Scientists and government officials fighting the coronavirus epidemic say they have a problem: Carefree youths.
As authorities moved to restrict social gatherings last week, bars and restaurants from New York to Berlin filled up with revelers, illegal “lockdown parties” popped up in France and Belgium, and campuses in the U.S. lit up for end-of-the-world dorm parties.
So far, most young Covid-19 patients have experienced mild or no symptoms from the virus, while more severe cases are concentrated among those aged 50 and over. Data released last week by the National Health Institute in Italy, currently the world’s worst-hit country, shows mortality rates starting at 0% for patients aged 0 to 29 and edging up to peak at 19% for those over 90.
Yet scientists say tests have shown children and young adults are no less likely than older people to get infected and transmit the virus. Epidemiologists are growing concerned that the millennial pushback against social-distancing measures—and an emerging generational divide about how the disease is perceived—could undo all efforts to slow the spread of the virus and put vulnerable people at high risk.
***Inside the stylish Wagemut cocktail bar, a young woman pretended to sneeze in someone’s face, unleashing thunderous laughter.
On Sunday, Berlin health officials said 42 people were thought to have infected themselves in Berlin clubs. Some of those were club-hopping, spreading the virus as they went.
“This is the attitude of people who are part of this nightlife,” said Lutz Leichsenring, a director of the association of Berlin club owners. “So what? You get the flu, you’re not going to die.”
***“They’re preventing us from living,” said Timothée Thierry, a 30-year-old statistician at France’s health ministry. He spoke on Sunday, after the government shut down bars but before it locked down the entire country.
On one hand, wtf. On the other, maybe keeping generations of people at subsistence living at slave wage gig economy jobs was a bad idea. We’ve told them to be thrift, they’re just taking advantage of the bargains and living their lives.
I should note that I personally know NO young adults with this attitude. All the people I know are staying inside. So who knows how overblown this report is.
MattF
As a matter of historical fact, revels and orgies are SOP during plagues. I’m not up to that sort of thing myself, but I’m not going to get all judgmental about it, either.
cain
God save us from the actions of the young. They can’t be bothered to show up for voting, but they are happy to go around and spreading the virus.
Baud
@MattF:
That’s what I keep trying to tell the ladies.
Jeffery
A lot of capital about to be redistributed if grand ma and pa die. It’s a win-win for the kids.
germy
No, I haven’t felt that urge at all.
Robby-D
I wonder if there’s an “ok boomer” attitude going on here… like, “you ruined our planet and showed no care for our generation, why should we care about yours? Environmental death sentence for us; coronavirus at least gives you a fighting chance.”
Baud
Maybe, just hear me out, every demographic has its share of assholes.
Major Major Major Major
Sure, that explains the behavior of
*reads*
French government workers, and Berliners raised in a rather socialist culture among the crumbling ruins of communism.
This really just reads as a “kids these days!” story. Young people are dumb.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Yeah, not ready to give a pat on the head to a thirty-year-old statistician in a freaking government health administration and say, poor lad, Paul Ryan and Ronald Reagan gave you a damaged worldview. He’s striding toward middle age and acting like a spoiled teenager.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major:
Meh. If something doesn’t fit the paradigm, does it really exist?
Omnes Omnibus
Part of being young and “immortal” is believing you are young and immortal. And, if you don’t and are a bit scared of whatever, part of being young is behaving as if you are young and immortal to prove it to yourself and show others that you aren’t scared.
Do we really need to list all the dangerous things we did when we were young? Right now the behavior isn’t helpful, but its nature isn’t new.
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: OK, boomer.
Cacti
You’re overthinking this one, Cole.
It’s in the nature of young people to act irresponsibly and feel like they’re invincible.
Obvious Russian Troll
@Baud:
All too true. I mean, it’s relatively easy for me to socially isolate myself. I mostly work at home as it is and we’re not that social–we had to cancel a play with a friend of ours for Thursday, and we might have eaten out over the weekend.
The Moar You Know
Neighbor kids had a smashing party last night, guess someone’s parents had left. Ain’t nothing to do about it. I’m just grateful I have zero contact with the public save for my gigs, and looks like we won’t be doing any of those for quite a while.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major:
I was agreeing with you, whippersnapper.
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: Why don’t you go ruin the planet some more and leave me to my *checks notes* nihilism & hippity-hop shoot-em-up TV game pokemon.
Calouste
In related news, the European soccer championship Euro 2020 becomes Euro 2021.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major:
I’m hoarding avocados and toast.
download my app in the app store mistermix
The kids I know, including my daughter, are all self-isolating. I’m sure there are assholes but the vast majority are not. This is a generation with the fewer teen pregnancies and lower illegal drug use than previous cohorts. They are better than ever, yet they’re constantly shat upon.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: No!!! I never heard of such a thing! Whodathunkit!
Tim C.
Yeah, this doesn’t seem like a generational issue. Some of the olds I know are just as bad to worse, and they are the ones most at risk! This article falls into the category of “Some people are dumb, let’s make generalizations about an entire generation based on that.”
Marcopolo
A young guy moved in across the street about a year ago. The demographic here had been aging in place until then. The first loud out in the yard at stupid hours party he had was last St. Patricks Day. Folks drinking green beer in the front yard starting at 10 am, then going off to the local parade & drinking there & in bars, then all of them coming back at 1 am & sorting out shit until 2. It was very annoying. It is 9:30 atm but his car ain’t there & the parades are cancelled & bars closed so maybe it will be less loud this year.
Major Major Major Major
@Tim C.: I especially like the generalizations about an economic system that the people in the blockquote do not live under.
rikyrah
The youth think that they will live forever….sigh..
Then again, the guy in Kentucky who refused to isolate and had to be forced to by the Governor, wasn’t a youth.
Jinchi
Young people may not feel mortally threatened by coronavirus, but I doubt the attitude is “so what?”. I think, like most of us, they hate getting sick, and they don’t want to be cooped up with fevers and chills. They didn’t want the actual flu, never mind a disease that will have them locked away in quarantine for 2 weeks.
You go to the bar these days and you’re going to meet all the a*****s. That doesn’t make them representative of a whole generation.
Walker
@Robby-D: There are a number of young people referring to COViD-19 as “boomer remover”.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
It’s easy to forget that fact since everyone on this blog is kind and gentle.
Major Major Major Major
The people on my Facebook who are the most dismissive of this are Gen X and late Boomers.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
*checks notes*
“OK, so when you begged us to do something about gun violence, environmental policy, income inequality and student loans, the prevailing answer you got from the dominant political doctrine and pundits was ‘Screw you, young snowflakes – I got mine. You just need to buck up, work harder and accept our thoughts ‘n prayers while we consume every bit of your lives with our wishes and fears’. Now, how about demonstrating a spirit of comity and unity and making some sacrifices for your elders and not criticizing Our President or the policies which are crushing even your gig jobs because we’re all in this together? How selfish can you be?”
Mandalay
This is classic hack journalism:
Broder will be smiling. At long last, this is the day that finally BJ went mainstream.
Ruckus
Not all young people have this view – of course.
But young people have had the view of invincibility since time started. Most of them haven’t had it beaten out of them yet. Some never will and many will learn the hard way. It’s the nature of humans, you’re good until you aren’t.
Boot camp in the military shows this starkly, but of course most never see that and even when they do a lot don’t learn. And life today is better than it was 60 yrs ago, even if it doesn’t seem like it. We found vaccines for diseases that would cripple or kill you. And how many that have never seen those diseases don’t believe what it was like. They are mostly new, fresh faces, ready (or not) to face the world, get on with life. They don’t know what life was like because they weren’t here. My parents had a better life than their parents, todays kids have a better life than current old people did. It may get worse, it may not, they live in the world they see, not the one we’ve seen.
tom darga
@germy:
Yeah, like 3 weeks ago. Not so much now.
Eunicecycle
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: And this is why the young need to vote! Even with Bernie’s emphasis on their issues, they are not turning out. BTW, I am Bluenomatterwho.
lee
My 2 kids have always been complete opposites.
The youngest (starting college) just finished 100% completion on Red Dead 2 (trust me it is quite the accomplishment). She is still hanging out at home talking to friends online.
My oldest (about to graduate college) went out Sunday night to the town square and met her friends for one last night out. She is now in her apartment going stir crazy.
Mike in Pasadena
My niece and I just exchanged texts. She is a detective near Phoenix and he and her wife r doing everything they can to self isolate. But as a cop, that’s difficult, especially when your employer has no masks, no hand sanitizer, no procedures for protecting yourself. Good times.
Mike in Pasadena
@Mike in Pasadena: SHE and her wife
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Especially me. I am the kindest, gentlest person around. Humble too! I am very humble. Have I told you latel… Hmmmm… Where did everybody go?
Renie
Watching Gov. Cuomo speak on the coronavirus pandemic. What a difference from the orange buffoon who is pretending to be a president. Even the difference in vocabulary is striking.
Gin & Tonic
@Baud: Why is the plural of “avocado” “avocados” while the plural of “peccadillo” is “peccadilloes”?
Gin & Tonic
@OzarkHillbilly: I think you regale us with tales of your humility weekly.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@download my app in the app store mistermix:
No wonder they’re complaining! //
kindness
The Boomer haters out there are having their revenge.
What I find funniest about the generational disharmony right now is that the young uns seem to think they are the first generation that has come to resent their elders. Clueless. Learn some history kids!
germy
As it bans most social gatherings, New York State is waiving all park fees to allow people a chance for recreation in a setting with reduced risk of disease transmission.
L85NJGT
We can’t bust heads like we used to, but we have our ways. One trick is to tell ’em stories that don’t go anywhere – like the time I caught the ferry over to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for my shoe, so, I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on ’em. “Give me five bees for a quarter,” you’d say.
Now where were we? Oh yeah: the important thing was I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn’t have white onions because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones…
Omnes Omnibus
@germy: Woohoo! Picnics!
Mandalay
The Economist:
Sean Hannity:
Geminid
When one of those millennial whippersnappers pulls that “Ok Boomer” crap on me, I just look down my nose at him and drawl, “Whatever.”
Jinchi
If we’re going to overgeneralize about generations, it’s worth realizing that young people don’t think of coronavirus as the plague, because it won’t kill them. Old people don’t believe climate change is real because they don’t think the world will be in flames in their own lifetimes.
We can scold young people for immaturity, but it’s natural for people to worry most about the things that will affect their own lives. Old people are no better at that.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: GMTA. I was saying the same things yesterday. Case in point, Steven Miller and the Orange Concealer not the same generational cohort but united in their bigotry and evil.
When did Jackaltariat become this whiny purity left blog blaming everything on “capitalism”. As if agrarian societies were the some kind of societal utopia.
The Moar You Know
The kids are calling the virus “Boomer Remover”. They don’t see a downside. I understand where they’re coming from. I don’t agree, but it’s where they are coming from.
Abnormal Hiker
Apparently in Toronto it is the old folks out partying (https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-not-okay-boomer-tensions-mount-between-generations-as-some-seniors/).
germy
@Omnes Omnibus: A long hike is the best thing for cabin fever.
PenAndKey
I can’t speak for everyone my age, but at 35 I’m at work right now and will continue to work until someone kicks me out because of a few reasons: Firstly, I have a son at home and a pregnant wife who depend on me to bring in income to keep them fed, insured, and with a roof over their head. Not bringing in income when we still have expenses and debts simply isn’t an option. Secondly, I’m in that position where not earning an income isn’t an option because it took me until I was 34 to finally buy a house and get a good paying job. I entered the workforce right before the recession have been catching up ever since.
Does that mean I do more than go to the grocer or hospital (unfortunately, since an 8-month pregnant wife with a medically necessary c-section plan makes that necessary)? No, but I do still go for jogs in my neighborhood since the gym is closed. That’s not the same as the article, but it does line up with Cole’s comment that “maybe keeping generations of people at subsistence living at slave wage gig economy jobs was a bad idea”.
His commentary hits home far more than hearing about the club hopping 30-somethings in a country with a strong social safety net, quite frankly. They’re just being idiots. It’s the people actually working at that club I can relate to.
cmorenc
@Baud:
I’m kind of what, bucko?
:=)
Major Major Major Major
@lee: don’t Rockstar games go up to 110%
ETA hmm looks like this one doesn’t. Still! How long did that take??
Jinchi
It’s a lot easier to self-isolate with your spouse and kids than to literally cut yourself off from all human contact. I’m guessing that’s another reason younger people are congregating together.
bemused
@Baud:
Yup. We all know way too many of these me, me, me people from high school to the nursing homes.
jeffreyw
Mrs J and I are off to vote. Texts indicate there will be sanitizer there. Not expecting crowds but there may be a few people present, aside from the staffers.
Lacuna Synecdoche
This.
After decades of stagnating & falling wages, denying global-warming, repeatedly crashing the economy, reducing spending on education, and so on, it’s pretty damn ironic watching older generations scold young people for risking old people’s lives.
If younger generations don’t give a flying fuck about older generations, maybe we should be blaming ourselves for how we raised them and the lessons we taught them as a society.
cain
@Ruckus:
I can totally understand that. I think it’s because they heal so quickly. When I was there age, the kind of things I did – its like no thought. But older me has more things to live for, more responsibility, and finally damn, it takes a long time to heal!
Feathers
I think there has been bad messaging in not constantly pushing the fact that people can spread the disease for 5 days before they start feeling sick. Start with that and then start talking about protecting the elderly. I see all of these videos and they are all about “be a good person” and not giving people all the information they need to make choices. Teaching is not about telling people what we think they should know, it’s about making them have an experience that they will come out of it with the knowledge they need.
Also, they should be more specific about immunocompromised: that it includes cancer survivors, diabetics, etc. Those kids may not be going anywhere near an elderly person, but they do have friends and family who have had cancer.
Jinchi
I’m curious if they’ve changed the arrangement of the voting place to minimize risk.
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly: If Diogenes was looking for a humble man, his search would be over. Alas!
cain
@kindness:
I feel like the dichotomy between Gen Xs and Gen Y are completely different. There just isn’t that much friction – generally more politically aligned and equally tech saavy. There isn’t the startling difference in how we grew up.
As a Gen Xer, I find that myself between these various generations but mostly in harmony since I’ve experienced all sides. We are the first internet generation after all.
Amir Khalid
@Gin & Tonic:
English spelling is an incoherent mashup based on words copied from all over the world. The only honest answer to your question is, “Why not?”
guachi
@Lacuna Synecdoche:
For those old enough to remember: “I learned it from you, Dad. I learned it from you!”
Omnes Omnibus
@guachi: Or for those even older: Don’t trust anyone over thirty.
Chyron HR
Hmmm, is it possible the “Boomer Remover” meme was propagated by a certain dictatorship to encourage self-destructive behavior among young people in western democracies? You know, just like every other fucking meme since 2015 (possibly earlier)?
Immanentize
@guachi:
Cats in the Cradle
PenAndKey
@Lacuna Synecdoche: Or, in short, “The world has sucked our whole lives and like always we need to look out for ourselves first. Why would we change that now that you’re the one suffering the consequences?”
It’s definitely a short sighted and ugly view, but I can’t say it surprises me since I’ve had that thought a few times when being told I should be willing to sacrifice my job, house, and livelihood in the name of “community unity” the last two weeks.
WaterGirl
@Feathers: My understanding is that it’s 14 days. You can be contagious for up to 14 days without symptoms.
geg6
@Lacuna Synecdoche:
I get the point, but I spent part of last evening in an argument with my 25 yo niece. She lives with her fiance and her baby. She is working as a server while going to nursing school. She’s very upset that she’s been laid off at work due to this (completely understandable but the state has extended unemployment benefits to such workers) and I get that. But she was talking about going out with her friends and her friends (many married with kids) were all about it. I felt the need to step in and state some hard truths. Her mother has Crohn’s disease and her dad has MS. They are the babysitters if niece and fiance go out. They are both compromised and vulnerable. I got some push back and just left the posting. I think my niece is pissed at me for being so scoldy, but I don’t care. I don’t want my sister and BIL getting this shit and my niece needs to think about who has done absolutely everything for her in life and what she needs to do to protect them. The whole comment section was a bunch of 21 to 30 yo’s whining about not going out. It was infuriating.
James E Powell
@Jinchi:
I, for one, and I’m guessing our blog-meister, for another, disagree.
Barbara
I secretly or I guess not so secretly understand where these under 30s or 40s are coming from. I hate generalizing about generations except that I have been generalizing about my own beginning that night in 1980 when I watched the unfolding of the so-called Reagan revolution and have felt completely out of step with the political zeitgeist ever since. We have made such a massive disinvestment from education, mostly to lower taxes for people like me, that my $1600 tuition and $6500 all in cost of attending a public university as an out of state student is now $50,000 plus at the same university. We have engaged in an orgy of so much tax cutting at the expense of not just education, but now it turns out, all manner of “public goods” that here we are pissing ourselves about whether there are going to be enough ventilators should we need them to suck the last few years out of our lives and our president tells our governors that they ON THEIR OWN to figure out how to get enough medical equipment to get by. JFC. So NOW we tell them that they have to learn how to be a sacrificing communitarian, now that it’s our lives and well-being that are on the line. Yeah, I get it.
And the answer is: As hard as this might be to believe, if it truly gets worse, it’s going to get worse for you too. Maybe not as bad as it will be for me, but the kind of disruption that leaves many people in the dust, most likely beginning with that local bar and restaurant you love going to. China is starting to get back to normal, and hopefully it really has turned the corner, but that’s the best case scenario.
satby
@Baud: nope, goes against whatever ageist meme we’re servicing these days.
Mo Salad
Returning Mich. State froshkinder told us that last Wednesday night, as this was all breaking, the bars were packed and the (other) kids were stupid. She stayed in. Our young adult kids are in lockdown now at home, as should all others, as much as possible.
Ivan X
The degree of old person sanctimony among some of those in this thread is truly barfworthy.
Also I know at least one old who is like “fuck it I’ve been having a drink at my bar Monday night for the last 30 years and I’m gonna keep doing it until they take it away.”
Finally, for the record, I think it’s hilarious to sneeze into my elbow and say “coronavirus” while doing it. If you can’t laugh in the face of potential death, what is laughter for?
Major Major Major Major
Meanwhile
cain
I can understand that. But this is about public health – and this disease might kill the old people and the immune compromised – but it is and has put the global economy in a tailspin.
That sucks because I think your generation has been dealing with a parade of this kind of bullshit. As long as we continue to elect Republicans and politicians that don’t believe in good governance we are going to see instability.
I don’t think you need to give up anything, I think the govt is pretty much calling the shots here to deal with this crises. The one perception we should correct is that this isn’t about saving old people.
MoxieM
I live in the very dictionary definition of bland suburbia, so I don’t have the opportunity to observe the phenomenon first hand. I know someone in NOLA, and his reports suggest that the St Patrick’s day partiers were mostly out of towners or dumb or both. yeah.
My own young adult lives in a large northern German city that isn’t Berlin (wir fahren nach Berlin! No, no we’re not.) She & her partner can both work from home, and they are doing that. Not going out–in regular life, they mostly hang with friends, although there are periodic concerts and movies and stuff. I guess they’ll get serious cabin fever at some point; their flat isn’t huge! But neither they, nor their friends are likely to act like idiots. Well, one of her best friends is married to a Doc so yeah that, too.
Old Dan and Little Ann
@Major Major Major Major: I went down a twitter wormhole a few days ago about Genx being the best generation for staying home. It was pretty damn funny. As a Genxer myself my favorite picture was of The Breakfast Club. The caption was, “For every Boomer that hates a millenial, remember that there is a generation between that hates you both!’ Funny to me. And no, I personally do not hate Boomers or Millenials. Sláinte!
Major Major Major Major
@WaterGirl: median incubation period is five days, as demonstrated most recently in Italy where new cases plateaued five days after the lockdown began. By one estimate 97.5% of people show symptoms within 11 days. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/32150748/
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Major Major Major Major: Jesus Christ. I don’t want to tell this woman how to do her job, but I wish she could/would name that fucker.
I saw “Chinese Virus” trending on twitter last night, I didn’t get out of the boat, but I was wondering what caused that to spike.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Are there any Fox watchers under 80?
James E Powell
These Boomer, Gen X, Gen Y, and Millennial discussions are really tired and lame. Talking about generations can be fun, sometimes, but taking them seriously is silly.
We cannot know about who people are just by knowing their birth years. And the years chosen to mark these supposed generations are not only arbitrary, they’re not consistent.
For a good look at how facile generation-based argument can be, go back and read all the articles about young voters and Bernie and progressive policies.
WaterGirl
@Major Major Major Major: Yeah, but that’s a far cry from saying that the disease can spread for 5 days before people start to feel sick.
cain
@Old Dan and Little Ann:
I saw that too, and I think our generation took a cyber victory lap. It was a fun twitter thread.
A Ghost to Most
@Ivan X:
Get off my lawn. Actually, I agree.
cain
Russian bots are on the move. The right wing have come up with new messaging and it is being distributed. They are going to go full racist on asians everywhere – and you know they’ll use it to discriminate – either by extreme social distancing or by tactile actions by the govt to cage them (us).
WaterGirl
@James E Powell: I could not agree more.
Just as I pretty much stop reading any time I come across the word “neoliberal”, because I figure most of what will come after that is bullshit…
I have never even bothered to learn the dates for Gen X, Gen Y, Millenial, etc.
Just arbitrary and artificial ways to divide us, with very little that’s productive coming from the distinctions. It’s mostly about name-calling and finger-pointing.
Life’s too short.
Barbara
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: I have a strong suspicion that someone in Murdochland figured out that the most likely impact of the FoxNews propaganda would be to kill half of its own viewers and only then did it realize what a “crisis” this really was.
And just to be clear, if we had sufficient testing by the beginning of February and developed much clearer insight into the spread of the disease and how to begin social distancing where it really was taking hold we might not have needed such a widespread, extreme reaction.
Old Dan and Little Ann
@cain: I never mention Twitter to anyone in my real life, but I passed that one on to my wife and few of my other friends. Comedy Gold! lol…
satby
@Major Major Major Major: median incubation. You know perfectly well that they’re making people self isolate for 14 days because a percentage will fall outside the 5 day range. Even the quote you cite notes that 97% of those developing symptoms will show by 11.5 days, meaning a small percentage of people becoming ill occur even later. WaterGirl wasn’t incorrect.
edited to add: testing in Korea found that huge numbers of people under age 30 tested positive for corona virus and felt no symptoms at all.
Johnny Gentle (famous crooner)
It’s a nice thought, but let’s not ascribe any larger sociopolitical meaning behind this. You’re assuming this is some kind of millennial protest against a crushing economic structure, but it’s far simpler than that. Young people are gonna young. Heck, college kids are still massing in spring break towns and they haven’t really been subject to the gig economy or lack of living wages yet.
Appreciation of risk is like the last part of the brain to fully form. And beyond that, when you’re young and feel indestructible and all the news is talking about the risk to older people, you can see how they’d feel it’s nothing to take seriously.
The fact that they don’t care about infecting their own family members or other vulnerable people is what’s particularly galling. If only the virus were restricted to those acting stupidly we’d all be in better shape.
Fair Economist
This is standard media disinfo: selective reporting of irrelevant facts. There are hundreds of millions of millennials in the Western world. Of course there are lots of asshole and delusional ones; plenty to fill up a couple of underground clubs. There are far, far more behaving responsibly. I’m willing to bet there are far more Florida seniors with comparable attitudes, since the Millennials are a socialist and cooperative generation on average.
Betty Cracker
@Ivan X: I took a drive to an isolated little town this past Sunday for a change of scenery without encountering other humans. There’s a restaurant out there that was jam-packed with Bikers for Trump assholes. Didn’t stop, but most of them looked 60 and up to me, and there they were, mobbing the tiki bar and congregating in the parking lot. Wankers.
Gin & Tonic
Dear Mrs G&T just got off the phone with her mother, who said she was planning to go to the store. Mom is soon to be 96 years old and lives alone (but she has someone who comes in every day, and who drives her to the places she needs to go.) Mrs G&T was not happy.
I think the compromise will be that MIL will sit in the car while the caregiver goes in. I know, that’s stupid too, but you try arguing with my MIL.
different-church-lady
You know who’s loving this pandemic?
a) News Media
b) People who were already totally neurotic
James E Powell
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Can’t do that. Might lose access.
I wonder when she first realized that Trump and everyone who works for Trump despise her.
danielx
Note: there is one demographic group that is TOTALLY delighted to have everyone at home.
bemused
@Major Major Major Major:
Worst people on earth.
Mallard Filmore
@Mandalay: See? They are all copying us!
JMG
@Gin & Tonic: The biggest supermarket chain in New England has instituted a seniors-only shopping period at the start of their business day for just this sort of situation. I think the worry that seniors will isolate themselves to death is as real as that they’ll succumb to coronavirus from their contacts with the outside world.
joel hanes
Here in Silicon Valley, one of the infection epicenters, some bars were doing a brisk business as long as permitted.
But I kinda disagree with the premise that stupid behavior by young people, especially young males, is anything novel. For example, young males are the most likely to … get their Subaru deeply stuck in a muddy field in the middle of the night.
I remember being a young male, approximately two geologic epochs ago. Many of my decisions were … not wise. It’s a wonder that so many boys survive to attain middle age.
Doug
For what it’s worth, local media in Berlin are reporting that about that number of cases could be traced back to an event at the Trompete club. But! Those reports were out on Saturday or Sunday (I forget which), and so people were catching the disease a week or more ago. The quote from the WSJ article seems to imply otherwise
rp
I welcome the full blown racism against the Asian community by the WH. I want 80%+ consistently voting for Democrats.
schrodingers_cat
I just watched Andrew Cuomo’s press conference and daily briefing on Twitter. He is doing a great job. What a contrast to the Orange Concealer.
PenAndKey
Are these conversations over-done? Absolutely, all over. That doesn’t change that you can, absolutely, make society level inferences and observations of different age cohorts based on shared experiences, events, and traumas those age groups have during their formative years. The problem is ascribing sociology trends to individuals, since no one individual will perfectly fit every trend. That doesn’t make the overall trend invalid.
hitless
@Mandalay: The article is clickbait trash IMO. The millenials I know in the bay area are taking this seriously. I don’t see any data that this generation is any less socially thoughtful than boomers or certainly than gen x. Especially if you were to transport those generations to their younger selves and place them in this situation.
joel hanes
@Ruckus:
many will learn the hard way. It’s the nature of humans
pathei mathos
Much of our suffering is caused by our own struggles to reject the wisdom that the world would force upon us.
http://rickmarshall.blogspot.com/2007/11/pathei-mathos.html
artem1s
There is a reason we have have all heard our parents say, “would you jump off a cliff if all your friends were doing it?”. Peer pressure to look cool and defy authority is a part of every generation. And the internal pressure of dealing with addictive behaviors and the need to normalize it by dragging your friends in. I have friends who can’t imagine any activity without alcohol could be considered interesting or worthwhile – but they don’t have a drinking problem, NO! I am absolutely sure that the usual crazy percentage of kids who are supposed to be in remote classrooms are on their way to the beach as we speak. But most of us will be held in check by their concern for their families and friends, millenial or boomer.
#notallmillenials/snark
Major Major Major Major
@satby: You know perfectly well that I was responding to a thread about “people can spread the disease for 5 days before they start feeling sick”
Barbara
@satby: And I keep asking myself, if people have tested positive, can they wait a certain time period and then go back to normal life on the assumption that they are no longer a risk for spreading the disease? Just one more opportunity that we have totally missed because we have totally fucked up in our failure to have much more extensive testing.
Even if you can’t tell, I am so angry about this.
joel hanes
@Gin & Tonic:
Why is the plural of “avocado” “avocados” while the plural of “peccadillo” is “peccadilloes”?
https://mltshp-cdn.com/r/PYJ8
The Dangerman
I can totally see why the youth are reacting the way they are (if they are). This is like the old joke about the Lone Ranger and Tonto where Tonto says “What do you mean “we”, kemosabe”?
They’ve been raised on “Fuck you, I’ve got mine” and “Fuck your feelings” from the jump. What the fuck do people expect?
Not saying it’s right. Saying I’m not at all surprised.
ETA: Not wishing any ill at all on any politician, but remember when SNL had Tom Hanks running for President? I assume he will recover while who the hell knows what happens with other Folks.
Who ran with Tom in that skit? Was it The Rock? I forget.
gene108
Why is Trump talking?
I don’t believe what he’s saying,
Frankensteinbeck
@Major Major Major Major:
Trump is a white supremacist and prefers to hire white supremacists. This is their worldview.
Martin
@Lacuna Synecdoche: Yep. We’ve spent the last two decades telling young people they were overreacting when we pumped carbon emissions into the atmosphere, voted against mass transit because we didn’t want to pay $20/year more in taxes, and mocking their avocado toast as the reason they couldn’t afford a million dollar starter home because we blocked new development because it might lower our property values.
And not only did olds not listen to them, they jumped on the MAGA bandwagon which was specifically focused on rolling back whatever meager progress had been made. And suddenly the olds are screaming ‘but what about us!’ and wondering why the youngs are saying ‘fuck you!’
Look, I know thousands of young people, and they all care VASTLY more about the future of their grandparents – as a group – than their grandparents seem to care about them, as a group. And mark my words, when this is all over, and we start to talk about how to plug that $3T budget deficit and the hole in SS/Medicare that the drop in payroll taxes has exacerbated, I 100% guarantee we’ll run right back to cutting benefits for the youngs, not taxing cap gains, not taxing wealth, bailing out the cruise lines but not the solar companies.
Bank on it. Honestly, the only way that doesn’t happen is if enough of the olds die off that they can’t carry an election any longer and politicians need to turn to the millennials to get into office. I’d much rather we just start listening to them and building a society that will be sustainable in 30 years, but if my kids future depends on killing off boomers, sorry y’all. Think of it as economic triage.
Boomers should insist on a 90% estate tax as a sign of good faith that they aren’t quite as selfish as young people believe they are. You think YOLO is selfishness – it’s not – it’s despondency. My kids genuinely don’t believe they’ll live to 50. I don’t know many their age who do. They really believe that’s how badly we’ve fucked them over so a bunch of 70 year old yelling ‘what about me’ sounds a lot like Trump whining ‘what about me’.
Barbara
@Fair Economist: Yep, of course, this is the reporter’s desired story in search of validation, the kind of thing I refuse to read any more when it comes to politics. Of course you can find an African American who supports Trump, a millennial who doesn’t care whether their grandparents die, and a feminist who just hates Clinton. That doesn’t make the resulting story built around those themes accurate journalism.
Major Major Major Major
@satby: It’s also hard to say how much of the youth positive rate in SK is related to the cult that sorta kicked off their epidemic. Too much going on to reliably generalize from one place with widespread testing that disagrees with the other place with widespread testing (China).
Barbara
@Gin & Tonic: In your mother in law’s defense. There has to come a point when certain “precautions” just don’t seem worth it. I decided that when I started reading about nutritional advice for my father when he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. It struck me as quite silly that he couldn’t have ice cream for breakfast if that’s what he could keep down and made him happy.
jeffreyw
Back from voting. Clorox wipes, no hand san, setup was the same as always. Two voters leaving as we arrived, leaving us as theo customers.
sdhays
I’d just like to remind you that the fucking Governor of Oklahoma tweeted himself and his family at a restaurant just this weekend.
mad citizen
@Feathers: I agree with all of this. I like to know the “why” of things, not just told do this/do that. I started working from home today and am still thinking how I want to go my gym a mile down the road after work. Then I think, maybe I shouldn’t because of Virus, etc. Our mayor declared a 7 day emergency last night (longest period he legally can declare), so we’re only supposed to out for food, medical, drugs, etc. He requested the gyms close. I go to a small gym with not that many people.
My wife was getting some interesting conspiracy theories from her RWNJ sister-in-law over the phone.
David Anderson’s post this morning about the two week lag of people showing up at hospitals helped settle my mind about being shut-in. Thank you BJ!
A Ghost to Most
@JMG: good idea. I went this morning near opening, and it was … combat.
Martin
@hitless: Of course it’s clickbait, but why does it work? Because rather than introspect on why the folks who paid taxes for the last 50 years couldn’t be bothered to pay enough for national infrastructure for something like this, let’s find a way to blame it on gen Z.
It’s clickbait because people want to believe it rather than take responsibility for their own collective fuck-up.
I’m cranky today because I have a 19 year old who is anxious about this to the point of suicide because she looks at her future and sees nothing. There’s nothing she can do to prevent being pushed to the point of poverty having to pay for all of the garbage decisions made by previous generations – including mine, so I’m throwing in with the olds despite not being a boomer.
At right when she was feeling a bit of optimism in college about maybe breaking through that a little, even that has been thrown in doubt due to closures for who knows how long.
I don’t want people to die due to this, but when it’s over and everyone starts whining about how to pay for it, I guarantee I’ll have a change of heart.
cain
@Old Dan and Little Ann:
I made a post about how as kids – we were the remote control – my parents would always get me to go and change the dial on the tv, of course we would know all the stations since there was only 13 of em.
Fast forward – I’m still doing something but now it’s for the younger folks.. I never get to enjoy my old age. :D
satby
@Major Major Major Major: people will read “median of 5 days”, and interpret it to mean “all clear on day 6”, because most people don’t understand statistics or median vs average at all. Plus, it doesn’t account for asymptomatic transmission, which also happens.
You know data M^4 better than me, but I’m pretty good on human nature.
Edited to add: https://www.physiciansweekly.com/clinical-characteristics-of-24-asymptomatic-infections-with-covid-19-screened-among-close-contacts-in-nanjing-china/
EthylEster
@Major Major Major Major: Thanks. That’s my take, too. Logic fail, JC.
Lacuna Synecdoche
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I wasn’t arguing that this was some sort of organized protest against the economic structure.
My argument was that if they don’t give a flying fuck about more vulnerable generations, maybe it’s because: that’s what we fucking taught them.
Barbara
@Major Major Major Major: Maybe not this guy, but young Europeans are grappling with the gig economy, lack of full-time work and other externalities of their particular socio-economic and political policies. They aren’t worried about access to health care like we are, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a generational policy divide that is geared towards protecting older workers, sometimes seemingly at the expense of younger workers.
Felanius Kootea
I will survive YouTube cover for teachers teaching online for the first time.
Ken
Oh, them. I thought you meant owners of porn sites.
A Ghost to Most
@Lacuna Synecdoche:
Harry Chapin had some thoughts about this.
Sloane Ranger
Probably a lot of young people are ignoring the warnings. I still remember what it felt like to be 18-21. You were healthy, you were indestructible. I don’t think there’s any deeper sociological or political meaning to this story than that and older people are no different.
I was in my local Weatherspoon’s pub last Thursday (what can I say – it’s cheap) and, while it was noticeably quieter than usual, there were still lots of people there, most looked older than me and I’m 62. Also, I was in a local cafe/bar yesterday, before the Government recommended avoiding such places and it was very busy with patrons of all ages.
I’m in an at risk group and I’m watching my social life disappearing bit by bit. I just got an email from the Library suspended all volunteering and I’m already getting cabin fever at the mere thought of all this reduction in my social interaction. How much worse must it be for those who are unlikely to be seriously affected?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Martin: The estate tax doesn’t tax the dead, it taxes the living.
delk
Mutating viruses have the last laugh.
VOR
Simple answer, Trump used the term and all the MAGAts adopted it.
SFAW
@Baud:
I tend to think of myself as a trans-demographic asshole.
Mandalay
Can we please start talking about the real victims of coronavirus?….
Casinos ask Congress for emergency aid as coronavirus toll sweeps industry
Ksmiami
@Baud: spoken like a fellow Gen Xer…Man, we get no respect
Mike in NC
We are living through a stupid reality TV show, one where Fat Bastard is a constant malignant presence, babbling incoherently about stuff he knows nothing about. The story out today is that for weeks the imbecile son-in-law Jared Kushner kept telling him that the whole virus threat was greatly overblown.
EthylEster
@kindness: What I find funniest about the generational disharmony right now is that the young uns seem to think they are the first generation that has come to resent their elders. Clueless. Learn some history kids!
What I find funny is that boomers can’t remember how much they resented their elders..given that age is SUPPOSED to bring wisdom. Where’s your wisdom, boomer! assuming you are a boomer.
Barbara
@Martin: Wishing your 19 year old the best. I have a 28 year old who has been suffering serious anxiety and depression not over this but over the general state of things and yes, it makes me angry to listen to the olds (and especially the evangelical olds) whine about the youngs. It makes me want to say with a chipper smirk that in 20 years it won’t matter what they think because they will be dead and their churches will be empty. I resist.
cain
@Martin:
I feel like a lot of this is propaganda. The internet is full of stories of kind and thoughtful parents that cared and thanks to listening to right wing propaganda turned into hate machines.
Ksmiami
@?BillinGlendaleCA: But it’s a fairly high threshold- I mean really
Barbara
@Mike in NC: And then, when they wake up and smell the coffee, so to speak, they try to aim for the fences with a technological whizz bang cure it all in one fell swoop because they still don’t have a fucking clue what they are dealing with.
ziggy
I tend to agree that “kids will be kids”. This is a problem as old as time. But their attitude will change pretty quick when older relatives start getting sick and dying, and some will carry the burden of always wondering–did I give them the virus with my stupid behavior?
satby
@?BillinGlendaleCA: @Ksmiami: it’s also unearned (by the recipient) income.
WaterGirl
@Martin:
First, I am sorry to hear that about your daughter. I don’t see any discussion yet about people who were already struggling with anxiety or depression and how coronavirus plays into that existing situation.
Next,
We did have national infrastructure for this, and the REPUBLICAN idiot president dismantled it.
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
I never thought I’d be nostalgic for Mistermix’s Bernie threads.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@JMG:
I tried to get eggs at Aldi’s yesterday. Cleaned out, along with meat, dairy products, cheese, pasta, rice and beans. Checker said they cleaned it out at 9 am.
jeffreyw
L85NJGT
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
May as well have the disposal companies pick it up there and take it straight to the landfill.
Martin
@?BillinGlendaleCA: The estate tax taxes wealth. Particularly unearned wealth. It’s our only federal tax which does that.
The economy will not recover by transitioning a generation of billionaires into another generation of billionaires. Having the grandkids of Bill Walton as our new overlords changes nothing. It will recover in part by collecting the taxes that should have been collected since 1981 but weren’t.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@satby: It’s an inter generational transfer payment, old to young.
Mo Salad
@Martin: I think I could handle Bill Walton’s grandkids, it’s Sam Walton’s that worry me. #forkingautocorrect.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Martin: Who knew you could make that much playing basketball in the 70’s?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@zhena gogolia: Heh.
sdhays
President Dump, for one.
Martin
@cain: Propaganda works because it’s something you want to believe. Your brain is already wired to accept it, but you just need someone saying it to point to validate those thoughts.
That’s why we have this sudden outburst of racism in the country. Lots of people wanted to believe it, but we kept it contained – we didn’t feed it. We shouted down everyone who tried to. And then we elected one of them, and we couldn’t shout him down.
Major Major Major Major
@satby: fair! sorry for returning the saltiness, just having a permanent case of the mondays
Ksmiami
@Old Dan and Little Ann: it’s because even though we were the first generation to use email, cds etc we are demographically not significant for marketers to target us so we r invisible
Brachiator
Yawn. People have always complained about da yoots. The carefree partying youth of the Roaring 20s magically became the Greatest Generation of the 1940s.
Some people do not know how to deal with this pandemic. Hell, I don’t know how to deal with this pandemic.
I was talking recently with my sister about this. I am of the generation that saw major diseases cured all my life. I was one of the kids who stood in a line at school who got that sugar cube that would keep you from getting polio.
And, for the most part, people all over the world are doing what they can to fight this corona virus. That in itself is a hell of a thing.
Martin
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Look, don’t tell me you couldn’t make billions off of the dynasty that was the early 80s Celtics.
Martin knows virtually nothing about basketball.
James E Powell
@PenAndKey:
That’s exactly what I’d expect at 35 year old to say.
EthylEster
@WaterGirl: You could both be correct.
https://www.healthline.com/health/coronavirus-incubation-period
From link: Most people who develop COVID-19 start noticing symptoms within 2 to 14 days after being exposed to the novel coronavirus known as SARS-CoV-2. On average, it takes about 5 days to develop symptoms, but this may change as we learn more about the virus.
But I can’t find a date on this article. So there’s that.
Immanentize
@?BillinGlendaleCA: @Martin: The estate tax taxes the wealth of an estate BEFORE it is transferred to the living. The idea that it taxes the living is pure right propaganda which was planned and deployed for over a decade. The only living people who have claim to the money of the estate of someone who died is those who we say do, by laws. A 100% estate tax with exceptions for some % to the immediate survivors is utterly reasonable. That kind of system also vastly increases the use of large wealth for public good by encouraging philanthropy by the living.
Carnegie had it right: “I would soon leave my son a curse as the almighty dollar.”
James E Powell
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Doesn’t the estate pay the tax? And isn’t the tax aimed at the previously untaxed increase in property value? We have experts on this issue. Can they clarify? I admit to knowing only enough to be dangerous.
Immanentize
@Brachiator: To prove your point:
Socrates (469–399 B.C. as related by Plato, because, no digital recordings then)
Major Major Major Major
@Immanentize: I also love the bit from Phaedrus (unclear if meant to be satirical) where a character goes on about Kids these days, up to no good with their newfangled ‘literacy’.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Martin:
I didn’t either until I did my undergrad in Westwood, Bill’s a fellow alum.
mrmoshpotato
Soviet shitpile mobster manchildvirus doesn’t have the same ring, so this’ll do.
Ksmiami
@satby: Depends on how it’s distributed/ we just went thru this..
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Immanentize:
@James E Powell: While the estate does pay the tax, it’s the folk that the estate is eventually distributed to that get less with a high estate tax, they are usually living. It’s an inter generational transfer payment old to young. Let me be very clear, I am not arguing for a low estate tax, I’m just saying that it’s an inter generational transfer.
Martin
@James E Powell: It does tax the estate before it gets transferred. But the living are receiving less of the estate, so it can be argued that it’s a tax on them. By the same argument, employer payroll taxes and health care premiums are a tax on employees, but I don’t know many people that see it that way. (We might have a better shot at single payer if we did, btw.)
And sorry about the rant. The folks on this site are obviously the good guys here, as is my dad who is to the left of all of you (you’ll note I didn’t include my mom). I’ve never heard anyone here argue that taxes are too high, or that we shouldn’t be making substantive improvements for the future.
But you are unfortunately in the minority. And it’s true that every generation gets fucked over by the one before them. None of the folks that pushed for Vietnam ever went there, and most didn’t even send their kids because they were powerful enough to prevent that. But that cycle needs to stop and we need to be the ones to stop it, and this is the perfect moment to do that, yet I have no faith that it will.
EthylEster
@Martin: And then we elected one of them, and we couldn’t shout him down.
This is what I think. It’s sort of herd immunity against racism. If enough people think and say racism is bad, the folks who are not so sure that it is do not express their ideas. Because sheeple want to go along. Most people will not swim against the current. But as soon as Trump starts saying out loud what these folks have believed all along, they realize they are not alone, which is empowering unfortunately. And voilà!
mad citizen
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Damn, what time does Aldi’s open? One near us just opened last Thursday, I was planning to hit it up tomorrow morning. It took advantage of the space where Fresh Market (cool but expensive grocer from the Southeast) was and went under. Still another Aldi’s in the other direction almost as close as the new one.
Immanentize
@?BillinGlendaleCA: So,
Nelle
@WaterGirl: Yes, on this one. Some days, I’m up to four or five hours on the phone with one of my adult children who is falling apart. Having trouble getting necessary meds (thanks, insurance for making so many hoops to jump through that someone who is depressed sees an advantage in becoming noncompliant with doctor orders). Freelance career foundering. Bills mounting. What a pretty world she’s got.
NotMax
Eat, drink and be merry.
For tomorrow there will be selfies to delete.
//
James E Powell
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
@Martin:
The heirs receive less, but less than what? Is it less than the decedent would have received (post taxation) if he had sold the assets? My understanding of the estate & gift taxes was that they were aimed at taxing the previously untaxed appreciation in the value of the assets, especially real estate & stocks that were purchased years before the decedent’s death.
I don’t remember the exact numbers, but I read somewhere that $1000 invested in Microsoft’s IPO was worth over a $1.5M today. If that stock is in the estate, are those gains not taxed?
BobS
@Martin: I think Bill Walton’s grandkids wouldn’t be bad as overlords, along with Garcia and Weir’s grandkids.
zhena gogolia
@Nelle:
This is so horrible.
CraigM
@germy: I live near Seattle where we are unfortunately a couple of weeks ahead in the spread, and I have severe allergies to wet-weather mold and spring pollen. I have lately felt so conspicuous coughing, sneezing and otherwise spewing mucus into the environment that I’ve been “social-distancing” for weeks now…..
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@danielx: The other demographic group that is overjoyed to have everyone staying home are telemarketers.
Brachiator
@Ksmiami:
Huh? What? These days, marketing tools permit every demographic niche to be targeted.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Add the two generations of “stop being a wuss about your 105′ temp and get back to work snowflake” and yes, you get this.
J R in WV
I see that Clearwater FLA is full of spring break party, in clubs and on the beach, in spite of closure orders.
I got nothin’ to say.
Bookeater (formerly JosieJ)
Damn, my stepmom and I are bickering because we’ve been forced into close quarters for an extended period of time. What’s our excuse, jackals?!
jimmiraybob
On the other hand, it’ll be a leaner and meaner and, perhaps, a less stupid herd.
My apologies, this is not my scheduled happy day.
Couch Thing
But nihilism is all we are going to have left after the GOP and their billionaire overlords are done stripping the planet for its resources.
Kent
Visualize for a moment how the 1960s boomer generation would have responded. Had this happened in say 1969 with all the drugs and youth culture and hedonism. And especially all the youth defiance of authority and generational conflict that was happening then. Would they be doing better or worse than our generation of youth? Much worse I suspect. The Woodstock generation are now late 60s and early 70s.
Ruckus
I’ve met middle aged people who don’t think this virus is much of a big deal.
They just don’t see it, and think we are all over reacting. I’m thinking that over reacting is better in this case than under. I saw a posting on twitter of a 39 yr old who has covid-19 and his description of what he’s going through is far worse than any flu I’ve had. I’ve been hospitalized for just over a week when I passed out with a fever of 105 and maintained that for 5 days. That was bad, this sounds a lot worse. I was 20, most assuredly not late middle age or a senior.
Kent
My wife and I recently met with an attorney to revise or wills as we moved states a few years ago. We discussed estate taxes. We aren’t there yet, but with life insurance settlements we could get close to the WA estate tax. There are numerous strategies that the ultra wealthy use to evade estate taxes.
Also the thing to keep in mind, is that most large estates have never been taxed. The idea is that they get taxed when the estate is transferred. If you own 1 million shares of Exxon or Apple or whatever, those shares might have been held for decades and so have accumulated hundreds of millions in capital gains. Those gains get taxed either (1) when you sell the stock, or (2) when you die. If you eliminate the estate tax then wealth gets earned and transferred across generations absolutely tax free and the wealthy will never pay a dime in taxes.
Here’s an article.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-the-ultra-rich-can-transfer-wealth-to-loved-ones-without-getting-hosed-by-gift-and-estate-taxes-2018-10-08
Ruckus
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I’ve played B ball in Pauley Pavilion.
OK, it was a pickup game, my friends and I used to go every Thursday and play. OK some days we just got to watch. Still…….
It was the mid 70s and the courts were open in the evenings. I don’t believe they have been for decades now.
Ruckus
@Mo Salad:
I used to know a financial guy that had worked for Mrs. Walton. He had not a lot good to say about any of them. Some of his stories are why I refuse to even set foot into a wally world.
James E Powell
@Kent:
I believe that’s what the ruling class calls The Plan.
Brachiator
@Kent:
That was still a sub-culture. And it was also an era of activism and political engagement.
Of course, we don’t know how the Nixon administration might have handled this issue.
Ruckus
@Jinchi:
Absolutely. I wasn’t trying to say that everyone else is better, only that this is a pretty strong trait in the younger end of society and has been for a very long time. We all have our rationals and parts to play, and for the most part we do.
Brachiator
@Martin:
So, you really believe that this is a conversation that young folks want to have?
Grans: Kids, we have a sizeable estate, and we could leave it to you so that you can have a better life. But instead we voted for the law that will tax it at 90 percent, so you will get chump change.
Kids: Yay! We get nothing.
Of course, they are probably wrong about this. I don’t know. When I was a kid I could not imaging being age 40. Of course now I barely remember being age 40.
But I take your point. It is interesting that some of these kids seem to believe that they are powerless to change anything.
The song I remember has the lines
It’s dying to get better.
PenAndKey
Exactly. There’s a reason our “betters” are constantly calling for the capital gains tax to be reduced/eliminated and calling for a reduction or elimination of estate taxes. Both are part and parcel of removing any and all taxation on their primary income streams
That would imply that most of us think we’re actually going to get anything in the first place.
The Pale Scot
@guachi: The Cat and the Cradle and the Silver Spoon, Little Boy Blue and the Man on the Moon.
Oye.. always scroll down before commenting.
misterpuff
The Glitterati We will always have with us.
Reminds me of the scene in Rollerball where the Jet Set Elite amuse themselves by shooting flamethrowers at trees. Aholes Be Aholes
Citizen Alan
@Brachiator:
What percentage of young people in this country do you think have grandparents likely to leave estates that will even be affected by an estate tax?!? Presently, it only applies to estates in excess of $11.4 million!
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
Yeah I never thought I’d make half a century. Then I did. I really didn’t think I’d be 70, but here I am. I couldn’t imagine anything about being that fucking old. I don’t think that many people can, because we don’t have that level of experience in life changes when we are 15 or 20 or 25. You make it to 40 and you start to see the future. It never turns out like you think for the vast majority but at least you can see something. And then you get there your working life is likely over, or soon to be or at least you want it to be. I’ve been working, getting a paycheck, with a SS# for 58 yrs now, I think I’ve earned something for that and if nothing else it’s not having to do that any longer. But if republicans don’t stop shitting on my and everyone else’s lives so that they can buy all the crap they think will fill that hole in their lives that is conservatism, it’s going to be rather difficult to manage.
Martin
@James E Powell: Those gains are not taxed, and the cost basis is reset to the price when the stock was transferred. So they can then sell it without paying taxes. If the stock was transferred and the cost basis transferred, that’d be one thing.
But the estate tax was designed to solve the problem of the kids not knowing what the cost basis was because dad kept terrible records. You pay a fixed percent of the current value of the estate and nobody needs to worry about costs basis for any of it because it all resets. It’s a trade – and a good one, even at a relatively high estate tax rate.
Martin
@Brachiator: Dude, I’m a millionaire and I won’t pay a penny in estate taxes because I’m not that kind of millionaire. So yeah, even MY kids will have this conversation.
And you think they aren’t benefitting? Their college is paid for. They have a reliable car to drive. When they decide to buy a house, mom and dad will be their lender. They know they are benefitting. And we can do that for their kids provided we’re around. When we kick, they shouldn’t need the windfall. The govt makes it pretty easy for us to shove them up that ladder before we die. They should be able to take it from there.
Brachiator
@PenAndKey:
RE: Grans: Kids, we have a sizeable estate, and we could leave it to you so that you can have a better life. But instead we voted for the law that will tax it at 90 percent, so you will get chump change.
From a recent Forbes article:
Of course, this wealth is not equally distributed. But there is also this little tidbit.
O Brave New World…
WaterGirl
@Nelle: I’m sorry to hear all of that. My heart goes out to you guys.
Last night I asked a friend of mine who is a therapist if she would mind writing up something about fear and anxiety related to coronavirus.
She said she would put something together – I thought it might make a good guest post. Useful?
PenAndKey
@Brachiator: Sorry, but 618k millennial millionaires is barely even a rounding error compared to the 71 million millennials in the US alone. I really don’t consider a policy that only financially benefits 0.9% of the demographic to be sound.
And I stand by my “most of us” statement, given that for the remaining 99.2% of us we’ll never have to worry about paying the tax in question and have even less odds of inheriting anything valuable enough to be harmed by it.
Brachiator
@Citizen Alan:
The argument was that estates should be taxed at 90 percent. I suppose that the person making the argument also wanted to lower the threshold.
@Martin:
Generally, the basis of inherited assets is the fair market value at date of death. This would apply to an inherited house as well as to stuff like stocks. Any appreciation afterwards would be taxed at capital gain rates.
Belafon
I don’t think carefree youth is particular to this generation. Let’s think about the 60s.
Chris Johnson
I think it’s a scale issue. I’m a Gen-Xer. My folks had property in Lexington, MA and I’ve got an uncle that helped them sell the old family home (to be bulldozed unceremoniously, there was no happiness there) so that, briefly, my Mom was as near a millionaire as makes no difference. I’ve got two brothers and a sister. Dad probably destroyed Mom’s will as it left her body to science, so the estate is still (STILL) working its way through the system (assuming the lawyers aren’t simply ripping us off: interestingly, the family hangs together pretty tight on all this so it’s not a question of them fighting or anything)
They got certain enough of the result that they sent each Johnson child $50K as a partial distribution. My other siblings are settled enough that it made little difference to them.
To me, it was transformative, amazing. I paid off a credit card that was bleeding me to death. I invested in equipment for my business. Knew exactly, exactly what I needed, ran with it. Still have a bit left to keep me from getting scared again, but that’s my context for this discussion.
Firstly: my (pre-Boomer, but immersed in Boomer culture) parents spent their entire lives sitting on their pile of gold waiting for me to pull myself up by my bootstraps. I’m Gen-X and have autism and had to get over drug addiction (over 25 years ago now) and there were no bootstraps, no boots or anything to pull with, all my life. I’m lucky to have survived. Nobody cared (my family was ‘neoliberal’ if you like: socially liberal, voted Democrat, very conservative economically to the point they’d let a son die to prove a point)
And when they did die, I estimate there could have been a 90% tax on ALL inheritance no matter how small and it would still have been transformative.
People do not understand what it’s like to be extremely poor. I get really tilted about it when it comes up. This talk of ‘oh how can we tax estates’ is absolute nonsense. ESPECIALLY given the really really high threshold where it even becomes a thing! A lot of us would have our lives transformed by $50K of inheritance, have our asses totally saved by $1000 that we didn’t expect.
Preserving the capital of the extremely wealthy is disgusting. Anyone who hasn’t already taken full advantage of their family’s position (unlike my family, there are rich families who know they’re rich and burn some money setting up their kids to dominate) is likely so poor that tiny, tiny fractions of rich-fucker wealth would change their lives. You do NOT NEED to hand over unreasonable capital so that other people can have unreasonable capital. Toss the kids $50K or $100K, not $100 million. NOBODY deserves $100 million as an individual.
Another Scott
@WaterGirl:
Probably dead thread, but, ScienceNews:
It’s a tiny, tiny study (9 people).
tl;dr – The infection can start in the upper respiratory tract, then people get the virus in their mucus, etc. It can seem like a head-cold then. I tried to read the medRxiv paper, but it didn’t jump out to me what “symptoms” they’re counting as being those of coronavirus infection. The serious symptoms start as it moves into the lungs, and that may be when testing starts in most cases.
I don’t think it’s saying that people can be walking around with no symptoms at all and be shedding virus. One should use the usual precautions around people who are coughing and sneezing, etc.
Wash your hands!! Visit satby’s store and get more soap!!!
Cheers,
Scott.
James E Powell
@PenAndKey:
Obviously not a Republican.
Facebones
Most of the young ‘uns I know are dancers and performers and are taking it seriously since they don’t want to jeopardize their careers by getting pneumonia like breathing problems
Shantanu Saha
I doubt that this attitude is present in young people at large. Rich, white young people, those who traditionally feel themselves invulnerable, are the ones fueling these orgies. And reporters, being largely rich white young people themselves (or at least the ones given this beat to cover) interview their friends.
Ruckus
@Chris Johnson:
I agree. Someone like Mike Bloomfield, worth 50+ billion, what the hell is anyone going to do with that? Answering my own question is – get richer. It’s a race for bragging rights, and really those billionaires would still be extremely wealthy if they paid 25% or even 50% tax.
Couch Thing
@Chris Johnson:
Personally, I think inheritance taxes shouldn’t apply to a family home or a family farm and would only kick in at amounts greater than 100k. Start out at a 10% tax rate on amounts over 100k, and ramp slowly up to 90% over 100m.
cokane
@cain: god forbid people should enjoy their lives when they’re at their physical peaks
to be clear, i’m not advocating for revelry here. but good luck telling someone on the cusp of their spring break vacation that they shouldn’t go, for an example
RM
As one of the actual people under 40 around here, and a retail worker, I can tell you that for those of us in service/retail jobs, the entire pandemic doesn’t feel real. Our jobs don’t shut down. Or if they do, that’s lost wages. Most of us are barely scraping by as it is. So for us this is just like any other day, except there’s shortages on everything. People talk about being quarantined and we’re all ‘that sounds nice, wish someone cared if I died’ but we know we’re not really human and no one cares about if some cashiers or stockers get sick, not like the real people with salaried positions. We’re all replaceable anyway.
I don’t think it’s that us young people think we’re immortal. I think it’s that we don’t care if we die anymore, because we were never going to have a long and comfortable life anyway. Might as well get in some casual hedonism on the way down.
(I mean, I’m sorry if that’s a bummer, but it’s how it feels for us.)
Chris Johnson
@RM: No, I was there (and will never entirely shake it off, I think) for all that I’m Gen-X (the first to experience what you describe! :D yay )
Dunno about anyone else but I totally get it. It is a worldwide thing, too. Young people in the UK, most definitely in Greece, in Russia, feel exactly the same way. I think people are figuring it out. Not sure what it’ll take to blow the whole thing wide open, but I feel like it’s unsustainable.
Blame GenX for not having enough numbers, so that nobody gave a fuck, and got used to not giving a fuck and you all are the unhappy recipients of the not-giving-a-fuck practice they got on us :P
Mart
Citizen Alan
@Couch Thing: Presently they kick in at around $10 million and are only around 17%.