Generation Y

It's hard in this economy to not see a lot of misguided or simplified explanations for why things are the way they are.

My generation gets a ton of grief. The "Millennials" (which is a terrible name) are often described as entitled, lazy, and perfectly happy to live in their parent's houses. 

There was Time magazine's delicious "The Me Me Me Generation". And this Slate article that describes a sort of depression my generation faces where we are scared of adulthood.

And this sort of neck beard having, Mac Book loving, Star Bucks sitting persona has become my generations stereotype. We'd rather sit around, browsing the internet from our parent's basement, than get a job and our own plot of land in the suburbs. 

This is what the geniuses of this GOP campaign think of my generation. A semi-tight stripped sailor shirt, thick Weezer glasses, coming from this whining dude who just cares about his friends. And don't get me wrong, the Democrats have just as ridiculous ideas of what people my age are, they just are a little better at making us believe they are on our side.

More recently, there has been more about how maybe my generation isn't actually lazy, maybe we're sort of screwed by the system that's been in place for over 60 years.

We were told to go to college and we would magically start making $50,000 a year. No one told us that we would also be paying $650 a month in student loan payments. No one told us there was a housing bubble that was about to burst because a small group of really greedy people were cooking the books. And more times than not, my friends are unemployed, living at home, and generally hating life.

An Al Jazeera columnist, Sarah Kendzior from St. Louis, was one of the first people I saw that called out the devaluation of people. She argues that the rules of the old economy do not apply to people under 35. And god help you if you're a single woman, college graduate.

So what do we do? Is it even possible to change the system when even our Supreme Court  rules that money is equal to speech?

Probably not. It's a crazy world where we will continue to eat up resources until we find cheaper resources. Striping us of any stability. And eventually the system is going to collapse.  We'll continue to outsource jobs to cheaper countries and expect American workers to do the jobs that only years before several people did.

I'm terrified of the future. People constantly talk me from the ledge of, "I wish I didn't buy a house" saying it's a good investment. It is only a good investment if I actually make money on my house and if I have a job with which to pay for that house. And those dark clouds heading this way say that maybe that's not a likely scenario in 5-10 years.