Majority of Millennials have nothing for retirement

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Re: Majority of Millennials have nothing for retirement

Post by Raw Shark »

My retirement plan is to get killed. Hopefully fast. I'm not actually a kid - Gen X Fuck I'm Old.

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Re: Majority of Millennials have nothing for retirement

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My family owns property that I will eventually co-inherit, so at least I (hopefully) don't have to worry about paying for rent in my old age (though God knows a lot can happen in thirty or forty years). But I have fuck-all in the way of savings, and I don't expect that to change any time soon.

My retirement plan is to spend the intervening decades campaigning for basic income, and pray. Or hope that I'm one of the very few lucky writers/actors who makes it big, but I know how low the odds of that are.
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Re: Majority of Millennials have nothing for retirement

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K. A. Pital wrote: 2018-03-11 05:18am
Simon_Jester wrote: 2018-03-09 07:41pmThe real thing that worries/bothers me is the "hollow generation" effect created by the way the present economy seems to be forcing many millenials to defer having, or not have, children. Because that isn't something that can be fixed by passing a bill ten years from now, whereas the retirement crisis faced by people who don't retire until the 2040s... is.
Maybe then devise a technological solution and breed humans? Replicants? :lol: After all, the current brand of techno-optimism treats every problem as a technical one. You could have Musk being the magnate of human farms.
More like Soylent Green. One day the younger generations will realize how badly they've been fucked over by the ones before them and figuratively & maybe even literally eat their elders. Because the alternative will be slavery & death. We know that the financial & economic systems of the world are currently setup to asset strip the youth and put them in permanent debt slavery, one day the kids will figure it out and there will be justice. It won't be pretty.
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Re: Majority of Millennials have nothing for retirement

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The Romulan Republic wrote: 2018-05-04 08:52pm My family owns property that I will eventually co-inherit, so at least I (hopefully) don't have to worry about paying for rent in my old age (though God knows a lot can happen in thirty or forty years). But I have fuck-all in the way of savings, and I don't expect that to change any time soon.

My retirement plan is to spend the intervening decades campaigning for basic income, and pray. Or hope that I'm one of the very few lucky writers/actors who makes it big, but I know how low the odds of that are.
TRR, whats your net and savings rate if you don't mind me asking. My sister in law graduates with a drama degree next month. I would like a data point.
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Re: Majority of Millennials have nothing for retirement

Post by Solauren »

I'm personally not worried about my retirement*, but I can understand how student and other debt could be crippling many people.

I was fortunate. I'd had a paper route while in school (of which I didn't spent the money from), followed by a part time job for Canada Post. I was able to pay for the majority of my schooling myself. My parents lent me the money for the last few credits after stupidity with my school. They teacher said we needed to upgrade our computers memory to run a specific variety of programming language at home, which at the time cost about $600 for the upgrade. Then 2 weeks later we used a different variety of the language. They also upgraded from Office 95 to Office 97 after the first semester).

One of my co-workers at my first part time job had use to the student loans/credit to pay for school, and was paying it back for several years.
Then he ended up with other financial issues and had an uphill fight dealing with them.

Also, where I work, I see people get into trouble all the time with creditors and outrageous interest rates, and it can cripple.

All that together, I can see why people are having trouble saving for retirement.

*Good Government job, pension, putting money into RRSPS, none of the bad habits or stupid spending other people have like Cell Phones or a vacation property they only use a few weeks a year, etc. My house should be paid for in another 5 years around the time I turn 47. That gives me another 10 - 20 years to just put money aside instead of paying for a house.
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Re: Majority of Millennials have nothing for retirement

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Patroklos wrote: 2018-05-05 04:00amTRR, whats your net and savings rate if you don't mind me asking. My sister in law graduates with a drama degree next month. I would like a data point.
Point of Data: She is fucked. Every girl waiting tables in Los Angeles was the prettiest girl in her high school. Out of the six friends I have from school who moved the NYC to be on Broadway, the most talented actor got a break and made it onto TV (most notably Orange is the New Black), one (stage manager) just lives off her Dad's oil money because he'll pay her rent and tuition as long as she's in school for something, one (actor) drives a taxi, one (director) manages her building, one (actor) is probably dead or in jail, and the only one who has actually made it in live theater is a completely useless human being except that she's really good at lighting design and still can't afford to live alone in the city.

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Re: Majority of Millennials have nothing for retirement

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Patroklos wrote: 2018-05-05 04:00am
The Romulan Republic wrote: 2018-05-04 08:52pm My family owns property that I will eventually co-inherit, so at least I (hopefully) don't have to worry about paying for rent in my old age (though God knows a lot can happen in thirty or forty years). But I have fuck-all in the way of savings, and I don't expect that to change any time soon.

My retirement plan is to spend the intervening decades campaigning for basic income, and pray. Or hope that I'm one of the very few lucky writers/actors who makes it big, but I know how low the odds of that are.
TRR, whats your net and savings rate if you don't mind me asking. My sister in law graduates with a drama degree next month. I would like a data point.
Almost nil at the moment. I have a little in a joint savings account, but since its a joint account, I don't think it would be right for me to give details.

I don't know how relevant my example is to your sister in law, though, since I don't have a degree, and I don't what career path she's planning to follow once she has one. I do know that most people who work in theatre around here also have a day job (or are retirees), but there's more money in film and television, even if you aren't one of the ones who hit it really big.

Sorry if that's not very helpful. I wish your sister in law the best of luck though.
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Re: Majority of Millennials have nothing for retirement

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aerius wrote: 2018-05-04 09:12pm
K. A. Pital wrote: 2018-03-11 05:18am
Simon_Jester wrote: 2018-03-09 07:41pmThe real thing that worries/bothers me is the "hollow generation" effect created by the way the present economy seems to be forcing many millenials to defer having, or not have, children. Because that isn't something that can be fixed by passing a bill ten years from now, whereas the retirement crisis faced by people who don't retire until the 2040s... is.
Maybe then devise a technological solution and breed humans? Replicants? :lol: After all, the current brand of techno-optimism treats every problem as a technical one. You could have Musk being the magnate of human farms.
More like Soylent Green. One day the younger generations will realize how badly they've been fucked over by the ones before them and figuratively & maybe even literally eat their elders. Because the alternative will be slavery & death. We know that the financial & economic systems of the world are currently setup to asset strip the youth and put them in permanent debt slavery, one day the kids will figure it out and there will be justice. It won't be pretty.
I have a PhD. My elders have gutted the biological sciences and I STILL haven't found anything but occasional consultancy because the only jobs that are available require very particular work experience, or N years of experience over and above a PhD, which you can't get without a job in the first place. Oh, and when there is something I can get, the applicant pool is massive.

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Re: Majority of Millennials have nothing for retirement

Post by Patroklos »

This is of course unsustainable, you have to have entrants to have veterans.

From the US military perspective, this has been a big problem on the civilian side for a long time. Basically the boomers have been entrenched in and clinging to their cushy jobs for decades, well into their sixties and even seventies. These are not poor people (or at least they have earned plenty of money, even if they blew it), they just live for their job. Since we by law promote to vacancy, and its impossible to fire even grossly incompetent employees, we have aged as a workforce considerably. At my last command with significant civilian employment, around 1000, the average age was 56.

Some special considerations:
1.) This was an engineering command, and one that provided the reach back for other on the ground engineers, so its sort of expected they would be senior in experience and thus age.
2.) Some military technology is ancient, so obsolete in cases that "modern" engineers literally have no clue how the things work. So for these legacy systems, its usually yesteryear's retired military operators filling the civilian support positions now.
3.) Military civilian jobs are by definition supporting the active military, which means applicants with military experience that is relevant are going to have an advantage over most straight civilian applicants. There are not too many straight out of college engineers with hands on experience with most of our gear, not so for veterans.

We had an extremely knowledgeable and effective workforce that provided unparalleled support. Even so, there was a lot of concern about the geriatric tidal wave where all these grey beards would bail in the span of a few years. We essentially had an office of wizened workaholics and just a trickle of new blood for decades. When they leave, there will be very little left knowledge.

The point being, when these boomers are all forced to retire after staying in the workforce to support their indulgent consumer keeping up with the jonses lifestyles, there will be a tsunami of job opportunities. In the military civilian sector anyway.
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Re: Majority of Millennials have nothing for retirement

Post by K. A. Pital »

Retiring into the casket isn't a healthy attitude. If there are those who'd like to live that way, they can, but no need to drag everyone along with them.

I intend to retire early, no matter what. I've given enough of my prime-time life years to the capitalists already.
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Re: Majority of Millennials have nothing for retirement

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K. A. Pital wrote: 2018-05-06 09:44am Retiring into the casket isn't a healthy attitude. If there are those who'd like to live that way, they can, but no need to drag everyone along with them.

I intend to retire early, no matter what. I've given enough of my prime-time life years to the capitalists already.
Thats making the assumption that we have a choice in the matter. Thanks to the motherfucking boomers the economy and social infrastructure of the nation is so completely fucked that repairing it before it collapses beneath their dead weight is a practical impossibility. Especially with the old, entrenched assholes in government and administration blocking every attempt at stopping the train wreck in the name of McCarthyism and MUH FREEDUMB.

My main solace is knowing that vast majority of these old, gluttonous, self-entitled shitbags are going to die before I do. Hopefully they do so after watching everything fall down around their ears for a few years and they're left forsaken and alone since their kids are working another 80 hour week for low pay.
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Re: Majority of Millennials have nothing for retirement

Post by K. A. Pital »

Highlord Laan wrote: 2018-05-06 11:50amThats making the assumption that we have a choice in the matter. Thanks to the motherfucking boomers the economy and social infrastructure of the nation is so completely fucked that repairing it before it collapses beneath their dead weight is a practical impossibility. Especially with the old, entrenched assholes in government and administration blocking every attempt at stopping the train wreck in the name of McCarthyism and MUH FREEDUMB.
I actually meant the boomers as perpetrators of this mentality - it's their bad choices which are dragging the rest with them, into the same meaningless grinder.

But yes, in the end it will have to give, one way or the other. Think of all the elderly support laws around the world. Once children don't have the money to provide for the elderly and state support isn't nearly enough to cover expenses, old age and misery will mean one and the same. Extended families collapsed, so there won't be a lot of descendants and distant relatives to take care.
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Re: Majority of Millennials have nothing for retirement

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Raw Shark wrote: 2018-05-05 01:29pm
Patroklos wrote: 2018-05-05 04:00amTRR, whats your net and savings rate if you don't mind me asking. My sister in law graduates with a drama degree next month. I would like a data point.
Point of Data: She is fucked. Every girl waiting tables in Los Angeles was the prettiest girl in her high school. Out of the six friends I have from school who moved the NYC to be on Broadway, the most talented actor got a break and made it onto TV (most notably Orange is the New Black), one (stage manager) just lives off her Dad's oil money because he'll pay her rent and tuition as long as she's in school for something, one (actor) drives a taxi, one (director) manages her building, one (actor) is probably dead or in jail, and the only one who has actually made it in live theater is a completely useless human being except that she's really good at lighting design and still can't afford to live alone in the city.
My brother works in theater- lighting and wiring mainly. He's at least able to support himself (not in LA or New York, but we do live in a fairly pricey urban area), but he's starting to seriously consider taking the skills he's learned in theater and carrying them into a related trade (e.g. being an electrician) that makes more money.

What it comes down to is that banking on your acting ability is like banking on your athletic ability. There's a huge amount of money in it for a few people, there's a reasonably large number of openings that will kind of keep you afloat, and there's way, way more hopeful talent coming in than there are places to put them all.
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Re: Majority of Millennials have nothing for retirement

Post by The Romulan Republic »

Yeah- some people do support themselves doing it, and a very few get very rich doing it, but its only something to do if a) you love doing it, and b) you have a back-up plan to support yourself. Preferably more than one. If you're starting out as an actor to get rich, or counting on it as your main source of income, you're doing it for the wrong reasons.
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Re: Majority of Millennials have nothing for retirement

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TRR, I missed your earlier response to my question, sorry. Thank you.

In the case of my sister-in-law she now basically admits she wasted four years of her life and put herself into moderate debt treating her college education as an adult day care instead of a planned, purposeful development of a marketable life skill set that will provide a return on investment. I don't say that as a dig against actors, but she is being uncharacteristically honest with herself as she approaches graduation and recognizes 1.) she isn't really willing to struggle through life materially and deal with life uncertainty on the off chance she makes it to her dream (directing) and 2.) she isn't actually that talented and could only indulge in the theater world because it was in academia where everyone is given a role regardless of talent if you are in the program and 3.) finally took a hard look at the her non-hollywood prospects and admits the traditional safety net for her program, grade school drama programs, are essentially non-existent. I generally have no issue with people who reach for their dreams despite the realities of the market and career meaning most won't make it to the pinnacle of the field or provide a comfortable living (by our ridiculously keeping-up-with-the-Jonses modern standards). I have in issue with people proclaiming ignorance about those realities and claiming they are owed success when the likely failure occurs or that they were somehow tricked by the world.

So after this honest introspection, what does she tell us her solution is? Go to grad school through further debt. To study what? Apparently that's not a pressing question for her :roll:
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Re: Majority of Millennials have nothing for retirement

Post by Zaune »

She should look at non-traditional safety nets like event planning and marketing. A drama degree doesn't just cover acting, does it? She'll have covered directing, stage management, set and lighting design and at least the basics of many other aspects of theatre and film production. And those skills are valuable outside of the entertainment business too: There must be hundreds of sales and marketing departments who need someone who can work a conference centre's lighting console and speak clearly and confidently in front of an audience, and if you have the leadership and organisational skills to act as stage manager for a theatrical production you probably have the skills to act as showrunner for an art exhibition or a convention or similar.
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Re: Majority of Millennials have nothing for retirement

Post by Patroklos »

This was my advice to her as well. You might not get a direct fit into a theater job, but there is going to be some overlap and its time to make the move into the real world. It will be tough, but she does have family support to fall back on and her fiance has a good job already.

If worse comes to worse and she can't find a job, the grad school option is still there provided it makes sense in the context of a worthwhile return and a lot of serious thought and planning. And if she does find a job and still wants to go to grad school, work for a bit first and have some financial security before turning back to debt.
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Re: Majority of Millennials have nothing for retirement

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Yeah. Debt-financed graduate education is, in general, a bad idea unless you have a very specific plan for how that graduate degree is going to help.

...

The big problem we're having is that high school diplomas have decayed to the point where they're basically just a "certificate of being vaguely employable, if your standards aren't too high." It's so hard to get kicked out of high school, and so easy to remediate and recover and get he bare minimum of credits to meet graduation requirements, that "I got my diploma!" doesn't really prove much about you. Because cynics can say "yeah, and so did that delinquent little donkey over there with an IQ of 80 and so many criminal friends that I don't want him coming within 100 feet of my business for fear his social circle will show up."

Which means that to get a certificate of being genuinely employable, like, capable of doing actual for-serious work that requires you to not be a thumb-fingered irresponsible idiot, you need a higher level of credential. Which means college. Which creates an incentive to funnel everyone to go into college, even if it means debt, and jacks up the prices due to increased demand... Which in turn shoves more people up the chain into grad school, and by the time you get out of there you're in your late twenties without having ever earned a dime.
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Re: Majority of Millennials have nothing for retirement

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And at the same time, someone like a welder or mill/lathe operator can on average get ~50k annually to start with - with a good prospect of having 6 digits wage after a few years of experience, and can still do art/projects in his spare time...
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Re: Majority of Millennials have nothing for retirement

Post by Elheru Aran »

I posted something along these lines yesterday, but the server went offline right as I was sending it...

I'm too decaffeinated at the moment to reprise it entirely, but essentially, I was saying that I think we are going to reach a breaking point in the near future-- as in the next ten, fifteen years or so perhaps-- where kids start actively spurning college in favor of entering the workforce via trade schools or skill certificates en masse. There are many things college can offer, but guaranteed employment is not one of them, a few professions like medicine or MBA or whatever aside.

The fact of the matter is that a blue-collar worker can almost certainly make much more than MANY bachelor's degrees, and often enough even graduate degrees. The traditional teen job of food service is being filled by adults who can't find work elsewhere and are willing to settle for minimum wage. And while there's certainly demand for people who have gone through higher education to fill technical, white collar jobs... the service industries are just as happy to hire, and probably pay more while requiring less intellectual experience.

The math also holds up-- a few hundred dollars for a technical certificate that you complete with just a few classes, perhaps a couple of semester's worth, or a few thousand dollars for a deeper education in some specialty like auto mechanic or plumber over maybe a couple years max, versus tens of thousands of dollars of student debt with interest to boot, at least four years if not five or six spent, for something which may have little relevance to the labour market and which you can only really make money at by probably doing something else. There's a reason the joke about knowing how to say "do you want fries with that" is the best skill for liberal-arts college students to learn is a thing.

Take an Art degree. You can't make a living on art unless you get famous, and that takes time (or an extraordinary amount of luck and/or self-promotion). You will have to have either another job (or two) to support your art career, or an extremely understanding person willing to finance your life. Don't forget the probably decades of paying off those student loans. But hey, they MIGHT forgive some of them if you claim unemployment...

Or you can go to a tech school, get a technical certificate in... I don't know, Carpentry, make a few calls, show up to the interview with your certificate, start the next week at $13 a hour, and paint pretty pictures in your off-time if you always had that itch. Maybe even sell a few of them.

So, yeah. Pretty sure that before too long, community colleges and technical schools are going to get a big boost from high school graduates who have taken a look at the utter fustercluck that college has become (at least in the US) and decided that wasn't for them.
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Re: Majority of Millennials have nothing for retirement

Post by LaCroix »

And remember - that is something you can do whenever you want - I dropped out of law university, took a couple of months (4 and change) in software developer courses from a certified institute and 10 years into the job I am making 70k (because I did not switch projects often enough to get a lo... with an investment of ~5k for the certificates.

Just make sure that there are jobs for what you do - I checked first if there is demand, and then went for it. If they were looking for welders, I'd have done that...
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Re: Majority of Millennials have nothing for retirement

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Elheru Aran wrote: 2018-05-09 09:40amTake an Art degree. You can't make a living on art unless you get famous, and that takes time (or an extraordinary amount of luck and/or self-promotion). You will have to have either another job (or two) to support your art career, or an extremely understanding person willing to finance your life. Don't forget the probably decades of paying off those student loans. But hey, they MIGHT forgive some of them if you claim unemployment...
Hey, that's me! I got an art degree!

BUT - I went to a college where they were VERY up front about the need for fall-back skills (by and large, the professors were there because they weren't self-supporting on their art work alone, even though quite a few of them were successful and invited to international exhibitions) and artist-oriented business courses were required. Although I have sold my art work through the years, it's never been enough to live on so I've always had a "day job". Often, I was able to utilize my skills for those day jobs - the human anatomy I studied to get my degree was very helpful when working for medical researchers employed by the health insurance industry. The "how to find a lawyer" section of the required business courses came in handy when years later I sued someone for wage theft. Also, it didn't take me "decades" to pay off my student loans - I did so in less than 10 years despite much of that time working only at or near minimum wage. It was a different world 30 years ago.

I'm basically like the background actors in Hollywood - getting to do my thing, not making a lot of money at it, and needing to do other work to make ends meet. It's not as wonderful as being rich and famous, but I do get to do things I like to do and keep a roof over my head. It helps that I'm somewhat frugal by nature and content with a modest lifestyle.
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ray245
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Re: Majority of Millennials have nothing for retirement

Post by ray245 »

Elheru Aran wrote: 2018-05-09 09:40am I posted something along these lines yesterday, but the server went offline right as I was sending it...

I'm too decaffeinated at the moment to reprise it entirely, but essentially, I was saying that I think we are going to reach a breaking point in the near future-- as in the next ten, fifteen years or so perhaps-- where kids start actively spurning college in favor of entering the workforce via trade schools or skill certificates en masse. There are many things college can offer, but guaranteed employment is not one of them, a few professions like medicine or MBA or whatever aside.

The fact of the matter is that a blue-collar worker can almost certainly make much more than MANY bachelor's degrees, and often enough even graduate degrees. The traditional teen job of food service is being filled by adults who can't find work elsewhere and are willing to settle for minimum wage. And while there's certainly demand for people who have gone through higher education to fill technical, white collar jobs... the service industries are just as happy to hire, and probably pay more while requiring less intellectual experience.

The math also holds up-- a few hundred dollars for a technical certificate that you complete with just a few classes, perhaps a couple of semester's worth, or a few thousand dollars for a deeper education in some specialty like auto mechanic or plumber over maybe a couple years max, versus tens of thousands of dollars of student debt with interest to boot, at least four years if not five or six spent, for something which may have little relevance to the labour market and which you can only really make money at by probably doing something else. There's a reason the joke about knowing how to say "do you want fries with that" is the best skill for liberal-arts college students to learn is a thing.

Take an Art degree. You can't make a living on art unless you get famous, and that takes time (or an extraordinary amount of luck and/or self-promotion). You will have to have either another job (or two) to support your art career, or an extremely understanding person willing to finance your life. Don't forget the probably decades of paying off those student loans. But hey, they MIGHT forgive some of them if you claim unemployment...

Or you can go to a tech school, get a technical certificate in... I don't know, Carpentry, make a few calls, show up to the interview with your certificate, start the next week at $13 a hour, and paint pretty pictures in your off-time if you always had that itch. Maybe even sell a few of them.

So, yeah. Pretty sure that before too long, community colleges and technical schools are going to get a big boost from high school graduates who have taken a look at the utter fustercluck that college has become (at least in the US) and decided that wasn't for them.
Yeah, that seems to be more of an issue with America and the UK undervaluing vocational schools and an oversupply of degree-holders. Many people shy away from well-paid blue-collar careers because it's seen as a blue-collar job, and lacking in social prestige.

However, there are people who are just bad at those jobs that demand good dexterity skills/talent. Another bigger problem might be the lack of interest in companies to train and develop new workers?
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Re: Majority of Millennials have nothing for retirement

Post by K. A. Pital »

You can also try to game the system by relying on secondary skills.

So you wanna be an X, but they are not letting you? See if you have a broad education / experience and find something which you're also good at. It couldn't be that you've just studied one thing, a human being isn't a tool.

Like, being good with languages can help to get some position in an international company - which may not be entirely what you're looking for, but in a while, you can move around internally. Being a skilled illustrator can help you to get into the gaming industry, if that's what you're looking for, and from there you can develop your career in many ways. All these skills can exist completely outside your primary education - which may still be your preferred job or goal in life - and they can help you reach it.

Remember, capitalists aren't going to provide you with a working place that corresponds to your education. That thing only existed under socialism.

You should use the full set of your skills, including everything from social connections to being able to multiply large numbers in your head, to trick them into giving you what you need and want to realize yourself.

At no point should one capitulate to the ridiculous "HUMAN=TOOL" idea which they sum up as "BUT YOU STUDIED X at school, so that's all you're good for, but you lack experience so you get no job".

Also the US and UK and all other paid education nations aren't good. If you can, leave. Get your education in a sane place and don't have any debt.
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Re: Majority of Millennials have nothing for retirement

Post by The Romulan Republic »

Zaune wrote: 2018-05-09 05:26amShe should look at non-traditional safety nets like event planning and marketing. A drama degree doesn't just cover acting, does it? She'll have covered directing, stage management, set and lighting design and at least the basics of many other aspects of theatre and film production. And those skills are valuable outside of the entertainment business too: There must be hundreds of sales and marketing departments who need someone who can work a conference centre's lighting console and speak clearly and confidently in front of an audience, and if you have the leadership and organisational skills to act as stage manager for a theatrical production you probably have the skills to act as showrunner for an art exhibition or a convention or similar.
Yeah, maybe.

Teaching drama also occurred to me as an option for someone with a degree (perhaps one that comes to naturally to me because my father was an independent filmmaker who paid the bills by working as a university professor).
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