The Youth vote has much better choices with the Republican slate this coming year, but . . .

It is said that liberals become conservatives as they age (has something to do with raising a family and paying debts), but there's pretty good research to show that how you vote when you start is how you'll end up. In 2008, the youth vote went for Obama. They were sucker punched in my opinion, but with the help of older Christians who sat out 2012, they also reelected him. Now those 18-25 year olds will be 26-33 when Hillary asks for their obedience, and they won't even give it a thought and will pull the lever/press the screen for the big D. They've finished college (although not their government induced debt), married or living with, might even have a child or two. Their happy clappy rock star religion is probably boring now and not much has replaced it. They are probably too busy to look around and think or notice how things have changed since Obama gave them hope and Kool-aid.

Millennials, born between 1981 and 1999, consist of 80 million Americans who are the largest generation in 100 years. Accounting for roughly one-fourth of the total voters today—a larger voting block than seniors citizens—they are predicted to make up as much as 40 percent of the electorate by 2020. Most are too young to remember 9/11, and the recession was just a hiccup because they could move back home with mom and dad. and still pay for their car and i-phone and pot. Many really do want someone to take care of them, and even though the gov't takes from their own wallet and future, they'd rather believe the lies than do the tough stuff of analysis and thinking. Marx was really wrong--he thought you'd need a revolt of the workers when all that was necessary was materialistic college grads.

According to Pew Research, young voters continue to identify with the Democrat Party at relatively high levels and express significantly more liberal attitudes on a range of issues, from gay marriage, abortion, the environment, and the role of the federal government. The kids who were left at day care to be raised by others, are perfectly comfortable with having the federal government take over their decisions and life’s direction.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/aug/5/jp-moran-2016-gop-youth-vote-problem-and-how-deal-/?page=all

http://www.conservativebookclub.com/10576/featured-article/can-conservatives-win-back-the-youth-vote

First time home buyers

I heard on the news today that the median age for a first time home buyer is 33. I was 22 when we bought our first home (a duplex in Champaign-Urbana so the renters could pay the mortgage for us). I think I know the problem. Today young people sell their lives to various tech companies for their phones, cable,Netflix , Facebook and Instagram and they drive nice cars. Fifty years ago we didn’t have any of that. TV, no cost but the set; phone, no cost but rent from the phone company and monthly charge; movies were something you went to in a theater, not that came to us; an automobile--we didn’t have one in 1962, but had a bike. Today’s young families spend so much on their tech contracts they can’t afford a mortgage. Oh, and at 22 we had no college loans to pay back. No one did. We bought an older home in a racially mixed neighborhood with mixed zoning. Today people would rather rent for 10 years with amenities, then start big.

The typical first-timer now rents for six years before buying a home, up from 2.6 years in the early 1970s, according to a new analysis by the real estate data firm Zillow. The median first-time buyer is age 33 — in the upper range of the millennial generation, which roughly spans ages 18 to 34. A generation ago, the median first-timer was about three years younger.

The delay reflects a trend that cuts to the heart of the financial challenges facing millennials: Renters are struggling to save for down payments. Increasingly, too, they're facing delays in some key landmarks of adulthood, from marriage and children to a stable career, according to industry and government reports.

 http://www.newsmax.com/Finance/StreetTalk/Older-First-Time-Homebuyers-houses/2015/08/17/id/670406/

When in doubt, blame the parents

Almost on cue, an older woman stopped at my table at the coffee shop this morning to tell me she liked my McCain-Palin button. "Everyone where I work is so young, they want everything given to them, so they think Obama is great," she said. "Lots of Ohio State students."

I had just finished the extensive summary of The Trophy Kids in today's Wall Street Journal.

With Wall Street in turmoil and a financial system in crisis mode, companies are facing another major challenge: figuring out how to manage a new crop of young people in the work force -- the millennial generation. Born between 1980 and 2001, the millennials were coddled by their parents and nurtured with a strong sense of entitlement. In this adaptation from "The Trophy Kids Grow Up: How the Millennial Generation Is Shaking Up the Workplace," Ron Alsop, a contributor to The Wall Street Journal, describes the workplace attitudes of the millennials and employers' efforts to manage these demanding rookies.

Before reading the review I'd been in a "heated" discussion with a school teacher, about how much is expected of teachers when it is the home that is the problem. We'd segued into that from an even more heated discussion about how to remedy the inequity in women's pay (on which I completely disagree with her, even though we are both conservative Christians and both have children and are/were career women). I had just pointed out to her that Columbus is among the bottom five in major cities in the nation in graduation rates, with Detroit at the bottom. All the failing school districts are heavily into the failed policies of the Democrats and the teachers' unions.

It would appear that the adult off-spring of the successful Baby Boomer couples and the adult off-spring of the welfare moms have all grown up with a sense of entitlement, resisting all expectations that they might need to conform to someone's expectations, want to be tied technologically to their music and friends, and take comfort in an inflated view of their skill level and contribution.

It's interesting that these young people who are at opposite ends of the quintiles of household income will overwhelmingly be voting Obama. "Take care of me Mama," should go on their political badge and be their motto for living and contributing to society.