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I'm trying to remember, I wasn't allowed to wear jeans to school because that's what the "poor" kids wore (the Great Depression played Hell with some of our parents) and actually were frowned upon by school officials anyway.
I had a pair of "good" shoes, a pair of almost "good" shoes and tennis shoes from the $3 rack. Boots were uninsulated rubber pull ons (colder than Hell, by the way). To put on the good shoes in bad weather you had overshoes (called rubbers, had fun with that eventually) and zip up boots that went over the shoes.
Boys wore undershirts to protect the "good" shirt.
One car (before my Dad died in 1960 we had two, along with a couple tractors and too many cows), one phone in the kitchen (again pre-Dad death we had two but one was for his insurance business) and one TV. We did get cable about 1962 or so which added two channels to the three we could get using the antenna on the roof before.
Had my brother been around (13 years older) we would have shared a bedroom, one bathroom with a tub, no shower. No second helpings at dinner. I don't remember ever really going out to eat but a few times except for breakfast with dad on the first day of deer season each year.
There were no activity buses at school, if you were in sports or other activity your parents picked you up or rode with one of the few kids who had a car. I was not allowed to buy a car due to my brother's behavior when he got his driver's license, had to use Mom's. Was not allowed to move the seat even though I'm 5'11" and she was 5'1". Once I started working when I was 14 I paid rent and bought groceries, at 16 I paid for my car insurance and gas along with random repairs.
LOL, I love this post!
Back to that 1969 Galaxy 500 Ford that I shared with my mom - it had over 300,000 miles on it. The vinyl headrests were held together by those rubber decals people used to put on the bottom of their bathtub to keep from slipping!
One day I was driving it and the entire universal joint just fell out of it. On the road. It was intense. I thought my world was coming to an end at the ripe age of 17.
1. In some ways yes - but we were also raised to be more frugal. We were also raised with very strong work ethics (generally speaking of course) and the notion that we'd have to put in work and discomfort ON THE FRONT END to be comfortable on the back end. Which most of us have done.
2. We still have low tax rates - all of us. You included. What's your point?
3. I don't hear many baby boomers claiming to be victims. Nor do I hear that from the generation before us. I do, however, hear a lot of whining and victim talk from Generations X, and Y.
4. Or the "center of the universe" for that matter. However, we are the largest generation ever born, so we have been the largest segment of consumers as well. Sorry if you take that to mean that we're "the center of the universe" - we never asked to be born into this generation.
5. As for giving back - Generation X and below trail Seniors and Baby Boomers and Matures considerably.
One has to wonder where that poster got his information,...certainly not from observation. Boomers are the ones who have carried this nation up until now. Still waiting on Gen X and Y to get their head screwed on straight and make their contributions to society.
The boomers didn't get that, they were expected to work long hours and do whatever the boss wanted to get the work done. Boomers' kids hate that and refuse to do it.
That's simply not the case when we look at the labor force. Jobs have "bifurcated" time-wise, with a lot of jobs intentionally held below full-time status, and many full-time jobs doubled-up with much longer hours than they would have had in the past. We've also seen the rise of unpaid "internships," many of which don't even end with a job offer.
I think you're operating more on stereotype than reality.
Quote:
Boomers are the ones who have carried this nation up until now.
Well, you're right about one thing - the average age of a US House member is 58, and a Senator is 63. Boomers are carrying our political system, and to be honest, the results aren't that great.
That's simply not the case when we look at the labor force. Jobs have "bifurcated" time-wise, with a lot of jobs intentionally held below full-time status, and many full-time jobs doubled-up with much longer hours than they would have had in the past. We've also seen the rise of unpaid "internships," many of which don't even end with a job offer.
I think you're operating more on stereotype than reality.
Well, you're right about one thing - the average age of a US House member is 58, and a Senator is 63. Boomers are carrying our political system, and to be honest, the results aren't that great.
So a 50 year old Chief Executive in the White House,...and a Democrat controlled Senate is not to your liking. Maybe you guys should have voted for REAL change instead of reinstalling the status quo for the last four years.
That's simply not the case when we look at the labor force. Jobs have "bifurcated" time-wise, with a lot of jobs intentionally held below full-time status, and many full-time jobs doubled-up with much longer hours than they would have had in the past. We've also seen the rise of unpaid "internships," many of which don't even end with a job offer.
I think you're operating more on stereotype than reality.
Well, you're right about one thing - the average age of a US House member is 58, and a Senator is 63. Boomers are carrying our political system, and to be honest, the results aren't that great.
I don't know where you live, but there are menial labor jobs in south and west Texas where an uneducated truck driver can make over six figures in income. There are "HIRING" signs all over the shale sites.
When you are not trained to do today's technical jobs, be willing to take a good paying job out of your field if necessary. It's called pulling oneself up by the bootstraps by being employed.
The notional political figureheads are Boomers in both major parties. Now to be fair, blaming "Boomers" for the actions of a majority-Boomer political system is a form of the apex fallacy, where a group is judged by the characteristics of the members at the very top of that group. For example, thinking poorly of low-level employees at a company because the CEO is a jerk.
But, this is part of how generations end up being judged. When they are handed the reins of power, what happens? If the results are good, and the country emerges wealthier and in better shape than before, they'll probably be judged favorably. But if not...
1. In some ways yes - but we were also raised to be more frugal. We were also raised with very strong work ethics (generally speaking of course) and the notion that we'd have to put in work and discomfort ON THE FRONT END to be comfortable on the back end. Which most of us have done.
2. We still have low tax rates - all of us. You included. What's your point?
3. I don't hear many baby boomers claiming to be victims. Nor do I hear that from the generation before us. I do, however, hear a lot of whining and victim talk from Generations X, and Y.
4. Or the "center of the universe" for that matter. However, we are the largest generation ever born, so we have been the largest segment of consumers as well. Sorry if you take that to mean that we're "the center of the universe" - we never asked to be born into this generation.
5. As for giving back - Generation X and below trail Seniors and Baby Boomers and Matures considerably.
I don't know where you live, but there are menial labor jobs in south and west Texas where an uneducated truck driver can make over six figures in income. There are "HIRING" signs all over the shale sites.
That has always been the case in the US. There have always been areas with job shortages and job surpluses. There have always been areas where wages are higher than the norm due to a demand for workers, or a particular type of worker. That's a constant over time.
But when we talk about the economy as a whole, we mean as a whole. All of its tens of millions of participants. And like I noted earlier, the overall trends are working against younger workers. If there were 10 million unfilled truck driving jobs (and by the way, trucking is one field that will likely be changed dramatically by automation over the next decade), then maybe we could fault a whole generation for its lack of bootstraps, but there aren't.
Any more than we could fault the Depression generation for lack of "get up and go" due to unfilled high-wage diamond mining jobs that started to pop up in Arctic Canada back then.
That has always been the case in the US. There have always been areas with job shortages and job surpluses. There have always been areas where wages are higher than the norm due to a demand for workers, or a particular type of worker. That's a constant over time.
But when we talk about the economy as a whole, we mean as a whole. All of its tens of millions of participants. And like I noted earlier, the overall trends are working against younger workers. If there were 10 million unfilled truck driving jobs (and by the way, trucking is one field that will likely be changed dramatically by automation over the next decade), then maybe we could fault a whole generation for its lack of bootstraps, but there aren't.
Any more than we could fault the Depression generation for lack of "get up and go" due to unfilled high-wage diamond mining jobs that started to pop up in Arctic Canada back then.
Well,...it's obvious you don't want to work or do what is necessary to support you and yours. All I can say is that sometimes one has to get out of their comfort zone to make a living.
You can't sit on a computer all day and post on internet forums about "poor me" if you are not willing to work.
I have no sympathy for you.
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