Don't confuse the positive attitude we take on as easy living with a defense mechanism not to completely loose our minds with a world around us going to hell in a handbasket, inability to afford a roach motel apartment and constant cuts in services our parents took for granted.
Don't.

Certainly the expenses of day to day living before the late 80's is much less than what we experience today. For example, today's world just requires a cellphone and cable TV. Both of these cost. These are expenses my folks did not have before the late 80's.

That's exactly what I mean. The world today does not requires those two things. But a lot of people think they need them. Cable TV? Not everyone has that. Cell phones? Optional. People even buy water. Water! ;)

What? I don't understand what you mean? What cuts in services? Please explain.

Once upon a time you could say the same thing about standard TV, or radio, or even newspapers. I would say though, in todays interconnected world that cell phones are becoming more and more essential. Of course, there's essential and there's essential. Essential is food and water, and access to some form of healthcare, those sort of things, the bare basics. But things essential to being in society, those vary from generation to generation. Most businesses these days complain and struggle if they don't have a good internet access, fifty years ago they didn't have it so they didn't need it, now they do.
The fact, though, that water, such an essential thing for human survival, is something that is charged for by either shops or by the water companies...well, that's something that makes me shake my head. :dead:

Healthcare, infrastructure, rescue services, education cuts, the how-poor-you-have-to-be to gain some tax cuts or benefits so your family doesn't starve is lower every year and every day I have to hear some poor sod with 3 cars, good connections and a spoiled brat sucking his thumb on a job he got becasue his daddy bent his ass to someone trying to tell me it's my fault I'm poor and how he had it tough paying 0 rent in goverment housing....
You might understand why I get a bit jumpy when my generations is blamed on everything while every graph and number shows me that the generation before a looooooot more money for their buck.
And I know I'm European, that's why I expect services. I pay taxes to be cared for. I pay taxes so I don't have to jump insurance hoops to get my asthma medicine, I pay taxes so my children can get a Univerity education without taking impossible loans and I pay taxes so I can drive on bridges that are not near collapse. Thats what my parents had for low taxes that left them enough money to build a house. I can't rent an apartment in the nearby steel town. And numbers wise I made 4 times what they made at my age.
And all that mobile phone crap, most of us buy one for 2 or more years. Just becasue some spoiled brats have a new iphone every week doesn't mean the whole generation is rotten. Just those that don't worry about money. Those who's parents have enough bad concience about screwing us bent over backwards to really be loud.
And everytime we demand better value for the tax we pay are called spoiled just because the poor generation before us had to drive around in cars that didn't had A/C.

Yeah, cell phones are very useful but not essential. I honestly would not even have one if not for a. Subsim and b. truck driver. I can afford it, so ok, but in later years, yah, maybe.

I agree about the water. Although, to be honest, I buy 24 packs of the cheapest stuff wal-mart sells to take in the truck. I guess I could fill a canteen at the truck stops but...hmm..that would sure look weird. But kinda cool at the same time...:hmmm:

But when I'm home I drink from the tap. Using a glass, of course :88)

Newspapers....what's that? At least these days, kids can get their music and movies free from the web.

Ah, I see, thanks. I really cannot speak to that, the whole "taxes to be cared for" thing is a language I don't understand. You know how it works, everyone wants to pay as little as they can and get as much as they can... it's a hopeless situation.

I'm not saying the whole generation is rotten, I hope it doesn't come across as that. :dead: You for example, are one of the good ones.

Edit: Getting back to the topic, I bet you guys hate this dude :D
While Many Panicked, Japanese Day Trader Made $34 Million
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...ade-34-million



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It's a curse. I see the rottenes around me. I cannot ignore it. It makes me angry.

Yugosalvia income tax was less than 15% and my parents had free healthcare, goverment apartment if they couldn't afford one of their own, free car if they lived in a rural area where there was no public transportation, free education and every book that was needed for the curriculum of the child was also free.

I had to pay 27% income tax. What did I get. Healthcare is still free, education is still free. I had to buy my own car despite me living in the middle of nowhere, the cheapest apartment would cost me more than a third of the wage monthly and luckily I don't have to spend €400 per year so my child has the needed books to pass the grade, becasue I'm mortally affraid to have children on the account I can't afford one.

I dont' want to pay as little as possible and get as much as possible. I may be a socialist but I'm not a hippie.
I just want to get as much as I paid for.

Nah, he made the right move at the right time.
Nothing to hate here.

Same...I mean, if you can make money without exploiting other people to do it, then that's fair game. I mean, Stock brokerage is a bit like gambling really, but a lot deeper admittedly. Would love to take a spin at it myself but I'd probably put my dosh on a company that goes Goldman Sachs. :O:

At risk of stating the obvious. no it doesn't.
Most of the world has neither.
What has changed for many 1st world people is expectations and an ability to prioritise, they expect to be able to afford a high end mobile phone and TV/broadband and an annual vacation, a 'gap year' at the end of university and all sorts of things that were considered luxuries not that long ago and will take on debt to get it.
Also, in many cases a willingness to go into debt to study subjects that have no likelihood of paying that debt off - I put that down to well meaning fools telling their kids to study "what they love" or "follow their passion" rather than telling them to study what will pay and use that money to fund following their passion/doing what they love in their spare time.

I'd guess that there is most of your problem, much like Greece, you (as a society) chose free stuff and not to pay much tax to get it.

Unfortunately the money runs out and the societal Ponzi scheme of letting the next generation pay for it has gone off the rails, because in Europe, you haven't had a next generation (read up on the demographics, Mark Steyn has a number of entertaining books on the looming societal collapse in Europe). Advice, get out if you have a marketable skill, if you haven't, get a marketable skill and get out.

Except that we don't excpect free stuff. We except a return on our taxes.
Greece collapsed because there was high level corruption sucking money dry with a population that used every trick in the book to avoid paying them. Greece would have floundered even without all the ''freebies'' we Euros get.
Slovenia has a good track record of paying taxes but has a high level corruption that is sucking us dry. Healthcare and education are not sucking us dry. Fat cats do. Teachers and doctors don't.
And then there's debt. Yugoslavia had 13,6 billion dollar debt in 1988. The countries that form the area today have a total debt of 184 billion dollars. Inflation ws not that high and the biggest share of that debt has Slovenia, which avoided the bloody mess of the nineties Balkans.

So how come the national debt skyrocketed when we lost a lot of the ''freebies'' my parents had. It doesn't make sense.

And move where, every other developed country has the same social system. Taxes for healthcare, education, roads.

And one more thing, there is no looming social collapse in Europe. Greece is Europe, but Europe is not Greece. We are angry, we are dissapointed, but we are still going about our business trying to get our collective asses organised enough to put some pressure on the fat cats. As we say in Slovenia: EU is bad, but imagine if we'd live in the US.

At risk of stating the obvious, where do you think that debt comes from? as a society, you lived beyond your means and as the debt goes up, so does the interest rate (because you are a bigger default risk), which means less money to provide the 'free' services, so they get cut AND taxes go up.

You misunderstand the crisis you face, the financial one is a disaster, but the demographic one is existential, it means you won't have the tax base to pay for your debts or services.

Move where? look for a country where they are having enough children to pay the taxes for the services you will need as you age, it helps if the country isn't running major deficts too.