As non-US citizen and I am in no position to agree or counter to what is being mentioned in the article. However, I am surprised that the baby-boomers are looked as 'us vs them' whereas the generation change is more of a Continuum. I am sure our next generation will blame us for ruining it for them.
Baby boomers say lot of first things getting unfold in front of them e.g Humans going to moon, Nuclear tech, Electronics, Mass entertainment (Television), etc. These are the legacy of that generation. Many of things they simply couldn't have guessed the consequences of their actions.
The same thing applies to the current generation. What will be our legacy? One of the things is increasing removal of human beings from the equation using AI, automation, etc. We do not know fully how this is going to affect future generations. If things get screwed-up the next generation will blame us.
> Baby boomers say lot of first things getting unfold in front of them e.g Humans going to moon, Nuclear tech, Electronics, Mass entertainment (Television), etc. These are the legacy of that generation.
These things you've listed are the legacy of the Baby Boomers parents, the so-called Greatest Generation.
In the UK I can see a similar pattern to what has gone on in the U.S. so I am willing to agree with the author.
With anything psychology it can take many years to spot what is truly going on and to have the words to understand that. By nature we are deferential to our parents and live life by their values.
The classic for me is the boomer advice to their children to save like they did to buy a house like they did. The boomer houses get chopped up into flats costing £500000 each, so a boomer house is probably a good £1.5M and that is a lot more than the inflation adjusted amount that they paid. Easily ten times the amount. That is a lot of cash to get out of the younger generation for them to buy boomer property.
With the advice to save and buy a house there is no appreciation that the situation has changed, any protests will be met with how the younger generation have to just work hard like they did. They can't be told that their generation stole the wealth.
There was extremely high inflation in the 1970's when the property-as-investment craze got going. Property was always kept out of the inflation index even though rent/mortgage is the biggest expense anyone pays. House price inflation has been double digit and always praised as a good thing, which it is for the boomers. There are years when the property market crashes but boomers can ride those situations out, they can still borrow against property.
This does seem to be a reality western youth do need to deal with.
Boomers encourage Millennials to play property, after all, it's in their best interests. I supposed they can't complain when their kids decide to live at home into their thirties and pay little to no rent, where else do they go? :)
Pension concessions could do with a review, with all that money, maybe it should be millennials getting a cheap train ticket here and there?
As tempting as a purely generational hypothesis is, it's challenging to point the finger at such a huge population as "sociopaths". Many of the 60's radicals and celebrities were born a little bit too early to be categorically Boomers(post-1945) and many within the generation faced new, unprecedented forms of market competition and technology displacements - white-collar temping/freelancing rose with computerization and the end of the dedicated secretary, recorded music took over live music, multiple generations of automobile-only suburbs were built, and the onset of containerized shipping and the resulting new globalization spanned their entire lives. There're plenty more examples like that - and lots of room for errors and untested new ethics in all of it. Some of them were inherited from consequences of pre-Boomer policies, others arose because of the marketplace or political clime.
And in many ways, the experience of the rich Boomers is functionally different from the rest of the group. At all levels, it seems, one can find a terror over "losing what I have," but the elite group can leverage their finances and connections to vote themselves more, while the rest are political pawns in comparison, with a house and possibly some stocks as their only assets - too small to be a major voice, too big to be rolled over politically, so they mostly act to obstruct change. In that sense I find the Boomer dynamic kind of pitiful, because they really lost the idea of community in attempting to follow through on a world containing millions of tiny fiefdoms, even to the point where my own mom thinks appeals to "community" are basically "Communism".
The Millennials - sample size, myself and my friend group - are more focused on a combination of daily survival, and where they get the breathing room, lifestyle fit. There are no expectations for stability. Career scripts are exceptional and tend to require being on a government job track. There's a lot of fluidity, a lot of meeting different people and maybe only knowing them for a little while before things change again. You can fall out of touch with friends by accident - because they don't play the same video game as you, or they stayed off a social network, or a thousand little things. There's constant pressure to make it all work, but also a bountiful world of stuff to access - people, information, services - far more than was in the Yellow Pages, the local newspaper, or trade journals. There is no wise elder telling us how to navigate it, but it's nowhere near as cold and lonely as those suburban streets and highways.
It sounds a lot like you are looking at your own life by living it and looking at your that of your parent's from an overview of their past. Ask them what they were doing and how they felt at your age at the start of their career and trying to raise a family and I'll bet they had the same anxieties that you do on a day to day basis. I don't like this habit online discussions have of blaming Baby Boomers for "everything" because they usually aren't here to give their side of the story.
I know what my parents say about the starts of their careers.
Dad: abject strong-silence, refuses to reminisce because it makes him look less competent, I hear about all the odd jobs he tried before programming from Mom
Mom: playing music is a bad business and sheet music is a bad business and teaching is a bad business and everyone was hostile about everything I tried and I never succeeded - votes Trump
I say anything about what things are like for me and they're stunned, they can't relate. Mom makes a good effort to relate, but it mostly turns into her career story each time.
I don't blame the generation, really, though. I blame whatever sociocultural fallout it is that created such scared, damaged people.
After Nixon was done some boomers were more damaged than scared, others the reverse.
Lots were scared and damaged by the immediate situation, but others had also traditionally inherited both feelings which were passed down by their grandparents to their parents to them over the 70 years leading up to Nixon.
Uncautious boomers who were caught by surprise by the finality of the 1970's were the most unprepared for increasing opportunities to no longer be generally available to themselves or future generations.
There was widespread superstition that this can't really be happening in the USA and that is an element of the boomer groupthink that still colors their understanding of more recent generations.
For boomers whose parents had the opportunity and successfully used it to achieve financial prosperity from scratch without the benefit of any family resources beforehand, it was very common for their grandparents to still be existing on the same type of survival rations that got them through the Great Depression, even while the boomers themselves were growing up in a priveleged community.
Yes, that's the last generation to be able to arrive that much better off than their grandparents, but it's not their fault.
It's not that the specific, individual people were different, it's that their environment was. From that arose patterns of group behaviour that have left us with oceans filling up with plastic, and absurd wealth disparity. It's about the legacy they've left us and that they're still not taking responsibility for it, nor letting go of the reins.
Nope the environment was not that much different than today, and the patterns of group behaviour leading to a now plastic disposable society and the increasing degree of wealth disparity were well established before any boomers were even a twinkle in their previous generation's eye.
It's just that the boomers were unable to overcome the grip from centuries of disparity, and failed to achieve perfection before having children themselves.
The article makes as much sense if you understand "boomers" means "Americans". The article was intentionally inflammatory and makes sweeping generalizations, and seems mostly to be a venue for the author to air his prejudices. Would classify as "screed" (definition 1c in Merriam-Webster: a ranting piece of writing).
Sorry, the disadvantages the author complains about were set into motion almost irreversibly years before many "boomers" parents were even born, by the formation of the Federal Reserve and the taxation of income replacing the taxation of commerce, followed by Depression then devastating currency devaluation when most boomers parents were still too young to understand the direct impact of this blow compounded across future generations.
Some economists still don't even understand.
Stopping Nixon was the last chance to curtail this loss of prosperity, just because those aware boomers failed to overcome overwhelming odds doesn't mean the blame lies with them, or even those who were less aware.
Yup, a previous generation is to blame, but baby boomers ain't it.
Average citizens having typical resource shortages are supposed to be powerless to do anything but complain. This is by design.
Those having resource surpluses would be the only ones capable of changing the situation, whether they are above average or not.
Even if all you are going to do is whine about it, at least improve your aim by a few decades and identify the correct previous generation to begin with.
Nixon was even too young to have initiated the accelerated removal of opportunity from the working class, he was just happily continuing to help nail the coffin back together, after a world war hard won through previous administrations temporarily releasing prosperity in a fit of desperation.
Boomers were all still way too young to have much power over political parties established to only truly work for a few percent of well-entrenched dynasties, but it doesn't mean they didn't try.
Plus IIRC Nixon and his war were actually stopped, but it was just too late to save a very significant percentage of the wealth of a nation.
Wall Street was hurt but not relatively as bad, since the main thing permanently lost was wealth that had survived amongst the 99% over many generations enduring the above periodic confiscations, or which had been accumulated even more rarely afterward in spite of them.
Even then some wealth still survived scattered among the 99% and if those are the main boomers you are exposed to it would be easy to completely miss the way that wealth has always been out of reach for the true majority of boomer age citizens simply because they are just too young.
I don't see any more recent generations actually stopping wars, or accomplishing the removal of any Clinton, Bush, Obama or Trump before they are good and ready to leave after carrying out their deeds.
Or even less likely adopting a structure of increasing prosperity for those who are not already prosperous, and it's been a long 21st century.
Looks like it's turning out just like the 20th century except without the resources of a more widely properous previous century to fall back on.
Social disaster is often the result of financial disaster.
Social Security was also a result of the financial disasters outlined above.
Everyone living today has grown up with the full knowledge of the committment made to the retired elderly of future generations, by wiser rulers who witnessed the stepwise deprecation of the viability of private savings options almost a century ago.
It's taxes on income & property which make savings impossible for most working people, not a defect in the collective attitude of a still-living recent generation.
Therefore a public retirement savings component was enacted for all who participate, and after continued removal of wealth from the middle class it now often represents not an augmentation but the whole enchilada, the only thing left on the plate.
Obviously capitalists have benefitted by not having to pay employees enough to fully save for their own retirement, while retirees have benefitted from what amounts to nothing more than a safety net these days.
Not the greatest benefits for either, well that's all you have left with the balance of prosperity this far offset for so long.
17 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 48.5 ms ] threadBaby boomers say lot of first things getting unfold in front of them e.g Humans going to moon, Nuclear tech, Electronics, Mass entertainment (Television), etc. These are the legacy of that generation. Many of things they simply couldn't have guessed the consequences of their actions.
The same thing applies to the current generation. What will be our legacy? One of the things is increasing removal of human beings from the equation using AI, automation, etc. We do not know fully how this is going to affect future generations. If things get screwed-up the next generation will blame us.
These things you've listed are the legacy of the Baby Boomers parents, the so-called Greatest Generation.
This kind of story manufactures consent for privatizing social security and extracting fees.
In this thread "Theodores" and "bamboozled" are reacting as author and obvious man of the people, Bruce Cannon-Gibney intended.
With anything psychology it can take many years to spot what is truly going on and to have the words to understand that. By nature we are deferential to our parents and live life by their values.
The classic for me is the boomer advice to their children to save like they did to buy a house like they did. The boomer houses get chopped up into flats costing £500000 each, so a boomer house is probably a good £1.5M and that is a lot more than the inflation adjusted amount that they paid. Easily ten times the amount. That is a lot of cash to get out of the younger generation for them to buy boomer property.
With the advice to save and buy a house there is no appreciation that the situation has changed, any protests will be met with how the younger generation have to just work hard like they did. They can't be told that their generation stole the wealth.
There was extremely high inflation in the 1970's when the property-as-investment craze got going. Property was always kept out of the inflation index even though rent/mortgage is the biggest expense anyone pays. House price inflation has been double digit and always praised as a good thing, which it is for the boomers. There are years when the property market crashes but boomers can ride those situations out, they can still borrow against property.
Boomers encourage Millennials to play property, after all, it's in their best interests. I supposed they can't complain when their kids decide to live at home into their thirties and pay little to no rent, where else do they go? :)
Pension concessions could do with a review, with all that money, maybe it should be millennials getting a cheap train ticket here and there?
And in many ways, the experience of the rich Boomers is functionally different from the rest of the group. At all levels, it seems, one can find a terror over "losing what I have," but the elite group can leverage their finances and connections to vote themselves more, while the rest are political pawns in comparison, with a house and possibly some stocks as their only assets - too small to be a major voice, too big to be rolled over politically, so they mostly act to obstruct change. In that sense I find the Boomer dynamic kind of pitiful, because they really lost the idea of community in attempting to follow through on a world containing millions of tiny fiefdoms, even to the point where my own mom thinks appeals to "community" are basically "Communism".
The Millennials - sample size, myself and my friend group - are more focused on a combination of daily survival, and where they get the breathing room, lifestyle fit. There are no expectations for stability. Career scripts are exceptional and tend to require being on a government job track. There's a lot of fluidity, a lot of meeting different people and maybe only knowing them for a little while before things change again. You can fall out of touch with friends by accident - because they don't play the same video game as you, or they stayed off a social network, or a thousand little things. There's constant pressure to make it all work, but also a bountiful world of stuff to access - people, information, services - far more than was in the Yellow Pages, the local newspaper, or trade journals. There is no wise elder telling us how to navigate it, but it's nowhere near as cold and lonely as those suburban streets and highways.
Dad: abject strong-silence, refuses to reminisce because it makes him look less competent, I hear about all the odd jobs he tried before programming from Mom
Mom: playing music is a bad business and sheet music is a bad business and teaching is a bad business and everyone was hostile about everything I tried and I never succeeded - votes Trump
I say anything about what things are like for me and they're stunned, they can't relate. Mom makes a good effort to relate, but it mostly turns into her career story each time.
I don't blame the generation, really, though. I blame whatever sociocultural fallout it is that created such scared, damaged people.
Lots were scared and damaged by the immediate situation, but others had also traditionally inherited both feelings which were passed down by their grandparents to their parents to them over the 70 years leading up to Nixon.
Uncautious boomers who were caught by surprise by the finality of the 1970's were the most unprepared for increasing opportunities to no longer be generally available to themselves or future generations.
There was widespread superstition that this can't really be happening in the USA and that is an element of the boomer groupthink that still colors their understanding of more recent generations.
For boomers whose parents had the opportunity and successfully used it to achieve financial prosperity from scratch without the benefit of any family resources beforehand, it was very common for their grandparents to still be existing on the same type of survival rations that got them through the Great Depression, even while the boomers themselves were growing up in a priveleged community.
Yes, that's the last generation to be able to arrive that much better off than their grandparents, but it's not their fault.
It's just that the boomers were unable to overcome the grip from centuries of disparity, and failed to achieve perfection before having children themselves.
Okay, mate.
Some economists still don't even understand.
Stopping Nixon was the last chance to curtail this loss of prosperity, just because those aware boomers failed to overcome overwhelming odds doesn't mean the blame lies with them, or even those who were less aware.
Yup, a previous generation is to blame, but baby boomers ain't it.
Average citizens having typical resource shortages are supposed to be powerless to do anything but complain. This is by design. Those having resource surpluses would be the only ones capable of changing the situation, whether they are above average or not. Even if all you are going to do is whine about it, at least improve your aim by a few decades and identify the correct previous generation to begin with.
Nixon was even too young to have initiated the accelerated removal of opportunity from the working class, he was just happily continuing to help nail the coffin back together, after a world war hard won through previous administrations temporarily releasing prosperity in a fit of desperation.
Boomers were all still way too young to have much power over political parties established to only truly work for a few percent of well-entrenched dynasties, but it doesn't mean they didn't try. Plus IIRC Nixon and his war were actually stopped, but it was just too late to save a very significant percentage of the wealth of a nation.
Wall Street was hurt but not relatively as bad, since the main thing permanently lost was wealth that had survived amongst the 99% over many generations enduring the above periodic confiscations, or which had been accumulated even more rarely afterward in spite of them.
Even then some wealth still survived scattered among the 99% and if those are the main boomers you are exposed to it would be easy to completely miss the way that wealth has always been out of reach for the true majority of boomer age citizens simply because they are just too young.
I don't see any more recent generations actually stopping wars, or accomplishing the removal of any Clinton, Bush, Obama or Trump before they are good and ready to leave after carrying out their deeds.
Or even less likely adopting a structure of increasing prosperity for those who are not already prosperous, and it's been a long 21st century.
Looks like it's turning out just like the 20th century except without the resources of a more widely properous previous century to fall back on.
Social disaster is often the result of financial disaster.
Social Security was also a result of the financial disasters outlined above.
Everyone living today has grown up with the full knowledge of the committment made to the retired elderly of future generations, by wiser rulers who witnessed the stepwise deprecation of the viability of private savings options almost a century ago.
It's taxes on income & property which make savings impossible for most working people, not a defect in the collective attitude of a still-living recent generation.
Therefore a public retirement savings component was enacted for all who participate, and after continued removal of wealth from the middle class it now often represents not an augmentation but the whole enchilada, the only thing left on the plate.
Obviously capitalists have benefitted by not having to pay employees enough to fully save for their own retirement, while retirees have benefitted from what amounts to nothing more than a safety net these days.
Not the greatest benefits for either, well that's all you have left with the balance of prosperity this far offset for so long.
B...