Wednesday, July 23, 2008

On the edge

I got a note in my inbox yesterday about an interesting new report - "Young People: Living on the Financial Edge," from Qvisory and Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research.

We all know the economy's in the tank right now, but hardly anyone ever talks about how this has an impact on young adults.

It makes sense, though, that a bad economy is especially rough on 18 to 35 year olds. We're on our own, not making much money, probably (definitely) in debt, and going through all those milestones in life - kids, car, moving, marriage, house, etc. - that take a toll.

I think most pundits and politicos think of the "youth vote" as a bunch of freewheeling college kids living off their parents' largess and bothered by problems no bigger than their next exam (or beer).

This report is a good reminder that the youth vote is so much more than that - we're college students, yes (many of whom are working their butts off, by the way), but we're also young moms and dads, blue-collar workers, recent graduates, recent immigrants, and multi-job workers. We're rural, urban, and suburban. We're single, married, and divorced. We've got kids, we've got mortages, we've got debt, and we've got responsibilities.

What are '08 candidates going to do about our economic troubles if they're elected? To make sure that today's young adults have the same - or better - opportunities that our parents and grandparents had?

I'd like to know what you want them to do. On the presidential level, both campaigns (McCain here, Obama here) have a set of priority issues laid on out their websites - what do you think? Do agree with these ideas? What would you like to see the candidates talking about?

Leave your thoughts in the comments.

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2 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

First of all, I'm very surprised there isn't more of a response on these blogs, they all pose great points, and the opinions of the youth need to be heard.

Although I need to study up on most issues i can say that Obama's hope for the future will play a huge part in his campaign. Comparing the two is absurd i know, but Ronald Reagan based his campaign on hope towards the end of the Cold War, and it brought a thankfully anticlimactic end to a shaky era in World History.
On the other hand, i think McCain has some great viewpoints on things. He has typically been fairly moderate in his past campaigns and i hope the far-right conservatives don't pressure him to change. I just hope people can get past his image as "just another old white guy." Comparisons to Bush are fair, but i believe his logical outlook on most issues such as the economy sets him apart from other "old white guys"

well, there's my way-over-idealised view on things :')

bobby

4:11 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I got to play Assassin's Creed which kind of disappointed me. There is some great work in there, great work. The art is fantastic...the levels in that game are huge. The free running things works really well and feels wow power leveling great to control, though after awhile the joy and awe kind of wares off. I hated the story...the whole setting kind of frustrated me. I was so completely looking forward to playing as an assassin during the Crusades. When I first heard the wow powerleveling concept for the game and awe the screenshots I was pretty jazzed. That excitement was quickly smothered when I found out I was a descendant of Altair and I was in a simulation. Great...a game within a game. That really kind of spoiled the whole thing for me. I played about halfway through the game before I completely stopped. I think the wow gold sequel that is inevitably going to get made will be pretty good...though I think they have kind f locked themselves into the whole genetic memory story thread. There is some really great stuff in that game, but the story, and combat really kind of killed it for me. The combat is still not that great of an improvement over the POP stuff. It is decent, but it feels like it could be so much better if they would just give the power leveling player more control over the character.

1:35 AM  

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