Why Millennials are So Stressed Out (a libertarian's take)

[Rassah]

22 hours ago, willow said:

honestly I think part of the problem is that we're told that, but never really given the resources to actually reach those goals. and if we are, they're either horribly outdated or just low quality

Or much more restricted than they used to be.

Btw, I don't think it's the boomers who are to blame. They're not the ones who raised Millennials, Gen-X'ers were.

 

20 hours ago, Strongbob said:

when more than half of the voting population refuses to even admit that a problem exists then making progress is nearly impossible. 

Well, fortunately, voting doesn't have any effect on progress, so at least that's one thing to not worry about.

20 hours ago, FenrirDarkWolf said:

How does one, exactly, find a job when there's barely anything in town to begin with and you can't drive?

Online. Plenty of things people need done remotely. And not just in software development. Find out what people need, offer or create that thing for them, and try to sell it online. I would even suggest to forget jobs, and strike out on your own beyond that old paradigm, but it's not easy. Read some books, there are a lot of them on such topics.

19 hours ago, Taikugemu said:

Skills? Experience?

Pfft, who needs that when you've got connections. 

You usually won't have connections if you're useless and have no skills. No one else needs your connection in that case. But the skills don't have to be very advanced. Even just being someone others know they can depend for help with their business (even a reliable extra pair of hands) helps a lot.

16 hours ago, Derin Darkpaw said:

Since a system in which people can survive regardless of individual fitness can conceivably be implemented wouldn't we be morally obligated to put such a system into place?

Not if such a system requires a whole lot of very immoral actions to precede and/or enforce it. Every time we tried such a system, tens of millions died

[willow]

32 minutes ago, Rassah said:

Or much more restricted than they used to be.

Btw, I don't think it's the boomers who are to blame. They're not the ones who raised Millennials, Gen-X'ers were.

That's true but I think it's because baby boomers made up the majority for the longest time, played the bigger role in most policies, and because it was still pretty early for any of the adverse effects to show any results 

I think Gen Xers are kind of stuck in the middle but since they've been out of school/have jobs, it doesn't effect them as much 

[FenrirDarkWolf]

28 minutes ago, Rassah said:

Online. Plenty of things people need done remotely. And not just in software development. Find out what people need, offer or create that thing for them, and try to sell it online. I would even suggest to forget jobs, and strike out on your own beyond that old paradigm, but it's not easy. Read some books, there are a lot of them on such topics.

So basically sell my skills online? Like, I'm good at organising data stuffs (usually), so maybe look for people who would need such skills?

Alternatively, sell myself for sex. "Marketing" myself indeed.

[Jerry]

I'm still partially one of those gen-Yers who stresses over things like employment. But I think I've been able to find a relatively comfortable position with a trade that's safe from automation in the short term, and a combination of skills that I hope will make me a desirable worker in the industry.

With enough skills I could try to start making webcomics for a living, though that's probably a bit unrealistic.

 

[Zeke]

I guess I fit into the Millennial category. Anyways, I am more or less in the middle of things, but I have frustrations with the educational system as well as the job market regarding education. 

 

[Xaende]

This isn't new. The tail end of Generation X faced a similar situation. A shortage of jobs, high student loan debt etc. And just when many of my peers were buying their first homes, the housing bubble burst and the economy tanked. We were hoping that the Baby Boomers would move along, allowing more of us to finally move up the company ladder, when a bunch of kids show up with a sense of entitlement instilled by their late Boomer or early X-er parents. The Baby Boomers don't seem to be going anywhere, leaving the tail X-ers and Millenials fighting for table scraps (or alternately, being creative and forging their own paths through startups, career flexibility, and taking less traditional paths). At least some things are more affordable now. For instance, mortgage interest rates are pretty good compared to the 10% or so that they were not long ago. I've been relatively successful for my age group, but not quite where my parents were at the same age.

As far who parented the Millenials, on average, I prefer the term Generation Jones. That demographic includes late Boomers and early X-ers. Then again, some of my peers were teen moms or otherwise young parents, some kids today have early boomer fathers etc. Outside of one's own family, what exactly constitutes a generation is debatable.

 

 

[FenrirDarkWolf]

My family's always been in some sort of monetary trouble, and it only got worse after my grandmother died (because her Social Security helped pay the bills).

It's just gotten worse with me going off to college and having very little money.

[Rassah]

11 hours ago, FenrirDarkWolf said:

So basically sell my skills online? Like, I'm good at organising data stuffs (usually), so maybe look for people who would need such skills?

Maybe. There's probably tons of micro-jobs asking to organize or tag photos (check Amazon Mechanical Turk). Or you could improve your skills by taking some online courses on actual data organizing, aka database management. Lots of requirements for that, especially since it's a somewhat tedious field that not many bother with.

9 hours ago, FenrirDarkWolf said:

My family's always been in some sort of monetary trouble...

Or you could learn about what your family had the weakest strength in, and learn about money management and finance in general. Just learning about money is a pretty good way to keep more money in your family.

10 hours ago, Xaende said:

This isn't new. The tail end of Generation X faced a similar situation. A shortage of jobs, high student loan debt etc. And just when many of my peers were buying their first homes, the housing bubble burst and the economy tanked.

On that topic, an article just came out with some horrible news: The Fed caused 93% of the entire stock market's move since 2008: Analysis

Basically, the gist is that 93% of the increases in the stock market, generally what is used as a measure of how well the economy is doing, was entirely from the US Federal Reserve printing money with QE, and that money getting pumped directly into stocks instead of the economy itself (what I've been claiming based on correlations and guesses in other threads, but is sustained by data here). What that means is that, basically, the economy didn't really improve almost at all since 2008. So people who were between 12 and 18 when that happened, grew up to be between 20 and 26 now, while entirely living within the constant reality of 2008, every single year. Basically, if you are 26 now, you wouldn't even remember what an actual good economy was, since you only graduated high school at 18 and entered the job market right when this period started.

[WileyWarWeasel]

3 hours ago, Rassah said:

Maybe. There's probably tons of micro-jobs asking to organize or tag photos (check Amazon Mechanical Turk). Or you could improve your skills by taking some online courses on actual data organizing, aka database management. Lots of requirements for that, especially since it's a somewhat tedious field that not many bother with.

Or you could learn about what your family had the weakest strength in, and learn about money management and finance in general. Just learning about money is a pretty good way to keep more money in your family.

On that topic, an article just came out with some horrible news: The Fed caused 93% of the entire stock market's move since 2008: Analysis

Basically, the gist is that 93% of the increases in the stock market, generally what is used as a measure of how well the economy is doing, was entirely from the US Federal Reserve printing money with QE, and that money getting pumped directly into stocks instead of the economy itself (what I've been claiming based on correlations and guesses in other threads, but is sustained by data here). What that means is that, basically, the economy didn't really improve almost at all since 2008. So people who were between 12 and 18 when that happened, grew up to be between 20 and 26 now, while entirely living within the constant reality of 2008, every single year. Basically, if you are 26 now, you wouldn't even remember what an actual good economy was, since you only graduated high school at 18 and entered the job market right when this period started.

The US and indeed the world economy has been essentially running on fumes since before 2008, though that's better than not running I suppose.

Hopefully you'll find the following chart from Shadow Stats useful on US GDP (I read another PDF showing great detail on how the real stats differed from official stats based on distorted calculations but unfortunately I can't remember its name or URL):

http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/gross-domestic-product-charts

Shadow Stats basically shows stats using older and more accurate calculations. These tend to be more accurate than today's calculations which have all sorts of distortions and imputations to distort inflation and GDP (eg if you own your home the estimated rental payments you might've made if you were renting it from someone else are added to official GDP).

Notice the divergence after 1983 when the calculations start getting changed to under report inflation and over report GDP (not saying they were 100% accurate before then but they would've been less manipulated). You can also see the general trend for growth to rebound to lower highs until it ends up permanently in the negative since 2005.

 

We've essentially been "faking" economic growth through unprecedented debt growth (and this is even using official stats):

https://ourfiniteworld.com/2015/09/14/how-our-energy-problem-leads-to-a-debt-collapse-problem/ (see Appendix for chart calculations)

Notice that peak GDP growth was around 1960 and that debt starting increasing faster than GDP since about 1970.

I'm afraid what we're facing today is merely the tail end of decades of socioeconomic problems. No wonder millennials are stressed.

[NikoLinni]

On 3/12/2016 at 0:39 PM, willow said:

I think part of the problem is that a lot of students are told to focus on doing things that will make them "marketable" after college rather than trying to get the real world practice. no one's exactly told how to get internships, only that they're there and they're beneficial to you. though some majors/schools require it to graduate. 

Kinda what I'm going through now, actually. I'm currently jobless after extending the one finger salute to Wal-Mart and quitting (I did it professionally, though) - though I may not be for long as I have an interview with Petco on Wedensday. Yay?

Prior to that, I was looking for some way to break into writing. But it's like...how do you do that, exactly? No one really tells you, so you're left to hours upon hours of Google searching to try and make some sense out of things. 

[FenrirDarkWolf]

11 hours ago, Rassah said:

Maybe. There's probably tons of micro-jobs asking to organize or tag photos (check Amazon Mechanical Turk). Or you could improve your skills by taking some online courses on actual data organizing, aka database management. Lots of requirements for that, especially since it's a somewhat tedious field that not many bother with.

Or you could learn about what your family had the weakest strength in, and learn about money management and finance in general. Just learning about money is a pretty good way to keep more money in your family.

All my studies are database management, that's quite literally a huge portion of my degree is learning how databases work and how to manage them. Other than that, I'm good at organising things, very OCD-like.

My mom is good with money, but she doesn't make enough to really help out outside of groceries and cell phone as much as my father, where it all goes to utility/rent/car payment/bills.

My dad is a bit selfish with money because he tends to spend what's left on things for himself.

[Rassah]

2 hours ago, NikoLinni said:

Kinda what I'm going through now, actually. I'm currently jobless after extending the one finger salute to Wal-Mart and quitting (I did it professionally, though) - though I may not be for long as I have an interview with Petco on Wedensday. Yay?

Still makes me cringe a little bit when people say they work in retail. There are better options available out there, they just need a bit of extra training, sometimes even paid for by the job you're applying to.

 

2 minutes ago, FenrirDarkWolf said:

All my studies are database management, that's quite literally a huge portion of my degree is learning how databases work and how to manage them. Other than that, I'm good at organising things, very OCD-like.

I heard PeopleSoft is in huge demand, especially for government jobs. Especially since few places teach it, and all their systems now run on it. So maybe that's something to look into.

2 minutes ago, FenrirDarkWolf said:

My dad is a bit selfish with money because he tends to spend what's left on things for himself.

To quote Robert Kiyosaki, "The rich by assets, the poor buy liabilities." Your dad needs to stop that.

[FenrirDarkWolf]

Just now, Rassah said:

I heard PeopleSoft is in huge demand, especially for government jobs. Especially since few places teach it, and all their systems now run on it. So maybe that's something to look into.

To quote Robert Kiyosaki, "The rich by assets, the poor buy liabilities." Your dad needs to stop that.

I'll give it a looksy. Trust me, we've tried, he's just a bit bone-headed and super stressed because everyone that works under him is utterly incompetent without him to watch.

[NikoLinni]

9 minutes ago, Rassah said:

Still makes me cringe a little bit when people say they work in retail. There are better options available out there, they just need a bit of extra training, sometimes even paid for by the job you're applying to.

Well with the Wal-Mart job I just took it because I needed money. Like seriously needed money. I would like to do something music or writing or videogame wise it's just...where the hell do you start and who do you talk to? 

[Ieono]

That's what happens when a person's upbringing is filled with far more fantasies than realities. 

The flip-side of that though is that we can create some pretty incredible things with our amazing imaginations. That's what I'm betting on. 

Edited March 15, 2016 by Ieono

[Naesaki]

1 hour ago, FenrirDarkWolf said:

My dad is a bit selfish with money because he tends to spend what's left on things for himself.

It sounds like to your Dad's mind, that because he is the main breadwinner in the family he has the right to spend the extra funds on whatever he wishes, in some respects its not a wrong viewpoint but when you've got a family to take care of there should be an order of precedence and priority.

[FenrirDarkWolf]

Just now, Naesaki said:

It sounds like to your Dad's mind, that because he is the main breadwinner in the family he has the right to spend the extra funds on whatever he wishes, in some respects its not a wrong viewpoint but when you've got a family to take care of there should be an order of precedence and priority.

I mean, generally most of it is spent on nights out with the family or dates with mom, but sometimes he just splurges on games.

[Rassah]

8 hours ago, NikoLinni said:

I would like to do something music or writing or videogame wise it's just...where the hell do you start and who do you talk to? 

Musicians, writers, and game designers, I would think.

7 hours ago, FenrirDarkWolf said:

I mean, generally most of it is spent on nights out with the family or dates with mom, but sometimes he just splurges on games.

One of my friends with his wife splurge on games and DVDs. They have every game system, and shelves full of games and movies. And then they complain about not having enough money, and how the rich are screwing society. It's a bit cringy.

[WileyWarWeasel]

13 minutes ago, Rassah said:

 

7 hours ago, FenrirDarkWolf said:

I mean, generally most of it is spent on nights out with the family or dates with mom, but sometimes he just splurges on games.

One of my friends with his wife splurge on games and DVDs. They have every game system, and shelves full of games and movies. And then they complain about not having enough money, and how the rich are screwing society. It's a bit cringy.

Unfortunately I've known people like this as well, amazing how easily most people seem to give into the nesting instinct and keep buying crap.

Also PC Master Race ;V

[AshleyAshes]

I got a raise after only 4.5 months at my new job! \o/  Successful millennial brag. :V

[Zeke]

3 minutes ago, AshleyAshes said:

I got a raise after only 4.5 months at my new job! \o/  Successful millennial brag. :V

Same here. It made me happy. :3

[Ratmomma]

On 3/15/2016 at 4:28 PM, Rassah said:

Still makes me cringe a little bit when people say they work in retail. There are better options available out there, they just need a bit of extra training, sometimes even paid for by the job you're applying to.

I feel like I'll be stuck in retail for a long time, and then when I look back on my life in 20yrs I'll be beyond disappointed with the direction of my life. 

I've got a BFA in Illustration, and I knew that really wouldn't land me shit in the US outside of teaching, as what.. less than 1% of artists actually 'make it' in this country. I'll openly admit I have no idea where I'm going with my life, because all I want to do is sit on my ass and paint, but that doesn't pay the bills. Sure, I can sell commissions, I can open up an Etsy (though not too happy about having a chunk of my profit deducted, but Store Envy seems to be a popular alternative) or a Redbubble or whatever, but that won't pay the bills. My particular market is saturated and highly competitive, and you only hear about the popular artists. Furry art, although niche, is still highly competitive, and what I've found to be true for years now is, "if you don't do porn, you won't be going far." I won't do porn, as I don't want it associated with my body of work or myself. Have I offered mature stuff before? Yes, and exclusively under an emergency commissions situation. Any bites? HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. No. I peddle my commissions across a couple different sites, but very rarely do I get a bite.

Right now I'm trying to learn Javascript on my own, and I'd like to work up to Python eventually. I don't know where that will take me, but learning to code could eventually land me somewhere that I can support myself.. so here's hoping?

[Yarra]

The economy is being managed by central banks now and the'll do everything they can to make it look awesome but some data is still hard to falsify.  It keeps getting worse but the media won't admit it because it will start the downward spiral. It's not if but when.  

 

[TrishaCat]

I don't entirely agree with the article; I believe its completely fair to want higher taxes on those with more money than those with less and to try and support the poor and lower wage gaps. I also think that its entirely fair for people to be upset with the current state of the job market, and that its not all just a lack of experience. However, I do agree that the laws limiting work are extremely dumb and awful. I wanted to work for years when I was younger, but I couldn't since it was against the law. Then I get yelled at by some guy for liking Bernie Sanders' ideas on college because "You should've saved up money before heading to college". Well gee, wouldn't that have been nice? I know the laws exist to protect children from being forced to do hard work, but slavery is supposed to be illegal anyways, and if kids want to work they should be allowed to. Would've made my younger years a lot better.

But its not just that; really, getting a job in the current market is ridiculously hard. Get a job while in college and your schoolwork goes down the drain, or perhaps you just can't get hours for work appropriately to fit in with your schedule. As far as personal experience goes, the only job I've ever gotten was a minimum wage job at McDonald's, and what I learned from that is that a lot of places are really scummy about making sure you don't make much money while working hard for that next to nothing. And of course that minimum wage jobs don't really give you much money to begin with, and that current wages are simply unacceptable. Why is it so bad that these "milennials" want higher wages? Is it so unacceptable to expect wages that one could actually live off of when they go to work? And the job market truly is terrible. As far as personal experience is concerned, I live in a very small town (population of about 20000) where the average person's age is 49. There are no jobs here. One has to travel far for jobs. And I have no car as a car is expensive. And I have no car insurance, (or any insurance for that matter), as insurance is expensive. So I can't get a job to make money so that I can use that money to get a job. How fun is that?

On another note, I really hate the term "milennials". To me, it comes off as very condescending and gives off a "holier than thou" tone from older people.

EDIT: I'm sorry for making this more personal than it probably should be; but I really hate any implication that young people are the problem and dumb things like that. Even if this article isn't so much implying that as it is that this whole system is currently messed up.

Edited March 17, 2016 by Battlechili

[Rassah]

@Ratmomma Regarding JavaScript, right now my company is exploring ReactNative, and were really excited about it. It makes coding apps really easy. You should check out out.

 

1 hour ago, Battlechili said:

I don't entirely agree with the article; I believe its completely fair to want higher taxes on those with more money than those with less

The problem with that thinking is the belief that higher taxes on those with more money will end up redistributing that money to those with less. That's absolutely not the case though. All that extra money will just go on more wars, corporate subsidies, bank bailouts, drug wars, bureaucracy, etc. We're already running a huge deficit, and are used to borrowing like crazy. More tax income won't change that.

Unless your only reason for higher taxes is because you're jealous that some people earn more than you, and want everyone to be as poor as you, but then that's a totally different issue.

1 hour ago, Battlechili said:

I know the laws exist to protect children from being forced to do hard work...

Actually they're not, they exist to pump up good unemployment numbers. When the law was passed, children weren't doing hard work for a century. It was passed around the Great Depression, during a time of huge unemployment. Make a whole group of employees (kids) illegal, and boom, they're removed from the unemployment numbers. Instant "job creation" if you just look at the new unemployment rate, making the president look good.

1 hour ago, Battlechili said:

Why is it so bad that these "milennials" want higher wages? Is it so unacceptable to expect wages that one could actually live off of when they go to work?

That's not the bad part. The bad part is wanting to be paid more for work that isn't worth much. If your work doesn't bring in what you're asking for, then there's no money to pay you, other than taking it from others who may be working harder or contributing much more important things. Then they might think it's not fair, leave, and then everyone's screwed. No one really owes anyone things to love off of. Expecting others to work to support you is akin to wanting slavery, basically.

What people should be demanding is more jobs, where they can compete for higher wages and learn better skills, not just more money for nothing.

As for travel and no car, I wonder if most millennials will be stuck with software development as their main most promising source of work. Designing stuff for 3D printing may be too.

[WileyWarWeasel]

3 hours ago, Yarra said:

The economy is being managed by central banks now and the'll do everything they can to make it look awesome but some data is still hard to falsify.  It keeps getting worse but the media won't admit it because it will start the downward spiral. It's not if but when.  

 

Looking at fundamentals (manufacturing, imports/exports, debt levels, debt serviceability, shipping prices, inventory-to-sales ratios, commodity prices, median wages, etc) it looks like we're already in a deflationary spiral, although yes the mainstream media admitting this would only make it worse.

 

I'd like to add a few things about that graph:

-I'm assuming the graph is for official USA average weekly earnings YoY after inflation?

-If so then the actual averages would most likely be even lower as inflation tends to be routinely understated among other things

-Median wages IMO are a better measure as a few rich people can more easily skew averages upwards even though most people are poor

 

8 hours ago, AshleyAshes said:

I got a raise after only 4.5 months at my new job! \o/  Successful millennial brag. :V

Sounds like you gave a good account of yourself, continue as you've begun your service!

 

3 hours ago, Battlechili said:

EDIT: I'm sorry for making this more personal than it probably should be; but I really hate any implication that young people are the problem and dumb things like that. Even if this article isn't so much implying that as it is that this whole system is currently messed up.

Don't worry, I think I see where you're coming from. Being born in the late 80s I daresay I've lived just long enough to notice the gradual downward slide of civilization, even here in Australia. Ultimately we can only do what we think is best for ourselves and those we care about.

 

1 hour ago, Rassah said:

The problem with that thinking is the belief that higher taxes on those with more money will end up redistributing that money to those with less. That's absolutely not the case though. All that extra money will just go on more wars, corporate subsidies, bank bailouts, drug wars, bureaucracy, etc. We're already running a huge deficit, and are used to borrowing like crazy. More tax income won't change that.

Unless your only reason for higher taxes is because you're jealous that some people earn more than you, and want everyone to be as poor as you, but then that's a totally different issue.

The way that taxes are spent varies greatly from country to country, and I'll certainly agree that the way that taxes are spent is at least as important as how much is gathered.

 

1 hour ago, Rassah said:

Actually they're not, they exist to pump up good unemployment numbers. When the law was passed, children weren't doing hard work for a century. It was passed around the Great Depression, during a time of huge unemployment. Make a whole group of employees (kids) illegal, and boom, they're removed from the unemployment numbers. Instant "job creation" if you just look at the new unemployment rate, making the president look good.

From a cursory glance I see there were a few laws passed just before the depression but not ratified. It wasn't until near the end of the depression that laws/acts were passed and actually enforced which indeed would've improved employment figures on the surface.

In the late 20th century pretty much all nations also adopted an international standard for unemployment: a working-age person working less than one hour a week and actively looking for work counts as unemployed.

Obviously the official unemployment figures are almost entirely worthless since they:

-Don't take into consideration wages, costs of living (real inflation), hours worked past one hour, conditions/perks (eg paid holidays and sick leave, insurance coverage), types of employment (eg a permanent employee is more likely to spend their earnings than a contractor that doesn't know when the next contract might commence), etc

-Don't cover "discouraged workers" who are no longer looking for work

-Don't cover people who don't work but are living off of passive investments such as managed funds or share dividends (yes, other people are working for the fiat toilet paper owned by the passive investor but in terms of actual productivity the person sitting on a mound of managed funds might as well not exist since the money would still be there)

-Don't cover people in cushy private or government jobs who do no real work (eg CEO's son being given some do-nothing position)

-Don't cover others that can technically work but are on a pension of some sorts an so on

 

2 hours ago, Rassah said:

That's not the bad part. The bad part is wanting to be paid more for work that isn't worth much. If your work doesn't bring in what you're asking for, then there's no money to pay you, other than taking it from others who may be working harder or contributing much more important things. Then they might think it's not fair, leave, and then everyone's screwed. No one really owes anyone things to love off of. Expecting others to work to support you is akin to wanting slavery, basically.

What people should be demanding is more jobs, where they can compete for higher wages and learn better skills, not just more money for nothing.

As for travel and no car, I wonder if most millennials will be stuck with software development as their main most promising source of work. Designing stuff for 3D printing may be too.

It's a bit tricky to demand more good jobs when the good-paying ones have mostly disappeared or been off-shored over several decades.

Software development is also tricky for the same reason, more of it is being done in India and China now.

That being said there are still some opportunities left to exploit, but the pool for well-paying jobs is overall shrinking.

[AshleyAshes]

4 hours ago, Rassah said:

Actually they're not, they exist to pump up good unemployment numbers. When the law was passed, children weren't doing hard work for a century. It was passed around the Great Depression, during a time of huge unemployment. Make a whole group of employees (kids) illegal, and boom, they're removed from the unemployment numbers. Instant "job creation" if you just look at the new unemployment rate, making the president look good.

Seeing a libertarian claim that child labor laws are a government conspiracy is so cartoonishly stereotypical, I almost want to believe that Rassah is trolling...

[MalletFace]

5 hours ago, Rassah said:

 Actually they're not, they exist to pump up good unemployment numbers. When the law was passed, children weren't doing hard work for a century. It was passed around the Great Depression, during a time of huge unemployment. Make a whole group of employees (kids) illegal, and boom, they're removed from the unemployment numbers. Instant "job creation" if you just look at the new unemployment rate, making the president look good.

Let's check that, no?

They didn't do hard work? The amazing thing about the early 20th is that people were obsessed with recording it. For example, Lewis Hine photographed child labor across the United States. All of my great grandparents worked in mills or mines as children, so I know you're speaking BS.

If seeing it isn't enough, though, and you prefer actual data, then let's get to it.

In 1937, unemployment was at around 14%. In 1938 - when the FLSA was passed - unemployment was around 19%. In 1938, unemployment was around 17%. Your reasoning suggests the decline in percent unemployed was caused by removing workers from the labor force, so let's look at that.

In 1937, the labor force was around 54.3 million. In 1938, the labor force was around 55 million. In 1939, the labor force was around 55.6 million. If you were right, the labor force should have dropped 1-2 million - the estimated number of child workers at the time - but it didn't. Even more, from 1937 to 1938, the number of unemployed rose from around 7.7 million to 9.5 million.

So the labor force grew, which made the percent unemployed drop. How did removing child labor - which the FLSA hardly did - cause that, again?

Edited March 17, 2016 by MalletFace

[Ratmomma]

@Rassah Oooohh, that looks pretty neat! I'll have to mess around with it once I get Javascript down more. Thank you!

[AshleyAshes]

34 minutes ago, MalletFace said:

So the labor force grew, which made the percent unemployed drop. How did removing child labor - which the FLSA hardly did - cause that, again?

Rassah should be able to employ as many toddlers for $1\hr in his bitcoin mines as he wants!  But the government has enslaved him!  He's the victim here!

[WileyWarWeasel]

53 minutes ago, MalletFace said:

Let's check that, no?

They didn't do hard work? The amazing thing about the early 20th is that people were obsessed with recording it. For example, Lewis Hine photographed child labor across the United States. All of my great grandparents worked in mills or mines as children, so I know you're speaking BS.

If seeing it isn't enough, though, and you prefer actual data, then let's get to it.

In 1937, unemployment was at around 14%. In 1938 - when the FLSA was passed - unemployment was around 19%. In 1938, unemployment was around 17%. Your reasoning suggests the decline in percent unemployed was caused by removing workers from the labor force, so let's look at that.

In 1937, the labor force was around 54.3 million. In 1938, the labor force was around 55 million. In 1939, the labor force was around 55.6 million. If you were right, the labor force should have dropped 1-2 million - the estimated number of child workers at the time - but it didn't. Even more, from 1937 to 1938, the number of unemployed rose from around 7.7 million to 9.5 million.

So the labor force grew, which made the percent unemployed drop. How did removing child labor - which the FLSA hardly did - cause that, again?

I'll be damned. What appeared to hold a little water on first glance by Rassah was again thoroughly dismissed by further analysis. Good job.

[PastryOfApathy]

On 3/15/2016 at 4:28 PM, Rassah said:

Still makes me cringe a little bit when people say they work in retail. There are better options available out there, they just need a bit of extra training, sometimes even paid for by the job you're applying to.

I work in retail and I cringe whenever I see any of your posts so I guess we're even.

seriously banning child labor was a sinister government plot? holy shit dude lmao

Edited March 17, 2016 by PastryOfApathy

[AshleyAshes]

44 minutes ago, PastryOfApathy said:

I work in retail and I cringe whenever I see any of your posts so I guess we're even.

seriously banning child labor was a sinister government plot? holy shit dude lmao

Do you think that he cringes in the face of all retail workers when he's buying things too?  Like, make a scene and demand that the entire mall shut down because there should be no retail employees?

[Troj]

Abed, you have Aspergers.

[PastryOfApathy]

10 hours ago, AshleyAshes said:

Do you think that he cringes in the face of all retail workers when he's buying things too?  Like, make a scene and demand that the entire mall shut down because there should be no retail employees?

He's probably the type of person who refuses to walk into any kind of retail store because it's filled with peasants and beneath him.

Either that or he's that jackass who goes into wal-mart and acts like an entitled piece of shit to everybody working there because he's obviously superior to them and as such they should feel honored to be graced by his obviously superior intellect.

[AshleyAshes]

So, according to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics 10% of the labor force in the United States works in retail with it basically being one of the most common occupations in the entire economy of the United States.  It seems like the whole 'being the person who sells the stuff to all the other persons' role might actually be SUPER important to the economy, especially if it represents 10% of the economy, and that 'no one should work retail' ends in 'No one can buy anything'?

[Strongbob]

On 3/17/2016 at 5:42 AM, AshleyAshes said:

Seeing a libertarian claim that child labor laws are a government conspiracy is so cartoonishly stereotypical, I almost want to believe that Rassah is trolling...

Yes, I think Rassah has gone from regular villainy here to cartoonish supervillainy.  The idea that children should be expected to work starting at age five to pay for college is crazy, and the $10k they manage to save by giving up their entire childhood is going to be blown in the first semester of college.  I hope it was worth it. 

[AshleyAshes]

1 hour ago, Strongbob said:

Yes, I think Rassah has gone from regular villainy here to cartoonish supervillainy.  The idea that children should be expected to work starting at age five to pay for college is crazy, and the $10k they manage to save by giving up their entire childhood is going to be blown in the first semester of college.  I hope it was worth it. 

But will Rassah accept child labor if the children work in retail?  Or do they need to get more training first to do 'better' than retail?

[PastryOfApathy]

3 hours ago, AshleyAshes said:

So, according to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics 10% of the labor force in the United States works in retail with it basically being one of the most common occupations in the entire economy of the United States.  It seems like the whole 'being the person who sells the stuff to all the other persons' role might actually be SUPER important to the economy, especially if it represents 10% of the economy, and that 'no one should work retail' ends in 'No one can buy anything'?

They're all filthy subhumans peasants who are clearly too lazy to work better jobs. Us intellectuals need these dredges of society so I can get my Happy Meal after a hard days work of handing out bitcoin pamphlets to college students.

[Rassah]

On 3/17/2016 at 5:26 AM, WileyWarWeasel said:

The way that taxes are spent varies greatly from country to country, and I'll certainly agree that the way that taxes are spent is at least as important as how much is gathered.

The key point is that people generally think that government manages its money like they manage their own finances, or how businesses manage money, meaning money is earned, then that amount is allocated to various expenses, and whatever shortcomings arise are covered by short term borrowing. In actuality that's a bit backwards. Governments first allocate money to various expenses (budget), not even looking at or caring if the money is actually there, then see how much will actually be brought in by taxes, and borrowing the remainder using loans that will never get paid off. Basically, instead of making budgeting decisions based on income, like all people and businesses do, they make those budgeting decisions entirely on how much they think they need to spend (with that need told to them by special interests and constituents), and worry about the money after. So, it really doesn't matter if tax revenues go up or down between the years, and consequently increasing taxes to increase revenue won't change anything other than how much or little would have to be borrowed. Likewise, focusing on policy alone, say by asking to increase spending in some social program, doesn't depend at all on requiring to raise taxes first.

I haven't found this to differ country to country btw.

On 3/17/2016 at 5:26 AM, WileyWarWeasel said:

It's a bit tricky to demand more good jobs when the good-paying ones have mostly disappeared or been off-shored over several decades.

Software development is also tricky for the same reason, more of it is being done in India and China now.

I think the trickiest part is that to get good jobs here, we have to drastically reduce the barriers to businesses to start those jobs, but the people who actually need those jobs tend to dislike business in general, and to them "deregulation" is a dirty word, so they are more likely to fight for policies that actually make their job situation worse.

As for software development in China, personal anecdote here, but none of our developers are in India or China (Canada, USA, Chile, Russia, Germany, Austria, UK). A lot of ideas development doesn't even happen for a company in a specific country anymore. At least not for small startups. As long as you have internet access, you should be OK.

Incidentally, we're looking for a UI developer. We have the UI designed, and need someone with Android and iOS dev skills to implement it into our app.

On 3/17/2016 at 8:34 AM, MalletFace said:

For example, Lewis Hine photographed child labor across the United States. All of my great grandparents worked in mills or mines as children, so I know you're speaking BS.

I wouldn't consider working in factories or textile mills "hard work," no. I would call it what adults doing it call it: work. I was also under the impression that kids haven't done work in mines since 1700's or early 1800's at the latest. I'm sure there were some minor exceptions. But for the history and purpose of the law, I hope History channel is somewhat of a good resource (despite their current "Aliens!" bs): http://www.history.com/topics/child-labor

Quote, "This success [of anti-child labow groups passinf the laws] arose not only from popular hostility to child labor, generated in no small measure by the long-term work of the child labor committees and the climate of reform in the New Deal period, but also from the desire of Americans in a period of high unemployment to open jobs held by children to adults."

The immediate results don't actually matter compared to the intent, which was as I've stated, to clear up jobs for adults, thus improving unemployment numbers, which I'm sure the president was all for. Plus the numbers you mentioned are unreliable, since the official 2 million kids employed was being wildly understated. Also matters the end result, where children who had a chance at some work and apprenticeship experience before they were 14 losing that opportunity, and the age at which they can get employment kept growing, now effectively being up to their mid twenties, as per the OP. I'll post the article by the same guy who wrote the OP one on this topic in a new topic.

3 hours ago, Strongbob said:

The idea that children should be expected to work

Yeah, see, that's why socialists are brain-dead morons. Any time you present them with an idea of increased freedom, such as "children should be free to work and pursue things that give them a sense if self worth (getting paid) and provide them with valuable experiences and contacts, if they want to," and the morons who are so brainwashed by power and statism immediately think, "you mean they'll have to be FORCED to do that 'freedom' thing?! Oh noes!!!" Go back to your welfare, hippies!

P.S. @PastryOfApathy Do try to read and comprehend some times. When someone says, "Still makes me cringe a little bit when people say they work in retail. There are better options available out there..." they don't mean that people in retail are somehow a lower class, they mean that retail is a shitty career to be aiming for. Thus the "there are better options available" in the very next sentence. The subject matter for these sentences, referred to by "options," is jobs, not people. Why the fuck is an immigrant like me who's native language isn't English better at English than you?

[NikoLinni]

8 minutes ago, Rassah said:

P.S. @PastryOfApathy Do try to read and comprehend some times. When someone says, "Still makes me cringe a little bit when people say they work in retail. There are better options available out there..." they don't mean that people in retail are somehow a lower class, they mean that retail is a shitty career to be aiming for. Thus the "there are better options available" in the very next sentence. The subject matter for these sentences, referred to by "options," is jobs, not people. Why the fuck is an immigrant like me who's native language isn't English better at English than you?

Yeah I gotta agree with @Rassah on this one, it seemed like Pastry was putting words in their mouth. 

[Rassah]

New topic started on child labor laws here 

hopefully we can keep this thread limited to misguided and greedy policies of the current rulling class keeping millennials down.

[PastryOfApathy]

I have better things to do than spend my time reading one of Rassah's walls of word salad.

Scientifically speaking, I'm better than him in virtually every way possible so it's not like I have anything to prove anyways.

Edited March 18, 2016 by PastryOfApathy

[WileyWarWeasel]

14 hours ago, Rassah said:

The key point is that people generally think that government manages its money like they manage their own finances, or how businesses manage money, meaning money is earned, then that amount is allocated to various expenses, and whatever shortcomings arise are covered by short term borrowing. In actuality that's a bit backwards. Governments first allocate money to various expenses (budget), not even looking at or caring if the money is actually there, then see how much will actually be brought in by taxes, and borrowing the remainder using loans that will never get paid off. Basically, instead of making budgeting decisions based on income, like all people and businesses do, they make those budgeting decisions entirely on how much they think they need to spend (with that need told to them by special interests and constituents), and worry about the money after. So, it really doesn't matter if tax revenues go up or down between the years, and consequently increasing taxes to increase revenue won't change anything other than how much or little would have to be borrowed. Likewise, focusing on policy alone, say by asking to increase spending in some social program, doesn't depend at all on requiring to raise taxes first.

I haven't found this to differ country to country btw.

So basically government borrows money to spend. Businesses do the same thing as well whether through bank loans, bonds, etc.

 

14 hours ago, Rassah said:

I think the trickiest part is that to get good jobs here, we have to drastically reduce the barriers to businesses to start those jobs, but the people who actually need those jobs tend to dislike business in general, and to them "deregulation" is a dirty word, so they are more likely to fight for policies that actually make their job situation worse.

As for software development in China, personal anecdote here, but none of our developers are in India or China (Canada, USA, Chile, Russia, Germany, Austria, UK). A lot of ideas development doesn't even happen for a company in a specific country anymore. At least not for small startups. As long as you have internet access, you should be OK.

Incidentally, we're looking for a UI developer. We have the UI designed, and need someone with Android and iOS dev skills to implement it into our app.

So hiring foreigners for a fraction of hiring local people doesn't make it tricky for local people to compete eh. Also some regulations such as safety and environmental standards are actually useful for workers and people around facilities for example.

 

13 hours ago, PastryOfApathy said:

I have better things to do than spend my time reading one of Rassah's walls of word salad.

Scientifically speaking, I'm better than him in virtually every way possible so it's not like I have anything to prove anyways.

But how many bitcoins do you have?

[Rassah]

19 hours ago, WileyWarWeasel said:

So basically government borrows money to spend.

No, you missed the key difference. Governments borrow money to cover what was already spent. The spending doesn't depend on what is possible to borrow. And the borrowing doesn't influence how much can be spent. The two are completely disconnected.

The reason this is important is because, contrary to popular belief, you don't need to raise taxes to provide social programs. You just need to convince government to start providing them. The borrowing will happen after they are actually passed, and apparently governments can borrow infinite amounts of money indefinitely.

And conversely, passing tax increases will not lead to expanded social programs. That money will just go to cover whatever already established budgets have already spent money. All it will do is offset the amount of money needed to be borrowed.

So, if you are truly for expanding social programs, then vote to support expanded social programs. If you vote to increase taxes on the rich, you're not voting to improve income equality by lifting up the lower and middle class, all you're doing is lowering the upper class (i.e. just envy).

20 hours ago, WileyWarWeasel said:

So hiring foreigners for a fraction of hiring local people doesn't make it tricky for local people to compete eh. Also some regulations such as safety and environmental standards are actually useful for workers and people around facilities for example.

Local people have things those foreigners don't. Like a good education, language skills, better understanding of local culture, and from that improved creativity for new ideas on how to improve our system. Foreigners don't even know what kind of system we have. We are still hiring a lot of people locally. It's only people with nothing to contribute but manual labor that suffer. And besides, what's your solution? Make hiring people in other countries illegal?

[WileyWarWeasel]

4 hours ago, Rassah said:

No, you missed the key difference. Governments borrow money to cover what was already spent. The spending doesn't depend on what is possible to borrow. And the borrowing doesn't influence how much can be spent. The two are completely disconnected.

The reason this is important is because, contrary to popular belief, you don't need to raise taxes to provide social programs. You just need to convince government to start providing them. The borrowing will happen after they are actually passed, and apparently governments can borrow infinite amounts of money indefinitely.

And conversely, passing tax increases will not lead to expanded social programs. That money will just go to cover whatever already established budgets have already spent money. All it will do is offset the amount of money needed to be borrowed.

So, if you are truly for expanding social programs, then vote to support expanded social programs. If you vote to increase taxes on the rich, you're not voting to improve income equality by lifting up the lower and middle class, all you're doing is lowering the upper class (i.e. just envy).

Deficit spending (whether by Government or central banks) comes at the cost of devaluing currency through money printing. As excess money printing would eventually make the currency worthless governments and central banks cannot borrow infinite amounts of money indefinitely without an indefinitely expanding economy (and one that is expanding fast enough).

We can also look at the private side of the coin: contrary to popular belief, some businesses don't need to make profits to stay in business. You just need to convince desperate investors and dreamers to buy your shares and bonds (see Tesla and LinkedIn for examples).

Taxes do not go directly into paying for programs, but they do go into paying back government debt (eg bonds, treasuries, etc) which gives them more wiggle room to borrow for future programs without even more excessive money printing. Keep in mind also that every new dollar being printed is being printed on credit.

4 hours ago, Rassah said:

Local people have things those foreigners don't. Like a good education, language skills, better understanding of local culture, and from that improved creativity for new ideas on how to improve our system. Foreigners don't even know what kind of system we have. We are still hiring a lot of people locally. It's only people with nothing to contribute but manual labor that suffer. And besides, what's your solution? Make hiring people in other countries illegal?

It's nice to hear you're hiring locals, however the general tendency of developed countries has been to offshore as much as possible to poorer countries. This includes jobs that require university education. Foreign workers in Bangladesh making clothes or programming for example don't need to know much about the Western system that's hiring them, all they need to do is follow instructions for minimum pay.

 

I'm afraid there is no solution to our predicament. If one company does not reduce costs by hiring cheap overseas labor another company will which will give them an advantage over the company sticking with locals.

We are all trapped in a global prisoner's dilemma. For every one individual/business/bureaucrat/etc doing the right thing (whatever that is) there are several exploiting the system as much as possible or trying to change the system to something they can exploit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma

[Rassah]

On 3/20/2016 at 5:19 AM, WileyWarWeasel said:

Deficit spending (whether by Government or central banks) comes at the cost of devaluing currency through money printing. As excess money printing would eventually make the currency worthless governments and central banks cannot borrow infinite amounts of money indefinitely without an indefinitely expanding economy (and one that is expanding fast enough).

Well, those are the facts and reality, but that's not how various departments within government see it. Seriously, when I was working as a Senior Financial Analyst for the Department of Housing, we had target budgets for each program, based on what the people in charge felt "the people" need, and we just drew up the budget with those numbers in mind, with my job being only to estimate how much of that budget can be covered by actual income, and how much will have to be borrowed. Borrowing was a totally different part of the government that didn't have anything to do with us, or that we even cared about. Senators could obviously say "No" to our budget request, and deny us the money, thus not having to borrow, but that never happened.

And then, there's the whole branch of economics (Keynesian) that was created to be able to explain away how governments can keep borrowing indefinitely, where I guess the idea is that as government keeps borrowing and spending, it will keep stimulating and growing the economy, and thus the economy will get bigger, create more tax revenues, and government can borrow more. It's what has been driving American, European, and Asian governments' economies for the last century. Unfortunately more and more examples are popping up that prove that the idea is false. Eventually the lenders decide that you're just not worth the risk, or they simply run out of money, and then the country gets fucked.

On 3/20/2016 at 5:19 AM, WileyWarWeasel said:

Taxes do not go directly into paying for programs, but they do go into paying back government debt (eg bonds, treasuries, etc) which gives them more wiggle room to borrow for future programs without even more excessive money printing. Keep in mind also that every new dollar being printed is being printed on credit.

Yeah, I know all that and am on your side with regards to this.

On 3/20/2016 at 5:19 AM, WileyWarWeasel said:

It's nice to hear you're hiring locals, however the general tendency of developed countries has been to offshore as much as possible to poorer countries. This includes jobs that require university education. Foreign workers in Bangladesh making clothes or programming for example don't need to know much about the Western system that's hiring them, all they need to do is follow instructions for minimum pay.

It really depends on the job though. Basic, simple, manual labor or manufacturing type jobs are better to outsource (even basic software production). More complex jobs, especially for projects that will require long term upkeep (such as a financial app you expect to need updates and support for at least 5 years), are best done with a dedicated team that can be very creative, and can work well together, instead of just some outsource types you give a task to and never hear from again. So, it's nice that we can reduce costs for jobs that just need basic instructions, and there's still opportunities if you're willing to "think outside of the box" so to speak.

On 3/20/2016 at 5:19 AM, WileyWarWeasel said:

I'm afraid there is no solution to our predicament. If one company does not reduce costs by hiring cheap overseas labor another company will which will give them an advantage over the company sticking with locals.

I think the solution is just outsource as much as possible until there's no places left to outsource to. When we outsource, we bring up the economic level of those countries up to our own level, where they start to develop a strong middle class, also start buying various luxuries (like TVs and refrigerators), and become too expensive to outsource to, but self sufficient like us. As we raise their economic level, production and creativity in the world as a whole goes up too. Next up is Africa. Once that's done with, there's no one to outsource to, and everyone will finally be on level playing field, where no one can lose their job to outsourcing, simply because there's no cheap labor left. Though by then a lot of our jobs may be done by cheap robots, but that's a different issue entirely, which I believe will make the world even easier to live in.

[Feelwell]

spelling mistakes all over the thing

[DevilBear]

Writing is great. I aspire to have a book publised one day.

That being said, for every 1000 jerkoffs who write something, 50 get published. Of those 50, 1 might become popular enough a person could make some money.

It's important to have dreams. But dreams don't pay the bills.

[Conker]

8 minutes ago, Feelwell the Rabbit said:

How about writing though? It seems to be a bit like art, in that it's competive, theres a massive amount of contributors. However it seems that everyone has a different opinion on wether you can live off writing alone. By writing I mean stories, novels, novellas, etc.

Very few writers, even ones that get published, actually make a living off of their books. You know about the exceptions because that's what hits the news.

So it's probably not going to happen unless you land the next Harry Potter or something.