This would have been less of a bitter pill to swallow if we didn’t have to finance your wars, too.
The Boomer had lousy taste in architecture.
The War generation had great taste, in contast.
Cheer up. I recently bought a brand-new car, top of the line (for my purposes), highly in demand, even used. Maybe the last car I’ll ever own. As I don’t drive far and keep it in the garage, the car might well outlive me, so if you can wait a few short years, look for a newspaper ad for one sweet ride.
Understood. But you have to keep in mind that you guys outnumbered the retirees you were financing, by a LOT. And those people died somewhat earlier. But now you’re retiring–and you outnumber the people who are financing your SS. By a LOT. And you plan to live longer than anyone ever has in the past. And let’s not forget that, for all you agreed you wouldn’t have SS, there’s sure a hell of a lot of screaming when anybody suggests making cuts to it or Medicare. Can you blame today’s 20-somethings for feeling like a farmer before a swarm of locusts?
Hey, we’re surprised to be alive this long. All during elementary school, we drilled over and over again about what to do during a soviet nuclear strike (hide under our desks, basically).
Hands over your head dude! That desk isn’t going stop an atomic bomb all by itself.
Yep. There are too many of you and you didn’t make enough of us to support you. Gen-X, the generation who’ll largely be paying for soon-to-be seniors, is the smallest one since the great depression - just half the size of the Boomers who all want to retire soon. You don’t seem worried enough about what this all will mean, because something’s got to give and it doesn’t feel like you’re willing you make any level of sacrifice to keep from breaking the financial backs of those who come after you.
Yeah, well, it sucks to be you, then. 
Adding, seriously, an echo of another earlier statement that a lot of us are also dipping into our retirement funds to help support our children and grandchildren. Myself, I have planned ahead so that I hope not to become a burden to my kids later, which as it turns out is a good thing as I doubt they will be in a position to contribute much financially.
Kneel, place your head between your legs, and kiss your ass goodbye.
I’ve said it before, but everything after October 1962 has been gravy we didn’t expect to taste.
I’m not exactly a boomer…born in 1943. But it seems to me that I worked starting at 16 when I could get a SS card, and was never without a job until I retired. Went to University and worked my way through. Married, and had two sons. We lived cheaply in order to save for a down payment on a modest house. We put off nice vacations to put money into our individual retirement accounts, we wore clothes that were not the latest and certainly not stylish. Put our kids though great universities while still living in the same small house for 30 years. We pride ourselves on living modestly, and have been able to meet my long time goal of retiring with 85% of my pre-retirement income. My father and mother essentially did the same, but they started with only a grade school education while I was able to graduate college and do post grad work.
Did it myself without help from parents or grants or educational loans. Feels good. I do regret that some of the younger folks don’t have the self empowerment or control to do the same.
And I don’t feel entitled. I do have Medicare, but my retirement and investments are mine alone…I started investing and saving in my mid thirties, and never planned on anything other than my own assets for my retirement.
They produced the Sexual Revolution. Which raised my expectations.
Then, right before I hit puberty, they produced the herpes epidemic and the AIDS epidemic. Which diminished my opportunities.
I’m still ticked off about that.
The boomer generation is not to blame! You should be hatin’ on our parents for having so many kids in their post war euphoria! I mean its not like we had any control over it!
Then again, if we weren’t here, then maybe you wouldn’t be…aw, hell, never mind!
This attitude comes to mind:
“We’re going to loot the world, work you till you drop while we laugh at you, and let you inherit the dry husk of what’s left” isn’t an attitude that makes people fond of you.
I can’t control and on that issue do not join in with what others scream about. From my view point I agree that both Medicare and SS should be reduced. Receiving it was never included with my plan. When it comes to Medicare, we don’t have a say in signing up for it because it’s automatic for Medicare A covering hospital stays. I also had real no choice in signing up for Medicare B covering Dr’s visits, tests, etc because my insurance with my old employer automatically reduces their coverage as if I actually had Medicare B but the premium is only $110.00 a month. Yeah, it’s sort of a free ride but it’s like getting on a train I have realistic choice in boarding at a reduced fare but going somewhere I have no desire to see.
No, I don’t blame the 20-somethings for their trepidation because it’s a problem and it’s always good to have someone to blame for a dilemma so they can criticize us if they believe that will help solve the issue.
I certainly will. I plan to work until I drop. I’ve been young and poor and I have no desire to be old and poor.
Almost everyone I know in my generation (I’m 31) could save themselves and/or their households a few thousand dollars a year if they just canceled their cable/cell phone/high speed internet and lived without those frivolities. But, we don’t. Don’t even talk about the amount of money spent eating/drinking out at restaurants.
For all the complaining about the boomers (which is kind of news to me, to be honest), most of the people my age seem to have no concept about how to live frugally, and how to save even with relatively small incomes. This is a much bigger problem than mom and dad (or grandpa and grandma) living too long. It’s incredibly easy to live on a (relatively) low income. Anything on top of that is gold, and to complain that the very people who invented our modern world are a ‘problem’ because of their very existence sounds awfully ridiculous.
“I wish Fred in accounting would die, so I could have his job. He’s too old anyway.”
HA! on the news this morning…kids are safer riding with grandparents than with their parents. wonder why that is? experience & driving defensively? not thinking you’ve got to get to the drive-thru at break-neck speed while using your cell phone to let everybody you ever met that one time at the conference in (pick a city) or your neighbors’ friend (you can’t remember her name) KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING? that’s okay, give us the kids. you’ve got more important things to do…
Born in 1959 at the tail end of the baby boom, I’m trying to assess what good it does me. I’m tired of always being the kid sister who tries to tag along with the big kids. On the one hand, the leading edge of the generation opened up a lot in society in general before I got there; on the other hand, I grew up just in time to have a lot of the good aspects collapse all around me just as I was beginning to enjoy them. Being born closer to the middle of the boom would have brought more benefit in those respects.
However, being born earlier means more lifetime spent under a system where LGBT people had no rights at all. As a queer person, I’d have a chance to grow up in a world where my rights are increasingly gained, acknowledged, and defended if I’d been born in the latest generation, my grandson’s generation. As it is, I have a lot of the burden of membership in the baby boom with only vague benefits from it at best. Whatever.
Don’t forget that the Boomers have already taken their hit in Social Security. Back in 1983, when the youngest of us were just entering the workforce and the oldest were hitting our peak earning power, Congress passed a whole package of reforms that a) raised our taxes; b) made SS benefits taxable; c) increased the number of quarters we had to work to even be elegible for SS; and d) stepped up the retirement age from 65 to 67 for full benefits.
So yeah, we’re going to yell about having SS and Medicare cut just as we’re getting to the point we were told to plan for. We took our hit, and if Gen X and Gen Y have to take a hit, better you should find out about it now than when you’re 60.
It’s a joke, man. Also, get used to it.