I fear that with the way children are being raised today is going to screw everyone even more. Then combine that with times like our grandparent's had to struggle through. Thats scary.

I see what you mean... kinda.

One thing though - for me it was my parents who grew up in the depression and fought in WW2. ;) One of my grandfathers was born in 1876, so he was even too old for WW1.:eek:

Well, the nation was full of oblivious arrogant pricks in the "roaring 20's". It's partly why we got into the Depression.

This sound at all familiar?

Just change 1920's to 2000-2005. But it was those prick's kids that ended up going off to fight in WWII, and later became the hard-working folks that turned the US into a super-power in the 1950 and beyond. And it was their success that we've been riding on since then... now as a nation we've got the same sort of sense of entitlement the folks of the 20's had.

It's a shame history repeats itself.

repeats itself.

Well, you and me may be different generations... I think I'm more Gen Y, you're more Gen X, no? You're certainly not a baby-boomer... which is generally the generation before Gen X. Sounds like you're on the cusp?

My Grandparents were born in the 1910-1920 range. My Dad was born in '45, the leading edge of the baby boomers. I was born in '77. It sounds like our families are just half a generation out of step with each other.

Don't worry. Our current world image and foreign policy will soon turn the whole world against us, we'll get knocked on our asses, and maybe eat a little humble pie. So in 80 or 100 years, we'll be right back on top!

I think I am one of the older of Gen. X - only missing "baby boomer" by a few years. My family just has a weird age spread. I'm 41. My father was already a grandfather at 43 when I was born in 1966, and his father was 46 when he was born in 1922 (and he was not the last), and so his father was born in 1876. I heard plenty of stories from Dad about going to bed hungry and not having shoes during the Depression, so when he joined the Army around 1940 he was thrilled to have good shoes and "great chow" 3 times a day. On my mom's side she was lucky since her father owned a produce wholesaling business and had plenty of food. But he had had to quit school at age 9 and go to work when his father died unexpectedly.

So... despite all our bitching, we really do have it made. As far "kids these days" go - I remember them saying all that about my brothers' generation, my generation, and your generation. I have a little more faith in my kids' generation. FWIW they and their friends seem to be a lot smarter than I was at there age, they have a better attitude, and they seem to stay out of troube better than I (and my brothers all) did. A little spoiled maybe, yes. That's a sign if prosperous times, but maybe that is coming to an end.

In my family every generation since the 1800's has been more prosperous and more successful than the one before. I'm not so sure that is going to continue.

I agree with most of what you said, but there is a flip side as well. Its been said about every generation because it gets worse every generation. There are more murders and acts of senseless violence done by kids today then there ever has been. Kids use to fight with fists now they fight with guns. Regardless of how kids are educated, there is a serious lack of conscience and morality. Of course that is mostly dependent on how they have been raised.

I think your perception of crime in the US is skewed, perhaps by the likes of CNN and FauxNews. The violent crime rate has been falling since the early 90's and is as low as it was when I was a kid in the early 70's. The homicide rate is the lowest it's been in since the 60's. Overall it's the safest it has been in 30 years. Even in the US you are statistically much more likely (almost 2X) to die from suicide than homicide.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:U...Crime_Rate.jpg

Not sure what my point is, other than the kids are not as violent as the media portrays.

Kids need to stop sitting on the couch playing 1st person shooters and get out and start killing people for real like they did when I was a kid... :)

Yeah... kids these days... <shakes head>

In 1936 in NYC when the "greatest generation" was coming of age there were 510 murders. Last year there were 494, and the population is a lot higher there now. Of course a lot of it has to do with police presence, but still...

Seriously. Playing first person shooters on a console is always inferior to playing first person shooters on a proper PC.

I'm beginning to like FPS on console but's that a different thread. I also have reasons I think it is better.

Every thread here seems to drift toward video games. Let's keep this on off-topic... ;)

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/ortsanm.gif

When I said violent crimes I was talking about more then just homicide. Here is a comparison of the number of violent crimes in 1960 and 2006.
................1960.......2006
Murder:......9,110 - 17,034
Rape:........17,190 - 92,455
Robbery:..107,840 - 447,403
Assault:...154,320 - 862,947
TOTAL:....288,460 - 1,417,745

I wouldn't say thats safe.
EDIT:

If you break that down into per 100,000 citizens like I should have done, it looks like this.
.............1960....2006
murder:...5.1......5.7
Rape:......9.6......30.9
Robbery:..60.1....149.4
Assault:...86.1....287.5

2nd Edit. Like Matt said. There was a huge influx of crime in the 90s and its gone down, but its still high and seems to be climbing back up.

Divide those numbers by urban population and they aren't nearly so skewed.

I would think that the following factors associated with a downturn in the economy/general credit crunch would have a significant impact on crime:

1) Higher rates of alcohol/drug use
2) More transition from middle class to lower class (lower relative standards of living)
3) Political/ethnic/age polarization
4) Decreased standards/control at schools (is this possible?)
5) Increased socialism/welfare spending

The graph I linked to before (shown now below) is "violent crime". I said the safest in 30 years, and it is. There was a rise in crime throughout the 60's.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...Crime_Rate.jpg

It's true that at best it has leveled out and at worst it is starting to increase again (not shown on graph yet). Too early to tell statistically. Certainly a hurting economy will not help things.

It's simple, crime follows poverty around like a lap dog. The more people that can't make ends meet, the more people there are that lash out against there neighbors. It's not just human nature, it's the basic law of the jungle.

I'm willing to bet that the chart above correlates nicely with the percentage of people living below the poverty line. As the rich get richer, the money comes from the poor... and the poor start fighting over what's left.

I'm not a socialist, I think that most people can do just fine on their own w/o a government making decisions for them. But I'm realistic enough to realize that many people are born into a cycle of poverty and lack of education that makes it impossible for them to get out of the trappings of an open economy. I've got no problem taking from the top 1% and giving to the bottom 10%.

Edit: here's a poverty graph over the same years as the crime graph above.

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/povertyrate.jpg

The correlation is pretty clear (assuming you ignore the vast improvement in poverty due to the ending of segregation), though it's kinda interesting that crime seems to precede the poverty curve by a year or two. Perhaps it's the crime that causes poverty? Or just perhaps the crime is a symptom of the problem that shows up before people are driven below the poverty threshold?

0.75% anyone? What, is the U.S. dollar not as influential as it once was? *tongue in cheek*

Not following you. 0.75% of what? :confused:

I think he's referring to the fed dropping the overnight loan rate yesterday by 3/4%

Ah, I hadn't paid attention to that yet. Thanks.

Scott, there is no doubt that poverty and crime are related. I just wonder then why during the 60's did crime rise while poverty plummeted.

Experts attribute the huge increase in crime around 1990 to be caused by the crack epidemic. The recession in 1991 didn't help either I'm sure.

I think in the 60's it wasn't that crime and poverty weren't related as they are today, it's just that there were so many people that got out of poverty when segregation ended and the civil rights movement took effect that the poverty rate plummeted.

Poverty created by inequality didn't correlate to crime... we just had a ton of people living in a "lower cast" that skews the chart. I'll bet that within the lower cast, the poorest of the poor were more apt to commit crime than the richest of the poor.

It's human nature... when you've got nothing, you've got nothing to lose... i.e. the primary reason why people keep to the moral high road is because they're afraid of the consequences, not because they just listen to their moral compass. IMO, that's the primary reason religions were invented in the first place... to get people to believe that if they don't do what their told, they're going to hell. "Listen to your father, or Zeus is gonna throw a lightning bolt right up your ass!"