generation limbo: 20-somethings today, debt, unemployment, the questionable value of a college education

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-gWVfSCasDj8/TkAky9cWgkI/AAAAAAAAAAQ/od33Awt1YMA/s220/CCG_Oct%2B2010%2B398.jpg

you are right as long as he's saving money and not living the gud lyfe xp

John Zimmer grew up in Greenwich, Conn., home to many Wall Street titans -- including former Lehman Brothers CEO Dick Fuld, who owned a $10.8 million estate there.

Zimmer graduated from Cornell University in 2006 and immediately went into a two-year program in real estate finance at Lehman Brothers in New York City, working on commercial mortgage-backed securities.

this is like the textbook definition of underachiever who gets by on pure privilege alone

xp: he's probably living the okay lyfe, very few ppl who make that kind of money save ALL of it

Dan, at the present moment I doubt there's a decent investing strategy in the world that could give returns comparable to the interest paid on student loans. The "reduce debt" fund at least outperforms "bury it in the backyard" which in turn has outperformed a whole bunch else lately...

Well besides making money with your other money, there's also building up yr credit rating using relatively-easy-to-manage debt, but that usually only matters if you are looking to buy a home or a car. Or a timeshare, lol.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/17/business/economy/as-graduates-move-back-home-economy-feels-the-pain.html

pent-up households

"a handyman to hang a newly framed diploma"..?

a HANDYMAN TO HANG A DIPLOMA? who even thinks like that? even enough to make a not-very-clearly-signposted joke about it?

“I have it pretty good at home, since it’s so close to my work, and financially I just feel like it’s smarter for the long run to buy,” he said. He says that living with his parents enables him to set aside about half of each paycheck. “It’s like I pay rent, but to myself.”

haha i totally see the camera swinging over to his dad, who is gritting his teeth

it's pretty pragmatic! I would totally want to live w/ my parents if they lived somewhere where jobs for 20-somethings were

rly don't understand parents who make their children pay rent but I guess that's just 'the american way'

it's like the economic version of calling your parents by their first name

(unless your parents are struggling w/$, obv)

well yeah. but making your kid pay rent to 'teach them' about 'becoming independent' is, well

i like the unsubtle undertone in that article of blaming young people with jobs for the economy not being better.

i did that after college and a failed 6-mo. stint in DC. it was great. i waited tables, had obscene amounts of fun, stayed out of my parents' hair and they stayed out of mine. i did not pay them rent and basically just slept in the attic periodically, ate some of their food (not much, i worked at a lol health food restaurant and ate there most of the time), and used their phone.

i was also only there for 6 mo., not indefinitely

it's def less stressful when you know there's an end date

i also have virtually no ambition, so doing this was not really a huge crushing disappointment for me

still if my parents lived in the nyc metro region I'd so be cool w/ not helping the nyc rental market rebound, esp now that I don't live w/ my gf anymore

if i didnt have a girlfriend id most likely move back in with my parents

stupid girlfried

correct response is "can I have yours"

oops meant for ows thread

I dont want yr gf I am sure she is nice tho

you cant have her, anyway

we could trade?

lol like i would trade a nyc girlfriend for a NEW HAVEN one

yeah...it's a pretty crappy trade you basically have to half live in new haven, going again today

her apt is a lot nicer and cleaner than mine tho, so it's not all bad

haha no i mean, not judging that dude at all, but the way he says "it's like i'm paying rent...... to myself!!" it sounds as though he thinks he's discovered some magic secret thing

I crashed with my parents for about 4 or 5 months post-college. No big deal there.

i left home when i was 17 and went back a year later for six weeks and then got thrown out with my younger sister. we moved into a flat and quit university and went on the dole and sat around bitching about 'them' for hours on end. most days we wore these full-length, lace-collared, high-necked, floral-sprigged, port-stained, cigarette-singed brushed cotton nighties that our mother had given us for christmas the year before. we were too tired to get dressed until almost evening and also we were scruffs. audience feedback soon taught us to mix some humour and self-deprecation in with the pathos and the bitterness, and to hide our genuine deep sorrow and anxiety. any story featuring getting hit with a snorkel was a guaranteed crowd pleaser; i think the crowd never grasped how much pain a snorkel can inflict upon a teenage girl.

I was wallowing in a depth of sorrow until the inexplicable snorkel reference, then questioned whether I was allowed a moment of levity or if it was a bizarre irony that an instrument of pain should be so ridiculous

of course it's allowed, we were enjoying ourselves immensely, free at last and holding court in our grimy nightgowns.

what is a snorkel?

estela that is a beautiful post

xp https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u70xf4i1lgg

what is a google xx-p

I know a snorkel is something you use to breathe underwater, was just wondering if it had any other meaning.

it is also something you use to beat your recalcitrant daughters

it's also something whiney gives to his more fortunate victims

lol

for accuracy's sake, as much as i don't like people hitting their children, 'beat' in this case is somewhat over-egging the pudding.

xp thank you tracer

http://www.epi.org/blog/unpaid-internships-economic-mobility/

http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2012/01/05/essay-new-approach-defend-value-humanities

talks a good talk but not seeing a lot of WANTED: ENGLISH MAJORS job ads, maybe I'm not looking in the right places

http://www.thedaily.com/page/2012/01/09/010912-news-college-costs-1-5/

Back in the days of yore, before Bangalore, my mad english major skillz made me a good living as a technical writer. Or maybe is was my technical skillz that did it. Any way, it was one or the other.

well, you also weren't a hindoo

nay, nor no vindaloo-sot, neither

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/education/edlife/one-percent-education.html?src=recg&pagewanted=all

Not very insightful or newsworthy imo, the 1% thing is kind of just a hook. Who isn't aware that Harvard et al are full of high-functioning super-keen workaholic children of upper-middle class to upper-class parents? The reason that demographics at elite universities are a demographic issue is not because the top 20 US colleges provide anything like a standard deviation better education than the next 200 colleges; it's the (alleged) resulting insularity of the social networks that develop at those schools. Really tho I suspect that whatever outcome disparity exists between people with BAs from Harvard vs. SUNY Stony Brook—a world-class university according to the usual rankers—looks a lot less significant when you compare students with similar pre-college backgrounds.