The Exponential Function

[TDoS]

Given what is happening now I can only wonder what people will do when they realize the economy is broken on a fundamental level...

By the time most of them realize it, it will be too late to do much more than roll over and die.

As you might suspect from my prior post on this topic, we both see this from the same POV.

I'm more interested in K-Dogs point of view, as you and Monsta appear to be generalizing about children, as opposed to personal experience.

I think Monsta's overall view, based on likely/unlikely is reaosnable, but the chosen probability expression is not definitive. I do believe things might be harder for the younger generations, and most of the speculation Monsta has done seems reasonable. K-Dog and I both mght offer a fine tuning of the concepts obviously, for better or worse.

Certainly a direct determining factor is that children are not raised in a vacuum, or by society at large. Parents themselves are a variable that can't be ignored, or discounted. They alone could make the difference between a normal, likely outcome as expressed by Monsta...or most certainly not. Quite the independent variable in the mix, and one with the ability to completely skew the results even with the more difficult conditions of today (however we might describe "difficult").

For the most part, the lengthening time for a person to become independent of their parents is a direct result of the economic barriers presented by all the so-called "markers" of maturity.  Buying a house and raising kids is EXPENSIVE.  If you're reasonably intelligent and pragmatic, you won't do either one until you are pretty certain you'll be able to afford it long term.  How secure is your new career and potential for advancement.?  How stable is the general economy around you?

Or a direct result of parents who know well what you just wrote...and tip the scales in the favor of their children.

Finally, back on the economic end there's the Elephant in the Room.  Student Debt.  No prior generation has had to start out with such a huge hole to dig out of.

From personal experience I can't say this is an absolute. Like a farm boy without a pot to piss in decades ago could go to college any other way.

A potential Illuminati Prince undoubtly might think such things are unncessary....poor farm boys certainly didn't have anyone unrolling a college education without debt in front of them...even in "way back" times.

[RE]

A potential Illuminati Prince undoubtly might think such things are unncessary....

Your narrative of my childhood is a complete fiction.

My parents are both Depression era children of poor immigrants.  My father was the first person to go to college of anyone on both sides.  He went to Pace College in NYC on the GI Bill.  He got into the Executivee Training Program at Chase with 2 other guys.  When I was born, we lived in an attached house in the working class section of Queens.  Lower middle class salary at the time.

He made it to VP in the International Dept and was posted to Brazil.  On an American ssalary in the 60s you could hire poor domestic help from the favelas.  This was as close to Illuminati as I got in those years.  My parents split up while in Brazil, and my mom brought me back to NY where we lived in a 1 1 bedroom apt.  She had $500 to live on until the divorce got finalized.  My dad put the down payment on a house in Queens, which my mom struggled to pay off for 25 years as a clerical worker with a HSE  Education.

When college came round, my dad welshed on paying for it, so I had to work-study and take loans to supplement my scholarship.  Had I known he was going to do that, I would have gone to CUNY. not Columbia.  I was always broke.

There was no silver spoon for me growing up in Queens, I mowed lawns and delivered groceries on my bike for spending money. It was an hour and a half commute each way on the subway for me to go to Stuyvesant.  I couldn't join any after school clubs or activities because it took so long.  I had virtually no friends.  Basically, life sucked from age 10 to 16 for me.  When I finally got out to go to college, I went wild with drugs and girls.  School was easy for me, mostly I didn't go to class just crammed for tests.

Anyhow my life has nothing to do with the problems of the current generation, and neither does yours.

RE

[TDoS]

A potential Illuminati Prince undoubtly might think such things are unncessary....

Your narrative of my childhood is a complete fiction.

If memory serves, you were the one who mentioned being "groomed" by the Illuminati. I remembered the word. I believe it was of a reference to what happened sometime during your high school years?

Anything I know about your background in any way came from you personally.

He made it to VP in the International Dept and was posted to Brazil.  On an American ssalary in the 60s you could hire poor domestic help from the favelas.  This was as close to Illuminati as I got in those years.  My parents split up while in Brazil, and my mom brought me back to NY where we lived in a 1 1 bedroom apt.  She had $500 to live on until the divorce got finalized.  My dad put the down payment on a house in Queens, which my mom struggled to pay off for 25 years as a clerical worker with a HSE  Education. When college came round, my dad welshed on paying for it, so I had to work-study and take loans to supplement my scholarship.  Had I known he was going to do that, I would have gone to CUNY. not Columbia.  I was always broke. There was no silver spoon for me growing up in Queens, I mowed lawns and delivered groceries on my bike for spending money. It was an hour and a half commute each way on the subway for me to go to Stuyvesant.  I couldn't join any after school clubs or activities because it took so long.  I had virtually no friends.  Basically, life sucked from age 10 to 16 for me.  When I finally got out to go to college, I went wild with drugs and girls.  School was easy for me, mostly I didn't go to class just crammed for tests.

Remember when we discussed my recent experience with suits? You mentioned your extensive experience with them as a young man, how your father had taken you with him to all sorts of meetings and whatnot where you learned about them and their characteristics and whatnot?

How did this work out in between mowing lawns and being broke and delivering groceries? 3 hours of commuting during the school week? The pirate radio? No time for after school activities....but heading out to watch big deals get done with dad happened enough to teach you all you needed to know about suits?

I always thought that sort of backed up your Illuminati grooming claim in your high school and college years, as opposed to now where it is like....where did you even find the TIME?

Anyhow my life has nothing to do with the problems of the current generation, and neither does yours.
RE

Oh, I agree to some extent, but I do have experience with the current generation up close and personal. You never spawned, so you are free and clear of it all. But the "problems" of the current generations aren't a given, as Monsta said they fall into the probability of "more likely than unlikely", and there is that parent factor. No, not just the rich versus poor angle, but the REAL parents versus another brand of helicopter ones, or those who didn't even want the kids in the first place. Hey, post Vietnam sex stopped being a dirty word and abortions were legal and it was all smoking reefer and whatever other hedonistic lifestyles came along. As did the consequences of free love and birth control and...I dunno....more idiot adults having kids?

Sure, things got more expensive in terms of raising them and whatnot (EVERYTHING got more expensive, not just kid raising), but I find it hard to discount the behavior of the prior generations raising them as part of the causal factor here.

[RE]

The "grooming" you refer to was during the years in Brazil, playing chess against my dad's associates and state department apparatchiks and doing math tricks.  Later on I spent a couple of years being tested by psychologists and jumping through a variety of hoops.   All through those years at the various parties and picnics, I observed the behavior and dress of all the people involved, bankers, state dept, CIA and military.  I'm a good observer.

RE

[TDoS]

The "grooming" you refer to was during the years in Brazil, playing chess against my dad's associates and state department apparatchiks and doing math tricks.  Later on I spent a couple of years being tested by psychologists and jumping through a variety of hoops.   All through those years at the various parties and picnics, I observed the behavior and dress of all the people involved, bankers, state dept, CIA and military.  I'm a good observer.

RE

I see. So your insight is related to the more social aspects of how the movers and shakers behave, as opposed to being in the  room when they are going at the details hammer and tongs? I'm trying to think of any muliti-corporate or multi-national deal where that end of the deal was happening in a social environment. Social environemnts tended to be before we went into combat in some conference room, or after the details were hammered out among the financial/technical/legal heads of departments and their CEO.

Obviously our experience was gained in different decades and even centuries, and from different perspectives.

[RE]

For that time period, absolutely.  Then you add in my own time wearing the uniform working at Merrill and Drexel.  Didn't spend decades in the monkey suit, but the behaviors didn't change.  Same arrogance and self importance.

RE

[TDoS]

For that time period, absolutely.  Then you add in my own time wearing the uniform working at Merrill and Drexel.  Didn't spend decades in the monkey suit, but the behaviors didn't change.  Same arrogance and self importance.
RE

So...arrogance and self importance and....bankruptcy? Any correlation there?

[RE]

So...arrogance and self importance and....bankruptcy? Any correlation there?

Dunno if there is a correlation between the frequency of bankruptcy by dress code, but I suspect a correlation by magnitude.  Suits have higher incomes, so the bankruptcies would tend to be bigger.

RE

[Goldernen Oxernen]

There are a few points I would respectfully submit on this topic, if I may. Actually, as there are no preconditions preventing me making these points I not just would, but WILL make them!

For most of human history, most people have not lived 'the American/western dream' or variation on it, meaning stable well paid employment taking a 25 year mortgage to own their own home. Ill leave marriage and children aside, despite it being part of the white picket fence dream, as most people did still get married and have children for the duration of civilization and even pre-civilization. Just focussing on owning a property,'A' being singular, not plural.

This is something that I think became the norm for the majority only post WW2. Prior to that it seems at least half the people rented in an urban area or were housed/accommodated by a land owner in a rural area. If you go back a little further to the 19th C, Im guessing around 80% did not own their own property, certainly not one dwelling per nuclear family which is 'the dream'.

One thing we see in recent decades, at least since the beginning of the 21st C, is the single generation family home being signed over to a nursing home and its value being deducted at rates of on average, a thousand dollars a week. If your home was worth 400k you had only 8 years of money to give over, which is usually enough.
if you did not own A home and rented on a pension and/or retirement funds, the govt still takes care of you if you need to go to aged care.

What then is the benefit of paying off the property, other than:
A period of owning it clear and free in retirement, say from 55 to 75 if you took out a 25 year mortgage at age 30.
If you die inside 5 yrs of going into aged care, still having some value in the property to leave to beneficiaries.

There are pros and cons to renting vs owning, which I won't go into here as you probably already are aware of those.

People complain of isolation and loneliness epidemics. More communal living counteracts that, whether people have flatmates/housemates or live with parents and grandparents. Of course its not a definite given that living with more people is always better, but overall there is more company and support all round. Clans, come tribes are also a form of physical security, as relying on law abiding and law enforcement is also a relatively recent development.

Mortgages are 30 yrs with 20% deposit typically now. For men stupid enough to still get married or defacto cohabit in todays legal system, theres a better than even chance everything he put into it is going to be lost in seperation or divorce. That is the biggest reason for "the young generation" increasingly not getting married and buying a house.

I think it was 65% of men 30 and under, that's near enough 2/3 are single now. this is a little hazy on the exact numbers, but predicted that by 2030 50% of women will be single  and childless. Those were from the US, but can generalise across western countries. What never gets broken down is the racial split in that, as recent immigrants are forming families far more than people 'born here'. If they were to look at Aframerican and Anglo only, that would probably blow out to 65% of women.

"The young Generation" in this discussion seems too ill defined. is it Millennials, Gen Z, or both? How about 35 and under. 40 is not only not young but could have been looking at property prices from 2015 or 2010 which would be half what they are today. Thats a very different level of difficulty with general cost of living and inflation.

A 40 year old woman really isn't going to have children, even if she gets married at that age either to fulfil The Dream.

So limiting 'the young generation' to 35 and under, or 1995 and over, how does it play out? Are we seeing high flying boss babes like the delta air, DC crash blackhawk and malaysian chopper crash credentialed career girl crews unable to find men making more than themselves to marry. Are they getting their ideas on what men are worthy from tiktok and Instagram influencers (of each other) instead of mutual friends, their mother and father? Are the regular guys without a Model Y or movie star smile, largely not even trying? while a cadre of usual suspects is responsible for all the finger wagging rants on getting ghosted and guys 'not knowing how to follow up'.

 There are a hell of a lot of people with the ordinary jobs on utube saying theyre quitting and working is a waste of time, or explaining why everyone is doing so. I get that it barely makes ends meet, companies and conpany men who work for them are a nightmare. I never see them explain how the bills are going to get paid once they do that though. I guess they don't have a mortgage is half of the how.

[RE]

I never see them explain how the bills are going to get paid once they do that though.

"Quitting working" is a little misleading.  What they are quitting are typical career type jobs.  They find the money to get by in a variety of ways.

1- "Gig" jobs:  These are easy to get and quit, then find another when you run short of funds. Like Uber or Instacart.  Low paying, but unmarried and often couch surfing they have low expenses.

2- Seasonal work:  Up here, they'll work pn a fishing boat in summer and plow snow in winter.  Or work in  the ourist trade or construction in summer, and snowbird to FL in winter.

3- "Side Hustles": Usually some internet scheme.  A Gen Z couple I met traded high priced Sneakers onver the net.  Or they have a Podcast or are Tattoo artists. etc.

4- Mooching:  If they run short, they take periodic donations from retired Boomer parent

5- Gambling-  Professional Poker playin is popular.  Making book on sportss betting also.

6- Illegal shit:  Drugs, Burglary, Prostitution, Bootlegging, Scalping, Gang Protection rackets etc

RE