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Guest Post: The Folly of Misspent Optimism: Generation Neutral
Submitted by Chris Moorman, a 24 year old member of "Generation Neutral"
The Folly of Misspent Optimism: Generation Neutral
America for the past century has been nearly synonymous with progress. A model based upon constant growth, the American style system of capitalism, built upon the dual building blocks property rights and nearly unlimited economic freedom, has allowed free movement of capital, talent and vision to produce the wealthiest country that the world has ever seen. This has not been without its hiccoughs and imbalances, but on the aggregate, the American system of ever rising prosperity has brought with it a rising standard of living for all parties in the post WWII era. The American birthright has been a promise of a hold on the ladder, and a better life for each subsequent generation.
This economic juggernaut used the free movement of capital to allow risk takers to borrow at the present to take advantage of the growth of the future. This system has withstood many shocks; the unilateral pullout of the Bretton Woods gold standard by Nixon, the subsequent stagflationary environment of the late 1970s and early 80s, to the fall of the communism leaving American style capitalism as the unrivaled economic system in the world. American exceptionalism was not so much an opinion as an accepted fact.
This was the promise that Generation Neutral predicated its approach to maturity upon. Demographic headwinds stood in our way for sure. The baby boomers and the entitlement economics they had been promised began to seem underfunded at the present which meant declining standards of living in the future. An over-levered system of government subsidized housing found that the hangover left in the wake of the Internet boom and the new diplomatic order put forth after 9/11 would squeeze those on the margins past their breaking point. Government intervention which would have been unthinkable even a generation ago now seemed like the only thing holding our system from the edge of the abyss.
We avoided the abyss after the post-Lehman collapse of 2008. Purportedly rational players in the government arena used every tool at their disposal and designed new tools on the fly to keep the system from stalling out. Business cycle boom and bust is inherent in a free movement system such as ours, and we’d dealt with it before. Once the growth engine started running near its historical averages, the economy would rebound and the train would get back on the tracks. Life would return to normal and Generation Neutral would outgrow its debts fast enough to promise our children that life would still be better for them than it was for us. At least, this is what we’d planned on.
So we continued to pile on the debt, spending today so that our future earnings would allow us the lifestyle we’d always hoped for. College tuition rose at unthinkable rates when compared to CPI and other inflation measures, aided by a system of government backstops and a “no-way out clause” which took away the mechanism of bankruptcy in order to absolve the insolvent of an impossible to pay debt. Still we borrowed. Ivy league educations cost on the order of $120-150K, while even the “affordable” state school educations hovered above 60k for 4 years. We told ourselves that this was an investment in our future, that when the growth engine restarted, we’d be on the forefront of the new boom.
After 2008, it appeared that the growth engine was taking longer to prime than anyone had planned. Ivy League graduates, with crushing amounts of college loans, were forced to take jobs as baristas and retail workers; careers far below those promised by the glossy recruitment packets we’d gotten in high school. Some risk takers in my generation doubled down, and headed off to graduate school to “wait out” the recession as opposed to taking jobs which seemed beneath our level of expertise and education.
Increasingly, these “investments” are looking like consumption periods for which the bill will come monthly for 15-20 years. Those who doubled down on their bets with grad school, found that in addition to undergrad debt, the average 75-100k of law school debt looked nearly insurmountable when compared to starting salaries in the 50-70K range. A law school graduate with $150k (a number which errs on the conservative side if any) in combined undergrad and law school debt 6% at is now looking at nearly $1300/month in loan repayments over a 15 year period. This is comparable to the payment on a 30 year mortgage on a $250,000 (slightly above the 2010 median home price) house at 5%. If the baby boomers are planning on my generation bailing out their underwater homes, they’d better find another plan.
Currently, a college grad making $75,000 (well above the median for the graduates of the downturn (2007-2010)) in Manhattan contributing nothing to pre-tax retirement brings home a little over $4,000 monthly. When this is stacked up against an average monthly rent of $1350, and a student loan repayment of $1300, this makes for a mere $1350 in disposable income. This makes it quite difficult to save the necessary funds for a downpayment on a house, and even makes it difficult to build a solid safety net of savings.
The real issues of my generation have unfortunately been glossed over. There have been the occasional articles chronicling how lifetime earnings are adversely affected for those who come out of school into a recession, but this downturn has already had a duration above and beyond the norm, and at present doesn’t appear to be ending any time in the near term. Meanwhile, the bills are stacking up, and even those of us who are working from Generation Neutral are starting to be concerned that the debts we signed on for at 18 will live to haunt us well longer than our worst projections. There is beginning to be a certain resigned malaise hanging over us, and as capitalism is a system predicated on growth and a healthy amount of optimism in the future, this is yet another headwind to our economic and even psychological well being.
Other than the turnout brought upon by the “Hope and Change” campaign of President Obama, Generation Neutral has found itself strangely ambivalent about the political discourse, even as the bills are continuing to migrate from our parents’ generation to our own. A conversation about the national debt usually ends with the trite phrase “I don’t really care about politics” while the political decisions of today affect our economic future at an ever increasing rate compared to our parents and grandparents.
I’ve yet to figure out what will break our apathy, as our misspent optimism still keeps us believing, however fleetingly, that this too shall pass. The day that we collectively realize that better days aren’t coming could well be too late, but the debts amassed during our optimistic youth will still continue to knock on our door. If our generation doesn’t have it better than our parents’, I wonder what the narrative we tell our children will sound like.
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Well, you SAY you are not... Can you PROVE it?
Anyway, as a "boomer" (like I had a fucking choice in the matter?), here's my response:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/guest-post-folly-misspent-optimism-generat...
NOTE: I agree that it won't continue, and that those "boomers" who think they can sit back in the easy chair are only fooling themselves (I'm not one of them). And whether it's your intent or not it really doesn't matter, as that's how it will come to be anyway (which leads me to point out that your frothing is only wasting energy, and, well, you're going to need it).
Let me give you this to ponder...
Suppose shit gets much worse than this (and I believe it will). Should I...
1.) Work double shifts at McDonalds in order to "grind it out" as so many of the Boomers here suggest? It will leave me skill-less, but hey, I'll be funding the posh retirements of Boomers and doing my civic duty!
2.) Be building skills and wealth for a much different future by pursing opportunities which the IRS knows nothing about?
That's loaded. I'm picking two. The Boomers can go fuck themselves.
McDonalds's , and most other fast food places, won't let people work even one full time shift - might have to pay them benefits. Jobs that good aren't available anymore. You might be able to work there like 11 to 1 and then 4 to 7 a couple days a week. But as a college grad, you would be overqualified so probably not. They don't seem to hire anyone but Mexicans where I live anyway.
you can write your politicians, make a video and post it on youtube to make it an election issue.
start protesting with signs that call for boycott of businesses which recruit illegals.
go camp out where elites hang out to draw media attention on corruption and graft
basically make noise. people will understand.
there is also an option of taking out elits who have sold your future but be sure it is their fault and not yours
I don't need your money sonny. I don't expect to collect a dime of SS. By the same token don't expect me to spend a nickel to help you or your bogus economy or to keep your war machine going. Seriously, I'll go toe to toe with you economically any day. You're on your own too whippersnapper.
I don't want your help. I just want the freedom to help myself. Being taxed 50% when there's no good jobs to begin with... or needing a fucking permit to sell hot dogs that costs more than I would make for 6 months is not freedom to help myself. It's serfdom. And I won't submit to it.
jebus tits, join the underground economy already. Why are you busting my balls about it? You think I like it any better than you do? Hating people who are older than you just because you think they had it easy is a copout. It has NEVER been easy for the working class and I guarantee you there is no way in hell you ever have or ever will work as hard as I had to when I was younger.
I already have. Now I'm just bitching. :)
I don't understand why your generation isn't having big protest marches about this. Europeans have just as many distractions but they manage to do it. I have to agree, most of you are screwed. But so are many, maybe most, of the older people. When I started working, jobs came with generous pensions and free medical for life. Job security was good unless you got caught stealing or doping on the job. We actually got paid for overtime. All that disappeared gradually for non government workers. Now, social security is weakening and from what I read of Medicare - it is quite difficult to find a doctor that takes it so it may not be much use. You think it's hard for young person to find a job - it's not easy for a 50 year old either in most fields especially computers. Most people I know that age who get laid off end up saying they are retired because they can't find anything. Then they use up their savings on medical insurance, etc before they are even eligible for social security which doesn't pay much.
It's simply astounding when you look at our standard of living 50 years ago and factor in that we know have most of the female population working, have supposedly increased productivity 3% a year, have tens of thousands of significant inventions since then and still our standard of living is lower and heading down. We need some kind of revolution...
What payout? What payout? What payout? Social Security is screwed, our company pensions disappeared when the company did, our house is underwater on the mortgage, the stock market is tanking again, fixed interest returns are the lowest in history.
How about a thank you for the generation that raised you, fed you and protected you, and who have been paying into a Ponzi scheme for 40 years?
Stop drinking the Koolaid you stupid little putz. Get wise to the fact that you are screwed because a bunch of big crooks with loaded pockets has been scamming the world.
Don't let them brainwash you into turning against your fellow victims. If you let them get away with robbing the Boomers, what do you think they have in mind for you?
"The Fourth Turning" a great book and should be read by all. Breaks down historical trends and generations. Remarkable findings and research done over several decades. Makes a lot of sense and depicts where we are in a repeating 100 year cycle. I read a lot and have to say this book is at the top of the list in personal rankings. Check it out.
Yeah, great stuff, written by republican policy hack -- about as scientific as a horoscope.
ALL OF YOU FUCKTARDS PIPE DOWN.
You love your hatred so much. Kissy, kissy, mmmmm...love my fucking hate so much.
They want us at each other's throats, divide and conquer. This version of it is based on age.
Social security, pensions, student loans, these are wedge issues that keep our eyes off the prize. The banker/politician class did this. They want you to forget that.
You go girl! Greenie on ya!
I'm with you -- too much snide self-importance in the comments here. Like anyone is actually getting out in one piece.
Talkin bout my girrrl...my girl...my girl.
Green up! ;-)
so true
HEY, GUYS, TRIED TO DOWN A PICTURE TO MY AVITAR AND WORK ON MY BIO.
PIC DOESNT WANT TO TAKE? am i missin' somethin', thanks.
Yes, you still have a bag over your head ;-)
- Ned
{check file size and physical pixels}
thanks, ned.
sometimes i just dont feel the love...
MAN, THIS RABBIT HOLE IS DEEP... AND COLD...
Be careful with all personal info, this rabbit hole has rats too ;-)
revised bio, man this is starting to wierd for economic site....
I generally refrain from doggie commentary in public, mostly the general crowd can't get it. Besides, nmewn has bulldogz, rotz, and stuff. In my misspent youth, I used to jump out of perfectly good airplanes--nowadays I can't run very fast, so nmewn's dogz would wake up, yawn, amble over, and take a chunk outta my slow haunch.
Don't cha' know.
- Ned
Its just self-preservation piglet...lol.
My sniffer & eyes ain't what they used to be and my 40yd dash has dropped off quite a bit...so I got Dixie & Bo to take care of the small stuff close at hand and Remington to get a clearer/longer view of things of significance ;-)
never did airborne or ranger, just air assault Campbel, jugle expert ft amador panama,
D,I, course camp parks, CA ( as an nco) long time ago
thank you for your service, ned
welcome home, brotha' {does this mean we need to get a room?}
why, you want some more BOHICA from your navy days
LOL
It's the Zoomies that are hot for that kind of action. So my husband sez...Ex-army, intel (we know, oxymoron).
I wonder how many other hams we have on ZH? x.inf.capt. I'm just getting started, but should have my 2m base up soon, then RF as soon as dear Dad departs with a few of his 30 odd pieces of kit. I'm in the US, SE. Do watch how much personal info you post on you bio. When I get stuff up love to chat on 2m via IRLP or on RF. pa has 2 1.5kw linear amps so I think he can spare one, so should be able to reach out far if skip is good. 73 KK4xxx.
i dont have a transmitter, just have a licenst for disaster relief. its helped our community more than once. KE7xxx.
gettin' it, but, well, there's this BAG on ur head ;-)
maybe i am too ugly, piggy
Well if any other TX hams are out there I'll post the freq and DTMF code to access our local 2m repeater thru IRLP once I'm up with the base, and then post an RF Freq which I monitor. But welcome to Fight Club capt.inf. You have entered a twilight zone of highly intelligent people minus the trolls and rats. Cheers
NNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Exactly right -- if they can't divide us by class they'll divide us by age or by race. Anything to distract us from the fact that they're looting us blind. Pay attention to the big picture while you're trying like mad to get your own self in order. It's what we're all trying to do. Some people will figure it out, and a lot of them are here at Zero Hedge. If you can, educate the people you care about. Some will listen but others won't. All you can do is try.
Modern crowd been workin' on this for a while, e.g. the predecessor:
http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?sts=t&tn=reveille+for+radi...
- Ned
double
And there it is in a nutshell, my life. Own self in order has sooo many dimensions. I'm working on it too. Good luck.
MsCreant,
I think Hillary is looking for you. She needs your diplomatic skills. And no Foggy Bottom jokes; that's just unfair!
Lost in the Generational Wars, though I tried to note it above, is the fact that the whole world was different "back then". America had a different position with vastly different opportunities, when most of the world was trying to recover from WWII. Also, half the world's population wasn't out there trying to consume more than just the day's caloric needs. Though much of the Dismal Art (Economics, not Damian Hearst) has been discredited, there is still something to be said for supply and demand.
Demand can decrease and we can be happier for it, I am certain. Work less, produce less, have more leisure and time to think, learn, love, and lick our wounds when we get them.
Always good to hear from you.
Not in this system though, Ms: debt and accruing interest behind every FRN requires constant and accelerating growth: Usura sez: FEED ME!
The GM Parade Of Progress:
http://www.carztune.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/1950-GM-Futurliner-Parade-of-Progress.jpg
Yup, just the kind of shit that The Greatest Generation sold the boomers (where the fuck is my flying car?).
As a boomer, by the time I got into the workforce wages were already trending down. 1971 is the magic tipping point: peak US oil production and pulling off the gold standard.
The Greatest Generation was likewise sold a bag of shit. Their LUCK, however, was that there was room for them to breed enough laborers to rock their easy chairs...
Generation Neutral my a$$!
Now quit your goddam whining and give me 50 punk - or else, by the time I've finished, it's gonna be Generation Neutered!
Now gimmee another 10!
No shit. Stop whining. I wonder how we will make it? Gee how did we ever advance past 1937?
worked in a funural parlor --lived in the up stairs during tenth grade-- slopped hogs for a garbage route business in eleventh-lived in bunkhouse next to barn--milked cows during twelve. Hitchhiked to Cal after high school-- it was 1960-- had two pairs of pants and ate pasta and catsup-- swept floors-- I joined the Army to get food-- rotated back to the states just before Nam buildup. I was 21 then-- it took me 6 years to get in a trade school--3yrs later I started work-- I worked the same job for 33 yrs- - I only bought one new car in all my life-- and I still have it-- I saved and never went into debt-- I bought my house and land for cash. I made a little in the markets with my savings as seed. I started a business while I was still working my job-- it is still going after 25 yrs of working at it. I got ride of all my employees and only do enough to give my kids jobs-- my oldest went to college this year-- its paid for -and he has 5 figures in the bank--
my point is this-- if any crybaby younger generational pile of shit with and attitude wants a piece of me and mine come and eat my shotgun -- I'll blow your ugly face off your stupid head.
Congratulations!
That doesn't change the fact you're not getting my taxes for your Ponzi check!
What taxes? You stupid little putz, don't you know the government spends $1.70 for every dollar they take in in taxes? And how much of it goes to bailouts for their TBTF friends and blowing up shit in foreign countries?
And what check? Don't you know Social Security is broke or will be shortly?
The boomers have been paying in for 40 years and get squat.
Sigh. I've always wanted to believe that with age comes wisdom and grace.
Dude, your generation got pwned.
However, in 5 years you won't have to sweat anything, just survival, and no one will know or care about your debt. You will be working for the local warlord, if you survive.
Wow, you just opened my eyes. I thought I'd just be working with the neighbors to survive, hold the fort, grow food and shit. Local Warlord, Yes I can! Sounds a lot better than survivalist.
Ah, I'm glad I have developed a skill that EVERY local warlord can and will appreciate! Get that bong out of retirement!
I don't think it's retired yet, where is that damn thing. Oops right on my desk. found it. thx ;>
Sorry but I'm having a hard time squeezing out any tears over this. Exactly why should any generation have it better than their parents? Exactly what is supposed to be better? More toys, more money, bigger houses, flashier girlfriends, more time to stare at a screen playing idiotic video games? Is that in the Bill Of Rights, because if it is, I missed it.
Hey, they didn't even have microwave ovens when I was a kid. Cooking a potato took 45 minutes instead of 5 minutes. Got a question about something, you spend 2 hours at the library instead of 2 minutes on Google. Get over it, life isn't that bad unless you hang around the average ZH bum long enough for his whimpering dog end-of-world pessimism to infect you. Try going outside and sitting in the sun, it's just as bright as it was when your grandparents did it...assuming they weren't in some dank hole working their fingers to the bone all day long.
+10
Nice piece of work.
Great story however I do have a couple of problems with this assesment:
"Currently, a college grad making $75,000 (well above the median for the graduates of the downturn (2007-2010). I didn't go to law school, I couldn't afford it, so I settled for junior college. Rented, paid my own bills, including school, waited tables, split wood, painted in the summer, graduated without any debt. Not a glamorous degree, but could make a living. So my starting salary out of college was $24,000 per year. Picked up a second, and third job bringing first full 12 mos. income to $38,000 in 1994.
"in Manhattan contributing nothing to pre-tax retirement brings home a little over $4,000 monthly." Second mistake here, don't move to a rediculously expensive, upscale, urban area that you once again, can't afford. I rented a crappy, 1 bedroom, apartment in Cincinnati for $400 per month until I could muster enough money up to put a downstroke on a home in 1996 for $102,000. Again, something I could afford.
When this is stacked up against an average monthly rent of $1350. Again, this is unacceptable [in my opinion], you have choices and NY City shouldn't be one of them, besides it's a shit place to live. , and a student loan repayment of $1300, this makes for a mere $1350 in disposable income. This makes it quite difficult to save the necessary funds for a downpayment on a house, and even makes it difficult to build a solid safety net of savings.
Working nights, and two side jobs, managed to go back to school as an adult and get an education [at a top business school in the country, 40K per year in tuition, "pay go" was what I did, took 5 years to get a "real degree] in something I always wanted to do. Things today, for me, are markedly better. I do agree that every year, it seems to get that much tougher but you REALLY have choices and for them to work, they're going to be very tough choices to make.
Is there enough jobs for everyone to work several?
in nyc best job college kid can get is a ibanker analyst and non-nyc is almost not an option if you want the career to pay off
70k salary + 30k bonus =100k
-40k taxes (ssn, medicaid, ny,fed)
-20k in rent ...1700k/month for rathole in manhattan with roommate (don't tell me you are going to take a train to bronx at 3am when you get off work on a holiday and have to be back by 8am)
-12k in food,utilities, subway,suits (required)
-12k (1000/month) student loan payment to ivy league (because state school chumps don't even get interviews)
You have 16k left without even any 401k
Do this 80hr a week slave labor for max 3 years and you have 48k in the bank
Well they kick you out (majority don't even make it past 2yr) so you have to go back to school and get your mba if you want to stay in the field. Well that's gonna cost you 120k nowadays and no merit scholarships here.
120k-48k=72k in more loans @ 8% federal interest rate
Well you graduate and come back to nyc to even more excel monkey work where half of your bonus goes to taxes and the other half to pay off that 72k debt off accelerated because nobody lasts in banking hours for the long haul
So you pay 30k a year for 3 years and finally debt free while living in the same rental box from your first gig. Then recession time so you get laid off from lehman.
You are 30 and have no savings or retirement despite perfect SAT,yale undergrad,harvard mba, working 80 hour weeks, no vacation, no house, no car, and no job. No time to find a spouse either.
You are burned out so you decide to move back in with your parents to find another career where you can actually have a normal life.
That is the best case scenario for the current best and the brightest.
Similar story for big law folks.
Meanwhile some ghetto 1bdrm condo in bronx costs 600k up from 300k just 10 years ago and some hs dropout dbag flipped it for 300k tax free profit. And nyc shitty public school teacher makes 60k for life with pension because she made tenure at the same age.
I would like to extend a hearty "up yours" to the Greatest Generation for FUCKING US, your offspring, in the ass (without even asking... "Do you speak Greek" at that!). You geezers have taken jobs that otherwise would belong to us, you've left us with crushing intergenerational debt, and you're about to crash the market when you withdraw your savings so you can buy a shitbox 1-bedroom condo in Boca.
But we will get the last laugh... Just wait until we pull the plug on Social Security and let you fend for yourselves. BWHAHAHAHAHA
I wish your guys would DO IT.
Right now, they are hypnotized. Would to God that they would wake up and defend themselves.
I fear a war is coming.
The prisons are full of people who "got a shitty break". Adapt and overcome, no one is going to save you.
you can't simply overcome the fact that your parents are not rich enough to rescue you out of jail while to get rich you have to cheat and get lucky.
A billion Chinese read your comment and............smile.
Yep...only thing worse than a whiny college grad is a whiny baby boomer vampire squid generation arsehole that raped everything and everyone out of fear of a cartoon bogeyman then bitched at the tab. Selfish fucks...dont worry we'll clean it up. You wont like our tab.
My fav is all the fatass boomers and their fatass bitches on their 20k Harley's everywhere trying to be all Orange County Choppers trying to pretend they're not 2 years away from a stroke. Hope to take one off their hands someday for a couple of frozen steaks.
Don't forget the ones driving around in their convertibles trying to keep their hair pieces from flying off.
Most of the boomers are the opposite of what they claimed to be in 1970 and are feeding off of their descendants.
Peace and love my ass.
harley driving fatasses should be banned from receving hearing aides with medicare / medicaid.
delete
Excellent post, but someone upthread hit the nail on the head. Until the people are starving, there won't be change.
Put it in perspective, the same day that King Barack the Stutterer I announced he wants to raise taxes by $1.5 TRILLION, most Americans are home now, getting ready to watch the season premier of their favorite grey-matter-destroying reality or comedy shows. They couldn't give a rats ass about being financially raped for decades to come. Hell, most of them will probably vote for Barry again next year. But I digress.
THere won't be change until people in the ever-shrinking middle class, cul-de-sac neighborhoods are struggling to find out where their next meal is coming from. But they'll definitely leverage their house to buy more iPads.
We're so boned...
The republicans have made it a religious crusade to block everything Obama wants to pass even if it was their own idea the previous week. So I don't even read his proposals anymore.
You are an example of our education system failing you dramatically to make this a partisan issue.
The Senior Committee Chairmen in CONgress have ALL the power particularly the Senate. Your anger should be targeted at them, the ones in this admenstruation, and the last dozen of admensturations, which have alternated between both parties. LEarn who they were, what parties they belonged to, how they voted, and the horrendous debt they laid upon you.
Consider this as a further lesson in your education, worth far more than 4 years spent drinking in leftist rhetoric.
Well, I've already been priced out of middle-class so unfortunately for the gment, ya cant get blood from a stone! I think I will continue to ruffle feathers and make my prison stay a credit to their ever-increasing liabilities. As for leveraging my house, you would be a fool not to. The so-called asset you call a house just leaves me vulnerable to higher property taxes and immobility.
My apologies for the double post...
There's a word for "misspent optimism". That word is "wrong."
The misspent optimism 10 years ago was that our invasion of Iraq would be a cakewalk.
The misspent optimism of today is that are billions of Lake Superiors full of oil waiting for us to dip our siphons into and when they go dry the core of the earth will spit out even more oil like cotton candy at a carnival.
And what's the reason for this misspent optimism?
The price of oil is cheap. In the midst of what will probably be the greatest economic disaster in the history of mankind, oil is cheap, ergo it's plentiful.
Some of us here have to believe what's going to let us sleep at night.
Some of us here have to tell it the way we see it.
Chris, I graduated from college in 1968 with school loans equal to three years of gross annual income. Is that much different from your situation?
If we have an inflationary economy, your college loans will start looking smaller. But that assumes that your salary will track inflation, which may or may not be the case.
I suspect that we are all going to learn to live with less in the future. After WWII, Americans had access to the world's resources at bargain-basement prices. Now, not only is there competition for those resources, but the reserves are being depleted. But Americans are still living much better than billions of people in the developing world, who are packed into urban mega-slums, and make barely enough to feed themselves. It is always wise to compare your situation with that of people outside your social circle. You will find that millions of people in the US are living right at the edge of homelessness. I know it seems unfair that your generation will not live as well as the one preceding, but that has happened many, many times in history. JFK: "Life isn't fair". Vonnegut: "The universe is not schemed in justice and mercy" (may not be the exact words).
IMO, the greatest injustice of our time is the extreme concentration of America's wealth in the hands of a very few ultra-rich. This must be corrected. Maybe your generation will take on that task.
When Generals (rather than politicians) fight our wars they will ALL be cakewalks. There isn't a country we couldn't take over within three months if that was our stated goal.
"I’ve yet to figure out what will break our apathy, as our misspent optimism still keeps us believing, however fleetingly, that this too shall pass. The day that we collectively realize that better days aren’t coming could well be too late, but the debts amassed during our optimistic youth will still continue to knock on our door. If our generation doesn’t have it better than our parents’, I wonder what the narrative we tell our children will sound like."
Unfortunately, this too shall not pass, so basically you're fucked. Nice to know that you are thinking about it. The only thing that will break your peers out of their apathy, however, would be if their cell phones and TVs suddenly stopped working.
Don't pay your loans back. Don't use credit cards. Don't use banks. Don't buy shit you don't absolutely need. Stop watching TV. Stop eating corporate garbage. Stop taking pills. Don't trust doctors. Stop rooting for pro sports teams. Stop paying attention to celebrities. Never sign cell phone contracts. Buy newspapers and magazines only for the purposes of wiping thy ass. Don't be an arrogant prick. Don't make snap judgements. Forget all the crap you learned in school. Educate yourself.
Escargot: You hit the nail on the head. "Stop rooting for pro sports teams". That is the apathy that breeds this crap. Personally, i'm not a sports fan and I don't care about sports (but did play sports in high school and college), and it never stops to amaze me that so many (male) sheeple will pay a lot of money to wear another's man name on his back. In NYC where I live, it's all the Jeter fans.
Then the NFL screws the fans by doing a lockout. What crap.
Don't even buy a tv.
Solves all kinds of problems: having to replace it in 4 years, having to listen to ads, having to know useless celebrity trivia, giving credence to most overpaid union workers (pro atheletes), subject to brainwashing via "news",etc.
Go get a library card instead and read some books from your high school reading list.
"Great Gatsby" tells you how history repeats itself: inherited old money are one of the worst of human species.
"How to kill a mockingbird" tells you life is not fair, but sometimes you are the beneficiary of injustice so it may all even out at the end.
Just to name a few...
Most of us have missed the fundamental issue, which is, - at the society level capital has defeated labor.
I do not mean this in the sence of union vs. non union, but at its most elemental, where labor in the form of any one person is not remotely close to the power that capital, in the form of a corporate entity has over labor.
Abundant human labor without regard to national borders, cheap energy, education for most, rapid development of resources and corrupted policial systems have led Americans and for that matter the rest of the world to our present state.
I make these observations not as a matter of personal opinion, but rather from experiential factors observed in many American corporations spanning 40 years of work in a management capacity.
Unless and untill the American worker/citizen demands political change placing the individual at the center of power as stipulated in our Constitution and Bill of Rights, nothing will change.
most people don't understand that if they need to work to live then they are part of the labor no matter how igh the income or the position may be.
capital is so far ahead of labor that floodgates have opened and without mass global revolution, labor will have no say except to do what they are told...generate more profit for the capitalist class.
"capitalism is a system predicated on growth and optimism--" Complete rubbish. For christsake look up a definition of Capitalism. It has nothing to do with either growth or optimism. this off of the cuff babbling that has replaced critical thinking today is one of the most important fundamental problems we have today.
I think they mean the ruling class is optimistic that they will be able to increase the percentage of total wealth produced towards themselves and their Swiss bank accounts and gold stashes will grow rapidly as a result.
Someone needs to "bitch-slap" this kid and hand him a shovel. And what the hell does "levered" and "generation neutral" mean. What a cry-baby article from someone who has obviously has his nose in an I-Pod for far too long, already.
This pretentious and pedestrian crap from a jr. college student is pusre shit. I read this crap from students every day, who haven't even begun to "live" and who are already sobbing over their fate in life. Why don't I give a god damned about him or "generation neutral"? Because they aren't worth it and they deserve what they are going to get.
"The debts we signed on for at eighteen will live to haunt us" "Average" people are easily manipulated. Who told you to sign on for a debt in the first place? 2011 Math SAT racial gap in the math section; 108 points / white over black. University of Wisconsin is still doing racial admissions; locking out qualified white students that need scholarships in favor of blacks who fold up and go home; never having had any business at a university in the first place. Nice going; people, keep up the good work.
Not this gal:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/student-loans-hit-all-time-record-one-high...
- Ned
{I just scrolled through the last 5 pages to get to this reference; dang, things are moving fast}
harvard's blacks are 60% african immigrants. You know the descendants of african kings who sold other blacks into slavery to the arab traders.
Affirmative action at elite colleges is for rich half or quarter blacks.
Plus every college class needs someone to get the lower end of the grading curve.
In the 1970s TPTB employed racial and gender warfare to good effect. It kept people divided and compliant. So I guess it's generational warfare this time. Which of you are paid agitators and which of you are just plain chumps?
MsCreant has a great smackdown up thread.
You need to change that screen name to Sweet_Meat (and I don't mean monkey brains).
I try to practice balance, but I often fail. All we can do is catch on to it that we have been caught up in the drama, and start again new. Hmmm.... maybe you are on to something with that New-Meat thing. ;-)
MsC-it is a reminder that there are all kinds of things that I don't know (especially in this finance venue) and a way to curb my natural incaution. Like, when that guy Rusty used to invite me out for a "smoke" in the back field ;-)
- Ned
{Wonder where ol' Rusty is these days?}
Funny stuff. Playful.
There were two I liked, Rusty and Rusty_Shackelford (I think). One was in Africa.
One option is to take out as much fixed rate debt as you can. if you mess up prior to system meltdown you can always claim govt assistance. when the whole system collapses there will be hyperinflation and you can "cover" your loans with very cheap dollars. Or maybe your creditor will implode and you can use those cheap dollars for an extra twinkie. Just saying...
No Future....No Future for you.....
- Sex Pistols
On a long enough time line, no future for anyone.
there is no such thing as 'Generation Neutral"
you are 24, you don't ask many questions, you just want to get ahead in the world....you join the Army, end up in Iraq or Afghanistan, looking for adventure and never even realized you could end up as a war criminal. Who else has been fighting in all those wars over the last 10 years ? Generation Neutral is up to their necks in it !
You are the "greed is good " hot-shot who just landed a Job at Goldman Sachs, with a background in nuclear physics and just started working on some ideas of engineering some sub-prime financial weapons of mass distruction. Or maybe you just sold some CDS derivatives to AIG or Greece, that are sure to blow up anytime now, because that was your design.
Generation neutral ? Not from what I can see.
Subprime Securities Market Began as `Group of 5' Over Chinese
By Mark Pittman
Dec. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Representatives of five of Wall Street's dominant investment banks gathered around a blonde wood conference table on a February night almost three years ago. Their talks over take-out Chinese food led to the perfect formula for a U.S. housing collapse.
The host was Greg Lippmann, then 36, a fast-talking Deutsche Bank AG trader who aspired to make mortgage securities as big a cash cow for Wall Street as the $12 trillion corporate credit market.
His allies included 34-year-old Rajiv Kamilla, a trader at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. with a background in nuclear physics, and 32-year-old Todd Kushman, who led a contingent from Bear Stearns Cos. Representatives from Citigroup Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. were also invited. Almost 50 traders and lawyers showed up for the first meeting at Deutsche Bank's Wall Street office to help set the trading rules and design the new product.
''To tell you the truth, it's not very glamorous,'' Lippmann says.
"Just a bunch of guys eating Chinese discussing legal arcana.''
Those meetings of the ''group of five,'' as the traders called themselves,
became a turning point in the history of Wall Street and the global economy.....
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601170&refer=home&sid=aA6YC1xKU...
How Goldman Sachs Helped Greece to Mask its True Debt
Goldman Sachs helped the Greek government to mask the true extent of its deficit with the help of a derivatives deal that legally circumvented the EU Maastricht deficit rules. At some point the so-called cross currency swaps will mature, and swell the country's already bloated deficit.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,676634,00.html
"Generation Neutral" ??
There is NO "Generation Neutral" !
wr;)
Excellent observations on how some people believe they are omnipotent, withought the benefit of experience. Too band that people like Art Cachin were not invited to these meetings to inject some sanity in the proceedings.
Then again...... Who needs sanity when senior management are clueless and welcome any opportunity to commit or allow fraud to happen, knowing their US regulators will look the other way.
Criminals are in charge of these institutions and the public does not give a damn.
I for one would like to see more Baristas from Goldman Sachs.
As for college debt, they better start thinking about chopping it. It is just another misplaced economic lead weight.
sallie mae is the next fannie freddie
another quasi government backed corporation waiting to be bailed out by those who got swindled while privatizing profits.
instead of cutting the overinflated costs, they are going to throw more taxpayers money at it to "make it more affordable" subsidizing the whole education industrial complex. what's worse is that these guys donk' pay taxes as nonprofit.
same with healthcare. instead of cutting costs, government subsidies even more to make it even more unaffordable
College-degree price bubble bitchez!
American Style Capitalism? More like British Style Imperial Monetarism.
What will we tell our children?
We duped ourselves into thinking we controlled the world, when really foreign monetarism still did. People were too stupid to see it, and they believed any piece of sophistry that came along to blame someone other than the crux of the real problem. Pointing fingers via bullshit instead of freeing ourselves from foreign ideological oppression.
Instead of enacting Glass-Steagall to wipe the fraud, and returning to an American Credit System, when the collapse into a new dark age happens, we'll tell them, if we're alive to tell them, that we missed the obvious because we listened to bullshit dogma.
Our generation(s) didn't even have to figure any of this out, we just had to follow the obvious that came before us. The solution already there, but we failed to seize it.
The life vest was right in front of us and we didn't grab it.
This whole economic collapse is easier to fix than a bowlful of SPAM, but we were too idiotic (like our boomer and greatest generation dumbasses) to do so.
What a waste, what a shame, what a travesty this all is. We died of thirst next to a water fountain. We died during a sky dive because we forgot to pull the cord. We froze to death next to a bunch of dry wood, some lighter fluid, and a sealed box of ready strike matches.
We'd be the dumbest motherfuckers to ever walk the earth, well except for those older than us.
Glass-Steagall
Excellent.
One thing: how about a disclaimer in the event that TPTB kept secret the fact that we've greatly exhausted the global supply of crude oil and TPTB had to force this depression on the world to reduce the demand for oil so that they could extend the life of the remains for their own benefit?
Nah. Nobody's that malevolent.
Oh stop crying. Yes, its tough, but it always is. Yes, politicians have screwed it up but politicians are of the populi and aristocracy disappeared with the French revolution that gave birth to your sorry-assed country that has been a pox on the world ever since... but I digress...
Twenty five years ago I had a high paying job in Australia, and a marginal rate of about 57%. I could have taken a slightly better paying job in the same industry in Oz, but instead, I went to Hong Kong where they paid me 3 times the salary and the tax was 15% flat. After a while I had kids and decided to flee the the pollution and lack of space and convinced the company to transfer me to Canada on the same pay and conditions, tax was my own problem.
My point is that you can whinge and moan all you like but the guys I left behind in Australia all sound like you, they can't afford to live in Sydney anymore but I can live comfortably in the most expensive city in Canada because instead of expecting government to fix it or my parents and uncles to pander to me, I got off my butt, took some risks and set about securing my future.
Step 1 is to stop looking at grads getting $75,000 and living in Manhattan. When you quote circumstances like that I write you off as a spoiled brat.
Either live in a town where the costs are lower and get enough experience to get a master-of-the-universe job in Manhattan, or go to Singapore, or Hong Kong, or Indonesia, or the Emirates, or get a six-figure job in the mining industry in Australia, where they'll even provide your housing. In other words stop crying in yer conrflakes, forget about these daft old codgers on this site moaning about TPTB and Austrians and guns and gold and get out there and do some f$%^ing work.
There's stacks of money to be made and it aint that hard but you my friend, like so many here think you are entitled to it, and as long as you think like that you'll sulk and shrivel up and become a heartless old tea partier with a hardon for Michelle Bachmann.
Step 2 is stop reading this site until you're old enough to be a curmudgeon.
I wrote my own response but I think your reaction is asinine. Move to Australia or East Asia just to find a job? I think we have every right to be pissed, spoiled or not, if America simply has thrown us overboard the economic Titanic. What a load of crap – stop pretending to be better than everyone just because you were born somewhere else than this infested hellhole.
You are right, I'm sorry, the world does owe you a living, my mistake...
I don't recall ever saying that. I recall saying that this article is actually far too lenient. In reality, we should be outraged at the economic reality of this country. But far be it optimal to have to suddenly realize all of one's hopes and ambitions have to scrubbed clean to move to some centrally planned communist country with absolutely no history of enlightenment, civil rights, freedom, property rights or what have you.
You're truly a fool if you think its 'cool' and 'mature' to give in to evil and tyranny and just hop on a boat to the next sinking ship. I don't hear any solid solutions to the problems we face, or philosophies about overcoming them for good.
All I see is a jaded old bastard who can't help but pick of American kids who he thinks can' fight back. After all we're all so overfed on McDonald's and spoiled with iPods that we can't even put two sentences together.
I'm sick of the real entitlted fat bastards like you who, their future secure, sick back and poke at the 'young'uns.'
Do us all a favor and remove yourself from the internet.
Nous devrions peut-spath en français, car en anglais, vous n'ont aucun sens.
blame the victim i see. just because you didn't call the police when your ass was raped doesn't mean you have the moral high ground to tell the next rape victim to suck it up and deal with it like you did because the perpetrator deserves to be free.
"suck it up" is what losers say when they didn't have the balls to deal with the problem like a real man and just run away to another country.
you are the kind of person who would bring ghandi down when he fought for freedom from colonial slave masters by saying "just suck it up slave" or martin luther king to just "suck it up" as a second classs citizen.
instead of standing up for debt slaves you are defending the banksters..
why don't you send a thank you note to the spoiled elites in Australia for them giving you the opportunity to leave your home land in search of better life while they gloat in their inheritance.
You would doubtless be referring to the Ghandi who travelled to London, away from his family to get a better education. That would be the Ghandi who got a job in South Africa when his law practice proved uneconomical and unsuccessful in his home town of Bombay; who couldn't even get a job as a teacher in the country he loved and wanted to live in.
The travel broadened his mind, freed him of debt and provided income for his family back home. It galvanised his commitment to make his country what it could be, and gave him the intellectual and material resources to go back and change it.
I didn't say stay and sweat it out as a slave under the debt that is a most unfortunate consequence of American capitalism's glaring inability to provide the type of education young people in true democracies take for granted and receive relatively inexpensively. I said, if you want to live in Manhattan, excellent, but live there when you have earned the right, by virtue of experience, to have a job commensurate with the lifestyle you so desire. The author complained of crippling debt that he had little ability to clear so I gave him a few options that would clear that debt in just a few years, AND THEN HE CAN GO AND LIVE IN MANHATTAN BECAUSE HE HAS HIS OWN MONEY!!! THAT HE EARNED!!! HIMSELF!!!
I'm sorry but sometimes one has to speak slowly and shout a little when sublety is lost on a doctrinaire opponent.
It is interesting that you brought up Martin Luther King and Ghandi, two men who believed that their countries had potential that was being hindered, their people downtrodden, facing fundamental unfairness that needed to be addressed. In spite of my derision of America as it exists today, I wish it were other. I grew up wishing I could live like an American, admiring her sophistication in politics, the arts, science and her leadership on the world stage, a people to be emulated.
Instead you have become a sorry-assed country, an also-ran that eats its children (witness the original article). You venerate selfish, gluttonous caricatures of capitalism like the Koch brothers who would truly make you all slaves in their furnaces; and you hound the successful like Gates and Buffett and Soros who believe they have a responsibility to give back and arrest the decline and the abuses that have made this once great country a laughing stock (see "Timmie goes to Trondheim").
The don't tread-on-me mindset of the manipulated and assinine tea party crowd, the unutterable stupidity of Republican politicians, the duplicitous cowardice of Democrats is not up to the monumental challenges that you need to face, to once again make your country great. Those of you who squat on this website and boast about your gold and guns aren't heroic or revolutionary, you are cowardly and childish. The irony is you are closer to Mao because you have come to believe, as a nation on the world stage, and in your cities and in your debt-addled homes that power comes out of the barrel of a gun.
Ghandi and King didn't whimper in the corner counting their Krugerrands and fingering their Colts, they changed their personal circumstances so that they could change their country.
You prove my point by confirming that the overrall mindset here on this site is one of personal entitlement. Debt is only slavery if you let it enslave you. Get out and liberate yourself, then come back and liberate your people.
And AH, change your avatar, I know Aldous Huxley, and believe me you're no Aldous Huxley!
Ghandi didn't get in debt for his education nor did he go to london out of economic necessity. His grandfather was diwan, his father was diwan, thus his family sent him to london to get educated to return back and become a diwan . Diwan = the highest officials in the court after the king. Upon his return he paid a hefty price of finding out his mother died in his absence.
Ghandi didn't seek to leave India after returning from London, but his brother set him up with a contract job with an Indian company in South Africa only for 1 year. There is no proof that he was in debt. And this is like joining US Marines and Marines sending you to Iraq. You don't blindly go to Iraq in search of of a job as an American nor did Gandhi. He worked for Indian company and they sent him over.
He was in South Africa for 21 years. Plus he never fought for India in the beginning... He only fought for Indians starting with Indians in South Africa. Only in South Africa did he realize Indian's plight, becuase he came from a privileged background as a diwan's son. Only 1 year after arriving in a foreign country, he was able to establish lobbying group (NIC) for south African Indian merchant elites. Yes, anyone can do that right? Only if you have massive connections and prior wealth in your home land. He helped Indian Muslim businessmen to gain a better status, but did not care for poor Indians or black Africans whom he called subhuman while in South Africa.
Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/When_did_Gandi_go_back_to_India#ixzz1YZSUCexBDuring the first night of his trip in South Africa, Ghandi got thrown off a train for refusing his first class seat he paid for. Gandhi contemplated whether he should go back home to India or to fight the discrimination. And guess what Gandhi fought for 21 years! His home country is India, but he fought injustice where he faced...in South Africa. He didn't back down nor did King. King didn't move to Africa when he faced discrimination. He stayed right where the problem was.
Your suggestion that a man leave his home land, his family, his roots is absurd. My advice, stay and kick the corrupt elites out of your home country instead. Liberate within. You are entitled as a citizen, as a human being, equal treatment under the law. Banksters are clearly at fault. Not you. It is not your fault that you got laid off when you've done everything right in your life and when few corrupt bastards did everything wrong. Non violent resistence not non-violent escape
.
I thought Oklahoma was a hellhole when I was a whippersnapper, went to CA for grad school, then took a job in Texas, which I'd rent out and live in elsewhere.
But it's interesting contrasting the attitudes of the Great Recession young adults to my Granddad in the Greatest generation. I think there's a reason why the latter were termed the Greatest Generation--he didn't waste a lot of angst about his condition, because he was too busy hustling jobs, including with FDR's CCC to keep grandma and his son alive. I never talked to him as a 25 year old, just as a 50 year old, so maybe he would have posted something similar.
But based on our conversations, I don't think so. His brother went to CA with the Joads. But I do agree that the unemployment now is screwing everyone. Austerity, bitches. Vote for Ron Paul--he'll make it all better.
I've got a 24 year old like you and a 21 year old, so I have a soupcon of sympathy.
On the other hand, they would never be complaining about earning only 75,000 in New York. How can you afford hookers and blow at only 75K in the city that never sleeps, with stock options likely to never pay off! The horror!
Hell, come to Houston for 40K and live like a king. You'll have to rub elbows with Texicans and Mezcans and learn a Southern accent and put up with a city with only one train line and horrendous traffic jams. On the other hand, you'll be earning more than 70% in real terms than when I was your age and in grad school.
I hope my sons don't whinge like this. If they did, I would be tempted to say, like me dear Ma, "I'll give you something to cry about." But that's insensitive, so I'll give you a net hug. I recognize the debt issue for higher ed; we took a second against the home, which reveals us to mockery both of the denizens here of the lions den and you yourself since you're complaining about your debt (throw it on mommie, I guess.) I view it as a hedge option in drool cups, but based on this article, I guess I better take out another second to keep myself in drool cups.
And keep off the lawn!
I've got a 24 year old like you and a 21 year old, so I have a soupcon of sympathy.
On the other hand, they would never be complaining about earning only 75,000 in New York. How can you afford hookers and blow at only 75K in the city that never sleeps, with stock options likely to never pay off! The horror!
Hell, come to Houston for 40K and live like a king. You'll have to rub elbows with Texicans and Mezcans and learn a Southern accent and put up with a city with only one train line and horrendous traffic jams. On the other hand, you'll be earning more than 70% in real terms than when I was your age and in grad school.
I hope my sons don't whinge like this. If they did, I would be tempted to say, like me dear Ma, "I'll give you something to cry about." But that's insensitive, so I'll give you a net hug. I recognize the debt issue for higher ed; we took a second against the home, which reveals us to mockery both of the denizens here of the lions den and you yourself since you're complaining about your debt (throw it on mommie, I guess.) I view it as a hedge option in drool cups, but based on this article, I guess I better take out another second to keep myself in drool cups.
Get out of New York. And keep off the lawn!
there is a difference between fighting for justice and complaining. if you see the article as some kids who is just complaing then you deserve to be a pion for the elite.
yes your kids deserve equal injustice as you have because that is somehow good? talk about blaming the victim. so your great vision for the future generation is same old shitty life you've had? especially given the environment where rich are richer than when you were younger and most likely to abuse their power even more?
rich are complaining about taxes and you want your kids to be sold off to banksers education loan scam.
where are your priorities?
It's "peon" or maybe you are thinking of prion, of mad cow disease, a suitably subtle alternative.
... and stop calling yourself Huxley.
Stop trolling...
Your article is too 'neutral.' 'Neutral' is a poisonous term that has infected the body politic for a whole generation, through school, pop culture, the media, politics, what have you – that everyone should stop being an 'extremist' and just 'be calm and rational' and 'don't take sides.'
Well look where that got us.
I think your article is a disgrace to your generation. I'm 24 years old and I SURE AS HELL am not neutral. I'm ANGRY, and I'm an ANARCHIST. Turn your apathy over to anti-government philosophy because you're sure as hell gonna need it to sway the disenfranchised youth away from simple 'apathy' toward 'willfull nonparticipation.'
Its simply a hilarious joke to believe that freedom and prosperity will come from the government or central planning – but due to our generations of coddling, I do not know if we have the vigor necessary to run an economy is an independent and self-initiated manner.
I'm sure as hell going to try though.
When New Zealand went bankrupt myself, my two brothers and all my friends could not get work. Having a $125,000 student loan didn’t help either.
So I got the hell out of Dodge. I have worked in Oz, England, Angola, Germany, Scotland, Indonesia......wherever I could find work. I wish I could stay home, but life throws you shit and that’s all there is to it!
And no I'm not rich, and don't have a house or a big car. But at least I have always been independent, didn’t get in to debt when everyone else wanted an unaffordable Mc Mansion and never have asked ( nor ever will) ask the government for help. Quite frankly, they simply can’t be trusted and no one in their right mind can financially afford to trust them.
The fact is, its still the law of the jungle out there, despite what your friends may tell you. Just because we live in a modern society doesn't give you the automatic right to survive, competition for resources still exists..... again - despite what the media and government will tell you.
So take control of your own life because the only thing I can tell you is, despite the false pleading of politicians, governments and some bleeding hearts; in reality they don’t give a damn about you – and if they do – chances are they want something more in return.
Finally get out an travel – if there is fuck all work (and I know that – I’m applying to work in another shit hole) - a shitty job in a different country is always more fun even if the money still sucks, and who knows you may get lucky and get a real opportunity.
you got it partially correct
you are right that you should survive by taking whatever opportunity you can find
but you also have to have those who caused the mess responsible. otherwise you are taking the easy way out. you are not doing your duty as a citizen by not holding those in power from doing it again.
you won't get it if you don't even ask.
And thanks to the internet, and its ability to spread information farther and faster, we are now all more likely to be aware of the shortcomings of our presumptions vis-a-vis resources and the effectiveness of different economic and political systems to allocate them, or lack thereof.
Oh dear, unless we make some giant technological leaps very soon, the future doesn't look very bright. Luckily, many new technologies are off-shoots of 'defense' spending so hopefully the US should come out smelling of roses ..