The Off Topic Topic

[Eddie Teach]

Is that a star of David on his neck? 

[Valmy]

Ah well.

I guess I lack the appropriate vitriol towards the boomers since that generation in my family has always bent over backwards helping us all out. Nobody in my generation, that I am aware of, has any college debt though we did all have the good sense to go to state schools.

[Malthus]

Middle class shlubs created the global economy?

And interest rates were sky high in the 1970s and we were suffering through stagflation so not sure what that is going on about this 3.9% boat financing.

Heh people forget just how crappy the economy was in the 1970s, and how sky-high interest rates were in the 1980s. 

[derspiess]

Is that a star of David on his neck? 

Square of David.

[Valmy]

I asked my dad, who grew up in the 1960s, how different things were for him starting his career and he said 'let me put it to you this way: I never applied for a job I didn't get.'

That is amazing. Now granted he was a psychologist/social worker and it is not like even today there are long lines of people wanting those jobs.

[derspiess]

That's how it was for my dad.  He and his two brothers got their chemistry degrees from Marshall and were immediately placed in a local metallurgical company.  They each went separate ways after that but had it pretty easy in terms of finding work. 

Btw at my uncle's funeral a few weeks ago I met my dad's first boss-- the dude who owned the pharmacy he worked in back in 1962.  I kept wanting to ask this guy how on earth he was alive.  It was like a wormhole into the past.

[Barrister]

Yeah, when I think about my parents...

My dad graduated with a two year college diploma that my mom pretty much put him through.  She herself did that after getting her teaching certificate after one or two years of university (which, granted is very different than today).

To start off my dad was very lucky in his career - he was/is a sportswriter/sportseditor.  He left one newspaper shortly before it closed for good (Winnipeg Tribune).  He left Alberta shortly before the '82 crash.  But then he lost his job in Saskatoon and took months to find another back in Winnipeg.  He worked the Winnipeg job about 10 years before he was let go there (there's always someone cheaper these days).  He found another really good job in Winnipeg, but the company up and moved to Ottawa, (where he refused to go), and the company shut down a year or two after that.  He's been unable to find well-paying work since then, doing a series of freelance gigs where he can.  So here is he in his mid 60s, having worked his entire career in a dying industry, and having been underemployed for nearly the last decade.  He has no pension and probably not enough savings.

My mom stayed at home to look after her kids, but they found they needed the second income.  Her teaching certificate was no longer good enough to get a job, so she had to go back to university for several years (with two kids at home) in order to be able to work as a teacher.  She did eventually manage to find work and had a good career, ending up as a vice principal, and her pension is what is going to carry my parents.

As for houses...  yes like other people they made out well on the last couple homes they owned in the 90s and 00s.  But they took a bloodbath on the Saskatoon house, having to sell into the teeth of the early 90s recession and lost a lot of money.  We had to rent for a couple years before they could put together enough money to get back in the housing market.  I don't think they did well on their two houses before that either.

So yeah.  Some things they had easier, some things they had tougher, and some things are just plain different.

[Liep]

Just received a wallet from a project I backed on Kickstarter in 2014, I had forgotten all about that. It's still cool.

[Tamas]

Assuming these aren't just total crooks, how good an idea is this?
https://propertypartner.co/howitworks/howitworks

[KRonn]

Middle class shlubs created the global economy?

And interest rates were sky high in the 1970s and we were suffering through stagflation so not sure what that is going on about this 3.9% boat financing.

Heh people forget just how crappy the economy was in the 1970s, and how sky-high interest rates were in the 1980s. 

I remember it! Interest rates in the teens! Gas lines, dogs and cats living together....fun times. 

[celedhring]

The association of Spanish pork producers have just started a "Pork, our white meat" campaign.  Good try.

[Valmy]

The association of Spanish pork producers have just started a "Pork, our white meat" campaign.  Good try.

Chicken is the white meat

Pork is the other white meat

[KRonn]

The association of Spanish pork producers have just started a "Pork, our white meat" campaign.  Good try.

Good marketing idea! I think it works in the US pretty well too.

[Josquius]

Middle class shlubs created the global economy?

And interest rates were sky high in the 1970s and we were suffering through stagflation so not sure what that is going on about this 3.9% boat financing.

Heh people forget just how crappy the economy was in the 1970s, and how sky-high interest rates were in the 1980s. 

Apparently.
Yet from all I hear in the 70s there were jobs aplenty. You wanted a job you could get one.

[Zanza]

Looks like unemployment was lower in the 1970s then ever after. But then I associate the 1970s Britain with run-down state enterprises and general economic malaise...