, they have a solid back up plan. While I do sympathize with some of the people that have lost their jobs, houses etc, I do not give a damn about alot of the people affected by the recession who owned million dollar houses, 4 quads, a cottage, sent their kids to super elite private schools who were making no where near the amount of money they needed to sustain that lifestyle. That's an ill informed choice they made and now they have to suffer the consequences. And ignorance, in my opinion is not an excuse or a reason to feel sorry for these people.

EDIT: I will add that I do think CEO's and Executives should shoulder some of the blame and that I complete disagree with the compensation packages being handed out to these individuals

[guzzy]

Originally Posted by Boblobla

It's all about context champ. He wasn't saying 'I make a lot of money so you shouldn't pay your speeding ticket'...

to quote you Simple-Mind,"You need to learn to read tbqh".

If you had the mental capacity to actually follow your own advice you would know that what I originally wrote was "I make a decent wage and it costs me more to fight a speeding ticket." Not anywhere did I say I make a lot of money so don't pay your ticket. It was quite the opposite.

To summarize - If you speed, than pay your ticket.

Again, I don't expect mental midgets like yourself to actually comprehend everything you see

[Sylvanfan]

What happens when the most entitled generation to date hits a recession?

Probably the same thing that happened during the last recession when essentially the same thing happened, and what will happen when the next one comes. Honestly is anyone on this site hoping their kids have a tougher life than they had? I had things pretty good growing up and it would be a big challenge to give my kids an easier life. But if I do have kids, I'm going to try and give them more than I had, while still trying to instill values in them. So yeah, my kids will likely feel more entitled than I was. Just like I had a much higher sense of entitlement than my parents did when they dealt with the first tough recession of their working lives.

[Phaneuf3]

Originally Posted by wpgflamesfan

Great point. I've tried making this point that "the people who took out these loans are more responsible then those who gave them out" numerous times, but every time I do people always shoot me down saying that it's all the Ceo's/Executives faults. I guess the way I see it is, just because something is available to you, you shouldn't necessarily take it. It's up to each person to not only educate themselves on major decisions such as mortgages, but also ensure that should things turn out bad, they have a solid back up plan. While I do sympathize with some of the people that have lost their jobs, houses etc, I do not give a damn about alot of the people affected by the recession who owned million dollar houses, 4 quads, a cottage, sent their kids to super elite private schools who were making no where near the amount of money they needed to sustain that lifestyle. That's an ill informed choice they made and now they have to suffer the consequences. And ignorance, in my opinion is not an excuse or a reason to feel sorry for these people.

EDIT: I will add that I do think CEO's and Executives should shoulder some of the blame and that I complete disagree with the compensation packages being handed out to these individuals

And don't forget the many many people that flat out lied on their loan application to get approved. I mean... honestly... what in god's name were they thinking taking these loans?!

[redforever]

Originally Posted by wpgflamesfan

Great point. I've tried making this point that "the people who took out these loans are more responsible then those who gave them out" numerous times, but every time I do people always shoot me down saying that it's all the Ceo's/Executives faults. I guess the way I see it is, just because something is available to you, you shouldn't necessarily take it. It's up to each person to not only educate themselves on major decisions such as mortgages, but also ensure that should things turn out bad, they have a solid back up plan. While I do sympathize with some of the people that have lost their jobs, houses etc, I do not give a damn about alot of the people affected by the recession who owned million dollar houses, 4 quads, a cottage, sent their kids to super elite private schools who were making no where near the amount of money they needed to sustain that lifestyle. That's an ill informed choice they made and now they have to suffer the consequences. And ignorance, in my opinion is not an excuse or a reason to feel sorry for these people.

EDIT: I will add that I do think CEO's and Executives should shoulder some of the blame and that I complete disagree with the compensation packages being handed out to these individuals

I agree for the most part. I have no problem with people living for now.... as long as they have a job that supports that lifestyle and as you pointed out with examples above, that was certainly not the case a lot of the time. The people I do feel sorry for however are those who had investments where fraud was an issue. No matter how prudent those people were, plain and simple, they were duped.

[Shazam]

I work, and I don't give a flying crap what you or anybody else makes.