Reply #40: Experience is a great teacher, I learned a lot by having the rug pulled out from under me repeatedly

[slackmaster]

But the lessons of life teach only those who will learn from them.

... you got to start your economic life in a bubble economy... rather than a bust economy.

Try putting yourself in the perspective of someone who had that timing. Your analysis of the economy is correct, but you have utterly failed to put yourself in my shoes.

The first three years after finishing my undergraduate work were very bleak. I had to move back to my parents' house for part of the first year, which was very humiliating. I was dead broke, sometimes employed but couldn't get established in a meaningful job. I collected unemployment a couple of times, and did a lot of construction work because that was all I knew how to do (that anyone would pay for.)

Having an entry-level job during a bubble is no better for most people than having one at any other time. I started my first "real" job in 1983, working as a technical writer for a fast-growing financial institution. A federal Savings Bank - IOW an S&L given greater borrowing power by various acts of deregulation. My salary was low, but I was glad to have a job and I learned a lot about how to get along with people and how to communicate. I naively invested too much into the stock of the company I worked for - It went public in 1984 and I thought I could make a bunch of money by jumping on the bandwagon early. I married a woman I met on the job, and within a few years we were both out of work and struggling to pay the rent on a very small house. The whole thing collapsed in the "S&L Crisis" (read about it if you are not familiar with the history.) I lost my shirt on the company stock.

(BTW, do you have any clue what interest rates were like in the 1980s? Do you know what a typical mortgage looked like in 1983 or 1984? How do you think it felt to a young person who had aspirations of owning a home? Look it up, or ask someone who lived through it.)

Things gradually got better for us over the next several years. By 1997 we were able to buy our own house - We had some savings, good credit, and prices were at a low point. We were both sufficiently experienced that we had a lot less trouble finding jobs than we had during the previous cycle. But the lack of a common crisis to fight led to the deterioration of our marriage. At age 40 I was divorced and had a net worth of zero, just like the day I was born and the day I finished my undergraduate studies.

I rode the wave of the ".com bubble" for a while, and took a huge hit on stock options the last time I was laid off of a job, which was early 2004. My accountant was barely able to save me from losing my shirt on Alternative Minimum Tax, and I was by no means one of the ultra-wealthy people the AMT was originally intended to target. Another big lesson learned.

I'm in a good position now - I have a skill set that is in high demand, and I haven't had much trouble finding work for almost 20 years. I kept the house, and am in good shape on loan-to-value. I have abundant credit available. But it has taken decades of hard work to get to a place where I thought, when I was in my 20s, that I should be at age 40. Time is growing shorter by the day, and I won't allow myself to waste any of it wallowing in bitterness over the past.

Your condescension towards those who have to try to figure out what to do in the face of a desolate economic landscape just displays what a d*^$#ßå& you are at heart... and that fact that those your age and slightly older are, in fact, the one's who have been in charge of the economy for the last 20 ish years... does in fact mean that "it's the fault of older people". (That's just math, and HR.)

Youth is wasted on the young. I hope that you live long enough and keep your health so that you have a chance to become sufficiently mature to see how childish that entire paragraph seems to me. Everyone my age HAS faced a desolate economic landscape. Stamping your feet, pointing fingers, and throwing out personal attacks isn't going to get you hired or make you creditworthy. I hope you know how to behave better in real life.