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+90 million Millennials?
+80 million Gen Xs ?
All they have to do is text in their votes to stop this fubar... or blame Boomers.
If they were Brilliant Unregulated Free Market Entrepreneurs they would be successes instead of losers & "being even worse off".
marcus
@
2015 Nov 29, 11:50am
I'm shocked to see this boomer hate moving so mainstream.
GWB was a boomer, therefore everything is the boomers fault ?
Boomers should have to pay ! ?
As if all, or even most boomers are so fricking well off ?
His thesis (that boomers need to pay with lowered retirement benefits) is at odds with statistics on how many boomers aren't EVER going to be able to afford to retire.
MisdemeanorRebel
@
2015 Nov 29, 1:07pm
Boomers kicked the ladder out behind them after they climbed it.
Low cost state-subsidized tuition - rolled back the moment the last boomers were done with college.
Rent control - eliminated the moment the boomers became homeowners.
Defunding of America's Cities - began the moment the boomers moved to the burbs (Ford to City: Drop Dead)
Deindustrialization of America - lead by 1970s MBA boomer execs who lead outsourcing projects beginning in the 80s.
The late 70s/early 80s is really the turning point in this country.
As for the "bad 70s", Millenials wish they had it so bad. Between 1969-1979, the US created millions of jobs, one for every boomer. In fact, the US created more jobs in the 70s than it did between 2000-2015. And the job quality was better: Largely Unionized and Skilled Jobs, not Minimum Wage McJobs.
Boomers grew up in the greatest boom of history, and figured that if they just got rid of the "restrictions" holding society back, things would be even better.
"You know son, you need rules to prosper"
"Screw you dad, we're the next Generation. We're the Greatest Generation in US History. We're gonna screw and do drugs and whatever we like! We're gonna change the world. Peace out!"
Just wait until 2019. "Do you know it's the 50th anniversary of Woodstock? Next on CNN: Woodstock. Fox News Presents: Woodstock, a retrospective. A CBS Special: Woodstock - Defining a Generation."
marcus
@
2015 Nov 29, 1:32pm
Boomers kicked the ladder out behind them after they climbed it.
What percentage of boomers would you say were directly or even indirectly involved in this kicking the ladder out ?
The late 70s/early 80s is really the turning point in this country.
THe boomers had ZERO impact on policies at this time. Things changed yes, for the worse. But to blame a group of people born in a certain time window for it ?
IT makes no sense, and it's something I NEVER heard boomers doing during the 3 rough recessions between 1974 and 1982. NEVER.
marcus
@
2015 Nov 29, 1:40pm
Boomers grew up in the greatest boom of history, and figured that if they just got rid of the "restrictions" holding society back, things would be even better.
You're welcome.
This stupid pitting one generation against another is the great innovation of your generation. A true first !!
You must be so proud.
MisdemeanorRebel
@
2015 Nov 29, 1:40pm
THe boomers had ZERO impact on policies at this time. Things changed yes, for the worse. But to blame a group of people born in a certain time window for it ?
Bullcrap. Reagan was elected on "government is part of the Problem." It's morning again in America.
marcus
@
2015 Nov 29, 1:45pm
We've gone down this road before. Boomers didn't elect him. His election was more attributable to the older generation, and the strong media campaign against Carter, painting him as incompetent largely because of inflation, the hostage crisis, and a failed rescue attempt.
Sure, too many boomers bought into the aw shucks charm of Reagan (I didn't). But you know damn well what percentage of boomers voted against Reagan. And now you want to generalize about boomers. And blame them for not preventing Reagan. Fucking moron.
IF boomers are to blame, it's for being too politically apathetic. Something which later generations are also guilty of.
Don't you have enough insight about yourself to not generalize your feelings about your parents onto an entire generation ? I'm vicariously embarrassed for you.
MisdemeanorRebel
@
2015 Nov 29, 1:50pm
We've gone down this road before. Boomers didn't elect him. His election was more attributable to the older generation, and the strong media campaign against Carter, painting him as incompetent largely because of inflation, the hostage crisis, and a failed rescue attempt.
Nope. We've been down this road. I've shown you 84 with Mondale and especially 2000 with Bush when seniors went more for Gore. Clinton was the most economically right-wing democrat we elected since the turn of the century; his whole campaign was built on moving the Democrats hard to the right.
Boomers have been right-leaning 1980 onwards. This may slowly be changing. They were the largest voting bloc in US History.
2015 will be the first time since about 1976/1980 when the Boomers are no longer the largest age cohort in the United States - that's almost 40 years.
I've posted articles from the NYT that clearly explains the 35-55 year old crowd was responsible for the Republican takeback of the House in 1994.
marcus
@
2015 Nov 29, 1:57pm
Millenials wish they had it so bad. Between 1969-1979, the US created millions of jobs, one for every boomer. In fact, the US created more jobs in the 70s than it did between 2000-2015.
Reality, from someone that was there: Someone born smack dab in the middle of the baby boom turned 25 or 26 in 1980, when interest rates were up to 20% and we were in the midst of the worst recession since the depression (didn't see another one so bad until 2008). You say all the jobs were great, which is a lie, there had been horrific inflation in the 70s and wages did not go up as much as prices. This time interval (the 70s) the key time that single wage households started the huge shift to being two wage households.
You entirely forget to blame the boomers for this, the single biggest correct claim you could have made, that absorbing them into the economy was tough. But it's hard to blame them for the fact that there are a lot of them.
marcus
@
2015 Nov 29, 2:00pm
Boomers have been right-leaning 1980 onwards
Even if you were right, and it was 53% or something (and 40% of this 53% are fundamentalists or ex-southern democrats) , so ? You want to blame us all based on that ? Fuck you ! You ignorant fucking cry-baby.
Don't you have enough insight about yourself to not generalize your feelings about your parents onto an entire generation ? I'm vicariously embarrassed for you.
marcus
@
2015 Nov 29, 2:28pm
his whole campaign was built on moving the Democrats hard to the right
This is also a lie. He did move us to the right in some ways, but that was not what his campaign was about. His campaign was about defeating Bush Sr.
MisdemeanorRebel
@
2015 Nov 29, 2:44pm
This is also a lie. He did move us to the right in some ways, but that was not what his campaign was about. His campaign was about defeating Bush Sr.
* Welfare Reform
* Financial Deregulation ("Innovation")
* NAFTA
* H1-B Visa
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/11/05/baby-boomers-are-whats-wrong-with-americas-economy/
From the article:
My generation, Gen X, is in far worse financial shape than our parents were at the same age. Millennials are even worse off than we are. Soon after the Great Recession ended, the Pew Research Center reported that middle-class families were 5 percent less wealthy than their parents had been at their age, even though today’s families work a lot harder — the average family’s total working hours has risen by a quarter over the past 30 years — outside the home, and even though they’re much likelier to include two wage earners. The ensuing recovery has made things worse. Middle-class families owned fewer stocks, businesses and homes in 2013 than they did in 2010, according to calculations by New York University economist Edward Wolff.
Meanwhile, future generations will have to pay the costs of weaning the world from fossil fuels and/or adapting to warmer temperatures, rising seas and more extreme weather. (Estimates vary, but some projections suggest they could total trillions of dollars for America alone.) They will also have to shoulder the burden of keeping America’s retirement promises to the boomers. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the rising costs of Social Security and government health care that will stem from an aging population will consume two more percentage points of America’s economic output by 2040. If policymakers don’t find the revenue to pay for it all, the CBO projects that the national debt will climb past 100 percent of annual gross domestic product — quadruple its post-World War II low.
And yet almost no one suggests that boomers should share the pain of shoring up those programs. Folks my father’s age like to say they’ve paid for those benefits, so they should get them in full. But they haven’t. The Urban Institute has estimated that a typical couple retiring in 2011, at the leading edge of the boomer wave, will end up drawing about $200,000 more from Medicare and Social Security than they paid in taxes to support those programs. Because Social Security benefits increase faster than inflation, boomers will enjoy bigger checks from the program, in real terms, than their parents did.
The sin here isn’t exactly intentional: It’s not boomers’ fault that there are so many more of them than their predecessors (their ranks peaked near 80 million, some 30 million more than the Silent Generation before them) or that they’re living longer (retirees today can expect to live three or four years longer than their grandparents). The sin is that boomers have done nothing to ameliorate their easily foreseen threat to the U.S. Treasury. They have had every opportunity: Congress has been controlled by a baby boom majority since the beginning of the George W. Bush administration.
#economics