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Location: Just transplanted to FL from the N GA mountains
3,997 posts, read 4,140,525 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ohiogirl81
I manage on that just fine, thankyouverymuch.
My parents were as poor as church mice when they got married in 1957 -- and even poorer after I came along, LOL -- but they eventually earned more money, were able to buy a house, put my sister and I though college, etc. etc. They certainly didn't start off that way. Hardly anyone does. My first job gained with my shiny four-year degree paid me $7,500 a year -- enough for a studio apartment, an old car, and a couple of beers a couple nights a week. It's the way the world works.
Didn't we harp on our kids about how rough we had it when we were growing up, just like our parents did? Maybe we should have told more stories of walking to school in the snow (because Dad took the car to work and Mom didn't have one) or only having three pair of shoes (sneakers, school shoes and Sunday shoes) and only one TV and one bathroom.
Thirty years ago, the nation was in a grips of a deep recession and economic upheaval that began in the 70s with the Arab oil embargo. Unemployment was upwards of 15 percent in some areas, most notably the industrial cities where factories were closing down faster than a flea jumps from cat to cat. The harsh winters of 1977 and 1978 prompted more than a few northern factories to move south. Folks that had been planning to follow their parents into those manufacturing and industrial jobs after school -- both blue- and white-collar -- were suddenly SOL. The uneducated -- or anyone else -- couldn't find 20 hours of work a week, let alone 100.
Exactly... and it's now, for us anyway (40's and 50's age wise) that we're working that 100 hours. Basically, making up for the lean years. Trying to sock away as much as we can for retirement before our bodies will no longer allow us to do it.
Wow.. your parents must have been better off than mine.. I only got two pairs of shoes... one good pair (dress looking, because we girls had to wear dresses to school, pants were not allowed for awhile) and one play pair for everything else. These were usually last years shoes and tight.. right? I also have to chuckle.. The first house we lived in... still didn't have indoor plumbing... I have to wonder what some folks would think today if *gasp* they had to go to the outhouse in the middle of the night....
actually me and my siblings all moved out by the age of 18, went to college and got jobs. but until my wife became a doctor, we still had to bust our asses to barely make ends meet. before she finished school, my job was shipped overseas and I couldn't find a job for a year and I actually had to deliver pizzas and build computers to survive...
my parents had it easy in comparison...
You're comparing apples and oranges, I believe. You say your parents had it easy, but it sounds like you have it easy because of your wife's job.
I bet your parents busted hump to barely make ends meet at first, too.
"And at 67, how productive can a guy be?" Pahleez! My uncles are in their seventies, and still getting patents/founding new corporations. The other day, someone was telling me about antiques dealers in their eighties, still moving huge pieces of furniture without help. Maybe in some communities 67 is old (communities where sedentary people drink and smoke and are malnourished because of bad dietary choices...maybe OP is from a milieu like that). Being a little slow on the computer is far better than being too ignorant to do anything with the computer (you know, lacking the empirical knowledge base required to be actually effective...and a lot of little computer 'whizzes' fit that description.).
As for 'benefiting' from the post-war boom (as if that were somehow an unfair advantage). I will remind someone that if not for the valiant struggles of Americans to WIN that war...well... the picture would not have been exactly rosy, unless one was pure Japanese, or a blue-eyed blond gentile (but not a Slavic one, as those were to be worked to death by the Nazis, as slaves).
And America was a fantastically rich place, even before the war. Ever heard of The Gilded Age? Even during the Depression, many people had very nice lives. America was rich because of AMERICANS. The prosperity was CREATED BY AMERICANS. Americans made incredible strides in engineering, and all facets of manufacturing. They worked HARD. They didn't grab more than their share of some 'pie'. They MADE bigger 'pies' than anyone had ever seen. They created the infrastructure, and the wealth, in which the rest of us wallow.
The only way to bring America down, was to dilute/destroy Americans genetically. Until recent decades, the nation's population were the tallest and smartest people in the world. It took generations of dysgenic fertility (welfare dynasties) and disadvantageous immigration to dilute/downgrade Americans to the point where....well...look around at what is happening.
The very idea of criticizing those who helped create the prosperity, and who still work to further that prosperity! And do you really think there are a static number of 'jobs'? I have news: the more people work, the more work there will be for people.
Don't believe everything your professors/'community organizers' tell you. Their ideological base derives from the Frankfurt School. Research that school's objectives and tactics, and you will come to understand the system of lies which has robbed you of so much.History of the Frankfurt School
Once again... it's all about what your willing to accept. You want 100K per year lifestyle, but only want to work a 50K per year schedule? That ain't gonna happen. Once again.. it's your choice.. but quit whining that your being kept down by us who do work more than 40 hours a week (yea.. easy times! ) when we have what you want...
Your wife's a doctor and your complaining?? I'll bet she puts in some hours!!!! Good Grief!!!
Either work longer hours or get an education in some engineering field or something that will pay that much.
Six years out of college I, like most engineers in my trade, broke the six figure mark. Yeah I was working 50% overtime but I wasn't complaining because it's a cool job.
I shake my head sometimes and wonder what lifestyle folks who think their parents had it easy want. I doubt many of these people actually had parents who thought it was easy. I don't count the War generation because they lived in unique circumstances. The world is industrializing and we have to deal with it. Retool, learn new trades, learn new skills, and find new jobs, mostly dealing with computers or computer driven machines.
Using the argument of, "We had it worse than you, suck it up" isn't going to do anything for our country or our economy. That will simply lead to us following down the same path. Which is a path headed towards us not remaining a country.
I believe the point that my generation is trying to make is that things have changed, and its a completely different ballgame now.
You can describe as many "work horror" stories as you want, but it does nothing to solve our problems. The Boomers are lucky they didn't have World Wars to fight. The Americans during that time were lucky that they weren't German Jews. White Americans are lucky they weren't slaves back in the 1800's. Etc, etc, etc.
Simply saying, "we had it worse" does nothing to solve our problems. What will solve our problems is outlining policies that can be implemented to fix our economic system.
That's my point exactly! The boomers aren't the ones pointing the finger backwards with blame. We understood we had it better than our parents. My goodness; mom used a wash board and a galvanized tub to do the wash on the back porch til along came the Beatty wringer washer that my dad worked his second job to gain enough income for those type of luxuries.
I'll ask any of you a simple question; on average how many times a month do you eat other than home prepared meals? Helloooo; that was a luxury for my wife and I that would happen perhaps once a month. Walking to the store for your shopping or do you hop into the car to go to the corner?
Our form of outlandish entertainment was to go to a movie theater maybe twice a year.
I worked two jobs virtually all my working life and as a skilled tradesman with two trades; general machinist and stationary engineer, it grooved naturally for me to work day shift in a factory performing all sorts of machining jobs then go to the power house of another factory for my second shift of standing boiler watches and repairing all the compressors and other power house equipment.
Invested wisely and now am enjoying the retired since 04, good life of a home in Canada and Florida with cars and golf memberships at both locates but I think I deserve that after 45 years or more of the forgoing lifetime of working two jobs before landing into an industrial relations job to finish off my career.
Did I have it easy? You know as strange as it may seem to you younger ones I believe I had it good, not easy, but good.
ALL of the young people I know refuse to even consider a lifetime of work like that but we'll just have to see if they come out the other end of their working life feeling like they've won the lottery to simply have it better than their parents.
In my previous post I stated that I was surprised that this thread went so long.
Now, it's got even longer but I'm no longer surprised. Thinking about it some more, the indefensible needs lots of defending.
There is no need for arguing. We have data.
However, I could argue with data to my wits end and the boomers (or whichever label anyone wishes to apply) will simply not wish to hear it.
We cant talk then and now in terms of:
- union membership
- wages relative to cost of living
- income inequality
- costs of higher education
- labor participation rate
- creation of a welfare state in the US
- manufacturing jobs v service sector jobs and the accompanying wage scales
- exponential curve of entitlement spending
- % of employers offering pension plans/ healthcare (then v. now)
- healthcare costs
- global competition
- the rise of the military industrial complex and the net loss it creates for the economy at large
- the rise of the healthcare industrial complex
- the rise of the public unions
We can talk about the above and more but it doesn't matter. Just like the folks in Greece who benefited from all of the profligacy, they will argue that they really didn't have it that good and that it's fine that future generations pay for it.
in my OP I wasn't attempting to assign blame. Each individual boomer is no more responsible for what happened/ is happening than they are for the sun rising in the east every morning. A substantial enough component of life is being at the right place at the right time. There's no shame in it.
On the other hand, the Boomer attempt to deny and distort reality is wrong. It seems that the Boomers have flipped the bird to all the other generations and basically stated; "We got ours, that's all that matters". If you're part of the problem, it's only right to be part of the solution. Don't be surprised if in 10 or 15 years, my generation or the previous one tell you that we're no longer paying for your entitlements. Go fend for yourselves. This id what will happen if all the generations don't work together to develop a more sustainable fiscal future.
Last edited by wawaweewa; 02-25-2012 at 12:06 AM..
In my previous post I stated that I was surprised that this thread went so long.
Now, it's got even longer but I'm no longer surprised. Thinking about it some more, the indefensible needs lots of defending.
There is no need for arguing. We have data.
However, I could argue with data to my wits end and the boomers (or whichever label anyone wishes to apply) will simply not wish to hear it.
We cant talk then and now in terms of:
- union membership
- wages relative to cost of living
- income inequality
- costs of higher education
- labor participation rate
- creation of a welfare state in the US
- manufacturing jobs v service sector jobs and the accompanying wage scales
- exponential curve of entitlement spending
- % of employers offering pension plans/ healthcare (then v. now)
- healthcare costs
- global competition
- the rise of the military industrial complex and the net loss it creates for the economy at large
- the rise of the healthcare industrial complex
- the rise of the public unions
We can talk about the above and more but it doesn't matter. Just like the folks in Greece who benefited from all of the profligacy, they will argue that they really didn't have it that good and that it's fine that future generations pay for it.
in my OP I wasn't attempting to assign blame. Each individual boomer is no more responsible for what happened/ is happening than they are for the sun rising in the east every morning. A substantial enough component of life is being at the right place at the right time. There's no shame in it.
On the other hand, the Boomer attempt to deny and distort reality is wrong. It seems that the Boomers have flipped the bird to all the other generations and basically stated; "We got ours, that's all that matters". If you're part of the problem, it's only right to be part of the solution. Don't be surprised if in 10 or 15 years, my generation or the previous one tell you that we're no longer paying for your entitlements. Go fend for yourselves. This id what will happen if all the generations don't work together to develop a more sustainable fiscal future.
I couldn't agree more with your entire post.
Now how are we as retired boomers to have any meaningful affect on decision making of todays legislators, if as you say we weren't as individuals responsible for what's become of the world, how as individuals are we to affect any change to benefit you?
Taxation is still taking over 35K from my pocket each and every year.
What are YOU telling your congessman or senator or whoever in power to do with that contribution I'm still making that is proportionatly not going to my benefit but rather to yours. They're not listening to me now!
I pay my own health insurance and any gov't pension is taxed back from me due to my good fortune to have invested wisely when I could afford to do so. When my time in the sun is finished it won't be your money that keeps me in Depends but mine and mine alone. You can flip me the bird if you choose but you won't be able to do anything meaningful to deny me a calm and comfortable last breath, I've seen to that myself.
Now what would you have me do by way of co-operatively working with you?
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I also have to chuckle.. The first house we lived in... still didn't have indoor plumbing... I have to wonder what some folks would think today if *gasp* they had to go to the outhouse in the middle of the night....
) when we have what you want...
