# Boomers are gonna start dropping like flies **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 20, 2009, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boomers-are-gonna-start-dropping-like-flies/486670 "2009-02-20T03:42:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2009, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boomers-are-gonna-start-dropping-like-flies/486670/21 "2009-02-20T18:13:36Z")
> [@Eva\_Luna](#): > > Well, for every one of you, I bet there’s one like my late grandfather . . . I bet it’s more like for every 20 or 30 of him there’s 1 like your gramps. The Dr.'s office/hospital is like a second home to all the senior citizens I know. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2009, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boomers-are-gonna-start-dropping-like-flies/486670/22 "2009-02-20T18:25:30Z")
> [@JohnT](#): > > You know, I’ve never really seen a fly drop. Anybody see a fly just drop, mid-flight or something? Yes, I have actually. At least I think I have. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2009, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boomers-are-gonna-start-dropping-like-flies/486670/23 "2009-02-20T18:27:09Z")
> [@Brown\_Eyed\_Girl](#): > > And then we solve the foot shortage crisis. There’s a foot shortage? Was it caused by shoe store X-ray machines? ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2009, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boomers-are-gonna-start-dropping-like-flies/486670/24 "2009-02-20T18:34:16Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > Then we will have piles of money left over. The hell you will! We’re taking that money with us! Why should we leave any for you ungrateful punks? And get off my lawn! ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2009, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boomers-are-gonna-start-dropping-like-flies/486670/25 "2009-02-20T18:35:28Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > The hell you will! We’re taking that money with us! Why should we leave any for you ungrateful punks? Spoken like a true boomer, contempt for your parents and contempt for your children. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2009, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boomers-are-gonna-start-dropping-like-flies/486670/26 "2009-02-20T18:36:31Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > The baby boom is temporary. They will die off. The noise about the economic pressure from the boomers getting into Social Security is a short term problem. If we adjust our economic system to take care of that problem, in a few years it nwill slowly die off. Then we will have piles of money left over. So what’re you thinking? 30.06 with a scope? It’d probably be easier if we took out other people’s parents though. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2009, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boomers-are-gonna-start-dropping-like-flies/486670/27 "2009-02-20T18:37:09Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > I certainly dont want to get treated for hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars if I am reasonably terminal … and I NEVER want to be like Terry Schiavo, being kept alive as a head of cabbage. > > If I am 65 and my liver goes out, save the transplant for someone who has a good 30 years ahead of them, not me [unless it is one of those type where you get a little part of someones liver instead of the whole thing and it grows in place. Then maybe several of us could benefiit] Can we have your liver then. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2009, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boomers-are-gonna-start-dropping-like-flies/486670/28 "2009-02-20T18:38:30Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > Too late, kid. I’m 63 and already collecting early Social Security. Twenty more months, and I’ll be on Medicare . . . and getting expensive knee replacements and a few other things I can’t afford now. And I have no intention of dying any time soon. I sincerely hope the boomers use it all up, so you’ll be left flat on your lazy, entitled gen-x ass. I hope it runs out when you are not vital enough to engage your lawyers, but vital enough to understand what’s going on. 😉 Then they can stop garnishing our lazy ass wages. ;p But, if you want I have no problem shelling out for your trip to Nova Scotia to find your brand new ice floe. Smoking Pot, taking acid and flipping off the man may have been so much cooler and original when you did it, but we’re holding in our rebellion until we get older, Eugenics will be so much more fun and original when we do it. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![An\_Arky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/87869e/32.png) [@An\_Arky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Arky)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2009, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boomers-are-gonna-start-dropping-like-flies/486670/29 "2009-02-20T18:38:53Z")
I don’t care when they die so much as when they retire. I keep waiting for this massive wave of boomer retirements to occur so I can advance without really trying 😃 . Now that they’ve lost their retirement funds, they have to keep working. Sucks to be them, for sure, but sucks to be right behind them, too. I’ve dropped a fly in midair by popping a towel. I didn’t actually hit the fly, but I think that the percussive effect of the pop stunned him. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2009, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boomers-are-gonna-start-dropping-like-flies/486670/30 "2009-02-20T18:41:07Z")
> [@Anne\_Neville](#): > > There’s a foot shortage? Was it caused by shoe store X-ray machines? Nah, the foots got cut off 'cause of the diabetes. As an incidental note, I can see the aging population being a spur for automated cars, because as the baby boomers age, they will naturally resist giving up driving even as they increasingly suck at it. Soon enough, it’ll be cripplingly expensive for a 75 year-old to get car insurance because so many of his cohort are mistaking the gas and brake pedals and plowing through crowded food courts. The only way they’ll be able to keep driving is by consenting to increasing computer control of their vehicles and that tech will eventually become standard. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2009, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boomers-are-gonna-start-dropping-like-flies/486670/31 "2009-02-20T18:44:43Z")
The retirement age should be raised to like 68 or something. **Bryan Ekers** Boomer entitled laziness has driven so much technological innovation, I think you’ve got a wonderful point! ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2009, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boomers-are-gonna-start-dropping-like-flies/486670/32 "2009-02-20T19:03:07Z")
> [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > But realistically, how much money should the government spend on the terminally ill who have already lived their lives? My wife has an incurable auto-immune disease, which has resulted in full disability (SSDI), .With care, she can expect to live for anther 15-20 years. Her care costs in the neighborhood of $50-60k per year, which will increase as her disease progresses. This is currently paid by private insurance (COBRA), but when that runs out later this year, she will be eligible for Medicare. Befare you start cutting off people like her, you should remember that us old farts still vote, and we do so in greater percentages than young people. If the system must choose between cutting benefits or raising payroll taxes, guess what we will vote for? ---
**Author:** ![MLS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MLS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MLS)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2009, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boomers-are-gonna-start-dropping-like-flies/486670/33 "2009-02-20T19:03:59Z")
From one of the very first baby-boomers: There are more of us than of you. Or any other group. We made our parents build us schools. We are used to getting our way, and we vote. We ain’t going away soon, or quietly. Get used to it. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2009, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boomers-are-gonna-start-dropping-like-flies/486670/34 "2009-02-20T19:08:27Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > Befare you start cutting off people like her, you should remember that us old farts still vote, and we do so in greater percentages than young people. If the system must choose between cutting benefits or raising payroll taxes, guess what we will vote for? If it comes to that, young people will just design butterfly ballots that lead old people to vote YES for the Program to Recycle the Bodily Chemicals of the Elderly, even though they meant to vote YES for the Early Bird Dinner Mandate. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2009, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boomers-are-gonna-start-dropping-like-flies/486670/35 "2009-02-20T19:18:03Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > My wife has an incurable auto-immune disease, which has resulted in full disability (SSDI), .With care, she can expect to live for anther 15-20 years. Her care costs in the neighborhood of $50-60k per year, which will increase as her disease progresses. This is currently paid by private insurance (COBRA), but when that runs out later this year, she will be eligible for Medicare. > > Befare you start cutting off people like her, you should remember that us old farts still vote, and we do so in greater percentages than young people. If the system must choose between cutting benefits or raising payroll taxes, guess what we will vote for? Yeah, unfortunately that’s an inversion of how civilization is supposed to work. The old are supposed to bequeath wealth to the young, not the other way around. But of course Baby Boomers aren’t called the “Me” generation for nothing. Who cares if there’s enough for hte kids and grandkids right? As long as there’s enough for ME!!! ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2009, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boomers-are-gonna-start-dropping-like-flies/486670/36 "2009-02-20T20:15:15Z")
[_The Onion_, as usual, has something apt to say:](http://www.theonion.com/content/node/29261) > [@](#): > > “Our nation must steel itself for one vast, final orgy of Boomer self-obsession as we are hit with a bewildering onslaught of magazine pictorials, hardcover coffee-table books and multi-part, Motown-soundtracked television specials looking back on the glory days of the 1960s,” Clausewitz said. “But once this great, final spasm of nostalgia passes, the ravages of age will take its toll on boomer self-indulgence, and the curtain will at long last fall on what is regarded by many as the most odious generation America has ever produced.” ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2009, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boomers-are-gonna-start-dropping-like-flies/486670/37 "2009-02-20T20:37:13Z")
Why is there still such a focus on how self-centered the boomers are? Is there any reason to believe that successive generations are _less_ self-centered? It seems quite the opposite to me. ---
**Author:** ![Cilantro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/43a26b/32.png) [@Cilantro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cilantro)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2009, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boomers-are-gonna-start-dropping-like-flies/486670/38 "2009-02-20T20:41:49Z")
> [@MLS](#): > > From one of the very first baby-boomers: > > There are more of us than of you. Or any other group. We made our parents build us schools. We are used to getting our way, and we vote. We ain’t going away soon, or quietly. Get used to it. That sense of power they have, will eventually be their downfall because there are more of them than us. Fewer of us to take care of them, so already they are having to wait longer to get medical care and its costing them more as demand quickly rises above the supply. Sure, its going to get shouldered onto people such as myself in the form of higher taxes, but how far can they really go with such taxes before its going to do nothing but harm our already struggling economy? This economy throws a new variable into the mix and its not going to get any better. They may see that their sense of entitlement and selfishness becoming their own worse enemy. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2009, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boomers-are-gonna-start-dropping-like-flies/486670/39 "2009-02-20T20:44:27Z")
> [@Cisco](#): > > Why is there still such a focus on how self-centered the boomers are? Is there any reason to believe that successive generations are _less_ self-centered? It seems quite the opposite to me. Yeah, but since the numbers are smaller, there’s less of an impact. The Boomers are sufficiently numerous that their self-centering (even if individually slightly less than members of subsequent generations) is enough to create a black hole of Ego massive enough to disrupt the surrounding space-time. ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2009, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boomers-are-gonna-start-dropping-like-flies/486670/40 "2009-02-20T20:54:42Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > My wife has an incurable auto-immune disease, which has resulted in full disability (SSDI), .With care, she can expect to live for anther 15-20 years. Her care costs in the neighborhood of $50-60k per year, which will increase as her disease progresses. This is currently paid by private insurance (COBRA), but when that runs out later this year, she will be eligible for Medicare. Well, I was specifically talking about those who are both elderly and terminally ill, not merely disabled. Obviously “terminal” would not refer to a woman with a life expectancy of 15 to 20 years. I’m talking specifically about people who will not live more than a short time no matter how much medical care they’re given. Trust me, FI, I certainly would not want to see your wife’s health care taken away. > [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > Befare you start cutting off people like her, you should remember that us old farts still vote, and we do so in greater percentages than young people. If the system must choose between cutting benefits or raising payroll taxes, guess what we will vote for? Have you noticed that persons of the Hispanic persuasion seem to be growing in numbers lately? How do you think they’re going to feel about paying high taxes to support a bunch of elderly gringos to whom they are not related? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boomers-are-gonna-start-dropping-like-flies/486670.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/boomers-are-gonna-start-dropping-like-flies/486670.md?page=3)