In your experience, are young adults losing their sense of optimism?

I wouldn’t say we are losing optimism; so much as we are dealing with our reality. We graduate with this “education” and we believe what we were told initially: If you have an education, you will get a job. Only after 500 job applications and little interview requests to we realize that our “education” was really just something we paid for, not an actual learning experience that will prepare us for getting a job/career.

Even as children, teachers, schools, higher education institutions and the government drill into us that we must get an education. We must get that (minimally) bachelor’s degree to get a good job, to be successful and to be respected. We are constantly reminded that if we do not go to college and get an education, we will fail, much less get a job.

But who makes these requirements? Who sets these standards? The higher education institutions and government have convinced the general public that we have to get this education. They have created a social standard for “necessary education.” This standard is so engrained, it doesn’t even occur to most of us to ask these questions. Who loans us the money to pay the bill? The higher education institutions and the government. To whom do we owe money to after “the best four years of our lives?” The usual suspects.

Still, I started a job that required on-the-job training for six months and up to a year. Wait, why did I go to college again? Most college grads will most likely start in a job with low pay and little benefits. But besides paying all of life’s necessary bills, they will be straddling college loan debt. This is what our education gives us? I don’t know about you, but want my money back.

My advice to all you high school grads nervous about which college you’re getting into, worry less. Maybe college isn’t such a good idea.

How about some personal decision making? We have raised our kids to be entitled. Why not go to college anywhere, no matter what the costs? Why not use that debit card? As parents (I have two 22 year olds), we have had to constantly fight the culture that tells our kids they can have it all.

I have been appalled at MPR coverage of those “poor kids” who have to go to community college because they can’t afford tuition at expensive schools. So what? That’s what my kids did because we were not willing to go into debt.

I was raised by Depression era parents and graduated college in 76 during a recession. All of my peers struggled, lived together to save money, did without cars, etc. All this angst about young people doing this now? It is nothing new.

I have never believed in the perfection of the American Dream. But I always fought for the politics and policies that I believed in. I did not check out..

This environment forces creativity. Let’s use it.

And quit whining, for God’s sake.

That’s right, you kids are from the generation where everyone got a trophy, nobody won or lost, and self esteen was given and not earned.

Good luck to ya.

The problem with older generations is they think we EXPECT prosperity. We don’t expect prosperity.

We EXPECT to be able to pay our bills/loans. Especially, after the government, high schools, higher education institutions, society in general TELL US, that we HAVE to go to University to get a job. Darn right, I expect earn a decent salary after I paid $40,000 for education. My parents didn’t pay for my University. My Dad, said he wanted us “appreciate our education.” Well that left me with $40,000 of debt and no job.

Older generations forget that they didn’t START their life with debt. They got a job and THEN decided to buy a house or buy a car, etc… We graduate and start with debt, BEFORE we even get a job. We start in the hole and have to spend our lives trying to dig out, just to break even.

A big reason I feel frustrated about not having a voice in the political realm. Many of the values the other posts here mention such as social justice, equality and efficiency don’t have any political power because you have the older generations who have the power and don’t agree.

I see it as a bit of a waiting game for the older generation to move along and more of my peers to gain voices. It’s hard to be heard when all of the money and hate is stacked against you.

To the young comrades of USA,,, welcome to Socialism.

Optimism, creativity, democracy, and personal responsibility may be checked in at the door.

As long as your labors benefit the government you will be allowed to exist.

DTOM

Gary F and James DTOM, in what language is what we have in America called “socialism”? It’s not English.

As a young person myself, what do I have to be optimistic about today? More government regulation in every aspect of my life? The continual devaluation of our money and destruction of my personal savings due to printing massive amounts of fiat money. Untold amounts of corruption in Washington, in both parties. What sort of motivation is this supposed to give me?

The increasing stagnation, higher structural unemployment and national debt make will make it difficult for future generations to as prosperous as previous generations.

My kids are fairly optimistic, but I lie to them about the consequences of socialism. I feel that protecting their optimism and innocence for as long as possible gives them the best chance of hitting the ground running one day.

If they believe they can succeed on their own, they might be able to escape the grasp of the socialist onslaught. I have faith in the power of positive thinking.

If that fails, no worries. They too can sit back and say hey, “I’ve got my healthcare insurance paid in full by Uncle Sam, and my college education is being paid by a combo platter of Pell grants and governemnt backed loans, so why worry?”

That is, until that day when China says, “not today” at one of those weekly debt auctions.

From each according to their ability, to each according to their need!

I am becoming fairly pessimistic, even after graduating with an M.S. in engineering one year ago, I’ve been getting by on short term contract jobs, paying my own health insurance and taxes. I don’t know how much longer I want to live like this, but it’s allowed me to develop my frugal living skills, and hopefully I can carry those skills with me in the future. I learned that I don’t need much in terms of material things to get by.

As a 25 year old, I am in agreement with Chris (1:15 pm) We are the most educated generation, and the vast majority can see through a lot of this political BS.

Where there is a will, there is a way. Our generation has been told that they can have everything, and we believe it. All this fear-mongering is doing is trying to keep us from what our generation wants. Yes, it might not work out perfectly the first time…or the second time…or the third…but in the end, we will find a way for it to work. Every generation has. To tell us that we can’t have this only stifles the optimism of our generation…

To Gary F and James DTOM…our generation is a social one…just look at the success among my generation of things like facebook and twitter. For the most part we want to see the success of our friends and neighbors…we want to be able to compromise with others to reach a common ground. For once a previous generation should learn from the next. Learn to listen and figure out what you can do to help out, not just complain and whine about how things are wrong.

And to people in general…saying “No” to things doesn’t accomplish anything…anyone who sits still in time accomplishes nothing. So get off your rear end and help your community somehow, don’t just and whine more about someone wanting to get up and do something for a change. This country will never be perfect…the second phrase in the Constituation tells us that: “in Order to form a more perfect Union”…So get out and do something that strives for a better state than is already there.

This thread is certainly interesting reading. I’m not sure how much I agree with those who complain that us baby boomers were “selfish.” We lobbied when we were 20-somethings for civil rights, subsidized housing for minorities, women’s rights, ADC, food stamps, an EPA to insure clean air & water, etc. None of those things existed when I was 20. We thought we were being socially responsible. Then LBJ gave us what we wanted – the Great Society, which helped dig us into the hole we’re in today – in massive debt and burdened with a system of welfare and government entitlements that only accelerate us toward a cliff. Not that a lot of Wall Street fat cats and billionaire CEO’s didn’t help push closer to that edge.

I did one semester of junior college in 1966, then enlisted in the Air Force for four years of active duty. I survived just fine. I came home and found a nice job as a clerk with a major corporation – okay pay that kept going up as I advanced, full benefits, and what seemed like a lifetime guarantee of employment. Credit card interest was 5% or 6% and was tax deductible. We had it made. Within 15 years I held a management position that paid well. But 25 years after starting, when I was six months shy of lifetime medical & dental benefits and full pension, 600 of us were let go in just another round of cuts that typified the 90’s. I took my pension accumulation as an IRA distribution in cash, paid a lot of tax and the 10% penalty, and started my own company. Since then, nine months out of the year I’ve worked hundred hour weeks. I’ve got no health insurance and age is starting to catch up to me. I’m 63 and just started Social Security, which now makes up 75% of what I need to survive. The rest will come from the few bucks under the mattress that I made working those long hours these past 15 years since my layoff (you didn’t think I would INVEST that loot, did you!?!?! In what? Enron? WorldCom? Lincoln Savings? The thieves handwriting was already on the wall two decades ago.)

But those who think we had it made were right… From my birth two years after the war, until I was pushing 50, we never knew want, we never knew financial tragedy like my parents Great Depression, or a war that affected every single family, as did WWII. Now, it’s gotten hard, unlike anything I’ve seen. I’d be pessimistic, too, if I was 25, sitting on a student loan debt bomb with huge interest, and trying to find a decent job in this economy, and in an America where there don’t seem to be any of the comfortable “guarantees” that we had for so long. But I fear that your desire for the government to step in with guaranteed health care, writing off your loans, lowering your taxes, and otherwise somehow rescuing everyone, will only come back to haunt you.

Old people always look curmudgeonly and obstructionist to the young. My parents and theirs looked that same way to us when Bob Dylan and Joan Baez were singing my generation on to greater glory. But I discovered that old coots look that way because of what we learned in the interim – about human nature, about how “systems” (government & otherwise) actually work, about The Law of Unintended Consequences. Even during 50 years of pretty good times, naivete dies a natural death. Economics may be a “dismal science,” but it IS science. When the interest on the national debt reaches critical mass, your chickens will come home to roost… accompanied by three giant condors.

Are we losing our sense of optimism? YES!! Of course we are, how can we not, most of us graduated with over $40,000 in student loan debt (not the $25,00 loan debt, a fake number touted by students who had some help in college).

I graduated in May 2008 and didn’t get a job until June 2009. I pay $350-$400 in student loans a month, I have no savings and barley any retirement, granted I am only 24 but right now, at this rate, I couldn’t afford a house or children for the next 10 years. I am married but even with dual incomes, it is still VERY hard to make ends meet and my husband and I have considered moving in with our parents simply to save money to buy a house or have children all because I was told I have to get an education. For what? A job that pays only $36,000 a year. I want my money back, my degree was not worth $40,000.

On TOP OF IT, It extremely FRUSTRATING trying to communicate with older generations, (i.e. our parents) because they JUST DON’T GET IT! I make $35,000 a year and when I told my parents I asked for $40,000 for my first job after I graduated college, they laughed at me and told me I was crazy. They DON’T GET that is realistic because of the debt we carry. THEY DON’T GET IT and they never will because they are not in our shoes!! Randi is absolutely right, they think we EXPECT prosperity but we what we really expect to be able to pay down student loan debt and grow our families, just like they did. But what they FORGET is that they didn’t start their lives with such huge debt. They got a job then acquired debt, my generation graduated from college with a MORGATE but we don’t own a house, we don’t own anything.

Politically, I am semi optimistic that some change will happen although all politicians care about is saving their jobs and making money, but the difference is that our generation can see through the political rhetoric where older generations just eat it up. It is really frustrating trying to communicate with ignorant older generations, who can’t diffuse rhetoric from facts.

Another political issue is the way in which we MISUSE capitalism in this country. I completely agree with what Kailah (9:10am) said “I sincerely wish I had been born and raised across the pond in Europe. At least I’d be free of debt, and most of all, free of having to see the DISTORTED version of capitalism that exists here. We live in a superficial and shallow place. Apparently only heirs and heiresses can achieve the American Dream” Never mind not politically optimistic either….

Thanks George D 4:52 PM, for getting it ☺

Regarding some of the earlier comments: Under no reasonable definition of the word is President Obama a socialist, and to say otherwise is a flat-out lie intended to inflame passions and shut down rational discussion of the real issues.

Its a sign of how hard-right our politics have gone if people actually think Obama is a socialist. Nixon, if you remember, thought national health insurance was a good idea, and he was certainly no socialist. When Reagan was elected, I proudly called myself a conservative. My views have largely not changed since then, but now I find I’m a “liberal,” because I think a modicum of regulation of big business and a minimal social safety net for the poor are good things. Besides, people who actually call themselves socialists (not me) are greatly disappointed and think Obama is too similar to his immediate predecessor. So, if your calling our president a socialist is not an inflamatory lie, then you must be looking at the world in some kind of fun-house mirror. Look up “socialism” in whatever dictionary you have. Obama’s policies don’t fit the definition.

Due undoubtedly to some latent sense of masochism, I’m going to weigh in on the socialist issue one more time.

I don’t think there is any such thing as a purely capitalist or purely socialist social system out there. All first world nations are some blending of the two systems. In my younger, crazier days, when I was less capable of acknowledging ambiguity, this bothered me no end. However, I’ve come to the conclusion that political/economic systems are like dogs: mongrels tend to be healthier than purebreds.

So the question is not whether or not we are a socialist nation, at some point we are, the questions are:

A. How much of a socialist nation are we?

B. How much(and where) does it benefit us?

C. How much (and where) does it harm us?

None of these questions is going to have an absolute answer.

Frankly I think we overly romanticise our economic system. I don’t claim to be immune to this: I have my scheme for getting rich just like everyone else in America. It takes very little effort to envision me on the cover of Forbes. The fact that I haven’t pulled it off in the last fifty years is beside the point somehow.

Nevertheless, I’m tired of hearing people pontificate about our economic system. We talk about entrpreneurs like they change in phone booths and fly from place to place under their own power. We talk about the market as if it were a religious relic that cures the blind and lame. That hasn’t been my experience of either. Am I alone in this?

You want the market and entrepreneurs to save you? I have a question for you? What product out there is so compelling that you just have to have it? Never mind that you’re unemployed. Never mind that you’re worried you’re going to become unemployed. Never mind that every penny you make is already spoken for. Never mind that your bank wouldn’t loan you enough money to buy an hour on a parking meter. None of that matters. What is the widget you just have to have–and damn the consequences?

If you can’t think of one right now you’ve stumbled across the little flaw in hoping that capitalism will save you.

Yes. Free markets do many things really well and should not be impeded. It leads to disaster when most or all of the economy is run by the government, as the examples of the Soviet Union and Maoist China clearly show. On the other hand, people’s needs are not necessarily correlated with their ability to pay. Some things work best if we make them a collective endeavor– things where the profit motive is not sufficient to motivate the free market to do them. Big pharma has given us good drugs to lower cholesterol and treat erectile dysfunction, but progress is slow on dealing with malaria. Believing that health care is one of those areas where free markets alone do not produce the best results does not make one a socialist.

So, back to the question…. I’m optimistic about our pessimistic young people, partly because they see through the ideological fear-mongering that passes for polical discourse these days and want to do better. They realize that the “slippery slope” is a misleading metaphor for thinking about the dangers we face– that it’s more like two equally unacceptable ditches to be avoided. They’re not superstitiously afraid of either Big Government or Big Business, in contrast to our so-called leaders in Congress, who benefit when the electorate is polarized. I’m eager for the day when they take over the reins.

I don’t know. I suppose you are asking because you assume that spending 1/6 of our GDP on healthcare is a problem. I am not sure it is a problem. But since you asked I’ll engage in some informed speculation.

1) The US is more prosperous than Canada. Per capita GDP in the US is $46K and in Canada it is $39K. So right off the bat, since we are a wealthier population, we will have more income available to spend on healthcare. I suspect Haitians spend even less of their GDP on healthcare as a percentage than Canadians.

2) It is well known that here in the US we spend a lot of money on “death battle” care fighting cancers and fixing heart disease. (Something like 85% of our healthcare expenditures go for things like that. Don’t quote me on that one.) That kind of care is expensive. So be it.

3) Canada uses governement force to pay less for pharma drugs. They take a “this is what we’re going to pay whether you like it or not” stance with the drug companies. That shifts some of the true costs of developing some expensive drugs to the US market where you and I get to pay more for the same thing. (Canada is not the only country that does this.)

4) My Canadian neighbor told me that, “If the Canadian government decides to do 20,000 heart surgeries a year and you happen to be number 20,001, you simply die.” (Yes, that is direct quote.)

So the combined effects of governement rationing, a less prosperous population and a government that can’t print money as easily as the US can (at least so far) will no doubt limit overall healthcare expenditures in Canada as compared to the US.

With all that said, if you want to put some downward pressure on healthcare costs, you need less government intervention in the market, not more.

I suggest you read “The Top Ten Myths of American Health Care: A Citizen’s Guide”

By Sally C. Pipes.

Also checkout Cato’s e-book Healthy Competition

Remember, iIf something can’t continue this way forever, it won’t.

I also reject the premise that per capita GDP is a good measure of national well-being

No but they should, they are in deep do-do. They are they second generation give or take a generation, that will be less healthy, less wealthy, and less happy than their parents or grandparents. Sad really.