Reply #33: The point isn't that no one can be successful

[Indenturedebtor]

Just that overall it's much harder.

Look we can sit here and tell all the stories in the world, but the numbers are the numbers.

A big part of the problem is that CEO pay is now about 170 times higher than the lowest paid worker, whereas in the 70's it was somewhere around 50 times higher. Now that's from memory I may be 10 or so points off but it is what it is. Now we're also going to have to keep SS solvent for a generation that is much larger than ours, and in a country that no offense has been run into the ground by the majority of that generation. Personally I'm thinking about leaving the country to go fuck itself.

We now get less vacation, fewer benefits, less pay when adjusted for inflation, and have fewer opportunities for advancement. Also we're required to have more education to get the jobs, and for most of us that means more debt. We also HAVE to have cellphones, computers, and cars in order to work so that means MORE DEBT just to enter the system. We work more for less pay.

And don't forget that most of the profit takers in this housing bubble weren't from my generation. My generation got fucked probably most of all in this recent downturn.

How much debt did you middle aged folks have to acrue to enter the system? Personally i'm looking at about 60k just to get a degree, buy work clothes, and get back and forth to work to make what someone like me made in 1972... before any adjustments for inflation.

On edit:

Don't forget that we're also fighting a baby boomer war at the moment. later on we're going to have to deal with all the problems that were largely left to my generation to fix such as global climate change, etc. Look I know that as Dems it's not your fault... but dammit if I'm not sick of the "You brought this on yourselves" shit from the older folks. How exactly did I do that? By working my ass of 80 hours a week in your businesses to pay your salaries at the university, and to then have to buy the shit that you make to get another shitty job with your companies so that you can pay off a house and sell it to me at an inflated price which will just further put me up to my eyes in debt... not to mention the 10k in national debt that your generation has saddled me with.

Stuff it. I am not old enough to have had control over this crap. I'm not a big spender AT ALL.