lol wow – Fake Benevolence

nerdyadventures:

coldbitterness:

supersoygrrrl:

jumblejo:

scoldylox:

cocothinkshefancy:

awesome-everyday:

shorterexcerpts:

thecallus:

theatlantic:

The Cheapest Generation: Why Aren’t Millennials Buying Cars or Houses?

What if Millennials’ aversion to car-buying isn’t a temporary side effect of the recession, but part of a permanent generational shift in tastes and spending habits? It’s a question that applies not only to cars, but to several other traditional categories of big spending—most notably, housing. And its answer has large implications for the future shape of the economy—and for the speed of recovery.

Read more. [Image: Kagan McLeod]

It’s safe to say that a decent number of Tumblr users are a part of the Millennial generation. So, tell us: Do you own a car or house? If not, why?

IT’S BECAUSE THEY HAVE NO DISPOSABLE INCOME YOU THUNDERING IDIOTS. Fucking preference has nothing to do with it. 50% of college graduates have no job! They all have the most student loan debt ever! What are you asking this question for?!

Also: housing is a good bit more expensive now.

My parents got a 15-year mortgage on a new house in the mid-70s. The house was $32,000. Average home price in that area now? $190,000.

So, home prices went up. Food prices went up. Health care prices went WAY UP. Rent prices went up. Higher education went up so damn high that some of us forgo that all together. Energy prices went up. Car prices went up.

Prices of prices went up.

We also pay cell phone bills, internet bills, data plans, text plans, online subscriptions, cable/satellite tv, netflix, DVR subscriptions — bills that didn’t even exist 30-40 years ago. We also use computers and smartphones and microwaves and other consumer electronics that didn’t exist 20-50 years ago.

We need medications and doctors and contact lenses and tampons and maxi pads and other things that cost money just to be alive and keep us healthy.

Most of us can’t afford to:

Get married and have a “Traditional” big wedding

Buy a house

Buy a new car

PLAN to have children

Take two, consecutive weeks of vacation.

Jobs that paid 50k in the late 1990s now pay between 30-35. Interest rates that favor consumers have gone down.

So I say, no. We are not choosing not to buy homes. We’re not choosing to take the bus in cities where there’s no good public transit. WE ARE NOT CHOOSING TO LIVE WHAT SOCIETY DEEMS AS AN UNDESIRABLE LIFESTYLE.

Don’t even get me started on the fact that these two people in the picture are young white hipsters. Young lack and brown folks have been forgoing homeownership and buying new cars for decades, this shit isn’t new, pal. You’re just acting like this shit is new because it’s hitting white folks.

anyway, my point is: We are fucking broke.

STUDENT LOAN DEBT

^^^^DING DING DING DING BOOM BOOM BOOM POW

When you’re already paying your student loan debt, the equivalent of something that ranges from an expensive car to a small mortgage, you often don’t want to add another on top of it.

All of this. I am literally drowning in debt. Why is this even a question? Are y’all fucking stupid? Are you THAT disconnected from…life?

All this and medical debt. Last year, my medical bills totaled $70,000. The insurance covered $30,000. What we were responsible for was pretty close to my household’s entire budget for the year. How the fuck am I gonna say yeah, I know we have all that looming over us but fuck it, let’s buy a house and a new car right now. In two years, our current car qualifies for historical plates. Because it’s that fucking old. This year, we still have an unpaid medical bill for $10,000. My last IV medicine was $300 a week. I was on that on for 3 months. Not counting any of my pharmacuticals, my dressing changes, or my monthly drs appointments. Who the fucks even going to give me a loan for that other shit right now? Do a piece on how the entire fucking economys changed since the 70s, Atlantic and how millenials can’t fucking keep up and how with shit like that we shouldn’t be expected to. Not this shit of well THEY could when shit was totally different why can’t YOU?

Ahahahaha seriously what even, “why don’t you own a house?”

Uh because I’m on food stamps to afford the rent for a relatively cheap studio apartment? Because I was going to a really expensive liberal arts college where I only owed a fraction of the cost after aid and loans and I still needed my grandparents’ help, and then they moved into assisted living and couldn’t anymore, so I dropped out and went back to work as a receptionist with no college degree in my late 20s? Because the absolute most money I have ever had in the bank at one time, before school, when I’d been working full-time in a supervisory position for years, was, idk, like $6000? And I can’t even imagine when I’ll have that much at once again? lol jeez I dunno, why don’t I own a house

But it’s not really that much due to my generation since when my mom was my age she was a single mother of an infant who drove a cab for a living

Sometimes people are just poor (and tbh I don’t even consider myself “poor” now even though I probably meet some technical qualification, because I’m actually pretty happy and comfortable, although that wouldn’t be the case if I had to rely completely on myself for all my expenses instead of just most of them)

And I don’t own a car because I don’t know how to drive for starters and again, even though at one point I could have afforded to buy a (cheap, used) car, I never could have afforded to maintain it, and I’ve always relied on walking and public transportation anyway so whatever

it’s ridiculous how freakin’ expensive it is to pretty much just breathe air