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Young & American? You're Out Of Luck
Submitted by Bill Bonner via Bonner & Partners,
Old age and treachery will always triumph over youth and skill. At least, that is the way it looks.
Our speech to the Class of 2015 (you can catch up here and here) left out some important points. The jobs picture, for example, is even bleaker. And depriving young people of jobs is like depriving pandas of bamboo shoots: It’s all they have. Older people can watch their stocks, real estate, and bonds go up in price. A young person can only look at the “Help Wanted” ads… and hope for a break.
20 Million Fewer Jobs
In 2000, 56% of the working-age population was employed. That was an all-time high. It has fallen ever since… and is now down to 46%. The working-age population is about 200 million people. This suggests there are about 20 million fewer people with jobs today than there were at the start of the century. Guess who those people are?
People with all their teeth, all their hair, and all their wits.
Since the stock market bottomed in 2009, only one group has added jobs – people 55 and older. Every other age group has lost out.
Why?
New businesses hire young people. Old businesses hire old ones. Imagine a new company – Uber, Snapchat, or Pinterest – recruiting gray-haired workers.
They won’t. The older generation wouldn’t understand. They’d be out of place.
But the rate of new business start-ups has fallen sharply. And fewer new businesses means fewer places for new workers to get work.
Also, older workers might like to retire and give their jobs to younger workers. But they can’t afford to. They are squeezed by their own economy.
Now they must hang on to their jobs as long as they can.
Wasted Youth
This leaves young people with no way to get on the bottom rungs of the ladder. To get ahead in the business/employment world, you have to get started. Then you work hard… you learn… you progress. But today, young people mill around, wasting their time in college, flipping burgers and parking cars while they wait for a “real” job opening.
Then it is too late.
They go for a job interview at 25, 30, or 35… and employers want to know what the heck they’ve been doing for the last few years.
They may never get onto the bottom rung, never learn a real trade or profession, and never be able to play their part in the adult, debt-soaked, middle-class economy.
The Atlantic magazine looked at the situation. It concluded there was “nothing uniquely wrong with the youth job market.” But something is wrong.
It is not nearly as bad in America as it is in France, for example. But every labor rule drives employers to protect themselves. Hire a young person and who knows what you get? He has no work experience; he cannot prove that he won’t cause trouble. Instead, you look for a résumé with familiar assurances: “Oh, he worked for 10 years at the Ford Motor Company,” you tell yourself. “Then, he’ll be fine here.”
Callow youths entering the workforce have few skills. They should be cheap. But as the cost of hiring these new people goes up – costs imposed by the older generation – the price of older workers, relatively, goes down.
Entry-level jobs are scarce partly because old people – using the police power of their government – have made them more expensive.
A Stacked Deck
The declining availability of income opportunities is just one way the older generation has stacked the deck against the young. You have no doubt heard about how today’s highly financialized U.S. economy favors the rich over the poor. You might just as well say it favors the old over the young.
Financial assets – stocks and bonds – have gained value. Jobs have not. Incomes have been flat for an entire generation, as capital gains have soared. The old have gotten richer; the young have gotten poorer.
In 2013, for example, there were 50 million people in the U.S. who earned an average of just $6,000. Who were they? Disproportionately, they were young people.
This is where it gets really interesting… The “financial economy” – roughly the value of stocks and bonds – has gone up 15 times in the last generation, an increase from $6 trillion to $95 trillion.
But do young people own stocks and bonds?
Nope. Financial assets are owned, in the main, by old, well-connected, skilled, and successful people. Young people have little but their own time.
When you are starting out in life, you need to trade your time and energy for money… and gradually accumulate financial assets. You need an economy in which you can work… and earn money.
But that economy – the economy of work and wages – grew only five times during the same period (as measured by GDP).
“The financial sphere,” explains former Reagan administration budget adviser David Stockman, “occupied 212% of GDP in 1981… now, [it] weighs in at 537%.”
In short, the geezers have done much better than the under-30 crowd.
Although average wages have barely risen at all, the value of America’s corporate equity has gone up 28 times since Jimmy Carter was president.
Was this just an accident? Was this just an honest market economy at work?
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When is the revolution going to happen?
Who shouldld be the first ones up against the wall when it happens? Provide a list of no more than 100,000, please.
When the commercials stop
Not even then. It's going to happen when the progressive western Govs go bust and the handouts stop flowing to their pussified populations. Then the bitchez will riot like spoiled children and ask daddy government to save them. These bitchez will welcome totalitarianism.
When self-reliance is outlawed, only outlaws will be self-reliant. Thoreau rolling in his grave.
In case you didn't get the memo, there never was a revolution....
There was the elite playing head games with the sheep, having them shoot one another, and in the end, you guessed it, the elite, well they stayed in power, like how man times has it happened in history already?
good grief, this fucking asshole bonner is back already! pitting one generation against another. where does zero hedge find these knuckleheads?
If young white people had real jobs they might form families and have children. That would be a crime against minorities and Mother Gaia and simply cannot be allowed.
"The closest these kids come to a fist fight is on a message board."
- Doug Stanhope
Most young Americans are politically correct leftists, so I hope they starve in the gutter, along with the blacks.
"They pulled in just behind the bridge
He lays her down, he frowns
"Gee my life's a funny thing, am I still too young?"
He kissed her then and there
She took his ring, took his babies
It took him minutes, took her nowhere
Heaven knows, she'd have taken anything, but.."
Well, yes...timing is key to success. Duh.
"Although average wages have barely risen at all, the value of America’s corporate equity has gone up 28 times since Jimmy Carter was president."
So what, these are measured in dollars. It won't mean much when the dollar collapses so best to get out of dollars soon.
So it's only an American problem, as usual on ZH?
Where in the world are youth doing well?
'utes' bitchez! ~ HT 2 slewie...;-) aaah the good ol daze...
Yep. The anti American spin on everything keeps people in the dark about what's really happening. Fuck em, after following them for a few years you see that they can't make a right call or prediction on the economy or markets to save their life.
Well yes, minium living wages which you get from the government in europe is in dollars 11000 dollar and you get appartment for 75 euros a month.
We’ve seen cities being burned down by younsters who lost that money and politicians and old people are affraid of poor younsters.
Ah yes, "European" "youths." Read: Muslim/Immigrant criminals.
Don’t forget our eastern european friends. They are way more agressive than those silly muslims.
Muslims are just silly ass pussies.
those eastern europeans? They can go mental in a second. They’ll skin you alive if they thought it made sense.
They are part of europe and it’s cheap to travel there but I don’t know anybody who has the guts to go there by car.
Even repo men won’t cross that border for any price.
And then there’s the balkan and baltic. What happens there stays there and is never heard off.
Just try to find a transporter to make a delivery over there and if you find any that aren’t eastern european of origin, it mean the trucker has a death wish.
If we ship to eastern europe, it costs 100% upfront and they tell us what transporter to use.
Thanks SD.
Explains the path of the Baltic Dry better than all the charts and graphs in the world.
"Callow youths entering the workforce have few skills."
This is the parental units faults if this is true.
This is why land matters.
A lazy old geezer ain't gonna plow the field or tend to the crops.
And those public service types...which are legion these days...gotta eat.
Go ahead...steal the farmer's land...see what happens.
This 'lazy old geezer' is!
Lets see,
100 Million Americans unemployed. Check.
49 Million on Food Stamps. Check.
18 Trillion in Debt. Check.
200 Trillion in Unfunded Liabilities. Check.
You're Royally Fucked. Game, set, match.
Waiting quietly for it to soon be:
150 Million Americans unemployed.
100 Million on Food Stamps.
30 Trillion in Debt.
400 Trillion in Unfunded Liabilities.
Not to mention $14.99/lb corned beef. Oh wait...
big chunks of moose meat
for the cost of a bullet...
And several hundred dollars in gasoline to get to where the moose are;)
Seriously, I'd like to go moose hunting someday though.
Newfoundland, Moose ,bear, caribou in the same day if you are tough enough.
http://www.notchmountainoutfitters.com/caribou.html
You forgot disability. Favorites "bipolar" or "bad back".
http://www.theburningplatform.com/2015/05/04/13-east-steps-to-75000-of-f...
"The declining availability of income opportunities is just one way the older generation has stacked the deck against the young."
Bullshit! This is a systemic issue with national debt, wars and so on. Playing one generation entirely against the other is a copout. I know plenty of seniors and seasoned folks struggling as well.
Broke youth can’t afford practice ammo.
There won’t be a revolution.
Hey kids, try these!
Dry Fire Training Cards
http://www.dryfiretrainingcards.com/
Work's not all it's cracked up to be. Better off getting one of those NSA/.Gov Gigs.
"To hell with the kind of work you have to do to make a living...I may live badly, but at least I don't have to work to do it."
SLACKER WORK SCENE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFZZEpNKjg0
Maybe in 20 or 40 years from now, first will come the repression. Hardcore.
So if you’re 25 now, you’ll be 65 when the younsters turn against the older... you.
Another diatribe from Bonner blaming the plight of young people on to the older generation.
It's the political elites, banksters and assorted corporatists who've phukced the system.
Nailed it!
Its the nature of organizations.
The system we have now has become unrespondant to change and full of parasites. This system will die. Those that survive will have a new system. Nobody will lose more in teh collapse than those that hold all the "financial" assets.
MMMMMMM! Paper !!
Yes. Unfortunately, the author does not state that one of the main reasons that the 'old geezers' are re-entering the work force is because of ZIRP. Now, they can no longer live on the interest from their savings (which they sacrificed and saved for 40 years). It is also a shame how the author states "Old age and treachery will always triumph over youth and skill". Somehow he equates old age with being treacherous and youth with skill....Wow, that is a stretch.
THANK YOU SMACKER!
Is this the same fool who wrote the letter to grandson?
You're thinking of Tom Englehardt...that was awful.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-04-26/apologies-grandson-its-not-coun...
This author here, I think, makes some valid points about millenials finding themselves in a more difficult position than previous generations. They're getting painted negatively with a broad brush but that's the zh demographic with quite a few washing their own balls.
If I had to sum up the biggest difference and who and what desrves the most blame: NAFTA
Agreed, he makes some valid points about the millenials and I genuinely feel like they're in a tragic situation compared to a lucky break or two I had at their age.
Where Bonner goes wrong is to imply that the older generations sit at home plotting on how to screw the younger ones for their own benefit. It simply ain't like that, many oldies have their own kids and want to do the best for them. All generations respond to the circumstances existant at their time and that's all the older generations have done. Those circumstances are largely dictated by the ruling elites.
Is this part 3 of your revolution coming rant?
"So, Lone Star, now you see that evil will always triumph because good is dumb!"
... or so that is what they want us to believe.
+1,000 for Spaceballs Reference. Kudos!
I am 66 years old/young. I am an A&P certified mechanic since 1975. I work part time, full time is available. START hourly is close to $25 per hour,top out at $35 + overtime and double time is available. The company I work for CAN NOT get mechanics PERIOD.. I will GLADLY give my position to a young person and go into the sunset.....
That would require a young person being told a trade skill is better than a desk job punching keys by their parents. This my friend did not happen as often as we would liked it to have. The parents have screwed up. Now the kids have worthless degrees in LGBT relationships and no hands-on skills to fix their parental unit's vehicles. Oh and Thousand$$ in college debt too! It's a win-win.
Does the company you work for have an apprentice program? I think that's pretty rare these days.
That sounds like dirty, hard labor. You probably cut yourself and come home all banged up and have "working man's hands." Young Femynists don't want that job.
The dirty secret is, half of the unemployed youth in America are women with liberal arts degrees and $40K+ in student loan debt. The men are all pussies with graphics arts degrees or other "creative" types "too good" for real work.
well that's one job. only 99,999,999 to go.
You can't get new mechanics because its illeagal to hire anyone that is 19 that wants to learn...because you have to pay them 14 bucks and hour....not including all the state leveies for unemployment, etc, etc....
Squid
American Youth is not alone on Outness of Luck. Not at all. As for the old people (like me) getting the jobs: age discrimination is evident at all aspects of the work environment. I write from certified experience on that matter. Old people have skill and will accept lower pay. Young people have little skill and will accept lower pay. Workers in between have skill but will not settle for lower pay.
Add to it: companies of today value mediocrity and low cost more than bright thinking for the right cost. In IT for example, the spread in productivity is a factor of 24, meaning there are people in the business who can do in one month what some other people take two years to do. But the pay spread is a factor of 10. The higher the skill, the lower the productivity cost. It's simple and well documented math. However, IT (this is simply an example discipline) is now a two class society. There are those who so the technology and there are those who "manage". Pay raises exist among the managers, whose sole function seems to be obedience. I have often wondered how someone with no understanding at all of even the basics of information or the basics of technology can ever "manage" how it works and how it will be applied. Total bull shit. Managers say they do not need to understand the discipline to manage it. "Manage" = "give orders" + "schmooze" (a word I never quite understood in terms of productivity and value, but then I was an unsettling manager among them!).
Managers of today--the upwardly mobile pay scalers--value mediocrity more than intelligence in the production force, because it is easier to understand and explain failure than it is to ensure success.
This is an ugly story: In one company where I worked, I was told the rules by three managers for whom I worked at differen times.
If you create a successful project, bring it in on time and on budget, and people like what it does and how it works, BUT your grate on some people's nerves along the way, you will be considered LESS SUCCESSFUL than if you had been late, over budget, and delivered someting flawed and difficult to use, BUT you really got along well with your peers and customers. It's getting along [with managers] that counts, not showing off with what you can do.
I thought only "WTF?!".
Once when I was seeking a move to a different position with a promotion, I had an unsettling experience with the three interviews. Each of the three managers who interviewed asked exactly the same first question: "How would you explain to your customer that they cannot get what they need for their business?" I was dumbfounded! The first thing on these people's minds was how to paint lipstick on shit rather than now to find a solution for the customer's problem. They call it, "Customer Satisfaction," and actually try to measure it.
Isn't America Wonderful?!
It's true. There are few managers who have a clue and who were ever actually good at doing anything themselves. The obvious signal is: become management.
Yes, and how about when your 1 IT position gets outsourced to 3 people in India?
My position in these places was not outsourced. I made a career of ensuring the instructions to the outsourcing were clear enough to get something useful done. It was up to the money bags to figure out that it actually cost more to work with highly-technical business-illiterate offshore shops, than it did to have smart people on hand to partner with. But then, ... mediocre and [superficially] cheap was the rule. That productivity to cost rule I mentioned was well known but unmanageable by self-absorbed managerial assholes whose attention was unduely focused on finely crafted spin in lieu of finely crafted production. Endemic. It ain't the outsourcing, it's the mindless managerial narcissim.
Scott Adams who does Dilbert is not a comedian, he's a reporter.
Fair and accurate one, at that.
Bobbo - I am working a FOURTH time for basically the same company that "restructured" me in 1996 (as I pushed for a relocation of a department from one division of the company to another - to make more money for the company - but not for the division I was in). Was rehired in 2001 to rebuild the department AND to move ahead with the plann I had in 1996. Then suggested consolidating the US operation (which continually lost money) and the Canadian division (which made money) and was "restructured" again in 2005. Six months later they sold the American division, consolidated business into the Canadian operation, and brought over a Frenchman who apparently wanted to move to Canada). Rehired a third time in 2009 - this time to work for real psychopaths (hey, I only had 25 years experience in the segment I was in). Left on burnout in 2011 after being asked to undertake the most stupid of tasks and watch as the operational manager screwed (and subsequently lost) the customer base I had built up. Rehired in 2014 and now have a little respect (by those who know the history) and will hopefully stay on until retirement.
I could not fathom over the years how political and stupid the senior managers and VPs were. All I was doing is making money hand over fist for the company and keeping customers happy by offering superior customer service! (Like holding inventory of standard products so we could deliver ex-stock rather than wait 14 weeks for delivery (albeit with lower cost of inventory) so that the competition ended up getting the order.
But it is not about making money for the company, is it Bobbo?
It is not about making money for the company, Jusman. Quite right. At least, not directly so. It is about working with and for all the others around us. In todayLand companies--ie the company of people working together--must make money for the company of people to survive as such. Then, there is corruption and greed of all kinds, not the least of which is self-promotion to "superior-to-them", which destroys the company of people in favor of the profit of the "owners". Ah, yes! The Owners. The food chain of THE OWNERS, few of whom actually are within any company people at all, and neither do they soil themselves sitting in board rooms. They OWN us, is the mentality of corruption.
Oh, and by the way, over the years I was told I was "the best boss I ever had" by multiple employees, who in a number of cases went on to bigger and better things (and I was honestly happy for them as they were smart and hard-working, and I could not offer them a promotion at the time). I got a lot of satisfaction seeing the bright ones succeed, especially when I had the chance to mentor them.
If you're honest with yourself you will admit that your most vital, energetic, and best years were your teens to mid-20's. You learned faster. You healed faster. You were capable of much more productive output. You had more vital energy, more life.
Everything after that is just the long slide into the grave. Steroids help, and most men over 40 who can afford 'roids are on them. But you're still not what you were.
Old age (wisdom) and treachery indeed. In any fair competition, the 25 and under crowd would mop the floor with the old folks every time. It's no coincidence that society is structured entirely to prevent any semblance of fair competition between old and young people.
When I am honest about it--and at this age such is painful to think back upon--my most vital, energetic, and best years were age 35-45. Between 20 and 35 there was a lot of learning and a lot of stupid mistakes. Between 45 and 65 there was a certain wisdom about the capabilities of others and about the value of clear communication, whether about ends, means, value or whatever. But 45-65 there was ugly age discrimination during which time I had to be patient over the eye rolling and sly derision. However, ... they, too, will face their own stupidity some day.
Sorry, I would say 25-40 years old are the most productive.
Not many 20 year old shitheads turn into productive 40 year olds. After all, 35 is the new 20, and they don't seem troubled by that.
And you could fuck like a jack rabbit.....
Miss that.
Squid
Thick Willy: If you're honest with yourself you will admit that your most vital, energetic, and best years were your teens to mid-20's. You learned faster. You healed faster. You were capable of much more productive output. You had more vital energy, more life.
Everything after that is just the long slide into the grave. Steroids help, and most men over 40 who can afford 'roids are on them. But you're still not what you were.
Old age (wisdom) and treachery indeed. In any fair competition, the 25 and under crowd would mop the floor with the old folks every time. It's no coincidence that society is structured entirely to prevent any semblance of fair competition between old and young people.
Except for the part where having basic reasoning / critical thinking skills come into play, oh, and an actual WORK ETHIC...and....um...... showing up for work. That seems to stump most of the youngsters. If you get a job, you actually have to make it to the job. We won't even get into endless texting on the job...etc...
....and then theres the whining. Holy fucking shit, I've never heard so much fucking whining in my life.
"The declining availability of income opportunities is just one way the older generation has stacked the deck against the young. " Bullshit, the older generation didn't stack jack shit. The dumb fuck politicians that approved NAFTA, volumous regulations, and taxes are the one's who stacked the fucking deck cunt...
Voted in by....whom?
America is soon going to find out that representative democracy REQUIRES responsibility. YOU, the voter, are responsible for the actions of your elected officials. Because in the end, it is YOU, the voter that will sleep in the bed the elected officials have made for you. But YOU, the voter, chose those officials and you chose them based on the same lie that is told by EVERY elcelcted official in the West:
"I will keep spending on you but I won't raise your taxes!!!". Translation, "I will fuck over your kids and grand kids so you can have more stuff today".
And the older generation voted for this, KNOWING, that this was happening. In about 25 years when the young have the majority, SS, Medicare and minimum wage will all be disbanded, cut, done away with. That is, if there is even an America by then.
:)
Squid
The youth flatters itself and believes to own everything
Old age is merciless
(la jeunesse se flatte et croît tout obtenir.
La vieillesse est impitoyable.
Le chat et la souris, La Fontaine)
They young are easily deceived, because they are quick to hope.
L. Davinci
11 May 2015, by Diana Furchtgott-Roth and Jared Meyer (MarketWatch)
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/young-americans-have-yet-another-debt-burden-2015-05-11
The unfunded pension liabilities of state governments are being deferred to those who can afford them least.
Dude, I ain't gonna pay. Isn't there an app for that?
It's only going to get worse when these young up-starts start treading on the Police & Cartel's drug deals.
Blow's deflated by a third in the last 10 years which must be cutting into operations.
Personally i welcome the competition, pure capitalism ( i'll shoot you in the face if i see you within a kilometre of my turf ) as i'm off my face 4/5 days a week now.
Even been getting cold calls wanting me to change my suppliers on better terms and conditions.
If you look close enough i'm certain you'll find other green shoots dotted over the country.
Bye for now, gotta weigh a couple of kilos.
Unless you have incredible trade skills, maybe even slang some dope, or ultra rich parents these 'utes' of today are fucked.
I have plenty of utes in my neighborhood. They know I have money and pay well for cheap shit jobs. But they're walking around with $400 phones. At $20/hr tax free, that would take what, twenty hours of work to pay for. No fuckin way they are doing that. Easier and faster to beg the parents.
Someone is responsible for these slugs, and it's not me.
chunga;
Yes it does have an apprenticeship program; I helped a young person into the program. He turned out to be a dud.
Get this, you are HIRED as an apprentice with a wage, go to the local community college paid for, work after school. Big complaint,
"I am tired after school"
And so we see the terminal end of the K-12/Higher ed cartel. Reach for the stars! Don't be afraid to dream your dreams! And be sure to pay that loan back, you little bastards. I have a couple condos in Aruba to maintain.
any ZHers in NYC wanna hook it up with a comfy jawb? ;)
No biggie, just take out another $100K loan and get back to school for edumacatin' in the arts or some other useless shit.
Everybody should demand the Fed print mo' money, bitchez. Not like it cost them anything, so crank it up Jewboy and share the wealf!
Okay, Mister Bonner. Please point me in the direction of the window where I can swap my pile of shiny stones for a disenfranchised but 20 year old brain, liver, kidney and lungs.
Any disenfranchised 20 year old takers out there? Didn't think so.
Year In-State Out-of-state Annual Increase
2010 $6,921 $13,569 4%
2009 $6,658 $13,402 9.4%
2008 $6,084 $12,756 7.7%
2007 $5,648 $12,248 6.6%
2006 $5,296 $11,920 29.7%
2005 $4,082 $10,274 25.3%
2004 $3,258 $8,922 18%
2003 $2,760 $7,992 5.5%
2002 $2,616 $7,680 5.7%
2001 $2,476 $7,636 5.9%
2000 $2,338 $7,522 13.7%
1999 $2,057 $7,169 5.8%
1998 $1,945 $7,081 8.7%
1997 $1,789 $6,925 26.5%
1996 $1,414 $6,022 3.8%
1995 $1,362 $4,794 4.6%
1994 $1,302 $4,566 8%
1993 $1,206 $4,518 21.6%
1992 $992 $3,584 8.4%
1991 $915 $3,382 3.7%
1990 $882 $3,348 7.7%
1989 $819 $3,315 3.4%
1988 $792 $3,232 6.5%
Yeah, college cost have gone up just a tad since 1988 when I started... Jeeezzzz
Here we go again. Another post that blames American ecnomic and social decline on the aging process! Let me be clear on this, all people age, it happens faster than any of us care to imagine. I grew up and lived and dealt with many aged people. They caused me no harm, many were friends and family. My granny was 98 and did plenty for her adopted country over 80 years. As if people growing old have never paid taxes, fought wars, and worked in a rising productivity economy.
I know why these posts are printed, pitting aged people against the young. To make you believe aging caused the economic crisis. Not out of control wars and military spending. Not out of control spies, who spend a 100 billion a year on spying. Not the Bankers and financiers, who have coopted the economy and raped it. Not the speculators who needed a 1 trillion dollar cash bailout. Not the neoconservative one world government job exporters. Fuck no!
It is Americans who grow old that are the peoblem. Fuck All! I always knew it was grand dad. The mother fucker, I'll kick the cunt out of his room and onto the street, where he can't ruin the economy.
Tell me, are there really people who buy into this shit. Some rich cunt blaming old age. Hey, anyone of you not growing old? Tell me, should you just fucking die when you hit 70? Do it for the bankers, so they can take more?
These posts are some one elses opinion. Okay, I grant you that much. But you are fucking trying to take our eyes of the ones who ruined the nation. And it ain't elderly.
You know who it is.
It's the monkey looking back at us in the mirror.
We will never escape it.
Need I say MOAR?
It is sad that there is no divine light in man.
There never was.
Keep believe'n, Foreigner.
Jack....
The problem is that the author is correct.
I actually never thought of minimum wage as a trick by entrenched parties to bar new blood form the door but think about it.....that's EXACTLY what it is.
The higher you make minimum wage, the fewer young people will get highered and the more ehtnic urban youths have to go on social assistance.
Its actually quite brilliant if it wasn't so evil.
Squid.
Does anyone believe the FBI's violent crime stats?
Seem low compared with the level of discontent.
Just a gut feeling.
Check the dates in context. The red menace implanted SSI to divest the grands from encouraging their children. The minimum wage was introduced to enable the yutes to move out, while still stoopit.
The effect you are living. Having no vested interest, most of the middle class stopped supporting the endeavors of their children, and their children invariably failed. Minimum wage destroyed the private sector vocational training programs that were the basis of industry. Without unity communities perished or were gutted thorugh unopposed State usurpation. Windsor-Halliburton owns the MIC since 911. The one sided forex differential was not an accident.
Predators and prey and facilitators, you're all going down together.
Do any of the other "almost old people" on this board find it a bit distressing that people are having to start think about their own professional and financial futures in the crib? At 11, I had 3 jobs (Rx & grocery delivery, newspaper delivery, and dog walking/grooming) which I used to pay for advanced math courses at the local junior college since I was bored out of my gourd in regular school and I knew that I'd eventually need at least Dif EQ to excel in the major I wanted to persue at the university I imagined that I'd attend. The neighbors thought I was a bad seed for my activities and my school principal recommended that I see a shrink since something was obviously wrong with my early ambitions. Fast forward 40 years and it seems that any 11 year old who isn't working on an app or formulating a multi-national business plan with the intent of becoming a billionaire by the age of 16 is lazy at best, mentally ill at worst. WTF is going on in this world?
I think there be demons roaming the planet earth.
Feeding on pain and missery.
Only one solution.
Stop feeding them.
"Old age and treachery will always triumph over youth and skill." Perfectly stated.
Hey Buddy, Nee Hao Ma...
Sprechen Sie Deutsche?
Fuck this Bonner SOB, Guillotining him would be no big loss. His skills are not needed in a real economy. He will be lucky to even get into a hard labor re-education camp after the revolution.
The actual bon mot is, "Old age and treachery will always triumph over youth and enthusiasm." Youth and skill are rare except in sports. Bonner perverted it to fit his usual divide and conquer by age propaganda.
Show me a young person worth hiring and I will give them an interview. I'm waiting....