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Blame the Baby Boomers: Shallow, Greedy and Corrupt
The Baby Boom Generation will never be mistaken for the Greatest Generation that survived the Great Depression and defeated evil in a World War that killed 72 million people. I hate to tell you Boomers, but putting a yellow ribbon on the back of your $50,000 SUV is not sacrifice.
Our claim to fame is living way beyond our means for the last three decades… Baby Boomers have been occupying the White House for the last sixteen years. The majority of Congress is Baby Boomers. The CEOs and top executives of Wall Street firms are Baby Boomers. The media is dominated by Baby Boom executives and on-air stars. We have no one to blame but ourselves for the current predicament. Blaming Franklin Roosevelt or Lyndon Johnson for our dire situation is a cop out. Baby Boomers had the time, power, and ability to change our course. We have chosen to leave the heavy lifting to future generations in order to live the good life today.
Of course, not all Baby Boomers are shallow, greedy, and corrupt. Mostly Boomers with power and wealth fall into this category. There were 76 million Baby Boomers born between 1946 and 1963. They now make up 28% of the U.S. population. Their impact on America is undeniable. The defining events of their generation have been the Kennedy assassination, Vietnam, Kent State, Woodstock, the 1st man on the moon, and now the collapse of our Ponzi scheme financial system. They rebelled against their parents, protested the Vietnam War, and settled down in 2,300 square foot cookie cutter McMansions with perfectly manicured lawns, in mall infested suburbia. They have raised overscheduled spoiled children, moved up the corporate ladder by pushing paper rather than making things, lived above their means in order to keep up with their neighbors, bought whatever they wanted using debt, and never worried about the future. Over optimism, unrealistic assumptions, selfishness and conspicuous consumption have been their defining characteristics.
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Early in the 1st Reagan administration, Americans saved 12% of their income and household debt as a percentage of GDP was 63%. In 1980, the oldest Baby Boomers turned 34. They entered their prime earnings and spending years. This is when something went haywire with our great country. Deficit spending became fashionable for government, corporations and individuals. Dick “deficits don’t matter” Cheney was probably in his glory as the country ran up deficits of money, morals, and brains. The Boomers and our government chose to try and borrow and spend their way to prosperity. As we now know, Mr. Cheney’s advice about deficits not mattering was about as good as his belief that you can fire a shotgun in any direction without implications. The Boomer generation has freely made choices over the last quarter century that has brought us to the brink of a second Great Depression.
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What the data proves is that Boomers love to shop and eat, whether they have the money or not. The top 100 retailers in the U.S. have 250,000 stores that generated $1.7 trillion of sales last year. How could America function without 31,000 McDonalds, 35,000 KFCs, Taco Bells, & Pizza Huts, 15,000 Starbucks, 7,000 Wal-Marts, 2,000 Home Depots, 4,000 K-Marts/Sears, and 8,000 Blockbusters? There are 91,000 shopping centers in the United States. The Advertising industry spends $275 billion per year to convince you to spend money you don’t have for things you don’t need. This generation lacks self control, morals, a work ethic, and savings ethic. Based on the recent actions of our government and corporate leaders, we seem to lack any ethics at all. It is immoral for the Boomer generation to run up $53 trillion in unfunded future liabilities in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid to leave as our gift to future generations, while we live it up today. Optimists like to point out that Europe and Japan have much worse unfunded liability problems than the U.S. That is like taking pride in being the best looking horse at the glue factory. In the end, we’ll all still be glue.
The 25 year Boomer borrowing and spending binge is coming to an end. The hangover will be really bad. The Federal Reserve and Treasury are trying to keep the frat party going, but everyone is passed out on the floor.
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(excerpts) The Shallowest Generation - Seeking Alpha Share this:
A major problem is the rapid increase in the spread between the highly paid and the lowly paid in the past 30 or 40 year. At the beginning of that period big corporation CEOs were earning about 40 times what their low level workers were paid. In the run-up to the 2007 bust, that ratio had grown from 40 to 1 all the way to from 400 to 1,000 to 1. Somehow I doubt that CEOs became 10 to 25 TIMES more valuable in the past 30 years. Of course all the people at the upper levels beneath the CEOs have been similarly elevated.
Today I read that the head of Ford Motors is being paid $58 million this year. Ford is about to enter negotiations with the United Auto Workers. They will be fighting over salaries of from $50 to $58,000. Thus Ford’s CEO will be earning around 1,000 times what his line workers will get. Do you think maybe they are pixxed as hexx about that and will drive a hard bargain, while the poor Ford execs cry in their champaign that, “well we just tried so hard to get Ford profitable again, we deserve to be obscenely rich.”
I am a small stockholder of GE, which before the crash was selling at $50 per share. I was outraged to see from my annual reports, that while the stock was tanking to $5/share and eventually rose to around $20/share where it has stagnated for the past 4 years, the top 7 executives were all paid from $11 to $22 million, and did not take any salary reduction at all. We stock holders have to raise bloody heck at this outrageous, unmerited greed. Google “Forbes CEO Compensation to see how overpaid your favorite CEO is, or how much your favorite industry is paying. For those worried about Obamacare, check out the drug and medical supplies companies.
Obama's major donors/bundlers are of the baby boomer generation. You are correct, they are evil!
So were Bush's and Clinton's. It's not a left right thing. Romney, Cain, Palin, Pelosi, Hillary, they are ALL THE SAME! From the same stupid, greedy, war mongering generation. Why do you think the average age of the OWS protester is 20 something.
The only baby boomer I respect is Ron Paul. He's a lone voice in a generation of idiocracy.
Location: By the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful sea
68,330 posts, read 54,428,613 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by lifelongMOgal
Obama's major donors/bundlers are of the baby boomer generation. You are correct, they are evil!
Isn't there a connection between tax cheat Timmy Geithner and "Seeking Alpha"?
Like the piece says, things started downhill in 1980.
Reagan was elected in 1980.
Coincidence?
I think NOT!
A fish rots from the head and that administration certainly had a hand in making people believe free and needless spending was a good thing. Just more typical conservative "Do as I say, not as I do" BS. Someday people may open thier eyes and rtealize that halo they see on St Ronnie's head is nothing but a mirage.
I been hating the boomer generation on this forum for a while and always get flack for it. Thank you, F the boomers! The generation that had it the easiest, lived way past their means, shipped all the jobs overseas, sold America down the river, and forced their debt onto the generations after them.
I been hating the boomer generation on this forum for a while and always get flack for it. Thank you, F the boomers! The generation that had it the easiest, lived way past their means, shipped all the jobs overseas, sold America down the river, and forced their debt onto the generations after them.
And gave us the worker bee drone mentality that if we dont sacrifice our health, our families and our sanity for the corporation and a 60 hour work week we are nothing.
I'm a boomer .. heh .. and I wonder how you all are going to pay for all of these new social programs once we boomers kick the bucket ..
heh .. you think you have bills now .. you just wait .. our money, one day, won't be there to save your lazy butts
The sooner you guys kick the bucket the sooner we will have access to tangible assets and actual wealth creating capital.
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