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We were discussing national policy, not raising babies. Certainly infrastructure was maintained (sorta....), but what great infrastructure projects were created by the boomers? Did they invest in alternative energy? nope. Did they invest in high speed rails? nope. Did they start any sort of major future oriented infrastructure project? Nope...
But by all means, tell me about these great projects that are going to increase the long-term health of the nation for younger generations. Now...I can tell you about a lot of disinvestment in public projects, a lot of reductions in higher education spending, etc.
Yes, they answered their call to society by consistently lowering their taxes year-after-year. They answered their call by willing themselves huge entitlement programs without properly funding them. They answered their call by indebting their children with student loans, etc because they cut the funding that put them through college.
Honestly, I'm actually surprised they didn't find a way to indebt their babies for changing their diapers.
The boomers systemically indebted their children in almost every way imaginable and that is why we have pensions systems with huge unfunded liabilities. Its not a California thing, its not a government thing....its a generational thing.
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Originally Posted by user_id
For the most part....yes.
Nope.....the boomer issue was realized decades ago and taxes were adjusted.....but then after surpluses started to form (surpluses that should have been used to fund education, infrastructure, etc) they were quickly "spent" by issuing tax cuts. But it went further than that, the surpluses turned into deficits....large deficits.
So what is being recognized is that the boomers mismanaged their retirement funds.....and that younger generations are going to have to bail them out. No thanks....boomers need to live with their mistakes.
Firstly, equating any negative generalization about a population as akin to racism etc is ridiculous. I mean, do you think that only generalizations that say positive things about a group can be true?
But you're not paying attention to what I'm saying. Generations throughout American history have had different characteristics, the key issue with the boomers was there size. They had the ability to do things that no other generation could achieve, in that sense they needed to be even more responsible than other generations to avoid problems. The balance of power was misaligned while the boomers were going through their primary working years.
The reality is that each succeeding generation continues to try and maximize benefit and opportunity ... and they do so without any malice toward the previous or future generations. Our future generations are our children and grandchildren ... if you think that the majority of any generation is willing to disregard their children and grandchildren then you have not been a parent nor a responsible son / daughter.
Yep....typical boomer-think. If younger generations complain about the lack of jobs, or anything else....they are just brats. They should fix the mess the boomers created without complaint and thank them for all their wonderful contributions to society.
But I like this.... Its precisely the sort of ivory tower gibberish that is going to spark younger generations to take action. Keep it up....all of you.
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Originally Posted by analyze_this
Completely agree 100%. The Boomers are the grediest, most selfish generation ever. They have systematically destroyed what the greatest generation achieved under FDR and have made zero investments in public transport, alternative energy, sustainable living, affordable healthcare etc. In addition, they have systematically offshored and continue to offshore all our jobs overseas.
I see no future in the country. I have plans to eventually relocate to a emerging BRIC country with a younger population and leave these old greedy boomers and others to rot and die alone and fend for themselves in Mad Max USA when sh1t hits the fan.
You entirely miss my argument and objection to your rantings:
If you simply stated the problems faced as a result of the points you cite, I probably wouldn't have much if any disagreement.
The issue, in which you reveal yourselves as unbelievably shallow and weirdly bigoted, is your assignation of intentionality, of maliciousness, and sub-character on the part of an entire age group.
How ridiculous. How phenomenally ignorant to propose that all -- or even a majority -- of homo sapiens born between 1946 and 1964 are somehow flawed in ways other homo sapiens born in other years are not.
The boomers did NOT, as a generation, as a collective, informed body, with foresight and vision, all get together and negotiate contracts and benefits and agreements to intentionally rip off their children and grandchildren. Boomers in positions of leadership did what all people always do: they look around at the world conditions they are living, draw general conclusions and make projections that they believe are a forward trend -- and try to maximize their position and likely future position -- and they do so to establish what they believed would also serve future generations.
Wrong? Yeah. What's new. The world up and changed around the whole plan.
But the greed that is at the root of the altered reality is a flaw in the entire species -- not endemic to Boomers.
And if you don't think civil rights, sexual freedoms, women's rights, environmental rights and respects movements are significant contributions to the future generations -- if you think that the only contributions are financial investments then you are doubly shallow. Furthermore, do you think that Boomers didn't pay for their kids' educations? Didn't pay their taxes like anybody else -- we're not talking about the mini-elite 1% who engineered and won the big tax reductions? Didn't invest in their homes and personal estates to leave to their kids? We, speaking for the common man boomer, who worked our careers to raise our families in what we thought was a new age of middle-class freedoms, thought we were building a future for our children.
You want specious blame? Look at the usual suspects: the small super elite that have run the world by owning its finances with disregard since forever. That total sociopathy crosses every generation. They bend and bob and weave with whatever negotiations and trends because they know in the end they will own it all anyway.
Right....so the 60% of students with the most financial need receive "gift-money" that pays for around half of their college costs and have to work and take out loans to pay for the rest. This is not to mention that the high unemployment rate greatly impacts students ability to "get a job" to cover it".
And the other 40%? Well....entirely dependent on their parents financial savvy and generosity.
I didn't say anything about "for profit schools", rather I stated the rather obvious fact that everyone currently in college can't go to low cost public universities. There just isn't enough space.
Yes. The other 40% come for well-to-do backgrounds and are identified as not having any need since their parents can, and generally always do, support them. The other 40% are paying 1/3 of their tuition to help support the financial aid of the other 60%. It's a cost shift. All universities do it. A big price tag makes your university look more prestigious and helps the people who can't afford it get larger aid packages so that they can by charging those who can afford it.
There's never been enough room for everyone to go to a public university. That's not a problem. Not everyone goes, and not everyone deserves to go. The CSU/UC mandate guaranteed that every marginally capable student could, however. I'm not interesting in spending tax-payer money to provide young adult daycare at the university level. Let those people go to a community college and waste five years of their lives. If they at some point grow up and become responsible students, they can then go on to a four year college.
There are income-based repayment plans now, plus it's easy to deffer repayment for graduates encountering financial difficulties due to the economy. Student loans are very flexible. It's not like consumer debt where they are going to trash your credit because you miss three payments. Call them up and defer repayment, I have. They're very easy to work with.
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You're under-pricing health care costs, ignoring dental costs, ignoring vision, ignoring retirement issues, etc.
But let's take your $7,000 figure......the median income in the United State is $45,000 so just student loans and health care represent a 15% tax on your income and when combined with "real" taxes....is more than what someone with a similar income in Europe would pay.
But hey, you make more than $45,000 a year....so who cares right?
Yes, that's called incentive to go to college. American FactFinder - Results
Individual median income is $26k for high school graduates and $47k for non-graduates.
The median American has employer sponsored health insurance, they pay a fraction of the total cost. We have a comprehensive retirement package in SSI and Medicare. They cost about half of our overall tax burden. Not as comprehensive as Europe, but then our tax burden is about 20% lower than Europe's.
I'm very concerned with the cuts to education in California. We're at a breaking point that is threatening the guaranteed accessibility to topnotch higher education. That concerns me greatly. What doesn't at all concern me is that someone might have to get a job or take out student loans to pay for their beer money and ramen noodles while they go through the guaranteed accessibility to topnotch higher education. Accessibility doesn't mean you stick your hand out and have a $30k check deposited in your hand to attend UCLA for free. Accessibility means a student coming from working-class parents can go to a community college, get good grades, and transfer to the UC or CSU system. Accessibility means higher education can be paid for one way or another, and that certainly includes scholarships, grants, parent contribution, self-help, and loans. It does not only include sticking your hand out and having a $30k check appear in it.
You don't know what you're talking about. Wake me up when Jerry Brown pursues the collective bargaining reforms that have been a smashing success in Wisconsin.
First of all houses in Texas are not that affordable unless you want to live in a crappy area. I have several family members who live there and it is not the utopia you think it is.
Why do you live here if CA is so horrible? Go move to Texas with its' god awful heat and humidity. No matter how screwed up CA is, you could not pay me enough to move to Texas, Nevada, Tennessee, etc.
I call "bull". Houses ARE affordable, and they aren't in crappy areas to be affordable.
I'm glad you have no desire to move to Texas. I did make the move, and it's the best thing I could have done. Have a comparable home at 25% the cost, a good job, the economy is booming and businesses are staying open. See, I have several family members that still live in CA, and it's not the utopia you think it is.
The weather is the one thing I stressed about after moving here, but it's not been that bad. The temps are the same as the Sac valley in the summer, and the humidity is tolerable. We even get rain in the summer - something completely lacking in the valley. The weather is a small price to pay to not have the state govt take, take, take from its residents.
... Not too mention, the simple fact of social security is it was never intended to be a "retirement system." ...
True.
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Originally Posted by Phil306
... It was intended to supplement the pension system, ALL persons received after working for said company for 30 years...
That is an interesting re-write of history. But it isn't true. Social Security started as one-time lump-sum payments in January, 1937. Monthly payments started in January, 1940.
During the 1930s, very few people had company-provided pensions outside of the public sector and a handful of the largest industrial corporations. MOST persons did NOT have a pension - they saved for their own retirement and if necessary were taken care of by younger family members.
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Originally Posted by Phil306
... However, private companies decided to cancel pension programs, BECAUSE of social security...
Another interesting re-write of history. Again, this isn't true. Companies did not cancel pension programs. Companies transformed defined benefit pensions into transportable defined contribution pension plans that were transportable to other employers because few people worked for a single company for 30 years anymore.
50 years ago, if you changed employers every few years, people would whisper "what's wrong with Joe? Why can't he keep a job?" Starting 20 years ago, if you DO NOT change employers every few years, people whisper "What's wrong with Joe? Why can't he find a better job?"
In the modern era of highly transportable employment where people change employers & even careers many times in their working life, the antiquated notion of a defined benefit pension & gold watch after 50 years on the job exists only in fiction for good reason.
... "Folks" are pushing for reducing younger workers' benefits and Medicare and altering Social Security around the lines they are because the unsustainabilities are finally being recognized and new projections demand adjustments to the systems...
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to forecast that the SS system cannot continue in its current form. It takes an actuary, and the alarms were being sounded 30 years ago and more, although without much effect.
In the early 1980s, I worked for a consultant that had a contract to teach members of the US House of Representatives about these new-fangled things called "Personal Computers." The training was in the context of something that would be relevant to them.
We created software to support classroom instruction that modeled the Social Security system. It allowed the students to input things relevant to the SS system - birth rates, death rates, life expectancies, immigration rates, emigration rates, rate of inflation, employee contributions to FICA, employer contributions to FICA, outflows -- all the usual stuff.
And the system then showed pretty charts & graphs that - surprise - showed that at some point SS runs out of money and the whole system just blows up because by 2030 there would only be about 2 people working to pay SS for everyone retired receiving benefits (By 2030, there will be more walkers & wheelchairs than baby strollers).
SHOCK! HORROR! DISBELIEF!
Then the training system allowed the students to change the various parameters of the system -- change the CPI & COLA, change SS contribution percentages, change retirement age, change payout, means-test the benefits, etc. It gave the students control of various logical knobs & dials & buttons so they could see the result.
And, predictably, the outcome showed that they could put the problem off to the future, but eventually the whole thing just blows up because by 2030 there would be only about 2 people working to pay for every retired person's benefit.
MORE SHOCK! MORE HORROR! MORE DISBELIEF!
So - what was the outcome? Well, some members of the House and many staffers went through the training on these new-fangled PC, and not much more. They fiddled around the edges of SS in 1983 (not as a result of the training, by the way).
The boomers did NOT, as a generation, as a collective, informed body, with foresight and vision, all get together and negotiate contracts and benefits and agreements to intentionally rip off their children and grandchildren. Boomers in positions of leadership did what all people always do: they look around at the world conditions they are living, draw general conclusions and make projections that they believe are a forward trend -- and try to maximize their position and likely future position -- and they do so to establish what they believed would also serve future generations.
I'm a pragmatist, nullgeo. I'm perfectly aware that there was no malicious design intended to screw us over by our parents, but that's the effect. Y'all don't get any brownie points for good intentions in my book. You royally screwed us over, whether we do any better I have my doubts. Consider just one thing, Social Security. Without tax hikes we're looking at a 40% reduction in our social security benefits and our retirement age increased. That's our reality. What do you expect us to be about that? Happy? We all know it needs to happen, though. We've known it for 30 years. You know who doesn't, or at least chose to ignore it? Your generation. Someone so much as talks about touching your damn social security benefits and you raise hell. Where's the shared sacrifice? The contrition? So much as look at the 2% temporary tax cut and you raise hell. Kick the can down the road, we've got our benefits. Look at the country we came out of the gates into... bogged down in two wars, buried in debt, financial system on the brink of collapse. I couldn't vote when we went into Afghanistan or Iraq, wasn't old enough, Gen Y made up a tiny fraction of the voter-base. You know who wasn't buying houses we couldn't afford? Us.
You left us a mixed bag, some good some bad. The bad is we're left saddled with debts, mostly your generation's. The quality of primary education we received wasn't very good, largely because you decided you didn't want to pay property taxes to pay for it. Today higher education is in peril. Your parents made a huge investment in an exceptional education system, one that your generation has neglected and frittered away. Higher education in California is collapsing. The Master Plan is becoming a joke. The UC and CSU system hasn't kept pace with population growth, and while you may be able to "attend" a community college still good luck getting the classes. The good news is the standard of living increased so much in the last two generations that even though we'll probably not have the same standard as living as our parents did it's not the end of the world. Your generation did a really lousy job of living within your means and were way too materialistic. Whether our generation will be better is the question for the next several decades, personally I have my doubts.
A population of 1.5 million people on welfare or about 3.8% of the CA population are on welfare (as of 2010) is HORRIBLE
1/3 of US welfare recipients live in CA...horrible!
What is the other nonsense that you are referring to?
That's nonsense. The Koch Brothers front group which came up with that figure counted college aid to college students as "welfare". If you guys didn't out right lie so often your claims would be more believable.
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