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To me its irrelevant who had it easier if the economy crashes. EVERYONE will be affected and Boomers would lose everything they worked for.
Reading some of the responses on this thread though, I could care less if some of them lost their life's savings. Not because I'm narcissistic, but because of their apathy or sheer ignorance.
So, according to your comment, "I could care less," you are saying you have a little caring left? Or did you mean you couldn't care less which means you have no caring left? Based on your last two sentences, I surmise the latter and not the former.
A little healthy narcissism is a good thing. It means you care about yourself and do what you can to take care of yourself.
You've piqued my interest, though. What do you mean by their apathy or sheer ignorance? Apathy or ignorance to what?
All my life I did hard,physical labor jobs and was rewarded well.
The big difference I see when my kids ( age 30's) talk about their paychecks is the deduction for health insurance.
When I was working, if your company offered benefits your health insurance deduction from your pay check was .......ZERO
My hourly wage could buy a lot more back then compared to wages for the same job today.
Yes, I think I had it a lot better than my kids do now.
I also remember my employer offering health benefits at no cost to me. However, I did have to pay a nominal amount (probably five or six dollars) to cover other members of my family. Still, not a bad deal, all things considered. Insurance premiums were nothing like they are today. The cost of living in the U.S today is astronomically higher than it was, even ten years go, let alone 50. Sad to say but the traditional middle-class income is drying up. It's close to being wealthy or poor; no middle ground, at all. That's tragic.
Baby Boomers were given a great country on a silver platter by the generation that birthed them. They could've worked and afford school at the same time. They grew up in the most prosperous era in US history. Most Baby Boomers could've owned their own homes and cars without any type of education. Can millenials do that? It's impossible. Baby Boomers are by far the most entitled generation in US history. However, they made things worse for their children's generation.
Do you even KNOW what a baby boomer is? It is those born after WW2 until the early sixties.
What silver platter do you mean? The thirties was the depression, then came WW2 which lasted until 1945, people had to work VERY hard to build things back and were rightfully rewarded for their hard work.
Do you even know WHY it was the most prosperous era?
[So, according to your comment, "I could care less," you are saying you have a little caring left? Or did you mean you couldn't care less which means you have no caring left? Based on your last two sentences, I surmise the latter and not the former.
[/b]
A little healthy narcissism is a good thing. It means you care about yourself and do what you can to take care of yourself.
You've piqued my interest, though. What do you mean by their apathy or sheer ignorance? Apathy or ignorance to what?
As far as the bold, what I mean is that maybe some of these people NEED to lose their life's savings so that they start paying attention in this country. Everybody seems to have the mindset of "it's not my problem!" but in actuality it is their problem. If the economy (country) crashes the entire ship goes down. The wealthy's quality of living goes down just like the rest of the population.
The above is what I mean about the apathy piece. As far as the sheer ignorance, I'm referring to those who don't believe that we're in a crisis in this country.
So far there's been maybe 1 or 2 Millenials who has sided with the Boomers, and there have been multiple Boomers who have sided with the Millenials on this issue.
Do you even KNOW what a baby boomer is? It is those born after WW2 until the early sixties.
What silver platter do you mean? The thirties was the depression, then came WW2 which lasted until 1945, people had to work VERY hard to build things back and were rightfully rewarded for their hard work.
Do you even know WHY it was the most prosperous era?
There was rationing during the war too.
Yeah, it was paradise.
My grandmother's WWII ration booklet.
The boomers had it easier. Any war that happened was always "over there." The millenials grew up post-9/11. Someone mentioned previously that you could walk into any establishment and hand them your resume. Now, you type your information into a computer and who knows if a person ever sees it. Boomers could start their lives with no or nominal debt. My heart goes out to the millennials as they did what they were told and took on student-loan debt. Also, it just doesn't take as many people to make/build or do things. Costs are higher now, and I suspect a lot of it is from government regulations. I have seen so many businesses shut down because they could not meet new government standards, from two different swimming recreation centers I visited as a youth, to a couple of restaurants I used to frequent. These are mom-and-pop establishments. For those making a good income, the rise in costs doesn't really have an effect, but for the average person it does. As far as health insurance, in the past five years, my health insurance has continued to increase. As an aside, my brother and I went a sporting event awhile back. We were planning to buy a few beers as part of the experience. They wanted $10 per beer. We declined. Had they been priced at around $4 or $5, it wouldn't have been a big deal. So I e-mailed them to let them know why they lost our business that evening. Their response? "Due to a federally mandated three tier system, brewers are unable to set the prices of our products at retail locations."
America was a more cohesive country for the boomers than it seems to be today. There are a lot of things that are better, however. It's easier to communicate and you can spend less time on basic needs due to technology.
Yah, I'm a baby boomer.
When I was homeless and living in the back of a pickup truck with an infant, no one came running to my aid, no one did tv shows on our plight, no one brought us food. I got a j-o-b, then another, then another. I got divorced and supported 2 kids on my own (no child support ever paid). I got remarried to a guy who had a job making $8000 a year as a firefighter. We lived in crap apartments until we saved up enough to buy a 900-sq-foot-house. We worked 2-3 jobs apiece until we worked ourselves into positions where we had employees instead of being employees. We raised 3 kids and several fosters in that 900-sq-foot home. We were careful with our money, raised our own eggs, fruits, and vegies on 1/3 acre until the town zoned out our garden and chicken yard. Silver platter? What silver platter?
All the time we protested about increasing government intrusion, people pooh-poohed us. We marched on G-8 and they called us crazies. We protested NAFTA and CAFTA for taking away American jobs and running companies and employers overseas, and were called tinfoil hat freaks "America is the greatest country in the world, and always will be!". We told people not to fall for the housing bubble, the dot-com bubble, and the (earlier) gold-rush bubble of the 80's, and people insisted that we were stupid not to buy an overpriced home with an ARM, because it was so affordable and anyone could get one. We invested wisely and carefully, then sold out and bought a farm where we raise our own vegies, fruits, eggs, and now cows as well. We discovered that no one believed us, no one cared, no one was interested - so we took interest in saving ourselves. Selfish? You betcha. Uncaring? Da^ned straight. All the whiners now can go to he** in a handbasket as far as I'm concerned. We said it, we preached it, we screamed it, I wrote weekly columns about it in a MSM newspaper - and everyone thought it was funny, a big joke, ha-ha. Now suddenly it isn't funny any more, and guess what? The TeaPartiers and Occupiers are begging for their rights from government and corporations and whining that 'no one told us'! Yeah, they were told, over and over - they were just too stupid, too content, too full of themselves and what they had been told, to listen.
Want sympathy? It's in the dictionary, between syphilis and sh++. We worked da^ned hard for everything we got, and have; 16-hour days, lots of pasta and buying only what we could afford, staying within our limited budget and stretching dollars until they ripped. For years my kids raved about my cooking, not knowing that they didn't get beef or chicken in their dinners; boullion cubes were a heckuva lot cheaper than meat. You can do the same - or sit on your backsides and whine about what no one including your government is giving you - or blame these, those, or those other people way over there - or march in the streets insisting that the 1% share with you - which, BTW, they never will. You are as funny to them as we were to you. Deal with it. No one can or will save you but yourselves.
As far as the bold, what I mean is that maybe some of these people NEED to lose their life's savings so that they start paying attention in this country. Everybody seems to have the mindset of "it's not my problem!" but in actuality it is their problem. If the economy (country) crashes the entire ship goes down. The wealthy's quality of living goes down just like the rest of the population.
The above is what I mean about the apathy piece. As far as the sheer ignorance, I'm referring to those who don't believe that we're in a crisis in this country.
That is a very harsh thing to say (re: the bold). I don't know just what you expect some of us to do. We can "vote the bums out"; that never seems to work very well. I've lived long enough to not get whipped up about every "crisis".
Quote:
Originally Posted by budgetlord
My grandmother's WWII ration booklet.
The boomers had it easier. Any war that happened was always "over there." The millenials grew up post-9/11. Someone mentioned previously that you could walk into any establishment and hand them your resume. Now, you type your information into a computer and who knows if a person ever sees it. Boomers could start their lives with no or nominal debt. My heart goes out to the millennials as they did what they were told and took on student-loan debt. Also, it just doesn't take as many people to make/build or do things. Costs are higher now, and I suspect a lot of it is from government regulations. I have seen so many businesses shut down because they could not meet new government standards, from two different swimming recreation centers I visited as a youth, to a couple of restaurants I used to frequent. These are mom-and-pop establishments. For those making a good income, the rise in costs doesn't really have an effect, but for the average person it does. As far as health insurance, in the past five years, my health insurance has continued to increase. As an aside, my brother and I went a sporting event awhile back. We were planning to buy a few beers as part of the experience. They wanted $10 per beer. We declined. Had they been priced at around $4 or $5, it wouldn't have been a big deal. So I e-mailed them to let them know why they lost our business that evening. Their response? "Due to a federally mandated three tier system, brewers are unable to set the prices of our products at retail locations."
America was a more cohesive country for the boomers than it seems to be today. There are a lot of things that are better, however. It's easier to communicate and you can spend less time on basic needs due to technology.
The last war fought in the US was the Civil War. Yes, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii was bombed at the start of the US entry to WW II, but the remainder of the war was fought in Europe, N. Africa, and the South Pacific.
I'd be very skeptical of blaming the price of beer on the feds. When all else fails, they are a convenient excuse.
Yah, I'm a baby boomer.
When I was homeless and living in the back of a pickup truck with an infant, no one came running to my aid, no one did tv shows on our plight, no one brought us food. I got a j-o-b, then another, then another. I got divorced and supported 2 kids on my own (no child support ever paid). I got remarried to a guy who had a job making $8000 a year as a firefighter. We lived in crap apartments until we saved up enough to buy a 900-sq-foot-house. We worked 2-3 jobs apiece until we worked ourselves into positions where we had employees instead of being employees. We raised 3 kids and several fosters in that 900-sq-foot home. We were careful with our money, raised our own eggs, fruits, and vegies on 1/3 acre until the town zoned out our garden and chicken yard. Silver platter? What silver platter?
All the time we protested about increasing government intrusion, people pooh-poohed us. We marched on G-8 and they called us crazies. We protested NAFTA and CAFTA for taking away American jobs and running companies and employers overseas, and were called tinfoil hat freaks "America is the greatest country in the world, and always will be!". We told people not to fall for the housing bubble, the dot-com bubble, and the (earlier) gold-rush bubble of the 80's, and people insisted that we were stupid not to buy an overpriced home with an ARM, because it was so affordable and anyone could get one. We invested wisely and carefully, then sold out and bought a farm where we raise our own vegies, fruits, eggs, and now cows as well. We discovered that no one believed us, no one cared, no one was interested - so we took interest in saving ourselves. Selfish? You betcha. Uncaring? Da^ned straight. All the whiners now can go to he** in a handbasket as far as I'm concerned. We said it, we preached it, we screamed it, I wrote weekly columns about it in a MSM newspaper - and everyone thought it was funny, a big joke, ha-ha. Now suddenly it isn't funny any more, and guess what? The TeaPartiers and Occupiers are begging for their rights from government and corporations and whining that 'no one told us'! Yeah, they were told, over and over - they were just too stupid, too content, too full of themselves and what they had been told, to listen.
Want sympathy? It's in the dictionary, between syphilis and sh++. We worked da^ned hard for everything we got, and have; 16-hour days, lots of pasta and buying only what we could afford, staying within our limited budget and stretching dollars until they ripped. For years my kids raved about my cooking, not knowing that they didn't get beef or chicken in their dinners; boullion cubes were a heckuva lot cheaper than meat. You can do the same - or sit on your backsides and whine about what no one including your government is giving you - or blame these, those, or those other people way over there - or march in the streets insisting that the 1% share with you - which, BTW, they never will. You are as funny to them as we were to you. Deal with it. No one can or will save you but yourselves.
"and that's all I'm going to say about that"
Not sure to whom this is a response. There should have been more of what I have highlighted in blue. With that said, there are real structural issues in the job market, and it IS a real problem. As far as 16-hour days, companies are much smarter at how they allocate their labor. Also, companies need to spend more on litigation and on and on. But, of course we need, and MUST have, more regulation on those pesky corporations .
Quote:
Originally Posted by SCGranny
The TeaPartiers and Occupiers are begging for their rights from government and corporations and whining that 'no one told us'! Yeah, they were told, over and over - they were just too stupid, too content, too full of themselves and what they had been told, to listen.
It's frustrating. I never fell for any of it but so many did and they are also my fellow citizens. We need to make the words "sacrifice" and "responsibility" cool again. But that seems like a foreign language.
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