The age of struggle

Following is a letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal in response to the column referenced.

I am convinced more than ever that our biggest problem is that we have raised a generation that thinks everyone should get a trophy. A generation that takes no responsibility, and delights in blaming others and whining about every challenge in life. 

I can’t wait until they are adults. Oh wait, many are “adults.” They attend Sander’s rallies. 

Is the period since 2008 the worst this Country has seen? Are students today more worried about grades than in the past (or are they less prepared for college and life)?  Was a job after college ever guaranteed? The fact these people are students puts them ahead of millions of other young Americans, some of whom found military service a necessary part of their future. What did you expect the students to report as being difficult to handle, their next frat party? What college student hasn’t stressed over money? 

There are bigger issues here; the changing world, the global economy, the new nature of work in America, the realigning of the American standard of living in relation to the rest of the world. Socialism ain’t going to fix all that. 

Peggy Noo­nan is spot on when she de­scribes the finan­cial anx­i­ety of mil­lenni­als that leads them to support the so­cial­ist pres­iden­tial candidate Bernie Sanders (“Socialism Gets a Sec­ond Life,” De­c­la­rations, Jan. 30). Ku­dos to Sen. Sanders for speaking to an is­sue that affects the stu­dents I see every day in my office, as a psychiatrist at a col­lege coun­seling cen­ter.

Many stu­dents strug­gle to meet their tu­ition and hous­ing ex­penses. Since the Great Recession, parents are less able to of­fer fi­nan­cial assistance. I have seen stu­dents go without food to pay for books; our col­lege now has a pantry where students in need can obtain food free of charge.

Stu­dents are bur­dened by fears: Will I be able to do well enough in school to keep my finan­cial aid and scholar­ship? Will I be able to earn enough in the fu­ture to pay off my loans. Fin­nan­cial con­cerns rate second only to aca­d­emics as a ma­jor stressor for col­lege students, with 33.5% of stu­dents re­porting fi­nances be­ing traumatic or very dif­fi­cult to han­dle, ac­cord­ing to results from the 2015 Amer­ican Col­lege Health As­so­cia­tion sur­vey.

Fi­nan­cial health is in­timately tied to men­tal health, and the next president—Repub­li­can or Demo­c­rat—should make promot­ing fi­nan­cial health for mil­len­ni­als a pri­or­ity. Mar­cia Mor­ris, M.D.

Noonan says in part:

If you are 20 or 30 you prob­a­bly see cap­i­tal­ism in terms of two dra­matic themes. The first was the crash of ’08, in which heed­less, ir­re­spon­si­ble oper­a­tors in busi­ness and government kited the system and scrammed. The sec­ond is in­come in­equality. Why are some peo­ple richer than the rich­est kings and so many poor as serfs? Is that what capitalism gives you? Then maybe we should re­think this!

And Mr. Sanders makes it sound so easy. We’re rich, he says; we can do this with a few taxes. It is soft Marx­ism. And it’s not so­cial­ism now, it’s “demo­cra­tic so­cial­ism” like they  have in Eu­rope. You’ve been to Eu­rope. Aside from its refugee crisis and some EU problems, it’s a great place—a big wel­fare state that’s wealthy! The French take three-hour lunches.