patrick.net

The problem with youth is that it is wasted on the young. And the problem with experience is that it is wasted on the old.

In the Matrix, the machines liquified the old and fed them to the young.

In the real world, Boomers lobby against getting liquified and starve the young. Then Boomers call them lazy and entitled when Millenials complain about being hungry.

The most selfish, arrogant generation there ever was, boomers were handed the keys to the largest, most robust economy the world has ever seen. Boomer's parents beat back facism, then beat back communism just cause they could. They put a man in space, on the moon, and built a national highway system. On their way out, they founded environmentalism and identified climate change.

Boomers lowered taxes on themselves when in their peak earning years, put porn on the internet, and invented boner pills when that didn't work anymore. They lowered the inheritance tax when their parents started dying so they can strip out that savings too.

They forced their kids to be the most educated generation ever, then feel threatened by how smart they are. Suddenly "experience" is what trumps all. Have a PHD in Applied Finance? Sorry, we are giving the job to Joe, he has 30 years experience in business, although his brightest "big idea" is to move the workforce to China. Real brilliant there, Joe. How did ya think of that one?

He's never really done anything that smart or remarkable, except hang around for 30 years. He can barely send an email but he has a 25 year old secretary we pay $25k so she can handle that. He can't set up his own meetings, Outlook baffles him, so you'd better talk to Kristi if you want to meet with him.

I live very frugally and drive our cars until they have over 200k miles on them. My commute is virtually zero as I work out of my home office.

I lived in what could best pretty much be described as a dive in Crockett, CA, $500 a month rent for a flat in the mid to late '90's, and invested every last dime in the stock market. Look at the average indexed fund under the reign of Clinton. Anyone could have made 20% a year plus.

I received an MBA from UC Berzerkeley and took out the absolute bare minimum of student loans, and only as a last resort. I worked as much as I could when I was in school. I lived in dives, sharing housing with other poor folks.

I am a boomer and doing OK financially - i.e., millionaire+. I am from a relatively poor but hard working family. My dad did not even attend high school, as he had to work to support his numerous siblings. In spite of my disadvantaged background, the US government's policies conspired to deny me admission to graduate schools, while enabling much less qualified and much wealtheir minoroity students to gain admission to the same graduate schools.

So I say fuck you US government. And fuck you complainers.

It's OK, I also had sick, twisted, misdirected responsibility absolving hatred toward the older generation when I was young.

It's normal for nestlings to wish to murder their parents to seize their resources so that they can engage in riotous clubbing, drinking, drugging, tattoos, crazed sex, and spending on bling, toys, cars and boats.

It's not because millenials are selfish, it is merely that nature guides them to consume their elders in fits of thuggish, absurdly justified rages.

When you have your own children, and they look at you with blazing red, rabid, hateful eyes just waiting to club you down into bloody messes like baby seals for your stuff, you will smile inwardly and nod, saying to yourself, "My job here is done!"

Blurtman says

n spite of my disadvantaged background, the US government's policies conspired to deny me admission to graduate schools, while enabling much less qualified and much wealtheir minoroity students to gain admission to the same graduate schools.

Did you go to Haas, or did you not? Dude, you have a MBA from one of the ten best business schools in the country, maybe the world. What the fuck are you complaining about? When factoring in cost, it might be the BEST business school...

You'd have rather paid twice as much down the road at Stanford? I'm sorry to say to you, your life wouldn't have been different.

Pensions should be evaluated every year and adjusted to what's available, the notion that you can sign a contract that will "guarantee" you a certain annual yield going forward and legally enforce it is bullshit. (Federal, State or municipal) government pensions are an intrinsically socialistic vehicle - there is nothing wrong with this approach, but it needs to be understood that one who works for most of their long life will get less out of it than somebody who has to drop out early for whatever reason, in exchange for that one gets the safety that they have "something" in case they are the one who has to drop out early. Everybody who is not on board with that can opt out and invest privately at their own risk, and there's nothing wrong with that either. Robbing those funds for any other purposes though is criminal and should be severely punished. That kicking-the-can-down the road must stop and drastic cuts be made eventually, it's not ok to put future generations into debt for whatever reason, they have no voice and no vote. Let's put an end to the debt spiral and the crony capitalist Fed/government relationship ;)

Blurtman says

I am a boomer and doing OK financially - i.e., millionaire+.

LOL. Typical Boomer. Boo hoo. I am a multimillionaire Berkley MBA. If it wasn't for the Mexicans, Jews, Blacks, and the government, I'd be a billionaire Harvard MBA.

Call it Crazy says

Ceffer says

It's OK, I also had sick, twisted, misdirected responsibility absolving hatred toward the older generation when I was young.

And then you grew up????

Well, you shouldn't judge my generation by me.

Whichever you want, it is in the eye of the beholder.

Ceffer says

Call it Crazy says

Ceffer says

It's OK, I also had sick, twisted, misdirected responsibility absolving hatred toward the older generation when I was young.

And then you grew up????

Well, you shouldn't judge my generation by me.

'I don't want to belong to any club that will accept people like me as a member' ;)

Can't we all just get along?®

Moderate Infidel says

Can't we all just get along?®

Yup, you're first on the menu when cannibal anarchy strikes, eat lots of starches.

sbh says

In another life, I lectured undergraduates in a name university you'd recognize in the east and the found that the kids were terrified of raw experience.

You shouldn't have shown them your arsenal and your barbecue pit, or told them they looked tasty with yams.

In the answers above I see Boomers: (1) credit themselves for 100% of their success (2) blame these lazy millennials for 100% of their problems.

Well Boomers... you lived through times where stocks, house prices went up more than inflation. If you were not too dumb you profited from it. During your life, total credit markets absolutely exploded. All of this debt - money spent to be paid back in the future - was spent to make the economy work better than it would have otherwise and give you the opportunities you got, while actual productive jobs like manufacturing were offshored massively. And yes, sorry, gov debt is also the responsibility of voting citizens.

Now what remains for millennials: college and housing costs grew much faster than inflation making it much more costly to just get an education or simply buy a house, a lot of the jobs are gone offshore. At the same time it's increasingly difficult to take up more debt to push the problem farther away, and create opportunities like boomers got. And yes millennials are being ask to pay taxes to pay for boomers entitlements while knowing full well that they will get nothing when their time comes - because that's just arithmetic.

So no, sorry millennials can't *all* be blamed as lazy. They can't all move to North Dakota to solve their problems, and they can't solve everything with "raw experience". The problems are just bigger than that.

And while individually it's not your fault, collectively you can't escape the blame for the putrid situation you created. (rather than calling that "your job is done" or whatever). At the minimum you should recognize that you simply lived at a fairly good time in history, and times are now not that great.

seeitnow says

Blurtman says

I am a boomer and doing OK financially - i.e., millionaire+.

LOL. Typical Boomer. Boo hoo. I am a multimillionaire Berkley MBA. If it wasn't for the Mexicans, Jews, Blacks, and the government, I'd be a billionaire Harvard MBA.

Billion is the new million.

Dan8267 says

No shit, they have all the money, all the stocks, and all the real estate. The Millennials have all the debt.

Have you thanked the Liberal education system lately?

It seems to me, that the Babyboomers grew in a time where their heads weren't fucked with, to feel guilty about LIVING!!!!

Let me know how whining about lack of money pans out for the Generation Whiners. I'm betting on homeless shelters with that attitude.

mell says

Pensions should be evaluated every year and adjusted to what's available, the notion that you can sign a contract that will "guarantee" you a certain annual yield going forward and legally enforce it is bullshit.

Exactly. Public pensions should be a sliding scale type of system, not these bureaucratic monsters that bankrupt cities like CalPERs.

If the funds are available, why not? If you have entire cities of hundreds of thousands of people going into default, perhaps its time to scale back.

sbh says

Next, be careful when you criticize the boomers' debt history. I'd wager none of us took on as much debt in our lives at such an early stage as the Ms. And remember as well you're criticism includes blaming us for both our wealth creation and our profligate spending. So it's hard to say we are all the same if you're blaming us for being wealthy and being broke at the same time.

Sorry, they should have protested in the streets when their kids future was sold out to the banking and housing cabal in 2008. But I understand it's hard if you own a house and a 401K and don't want their valuation to be trashed down to fair value - I mean after all traditional defensive saving is for losers ;)

CaptainShuddup says

Their future was sold out when they Google for the best price and cheapest shipping on every single consumer goods they bought.

You can make that argument, but if you believe this to be unsustainable then eventually it has to correct itself and everybody will pay for their desire to buy "cheapest". A society as a whole bearing the consequences for their action is vastly different to a money transfer to failing institutions and basically stopping the necessary correction. Everybody who keeps kicking the can down the road is to blame, that is daddy and mommy now and that will be today's youth at some point if nothing changes. I don't care if you object to blaming a particular generation and I also am not interested in painting a rosy picture of today's youth, but the mere use of technology and social media that you and I may not like is not why this country is drowning in debt, neither is using cheap retailers. I agree that the 1% are sort of elusive, there are enough people who worked hard and deserve their riches, but if you think they didn't get fucked over by the banking and housing cabal that committed massive fraud without a single prosecution to date then we have to agree to disagree - that's a big fat boogeyman out there ;)

Those that feel fucked over, need to look in the mirror if they are seeking answers on why no one got prosecuted or why there is no relief in sight.
We can't even have a productive conversation in this country, with out it turning into a wrist bending contest, to place blame on people who aren't even in position to make changes anymore.

It's a bit like going to the house of the retired chef and bitching about how the bagels are NOW made at your favorite Bagel deli. Instead of taking it up with the current chef and proprietor of the bagel deli.

I don't give a fuck who's fault it is, I don't care how it happened, I just want to talk to those that are in power now to make changes.
The question never gets asked because there is no shortage of politcal noise(right now we're dealing with Liberals) from the Liberals piping in with "Oh it's Bush's fault, you should have never voted for him... blah blah blah!"

Like it's a punishment to keep shit fucked up, like they realize it's fucked up and ONLY Obama can really demand changes. But they are really getting a kick out (in their sick little minds) watching the Republicans squirm from all of the bullshit. Even if it means, when they get home at night a nobody can see them. They take a bath to wash the filth off them, and wonder them selves...

"This shit is fucked up, when WILL Obama do something?"

seeitnow says

You'd have rather paid twice as much down the road at Stanford? I'm sorry to say
to you, your life wouldn't have been different

No, medical school. I had graduated phi beta kappa, summa cum laude from a decent NYC college. I worked my ass off to get great grades. Classmates from wealthier backgrounds who had frankly medicore grades and board scores were admitted to schools that I could not get into. They were African American and Spanish. Affirmative action. Their parents were working on Wall Street, were lawyers. My dad was a factory worker without a high school degree. I wish this were not a true story.

That soured me on the American dream and the level playing filed bullshit that every politician preaches. If you are from a well connected background, irrespective of your race, you are in. If you are from a "minority" background, irrespective of wealth, you are in. If you are poor and white, good luck to you.

CaptainShuddup says

Like it's a punishment to keep shit fucked up

You assume that the mess we are in has easy (or even difficult) government solutions. As right wingers and libertarians love to point out, there are many things that the government can't do.

It's true, although government manages to take credit when things go well, and get's blamed when things are not going well.

Yes, it's too easy to point the finger at Bush, who really did cause the government's balance sheet to change by trillions of dollars.

Unfortunately the problems brought on by that and the financial crisis aren't as easy to solve as they were to create. Meanwhile we have a right wing in congress that wants to make sure that Obama accomplishes nothing.

marcus says

Meanwhile we have a right wing in congress that wants to make sure that Obama accomplishes nothing.

Nice segue and finalizes the thought precisely.
Were you always a defeatist or did that come after years of working in education?

CaptainShuddup says

We're you always a defeatist or did that come after years of working in education?

Were republicans (in congress) always spoiled little dirtbag children ? OR is it just a more recent phenomenon ?

I attribute a lot of it to too much plutocrat and corporate power controlling the media and the politicians. See "fairness doctrine" as a starting point.

marcus says

See "fairness doctrine" as a starting point.

Oh! You're rich, you should buy a yacht.

If we were just coming off a second term of McCain right now, and the Murdoch produced a GOP contender fluffy glorification piece to highlight their wonder boy, there wouldn't be one Patnet Liberal that would be happy with that.

Like with EVERYTHING with Liberals they don't want Fairness, they want SPECIAL.

This would be a suitable campaign season for Liberals.

"OK You guys pipe down over there, while we exhaust every media avenue to spread misinformation about the GOP candidate, and lie about our candidate's abilities and sincerity. "

When was the last time that a former President announced that we aren't even a real democracy anymore ?

The even more interesting thing is how little coverage this has gotten in the media.

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/18486-focus-jimmy-carter-us-qhas-no-functioning-democracyq

seeitnow says

Blurtman says

I am a boomer and doing OK financially - i.e., millionaire+.

LOL. Typical Boomer. Boo hoo. I am a multimillionaire Berkley MBA. If it wasn't for the Mexicans, Jews, Blacks, and the government, I'd be a billionaire Harvard MBA.

Harvard and the Ivy's are merely brands that serve to credential the children of the wealthy and connected. The MBA is a two year degree program and is a platform to gain contacts and become credentialled, that is all. I am not complaining that I was admitted to the Haas business school at all. My grades, scores and experience all merited admission to the school. I would not want to attend Stanford or Harvard, and yes, there are many admitted there who are not very qualified, but are well connected. E.g. George W. Bush.

CaptainShuddup says

Like with EVERYTHING with Liberals they don't want Fairness, they want SPECIAL.

In other words you have no perspective on how much the media and politics have changed in the last thirty years. When people talk about how Reagan or Bob Dole would be considered RINOs in todays political environment, you just change the subject.

Article title should really be:

People with most money most likely to buy a new car.

CaptainShuddup says

Marcus, why do you even participate in Politics, discussion or voting for that matter. The only People hold accountable aren't even in office anymore.

So is it that you don't want to understand my point ? Or that you are unable ?

The point isn't that Reagan or Dole are relevant today. IT's that their ideological position would be far too liberal for todays republicans in congress. And I pose the question: Can you acknowledge this as true ?

Note: I didn't go way back to some of the truly liberal republicans such as Charles Percy that were in congress in the 1960s and early 70s. IF you go back that far, a conservative was someone who didn't want to cut taxes because of the dangers of deficits.

These days we have warped ideology based on lies, distractions and outright propaganda war between the two parties. But the more liberal of the two parties (the democratic party) is to the right of where republicans were 30 years ago.

These are just observations. It's fascinating really. Especially the way that you don't deny it, and seem to believe that somehow it's justified.

marcus says

The point isn't that Reagan or Dole are relevant today. IT's that their ideological position would be far too liberal for todays republicans in congress. And I pose the question: Can you acknowledge this as true ?

No, Dole was always considered to be a more moderate Republican, even in his day.

OK Let's discuss Bob Doyle if you think kicking him in the balls will solve anything with this administration.
Hey why not?

sbh says

The opportunity to become something different than you had planned.

You mean the opportunity to default, dumpster dive and squat unsold foreclosures?

The economy is fucked ( less than 2%), the stock market is fucked (less than peak 13yrs ago in real terms), employment is fucked (millions below peak), wages are fucked (median is down). The only thing that is not low is what millennials have to pay for: over priced housing, over priced education, and over priced healthcare. These grew nicely.

zzyzzx says

Dole was always considered to be a more moderate Republican, even in his day

Today moderation in the republican party is forbidden. If you don't sign the Norquist tax pledge, and if you don't go along with the other extreme right wing policies, and obstruction plans, they'll fund a tea party candidate to run against you.

March in step with the right wing, or be replaced.

sbh says

If any individual uses this argument to justify personal paralysis then he has no grasp of his individual problems:

Paralysis? We are not talking about me (I'm gen Y) or any specific individual, we are talking of a generation as a whole.

And as a generation they are screwed.

The question is: what happens when boomers head to oblivion and no one replaces them? How will they maintain the veil of illusory wealth then?

sbh says

For an entire generation to to put their future on "hibernate" is an act of cowardice as well as a failure to grasp the better lesson, namely, that we live as we choose.

You are right. And when they come out of hibernation they will do what they must: throw down the rotten financial system, reject past debts, defund unsustainable entitlements, vote down laws designed to inflate their costs, etc...

As a result, the remaining boomers will kiss their 401Ks and over-priced housing goodbye, and they'll be the ones singing in the subway and dumpster diving. But hey... they can always decide to "live as they choose".

That's actually what I did. Graduated with 50k debt, got a job in a hell hole in Alaska, and worked like an angry bastard for two years to pay it off. Then I worked one more year to get some FU money, quit, and moved to California debt free.

In the 90's, everyone and anyone was giving out loans, and it didn't take much if any documented income to get tens of thousands of dollars worth of credit. Seeing as how you can't purge school loans in bankruptcy court, the move was to pay off student loans with credit cards and personal loans, then pay a bk attorney with some of that borrowed money, to press the reset button for you.

Quigley says

That's actually what I did. Graduated with 50k debt, got a job in a hell hole in Alaska, and worked like an angry bastard for two years to pay it off. Then I worked one more year to get some FU money, quit, and moved to California debt free.

Congratz! Now you can go $500K in debt to buy a house from a boomer at inflated prices or you can crawl back to the "hole" in Alaska (probably less of a hole than California).
Wouldn't you say that's more or less painless?

I'm pleasantly surprised that the world is starting to make sense.

In a sane world I'd expect people aged 55-64 to be buying the most new cars (average price: $30,748) since they're at the peak of their earning potential, have paid off their home loans, and gotten their spawn through college and out of the nest.

I expect children under 30 to be buying the fewest new cars since they've yet to max out their salaries, should be building an emergency fund of 12 months cash, are buying their first homes (median price $214,200), and if they've spawned or plan to should be saving for their childrens' odyssey years.

It used to irritate me when I saw younger people making less money buying bigger homes and newer cars than I did. Now I just smile knowing that I'll probably be working a few hundred hours a year as a hobby on the most interesting consulting projects like my father does until I get too tired and continue my middle class life style while they'll be forced to work full-time until later in life after which they'll have to scrape by on a fraction (Social Security can pay just 30%) of what they're used to.