Pogo’s “We have met the enemy and he is us.” has never seemed to ring quite so true.
What are your reactions to this Atlantic article?
I will first say I glanced over the article as I don’t have time to seriously digest it right now, however in my personal observations I feel that folks a bit older then me (I am 46) have an advantage of wealth in their older age that I will not see.
I base that belief on what I have witnessed and will not provide a cite because I am not prepared to support the belief with facts at this time.
I don’t blame greed or other nefarious intentions, I do support the idea that there is a large chunk of older folks who are retiring on the backs of a dwindling younger generation, and they have the audacity to live longer and utilize better, more expensive medical care. It’s just the way it is - the way the population numbers are playing out.
I think you could show that people with reasonable insight have been red-flagging this problem since at least the '60s and we (as a nation) have failed ourselves. I look at european austerity crisis and see them as real possibilities if we don’t ‘do something’ if we could ever decide what ‘something’ is.
Finally I hold little hope that anyone, government or otherwise, will be there for me when I grow old, and that I better make plans to go it alone, and consider that in a worst case scenario somebody (government or whoever) may try to strip me of my hard earned savings before it is done.
A casual study of history shows mankind is perfectly capable of doing this to itself whenever the conditions are ripe, so I mark it as a possibility.
Now, mix into this depressing viewpoint my incurable optimism and it’s a wonder I’m not an alcoholic. Once again I stress all of the above are my personal observations, I am not prepared to back them up with cites, and I usually avoid all conversations of politics, religion and football like the plague.
But I do agree with the op.
I don’t see the boomers as doing anything different than the previous or subsequent generations would do in the same situation.
It’s a mixed bag. Much of the problem was created by our parents, who were dealing with the problems caused by their parents. OTOH, boomers haven’t been the greediest generation, but they may be the dumbest. We’ve been trying to reach the economic level of our parents after they’ve already fished out the pond. I’ll point out that our kids are contributing because they have some sense of economic entitlement that isn’t based on reality. But in the end, each generation should hold some responsibility for it’s children.
It’s all Ronald Reagan’s fault. He sold my boomer brothers a big barrel of shit.
Agreement with Red Wiggler: Reagan’s predation on the middle class led to the current deficit nightmare, and his followers’ dogmatic rejection of government regulation led to the current economic mess.
George Bush the elder and Bill Clinton did a lot to fix the problems Reagan caused, but GWB came along and renewed all the harm, four-fold.
I’m not a Boomer (missed it by that much - born in 1966), but I’ll give you my feedback anyway. That’s an interesting article. I think the bottom line for all the problems is simply human nature - people do greedy, self-interested things because they’re just people. Boomers vote for other Boomers, then the politician Boomers vote in policies that benefit the politicians and other Boomers.
I am not a Boomer myself but I was exposed to the thought process as it wound its way through the early 70’s and 80’s up until today through my parents. The article makes some good great points. I am not a fan of Boomers collectively for the same reasons that the author illustrated. I even started a Pit thread on the same topic a couple of years ago that wasn’t nearly as well written but it did get some good replies.
Boomers were a generation of great promise yet managed to blow it and stick their children and grandchildren as well as the country as a whole with a massive debt legacy built on a near schizophrenic set of priorities that changed completely and almost randomly over time.
I don’t hate Boomers as individuals but I do believe they are a huge failure as a generation and will continue to burden the country disproportionately over the next couple of decades. The best thing the younger generations can do is use them as a lesson learned on what not to do.
I think we are already starting to see that change in the younger generations with better focus on long-term fiscal responsibility and stable social goals. Unfortunately, it is going to take a very long time to undo the damage that Boomers have done as a generation.
Are you really seeing this in young adults? I don’t hang around with them much, so I’m not a great judge, but it doesn’t seem like I’m seeing that much. It seems more like young adults are engaging in a lot of denial - simply refusing to move out and take charge of their own lives. (Not snarky - seriously asking.)
The article’s premise is faulty; there is no “sacred bargain that every American generation will pass a better country on to its children than the one it inherited.” Before the Enlightenment, progress was barely even an idea, and even then it included the concept of endless striving. The notion of the “bargain” is a child of the 1950s, an unnatural decade in which America, buoyed on a rising tide of foreign trade, ate their cake and kept another on the shelf for tomorrow. We kept it up through the '70s, while the rest of the world found its feet and quit sending us cake. The '80s and '90s, a time of increasing competition when we should have been building our reserves and developing responsible habits, we cut taxes, increased spending, and generally behaved like young Hiltons. And we expected to pass on greater wealth and opportunity to our children?
It’s impossible. It has always been impossible. Resources are limited, competition was inevitable, and we have only seen the beginning. Life is hard, and will get harder. Retiring young to ease and leisure will become as impossible for the middle class as it always has been for the poor.
The fault of the Boomers lies not in consuming the largesse of the post-WWII imbalance in the world economy – that was never going to do more than put off the future a little while – but in raising the expectations of their children. To borrow the simile in the article, that huge king salmon was never more than one damn fish. We should have seen that the fishery was limited; having seen it now, we should get used to being hungry.
It’s stupid to whine at the Boomers for eating our breakfast; we do need to stop them from having our lunch for dinner.
Figures don’t lie, but liars do figure.
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The testimony given is one of correlation, not causation.
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The boomers were alive during a unique period in this country’s economy, namely the post WWII era when the world was in rubble and the USA had the only large manufacturing base for years. This created a large economic boom, especially for semi-skilled labor.
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If all of the GEN X,Y and Z’ers don’t like the current make up of the politicians in charge why don’t more of them vote? IE, ages 45 to 64 in 2010, of whom slightly more than half voted. They made up about 43 percent of the electorate–almost as much as those 25 to 44 and those 65 and older combined. So you are saying the because 50% of 20% of the population that is being vilified votes, it is all the boomers fault that this 10% of the population makes up 43% of the electorate. Don’t like it? Fine, get educated on the issues and vote. Oh, sorry if that takes time away from Facebook, Twitter and Angry Birds.
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The doom and gloom in this article is laughable. Want a job? Work hard in school and get an engineering degree, and make some real money. Want to study Theory of Mixed-Race Women’s Underwater Basketweaving in 18th Century England and complain that there are so few opportunities in you field? Ok, fine. Go away and find the tome that says you are OWED anything. You are not. Don’t know where you got that or who told it to you, but they are wrong.
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The carefully selected facts and figures do not show the entire story. Eg, debt as a % of GDP is actually down, not up. Go look it up yourself. SS contributions of the Boomers actually are more than they will ever receive in payments, by about 15%.
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College Tuition is expensive–but it is a pure case of supply and demand. Stop the demand for crappy (but cheap to supply) degrees and tuition will fall. Don’t think so, fine–I am cancelling all student loans for all Letters and Arts degrees, effective immediately. Ditto, Law School and MBA programs, we have enough of these for awhile. Theoretical and applied math and sciences only for the ten years. Don’t like it? Too bad. Learn a trade that someone will pay you to do. It is up to you to figure that out.
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My parents felt the same way that this article preaches about housing. Their parents paid off their house in their 30’s; my parents in their 40’s, it took me to my 50’s. Want to live on Park Ave. or in Malibu? Yup, too bad about that. Move to the fly over states and it is still not a problem. Really, it is not.
In other words, the math is wrong, the scientific process is wrong (inductive reasoning rather than deductive logic) and the sense of entitlement (WAH WAH WAH, I want MINE and I want it NOW and I don’t want to WORK for it) is typical of this type of article.
Because it has to be someone else’s fault, right?
I mean, even single person that is not a boomer voted in all of the most recent elections, right?
Number 3, should be 20% of the population, not 10%
What is a young adult for your purposes? I’m in my early 30’s and I moved out of my folks’ place at 18, finished college with loans that I am repaying on time, and have been employed since shortly after college. I even have investment property. Not all of us boomerang.
Although I still resent boomers. 
As a Baby Boomer, I have seen arguments that the BB’s are to blame trotted out so often.
I have even seen a pretty compelling argument (which I have never found again) that it was the parents of the BB’s that were the issue.
Whatever: it is something a hack journalist will buff up when things are quiet.
nvm
I read an article a bit ago that discussed the spending habits of young adults vs. baby boomers. In short, it argued that many of the things baby boomers care about, Millennials do not - owning a car, owning a home, keeping up with the Jones’, etc. Why own a horribly depreciating asset like a car when you can be a ZipCarmember for a tiny fraction of the price? Though I don’t think it’s the article I read before, this Bloomberg piece is informative. There exists a valid question as to whether this is due to economic and/or financial conditions or simply different values. There’s probably an interaction between the two.
Though it might hurt GM’s stock price (and the baby boomers’ 401ks :p), I would argue that a generation that rents, shares, and reuses, rather than consumes at the past generation’s rate, is a good thing.
I stopped reading when I got to the part about how much gas the boomers burned and the harm to the environment.
Please.
The car predates the boomers and the boomers invented the enviromental movement. Because of that movement and the regulations that came about starting in 1968 cars now are better than ever. Better fuel mileage, more power, longer lasting, more features.
When someone tells me they don’t build them like they used to my reply is yup and that is a good thing.
Our parents, the so called “greatest generation”, started us down the path of entitlement that is cause a lot of our problems today. My parents thought nothing of stopping work at 60 and never, ever lifting a hand to earn money again while demanding all the entitlements they earned back when they were saving the world, paying their dues, etc. A retirement filled with world travel and lazy golf outings and the best possible medical care, all paid for by the younger generation. Us Boomers took their word that would be there for us too, since we’ve paid for our parents to enjoy that life, and we are all expecting it now. Many of us boomers might have that but our children won’t.
The real damage began in the 1980s. Big tax cuts for the rich, serious deficits, huge spending, reversing energy conservation policies and the robbing of the SS trust fund. All the people in charge were pre-baby boomers. In fact, most had served during WWII. Many baby boomer politicos just continued with these policies. But there were notable exceptions, Bill Clinton is the main example.
I’m seeing this more than kids just being slackers:
For the past 10 years, it isn’t that they just haven’t been doing anything, it’s because there’s been nothing to do. When the recession hit, the available jobs shrunk notably and those of us who had jobs held on to them grimly. For a while employers weren’t even looking at the unemployed candidates.
It’s fine and well to say they need to take charge of their own lives, but when the options literally are rely on willing parents or be homeless, it’s not that hard a decision. There needs to be opportunity out there before you can go after it.