Like so many of our national problems, this one started with Boomers lying to children. I'm kind of of the opinion that we should just take 70% of all boomer wealth as a lump sum and start applying it across the board to climate change, national debt, student loans, environmental clean up, reparations to non-violent drug offenders, and a dozen other fuck ups we inherited.
Sorry your guidance counselors were retarded, but you weren’t aware that maybe some jobs were more in demand than others? This has to be explained? I just don’t buy that the mommy government needs to step in, kiss the boo boo and make it all better because a bunch of people decided to major in sociology or whatever and now can’t buy afford their lattes. I don’t subscribe to the full-on bootstrappy pull-up nonsense all the time, but at some point it’s time for people to make their own educated decisions. 18 sounds about right.
The problem I see in young people today is that in many cases they have only vague notional concepts of how the world works. It's cold to say, I know, but how many kids go to their parents and say I want to do X, Y or Z....Then their parents say that sounds very fulfilling BUT what kind of lifestyle do you want to live? To which the kid says I want a house and car like you have......to which the parent sits them down to explain how the family budget works, how income and taxes work and then shows them how much they need to make to have that lifestyle. Finally, discussing the potential salary outcomes for said "dream career" the kid wants? Only for the kid to realize it isn't in the cards with their current plan? It doesn't seem like it is happening enough. It doesn't seem like parents explain to young people how entitlements work and where funding comes from (this isn't a slight to democrats just what I see in young people); as in when entitlements go up, taxes go up and take home pay goes down. I have had young people come to me after receiving their first paycheck out of college to have me explain the numbers - not understanding why their take home pay is so low despite their salary and why the Government gets so much of it. It is sadly comical to see the look of disgust on their face at how much the Government gets and having to explain to them that for every added entitlement or military spending bill that the situation gets worse. I agree with you all who are saying that previous generations are fucking their children - perhaps even out of a want to not upset their kids but all the same doing them a disservice by not explaining this to them. It is a fact that standard education does not prepare kids headed off to college or considering college to make rational, informed decisions and that parents need to know what the fuck they are doing when they talk to their kids.
I think it's the opposite. I don't think it's out of a want to not upset their kids, it's out of a failure to recognize the world has changed from when they were young. When they were young, any old degree would get you a good job (and no degree would get you a union job). Personal expenses? Put it on the credit card. House? Get a mortgage, houses are cheap and only go up in value. Voting? Vote for the guy who says he'll lower your taxes and increase entitlements, deficits don't matter. In my estimation young people these days are far more aware of their broader financial situation than Boomers were at any age.
This happens to me all the time too. The look of astonishment on their faces as they see the breakdown of what the government takes and where it goes, and that no they aren't getting it back... it's funny, but it's also sad. I've seen people quit because they were convinced we were the ones taking it out and they thought another company would deduct less. Yeah, if you make less.
Why can’t those four things gel? You can’t have fun and be married? You can’t own a house and travel? Well, you can. She sounds like a fucking hippie. Young people don’t realize what a house is, they don’t get equity. Most people never had even heard that word before Greenspan started instructing families to ruin their own lives.
I'm sorry, I have to object here. It's nice that you know ONE girl, who DOES sound like a hippie. We're not some leftist carricature, thank you. What exactly does the government fix for me? I don't see anything, still waiting for my check. Besides, I know enough people buying/building houses or apartments at a young age. Most people here know that taxes eat their salary big time and I bet it's a bigger percentage of the paycheck than in the US.
I know everyone wants to talk about student loan stuff right now, but I don't think this issue was properly addressed. The prevailing attitude is that illegal immigrants only take "bitch work" jobs like housekeeping, custodial work, landscaping, etc. But the truth is that they take a lot of skilled labor jobs as well, particularly in the auto repair and construction fields. I can attest that pay as a mechanic in my area is on average 20-30% less than in other parts of the state (past the Border Patrol checkpoint). The reason for this (and you can ask anyone in my industry) is because of an abundance of illegal labor. When I was in technical school, my instructors urged me to leave the Valley, because I would have better opportunities elsewhere, but due to a variety of personal reasons I couldn't (and still can't/ won't) move. Construction is another area that is just chock full of illegal labor, and I've seen it with my own eyes. My ex-father in law was a construction worker, and I worked with him for a short time. The contractor he worked for had several illegals on his crew, and that's how most of the crews were, and still are. I've talked with guys in the construction business from other parts of the state, and they've said that they won't take contracts down here because they don't pay enough. Construction and auto repair are NOT areas you want to cheap out on, and I can tell you that the quality of work that you get with illegal labor IS NOT what you get from a trained technician. All of the people I've seen who think that we should welcome in all of these illegal immigrants DON'T work in jobs that are being threatened by them.
So it looks like the Supreme Court will allow gerrymandering based on political party concentration. https://apnews.com/4156cf044e314b5bb9f2d0a99f4bc2b2 This is fucked. SCOTUS has disincentivized people from voting. The party in power will always redraw districts to dilute the voting power of their opponents. The only way I can think of to get around this is to maybe sue based on the grounds that gerrymandering affects minorities disproportionally. At least then, equal protection under the constitution applies.
We're reaching dangerous levels of illegitimacy in our government. I genuinely have no idea what the Republicans' endgame is, because we are headed nowhere good.
Dumb question and not politically motivated but why is it that gerrymandering only benefits Republicans? Did they just get in on it before people realized what they were doing and now it's locked?
It doesn't. It benefits whichever party is entrenched and makes it difficult to vote the entrenched party out. Right now, this benefits the Republican party far more than the Democrat party because despite losing the popular vote, Republicans hold a plurality of districts. Here is an example of what I'm talking about from the New York Times.
Historically both parties have done it, and presently Maryland is an example of a state gerrymandered in the Democrats' favor. On the whole, however, the Republicans have adopted it aggressively as part of their national strategy alongside other anti-democratic measures like voter suppression in order to maintain power in the areas where they currently have it, while the Democrats have not. A ruling against gerrymandering would have had some impact on Democratic seats, but a huge impact on Republican seats.
Yeah it's not like the Republicans have been caught time after time doing this shit or anything. I'm sick of pretending like the Republican Party isn't 100% dedicated to ratfucking at every opportunity.
In fairness, both parties try to out-fuck the American people every chance they get. It's a race to the bottom, and even though right now the GOP is in the lead, we're the ones losing.
Is my initial read on immigration correct? No stopping the flow, cure the illegal immigration problem by making border crossing without permission legal and throwing in free health care with a 15 dollar minimum wage to boot?