I don’t really see kids helping their parents in the west. Some of my Korean American friends in the US, all excelling btw, give their moms money to spend already in the mid to late 20s. (How do I know? Asian parents will always bring up how amazing other kids are and compare lol) You’ll not see that in many western kids. They’ll take their parents money and send them to a old folks home next day.
Ironically, the ones that aren’t excelling at a high paying jobs are better off right now. You might gat close to 75k plus in NY city or SF. But the guy making 40k in Utah or outside of Dallas has more of a chance owning a home.
Housing outside of Dallas is affordable with lots of land last time I check. And Dallas area is developing fast, one of the places that the recession did not impact much. Lots of jobs there.
This is the EXACT thing I have said for many years moving from Canada to Taiwan. Its the value of work after costs that got me through my first years here.
Hard work is not just physical, its psychological. I’m a millennial and have managed to buy acreage and a couple houses in west coast Canada as well as farmland here in taiwan, without banks. We can save money. Due to divorce and my dislike for people using people, lost a lot. But now back on track and looking to buy land again in Taiwan even though it’s 3x higher price now.
Point being millennials being dumb isn’t the excuse, its laziness. With the exception of people who are truly retarded/handicapped in some way, there is very little excuse for people to say they can’t make money. Its true one can say they won’t say they regret spending more time in the office on their death bed, but that’s a choice they make and shouldn’t complain too much in the end having made said choice either way. Its no lie, hard long work. I spent days working outdoors in the tropics where my kind simply doesn’t belong. Nights studying and writing to get my day work ahead. For 20 years (for the math wizes out there I started work before I started masturbating ) Might not be ideal, but if someone wants to buy a house or land without handouts, that’s what it takes. Still better than 200 years ago. I’d say hard work is a pretty nice convenience. Most employers will say the same thing. Cannot find reliable, smart hardworking employees. Lots of excuses and reasons for that. So if a person wants to get ahead, be prepared to work their ass off and likely do it alone with lots of negative pressure against them. Sad fact, but a fact. I work so long simply because I can’t find someone to show up on time and do their job, never mind excel at it. 3 years ago I offered a few people 55 and 65 k a month to do average 7 hour days and none lasted more than one month. The best employees are 60 years old but they have some health issues now…hence why we see 10 20 year olds doing 1 persons job. Efficiency and productivity have gone away and been replaced with employers owing employees instead of employees owing employers a bang for their buck to make the business run. word to the wise, agriculture self employment as an example has a tonne of money waiting for those willing to put in the time and blood!
Otherwise accept robots replacing our jobs and hope the government services will support us.
For me, I’m not counting on that outcome to turn out well.
Actually there are also a lot of studies saying Millenials are better overall with what little money they have than the Boomer generation. Especially when considering the 2007 housing crash in US the millenials were way to young to buy houses back then, it was almost all Boomer Generations with a few Gen X. Millenials grew up in a depression economy whereas Boomers grew up in the longest sustained economic growth in US history. Pensions, High Interest rate savings, High Salary to cost of living, Low home prices, good work benefits, strong unions. The Baby Boomers also lived well above their means and had the phrase “keeping up with Joneses” and saw many finally go bankrupt in 2006-2008 and were parents to the millenials. Perhaps these Millenials didn’t learn personal finance from a Boomer generation that were themselves a poor example.
Not going to dispute that boomers are self-centered, but the contrast isn’t that clear cut.
For example, my parents were very small children during the Great Depression (and I am a boomer). My mother’s family (merchants mostly) was a little wealthier than my father’s family (farmers mostly), but both sides struggled until the onset of WWII.
To his dying day my father’s idea of comfort food was one of a handful of “snacks” he’d coveted in a calorically poor upbringing.
I remember visiting them over the holidays in 2004. I’ll never forget waking up very early to find my father already up and in the kitchen, hunched over a cup of weak (nearly clear) Folger’s coffee in which he’d crushed saltines and over which he’d poured a small hill of sugar (aka soakey). He was up early, worried about commodity prices, and reverted to spooning up a breakfast he’d enjoyed as a boy growing up during the Great Depression. Indelible memory, even though I’d seen him eat that many, many times.
Despite being exposed to the 2008 near-depression, I’m not sure millennials have such a personal-finance pole star, frankly. Or one that’s equivalently stark, anyway.
Yea I think there are still a lot of Millenials who have no clue about Personal Finance and Gen Xers and Boomers. But theres Dave Ramsey lots of people listen to him now. Im between Gen X and Boomer, I think Half of my friends know Dave Ramsey, the other half may be clueless about personal finance. But theres tons of videos about personal finance now on Youtube.
As someone who has taken the piss out of liberal arts degrees, let me come to their defence. I have a social science degree but work in the science field and often have better critical thinking skills than the scientists. Good writing and critical thinking skills, as well as being able to weave through various power structures, are sorely needed in STEM! Liberal arts degrees are fine in government or heavy science related fields, but it depends where you got them from and the quality of education. Liberal arts degrees from ivy league or Oxbridge or other elite institutions are fine. Ones from Bumfuck, Saskatchewan? Well, I`d like fries with that please.
I have a Liberal Arts degree, actually in Fine Arts, I use it now. I make a decent amount with it. But I really knew what I wanted to do and had talent and got into a top design school (in US). I would steer most people away from it unless it was obvious they were good or really wanted it. Its a super competitive field and people were are just ok dont get hired. I would agree there are better odds for someone studying STEM or perhaps whatever someone chooses make sure they are good at it or work hard to excel at it…
Yep. Wall Street has plenty of liberal arts types working in mostly non-quantitative positions, nearly all Ivy Leaguers. Silicon Valley employs thousands of social scientists. The Ivier the better.
And you’re 100% right that STEM types could use better soft skills. Like, much better.
A lot of my peers who majored in biology have as tough a time finding work as those who studied the soft sciences. Even some of the CS majors are having trouble because that particular market is getting oversaturated.
No matter what you study, about 80% of the time you find that bachelor degrees just don’t cut it anymore. Almost all of us find ourselves going back to school.
The only people I know who aren’t struggling are the ones who come from wealthy(ish) backgrounds, whose families can help them finance their education.
My mother has taught technical writing in universities for over 50 years (and still teaches into her 70s and will likely never retire—she enjoys it and does it for only a few hours a day). In her opinion though, grads today are about the same in writing as high school grads 50 years ago.
Hmm really? I’m trying to go back to study design in Italy. I’m not particularly artistic.
I found general business pretty worthless unless you’re a complete retard with no business sense. I really didn’t need to take a management class putting management lingo to concepts that are obvious. Unless you want to do something very specific like accounting to be a CPA, it’s not worth it. But then again I grew up with a business minded dad and worked the business from the factory to office, so maybe it kind of made me more business minded.
That’s interesting, and sad. I think it speaks to how it’s gotten harder and harder over the years to draw really smart and capable people to teaching, when they could make so much more money in almost any other profession that requires comparable qualifications.
My high school education was a complete joke. They let one kid graduate even though he couldn’t even read well enough to pass the written portion of his driver’s test. Granted, he definitely had some kind of learning disability, but they didn’t even help the guy properly. Just shuffled him through and washed their hands of him.
Where in Canada does the school you went to matter? I’ve always assumed it was how you sell it not what you’re selling, when it comes to holding a non-STEM degree.
) Might not be ideal, but if someone wants to buy a house or land without handouts, that’s what it takes. Still better than 200 years ago. I’d say hard work is a pretty nice convenience. Most employers will say the same thing. Cannot find reliable, smart hardworking employees. Lots of excuses and reasons for that. So if a person wants to get ahead, be prepared to work their ass off and likely do it alone with lots of negative pressure against them. Sad fact, but a fact. I work so long simply because I can’t find someone to show up on time and do their job, never mind excel at it. 3 years ago I offered a few people 55 and 65 k a month to do average 7 hour days and none lasted more than one month. The best employees are 60 years old but they have some health issues now…hence why we see 10 20 year olds doing 1 persons job. Efficiency and productivity have gone away and been replaced with employers owing employees instead of employees owing employers a bang for their buck to make the business run. word to the wise, agriculture self employment as an example has a tonne of money waiting for those willing to put in the time and blood!
