November 6, 2003
BUY THE YOUNG:
Realignments (Jack Kelly, Nov. 6, 2003, Jewish World Review)
Typically, realignments occur less because voters change their allegiance than because new voters vote differently than their parents did. Recent polls indicate younger voters are more likely to support President Bush than older voters are.A poll taken by Harvard University's Institute of Politics Oct. 3-12 found that 61 percent of college students approve of the job President Bush is doing, about 10 points higher than the president's approval rating in the general population.
A Gallup poll taken Oct. 24-27 found that 62 percent of Americans aged 18-29 approve of the President, compared to 53 percent of Americans 30 or older. An ABC News poll found that a third of adults under 30 are Republicans, up from about a quarter two decades ago. Democratic identifiers among young people have fallen to a quarter from a third in the same time period, ABC News found. [...]
According to the ABC News survey, about 40 percent of Americans consider themselves to be moderates. A third are conservatives, only a fifth are liberals. The ranks of the South Park Republicans, the Coleman Republicans, and the Sept. 11 Republicans are likely to swell as the Democratic party lurches ever farther left.
There are kids today--under 30--who already have so much money in their 401k's that their attitudes toward government, business, and economics has to be impacted. Posted by Orrin Judd at November 6, 2003 10:07 AM
And the job picture's looking up for them, too.
Posted by: Sandy P. at November 6, 2003 11:12 AMGiven this demographic news, will some privatization of social security come sooner, or later?
Posted by: Kevin Whited at November 6, 2003 11:13 AMThat really is an amazing thing on the face of it.
Defy your parents! Thumb your noses at your elders! Vote Republican!
(Though the Conservatives in Alberta did begin to call themselves "Progressive Conservatives" by the end of the 60s, I believe....)
But, er, what will become of those of us brought up on "never trust anyone under 30"?
They're young. Attitude adjustment hour will come when the nominal value of their 401-ks drops by 2 or 3 X their annual earned income in a period of 6 to 8 weeks.
As it will from time to time.
Nobody, but nobody is gloating to me about how great their 401-ks are doing. They're moaning about how far down they are compared to the mythical peaks they enjoyed 4 or 5 years ago.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at November 6, 2003 12:14 PMI think social issues are at work here. We have a generation that personally has felt the effects of divorce, single parents, abortion, etc. If it was just their pocketbooks, then we'd be seeing a huge increase in independents (i.e. libertarians).
I've wondered this conservative turn in the young is a response to the realization that your mother could've disposed of you at a whim. And for a lot of them, their fathers did by divorcing the mother.
Posted by: Buttercup at November 6, 2003 12:37 PMYes, all of the above, but I prefer to believe that like the youth of the 60's and 70's, today's youth is aligning itself with what they see as idealistic, optimistic, and less prone to staus quo politics and political correctness. Given this, why are any of you mystified that they are abandoning the party of Bill Clinton, Terry McAulliffe, John Street, Marion Barry, Pat Leahy, Barbara Boxer, Ted Kennedy, Gary Condit...
Posted by: MG at November 6, 2003 1:10 PMHarry -- I, too, wish that I was really worth what I was theoretically worth three years ago. (My wife told me to sell. I will never have "hand" again.)
Nonetheless, during the 90s runup, it was an oft-repeated truism that the hoi polloi with their 401k's would panic at the first correction, sell off everything and bring Fidelity, et al., into a illiquid crash. Never happened. For all the complaining (which is usually at least half bragging), people do understand a lot about how the market works.
Posted by: David Cohen at November 6, 2003 2:18 PMDavid:
Did any significant number of people stop contributing to their 401k over the past three years--it seems unlikely.
Posted by: oj at November 6, 2003 3:25 PMOJ - Not that I know of.
Posted by: David Cohen at November 6, 2003 9:19 PMOmigod no!!!! Better yet --- Of the people I work with, many of them started maxing out on their 401K contributions early this year. People who pay attention know that the very best time to start dumping money into the market is when its low and is starting to go up.
Posted by: ray at November 6, 2003 9:25 PMPoint taken, David.
Ray, when you discover how to tell when the market is going up for sure, let me know, will ya?
Posted by: Harry Eagar at November 9, 2003 1:37 AMHarry:
It always goes up, you just have to be a conservative and plan on staying in for thirty years.
Posted by: oj at November 9, 2003 7:02 AMActually, since WW II, there's been a thirty year period where, after adjusting for inflation, the overall market finished no higher than it began.
Of course, there were some individual stocks that shot the moon, during the same period.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at November 10, 2003 10:53 AM