Posted on 06/01/2013 10:55:17 AM PDT by YankeeReb
My son, nearly 19, doesn’t have his driver’s license yet, not for lack of trying. When I was a kid, you took driver’s ed for a few weeks, you practiced driving for a couple of months with your learner’s permit, you took your test. Didn’t pass the first time? You went home, practiced what you got wrong, went down the following weekend, took your test, all over.
Now, in my state, you must take the driver’s ed and have a learner’s permit, but you must also keep a log of your driving, racking up a minimum of 60 hours (which translates to a few thousand miles of driving). Then, you need to make an appointment for the driver’s test, which usually is some months off. The test is no longer once around the parking lot at the DMV, a three-point turn, and parallel parking. Now, it’s a major road test, including driving through an urban area, on a superhighway, etc.
If you fail, you need to make another appointment, which is some months off. And forget about making an appointment for a time that might be convenient to you. It’s what’s convenient to the state.
I hope it makes for safer drivers, but it certainly makes for fewer drivers, too.
As for actually buying cars and houses and the like, my son looks at what happens to kids getting out of college, and it isn’t pretty. The economy just isn’t generating good, career-type of jobs in the quantities that will allow the economy to absorb 4 million young folks reaching adulthood each year.
For this reason, too, he’s eschewed student loans. He actually turned down his first choice for college because it would have required $20K - $40K of loans to get through, while his second choice is one that between us, we can pay the tuition the school requires of us out of my income and his earnings, and his third choice, if he’d have accepted it, was free.
Folks his age are much warier about borrowing large sums of money that will require decades to pay off, especially in amounts that stretch the outer fringes of their budgets. When my wife and I were young and looking to buy a home, we were told, buy all the home you can afford, get as large a mortgage as they’ll give you. Over time, your income will steadily increase, and the property will appreciate, and you’ll be fine.
Today, neither part of that equation works so well.
I view it as a precocious wisdom when I see young folks acting so prudently about taking on large amounts of debt.
“A truly heroic challenge can help produce a heroic generation, though I wouldn’t bet on it this time.”
I the heroic challenge is the key. The Greatest Generation was great because their challenge was one that the entire country was 100% behind. If a young man was not in the service, he pretty much was a social outcast. Even when I was a kid in the 60’s, everyone in that generation knew who did not serve. They talked about it, and not kindly. It was a lot eaiser to be a hero under those circustances.
I think the guys how served in Vietnam were in a way much more heroic. They served despite the conflicting messages and the abuse they took. The best thing we as citizens have done for the gulf war vets is absolutly refusing to let leftists treat vets like they did on Vietnam.
The article says that driving rate anomg the you are the lowest since 1963. Lets remember that all those kids in 1960’s finally grew up an bought cars and houses. I suspect it will not be any different with these kids.
When I was a kid, I was amazed by this one guy’s HO Scale slot car racing track in his basement. I thought it was the coolest thing ever. My son got old enough and we put together a nice HO Scale racetrack. It had buildings and trees and lights and people. I came home from work after we finished it and he was playing Mario Cart on his game system. He wasn’t the least bit interested in that race track. Now, he can drive a Ferrari through Paris on his game system. The make believe world is fancier and more exciting than the real world, and you earn points.
I did that w/ the Army -- Got a BS in CS [computer science] with no student debt, problem is the industry wants people with X years experience in the field for entry-level positions, and the only way to get experience in the field is to get one of those jobs. -- Much of the problem as I see it is that employers want people already utterly-qualified for the job (i.e. they are unwilling to train them); this attitude leads to a whole host of problems, one of which is that they generally don't want Computer Scientists but "Coders" [the difference being that of a Architect/Engineer and an average-Joe construction-worker].
I suspect that this is rather wide-spread, even outside my industry: that the companies are generally unwilling to invest in their people.
there are cheap cars’out there - craigslist and dalers’still have’them, just not quite as many, but theyare out there. i see’them listed every’day.
And apparently doing it in a dense, urban environment. I refuse to set foot in such a place. Who wants to live like a freaking ant?
It would have, if the society had taught them the worth of American ideals, and then provided an opportunity to sacrifice for them. Our society failed at the former, and has sneered at those who have volunteered for the latter.
They are not mature enough to do much of anything and their “parents” are not much better since they failed to raise their children, not mention grandma/pa are also guilty since they failed to raise children that had the discipline to raise children. The “Greatest Generation” came back from WWII then sat on their asses.
“Artistic generation.”
Except we ain’t seeing much art from these lamebrains.
“My bet is that most of them are buried in student loan and credit card debt”
Less than half of the kids today even went to college and of those the average student loan debt is around $24,000, which is about a $110/month payment, which they can defer for unemployment. That’s hardly any excuse to claim poverty over student loan debt.
The fact is, we have now raised at least two generations of slackers that know no discipline.
From wikipedia:
Artist generations are born during a Crisis, a time when great dangers cut down social and political complexity in favor of public consensus, aggressive institutions, and an ethic of personal sacrifice. Artists grow up overprotected by adults preoccupied with the Crisis, come of age as the socialized and conformist young adults of a post-Crisis world, break out as process-oriented midlife leaders during an Awakening, and age into thoughtful post-Awakening elders.
Due to their location in history, such generations tend to be remembered for their quiet years of rising adulthood and their midlife years of flexible, consensus-building leadership. Their main societal contributions are in the area of expertise and due process. Their best-known historical leaders include William Shirley, Cadwallader Colden, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, and Theodore Roosevelt. These have been complex social technicians and advocates for fairness and inclusion. (Examples among today’s living generations: Silent and Homelanders.)
“You are right, the younger generation are living in a virtual connected world that most of us older people cannot even imagine. “
Come again? We BUILT that connected world and use it everyday. I don’t understand this notion that older means less capable. I mean, the older generation has been around longer, should know more, has far more practice at it all, and spent their careers building these technologies. How the Hell do we then claim older means dumber???
“I said the other day, I don’t know one person in that age group that does not have a job. “
I have no doubt that in many industries like construction and manufacturing, and in many locations, people are definitely unemployed and the prospects look bleak, but like you I don’t have a single unemployed friend. Not a one and all are high income people.
Bingo, and that BA degree in General Humanities can only get you so far on Starbucks Barista pay.
“It wasn’t until the recovery from the Long Depression of the 1880s and the Great Panic of 1893 that the concept of owning one’s residence became a widespread notion in the USA”
Actually, I think when this country was founded the idea of private property ownership was the idea. I don’t recall either that the pilgrims rented.
Learn something everyday. Thanks. However, I am not sure I would use that definition on them anyway. “Personal sacrifice” isn’t ever going to be their thing.
Damn, good to see boomers writing us off.
I expect to see boomers dump us in a civil war or something since they’ve screwed up everything else.
Have a car - no house. Saving up to get married and buy a house. I’m one of those 29ers (THANKS OBAMA) because I refuse to pay for health insurance that includes abortion coverage. Thanks again boomers. I moved to escape socialism, and you guys pass it anyways.
Last two landladys, I have more saved than either of them despite making less. One owns her house the other was a renter of her apartment. So, I’m not too far behind them, just need more work and then hopefully I can get a house for about 75k. Less than what my parents paid for theres!
Yeah, no student loan debt here. Finished up with no debt because I worked as I went along.
Been driving since 16. Why are rates lower today?
1, no cheap used cars. Thanks Obama.
2, insurance rates are now massively higher.
3, cost to learn and start with it is higher.
4, what they are offering is a ‘learner license at 16, followed by driving at 18.
Basically what happened, (and I’m old enough to remember the shift) is this.
Boomers heard the argument, (I can drive, but I can drink, etc), as justification to bump up the age that people could drive. Thanks again, Boomers.
I would just like it if Boomers were honest and admitted that they didn’t want their kids to have the same lives that they themselves had growing up.
“Thanks again boomers. I moved to escape socialism, and you guys pass it anyways.”
Hate to tell you but the 35 and under crowd are the typical Democrat/Liberal voters, much more than the boomers.
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