Wall Street Frets about its Nightmare Generation by Wolf Richter

Turns out, to the greatest consternation of some folks on Wall Street, millennials are smart. “They don’t trust the stock market,” Goldman Sachs determined in a survey. Only 18% thought that the stock market was “the best way to save for the future.” It’s a big deal for Wall Street because millennials, having surpassed the baby boomers, are now the largest US …

10 Pluses and Minuses of Being an Aging Baby Boomer By Will Durst

Population scientists describe the Baby Boom generation as anybody born between the years 1946 and 1964. Which means the youngest of the Baby Boomers turned 50 last year, and the oldest will turn 70 next year, which is just so wrong. We Boomers are the architects of the youth culture. We invented young people for crum’s sakes. We’re the Pepsi …

Why More and More Women Are Embracing Non-Belief – Amanda Marcotte

Atheists were abuzz this week over Pew Research releasing new numbers [3] showing that the number of “nones” (people who have no religion at all) in the U.S. is soaring to record levels, making up a whopping 56 million Americans. In just the past seven years, the percentage of Americans who say they have no specific religious affiliation went from 16 percent to …

Trust in mainstream media plummets: Only 2% of young adults trust the media – Daniel Barker

Trust in the mainstream media appears to be taking a nosedive, at least among young people. A recent Harvard Institute of Politics poll that queried more than 3,000 people between the ages of 18 and 29 found that only 2 percent of them believe that the media can be trusted to do the “right thing” on a regular basis. The …

Student-Loan Surge Undercuts Millennials’ Place in U.S. Economy – David Wilson

Surging student-loan debt represents a key risk to the economy’s expansion because wage gains are failing to keep up, according to Beth Ann Bovino, U.S. chief economist at Standard & Poor’s. As the attached chart illustrates, the dollar amount of borrowing has increased in each quarter since 2003, when data compiled by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York begins. …

We millennials lack a roadmap to adulthood

Life is often referred to as a “highway”, to borrow from Tom Cochrane, and for my generation that hasn’t changed. “Adulthood today lacks a well-defined roadmap”, writes Steven Mintz, in his forthcoming book The Prime of Life. “Today, individuals must define or negotiate their roles and relationships without clear rules or precedents to follow”. This is especially true for us …

It’s Official: Americans R Stupid

As Americans, we tend to be pretty full of ourselves, and this is especially true of our young people.  But do we really have reason for such pride?  According to a shocking new report from the Educational Testing Service, Americans between the ages of 20 and 34 are way behind young adults in other industrialized nations when it comes to literacy, …