The millennial generation(1982-1999) is taking a lot of flack for things.
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/05/millennials-the-greatest-generation-or-the-most-narcissistic/256638/
I want to clarify things here on behalf of my generation.
First off; I think we are a more selfish materialistic generation than any that has come before us. It's about the numbers. How much we spend on unnecessary things, and how many people are spending.
To any older generation that presumes that we are "lazy" however; this is far from the truth.
Here is why:
Let's compare my generation (millennial) to my parents generation (baby boomers).
My parents were afforded opportunities that my generation has not had the blessing of experiencing. The Baby-Boomers were raised up in a world being taught that they can do anything, be anything, and they have nothing to stop them. They were raised with a belief that America was truly the land of opportunity.
...so was I.
Problem?
Take this one simple creed for example:
My parents taught me to save my money and I did. I opened a bank account with my mother when I was 12. This is exactly the mentality that the Baby-Boomers have. Save your money! Put it in the bank and let it collect interest! Whoa! What? Interest on my money? What's that?
Ah! We have discovered our first distinct difference among the Boomers and the Millennial's!
When my parents were about my age, the common thing to do with your money was to put it in the bank and allow it to collect interest. Interest rates in the 80's ranged from 15-24%! That seems like an imaginary number for interest rates to me!
So they could take their $100 and put it in the bank, and a month later they have an extra $20 (assuming 20% interest)! This was more than saving; this was investing! And a smart thing to do it was!
Millennial's do not know that same blessing. We cannot take our $100 and put it in the bank and expect any sort of return. We have been raised in a world where interest rates are at best 1%! Generally speaking, most of us see a 0.125-0.5% return if were lucky.
So our attitudes towards investing are completely different, and if anything, more cynical. This makes life just a little more difficult for us than it was for our parents.
Now let's take a look at education:
The Baby-Boomers could afford an education with their basic income levels. Millennial's cannot! Unless you have been saving your whole life, even a public institution will make you go broke!
To anyone who thinks to the contrary; this simple chart illustrates the rise of tuition since the early 80's.
Besides the many other sins these charts reveal, do you see different the world is for a Millennial versus a Baby Boomer? Different in a bad way.
We hear our parents tell us how hard their lives were. Well; they didn't grow up in our generation. The experiences we've had makes their lives seem almost easy.
Saving is more difficult today than it ever was before. Spending is much easier to do today than ever before in our history.
... and there is blame to be had!
The Baby Boomers are the ones to blame. My generation is just now getting their feet wet in the working world. The older Millennial's have been in the working world and are just getting settled while the rest of us are still struggling to graduate, find jobs, find spouses, etc.
We are not in power. The Baby Boomers are the ones that run this country and they're running it straight into the ground.
Our economic situation is a result of a homogeneous bounding between The Greatest Generation and the Baby Boomers. With the Baby Boomers causing the most damage. They're the ones who advocated TARP (Toxic Asset Relief Program) that bailed out the banks and auto-industry. They're the ones who vowed to build five million new homes for families... homes that sat in empty neighborhoods.
The Baby Boomers instituted the most damaging, violent, and negligent acts our nation has seen sense World War 2. They instituted the NDAA, CISPA, and the Patriot Act.
They engaged in an illegal war in Iraq, and a faulty, poorly thought-of and poorly-run war in Afghanistan that almost makes the Russians look good.
The greatest threat to my generation is not terrorism, is not Europe, is not China nor Russia. It is our parents.
It almost seems absurd, but our current economic and societal situation is the result of actions taken by the Baby Boomers, handed to them by the Greatest Generation.
Still not convinced?
After graduating college, many folks from the Greatest Generation and Baby Boomer generation expected to have a job waiting for them. That job would be their last job. They would work for that company from the time they graduated college until the day they retired.
They could predict their future with much more certainty than anyone ever could.
After retirement they expected a pension to help them through their golden years. Life was simple!
NOT ANYMORE!
College graduates now face an uncertain, and dynamic environment. One that is constantly in flux and never the same.
When we graduate we don't expect to have a job; we hope to have a job and we hope that job will be enough to pay our bills. Their expectations have turned into our hopes.
Upon graduation must search out with full vigor for a job and when we find one we must go up against hundreds if not thousands of other applicants, many of whom have more experience. We must fight tooth and nail for a job that we paid thousands of dollars for, a job that we need to pay off our student loans that are pulling us by our shirt-collars.
The jobs we are searching for are for companies ran by the Baby Boomer generation. Apple, Microsoft, Google, Exxon, etc. From banks and credit institutions, to engineering firms and hospitals, they are all ran by our parents.
Oh... and if competing against your friends for an entry level accounting job (that also includes a desire for entry-level accountants to have 3-5 years experience), we must also face off against competitors from overseas in such places like Malaysia, India, Saudi-Arabia, etc.
And then let's say we get the job. We are now faced with more pressure to perform, and out-perform more than ever before. We hold on to our jobs with both hands knowing full well that, even if we do succeed and meet the standards of the company that may not be enough. We may lose our job to outsourcing and other cost-cutting techniques, or we might see a reduction in hours, or even a salary cut, all so that the Baby Boomers in charge might make an extra buck and reward themselves, and occasionally their investors at the end of the year.
Unpredictable. That's what are generation should have been called. Not because we are unpredictable about what we will do; were not! But we have no idea what sort of actions will take place in the world that will lead us to react in a way we are unfamiliar with.
We have little hope of pensions, benefits, vacations, etc. The Baby Boomers have made things all but impossible now.
...Speaking of vacations. We Americans are given, on average two-weeks of vacation per year. TWO WEEKS! And many of us won't take those two-weeks off for fear that our company might see that as unproductive, and find someone who won't take off those two-weeks.
There is fear in air and quite possibly that fear will stoke a flame of angst leading to blood in the street.
Life cannot continue like this in America. Life is not about working yourself to death. It is a balance between work, family, friends, and self-reflection that may or may not include religion and yoga among other things.
I think our generation might just make it as the next Greatest Generation. Facing a war of attrition that has lasted longer than World War 2.
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