Generation Broke: Life in a debt culture

My name is Joe Carey, and I am a member of perhaps the most self-absorbed and technologically obsessed generation this country has ever seen.

We walk through the streets with our noses inches away from our iPhones, texting a friend for the 30th time that hour or updating Twitter to complain about not getting a seat on a 15-minute train ride. We half-listen our way through whole conversations while scrolling through pictures on Facebook of a person we’ve never even met.

READ: How can I get my debt under control?

And, even worse than all that, we incessantly complain about all of it. Every nominally inconvenient technological occurrence is treated as a personal vendetta against whatever four Internet-connected devices are at our disposal.

Which is why it’s so shocking to me that such a narcissistic generation is not more concerned about its collective future.

Some quick facts:
• The United States federal government currently owes $16 trillion to its creditors, and will likely add trillions more in the coming years.
• There is now more student debt than credit card debt in the U.S.
• The entitlement programs our parents and grandparents are going to enjoy in full are not going to be available to us in their current form. In other words, more money out of our pockets.

For the reasons listed above, as well as increased overseas competition, my generation may be the first in history to be worse off than our parents.

That debt isn’t going away on its own, sports fans. Someone’s taxes are going to have to pay for it, and I will bet all the money The Who ever made that it will be m-m-m-m-m-my g-g-g-g-generation’s.

READ: 3 smart ways to pay back student loans

What’s more, many college degrees aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on in this 21st century world. Education costs have soared to Cheech and Chong heights, yet a BA isn’t a guarantee of a high-paying job.

We’re going to have to save more than our parents because of the lack of government subsidies that will be available to us.

The worst part about all of this is young voters are leaving it up to mom and dad and grandpa and grandma to decide how to handle the mess those generations created in the first place.

All is not right in Whoville.

READ: 10 creative strategies to curb credit card spending 

That is why this blog will focus on the debt culture that has engulfed this country. Whether it be athletes or governments, corporations or students, everyone seems to owe something to somebody else. I’m hoping to figure out how this will affect us youngins in the future and whether debt is something the youth will just have to learn to live with.

As I’m a first-year law student, I hope my readers don’t take my ramblings as some expert analysis on the economy. Trust me, I spend enough time meandering my way through common law that I don’t think I’ll even have the wherewithal to do so with “quantitative easing.”

Now, if you will excuse me, my phone is ruining my life for the FIFTH time today and I haven’t tweeted in two hours. My followers will worry.