What happens when the most entitled generation ever hits a recession

[wpgflamesfan]

Originally Posted by redforever

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.

Completely agree. Even if you do your homework scams can still fool you. Now if they were mailing all there money to a Nigerian Prince that promised a massive "family fortune" in return that's another story.

[flamesfever]

I think it's the responsibility of the older generations to help prepare the younger generations for the "jungle". If only they'd listen to us........

[Phanuthier]

Originally Posted by Bagor

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.

Resp point 1 : Going back to my post just above, I would have to say that this would be common around all generations. The past generation (yours?) have engineers/architectures that have never been out on the construction building a bridge, but they can design it. Could you make the same assertion then? How about those using a slide rule rather then doing numbers by hand, does it make them understand or better then a calculator? Every generation see's new technology that assist people in doing their job, the key (like I said before) is be able to both understand what you are doing (i.e. not take the assisting tools for granted) as well as understand (that point might not be directed to me, but I am still responding to it.

Resp point 2 (memory, arithmetic) : first off, memory. Despite lazyness of (any) child/young adult, I actually think the memory of this generation and ability to learn is better then any other generation, and this trend should continue. Computer games, Xboxs and PS3's and new technology and tools (i.e. all the crap available on a iPhone) do force young people to learn, remember and process large amounts of information in short periods of time. I think back to the post Dion made a page ago about his nephew, I think if you challenged a young person, you would be surprised by what their mind can do. I have also read that playing these widget games also helps improve their dexterity and the surgeons now may be better then ever because of computer games. (I am not a gamer myself, haven't touched a computer game in 10 years)

As for arithmetic... it depends. I know what you are getting at there, but I have a few stories...

1. Back in grade 9 (about 12 years ago) my math teacher absolutely HATED me and failed me on a geometry test, even though I got all the answers right. It was simple "find the area of a triangle" and I would just write out the answer, without needed a calculator or write out medial steps; she said I was full of BS. I could do arithmetic faster in my head then she could in her calclator. She refused to do it and said if I didn't buy a calculator, I may not make it into math 10 (was it a threat? dunno). She did EVERYTHING on her calculator... 5x9, 12x11, 3x7...

2. Grade 11 physics... circuits, 2 resistors in series, each 1kohm, what is the total resistance... teacher pulls out her calculator, "1+1=..." - me and my friend burst out laughing (he fell out of chair laughing) and we got kicked out of class.

3. Back at UofA, me and a few of my friends had a tradition to go to a bar every thurs night, and me and one of those friends usually made a challenge who could predict the total on the bill (usually there would be 20 items or more on it, and we would doing it in our heads) - I was usually faster because I rounded and compensated, he was usually more accurate. On the drive between Edmonton and Calgary, a few times I would get bored and I would try to see how many license plates I could remember, both remembering them visually as a set, trying to group to try and remember them, or as 6 random numbers/letters.

4. Bit of a dorky thing to say, but back in high school when I did math competition - no calculators allowed.

Resp point 3 (the student entitlement) : I do think thats rediculous, but would that same student have asked something stupid like that in the previous generation? I think these types of attitudes are not generation specific; my dad has told me about a few slackers who would try something like that when he was at UofA. Despite MJM (MJK?) experience with grads from Alberta universities, I don't think you'd see this kind of stuff from the students I went to school with.

Originally Posted by 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.

I am wondering that myself

[redforever]

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

You make some good points. I don't think one should be expectd to have seen ahead to the of the financial markets tanking. 1.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 2.high standard of living has been maintained by 3.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.

1. Well, in some cases it should enable these people to get some help along the way. There are people who have worked their entire lives for various companies, that through no fault of their own, went under and now their pension plan has vanished. There are all kinds of companies in existence right now, in a lot of cases not very viable, Air Canada anyone? that have huge pension shortfalls. The employees have not been slackers, they have not necessarily been the overspenders, they have not necessarily taken out huge mortgages or loans. They are just plain workers from every segment of society. What do you tell them? Sorry buddy, you are just SOL? They have helped achieve a lot of the comforts that you and I now enjoy as a society today. Surely we don't tell these people to take a hike? I don't see that myself. If we want to be part and parcel of a developed country, then we have to be a kinder and gentler society that takes care of its citizens who sometimes require assistance or fall through the cracks.

2. I could have been more clear in what I meant about standard of living. I mainly was thinking of the infrastructure that we now have in place in Canada, the social services, the health care, those kinds of things. When you compare any of those to say mid 60's to the 80's, there is a vast improvement. And yes, Canada has borrowed to provide a lot of those services and health care continues to take a big bite every year, but all of these services do indeed contribute to our quality of living.

For a few examples. Highway #1 across Canada, it has only been within the last 10 years that most of it is twinned across our country. But unless you drove that highway in the 70's, you have no idea of the huge difference that makes for travellers, for business people whatever. Same with most rural roads across Canada. Most of them were abyssmal during that same time frame.

Universal healthcare has been a monumental achievement. Yeah, it needs some fixing, but compared to not having it, well there is no comparison. I almost lost my baby sister to routine appendicitis just prior to Tommy Douglas bringing in medicare. We lived 60 miles from a major center, access to medical care was not what it is now (even when you consider rural Canada still has problems accessing adequate health care) and my father, who was a simple farmer, bore the entire cost of her hospital stay and surgery.

And then there are the routine things, that everyone now takes for granted, like electricity and heating. It might be hard to imagine, but up till the mid 60's, there were parts of Saskatchewan without power. There were no natural gas lines to provide heating till well into the 70's or 80's. None of those services come cheap, but we should want them and we willing to pay for them if we wish to live in a developed country.

3. Unfortunately, you are right about this. And unfortunately, for too long, the citizens of Canada have not demanded enough accountability from their various levels of government nor have the various governments necessarily brought about change or improvements quickly enough. Governments need fixing too.

But I do see more people demanding accountability and demanding answers. I think part and parcel of that is we, the baby boomers, raised our children to question more and this generation is doing the same with their children.

When I look at my parents, that was not always part and parcel of their make up. I can think of too many examples of this with my mother visiting a doctor......unless you went in with her, she basically gave her arm so they could take her blood pressure, had a few tests, but would definitetly never volunteer much about any of her medical problems and she would certainly never question what medication was given to her or why.

[Calgaryborn]

Originally Posted by redforever

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?

I mean that bad things happen sometimes through no fault of your own. But those bad things are yours to bare. It's not fair to mortage your children's future. As for the cause of the financlal crisis I would lay the blame squarely on the Congress and Senate first of all. They controlled Fanny and Freddy. Next the President(Bush) because he wasn't agressive enough in sounding the alarm. The CEO's would come in a distant third. If I knew I could make high risk loans and turn around and bundle them together and sell them(to Fanny or Freddy) for a small profit I would be all over it. Fanny and Freddy were billed as government backed so who would think the well would be shut off without notice.

[redforever]

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

I mean that bad things happen sometimes through no fault of your own. But those bad things are yours to bare. It's not fair to mortage your children's future. As for the cause of the financlal crisis I would lay the blame squarely on the Congress and Senate first of all. They controlled Fanny and Freddy. Next the President(Bush) because he wasn't agressive enough in sounding the alarm. The CEO's would come in a distant third. If I knew I could make high risk loans and turn around and bundle them together and sell them(to Fanny or Freddy) for a small profit I would be all over it. Fanny and Freddy were billed as government backed so who would think the well would be shut off without notice.

Better back up farther than that. Deregulation in the USA started under Reagen and accelerated under Clinton and throughout it all, Allan Greenspan said everything was ok.

[looooob]

Originally Posted by Phanuthier

1. Back in grade 9 (about 12 years ago) my math teacher absolutely HATED me and failed me on a geometry test, even though I got all the answers right. It was simple "find the area of a triangle" and I would just write out the answer, without needed a calculator or write out medial steps; she said I was full of BS. I could do arithmetic faster in my head then she could in her calclator. She refused to do it and said if I didn't buy a calculator, I may not make it into math 10 (was it a threat? dunno). She did EVERYTHING on her calculator... 5x9, 12x11, 3x7...



Resp point 3 (the student entitlement) : I do think thats rediculous, but would that same student have asked something stupid like that in the previous generation? I think these types of attitudes are not generation specific; my dad has told me about a few slackers who would try something like that when he was at UofA. Despite MJM (MJK?) experience with grads from Alberta universities, I don't think you'd see this kind of stuff from the students I went to school with.

regarding some of your points about doing calculations in your head etc, your stories prove that you are a bright guy with a good math mind, those kids have existed in every generation. I'm guessing I was in high school about 15 years ahead of you and did the same things....what I guess we are using here are alot of anectodes, it would be interesting to chart whether the abilities for (say) mental math or memory or what not are better in this generation or the last...no matter what the data showed I would guess there would be tradeoffs in other areas, younger generations have access to better technology and another generation worth of accumulated knowledge, those are benefits, but older generations without those benefits would surely have had strengths in other areas

regarding the entitlement though, there is some data there (again not to entirely blame current students as they are only the product of the environment-parental, teachers, media they were raised in)...sure there were slackers with every generation, but there are some studies now showing a very high percentage of university students that expect a certain baseline mark for merely attending a class or filling out their homework -things I dont remember even from my slacker buddies in university--they knew they earned their Fs

again that doesn't mean that all kids are like that, or that the best and the brightest aren't as bright as ever before, but it does contribute at minimum to grade inflation I think....

[Shazam]

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

I mean that bad things happen sometimes through no fault of your own. But those bad things are yours to bare. It's not fair to mortage your children's future. As for the cause of the financlal crisis I would lay the blame squarely on the Congress and Senate first of all. They controlled Fanny and Freddy. Next the President(Bush) because he wasn't agressive enough in sounding the alarm. The CEO's would come in a distant third. If I knew I could make high risk loans and turn around and bundle them together and sell them(to Fanny or Freddy) for a small profit I would be all over it. Fanny and Freddy were billed as government backed so who would think the well would be shut off without notice.

Do you, or anyone you know, purchase Canada Savings Bonds?

[Calgaryborn]

Originally Posted by redforever

1. Well, in some cases it should enable these people to get some help along the way. There are people who have worked their entire lives for various companies, that through no fault of their own, went under and now their pension plan has vanished. There are all kinds of companies in existence right now, in a lot of cases not very viable, Air Canada anyone? that have huge pension shortfalls. The employees have not been slackers, they have not necessarily been the overspenders, they have not necessarily taken out huge mortgages or loans. They are just plain workers from every segment of society. What do you tell them? Sorry buddy, you are just SOL? They have helped achieve a lot of the comforts that you and I now enjoy as a society today. Surely we don't tell these people to take a hike? I don't see that myself. If we want to be part and parcel of a developed country, then we have to be a kinder and gentler society that takes care of its citizens who sometimes require assistance or fall through the cracks.

You are right. They should recieve help from the government. I don't think the bail outs were the correct way to give that help, though. Something more direct perhaps that dealt only with pensions. I think the companies should have been let fail. The American government could have softened the blow by buying up healthy mortgages and refinancing them at lower interest rates. This would of put more money in the hands of consumers and given enough capital to the financial institutes for the stronger ones to survive their losses and continue going.

Originally Posted by redforever

2. I could have been more clear in what I meant about standard of living. I mainly was thinking of the infrastructure that we now have in place in Canada, the social services, the health care, those kinds of things. When you compare any of those to say mid 60's to the 80's, there is a vast improvement. And yes, Canada has borrowed to provide a lot of those services and health care continues to take a big bite every year, but all of these services do indeed contribute to our quality of living.

For a few examples. Highway #1 across Canada, it has only been within the last 10 years that most of it is twinned across our country. But unless you drove that highway in the 70's, you have no idea of the huge difference that makes for travellers, for business people whatever. Same with most rural roads across Canada. Most of them were abyssmal during that same time frame.

Universal healthcare has been a monumental achievement. Yeah, it needs some fixing, but compared to not having it, well there is no comparison. I almost lost my baby sister to routine appendicitis just prior to Tommy Douglas bringing in medicare. We lived 60 miles from a major center, access to medical care was not what it is now (even when you consider rural Canada still has problems accessing adequate health care) and my father, who was a simple farmer, bore the entire cost of her hospital stay and surgery.

And then there are the routine things, that everyone now takes for granted, like electricity and heating. It might be hard to imagine, but up till the mid 60's, there were parts of Saskatchewan without power. There were no natural gas lines to provide heating till well into the 70's or 80's. None of those services come cheap, but we should want them and we willing to pay for them if we wish to live in a developed country.

Certainly infrastructure improvements have had a factor in improving our quality of life and are even worth incuring some debt if they are long lasting. There is a tipping point though and our debt appeared to reach that in the early 90s. We have older infrastructure and closed hospitals to show for Canada's lack of physical responsibilty.

Also with more infrastructure has come more regulation. I knew a fellow in the late 70s who built himself a cabin on crown land along a logging road. He applied for and got squatters status which meant the land became his and a few acres around it just for living on it a few years and developing it somewhat. Today that would be impossible. Even if you own the land you can't build without a building permit and applying for a road allowance. You would also need the septic system approved by an engineer and inspected. There might be a battle to get water rights for the creek as well.

Originally Posted by redforever

3. Unfortunately, you are right about this. And unfortunately, for too long, the citizens of Canada have not demanded enough accountability from their various levels of government nor have the various governments necessarily brought about change or improvements quickly enough. Governments need fixing too.

But I do see more people demanding accountability and demanding answers. I think part and parcel of that is we, the baby boomers, raised our children to question more and this generation is doing the same with their children.

When I look at my parents, that was not always part and parcel of their make up. I can think of too many examples of this with my mother visiting a doctor......unless you went in with her, she basically gave her arm so they could take her blood pressure, had a few tests, but would definitetly never volunteer much about any of her medical problems and she would certainly never question what medication was given to her or why.

Yes I think we are more likely to ask questions but, we do seem less likely to do something to change things. We all have known about the pension shortfalls but, have never demanded the government do something about it because we know it will cost us. We know wages are not keeping up with the real costs of living and haven't for thirty years; Yet we all carry way to much debt to consider the prolonged labour strikes it would take to gain the raises needed to maintain. In truth businesses couldn't provide the wages anyways because they are competeing against companies with lower wages in distant countries.

[Bagor]

Originally Posted by Phanuthier

Resp point 1 : Going back to my post just above, I would have to say that this would be common around all generations. The past generation (yours?) have engineers/architectures that have never been out on the construction building a bridge, but they can design it. Could you make the same assertion then? How about those using a slide rule rather then doing numbers by hand, does it make them understand or better then a calculator? Every generation see's new technology that assist people in doing their job, the key (like I said before) is be able to both understand what you are doing (i.e. not take the assisting tools for granted) as well as understand (that point might not be directed to me, but I am still responding to it.

Agreed, all I'm saying is that having better tools at hand that enable you to do a task quicker does not necessarily make someone cleverer.

Originally Posted by Phanuthier

I actually think the memory of this generation and ability to learn is better then any other generation, and this trend should continue.

What do you base this on? Particularly the memory bit.

[Phanuthier]

Originally Posted by Bagor

What do you base this on? Particularly the memory bit.

Everyday tasks that force younger people to use their memory (et al) more then any other generation.

will respond to the rest later... bit of a crisis trying to figure out fashion...

[Calgaryborn]

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?

No I don't think the Boomers took out many of those bad loans and the people who did are losing their houses because of their bad decisions. Unfortuanately those bad loans are not being covered by the sale of their homes so the lenders are having to cover the losses. Those lenders indirectly are mostly Baby Boomers. From what I've seen the American government has mainly thrown money at these companies who lent the Boomers money out and are now being saddled with devalued property which won't cover the loans if they even can be sold.

[JiriHrdina]

Originally Posted by Phanuthier

Everyday tasks that force younger people to use their memory (et al) more then any other generation.

I disagree - each generation has to remember different things but not necessarily use their memory more.

[redforever]

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

Certainly infrastructure improvements have had a factor in improving our quality of life and are even worth incuring some debt if they are long lasting. There is a tipping point though and our debt appeared to reach that in the early 90s. We have older infrastructure and closed hospitals to show for Canada's lack of physical responsibilty.


Also with more infrastructure has come more regulation......


Yes I think we are more likely to ask questions but, we do seem less likely to do something to change things. We all have known about the pension shortfalls but, have never demanded the government do something about it because we know it will cost us. We know wages are not keeping up with the real costs of living and haven't for thirty years; Yet we all carry way to much debt to consider the prolonged labour strikes it would take to gain the raises needed to maintain. In truth businesses couldn't provide the wages anyways because they are competeing against companies with lower wages in distant countries.

Well, in a lot of cases, we have closed hospitals because of the ineptitude of many provinces building hospitals in every little Tom, Dick and Harry town that could never convince 2 doctors to come to their town, let alone come to their town so the hospital could actually be opened. Do some research on what Saskatchewan did towards those endeavors.

That I can speak of personally. A hospital was built in a town 10 miles to the east of where I lived. To this day, it has never even performed a routine tonsilectomy. You need 2 doctors (in case one has a problem, the other can take over) to do any kind of procedures and the town (think 650 people) was never able to attract one doctor full time, let alone two doctors full time. It is a quasi medical center now.

In regards to more regulation, yes and no to that. As I mentioned above, too many times infrastructure was built on the whim of certain politicians. Some regulations were and are needed. Trick is to get the right balance.

In regards to change, I see a growing trend towards the last two generations disenfranchising themselves, they seem to be on the outside, grumbling, but only looking in and in many cases not getting involved. If that is due to the fact that they are just plain disullusioned and don't see any hope for change, or perhaps that they don't see a way out of the rat race, I don't know. But I would love to see a ground movement of the young voting demographic getting out there and being involved like in the last election in the USA.

[blankall]

I wonder how much of the problem with the current generation defaulting on loans has to do with the relative lack of opportunity available to them.

It seems like everyone from my parent's generation was essentially handed a job straight out of university. An undergrad degree was enough to get you a job that would let you buy a house and a car right away.

Now it seems like these jobs just aren't available right now. I think a lot of it has to do with the numbers of baby boomers and their refusal to retire. It seems like there was a whole group of people aged currently aged 30-45 who just had zero opportunity of ever making it. I refer to them as the "Prince Charles" Generation.

I think all of this is reflected in the way people push back the age of marriage and children further and further. Some people say this has a lot to do with some choice, but what choice is there? What carreers that don't require graduate school these days allow you to purchase a home. Even in jobs with graduate school, you probably won't make more than 40k to start. How are you supposed to get going when real estate costs you 500k for a condo or townhouse?

[Shazam]

God I can't wait until you young whiners turn old and the young people then isolate and study you to determine what nutrients can be extracted for their personal use.

[shermanator]

Once you get laid off, you lose that sense of entitlement pretty quick...
(Speaking from experience being part of this entitlement generation)

[Jedi Ninja]

Meh, at 25 you can survive layoff by moving back into your parents basement and ease your pain by smoking pot. For us who are closer to 45, it'll be bankruptcy court and prozac. At 25, you can sit it out for 5 years and still be able to start fresh again with a new career. At 45, an extended period of unemployment means your career is over and you are forced to become one of those older guys working in retail that I always wonder about. I'd rather be 25.

[Calgaryborn]

Originally Posted by redforever

Well, in a lot of cases, we have closed hospitals because of the ineptitude of many provinces building hospitals in every little Tom, Dick and Harry town that could never convince 2 doctors to come to their town, let alone come to their town so the hospital could actually be opened. Do some research on what Saskatchewan did towards those endeavors.

That I can speak of personally. A hospital was built in a town 10 miles to the east of where I lived. To this day, it has never even performed a routine tonsilectomy. You need 2 doctors (in case one has a problem, the other can take over) to do any kind of procedures and the town (think 650 people) was never able to attract one doctor full time, let alone two doctors full time. It is a quasi medical center now.

My experience in B.C. has been the opposite. Hospitals and operating rooms have closed down. All the specialists have been moved to the largest cities. All but, the most simple procedures require a 5 1/2 hour drive through the mountains. Often it is months before you get an appointment with a specialist. They order tests and then you wait another couple months for a second appointment. The driving is hard on the elderly and the waiting sometimes kills.

[Cowboy89]

Originally Posted by Jedi Ninja

Meh, at 25 you can survive layoff by moving back into your parents basement and ease your pain by smoking pot. For us who are closer to 45, it'll be bankruptcy court and prozac. At 25, you can sit it out for 5 years and still be able to start fresh again with a new career. At 45, an extended period of unemployment means your career is over and you are forced to become one of those older guys working in retail that I always wonder about. I'd rather be 25.

If you were 45, got laid off and couldn't find a decent job in your profession for years then you weren't very good at your job in the first place.