The War on the Young

"Young people today will most likely become the first generation in US history not to surpass their parents' living standards."<p>I sat in on a talk that Frank Luntz was giving last night. Everyone else in the audience was 40+, well educated, all at the top of their fields. When Frank asked them how many thought their kids would have a better standard of living than they did, only 6 of the 120ish people in the room raised their hands. Frank's comment was, "If you're all in the top 1%, imagine how the rest of America feels right now."

While interesting, some aspects of the article are misleading or meant to incite. For example, the section talking about student aid mentions the current administration's plan to increase student aid, but fails to mention the proposal of doing away with the bank subsidies completely and thus providing more aid instead of lining the pockets of bankers (<a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/President-Obama-Meets-with-Family-Struggling-with-College-Costs/" rel="nofollow">http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/President-Obama-M...</a>) contradicting the counter point to his argument.

&#62;Young people today will most likely become the first generation in US history not to surpass their parents' living standards."<p>I'm pretty sure that was Generation X. Myself at 35 being on the tail end of that group; we're hardly "the young".

Look at the big picture: the aging of the population means that the eldery must enslave the young, or they will have nothing to eat when they are old and infirm. Long-term savings is a fictitious concept - nothing we produce today will be of any use 40 years later so when you are old you will depend on the young to provide your food. When that happens you better have a way to compel them to part with fruits of their labor. Saddling the young with debt seems to be the current retirement plan for the old. It ain't just about bankers.

<i>Young people today will most likely become the first generation in US history not to surpass their parents' living standards.</i><p>I've seen this phrase, in various versions, in lots of places over the past few months. Is this a new proposition, or was the idea floated (incorrectly) during the Great Depression or the 1970s oil crisis/stagflation downturn?

Even with those massive disincentive against me, I still dream of changing the world through my games and getting rich in the process.

Good article, as usual for mises.org (I credit their material a few years ago for motivating me to get out of the stock market).<p>I am in my 50s, and one of my common little rants is how selfish my generation and the next older generation is. My children and my young grandchildren will indeed have to pay for our collective excesses. Really unfair.<p>I believe that it is human nature to care for younger generations, so the current wave of selfishness is really sick and unnatural behavior. Two generations of gluttons.<p>This selfishness is on personal, corporate, and government levels. The worst is starting unnecessary wars on credit, but the general blame trickles on down.

I just don't get libertarians. They're great at pointing out problems but never seem to offer realistic solutions. No doubt most of these issues he raises are valid concerns however what's the alternative? The free market will magically fix everything? We know from the Great Depression and in more recent times the free market is only concerned about maximizing profits for themselves. The government may not be supremely efficient at running some of these things but at least we have a say in the process. Most of the issues he cites exist because the free market failed people in the past and there was public outrage over a government that allowed it to happen.

Good article.<p>I'd add one more bit, though: it's not between youth and old; it's between risk takers and risk avoiders.<p>The last thing the majority dreams about is risk. So the gov takes care and tries to minimize the risk. The minimum wage, enormous benefits for not very innovative public workers, interest rates' manipulation etc.<p>Of course, if you minimize the risk you also minimize the social mobility. It's hard to get a reward, without risk.

I think I'm going to start redirecting a portion of my savings to some sort of a basket of foreign currencies.<p>If in 10 or 20 years, we don't clean up our act and a huge part of my taxes are just servicing debt, I'll just move somewhere else. I don't even care if the taxes are higher in another country; so long as I get good value for my taxes paid.

thanks for the article, but it has right the opposite direction than what is complained about here in Germany.<p>we complain about the newly introduced Bachelor/Masters system here. We complain, students will now have less time to study and think about the problems. Also having to pay more money than before, we say that less people will go to universities, thus lowering education standards.

I think the minimum wage argument was weak, but he's basically right: young people have a whole bunch of problems to look forward to.

the article says that accepting a low wage will make you independent. I wouldn't conclude like that. Working with low wages will seldomly enable to get a better standard.<p>If you aren't a top performer, you'd have to live forever with those wages. One job is be enough for a living.

You guys know the mises.org folks are a bunch of racists, right?

Another one of those conservative anti-deficit articles that would have been very timely if it appeared before the war started, but of course it appears after the war and the incredible amount of money it is costing us.<p>Why did I never hear conservatives decrying deficit spending during the Bush years, when deficit spending ballooned. No, then you had conservatives talking about how the deficit does not really matter.<p>Now it is too late, the cat is out of the bag. We need deficit spending just to keep the damn economy from collapsing, and no politician will have the guts to just exit the wars.

This guy doesn’t know what he is talking about. Mises institute has a bunch of crackpots that are not respected by actual economists:<p><a href="http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/02/market-economics" rel="nofollow">http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2010/02/market-economics</a>