Attn: Generations X & Y

Press_Start

Howdy.

A rant on another thread sparked me to ask you guys this.

How do you feel about the differences between the previous Generation X (Born between 1963 and 1985) and Generation Y, or "Millenials" (Born between 1985 and 1998)

A great many subjects are met with a great many divides between the two generations. X often appears unapathetic and uncaring, often ruthless towards Y, however Y often appears whiny and lazy.
I understand the stereotypes often carry some form of truth in them, but how do each generation feel about the stereotypes themselves.

For me, the truth is that the world view and political situation often shape the way we grow up. X grew up, in Ireland anyway, where to do well you had to actually find a reasonable job with no major entry level, get started and work your way up. For the average X, in my City, that was either working in the Industrial sector, working service jobs, working several smaller jobs, or to work in Waterford Crystal. Not to say that a fair share were able to go to college, aquire a degree, work in either management, education and government work, and while working hard, settle down and get a family and house started very quickly. Again, there are people who worked very hard and still found it hard to make ends meet, but we are talking averages here.

In 1980 a town house could be bought for £50,000. Today a house worth that is worth over £400,000. Adjusting for inflation helps, bringing the equivalent price down to around £220,000 but income wages and income bracket haven't been increased by anywhere near that much since the 80's. So now, due to inflation, the housing market decline, and the inconsistent rate of income raising, it's impossible for a Gen Y to buy a house without incurring massive debt. Gen Y blames gen X for this, wrongly (?), and both sides are caught in the middle. Almost every Gen X has a home of their own right now, whereas almost every Gen Y is either still living at home, renting a house, or struggling with a mortgage.
The average wage in 1977 was less than around 2 grand a month. I earn a little more than that now in 2017, and prices for houses have one up by over fifteen times. College is the same, with the price of registration fees at an all time high of €3,000, up 30% from 2011 when I went to college.



See here for my sources regarding these numbers
And This :

To put things in perspective as to why people whine, X often complains about Y being lazy, not leaving home, whining, spending far too much time on electronic devices, far too much time indoors, alcoholics, not getting jobs, not buying a house, not getting married, not investing in the future and even in the cases of the US: destroying literally everything.
X however are often quoted as the overspenders, were responsible for arguably every economic downturn as some studies have shown.
X also were responsible for the rise of Grunge music, Rave, and were the creators of the Latchkey Generation. Kids who came home to empty houses and no supervision, who then got into "trouble" and became more self sufficient, more self relient and more confident, also likely giving fuel to the reason that Gen X make up more than 60% of all entrepenuers even in 2017.

The biggest issue in my eyes for Gen Y, is the sheer mountain of tasks as well as the constant expectation from Gen X; the parents, and the Baby Boomers; the Grandparents. At 18 once school is done and college is on the horizon, a decision needs to be made about what degree you want, as college is not cheap to return to. Most Gen X cut off the kids and advise them, correctly to get a job and finance themselves, possibly handing in money to help out in the house, even just to get in the habit. Jobswere (are) not in good supply however, and even a part time job will require some level of experience for not a lot of money. Some courses are also a full 40 hour week not counting assignments and work can begin to affect that leading to a sub par qualification, or even delays if resits are taken.
Following college it's soon realised that a degree alone will not suffice, as almost 24,000 other students graduate every year, on top of the previous years students still looking for work. It's at this stage that the cycle will either repeat ad nauseum until a work path has been found, or you return to college for an additional qualification, costing at least €12,000 for a full MA, which has even replaced a H.Dip for teaching, effectively doubling the price for something that you need to get into the economy. After a job has been secured it's nessessary to get a house. The aformentioned issues with getting a house are present, and further limited by mortgage availability, resulting in people possibly extending their student loans with further interest. During this period if you've managed to find a partner in all this chaos, you may start thinking about settling down and starting a family. Or not. Many Gen Y are postponing having kids until they are financially stable, leading to a steady slowdown in birth rates as this is taking longer and longer.

My longer rant is for one main reason. I'm a Y, a "Millenial". My Grandparents, the very definition of Baby Boomers, often lecture me with "we had nothing at your age", yet they were married, had a house on payment, and were settling down having kids, in a city suburb, with their own cars and their own holidays and payments, loans, hobbies and interests. As shown above they had less money, but everything was easier and cheaper in comparison. My parent shad it slightly harder, however had a house and mortgage at my age, and myself in tow, but neither were educated formally, with the exception of a PLC for my mother to become a beautician and any factory courses my father had to qualify him for work.
I am curently 24, with an internationally recognised BA from an IT, living in a city area with no car, working from home in a comfortable, well enough paying job with benefits, a Gen Y partner who lives at home with her parent, both working full time, saving for a docterate to further her education which her degree cannot get her. We're stuck in this loop and it's actually insulting when we're told we're the lazy geberation.


So to finish off, what do you guys think about the Generation Gap? Are the reasons I've listed fair? Are they well founded? Do they make sense? Or are Gen Y just whiny and lazy, and Gen X stoic and staunch? Are Gen X apathetic and crotchety and Gen Y the hardest working? Do let me know your thoughts and feel free to spark more questions, I'd be happy to hear from you.

Your Face

Press Stop

Press_Start

Thanks, appreciate the message.

Bygumbo

The older Gen X is, the less understanding they are. My grandparents just cant fathom the cost of houses. They bought their current house for the princely sum of appx 1000 euro (adjusted), it would now cost 700k plus. In their eyes the world has lost the plot. I agree with them.

The younger Gen Y is, the more spaced out they are to me. They just seem to be there physically in a room, but their mind isn't. Internet culture I suppose is the short answer. I think its a very bad thing.

Basically, life has become ****ty, and if it isn't ****ty for you then you are lucky. You cant "put in the effort" to get half a million quid for the most ordinary 3 bedroom home, its tipped just beyond reason. The next thing is that we'll be getting the Japanese model, ie you pass debt onto your children.

I put the root cause at equalisation (or if I wanted to be controversial, I'd use the word "equality").

For many decades (gen x) in Ireland (and western countries) were left alone to themselves. Some countries were still able to ride off the returns of a colonial past. But nothing comes for free.

As the quality of life slowly rises in the rest of the world, there is a completely linked decrease in the quality of life here. Tats equality. Just imagine if everyone split their money evenly across the entire planet....it wouldn't make everyone rich, it would make everyone poor. Same principle is happening to jobs, housing, opportunity.

And this, in my opinion, is the harsh reality of the world. If you want to feel good about india going up in the world and indian people enjoying a higher quality of life, then be prepared to see yours go down.

We live in a finite world and if you share, you have less. That's life, what can you do?

Spider Web

As a gen x baby (the latter part) I think millennials get a bad rap in some respects. We were "Tiger cubs" and had no issue with getting jobs during those years. There was an abundance of them and we were in for some land in 2009 - what do you mean we can't just walk into a job and companies aren't privileged to have us?

Those looking for work during the recession had to take whatever work they could get (if they could at all) and didn't take getting a job for granted.

I also think it's unfair to deem millennials as the mollycoddled ones. That started with late gen x - coming from 1960s/70s ("baby boomer" - the previous generation) psychology I reckon, where the message was "You're unique and amazing and you can be anything you want if you just believe" etc. It was certainly prevalent in the 90s, it's not just a millennial/internet thing. All sounds very American but it was exported to here via the UK by the late 80s.

Press_Start

I totally agree with you Spider about the mollycoddled aspect. I was going to touch on the "overly sensitive" subject that society seems to have introduced over the last fews years. As well as the "Participation" award phenomenon that's sweeping it at the moment.
It's again the previous generation seems to have a heavy hand in forging the generation but not willing to accept the blame for how they turn out.

Spider Web

Hah, the participation medal! I got one of those in primary school in the 90s for athletics.

Was very proud of having that medal despite doing nothing to merit it. It was a gold metal dealie with a sticker of some generic thing. :pac:

Ulysses Gaze

I am Gen X and we feel neither highs nor lows.....

Press_Start

Exactly, the problem with that is it awards showing up, and diminishes the actual award for achievement and hard work. I had some myself when I was in school, but they quickly went away in later years.

Bygumbo

I'd say another important difference btween now and then is luxuries versus necessities.

Nowadays you can even see a 12 year with the latest 700 euro phone, you'll get back to your home and turn on the massive television while tapping nonsense on the internet. You'll check the latest cheapo flights on Ryanair where you can cross the continent for a holiday for less than the price of a bus ticket in some cases.

This all seems luxurious to gen x, latest technology, latest clothes, trendy, holidays several times a year, the best education. No wonder some of them don't see the hardship.

They were able to get the necessities easily enough, but no real luxuries. Ireland was poor and was coming out of the doldrums of world war. It wasn't all rosey. Myself, I'd trade all our luxury nonsense for what they had. No question.

Instead of looking for vindication about how life is so difficult now (and going to get more difficult for your children) you should start getting to the "why" part of it all.

Spider Web

Ulysses Gaze wrote: »

I am Gen X and we feel neither highs nor lows.....

Really? What's it like?

Press_Start

I've actually done a lot of the why, just didnt want to post it all there. In terms of the mentality of it all, we have everything convenient, and to a certain extent, cheap enough. But even with the "plenty" of money I make at the moment, I can't afford what they were well able to back in the day.

I understand that the reasons are plenty, there's no one root cause but rather a concoction of things that led to an outcome.

FixdePitchmark

people gave out about the Beatles.

Socrates said;

“The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise.”

X and Y will work out for themselves.

And you know that Y are getting it right, when X care about them

They don't care about X at all - they are removing themselves from the constructs of Irish society - church , obsession with owning property, sexual restriction and enjoying a whole new form of Irish politics. They can meet people online now and talk to anyone at any moment.

They can jump on a plane to a friend or family member in any continent - by desire and not need.

They are the most educated Irish youth ever - yes standards have dropped - but in that gap it is easy to stand out and be better than most

I just think the only thing they wont have is property - but they will be people of the world and not too worried about a Taoiseach getting nothing done - they will move on.

This generation coming up are a generation ahead of me - but you know what, they are amazing , flexible , can do anything, and will have to clean up the total **** hole- generation X created.

Press_Start

It's interesting though that the advancement and subsequnt relience of technology is often attributed to th newer generation, but it's actually a requirement to use it, in everything from job hunting to general enjoyment.
I have no fear that our generation is experiencing both the wonder of new technology and the world is the smallest it will ever be, as well as the almost immovable and insurmountable ****heap that was left by X. I also have no doubt that Y is capabl of some of the best things we've yet to see, but I do like comparing the opinions of gens X and Y, and how they ended up where they are and why.

hatrickpatrick

Personally I don't understand why overpopulation never seems to factor in to these discussions. The whole world's population has dramatically increased since Gen X and previous generations were young. In my view, one of the obvious reasons for the disparity between inflation and wage increases is simply that there are now more people vying for the same amount of land as in the past - that will never be solved by anything other than a massive population decline. Since that's a planet-wide phenomenon, the obvious, albeit uncomfortable, conclusion one comes to is that the human race is badly in need of a plague, supervolcano eruption, or war, just to counter the onward march of overpopulation.

Now that might sound like an ok thought until you realise that every one of us alive right now could easily be part of the contingent which is culled rather than that which enjoys the depopulated Earth - the things which tend to dent the human population are things which also tend to be entirely and indiscriminately random in nature. To take one example, the next supervolcano eruption could be the famous one in the US (Yellowstone), but it could just as easily be a lesser known one in Italy (Campi Flegrei). Both show signs of being active, primed, and ready to go. And obviously, which one randomly decides to pop first will have a huge impact on the Earth's population - but it means that there's a 50/50 chance that Ireland will be horribly close to the zone of incineration. That's just how these things go.

The bottom line is, scarcity in food, commodities, technology etc is almost non-existent - it's created artificially for the sake of private profits. The planet could comfortably sustain all of us food-wise if politics and profit didn't get in the way. But land is another matter - we're seeing it right now in Ireland. House prices outside Dublin are nowhere near as monstrous as they are in Dublin - but that's because vast number of people want to live in Dublin and don't want to live in other places. That is a genuine issue of land scarcity, and that only goes away by a lowering of demand, which means either people give up on their dream or they die prematurely.

Incredibly morbid thought, but I don't really see any other way to look at it. If you take Dublin as an example, either houses need to be replaced en masse with apartment blocks, people need to be ok with living further from the city than they are, or else house prices will continue to rise with the country's population provided the desire to move to Dublin doesn't decline per thousand people or whatever measure we're using. It's simple maths - you have X amount of space, that space can hold Y ideal units of housing (for most people especially couples, that's an actual house) and the number of people who want to live here is Z. If Z > Y, then the bottom line is that Y cannot increase, so either people settle for less than the kind of housing they want, or prices keep going up and those same people are priced out of the market anyway. And as I say, the easiest way for Z to come down is a massive population decrease.

Maths aside, I honestly do feel that human overpopulation as a worldwide issue is something we're going to have to deal with in some way, sooner rather than later. If you look at the state of human society today and you look at experiments done into rodents and their behaviour when subjected to an abundance of resources couples with a population explosion in a confined space, you get something very, very similar to some of human society today - some fight, some opt out altogether, but either way society falls apart.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-mouse-utopias-1960s-led-grim-predictions-humans-180954423/

https://io9.gizmodo.com/how-rats-turned-their-private-paradise-into-a-terrifyin-1687584457

At the peak population, most mice spent every living second in the company of hundreds of other mice. They gathered in the main squares, waiting to be fed and occasionally attacking each other. Few females carried pregnancies to term, and the ones that did seemed to simply forget about their babies. They'd move half their litter away from danger and forget the rest. Sometimes they'd drop and abandon a baby while they were carrying it.

The few secluded spaces housed a population Calhoun called, "the beautiful ones." Generally guarded by one male, the females—and few males—inside the space didn't breed or fight or do anything but eat and groom and sleep. When the population started declining the beautiful ones were spared from violence and death, but had completely lost touch with social behaviors, including having sex or caring for their young.

Sounds eerily similar to what's going on in Japan at the moment with a collapse in sexual attraction among young people. We'll see how that ends up...

Press_Start

Press_Start wrote: »

In 1980 a town house could be bought for £50,000. Today a house worth that is worth over £400,000.
The average wage in 1977 was less than around 2 grand a month. I earn a little more than that now in 2017, and prices for houses have one up by over fifteen times.

Gen X were not buying houses in 1980. Many of them bought in the early to mid 00s.

Gen X were not warning wages in 1977. And they were not 2 grand a month then either...

Ulysses Gaze

Spider Web wrote: »

Really? What's it like?

Meh

osarusan

I think these terms that try to insist there is a shared mentality among people based purely on the time they were born are pretty empty.

OldGoat

Dammit I missed the cut. That puts me in Gen W.
We like chocolate, being smelly and telling everyone else how terrible they are at everything.

Mint Sauce

I know good music when I hear it.

Tigger

Deleted User wrote: »

Gen X were not buying houses in 1980. Many of them bought in the early to mid 00s.

Gen X were not warning wages in 1977. And they were not 2 grand a month then either...

Of all the ideas the one that the average wage for people was 2 k a month is the most in accurate
Also in 77 the oldest gen xers were 14 and most weren't born

http://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-hes/hes2015/aiw/

Average weekly wage in 77 was €79
Or €339 per month

You say you earn about 2k
2000/339 is a ratio of 5.9 you earn 5.9 times the 1977 wage
The town house costs 400,000 now and 50k in 77
400,000/50,000 is 8 the house costs 8 times as much
However you earn less than average
Average is €2,730
2730/339 is 8.05
Average wage is 8 times higher in absolute valves not adjusted for inflation
Specific house is 8 times reared again absolute values not adjusted for inflation
Goods and services are only 4 times dearer so inflation itself is only 4 times dearer this is why now is soo much better than 40 years ago
A person earning average is twice as well off unless they are buying a house where they are equally well off to a person in 1977

Tldr you earn significantly less than the average wage and therefor you cannot buy a €400,000 home.

super_furry

What about the Xennials? We're still cool! http://uk.businessinsider.com/what-is-a-xennial-2017-6?r=US&IR=T

The whole 'define a generation' thing is nonsense.

Press_Start

The use of 1977 was just to show how cheap houses were. That was the middle of Baby Boomer territory and most Xers were buying houses in the 90s and later. As I've shown on the adjusted for inflation graph, housing prices have increased by 15 times, but the average wage has not. Adjusted for inflation that value you gave is around 400 quid. which means that the increas has been around 50% up to 683 odd quid.
The average house price in 77 has increased by 15 times adjusting for inflation as per my graph previously.

Tigger

Press_Start wrote: »

The use of 1977 was just to show how cheap houses were. That was the middle of Baby Boomer territory and most Xers were buying houses in the 90s and later. As I've shown on the adjusted for inflation graph, housing prices have increased by 15 times, but the average wage has not. Adjusted for inflation that value you gave is around 400 quid. which means that the increas has been around 50% up to 683 odd quid.
The average house price in 77 has increased by 15 times adjusting for inflation as per my graph previously.

What figure are you usind for inflation from 77-17?

topper75

Baby boomers? That is the baby boom in the USA during and post war.

Nothing to do with Irish generations. We had mass emigration in the 50s - total contrast.

Our boom was 70s and 80s kids. There is prob a new one right now.

You will not make sense of Irish demographics with US bracketing, or euro trends for that matter. They are utterly invalid here.

I'd leave that stuff to MTV marketing types and start again with Irish stuff.

Varik

Never seen that break down for the generation years, always seen Generation Y (1980 to 1995)

Press_Start

Tigger wrote: »

What figure are you usind for inflation from 77-17?

The graph and source form the previous page. It shows that the price of a 100k house in 77 is now worth around 450, adjusted for inflation, depending a little less than the 15x non adjusted price but still a lot more.
In terms of pricing, a 50% increase in wage for inflation and a 300% increase in housing is hardly compatable, or fair to analyse. Going to the bank for a loan of 350k for what the bank will likely see as a negative equity mortgage in a few years is a harsh prospect for todays people in the modern price decline, where we're experiencing a slight bubble pop after an initial surge.

diomed

Press_Start wrote: »

The average wage in 1977 was less than around 2 grand a month. I earn a little more than that now in 2017, and prices for houses have one up by over fifteen times. College is the same, with the price of registration fees at an all time high of €3,000, up 30% from 2011 when I went to college.

Generation W here.
I started my 5 year articles in a Chartered Accountancy firm at the end of 1969 at £4 a month. One of the lads in the office started four years earlier at £1 a month.
I qualified in 1974 and my first salary was £3,000 a year, and that was more than my father earned as a primary school principal.
In 1977 I was on £4,900 a year.
There was a bit of inflation from 1974 to 1977 but not 800%.
Everyone should be delighted with salaries and prices now.

Billy86

Deleted User wrote: »

Gen X were not buying houses in 1980. Many of them bought in the early to mid 00s.

Gen X were not warning wages in 1977. And they were not 2 grand a month then either...

Plenty of Gen Xers were buying in the 1990s I would reckon, with the older ones hitting their 30s as early as 1993.

Billy86

Billy86 wrote: »

Plenty of Gen Xers were buying in the 1990s I would reckon, with the older ones hitting their 30s as early as 1993.

Oh true. Was responding to the point about house prices in 1980 and wages in 77 by saying the certainly were not Gen Xers.

Press_Start

diomed wrote: »

Generation W here.
I started my 5 year articles in a Chartered Accountancy firm at the end of 1969 at £4 a month. One of the lads in the office started four years earlier at £1 a month.
I qualified in 1974 and my first salary was £3,000 a year, and that was more than my father earned as a primary school principal.
In 1977 I was on £4,900 a year.
There was a bit of inflation from 1974 to 1977 but not 800%.
Everyone should be delighted with salaries and prices now.

In terms of living expenses, I'm delighted with what I'm earning, my rent is a little expensive, but I can afford to eat, and live well, but I'm shagged on other scenarios.
In 1977 if you were on 4,900 a year thats still 400 odd a month. Adjusted for inflation, £400 in 1977 was worth about €2633.76 in 2016. I should ave clarified that the 2k a month average was adjusted for inflation rather than a straight increase to a flat 2k.

topper75

topper75 wrote: »

Baby boomers? That is the baby boom in the USA during and post war.

Nothing to do with Irish generations. We had mass emigration in the 50s - total contrast.

Our boom was 70s and 80s kids. There is prob a new one right now.

You will not make sense of Irish demographics with US bracketing, or euro trends for that matter. They are utterly invalid here.

I'd leave that stuff to MTV marketing types and start again with Irish stuff.

Ach, boom is only shorthand. It doesn't mean that every child born in post war Ireland was affluent, but it's fair to say they had a different experience to those born during, say the economic war and WWII, more optimism, more household products etc.

Those born in the 20s were the GI or Lost Generation even though GI is a phrase used only in America and only the countries involved in the WWII suffered huge loss in numbers.

Press_Start

Also the terms are used exclusively here to use age brackets. The terms are univeral, our generation were usually called "Tiger Cubs" by the experts but they still use the US terms as it fits with what people know.

Gen V = Silent Generation
Gen W = Baby Boomers
Gen X = late 60-80s
Gen Y Late 80's to 90's
Gen Z = people under 18 now

paulbok

Spider Web wrote: »

Really? What's it like?

Meh!

Tigger

Press_Start wrote: »

The use of 1977 was just to show how cheap houses were. That was the middle of Baby Boomer territory and most Xers were buying houses in the 90s and later. As I've shown on the adjusted for inflation graph, housing prices have increased by 15 times, but the average wage has not. Adjusted for inflation that value you gave is around 400 quid. which means that the increas has been around 50% up to 683 odd quid.
The average house price in 77 has increased by 15 times adjusting for inflation as per my graph previously.

Press_Start wrote: »

The graph and source form the previous page. It shows that the price of a 100k house in 77 is now worth around 450, adjusted for inflation, depending a little less than the 15x non adjusted price but still a lot more.
In terms of pricing, a 50% increase in wage for inflation and a 300% increase in housing is hardly compatable, or fair to analyse. Going to the bank for a loan of 350k for what the bank will likely see as a negative equity mortgage in a few years is a harsh prospect for todays people in the modern price decline, where we're experiencing a slight bubble pop after an initial surge.

In the first instance you say that the adjusted for inflation figures are 15?times higher
I n the second you say that the adjusted for inflation figures are 4.5 times higher

These are contradictory also what figure are you using for inflation

myshirt

diomed wrote: »

Generation W here.
I started my 5 year articles in a Chartered Accountancy firm at the end of 1969 at £4 a month. One of the lads in the office started four years earlier at £1 a month.
I qualified in 1974 and my first salary was £3,000 a year, and that was more than my father earned as a primary school principal.
In 1977 I was on £4,900 a year.
There was a bit of inflation from 1974 to 1977 but not 800%.
Everyone should be delighted with salaries and prices now.

Wow. You are old enough to remember when the pass rates of the exams made the floor of the Dail as an issue. There was talk of the Institute being nationalised!

Your friend who started at 1 pound was lucky. If he had started a few years earlier he'd be paying the principal to train him!

Pay rates for Chartered Accountants training is still appalling and we have a massive issue with socioeconomic diversity in the profession that you don't see in ACCA or CPA. ACCA and CPA not the same quality of qualification, yes, but nevertheless not right that we have that issue.

Press_Start

Tigger wrote: »

In the first instance you say that the adjusted for inflation figures are 15?times higher
I n the second you say that the adjusted for inflation figures are 4.5 times higher

These are contradictory also what figure are you using for inflation

Apologies the previous graph with the really high prices are current prices, adjusting for inflation would make them lower. That was my mistake.

Tigger

Press_Start wrote: »

Apologies the previous graph with the really high prices are current prices, adjusting for inflation would make them lower. That was my mistake.

what is the inflation from 1977-2017

Spider Web

FixdePitchmark wrote: »

Y are getting it right, when X care about them

They don't care about X at all - they are removing themselves from the constructs of Irish society - church , obsession with owning property, sexual restriction and enjoying a whole new form of Irish politics. They can meet people online now and talk to anyone at any moment.

They can jump on a plane to a friend or family member in any continent - by desire and not need.

The above could apply to much of generation X too. Actually the part about the plane could apply to the generation before X.

This generation coming up are a generation ahead of me - but you know what, they are amazing , flexible , can do anything

Weird pedestal placing you're doing there - "amazing"? "can do anything"? They're just people! I think they come in for some unfair flack but they're not amazing or capable of doing anything (and I can't see how they'd be any more flexible than previous generations - one could argue older generations had it tougher so were the ones who were more flexible and adaptable because they had to be). The stuff about people being amazing and can do anything is one of the problems today due to the unrealistic expectations it has caused (for generation X and Y).

and will have to clean up the total **** hole- generation X created.

Press_Start wrote: »

the almost immovable and insurmountable ****heap that was left by X.

Yeah, what are ye talking about and could ye specify which part of generation x? That's the problem with this generation defining - I get it to a point but I don't think it spans e.g. mid 60s to mid 80s. Those are two completely different generations.