Young Americans are barely keeping their head above water, with nearly half living paycheck to paycheck and just one in six Americans under age 30 saying they’re financially secure.
I think it's not just about young people's financial struggles it's that this sense of economic insecurity has deeply impacted their social relationships and emotional connections.
I like some of your ideas...but will say the $43 trillion of federal printed debt says we need a sledgehammer. Venture capital is a timing issue. Were Ford or Edison venture capitalists? I have worked in ny and london and the "investmentg bankers" i have met couldn't help or run a business. It is a money spinning system designed to take not make.
It is worse than 2007 after rewarding awful behavior on wall street. Everyone from Lehman were rewarded with a new company 0 interest and trillions
I think you are confusing venture capital with vulture funds. Venture capital helps fund small companies with a great idea, but not the capital to fully bring to market. Vulture funds buy a company, load it up with debt, and then sell the stock. Too many of these businesses fail because of the excess debt. This kind of behavior should be highly taxed to stop it, because it is destructive rather than instructive.
Stagnant wages plus extreme, outrageous, student-loan indebtedness with promises of bright futures for often impractical degrees results in youth impoverishment and perpetual enslavement to highly protected and cruel "educational" debt.
Anyone silly enough to sign up for massive loans is crazy. Many community colleges have agreements with big 4-year schools on which courses will transfer. Community colleges cost a LOT LESS and one can stay home instead of paying for dorm/food/etc.
Extrapolate that out four years and we're looking at 1,120,000 deportations.
Dementia Joe let in 20 million illegals during his four years alone, which doesn't count the tens of millions of illegals (50 million?) that needed to be deported prior to Dementia Joe.
Trump's efforts, to the extent there are any, are like putting a band aid on a bullet wound. He's not going to be doing anything of note on this issue.
Trump has already said in interviews he isn't interested in deporting all illegals, just the criminal ones. That New York Liberal keeps coming out in him.
They are mostly all victims in one sense or another… But never assume everyone has the capacity to be productive enough to even get a well paying job…
Sad but true that approximately 54% of American adults read below the equivalent of a sixth-grade level. This means that over half of the adult population in the United States has difficulty with tasks that require reading comprehension beyond a basic level.
To put this into perspective:
* Functional illiteracy: Around 21% of U.S. adults are considered functionally illiterate, meaning they struggle with reading and writing skills necessary for everyday tasks. This translates to roughly 43 million adults. Some sources even state that 45 million adults read below a 5th-grade level.
* Below basic literacy: Approximately 28% of adults in the U.S. have literacy skills at or below Level 1, indicating difficulty with tasks such as comparing information, paraphrasing, or making low-level inferences from text.
These statistics highlight a significant challenge in the United States, impacting individuals' employment opportunities, income levels, and overall ability to navigate daily life.
If you don't have the tools, you can't build what you need to survive.
Perhaps this is a comment on the educational system and how dysfunctional it has become, especially in its more recent efforts to impose doctrine on "woke" ideas rather than the 3 R's
Absolutely. I saw a comment somewhere about how the department of educating came into being about the time many of us were already graduated high school, and we didn't seem to miss be any worse for not having it around. As you say it could be argued big government has done nothing but pursue stupid, corrosive curriculum, all in the name of "better educational outcomes"
Monopolies simply do not care how they serve customers, as most customers cannot afford the small alternative schools to the failed big education machine.
This seems to be a global phenomenon, and might help explain why there’s been a huge growth in 18-27 year olds (some go as high as 34) voting not just conservative, for but changes. Republicans and conservatives (in Canada and Europe) are voting for populist parties in increasing numbers, most against the existing elitist and out-of-touch regimes. Boomers, on the other hands, seem happy with the bloated, ineffectual, and scerlotic status quo (not this one).
Totally agree it’s no longer about left vs. right, but insiders vs. outsiders. And the shift we’re seeing among young voters seems to go far beyond ideology.
I stopped voting when I realized there's a Uniparty in the US with both parties spending continuously and loving war, war, and more war. They don't care about me beyond Election Day and certainly don't represent me. Unless there is a good independent or third-party candidate, I stay home.
Raise wages = raise prices. Those costs will be passed on workers. Full stop. Raising low skilled labor wages is not the answer.
You almost got there. Education and mentoring is the answer. We have to get kids engaged and keep them engaged. Entrepreneurial drive to start businesses of their own, make things, develop client relationships, etc. That’s how they will start rising. And feeling better about themselves.
Oh but wait, let’s only fund religious schools so we can all be more moral and (self)righteous. Good luck with that. God not going to help you start a business.
I was fortunate to have a much older friend and mentor who encouraged me when starting my own business. He was a former employer who had fired me. That was over 40 years ago and I sure miss him.
You're somewhat wrong on religion. There is an established literature on the behaviour of religious people and communities. For example, religious people give roughly 7% of their income and time to charitable causes, compared to 1.5% for secular groups. This may represent a higher degree of altruism, but there are also very significant social incentives in terms of status gains within religious communities. Humans are highly prosocial animals. It's why social media has been so harmful for us- there are genuine ingroup pay-offs for tribalism, with few negative consequences if one is careful and not prone to rage-posting.
Entrepreneurs are more likely than non-entrepreneurs to attend religious services regularly. A 2012 study by Neubert, Bradley, et al., published in Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, found that religious values correlate with entrepreneurial orientation, especially when those values promote hard work, stewardship, and self-reliance. There is also the dense social capital associated with religious communities. Churches often function like business incubators for small entrepreneurs- providing early clients, advice, word-of-mouth promotion, and even informal labour networks. Religious institutions may provide financial support, mentorship, or access to community development funds.
One of the things which really pisses me off about the equity crowd, is that most people are broadly supportive of social mobility and identifying/promoting talent in poorer communities. This type of approach isn't racially divisive, yet it can level the playing field- because, guess what- per population, there are more poor Black people! The other issue is that the social coding of religious communities can help defeat the pretty stark data from Becker Outcome Tests.
The whole Coding for Bias argument focuses on a hill with a huge mountain behind it. Even if one were effectively blind the systems to race which predict risk for the purposes of lending and insurance, ethnicity would still be stamped in the small data, because of ingroup self-segregation. An individual could have absolutely no bad indicators in their risk profile, but because of their zip code and a few other indicators (like purchasing the wrong type of sneakers online) systems would generate predictive risk indicators. Even something as banal as shopping at Target may be a negative indicator. We are supposed to be a society which values individual merit, yet insurance and risk systems are effectively collectivist in nature and can amount to collective punishment. You may never have taken a payday loan in your life, but because people in your community have, you will be subject to collectively punished.
And religious communities are a good way of reversing this prevailing weight of gravity. Any non-governmental civic institution is. It's just that churches and other religious institutions tend to be more common and more powerful as a locus of dense social capital. There are plenty of small government interventions which can work or help at little to no cost. One method is to offer space, small capital, or vending licenses to churches or local organizations that can run their own micro-incubators. Another is Entrepreneurship Prizes or Nudge Grants. Local government can offer $500–$5,000 no-strings “status grants” for small business ideas, awarded via public pitch events in community settings, not bureaucratic forms. The money doesn't matter- it's a form of almost free advertising which will boost word-of-mouth and possibly make the local news. Critically, these "nudge" grants are perceived as honour badges more than aid- recognition of socially laudable behaviour and great personal character.
Look if you take the cynical view on religions, that's fine. I disagree, but I don't go around advertising the fact that I'm a Christian any more than lecturing people about the the benefits of pescetarianism. I find people who try to impose their views on others insufferable, which is probably why I took at instant dislike to woke. But just as we should want people, regardless of race or background to achieve their full potential, it's important to recognise the potential of churches or any other form of civic institution as embedded leveraging tools which can be used to generate social mobility and create economic value, Apart from anything else they are existing resources which can be utilised for virtually free.
I'm not arguing that the targeting should be exclusive to religious institutions, but when it comes to civic organisations within poorer communities there are often scant resources on the ground, and using government to build invites the wrong incentives structure. There is always the tendency to think of government as an infinite money tree to be shaken at every opportunity. The aim should be thriving self-sufficiency not dependence, and if anything the NGO apparatus is even worse, because it has zero positive accountability.
I don’t disagree with much here. Though I don’t think it’s about government vs religion. I think that any activity that fosters groups and cooperation over isolation will create opportunities.
The problem with religious school funding crowding out secular education is that it puts all eggs in the same basket. I went to church and Sunday School as a kid and eventually made my own decisions about religion as an adult. But I had balance. I felt I had mentors in both realms- and they overlapped. When I spend time in southern US states and talk to people it seems like public, non-denominational education has been left for dead. I don’t think that’s the answer.
Schools are a bit different, although my mother is retired schoolteacher and for the last twenty years of or so, she worked as the senior teacher for a C of E school. That's a bit different, though. With the Church of England belief in God is optional.
But the education system fails and with that failure creates those who cannot read and write at a full 12th grade level. Those aren't going to start a business, as they aren't competent enough to.
Without morality, capitalism just becomes a dog-eat-dog world, instead of a free exchange of goods. It becomes one trying to get one over on everyone else. For example, food companies putting all kinds of additives in our food. This is why you need morality and righteousness, because, as we have now, both employees and customers steal from stores without so much as a second thought. Guess who pays for all that theft? We all do.
The only true financial security is to stop selling our time and energy. Creating things once and getting paid ongoing is the way to financial independence. It’s all about leverage. We are either being leveraged or using leverage to produce cashflowing assets.
I was never financially secure when I was younger. I was always "pay check to pay check". I had kids, a mortgage, car payments. I'm barely financially secure now at 58.
They have received $30 Trillion from DC since 2008
Time for a 4% tax on GROSS Wall Street trades or moving $$$ offshore. Holding stocks/ bond for pico-second or offshoring profits isn't investing.
Make it about investing!
No bonuses till $7 trillion FED debt repaid!
Taxpayers/FED rescued Wall Street in 1987, 2000, 2007....Wall Street bank/firms have very low cost of capital which they can DESTROY the people in America and BUY WASHINGTON DC!
We need to FORCE THEM TO INVEST...not spin money or buy people's houses!
HFT is the most useless activity in history! in NJ the RICHEST man is a HFT trader...basically front running the market using math/physics. For what point?
You clearly don't understand taxes on stock trades. For short-term trades (under a year), the tax rate rate is the same as your normal tax rate. You only get a reduced tax rate when you hold the stock for over a year before selling.
Congressmen and Senators line their pockets too. They are the real problem.
You should check out Tobin taxes. It's a better way of doing things because it targets high frequency trades over the far more beneficial and productive type of trading like value investing. There is a CNN economist who has taken to arguing an hourglass analogy- it's her view that about 20% of capital floating around the market is productive whilst the other 80% is extractive and relies upon adding price to generate profits. I'm not sure I subscribe to this view, especially with regard to the ratios, but there is definitely evidence that dividend ROI ratios have declined since the 1950s, evidence that stocks and shares have become systemically overvalued and effectively gamified.
The Tobin tax can also be a problem- personally I would set it at a rate which is half what Tobin originally recommended, and there is evidence from Sweden that economic growth occurred after it was abolished, but it's my personal view that had more to do with the removal of inheritance tax (tax receipts go up, not down, after zero inheritance tax is introduced- onshoring tends to occur in the absence of IT, and the increase in tax from CGT and CT is significantly higher than the loss in IT). Inheritance tax is a far more powerful incentive for offshoring behaviour than every other type of tax combined. There is also evidence from South Korea that high rates of IT causes concentrated wealth to invest in property instead of productive economics as an outlet for future inheritance tax payments, leading to economic stagnation.
The other issue is the way America handles residential real estate. Treating housing as a wasting product means that it's attractive as an investment vehicle can be utilised as a tax avoidance vehicle. It can also lead to rentier economics, as investors seek to profit maximise their assets over the short to medium term. A better approach is mortgage income tax relief, because it rewards home ownership over corporate asset holding. With Sweden's tax rates it shouldn't have a high rate of private home ownership. But Sweden does have high home ownership rates, because the 30% tax relief against the interest repayment element of a mortgage is effectively a way of anyone with even a modest mortgage of claiming their taxes back.
It's a far better way of doing it than effectively treating a physical home as a depreciating asset, because it accomplishes the same goal indirectly. The MIRAS scheme also helps reduce public expenditure. By shifting people from public housing to private ownership public maintenance costs go down, and there is good evidence that even modest levels of improvement in private home ownership rates dramatically reduces public expenditure.
The final area is private equity. Private equity used to create a lot of value. Sadly, the market has shifted. Again, it's gamification. Investors will use tools like heavily leveraged buyouts, rack up huge debts against the company, from which they will then pay themselves significant profits. There is also substantial evidence that the financial institutions which loan the money are beneficiaries of the scam as investors! So they are effectively incentivised to make bad lending decisions. There needs to be some form of tool which reclaims the gains made from this form of cynical manipulation. Apart from anything else, the investment of private equity has shifted. The biggest growth in the market has been foreign sovereign wealth funds, particularly Middle Eastern ones. So perfectly healthy American companies are being saddled with unsustainable debt and extracted to pay for the pensions of Middle Eastern bureaucrats.
I understand your anger. The finance sector has been a larger recipient of corporate bailouts than any other sector by far. But you need to adopt a clinical approach in looking at ways to punish bad behaviour and reward good behaviour. The incentives in American investment markets have become screwed up over time. There are healthy areas. America has an unbeatable venture capital advantage- 20 times higher than the UK- which is one of the many reasons why my country, the UK, is going down the tube. But there are other areas of the investment landscape which have become highly gamified. Adding value only works if its a net gain to all parties. Taken together these types of behaviour could spell the end of capitalism as a means of creating prosperity. The most fundamental aspect of why capitalism works is because it generates its own ecosystem.
It's difficult to infer historical trends on Chapter 11 filings because the data is limited to numbers of filings rather than the value of filings relative to GDP, But what is true is that In the first half of 2024, there were 60 bankruptcy filings by companies with over $100 million in assets, marking a nearly 50% increase compared to the historical semiannual average of 39.6 filings between 2005 and 2023. This might be a warning sign that gamification is causing structural stress to the American economy.
I would be interested to find out what Proffstonge's view is on the subject.
Basically, mate- you need to think about a scalpel rather than a battle axe, even though the battle axe may be very tempting. Take comfort from the fact that the finance sector is very likely to experience its very own 'Learn to Code' moment, thanks to AI.
The fact that Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics did this survey gives one pause. Less than 2,100 surveys and this supposedly represents the country. Oh, and they admit giving interviews in Spanish, probably to illegals rather than American citizens. Surprised you took this for gospel, considering the source.
The financial future does not bright for much of the younger (GenX, Millennials, etc.). There are a myriad of reasons. First, as pointed out by Prof St. Onge, real wages haven't gone up in ages. The younger ones often the ambition to better themselves, some of which can be blamed on their parents permissiveness. They also have a very short attention spans (due to video games, social media and drugs-- legal and otherwise). Short attention span is not conducive to succeeding in business. This also leads to short term gigs, instead of career paths. Many are not in jobs they like. This causes bad attitudes towards customers, which is not helpful in retaining jobs. Another cause is lack of decent education (blame falls on teachers, but also parents and the students themselves. Also, not contributing to their financial health is the young peoples' lack of financial knowledge. This is not helpful. In fact some are so mathematically and financially lacking, they can't even make change (which they might not have to worry about soon). So, we have high interest rates and cost of living, lack of interest in working (ambition), and living free in their parents basement where they can spend their time on gaming, on social media and being high.
There is nothing wrong with higher interest rates. Remember, we used to get 5.25% on passbook savings, so interest rates were high back then. The problem is lazy companies have loaded up with debt when rates were low and are now refinancing. You cannot fix stupid. Let the market fix it for us and wipe those financially illiterate companies off the map.
Nothing too much new as each generation has had their "financial" difficulties. What exactly is financial security? What determines it? Surrendering your life to a set of numbers plucked out of thin air by some pretend financial guru or government drone?
Very few individuals are going to have financial security before age 30 or even age 40. Maybe a couple might get closer but not so much if kids enter the picture. I would think any security comes from making yourself employable as you move through life. Your greatest financial security will come from staying healthy.
More than ever, we live in an over-marketed society and economy where spending well beyond your means is the key to happiness and prosperity. That is what is marketed. The truth is that we are spending so that the vast majority can provide some measure of security to the thinner minority. It's Pareto's 80-20 equation in full force...perhaps being crunched down to a 90-10 ratio.
Oye, as a Gen Y millennial, I can say that these figures match what I see amongst my cohort.
Here's how I see the tradeoffs for millennials – they are stuck with the following tradeoffs. The increasingly mutually exclusive choices are: pursue a career, start a new family, maintain existing family, self-actualize oneself, own a home, continue friendships...
- Gen X can pick three, but must neglect the rest.
- Gen Y can pick two, but must neglect the rest.
- Gen Z can pick one, but must neglect the rest.
Gen X seemed to have just barely gained traction in the 2010s before covid—constituting an "event horizon" of no return for most young people which is to say: whatever social capital and financial capital we held passing over that horizon is what millennials had for the next five years (up until now, at least – we'll see if things change).
Gen Y however has had to beg/borrow/steal to fully "adult" in any capacity – the only kids I know in this generation who own a home were effectively given one, paid in cash, from a rich (Boomer) relative. I know very few Gen Y millennials who have kids. I just barely managed to pay off all my regrettable school loans working in manufacturing and tech jobs, but most of my peers have given up on trying to pay off their student loans (often over $100K each) and thus froth angrily about how we need socialism and "forgiveness" which of course is actually theft.
Gen Z is completely unmoored from my perspective – stranded across the board. I only know one or two who are married, but none of them have kids or homes. Most leaned heavily into the "self-actualize" or "career" categories, but both of those pursuits have become eclipsed by their exceptional addiction to social media (this generation was born into social media) and has effectively ruined them.
End. The. Fed.
I think it's not just about young people's financial struggles it's that this sense of economic insecurity has deeply impacted their social relationships and emotional connections.
I like some of your ideas...but will say the $43 trillion of federal printed debt says we need a sledgehammer. Venture capital is a timing issue. Were Ford or Edison venture capitalists? I have worked in ny and london and the "investmentg bankers" i have met couldn't help or run a business. It is a money spinning system designed to take not make.
It is worse than 2007 after rewarding awful behavior on wall street. Everyone from Lehman were rewarded with a new company 0 interest and trillions
I think you are confusing venture capital with vulture funds. Venture capital helps fund small companies with a great idea, but not the capital to fully bring to market. Vulture funds buy a company, load it up with debt, and then sell the stock. Too many of these businesses fail because of the excess debt. This kind of behavior should be highly taxed to stop it, because it is destructive rather than instructive.
Stagnant wages plus extreme, outrageous, student-loan indebtedness with promises of bright futures for often impractical degrees results in youth impoverishment and perpetual enslavement to highly protected and cruel "educational" debt.
Anyone silly enough to sign up for massive loans is crazy. Many community colleges have agreements with big 4-year schools on which courses will transfer. Community colleges cost a LOT LESS and one can stay home instead of paying for dorm/food/etc.
Only 70,000 have been deported in Trump's first 100 days: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/white-house-touts-nearly-140000-deportations-but-data-says-roughly-half-actually-deported/ar-AA1DNraR?ocid=BingNewsVerp
Extrapolate that out four years and we're looking at 1,120,000 deportations.
Dementia Joe let in 20 million illegals during his four years alone, which doesn't count the tens of millions of illegals (50 million?) that needed to be deported prior to Dementia Joe.
Trump's efforts, to the extent there are any, are like putting a band aid on a bullet wound. He's not going to be doing anything of note on this issue.
Trump has already said in interviews he isn't interested in deporting all illegals, just the criminal ones. That New York Liberal keeps coming out in him.
They are mostly all victims in one sense or another… But never assume everyone has the capacity to be productive enough to even get a well paying job…
Sad but true that approximately 54% of American adults read below the equivalent of a sixth-grade level. This means that over half of the adult population in the United States has difficulty with tasks that require reading comprehension beyond a basic level.
To put this into perspective:
* Functional illiteracy: Around 21% of U.S. adults are considered functionally illiterate, meaning they struggle with reading and writing skills necessary for everyday tasks. This translates to roughly 43 million adults. Some sources even state that 45 million adults read below a 5th-grade level.
* Below basic literacy: Approximately 28% of adults in the U.S. have literacy skills at or below Level 1, indicating difficulty with tasks such as comparing information, paraphrasing, or making low-level inferences from text.
These statistics highlight a significant challenge in the United States, impacting individuals' employment opportunities, income levels, and overall ability to navigate daily life.
If you don't have the tools, you can't build what you need to survive.
Perhaps this is a comment on the educational system and how dysfunctional it has become, especially in its more recent efforts to impose doctrine on "woke" ideas rather than the 3 R's
Absolutely. I saw a comment somewhere about how the department of educating came into being about the time many of us were already graduated high school, and we didn't seem to miss be any worse for not having it around. As you say it could be argued big government has done nothing but pursue stupid, corrosive curriculum, all in the name of "better educational outcomes"
Monopolies simply do not care how they serve customers, as most customers cannot afford the small alternative schools to the failed big education machine.
This seems to be a global phenomenon, and might help explain why there’s been a huge growth in 18-27 year olds (some go as high as 34) voting not just conservative, for but changes. Republicans and conservatives (in Canada and Europe) are voting for populist parties in increasing numbers, most against the existing elitist and out-of-touch regimes. Boomers, on the other hands, seem happy with the bloated, ineffectual, and scerlotic status quo (not this one).
Totally agree it’s no longer about left vs. right, but insiders vs. outsiders. And the shift we’re seeing among young voters seems to go far beyond ideology.
I stopped voting when I realized there's a Uniparty in the US with both parties spending continuously and loving war, war, and more war. They don't care about me beyond Election Day and certainly don't represent me. Unless there is a good independent or third-party candidate, I stay home.
Raise wages = raise prices. Those costs will be passed on workers. Full stop. Raising low skilled labor wages is not the answer.
You almost got there. Education and mentoring is the answer. We have to get kids engaged and keep them engaged. Entrepreneurial drive to start businesses of their own, make things, develop client relationships, etc. That’s how they will start rising. And feeling better about themselves.
Oh but wait, let’s only fund religious schools so we can all be more moral and (self)righteous. Good luck with that. God not going to help you start a business.
I was fortunate to have a much older friend and mentor who encouraged me when starting my own business. He was a former employer who had fired me. That was over 40 years ago and I sure miss him.
Much more motivating and lucrative for you than handing you a migrant’s low skilled job yeah?
You're somewhat wrong on religion. There is an established literature on the behaviour of religious people and communities. For example, religious people give roughly 7% of their income and time to charitable causes, compared to 1.5% for secular groups. This may represent a higher degree of altruism, but there are also very significant social incentives in terms of status gains within religious communities. Humans are highly prosocial animals. It's why social media has been so harmful for us- there are genuine ingroup pay-offs for tribalism, with few negative consequences if one is careful and not prone to rage-posting.
Entrepreneurs are more likely than non-entrepreneurs to attend religious services regularly. A 2012 study by Neubert, Bradley, et al., published in Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, found that religious values correlate with entrepreneurial orientation, especially when those values promote hard work, stewardship, and self-reliance. There is also the dense social capital associated with religious communities. Churches often function like business incubators for small entrepreneurs- providing early clients, advice, word-of-mouth promotion, and even informal labour networks. Religious institutions may provide financial support, mentorship, or access to community development funds.
One of the things which really pisses me off about the equity crowd, is that most people are broadly supportive of social mobility and identifying/promoting talent in poorer communities. This type of approach isn't racially divisive, yet it can level the playing field- because, guess what- per population, there are more poor Black people! The other issue is that the social coding of religious communities can help defeat the pretty stark data from Becker Outcome Tests.
The whole Coding for Bias argument focuses on a hill with a huge mountain behind it. Even if one were effectively blind the systems to race which predict risk for the purposes of lending and insurance, ethnicity would still be stamped in the small data, because of ingroup self-segregation. An individual could have absolutely no bad indicators in their risk profile, but because of their zip code and a few other indicators (like purchasing the wrong type of sneakers online) systems would generate predictive risk indicators. Even something as banal as shopping at Target may be a negative indicator. We are supposed to be a society which values individual merit, yet insurance and risk systems are effectively collectivist in nature and can amount to collective punishment. You may never have taken a payday loan in your life, but because people in your community have, you will be subject to collectively punished.
And religious communities are a good way of reversing this prevailing weight of gravity. Any non-governmental civic institution is. It's just that churches and other religious institutions tend to be more common and more powerful as a locus of dense social capital. There are plenty of small government interventions which can work or help at little to no cost. One method is to offer space, small capital, or vending licenses to churches or local organizations that can run their own micro-incubators. Another is Entrepreneurship Prizes or Nudge Grants. Local government can offer $500–$5,000 no-strings “status grants” for small business ideas, awarded via public pitch events in community settings, not bureaucratic forms. The money doesn't matter- it's a form of almost free advertising which will boost word-of-mouth and possibly make the local news. Critically, these "nudge" grants are perceived as honour badges more than aid- recognition of socially laudable behaviour and great personal character.
Look if you take the cynical view on religions, that's fine. I disagree, but I don't go around advertising the fact that I'm a Christian any more than lecturing people about the the benefits of pescetarianism. I find people who try to impose their views on others insufferable, which is probably why I took at instant dislike to woke. But just as we should want people, regardless of race or background to achieve their full potential, it's important to recognise the potential of churches or any other form of civic institution as embedded leveraging tools which can be used to generate social mobility and create economic value, Apart from anything else they are existing resources which can be utilised for virtually free.
I'm not arguing that the targeting should be exclusive to religious institutions, but when it comes to civic organisations within poorer communities there are often scant resources on the ground, and using government to build invites the wrong incentives structure. There is always the tendency to think of government as an infinite money tree to be shaken at every opportunity. The aim should be thriving self-sufficiency not dependence, and if anything the NGO apparatus is even worse, because it has zero positive accountability.
I don’t disagree with much here. Though I don’t think it’s about government vs religion. I think that any activity that fosters groups and cooperation over isolation will create opportunities.
The problem with religious school funding crowding out secular education is that it puts all eggs in the same basket. I went to church and Sunday School as a kid and eventually made my own decisions about religion as an adult. But I had balance. I felt I had mentors in both realms- and they overlapped. When I spend time in southern US states and talk to people it seems like public, non-denominational education has been left for dead. I don’t think that’s the answer.
Schools are a bit different, although my mother is retired schoolteacher and for the last twenty years of or so, she worked as the senior teacher for a C of E school. That's a bit different, though. With the Church of England belief in God is optional.
But the education system fails and with that failure creates those who cannot read and write at a full 12th grade level. Those aren't going to start a business, as they aren't competent enough to.
Without morality, capitalism just becomes a dog-eat-dog world, instead of a free exchange of goods. It becomes one trying to get one over on everyone else. For example, food companies putting all kinds of additives in our food. This is why you need morality and righteousness, because, as we have now, both employees and customers steal from stores without so much as a second thought. Guess who pays for all that theft? We all do.
The only true financial security is to stop selling our time and energy. Creating things once and getting paid ongoing is the way to financial independence. It’s all about leverage. We are either being leveraged or using leverage to produce cashflowing assets.
I was never financially secure when I was younger. I was always "pay check to pay check". I had kids, a mortgage, car payments. I'm barely financially secure now at 58.
Reform Wall Street...
They have received $30 Trillion from DC since 2008
Time for a 4% tax on GROSS Wall Street trades or moving $$$ offshore. Holding stocks/ bond for pico-second or offshoring profits isn't investing.
Make it about investing!
No bonuses till $7 trillion FED debt repaid!
Taxpayers/FED rescued Wall Street in 1987, 2000, 2007....Wall Street bank/firms have very low cost of capital which they can DESTROY the people in America and BUY WASHINGTON DC!
We need to FORCE THEM TO INVEST...not spin money or buy people's houses!
HFT is the most useless activity in history! in NJ the RICHEST man is a HFT trader...basically front running the market using math/physics. For what point?
You clearly don't understand taxes on stock trades. For short-term trades (under a year), the tax rate rate is the same as your normal tax rate. You only get a reduced tax rate when you hold the stock for over a year before selling.
Congressmen and Senators line their pockets too. They are the real problem.
You should check out Tobin taxes. It's a better way of doing things because it targets high frequency trades over the far more beneficial and productive type of trading like value investing. There is a CNN economist who has taken to arguing an hourglass analogy- it's her view that about 20% of capital floating around the market is productive whilst the other 80% is extractive and relies upon adding price to generate profits. I'm not sure I subscribe to this view, especially with regard to the ratios, but there is definitely evidence that dividend ROI ratios have declined since the 1950s, evidence that stocks and shares have become systemically overvalued and effectively gamified.
The Tobin tax can also be a problem- personally I would set it at a rate which is half what Tobin originally recommended, and there is evidence from Sweden that economic growth occurred after it was abolished, but it's my personal view that had more to do with the removal of inheritance tax (tax receipts go up, not down, after zero inheritance tax is introduced- onshoring tends to occur in the absence of IT, and the increase in tax from CGT and CT is significantly higher than the loss in IT). Inheritance tax is a far more powerful incentive for offshoring behaviour than every other type of tax combined. There is also evidence from South Korea that high rates of IT causes concentrated wealth to invest in property instead of productive economics as an outlet for future inheritance tax payments, leading to economic stagnation.
The other issue is the way America handles residential real estate. Treating housing as a wasting product means that it's attractive as an investment vehicle can be utilised as a tax avoidance vehicle. It can also lead to rentier economics, as investors seek to profit maximise their assets over the short to medium term. A better approach is mortgage income tax relief, because it rewards home ownership over corporate asset holding. With Sweden's tax rates it shouldn't have a high rate of private home ownership. But Sweden does have high home ownership rates, because the 30% tax relief against the interest repayment element of a mortgage is effectively a way of anyone with even a modest mortgage of claiming their taxes back.
It's a far better way of doing it than effectively treating a physical home as a depreciating asset, because it accomplishes the same goal indirectly. The MIRAS scheme also helps reduce public expenditure. By shifting people from public housing to private ownership public maintenance costs go down, and there is good evidence that even modest levels of improvement in private home ownership rates dramatically reduces public expenditure.
The final area is private equity. Private equity used to create a lot of value. Sadly, the market has shifted. Again, it's gamification. Investors will use tools like heavily leveraged buyouts, rack up huge debts against the company, from which they will then pay themselves significant profits. There is also substantial evidence that the financial institutions which loan the money are beneficiaries of the scam as investors! So they are effectively incentivised to make bad lending decisions. There needs to be some form of tool which reclaims the gains made from this form of cynical manipulation. Apart from anything else, the investment of private equity has shifted. The biggest growth in the market has been foreign sovereign wealth funds, particularly Middle Eastern ones. So perfectly healthy American companies are being saddled with unsustainable debt and extracted to pay for the pensions of Middle Eastern bureaucrats.
I understand your anger. The finance sector has been a larger recipient of corporate bailouts than any other sector by far. But you need to adopt a clinical approach in looking at ways to punish bad behaviour and reward good behaviour. The incentives in American investment markets have become screwed up over time. There are healthy areas. America has an unbeatable venture capital advantage- 20 times higher than the UK- which is one of the many reasons why my country, the UK, is going down the tube. But there are other areas of the investment landscape which have become highly gamified. Adding value only works if its a net gain to all parties. Taken together these types of behaviour could spell the end of capitalism as a means of creating prosperity. The most fundamental aspect of why capitalism works is because it generates its own ecosystem.
It's difficult to infer historical trends on Chapter 11 filings because the data is limited to numbers of filings rather than the value of filings relative to GDP, But what is true is that In the first half of 2024, there were 60 bankruptcy filings by companies with over $100 million in assets, marking a nearly 50% increase compared to the historical semiannual average of 39.6 filings between 2005 and 2023. This might be a warning sign that gamification is causing structural stress to the American economy.
I would be interested to find out what Proffstonge's view is on the subject.
Basically, mate- you need to think about a scalpel rather than a battle axe, even though the battle axe may be very tempting. Take comfort from the fact that the finance sector is very likely to experience its very own 'Learn to Code' moment, thanks to AI.
The fact that Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics did this survey gives one pause. Less than 2,100 surveys and this supposedly represents the country. Oh, and they admit giving interviews in Spanish, probably to illegals rather than American citizens. Surprised you took this for gospel, considering the source.
The financial future does not bright for much of the younger (GenX, Millennials, etc.). There are a myriad of reasons. First, as pointed out by Prof St. Onge, real wages haven't gone up in ages. The younger ones often the ambition to better themselves, some of which can be blamed on their parents permissiveness. They also have a very short attention spans (due to video games, social media and drugs-- legal and otherwise). Short attention span is not conducive to succeeding in business. This also leads to short term gigs, instead of career paths. Many are not in jobs they like. This causes bad attitudes towards customers, which is not helpful in retaining jobs. Another cause is lack of decent education (blame falls on teachers, but also parents and the students themselves. Also, not contributing to their financial health is the young peoples' lack of financial knowledge. This is not helpful. In fact some are so mathematically and financially lacking, they can't even make change (which they might not have to worry about soon). So, we have high interest rates and cost of living, lack of interest in working (ambition), and living free in their parents basement where they can spend their time on gaming, on social media and being high.
There is nothing wrong with higher interest rates. Remember, we used to get 5.25% on passbook savings, so interest rates were high back then. The problem is lazy companies have loaded up with debt when rates were low and are now refinancing. You cannot fix stupid. Let the market fix it for us and wipe those financially illiterate companies off the map.
Nothing too much new as each generation has had their "financial" difficulties. What exactly is financial security? What determines it? Surrendering your life to a set of numbers plucked out of thin air by some pretend financial guru or government drone?
Very few individuals are going to have financial security before age 30 or even age 40. Maybe a couple might get closer but not so much if kids enter the picture. I would think any security comes from making yourself employable as you move through life. Your greatest financial security will come from staying healthy.
More than ever, we live in an over-marketed society and economy where spending well beyond your means is the key to happiness and prosperity. That is what is marketed. The truth is that we are spending so that the vast majority can provide some measure of security to the thinner minority. It's Pareto's 80-20 equation in full force...perhaps being crunched down to a 90-10 ratio.
Oye, as a Gen Y millennial, I can say that these figures match what I see amongst my cohort.
Here's how I see the tradeoffs for millennials – they are stuck with the following tradeoffs. The increasingly mutually exclusive choices are: pursue a career, start a new family, maintain existing family, self-actualize oneself, own a home, continue friendships...
- Gen X can pick three, but must neglect the rest.
- Gen Y can pick two, but must neglect the rest.
- Gen Z can pick one, but must neglect the rest.
Gen X seemed to have just barely gained traction in the 2010s before covid—constituting an "event horizon" of no return for most young people which is to say: whatever social capital and financial capital we held passing over that horizon is what millennials had for the next five years (up until now, at least – we'll see if things change).
Gen Y however has had to beg/borrow/steal to fully "adult" in any capacity – the only kids I know in this generation who own a home were effectively given one, paid in cash, from a rich (Boomer) relative. I know very few Gen Y millennials who have kids. I just barely managed to pay off all my regrettable school loans working in manufacturing and tech jobs, but most of my peers have given up on trying to pay off their student loans (often over $100K each) and thus froth angrily about how we need socialism and "forgiveness" which of course is actually theft.
Gen Z is completely unmoored from my perspective – stranded across the board. I only know one or two who are married, but none of them have kids or homes. Most leaned heavily into the "self-actualize" or "career" categories, but both of those pursuits have become eclipsed by their exceptional addiction to social media (this generation was born into social media) and has effectively ruined them.
Your last sentence tells a sad, sad story. So many want their career to be inside a smart phone.