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Baby Boomers grew up in an era where the US had a huge manufacturing sector, strong unions, cheap gas, a very high progressive income tax, and major expansion of affordable housing and free or low cost quality public higher education.
When these a-holes hit their 30's & 40's and started taking over corporations, they destroyed unions, raided pensions, sent our manufacturing sector overseas, fought against public transportation, demanded tax cuts for the wealthy, and replaced public funding for education and housing with finance schemes that caused global economic catastrophe, and put a generation in lifelong debt before they even had a chance to earn income.
Now that they have destroyed the economy for future generations, they have the audacity to preach about "personal responsibility".
We live under the illusion that our present contemporary prosperity in our present generational time will continue on and on as is with not much changing when the reality is circumstances in our control and some beyond our control makes it into a constant flux of change. You can plan for the eventual change of the circumstances as to mitigate the impact it will have on the economic health of society which in the past has enabled prosperity but due to change in the future may no longer enable prosperity. If you look at history starting maybe back to the age of dinosaurs we are all nothing but a blip of time in it. The good economic times and prosperity contemporary society lives under may continue on for maybe 2 generations or more before underlining circumstances coupled with bad economic policy eventually catch up and turn prosperity into destitution, impoverishment, and adversity . The present industrialization of the developed world economies and prosperity is due to the reliance on cheap energy from fossil fuels. The reason why the US is heavily militarily and politically involved in the oil rich Middle Eastern nations is because of this reliance and their strategic importance. I wouldn't say the Boomers are the worst generation but society at the time was under the mindset and illusion that economic prosperity would continue as it was of that time span into the future not realizing that economic policy being set at the time by their elected politicians would have adverse affects for future generations.
Millenniums were under the same illusion and mindset before 2008 that instant prosperity would be there for them as long as soon as they got a college degree despite the underlining facts that the US economy was becoming more of a service and finance economy dependent on cheap overseas labor markets to fuel its financial prosperity. It was a shock to many Millenniums that the so called American dream wasn't as easy to achieve despite of what they were led to believe in which was the rhetoric and beliefs of society at that time. That trend for the push for cheap labor markets is continuing in that the only thing Obama and the new Republican Congress will cooperate to pass will be the Trans Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement so that corporations can continue to have cheap labor markets to offshore manufacturing. NAFTA and now Obama's planned executive amnesty for illegal immigrants is of the same trend but goal is to flood the US with cheap labor that will mainly benefit Wall Street and Corporate CEO's compensation packages but will not bring prosperity to the average American citizen.
The OP needs to understand that what is happening is cyclical. It has virtually nothing to do with the people who live within the tide. Check out the book, The Fourth Turning by Strauss and Howe, if you really want to understand what is happening now. The truth is, all generations experience good times during their lives, just during different portions of their lives. Boomers (of which I am one) have had their hard times, too...and won't live to see the next good times, whereas the younger generations will. The youngsters think that the part of the boomers' lives, that they were alive to observe, is everybody's birthright, and they want it NOW. Even the boomers didn't get it "NOW".
Working folks almost never get to make the decisions that shape national or even local policy. 99.9% of boomers had zero input or influence over that. Such policies are enacted by a few elite politicians and powerful corporate and banking interests. To say that most boomers were in those positions, is silly. I certainly never was, nor was anybody that I have known. Middle class folks just work hard and get tossed around in the waves, regardless of their generation. Boomers are not the elites. If you are going to point a finger, first be sure of your target group, because you've got the wrong one in your sights.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TravelingBluesBrother
Baby Boomers grew up in an era where the US had a huge manufacturing sector, strong unions, cheap gas, a very high progressive income tax, and major expansion of affordable housing and free or low cost quality public higher education.
When these a-holes hit their 30's & 40's and started taking over corporations, they destroyed unions, raided pensions, sent our manufacturing sector overseas, fought against public transportation, demanded tax cuts for the wealthy, and replaced public funding for education and housing with finance schemes that caused global economic catastrophe, and put a generation in lifelong debt before they even had a chance to earn income.
Now that they have destroyed the economy for future generations, they have the audacity to preach about "personal responsibility".
Ah, another one blaming someone else for their own lack of success.
This post isn't meant to be taken seriously, and I do quite well for myself, BTW. I'm just sick of people from the older generation making stupid generalizations about millenials, and dismissing there valid economic concerns with the same uniformed platitudes over and over:
"Well, you should've gone to trade school instead of majoring in Art History."
"Well, these kids waste money on new iPhones, in my day, you paid off your tuition with your summer job and saved."
Baby Boomers grew up in an era where the US had a huge manufacturing sector, strong unions, cheap gas, a very high progressive income tax, and major expansion of affordable housing and free or low cost quality public higher education.
When these a-holes hit their 30's & 40's and started taking over corporations, they destroyed unions, raided pensions, sent our manufacturing sector overseas, fought against public transportation, demanded tax cuts for the wealthy, and replaced public funding for education and housing with finance schemes that caused global economic catastrophe, and put a generation in lifelong debt before they even had a chance to earn income.
Now that they have destroyed the economy for future generations, they have the audacity to preach about "personal responsibility".
YAWWWNN, another I hate the boomers post, waaahhhhaaaa.. Get out the hankys..
Baby Boomers grew up in an era where the US had a huge manufacturing sector, strong unions, cheap gas, a very high progressive income tax, and major expansion of affordable housing and free or low cost quality public higher education.
When these a-holes hit their 30's & 40's and started taking over corporations, they destroyed unions, raided pensions, sent our manufacturing sector overseas, fought against public transportation, demanded tax cuts for the wealthy, and replaced public funding for education and housing with finance schemes that caused global economic catastrophe, and put a generation in lifelong debt before they even had a chance to earn income.
Now that they have destroyed the economy for future generations, they have the audacity to preach about "personal responsibility".
Boomers grew up in an era when there were no serious economic competitors to the United States. Hence the strong manufacturing sector, and enough fat in the system to afford bestowing lavish benefits on unions among other things.
Largely as a result of U.S. foreign policy post WWII, we supported and enabled other countries to become serious economic powers, initially and most notably Japan. Much of the technology invented by the boomer generation went on to enable other countries to also mature their economies and enable them to do the same things we used to do here much more cheaply. This drove gobalization, which put much more competitive pressure on U.S. companies.
I believe that at some time in the future, perhaps measured in tens of years, likely even longer, we will look back on this time of global economic disruption and see it as a time when economies around the world were leveled so that the great disparity in standards of living will largely be erased. I don't think for a minute that anyone set out to do this deliberately, rather it is an unintended consequence of technology development coupled with (somewhat) free market forces.
Economic transitions always cause disruption. Some individuals are better positioned to benefit from that transition, others less so. Talk to anyone of your generation with an engineering degree about how they feel about their economic prospects. I'll tell you that their salaries as a percent of home values are not much different than when I started my engineering career in the late 1970s.
The only other alternative to disruption is stagnation. Get over it.
Not all boomers are jerks.That's like saying all generation x's love video games.Not all hippies made love not war.Sheesh my mom is a boomer and can be stuck in old times.What old person isn't? I find baby boomers are tired of trying to change the younger generation's minds.Some turn and think you know what? I will be selfish as them.
I'm generation x and many have the old and new way of thinking.If you can combine the old school and new ways into problems, solutions may be more prominent.
I agree completely with this statement boomer, but I'm at the tail end of the boomer generation. It's the older boomers that don't get it. Many people in my age bracket (now in our late 40's, early 50's) got caught in our prime years by the disastrous policies put down before us. We have been layed off from those manufacturing jobs, pensions and benefits frozen or taken away, wages stagnating, and watching our retirement years slip farther and farther off in the future, if at all.
It is the OLDER boomers that had it made - job security, low cost of living and decent wages, pensions, and the ability to usually live on one income and still save a good nest egg. My own parents don't understand why my kids, in their early 20's, aren't already out on their own because in "their" day, it was much, much easier to do.
My husband is 66. He is Tech Support and over the years has been offshored for 3 times for a total of around 3 years. Boomers had it great? He has gone around telling every young person not to major in IT for years.
We have two kids; one born in 1979 and one born in 1984. You don't think Daddy's losing his job all those times didn't affect them? Oh, it was JUST their father? Right. They were old enough to understand and listen to us talking about OTHERS he knew that the same thing happened to. Big Fat Porfolio? No, we went through that paying our bills and putting food in our kids mouths.
Job security? ROFL Low cost of living and decent wages? He is still working and making the same amount of money he did as in the 1980's. Is the COL today the same as the 80s? Pension? lol 401K's have been around now for at least 30 years.
Work until you drop dead because there is no money, no 401K, or PENSION, to retire on.
I guess to "reset" everything, we need a good Europe-and-Asia-trashing war, so we can be the predominant manufacturer and export everything we can produce, once again. . . so what say you young 'ens? Ready to march off and have a couple hundred thousand of you killed? That'll trim the workforce and make it certain there will be a job for you!
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