Oh, we do have issues. We are facing the worse economic times in my mother's lifetime (not my father's, since he was alive for the Great Depression) and the economy has had huge job loss. Depending on which segment of the job market you wanted, you may have been hit by the tech bubble bursting, which is what totally derailed me and darch in our twenties. We could have managed either the tech bubble bursting or me becoming disabled, but having both happen at the same time was a disaster only survivable through the charity of family.
But, on the other hand, I strongly suspect her parents were white. Those cheap homes and many of those programs and even some of those decent union protections often were only available to white Americans. The picture looked rather different for many other people.
But I do worry about the extent to which we toss away hard-earned union protections. We forget the value of unions, and many jobs don't have them. We allow corporations huge amounts of power with little checks, and the pendulum swings back and forth, and sometimes it swings too far toward employers being able to take horrible advantage of employees. Given the economy being crap (although fortunately not as badly as it could have been) you're going to see tons of people struggling with few options and having to accept virtually anything just to survive. That is a problem.
It also doesn't help that the minimum educational level the average job expects of its employees has increased over time, but government support for higher education has lagged behind. Plus, since you need to spend more time becoming educated, that is less time working and building up an income, so of course you're behind on where past generations were at your age. So, of course people delay having children til later (if they intend to have them) and buy houses later (if they can ever afford to do so) and so forth. Unfortunately, our culture hasn't really properly adjusted to a longer educational period for its young to better allow people to actually start settling down in young adulthood. We would need much greater support of young adults from the older generation than we currently have to balance losing a few years of income-building + usually doing it in a way that acquires large amounts of debt. But for some reason, people don't want to help the younger generations have a base from which to build.
So, I think she is touching on some points that do reflect on real issues. But the picture is really quite different if your ancestors weren't white.
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The more you know.
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But, on the other hand, I strongly suspect her parents were white. Those cheap homes and many of those programs and even some of those decent union protections often were only available to white Americans. The picture looked rather different for many other people.
But I do worry about the extent to which we toss away hard-earned union protections. We forget the value of unions, and many jobs don't have them. We allow corporations huge amounts of power with little checks, and the pendulum swings back and forth, and sometimes it swings too far toward employers being able to take horrible advantage of employees. Given the economy being crap (although fortunately not as badly as it could have been) you're going to see tons of people struggling with few options and having to accept virtually anything just to survive. That is a problem.
It also doesn't help that the minimum educational level the average job expects of its employees has increased over time, but government support for higher education has lagged behind. Plus, since you need to spend more time becoming educated, that is less time working and building up an income, so of course you're behind on where past generations were at your age. So, of course people delay having children til later (if they intend to have them) and buy houses later (if they can ever afford to do so) and so forth. Unfortunately, our culture hasn't really properly adjusted to a longer educational period for its young to better allow people to actually start settling down in young adulthood. We would need much greater support of young adults from the older generation than we currently have to balance losing a few years of income-building + usually doing it in a way that acquires large amounts of debt. But for some reason, people don't want to help the younger generations have a base from which to build.
So, I think she is touching on some points that do reflect on real issues. But the picture is really quite different if your ancestors weren't white.
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