The Economically Bipolar Generation

In accordance with our over-medicalized, over-psychoanalyzed, overdiagnosed society, it's pretty clear that my generation (Gen Y, the millenials) has suffered from some pretty severe financial trauma. We've been savaged in rapid succession with the one-two punch of decadent irrational exuberance and systematic economic collapse. History can already boast that these weren't any mild swings either. No one really can predict how major trauma in youth will manifest itself in adulthood since individuals cope with stressors differently. But one thing we do know is that these sort of specters haunt people in some capacity throughout their entire life. And the long-term ramifications of my generation's financial afflictions remain extremely unclear.

Now every generation can claim that they've profited from fat times and subsisted through dark days. Those who grew up in the 1920s had a starkly opposite experience in the 1930s. Back then though, the insularity of society perhaps isolated people enough so there wasn't the same sort of collective trauma my generation may be facing. The financial meltdown was worse 90 years ago, but the mechanics of society: mass consumption, consumerism, industrial norms, work habits and networking were all so vastly different then that today's problems might be far more amplified and projected psychologically. The major difference? We are the first generation where mass media certitudes have ingrained within us certain irrevocable, perhaps unrealistic, assurances about our financial well-being. Invest young in order to profit when old. Minor stock fluctuations pale in importance to the inevitable long term bonanzas. Prosperity wasn't to be earned as much as it was an inherited societal right. But over the past 8 months, all that has been cast asunder. And while our parents are ostensibly the main victims of the current financial crisis, one has to wonder about what the long-term psychological consequences are for their children.

You can't tell me that Jim Cramer barking financial assurances of wealth each day on cable followed by sober laments of a complete confidence failure in our financial system won't screw with our perceptions. Or that there are detrimental aspects of having politicians brag about America being the strongest economy in human history that will never fail now demanding trillions of dollars in bailouts to save the same Wall Street that sustained us a decade before? Or that laughing off a decade of corporate excesses as a beneficial symptom of prosperity followed by the reality that we may be staring down a new depression, that we need a new new deal while we watch our parents retirement savings disappear won't severely cripple our financial outlook and approach for decades to come. There are bound to be deleterious psychological affects to all this bipolarity, and it will make us cynical at best, disengaged at worst.

After all this, are we going to be saddled with such trust issues that there will always be a significant segment of my generation that will sit on its hands, dare not to enter the stock market and even such other less calamitous financial arenas such as 401ks which we now perceive as too volatile and risky? If anything, we have prided ourselves as being the echo of the baby boom while striving not to be a clone. If that pattern continues, we're going to do everything in our power, subconsciously or not, to not repeat the financial mistakes and recklessness of our parents generation. The result may be an attempt to rinse ourselves of the financial bipolarity of our youth and young adulthood. What this means in the long-term is anyone's guess, and could be as simple as a greater proclivity to save since we have already been burned by the alternative, clamoring for a more European style pension system, or complete overhauling our financial priorities.

And just as we still don't fully comprehend how the proliferation in medical bipolarity and similar societal/psychological conditions and their pharmaceutical salves might affect future society and subsequent generations, we can only guess what long-term harm our youthful financial trauma will have on America's economic landscape and overall health in the coming decades.

Comments

[JGeeJ]

Long story short, I am 20, inherited a small trust at 17, invested it, spent very carefully, went to a public college, have been working since my sophomore year, and things were going great until last Dec. when I started losing. Now 75% of it is gone and I"m worried about paying next semester"s tuition, wondering if it is worth it. I feel so angry because I acted responsibly and now I"m getting punished by having nothing to show for it after I graduate. Definitely feeling the financial bipolarity.

[Sundialsvc4]

Don't sell anything.

[yappnmutt]

i can't believe you are worried about something that hasn't occured yet. on top of that you're worried about its effect upon an entire generation. if you really want to worry about your generation worry about something more than money. worry about what bush and company have done to the nature of the country, dragging it down from the top of the hill to the pit under the outhouse with hardly a whimper from your generation. my generation fought for civil rights, ended an unjust war and began the green movement and then we retooled our skills to match the information age when the rust belt rusted away. your generation and the generation preceeding yours did and have done nothing except ride our coattails and then meekly allowed the worst leadership in the history of the usa to run roughshod over this country culturally and economically. do something. don't whine about. and don't give me some crp about how obambam will lead us to the promised land. do something yourself, in a little way or a big way, but do something!

[truthynesslover]

itll be hard to do anything if you cant get an education or a job.

[yappnmutt]

more excuses. generation y will be the loser generation appropriately following the slacker generation.

[Sundialsvc4]

What you need to do is to push for the return of genuine industry to the shores of this country in which you live. Then, push also to make sure that the factories that we rebuild and that we refurbish is much cleaner and smarter than the ones that were originally closed.

During the 70's and 80's, mantras like "clean and mean" and "just in time" were all the vogue, and the money to pay for it was conjured-up out of thin air. Industries were closed, and as this happened, all the industries that supplied them also closed.

Civil officers throughout our Government not only knew what was going on, but facilitated, aided and abetted it. High crimes were committed everywhere.

And here we stand: robbed.

But we can't "just stand there." The building and selling of material things is not rocket science. Redundancy is not bad: it's critical. None of these statements are "news."

The question is: how long are we willing to sit in the pig-sty and whine about our misfortunes? In "the Prodigal Son," nothing changed until the ol' boy got up, got out of the pig-sty, took a bath and went home.

[ceremony]

Aside from the obvious pharmacological benefits that stimulate relaxation, we need to remember that our guy won. I am not saying anyone, even the newly elected President, can immediately turn the economy 180 degrees, but it's the most optimistic political event of our lifetime. Clinton was too selfish and stupid and probably too smart, but "that guy" seems to be something to look forward too.

True, Obama is inexperienced, and the possibility of violence in his direction is definitely there, but doesn't there seem to be a new charge to America now? Let that charge usurp your worries. Let Obama sooth your pains.

Coming back to an earlier parenthetical statement, I also don't think the economic crisis of the Voodoo 1980's had any effect on our generation (20-30). If anything, it let our parents know that if they started a family, they needed to be sure they were frugal (some people did not learn that lesson as they should). We were too young to grasp the complexities of that time or our national character at that particular moment. Inevitably, some of our parents did not learn the lesson the free market taught them in the 1980's (just like some people ignore the lessons of Vietnam), but I think we can be rest assured that we have everyone's attention now.

[ceremony]

Adam, I liked your article, but please throw a comma in there, so I have an idea of which clauses go with which pronouns. It was like Dicken's but without the tongue-in-cheek names.

Aside from your syntax issues, you raise a great point about the Gen Y dilemma (although, I thought we were post Gen Y?) I am not sure how you get around our lack of economic perspective (I don't think it was the financial crisis of the 1980's, or the extreme wealth of the 1990's during the tech boom and increased globalization, but I am getting ahead of myself). Americans do not save nearly as well as we are supposed too, (why should we?) and almost everthing runs on credit, so when the rug was pulled out from under us we had no idea what was going to happen, and we still don't.

I don't own any credit cards and I never have. I spend my money right as I make it, and while this might not provide me any security if something tragic were to happen,, I am still remarkably happy and stress free. I am not as stress free as a Sherpa, but I think a proper outlook is the true call to happiness for our generation now. So relax and look around.

[CroatianCritter]

Welcome to the Gen X world Adam! Too often in this country over the past 20 years, we mask the "reality" of our circumstances with naive positive thinking and distorted viewpoints and refuse to acknowledge the facts of our sometimes distressing lives. We have failed to listen to "reality" for too long and your parents and mine are mainly responsible with their utopian ideals of creating a world with minimal pain and suffering. Their actions have been the primary reason why we have hit this vital moment in our history. The solution to this problem means sacrifice but if we can help each other and socialize like we do online, we can turn this disaster around. Thanks for the blog and I hope you get through this as smoothly as possible.

[SammyD]

Don't see much positive for your generation. I am happy that I will not be around to pay back the trillions of dollars being handed over. I think perhaps your generation is at a disadvantage because you were born during a time of excess in America and thought that was "normal". IMO, the great power days of America are gone for good. If anything positive comes from these times, I wish the new generation would return to admiring people with great minds, generosity,integrity or patriotism (instead of those with the most money). For the first time in my life, I hate and distrust my country. It saddens me.

[kstuff]

Try being a Gen Xer. We've been slowly squeezed to death financially. Homes were wildly expensive when we got into the market and student loans sky rocketed just as we were graduating. The difference between Gen X and Gen Y? Gen X was told they were "lazy, slackers" with no work ethic. At least Gen Y has gotten props for their "positive attitude" and "tech knowledge."

[marijam]

My advice to somebody now? Don't buy a home, lease or rent. And don't sign a long-term lease, unless you've got a job guarantee for the length of the lease. Don't buy stocks or put money into a 401k, buy certificates of deposit or municipal or state bonds. When the term of the certificate of deposit is up, cash it out and buy into higher value state/municipal bonds. Don't listen to the financial advisers when they tell you that there is plenty of time for the stock market to go back up and for you to get your money back should there be a down turn. It only takes one and what matters is how close to your planned retirement age it occurs.

[AlltheBuzzfromCali]

When I was a young working woman in Los Angeles in the '60s and '70s, every unmarried person with a job had their own apartment, they were that cheap. If you chose to rent a house and share it, that was your choice, but I never ran into anyone who was working who couldn't afford their own place. Now plenty live in rented rooms because an apartment is out of sight on their salary. So yes, in 1968-80, everything was affordable provided you had some kind of employment, even a clerical job in a big company would do fine. Contrast that to today...but of course, we did not have credit cards then.

[marijam]

Our first house that we bought FHA in 1989 was a modular, just under 1000 sq ft. It cost us $36,000. We sold it ten years later, for $44,000.

[marijam]

We have two houses, but it isn't because we wanted two of them. It's because we were forced to move to find work and couldn't sell the house we were forced to leave. Until now, we had managed to lease it out, but the couple got a divorce and he's moving out and the town its in is laying-off in 500 person waves every week or so. People in that state do not move during the late fall to early winter. The house won't qualify as is for an FHA loan because the outside needs painted now but its too cold out to paint. I've got a job, my husband has a job, but there are no guarantees. Usually, the HR person at any job I've had since 2003, and I've had several because I've been forced to work on contract, tells a new hire, "this won't be the last job you'll ever have", and its true. They teach you that in college. Back in the day, people got a job and got to stay there until they retired, if they wanted to and didn't mess up. Now, there's no security of any kind, anywhere. A job with long-term prospects? What's that?

[marijam]

Technically, I'm a baby boomer, but I feel more like a Gen Y. I went back to college at the age of 36 and got my first bachelor's degree in 1997. Prior to that, I'd worked at my small, home town Wal Mart for $14,000 a year. Since then, every time I get a little bit in a 401k, along comes an economic downturn and wipes it all out.

[akcrin]

At least with the mass media omnipresence we don't feel alone, as I'm sure many people, towns and cities did in the Great Depression, and that's one thing to be thankful for right now. I agree with the folks saying each generation has its own challenges; yes, Gen Y might have more toys than any other generation, but the costs facing them are enormous. The job market for those without a college education has evaporated and the cost of college and health care is staggering. My family was insured for $62 every two weeks growing up (in the '80s and '90s), but my now family of three pays almost one thousand a month without preexisting conditions. Plenty of this generation know what it is to work and to work hard. It might shock some people, but Gen Y has had enormous pressure put on them to achieve constantly since there are no safe jobs or industries or investments and they know it. If they feel entitled, they learned it from somewhere. BTW, I'm not Gen Y.

[Fleurdamour]

I have to argue that Generation X, my generation, was the first to be bludgeoned by unrealistic consumption images. We were bombarded with childhood merchandising ("Star Wars") and came of age in the flush '80's that cratered into the recessed early '90's. I graduated college into a culture where headlines screamed we would never have success, and we were termed "slackers" for working low-wage jobs when that was all there was. What a way to be launched into adulthood. (I'm still bitter - at least your generation isn't being blamed for running things into the ground before you got out of the gate.) When that recession ended with the dot-com boom, I made career progress which halted with the dot-com bust and 9-11. We recovered from those to destroy our own economy. Maybe those '90's headlines were right: I never will be as well-off as my parents, through no fault of my own. Every time I make progress, the economy goes off the rails. At this point, I feel lucky to be alive and employed. I'm sure we'll climb out of this, we did after 9-11, and when I couldn't find a good job then, I used the time to write a book, so it's possible to make opportunity. I just wanted to remind you that there actually was a generation between your parents and yourselves: Gen X had it easier than the greatest generation, and worse than the boomers, but we're still here.

[LitDr2B]

Good point. Most discussions of the generations seem to completely elide Gen X, and focus on the direct line of descent from the Boomers to Gen Y (millenials). We were the first, I would argue, to be so dramatically immersed in not only this ridiculous consumer-driven capitalism, but also the all-pervasive mass media and technical gadgetry.

I agree with you on the "slackers" comment, but would add something to that. Many Gen Xers were highly idealistic, and sought out "slackerish" jobs so they could devote time to their various idealistic pursuits that usually demonstrated a rejection of Boomer self-centeredness (yes, I know not -all- Boomers are like that, but it is how the generation, overall, has been described).

[Sundialsvc4]

Adam, your generation (and mine...) is pure-and-simple suffering the consequences of having a blind-date with a leprechaun.

Back in the days of WW2, there was real production in this country. There was a phalanx of factories so powerful that, when the Nazis came a'callin', this nation actually could ... with utter and complete autonomy ... out-produce Germany. Because of that, and basically only because of that, it won the war.

After this, however, the same folks who had grown so fat on defense-contracts (and who well remembered the Great Depression) sought to keep this country on a "defense footing" forever. That's why today we have multi-billion dollar contracts to develop (I kid you not...) "brain-wave binoculars." (And, heh heh, they own the media, too.)

But "real production" cannot generate the capital required for such nonsense. So, the game of "high finance" was born: basically, a leprechaun. This is why, with a completely straight face, the Treasury says it can conjure-up $4 trillion over the weekend.

What do we need to do? We need to realize that we consist of 300 million people who have been lead seriously astray by a few thousand crooks. The factories are still there. Opportunities to rebuild DOMESTIC sources of supply, of "damn near everything," are opportunities to make a REAL fortune. And, I'm sure we can figure out how to ... say, "make shoes" ... without turning the air we breathe into a toxic-waste dump.

[pithy]

If your generation wants, eventually, to make its way to financial comfort, I'd make a BIG suggestion that you not allow the labor unions to disappear.

Along with the Ponzi scheme of Wall Street so aptly described above is the mantra, repeated so often that many believe it, that labor unions are the bain of capitalism.

Labor unions have pushed for safe working conditions and decent wages. It's no accident that as CEO salaries rose to astronomical heights, many labor unions crumbled to one-tenth their size.

I'm not a union worker, nor have ever been. But the middle class of my generation benefitted by the pressure exerted by the unions to make companies pay a little more than a living wage, so families could prosper.

If unions go away, you will be enslaved.

[000Jade000]

Amen.

I'm 31 and have never been a union member, but realize how very important they are.

An anti-union climate does 1 thing: it weakens the power and voice of ALL workers.

In 1945, 35% of American workers were represented by a union. That was our high point. Representation declined to just above 30% in 1950, dipped just under 30% in 1960, increased to 30% by 1965, hung around 28% in 1975, and then manufacturing started declining.

The percetage of the unionized workforce plummeted after deindustrialization. Reagan broke PATCO in 1981, and by 1985, around 16% of the workforce was unionized. The percentage has continued to decline. I don't know what the figure is now, but in 2003, is was 12.9%.

SUPPORT UNIONS by signing onto the petition for the Employee Free Choice Act here:
http://www.freechoiceact.org/page/s/aflcio?source=aflcioweb