Guest Manifesto: Generation G ~ The Lost Generation
September 2008, the credit markets freeze up and the world economy enters a tailspin. Here in the states we are stricken with the sharpest economic decline since the great depression. Job creation dries up as companies simultaneously engage in vigorous cost cutting (read headcount reduction). A year later the Fed speaks of green shoots and a jobless recovery (is this an oxymoron or what?). Our present official unemployment rate hovers around 10% but this figure excludes those who no longer qualify for unemployment benefits, those who have given up the job search, and those who never broke into the job market in the first place. Enter Generation G, the Lost Generation. This article shows how youth are disproportionately suffering the effects of the decline in the job market and highlights the lasting effects this can have on their professional lives.
one of the first looks at the specific effects and implications on our generation specifically. i noted awhile back that for the first time in US history, college grads are starting their careers (if they can find one) with negative net worth…student loans and credit card debt now have the average college grad thousands in the red line before they ever take a swing in the first inning.
Yes, and generally speaking a college education now gives one the prospects that a mere high school education did in our parents generation, and with wages that inflation adjusted haven’t increased since the seventies, despite productivity gains that are out of this world. Essentially you now get by your mid-thirties to where a high-school graduate began a generation ago, presuming you haven’t blown your financial prospects by siring children. Its a raw deal indeed. Somebody termed ours the “tchotke” generation, a generation of disenfranchised permi-adolescents living in shitty apartments and condos who are rich in gadgets to wallpaper over the emptiness of our real life prospects. Our parents had spouses, homes and families, while we have ipods and flat-screens. Poor succor for the soul that.
The phenomenon of starting off with negative net worth is not exclusive to the current cohort of college graduates neither does it imply a lifetime in America’s underclass. I graduated with a Ph.D. (clearly a money losing degree if one computes the net present value of the opportunity cost of 13 years-yes 13 years of education) in 1995. I owed over $80k in student loans with interest rates varying from 12% to 9%. In addition, I paid child support for my daughter from 1987 to 2002 and contributed to her private college education from 2002 to 2006. At age 50, I bought my first home, a modest starter home, in 2006 on a 15 year mortgage at 6% interest. In May 2010 I will thankfully make my very last education loan payment. By living modestly, driving second hand cars, and not engaging in the mindless consumerism that so many people are addicted to, I’ve been able to support and educate my child, buy a home, pay my student loans and enjoy a modest and comfortable lifestyle.
I realise that there is a lot of gloom afflicting Generation Y today. Nevertheless, let’s look at the advantages that Gen Y college students enjoy. Finaid.org (11/3/09) reports Stafford loan rates from 1.88% to 2.48% and PLUS loans at 3.28%. These are far below the 9% to 12% rates that were charged in the 1980s and 1990s. There are also rumblings in Washington of a student loan bailout. So there is some chance that part of Gen Y’s loans may be forgiven. My point is things are not as dire as they appear to be.
We all view the world through our own lens J. Christopher. Something as simple as a slow start can set a recent graduate down a path of lower earnings and prospects than his associate that joins a hot job market. Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers” does a good job of detailing how seemingly inconsequential turns of fate can have pernicious effects. I myself am not a recent graduate and am gainfully employed, my own situation is far better than that of many youth today, but I can still empathize with the difficulties they face. We aren’t facing the end of the world, but neither are we facing our halcyon days. America stands at a crossroads with hard work and improvement down one path, and decline and decay down another. Our collective efforts and sacrifices will determine the outcome. I hope our national character is up to the task of bootstrapping our way back to real growth and domestic productivity.
I completely agree with your statement “we all view the world through our own lens..” and it is our idiosyncratic perspective that determines the opportunities or threats that we see. I also agree that “…seemingly inconsequential turns of fate can have pernicious effects.” However, you do not entertain the equally plausible outcome that seemingly inconsequential turns of fate can lead to positive outcomes.
I currently teach undergraduate and graduate students in a large state university and am often amazed at how their gloomy outlook on the world blinds them to opportunities that exist. This is in marked contrast to the undergrads at my previous position on the East coast. I witnessed how Indian, Ghanian, Russian, West Indian, and Chinese students (who came from far worse circumstances than the average American born university student) marveled at the plethora of opportunities in the U.S. and in many cases grasped those opportunities to build viable businesses. I should also mention that racial barriers and language deficiencies which non-white students were acutely aware of did not dampen their drive and enthusiasm. It is precisely that optimism in the face of obstacles that predisposed them “…to the task of bootstrapping…” themselves to prosperity. It is exactly that attitude which if adopted among students today will drive a return to “…real growth and domestic productivity.” I am sad to say that native born students need to understand that the seemingly gloomy situation they face is actually not as bad as previous generations faced. The major problem I see in native born students is a lack of will to persist in the face of difficulties. At the very least on my campus the default behaviour is to fall into a state of helplessness and curse the conditions that surround them.
I came across this posting on The Fairer Sex (http://thisisnotimefortheanonymous.blogspot.com/?zx=b7e2ebb938e2e732) which most eloquently addresses the trained helplessness I see in many undergraduates on my campus of 22,000 students. I am unwilling to say that sample is illustrative of students all across America but I suspect that might be the case. I am unable to attribute this post to a specific author but my kudos to this exemplar of masculinity.
Enjoy!
“Life is for the taking. No excuses. Fortune favors the bold. If you sit around with your hand open, begging for a tuppence…you’ll get pockets full of change if not open derision. Our society has bred weakness. Our mothers have bred whiners, losers, passive/aggressive man-boys afraid of hard work and physical pain as well as open conflict. Whimsy, pathetic misanthropes and sycophants more concerned with passive/aggressively debating the merits of more decisive men seem omnipresent. We are not a hundred years removed from presidents that engaged in pistol duels to settle arguments.
Our fathers have checked out if not physically then figuratively. More and more I feel a sort of poetic justice for the weaker men who have ignored the lineage of men that is explorers, fighters, soldiers, gamblers, live-ers…..they have made their beds and have chosen to continue lying in them. You determine what you tolerate If you tolerate abuse, it continues.
We have inherited a crumbling, decayed, corrupted system whereby the rules of engagement and expectations have changed. But….there are reminders of men who live the way they wish and damn the consequences and the ill talk of the haters. The conditioning tells us to shy from the brink, to shy from the risk. Fuck that noise. On your death bed you won’t sit back and think of the quiet nights at home and wish you had more. You will think of that which you did not do, that which you did not accomplish nor attempt.
You can only win what you put in the middle. When you wonder why I walk through the world breaking all the rules you hold dear. When you wonder why my behavior is tolerated and yet many call me friend and will vouch for my reliability….it’s because the rules as you see do not apply to the decisive. The decisive craft the rules. The lines the betas color and scribble within are there to protect their mimsy, pansy un-calloused hands. For the rest of us, that know there is only pursuit, failure, and victory……the lines are just something to fall back on and rest within during the lulls of the self-made rollercoaster which marks the life of an alpha/man.
Be who and what you are.
-Yrs. in Christ,
Thanks J. Christopher,
Marquis is a colleague of mine and one of the Alpha brotherhood without question. I fully agree with his position and with much of what you stated above. I plan to respond in greater detail this weekend, but have lacked the time to address it in the detail the subject deserves. In fact, I may just make a post on the topic as it encompasses a many critical points. I am shortly to head out the door this evening, but in short, I have launched my site precisely to teach men the skills it takes to be leaders, to be active, not reactive, to have ego resiliency and make the world turn rather than be lulled into the mindset that you are dependent on others. As I stated in my education series, education is valuable to provide an option, but true freedom lies in entrepreneurship. So long as you look to others to provide you with a job you are a dependent, and indentured servant if you will. You and I both know however that the system encourages such thinking and 90% of the population are sheep who accept what they are told and wish to bleat and follow the true titans. I did not mean to imply that these youth must succumb to the outside influences and let it determine their lives, merely that the majority will regardless. The Alpha who possesses ego resiliency will overcome any obstacles. His mindset, attitudes and mood have an internal locus of control, he consciously decides his mental state and his actions follow from it. Those of us who are self examined enough to possess this ability are the slim minority however. Most have an external locus of control and these are those whose path in life may be sent down an alternate course of hopelessness and poor choices. Look around you and you will see that such individuals outnumber us many times over. My intent in this site is to turn these wayward souls into men. Men such as those who built this fine nation, not the dependent and slothful masses supping on their bread and circuses while Rome burns. It is truly time for the remaking of the American Man and my sincere hope is that this adversity does breed a stronger and more self reliant crop of citizen patriots to rescue our nation from the path to ignominy.