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

tyler cowen thinks it's great for some reason

because tyler cowen is an idiot, is why he would think this

he posts good links but he is like the ultimate troll, it is sad how many times a day he trolls me

well honestly if you can place yourself within murray's 5% elite this book is tremendously flattering to you. your moral and spiritual superiority to everyone else is never the result of longterm economic trends or technological changes or trade policy or manipulation of institutions on a scale so vast its practically invisible no its because you dont watch nascar and stayed married

example:

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2012/02/department-of-huh.html

yeah I mean on the one hand I think it's true that we need to look at cultural factors - like, staying married pretty clearly helps you as an economic unit (having few kids too), so that's not *not* a thing, it's just a pretty shitty explanation for why certain people are billionaires

my friend sent me a link to the david brooks op-ed on this dude and on a brief skim it didn't seem that objectionable to me. like he frames it in vaguely OWS 1%/99% language and talks about tribalism & segmentation, which I broadly agree with is a problem (in-so-far as it fosters an us-against-them mentality. like maybe rich people would be more inclined to pay taxes if the thought was 'I am contributing towards a common good' rather than 'I can't believe POOR PEOPLE are attaching themselves like remoras to my veins of flowing money.')

but yeah as max's gawker post points out, the whole enterprise is really gross, but I do think every rich white family should take in at least one poor white child so that the rich family's industrious can ~vibe~ into the poor child, it would make for a good reality show, you could monetize this

nah see here's brooks: "Democrats claim America is threatened by the financial elite, who hog society’s resources. But that’s a distraction. The real social gap is between the top 20 percent and the lower 30 percent. The liberal members of the upper tribe latch onto this top 1 percent narrative because it excuses them from the central role they themselves are playing in driving inequality and unfairness."

the liberal members of the upper tribe latch onto this top 1 percent narrative because the top 1 percent narrative is the narrative that actually matters. talking about the social gap between the top 20 percent and the lower 30 percent is hiding the ball.

what if I adopt chinese baby girl instead? x-post

that depends entirely on whether or not you are a tiger mom

guess that means you're no longer part of the tribe

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/04/the-one-percent-versus-the-twenty-percent/

I didn't read this before I said that I swear

haha yeah I just kind of glossed over that

I do believe that americans should stop being so individualistic though ~love your brothers and sisters~

maybe I've just been interacting with too many libertarians lately

i am not reading david brooks take on this book because the idea of it i have in my head is already depressing enough

yeah I mean on the one hand I think it's true that we need to look at cultural factors

i think cultural factors have to be put in proper context though. like its weird to use the gingrichian idea that young working class men 'dont value work' rather than think about the way say, our culture constructs gender roles so that young men are often shut out of low-skill low-wage service jobs like office cleaning, health care &c

no for sure. or if you want to go one step further start taking apart the phrase 'don't value work', the concept of 'valuing work' is itself very culturally dependent.

anyway I'm thinking about starting a gen limbo blog as a clearinghouse for this sorta stuff outside of ilx.

for some reason you can be an individualist and still make lots of money from other people

makes you think

Funniest thing about this stupid book is how all the publications giving it a good review don't publish the subtitle

seriously though lamp you should take that quiz its hilarious

haha i think im still much in the shaking with rage stage of my reaction to this whole thing to laugh at it much, even the idea of w/e illiterate nyt review its gotten is making me really mad in a way that suggests i cld use some ~distance~

the whole things is just so grotesque it should be funny but its getting treated so seriously! idk

just as a fun fact i was given a copy of the book by someone who works in securities at a party at bar specializing in craft and boutique beers i recognize that i am part of the problem

the american right-wing has shifted so far right that the 'moderate sensible doods' like him and brooks can just say whatever the fuck they want and get a lot of attention for it. I said it somewhere else on ilx but the easiest way to get an inordinate amount of attention is to be a moderate conservative thinker right now. like, if you're not screaming "where's the birth certificate?? where's the birth certificate??' you're already in the zone where your book gets nyt attention.

(becomes moderate conservative author)

p embarrassing that Murray didn't get laughed out of town over the bell curve but I guess ppl love scientific proof that their racism is okay

this book is p racist too tbrr

i know this really should have sunk in by now but it blows my mind that the state of the right wing is such that charles fucking murray can be considered a moderate anything.

lying w/ numbers = moderate

the funniest part is how he kinda hints around at the fact that asian people are essentially white, in america (xp to myself)

lying w/ numbers = moderate

― iatee, Saturday, February 4, 2012 3:52 PM (44 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah, this totally strikes me as right when you point it out it's just !!!

fuck a bunch of charles murray, at any rate

ugh ive been reading some of the reviews and no one like NO ONE is willing to call out how the fundamental assumptions that govern his book are pernicious attempts to distort the underlying economic reasoning behind the stuffs hes talking abt

like the fact that its cheaper to have slaves in china build ipads than it would be to have an almost entirely automated factory in california build them might have more to do with stagnating real wages than how often poor whites go to church!

also the idea that the current system was simply such a perfect meritocracy that everyone at the top is just so much BRIGHTER than the poor is horrible and so widespread i dont get it. like the idea that people are just whizzing into harvard business school purely on the strength of their impeccable genetics and not a whole host of societal factors up to and including the way we measure 'intelligence' is so fucked up and disgusting

lol 'america is a true meritocracy' gets hammered into middle schoolers

i can read like three sentences at a time before i just start fuming abt how this is actually the worst book in the entire world since history

okay I started a gen limbo blog

http://genlimbo.tumblr.com/

aw http://generationlimbo.tumblr.com/

dang http://thelimbogeneration.tumblr.com/

ya it was taken in the other make ur own blogs too

haha :/

okay i will probably stop posting about this book or maybe at least start a proper thread about it elsewhere but ive been thinking about how this book feeds into an idea of the way the individual and society shape each other thats really comforting, that its the personal qualities of a person or a class that determines things and that broad trends are driven by choices individuals make rather than like big somewhat hidden things or unintended or unforeseen consequences or w/e

iatee I'd register generationlimbo.net for you if you want to make this into a serious thing.

that its the personal qualities of a person or a class that determines things and that broad trends are driven by choices individuals make

rich people are all about justifying why they're rich

it's also the impulse behind libertarianism, imo

or maybe that's ayn randology

idk it all runs together, basically it's like, everything you have, you deserve, because you made all the right choices in life, champ

hmm that's an idea silby, pm me?

xp

all the libertarians I know are poor as fuck, idgi

maybe it's just free-market capitalist libertarianism (so wikipedia tells me)

the idea that everything I earned, I deserve, fuck all those who didn't work as hard as me

Getting born to my parents was probably the best choice I ever made, unless maybe it was choosing to be born healthy.

all the libertarians I know are poor as fuck, idgi

Well they've made all the right choices and should be rich & successful but since they aren't, it must be the other people who didn't choose as well, rigging the system to drag them down.

i think its just a p human need to explain things through clear narratives, the attraction of the anecdotal and personal. i dont think the idea that people shape systems rather than being shaped by them is unique to the libertarian right i guess?

like obv the idea that the elite is simply better - more virtuous, harder working, more intelligent - is a v old conservative idea. but the left has it myths about the elite as well, i think, that are just as rooted in psychodrama. i guess my big overarching problem with this books is that its attempting to bolster a number of myths about the poor and the economy are that deeply harmful to society and the will perpetuate destructive and immoral policies. also the idea that the only reason rich people should help poor ppl - by doing them the great favor of watching nascar and eating kfc - is so that the gov't doesnt have to provide unemployment benefits

reminds me of someone I knew in college. I remember her telling me she had to drop out because her father went to jail and she needed to support her mom and younger brother. I thought, "wow ... I guess I have it pretty lucky."

maybe it's not in some of these peoples' frame of reference that there are factors that are beyond peoples' controls that limit their ability to acquire material wealth and financial stability. and since their voices are the loudest in democracy, it's their views that drive policy.

well, not in democracy, but our current government.

like obv the idea that the elite is simply better - more virtuous, harder working, more intelligent - is a v old conservative idea

I think the prob comes in w/ the fuzzy zone in between - there are examples of people who are in the elite because they were virtuous, harder working and intelligent and so it's pretty easy to find anecdotal evidence for either side of the argument (dubya vs. obama pretty much)

Laurel is on to something here

Wonder if it's our culture driving this narrative. Individualism and the old idea that having a good life is a sign of being chosen by god. Wealth is virtuous because it's a sign that god favors them or some other bullcrap idea.

Individualism in that we each have an individual choice to make something of ourselves, and if we don't do it, then the blame is solely on us... and probably makes it harder to understand other peoples' circumstances. It's a really weird mixture of ideas that put the self above others, and make it seem that social obligations or help is morally wrong, or aren't even on the radar.