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His world? Um, the majority does. As I was reading a post earlier where a federal retiree under CSRS had the nerve to even discuss TSP it struck me why many of my generation (Y) feel that way towards boomers. The sheer irony of a CSRS retiree talking TSP is the stuff of stand up comedians. Ask a couple FERS people what they feel about the same topic, the reaction would catch your attention real quick.
Look, Gen Y and beyond is hosed retirement-wise. We are in the precarious situation of making financial decisions in an either/or fashion, instead of and. College OR retirement et al. The reason has nothing to do with disposition or planning, it has to do with numerical facts. As a median, adjusted for inflation, we don't make squat. As a median, we're told we have to front-load retirement. Make squat + front-load retirement= hosed. No amount of heel clicking to the fairy godmother of stock markets will compensate for that single fact, which gets grossly dismissed among older workers (for good reason). Are there people under 40 making a killing? Yes. Are they representative of a generation with more college degree holders than their previous generations? Hell no.
The best my kids can expect of me come college time is some assistance with an in-state education. Anything outside of that, they're on their own. I will also discourage them from pursuing an out-of-state education. Big departure from the allowances boomer parents were able to put forth. I know that and I don't even have kids. I save like a monk to have enough for emergency funds and the liquid to cover the necessities of life (housing, transportation and transportation Mx, medical emergencies and travel emergencies), but I don't have anything at the end of the day to put out of sight, out of mind for 30+ years and expect to retire from it with the equivalency of a 75% high 3 pension (what my boomer parents are sitting on). Said parents admitted to me that when they were my age they didn't know the first thing about retirement and its concerns, yet look at me, don't even have kids, did all the homework and I know I'm hosed already. They got a pension I don't. They got housing appreciation from 1992-2006, I'll never see that in my lifetime. They had lower inflation, I have monopoly money. They had stable homesteading careers, everybody I know in my age group spends more time looking for the next job than working their current one. Don't tell me it's "what you make of it".
These days jobs are fickle and insecure. People are expected to move all the time and have no vesting in any one place for substantial amounts of time. This erodes the seniority that many boomers came to expect to carry them home to retirement. Besides even if they didn't, the mantra of "careers are portable is a plus" is total nonsense. I don't want to move 7 times to substantiate the livelihood some boomer did by sitting on his thumbs 30 years. I'll eat the opportunity cost and choose not to break my back in ever increasing expectation of productivity to still fall short of the purchasing power of my parents. I may never get a 75% pension but I sure as heck not going to saddle myself with a mortgage sized student load debt on account of my kids at the age of 50, after swimming upstream for twenty years, and REALLY nailing my retirement hopes square in the head. They're gonna have to accept too that grandpa's generation sold us up the river and if they want to get angry at somebody they need to go to grandpa, they're the ones with the pension. I'm better off than my unborn children are, and my parents are better off than I am with a lesser level of education. The tides have turned. The american "dream" of generational median upward mobility is no longer true. Bitter pill, don't begrudge me for making a sour face.
So count me in on the column of Gen X and Y slackers with a chip, we understand what the problem is, we just choose not to practice self-hate and give boomers a pass on the realities of the median. Sample sizes of one are inherently useless, which means your kids might be doing great and that still doesn't say anything about the problem. Median household income normalized for inflation (the real inflation, not the CPI govt computed garbage) illustrates the eroding purchasing power that makes the intent of retiring exclusively on front-loading vehicles a mere pipedream. Now, if the boomers would step aside and vacate their current employment and took their lickings I would get an instant promotion at work. How's that for knowing exactly what you need to do and being completely incapable of doing anything about it. I sincerely wish my parent's generation tailwinds in their dying years, but they've been holding up the line way too long for Xers and Yers in the workplace and we're making wine out of water down here in the mail room, it's getting ridiculous. I'll suck it up and unnecessarily struggle for 30 years making "chicken or lasagna" financial decisions for my spouse and kids, but the sooner boomers get off the way the quicker I can get on with my life and attempt to tackle the hardships built-in to this brave new world. You don't have to tolerate my pension speech, just help me help myself and get out of the way already.
Why Gen Y might never retire - MSN Money - Extra
Coming of age during a disastrous decade for stocks is shaping a generation of ultraconservative investors, and they're shunning the equity portfolios of their parents for the hiding places of their great-grandparents.
It's ironic, to say the least. Americans in Generation Y -- definitions vary, but generally those born from 1977 to 1994 -- have grown up with X Games and globalization. They spend their time paragliding in the Alps or snowboarding on half-pipes. They fearlessly dine on mystery meat bought from street vendors in Mongolia and run careers off laptops fired up in Internet cafes in Southeast Asia.
But when it's time to invest, they're as risk-averse as their Depression-era forefathers. That could prove to be a personal-finance mistake of epic proportions.
"Holding on to the coping behaviors that you learned in a crisis almost always proves to be a disaster in the long run," said Brad Klontz, a Honolulu psychologist who specializes in money disorders.
Seems like there is a body of opinion that Generation Y needs some investing guts and some psychological gumption.
You need to look again. The bommers went thru times the generation X has skipped. That being the vietnam war and the recession of the 70's and 80's. In fact why do you think that samll businesss has become the fastest growing part of new jobs;because of the lesson and what they did after these recessions.In fact; if you look boomers still control most of the wealth in this country.But its not all X generation that has taken this approach as the difference in wealth in their generation is wider than ever. As a generation they will IMO be the first generation to do worse than their parents and always have excuses.Its the disppointed with themselves memebers that think this way about other generations cheating them when its just that those are the ones who are conning themselves;just as they have with credit and other financial matters.Why do you think they push so hard fpor uncle sam to take care of them;they are looking for replacement parents.Those that have the old american spirit of self reliance will be fine and in fact better off than those on the DOLE as the english say.You can guess which part of generation X wavehunhetre is from his trolling retiremnt threads to whine;no one other than that would even be in retirement threads otherwise.All self petty.
Sounds like you are giving some good parenting advice. I suspect your kids are well on their way also. So many of the Generation Y problems today are poor parenting and just old fashioned poor modeling. I wonder how financially secure for retirement some of the Generation Y parents are for retirement. Hmmmm that could be a thread for this forum. Is the success or failure of Generation Y in preparing for retirement a function of parenting or economic conditions? Is there a correlation between Boomer retirement success and their offspring's current financial conditions?
His world? Um, the majority does. As I was reading a post earlier where a federal retiree under CSRS had the nerve to even discuss TSP it struck me why many of my generation (Y) feel that way towards boomers. The sheer irony of a CSRS retiree talking TSP is the stuff of stand up comedians. Ask a couple FERS people what they feel about the same topic, the reaction would catch your attention real quick.
I'm baffled - why would you say that I, as a CSRS retiree, "had the nerve to even discuss TSP"? As a federal employee, the Thrift Savings Plan was an opportunity to invest in a variety of ways. And even though I didn't get any matching funds from the government, I invested as much as I could. That meant doing without some things along the way, but to me, it was worth it.
We don't have a LOT of money in TSP, and we're not adding any more to the total in retirement, but we can shift our money around within the various TSP funds, and in the next 15 years, there will be plenty of opportunities to grow that part of our savings.
I think that if there's any "sheer irony" with regard to participation in TSP, it's that so many people in FERS, where TSP is a crucial part of retirement planning, aren't investing at all, or are investing very little. As a CSRS employee, I didn't HAVE to participate in TSP. I chose to do so, and to invest as fully as I could afford, in order to provide for additional funds in retirement beyond my CSRS annuity.
As I told our two Gen Y kids years ago, one of the very best things my wife and I could do for them would be to insure our financial security in retirement, so they won't ever have to take care of us.
Sorry to say…but as one of the millions on Gen Xers (people born in the 1960’s) you get little sympathy from me as you will most folks “under 50â€.
Those who are retiring today (people from 55 to 70) worked and raised their families through the best boom times America ever had: 1950 to 1978. They thought their future was assured. America in those days was a land full of companies like GM, Kodak, …etc, that offered employees full affordable healthcare, a pension for life, and a secure job. In those days, raising a family was what it was supposed to be, a joy. Americans passed on jobs to the next generation of Americans.
Yet, for most of us in our 40’s today or younger…we never had anything like that. We grew up in the 1970’s….and entered the work force in the 1980’s when Reaganomics was in full swing. We watched the spoiled boomers consume and hoard everything: jobs, money, housing, etc. The boomers left the scraps for the next generation. By the 1980’s and 1990’s , Boomer politicians helped ship high skilled jobs out of the country, leaving the Gen Xers with the typical Mc Job (a dead end low wage job). The boomers cared little about legacy, honor, or morality. As the greediest generation in American history had risen to the corporate top by the late 1990’s...the cracks in America where starting to show. The jobs that most people from 25 to 45 had…could no longer support a real middle class American life anymore. We were expected to survive, start a family, and pay a mortgage…as real wages fell and good jobs disappeared. As a generation…., we were told “buck upâ€, “work harderâ€, or you’re a “disillusioned generationâ€â€¦etc. We were forever labeled cynics and slackers.
Now all we hear about is these same boomers crying about their 401k and how they are not going to be able to have “financial security†in retirement. How they are losing their business. Now that THEY are having financial trouble the world is supposed to stop.
I ‘am sure I’ll catch it for this comment (it won’t be the first time)……. but everytime I hear about another boomer whose stock portfolio is plunging and business is failing….a little smile sneaks onto my face. I guess all I can say to the Baby Boomers now is…suck it up. I guess what goes around…comes around.
Welcome to the "" party,...welcome to our world.
Hello I am a boomer (1958) and did not enter the workforce until 1981 after college. I was not raising a family from 1950 to 1978 (I don't think many of the older boomers were either).
Stop being so bitter! Nobody I graduated from college with has the same job - all have been laid off, company went under or merged, etc. We had the 80s boom (home interest rates of 12% considered good) and bust which lasted here until almost the tech wreck and 9/11.
I'm baffled - why would you say that I, as a CSRS retiree, "had the nerve to even discuss TSP"? As a federal employee, the Thrift Savings Plan was an opportunity to invest in a variety of ways. And even though I didn't get any matching funds from the government, I invested as much as I could. That meant doing without some things along the way, but to me, it was worth it.
We don't have a LOT of money in TSP, and we're not adding any more to the total in retirement, but we can shift our money around within the various TSP funds, and in the next 15 years, there will be plenty of opportunities to grow that part of our savings.
I think that if there's any "sheer irony" with regard to participation in TSP, it's that so many people in FERS, where TSP is a crucial part of retirement planning, aren't investing at all, or are investing very little. As a CSRS employee, I didn't HAVE to participate in TSP. I chose to do so, and to invest as fully as I could afford, in order to provide for additional funds in retirement beyond my CSRS annuity.
As I told our two Gen Y kids years ago, one of the very best things my wife and I could do for them would be to insure our financial security in retirement, so they won't ever have to take care of us.
Sounds like good smart and caring financial management parenting.
Hello I am a boomer (1958) and did not enter the workforce until 1981 after college. I was not raising a family from 1950 to 1978 (I don't think many of the older boomers were either).
Stop being so bitter! Nobody I graduated from college with has the same job - all have been laid off, company went under or merged, etc. We had the 80s boom (home interest rates of 12% considered good) and bust which lasted here until almost the tech wreck and 9/11.
You are mistaken my man!
Aghhhh the lessons of life, learned and applied. Is that what they call wisdom? I suspect you have given your kids some good life lessons to build on.
I'm baffled - why would you say that I, as a CSRS retiree, "had the nerve to even discuss TSP"? As a federal employee, the Thrift Savings Plan was an opportunity to invest in a variety of ways. And even though I didn't get any matching funds from the government, I invested as much as I could. That meant doing without some things along the way, but to me, it was worth it.
We don't have a LOT of money in TSP [you actually find that something other than par for the course....i rest my case], and we're not adding any more to the total in retirement, but we can shift our money around within the various TSP funds, and in the next 15 years, there will be plenty of opportunities to grow that part of our savings.
I think that if there's any "sheer irony" with regard to participation in TSP, it's that so many people in FERS, where TSP is a crucial part of retirement planning, aren't investing at all, or are investing very little. As a CSRS employee, I didn't HAVE to participate in TSP. I chose to do so, and to invest as fully as I could afford, in order to provide for additional funds in retirement beyond my CSRS annuity.
As I told our two Gen Y kids years ago, one of the very best things my wife and I could do for them would be to insure our financial security in retirement, so they won't ever have to take care of us.
You didn't get my drift. The reason your assertions are ironic is that you are a CSRS retiree, you dont NEED front-loading contributions to keep you out of the poor house. The reason FERS people don't contribute to TSP is they CAN"T AFFORD TO (and a CSRS person is in no position to argue otherwise). Fers people have half of what your CSRS pension gives you to fall on. The rest is front-loaded. Big difference. And don't get me started on the social security "third leg" insult to our intelligence. FERS people don't want TSP, they want what you have! Contributing to TSP for you was a cute hobby, for FERS people it's being told you're not getting a solid retirement oh but here's a 6 shooter with a bullet in it (stock market), go spin it and good luck. I know the pension types like to dismiss the opportunity cost of liquid, but it's real. Front loading retirement is a different animal than defined benefit, it changes everything. My parents didn't have to worry about coughing up their retirement up front, thence they were able to afford life. You're telling FERS people and Gen Y in general to "too bad so sad" and to front-load their retirement and be able to carry through the same life previous generations did. It's beyond disingenuous.
-- break break --
TuborgP,
As to accusing Gen Y of being gun shy with the aforementioned article, total garbage. A cold day in h$ll before I take retirement advice from a baby boomer, one riding on a pension no less (not you, im talking about the article writers and sources). We're not gun shy, we just choose to not be sheeple and rather recognize the market is a ponzi scheme. I almost laughed off my chair when the article mentions differentiating between investing with a Maddoff type and investing with "established reputable firms". Standard boomer agenda to get more pawns in the scheme. You didn't get last year's memo? They're ALL ponzi! Why do you even think a boomer has ANY vested interest on where Gen Y puts their peanut salaries? Simple. Who do you think is gonna buy all that worthless paper the later boomers are riding on? We are. And of course, as long as we're "gun shy" about the market, Generation Jones is hosed. What a condescending piece of journalistic garbage. Backpacking in the Alps and twittering...gimme a break, I haven't had a vacation since I graduated college 6 years ago. Nah, I want CSRS, where I can put in my time, get my lifetime paycheck for the same "hard work" my parents put in, and sit back on my paid-in-full easy chair and have academic discussions about the TSP tinkering I do for a hobby.
As to the philosophical discussion on attitudes and outcomes, I'd be careful about that kind of self-righteousness. Most americans seem to think that bootstrap is all you need to get yours. That's what got the European bourgeoisie their heads chopped off. We're not an island. Even if we device a way to hedge against the median outcome, we're still bound by the dispossession of the middle. Which is why these discussions matter. Everybody can't be better off in our capital monopoly system, therefore it is incumbent on those who understand and are able to articulate the problem (which at a minimum entails ADMITTING we have one to begin with) to pay a little more attention and attempt to attain a median outcome that appeases the majority. Being a boomer and telling X, Y and Zers "********* I got mine" won't help you get to your natural death comfortably. So spare me the patronizing "you're too young to know what you don't know", I know more about retirement and investing than my own parents did at my age, so I know the generational dispossession is not a function of perception or attitude, and neither are the incredible economic flaws in our monetary policy that are about to split this country in half if we keep cheering on this race to the bottom.
Of course boomers go ahead and cite that gargabe article about Gen Y being gun shy about the stock market. We're not gun shy, we know it's a ponzi scheme.
As to accusing Gen Y of being gun shy with the aforementioned article, total garbage. A cold day in h$ll before I take retirement advice from a baby boomer, one riding on a pension no less (not you, im talking about the article writers and sources). We're not gun shy, we just choose to not be sheeple and rather recognize the market is a ponzi scheme. I almost laughed off my chair when the article mentions differentiating between investing with a Maddoff type and investing with "established reputable firms". Standard boomer agenda to get more pawns in the scheme. You didn't get last year's memo? They're ALL ponzi! Why do you even think a boomer has ANY vested interest on where Gen Y puts their peanut salaries? Simple. Who do you think is gonna buy all that worthless paper the later boomers are riding on? We are. And of course, as long as we're "gun shy" about the market, Generation Jones is hosed. What a condescending piece of journalistic garbage. Backpacking in the Alps and twittering...gimme a break, I haven't had a vacation since I graduated college 6 years ago. Nah, I want CSRS, where I can put in my time, get my lifetime paycheck for the same "hard work" my parents put in, and sit back on my paid-in-full easy chair and have academic discussions about the TSP tinkering I do for a hobby.
As to the philosophical discussion on attitudes and outcomes, I'd be careful about that kind of self-righteousness. Most americans seem to think that bootstrap is all you need to get yours. That's what got the European bourgeoisie their heads chopped off. We're not an island. Even if we device a way to hedge against the median outcome, we're still bound by the dispossession of the middle. Which is why these discussions matter. Everybody can't be better off in our capital monopoly system, therefore it is incumbent on those who understand and are able to articulate the problem (which at a minimum entails ADMITTING we have one to begin with) to pay a little more attention and attempt to attain a median outcome that appeases the majority. Being a boomer and telling X, Y and Zers "********* I got mine" won't help you get to your natural death comfortably. So spare me the patronizing "you're too young to know what you don't know", I know more about retirement and investing than my own parents did at my age, so I know the generational dispossession is not a function of perception or attitude, and neither are the incredible economic flaws in our monetary policy that are about to split this country in half if we keep cheering on this race to the bottom.
Of course boomers go ahead and cite that gargabe article about Gen Y being gun shy about the stock market. We're not gun shy, we know it's a ponzi scheme.[/quote]
Response to the above
Did you bother to read the links? Most of what is in my post is from the link indicated above it. It is for the Under 30 probably written by successful under 30 financial advisors. Ignore at your own peril or should I say future?
Sounds like you might be another frustrated Ron Paul supporter or perhaps you are crying about your gold investments not being the salvation to your inheriting the earth. At any rate enjoy your reality and we shall enjoy ours. This for the most part is a forum of happy people who are either entering in or already in their golden years. You probably love the politics forum. May you eventually find the peace and security also that a well planned retirement affords.
On the other hand if the market is a big Ponzi scheme do you wish you had been born sooner to have been on the receiving end and not the giving end? Sort like having cashed out from Bernard Maddoff two years ago. Do I feel guilty that I sold my house near the peak of the housing market and the people who purchased it have lost 6 figures of equity since?
Nope!
I'm a boomer, I will soon have a secure pension, and good savings, my house is paid off. I'm not gloating, I'm grateful that I got in before the good pension system was upended. There was nothing wrong with the old CSRS system - it was strong and self funded when they did away with it for the new hires. I've been careful to live well under my income and not run up too much debt in school or afterwards. I did lose many thousands in the market collapse but it was a percentage of my savings so I am not wiped out.
Hindsight has some valid points in his bitter rant. Average incomes have barely budged in more than 15 years yet costs of everything have gone way up. We baby boomers (our leaders, anyway) destroyed a system we were born into so now no one has job security or savings security. There are some very hard facts with this economic collapse. The new system does depend on a ever increasing stock market. Those boomers whose retirements were dependent on this new 401k system are scared and hurting now.
I feel sorry for all those people who won't ever get what I'm getting. Yes, there are some winners in the new system, but the averages are dismal now and it is the averages that make up what most people experience. It takes a healthy and large middle class to drive a good economy. It is scary for those who are coming up behind us. Even for those who work hard and save as much as they can. A lot can happen in 20 or 30 years and it can turn around dramatically. But I do think we should all be considering the system that we have now and what it means for our future as well as those behind us.
As I said, I'm very grateful to have the old system. I had a choice and I am very glad I chose to keep the old system. I thought it was a huge mistake to kill it when they did it and I think it is even more so now. But I'm not gloating. I didn't get the huge house, the Lexus, or the twice yearly expensive vacations. I underspent. I also never understood the boomer idea that their kids just have to go private colleges. I went to a state school and got a really good education and I paid for it myself. There is nothing wrong with that. There has been such an attitude of entitlement, it couldn't be sustained either.
You need to look again. The bommers went thru times the generation X has skipped. That being the vietnam war and the recession of the 70's and 80's. In fact why do you think that samll businesss has become the fastest growing part of new jobs;because of the lesson and what they did after these recessions.In fact; if you look boomers still control most of the wealth in this country.But its not all X generation that has taken this approach as the difference in wealth in their generation is wider than ever. As a generation they will IMO be the first generation to do worse than their parents and always have excuses.Its the disppointed with themselves memebers that think this way about other generations cheating them when its just that those are the ones who are conning themselves;just as they have with credit and other financial matters.Why do you think they push so hard fpor uncle sam to take care of them;they are looking for replacement parents.Those that have the old american spirit of self reliance will be fine and in fact better off than those on the DOLE as the english say.You can guess which part of generation X wavehunhetre is from his trolling retiremnt threads to whine;no one other than that would even be in retirement threads otherwise.All self petty.
First, I’m no “twenty something”… I’m 45. I own a house with a low mortgage that I bought 10 years ago, in a nice area near the beach (yea, that’s where the wavehunter fits in), have a decent job (computer mapping), and have two cars. As a labeled “slacker ” I have all I could want. Since I never bought into the boomer consumer status culture - the economic crisis has been a non-event for me. I may not make a lot of money…but I OWE very little money.
Next, don’t dare try to give the boomer sob story BS about recessions and the Vietnam War in the 1970’s. The last Americans to face real adversity were from my parent’s generation. They lived through a depression, two World Wars…etc. So quit the “tough times speech”. Boomers are the most pampered wimpy generation of Americans in the last 100 years. Unlike today…anyone who couldn’t make something of themselves between 1950 and 1985 in America was truly a waste.
The comment “why do you think that small business has become the fastest growing part of new jobs; because of the lesson and what they did after these recessions”…is not only an absurd comment, but shows a how warped your sense of historical American economics truly is. True to boomer form, you’ve got all the spin, but there is little real substance. Small business ARE the fastest growing part of new jobs…because all the union, skilled, high tech, manufacturing jobs for huge companies are long gone. That’s why your money is going down each month (lol). Yet, each morning boomers tell themselves little economic and social fables to get through the day…. and keep them from screaming too much at night.
The enormous and significant economic changes have occurred in American over the last 15 or 20 years is not apparent to the self absorbed boomer who is at the end of the economic road (retirement, last working years…etc). Perhaps no one has ever laid it out for you. So here is a quick recap…(of course without the boomer spin):
Skilled manufacturing jobs went overseas. The average man or woman from 1950 to 1985 could go to work for the GM, Ford, Kodak, or nameless others…. earn a decent pay with a pension, have full healthcare, and earn enough to support a middle class life. By the late 1980’s , 1990’s and beyond…. American companies starting moving overseas in mass. The skilled manufacturing job was quickly vanishing across America forever. This occurred when fools followed Reaganomics in the 1980’s …. it was deemed that what was good for the wealthy investor class…was good for all Americans. The main problem of course, was capitalists and investors - think like capitalists and investors. So that guy in Detroit making cars for $23 hour was replaced with a Indian or Chinese worker who would work for $2 an hour. The CEO’s made bigger bonuses, the company made more money, the shareholders (who were mostly older people) were happy…..while the soul of America was sold out. Between 1979 and 2000 (according to Brookings) ……….25 million skilled manufacturing or industrial jobs in the United States vanished forever.
The Middle Class Family starts to slip…..which leads to…..ACT 2…
Family Debit/Credit Debit. As Gen X , Y and younger people entered the workforce and started their lives and families, most were unable to sustain a life like their grandparents, or the boomers before them…..so they turned to credit. By the late 1980’s real wages (when adjusted to annual inflation) starting falling for the first time since the Great Depression. As skilled labor and automation moved to cheap overseas labor markets, the American capitalists could now raise the price of consumer products and goods…since no one bought anything in cash anymore anyway. It was great ( for awhile)….in a time of declining wages, massive movement of skilled jobs overseas….you could buy all you wanted ….and not have to pay until some distant point in time.
This of course led to ACT 3 ….
Lending Deregulation. By the late 1990’s as the greedy boomers where now in full control of corporate America, younger Americas continued to consume on credit, and real wages kept falling. Boomers had no problem with banks and credit card companies shaking down Americans families with ever-higher fees, penalties, and unfair terms. Boomers cared little when financial and banking lobbyists in Washington continued to buy their way into our Government…it was good for them since mostly it was older folks who profited from stock gains in when banks looked good on paper. Who cared about the next generation. The bubble would burst on the next group.
Predictably came the “LAST ACT” (for the boomers anyway).
Finally, the greed surging through them like an African virus - boomers put the only thing they ever truly owned in hock…..their homes and small business. At the same time, younger home buyers - contending with falling wages, an ever increasing CPI, no down payment money , and home prices going through the roof because of all the “false equity” boomers had created in the stock and real estate markets…took on huge, high risk, and mostly unworkable mortgages. By 2005 paper assets were leverged 60 to 1, but the 401 K’s were doing great!. By the time the bubble burst, the older folks would be sitting in that beach and the young would have to face the music. Who cares if don’t make anything here in America anymore…that’s the next generations problem.
Ahh, but it came crashing down way before most boomers could get out alive. Seems to me the whip has come back and hit the boomers in the face. Now the world is supposed to stop because they are feeling economic hardship.
I may have only been six months old when he was gunned down…but I remember something about the “chickens coming home to roost”.
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