The Baby Boomer Financial Crisis: A Generation X Perspective

annie laurie 2 years ago

A well written and interesting hub, you write well and I enjoyed reading this it has given me something to ponder on

s 2 years ago

awsom

sal 2 years ago

this is so interesting to read.. and it is very well written!

and while reading this it has also given me something to ponder on.

:)

Chad 2 years ago

You have to understand that a career is a manufactured product for you to earn money. Get over the fact that it will somehow make you a whole being..... it won't...

it's just a job... do it well... then go home. It's not your soul, besides if you made it your soul you can expect somone to sell you down river, like what has happened to millions of people already.

pb 2 years ago

1940-1960???

HA! They wish!!!

The United States Census Bureau considers a baby boomer to be someone born during the demographic birth boom between 1946 and 1964. Landon Jones, who coined the term "baby boomer" in his book (Great Expectations: America and the Baby Boom Generation), defined the span of the baby-boom generation as extending from 1946 to 1964, when annual births declined below 4,000,000. They have since returned to higher levels in the "echo boom."

BrianH 23 months ago

Baby boomers are the most self-centered egotistical malignant narcissists I've ever encountered.

Baby boomers make the worst leaders; they only care about themsleves, etc., etc.

The economy will only get better when the Baby boomers leave planet earth - or become part of planet earth, so to speak.

Baby boomers = greedy, greedy, greedy, greedy parasites.

Mike 22 months ago

". . . they did show a certain degree of naivete in failing to leave us, their successors, with any notable wealth with which to prop them up in their old age."

Best line in the whole piece. Parents spent college tuition on toys and too much house. Now the kids have student loans with no job and no ability to help their parents in retirement.

The Boomer legacy is debt, over-consumption, selfishness (and no great public works).

Frank 22 months ago

You are far too generous to our immediately senior age cohort (making no apologies to Baby Boomers for calling you out as seniors – over 7,000 of you become Older Americans Act eligible every day). They are everything BrianH reports them to be and worse. They were born on third, thought they hit a triple and if you asked them, would tell you that they only got on base to begin with because they had been hit with a pitch. They are absolutely – perhaps exclusively – responsible for decline of America.

Let’s start by debunking what they consider to be their most significant accomplishments…

Civil Rights? Wrong. MLK was born in 1929 – he was Silent Generation). Sexual Revolution? Wrong. Hugh Hefner, born in 1926 (Silent Generation). Feminism? Wrong. Betty Friedan (1921, WWII Generation), Gloria Steinem (1934, Silent Generation). Rock n Roll? Wrong. Elvis Presley (1935, Silent Generation), Alan Freed (1921, WWII Generation) John Lennon (1940, Silent Generation). Environmental Movement? Wrong! Six of the first seven EPA heads were Silent Generation. Drug culture? Wrong! Dr. Timmothy Leary (1920, WWII Generation). Born without a healthy sense of skepticism, Baby Boomers parlayed their collective teen angst into social movements behind someone else’s ideas. Baby Boomers are sheep. They are easily persuaded by the flavor of the week philosophy of any particular age. Don’t believe me?!? How many GenX’ers do you see among the Tea Party crackpots who are out there trying to “take our country back”?!? There is one notable exception… Disco is 100% a Baby Boomer creation. Congratulations guys… I have to give you that one.

Now let’s move on to their real legacy…

The Mickey Mouse generation was freely given everything they would later deny GenX. The Great Generation that won WWII was the most civic in our lifecycle. They built institutions, industries, invested in education and PAID THEIR TAXES. The Boomers grew up on Leave it to Beaver. What did Ward Cleaver do for a living? Nobody knows, nobody cares, it was all about the generation born between 1946 and 1964. What we do know about Ward and June is that they took care of their business. When they told their kids, “You’re the most important thing in the world to me” they didn’t mean, after my car, my job, the new man in my life, my shoes and my country club membership.

So where exactly was June Cleaver when the latchkey kid was walking home from preschool and learning to cook by looking at the pictures on the back of a box of brownies (you guys remember the line drawing of two eggs and a measure cup half full of milk?!?)? No, by the time we were kids the innocence of youth had been replaced by the worldly before her time images of Brooke Shields. Truth be known, we were the unintended consequences of the failure of Roe v. Wade and the pill. You had Father Knows Best, we had Rosemary’s Baby. Your grandkids would have Home Alone, we had Damien Omen. You had Frankie and Annette, we had Kramer vs. Kramer.

Growing up after the Baby Boomers is like hanging out at Disneyland after every ride has been trashed and turned into a corporately named attraction. Make love not war, who really knows what that means? You know what they say… Never trust anyone over 60.

You called us slackers and the author is right, but incomplete on why that happened. When you came of age you immediately began prioritizing paying off your student loans and conspicuous consumption over the public good. You voted down one school bond after another. Public education coped by killing things for us that you took for granted. Auto Shop and Home Economics were early casualties. Let me ask you this Mr. and Mrs. Baby Boomer… Would your father have paid someone to change his oil? He probably wouldn’t have trusted anyone else to do it. You are the most prolific practitioners of the no fault divorce. Your happiness was more important than sticking around for your kids – hell, most of you couldn’t even be bothered to pay child support. You “men” weren’t around to teach your sons (or daughters for that matter) how to change oil. You killed the opportunity for them to learn it in school. The quick lube shops that are now more numerous than Starbucks outlets are your legacy.

You were the recipients of the largest intergenerational transfer of wealth in our nation’s history. The WWII Generation gave you more cash on their passing than all other 9 generations back to the Revolutionary War combined. If you’ve squandered what you didn’t invest in your kids, wasted what you’ve spent a life time of easy career paths working for AND torn through the resources of the thrifty generation that begat you, you don’t deserve to retire.

And by the way… I’ve spent the last couple of years buying every paper and hard income producing asset that you’ve been selling at a discount. I am 40 this year and could EASILY retire if I wanted to. I could live on dividends, royalties and rents I collect monthly. However, I enjoy my job as a social service provider. I’m the guy who is finding the money and creating the programs that are keeping you from foreclosure. Ironic isn’t it. I am a success in spite of you, I’m buying what's left of your nest egg in order to create a world where my daughter may never have to work unless she chooses to, and I get paid to do meaningful socially conscious work that you would love if you could get it and it's bailing you out of the bad decisions you’ve spent a life time making.

I’m not as charitable as the author. MLK said that the arc of the universe is a long one but it tends to bend toward justice. I agree. The economic downturn is serving you a nice heaping helping of what you have coming to you. Vindicated, perhaps. Smug, not so much.

Paul Thiel 22 months ago

The Greatest Generation had its own flaws (racism is the most often cited one). The Boomer generation, however, took all the values of the previous generation and threw it on the bonfire.

Values such as thrift, hard work, sacrifice, and raw determination were replaced with political correctness, self esteem, and "diversity"

Is it any wonder we have arrived at this state?

I am 37 and am fortunate my parents taught me the values of a bygone era. I've been working since I was 13 years old. I expect nothing to be given to me, and make no such demands.

When I graduated from college (working throughout), I got my first job working at Payless Shoes. Not exactly glamorous, but it paid the bills. I kept living on Raman Noodles even though I could afford better. I didn't take expensive vacations, and kept saving.

In time, I met a wonderful woman and we got married. Here again, I was fortunate in finding someone with a similar outlook on life and similar values.

We spend the next few years paying off credit cards, cars, student loans, etc...the usual stuff. When we bought a house, we took all the money we had been paying toward other bills and rolled it into the house. That was in 1998.

Last year, we paid off our house. After a decade of living below our means, we went on 6 vacations. Now we're back at it, ensuring our children will be able to pursue their dreams.

We have had our share of good luck along the way, but fortune favors the prepared. It took us 15 years of sacrifice, but it was worth it. Even in this current economy, we are doing just fine.

To the Boomers, I offer some advice: Get your act together. Your kids will not endure 70% taxes so you can continue to deny reality. Your time in the working world is growing short. Your choice at this point is a retirement of eating hot dogs or cat food.

To the younger generations: Collectively, we need to reacquire the values of our grandparents and great grandparents. Read the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin for an idea of what I'm talking about here.

Boomer Dave 21 months ago

There is little I can add to the excellent comments of Sherri, Frank and Paul. This is America's "Fall of Rome", just as it was England's before us. It can be accelerated or slowed, but we are past the point of no return. Baby Boomers such as myself inherited the strongest country in the world's history when it was at its zenith. We are at least 80 percent (if not entirely) responsible for its gradual and ongoing ruin. The Greatest Generation (WWII) was indeed great. Greater still were the Founding Fathers. In each case, what set these generations apart were a willingness to risk much (and in some cases all); to do things which were not popular and/or easy; and, to work to achieve something for the greater good. In general, Baby Boomers are bankrupt on all three counts.

Dan Parker 21 months ago

I read your article and laughed. The GX folks have added no value name one thing that the GX has done?

DOT COM bomb get rich quick kids 25 fresh out of school selling the false value of pet.com for $10B? Learning to text type 100 words per minute on your cell phone. You are the most connected generation in history of modern times and the only value you have learned to expand it for is for face book and my space sharing experiences.

You should cry and you should belly ache about the unfair world that you have in front of you because many of you have yet to learn to use your mind to come up with a math calculation in your head. To write a term sheet with pen and paper.

You have the world of opportunity in front of you yet since you have lived on a artificial machine creating your idea instead of you creating your ideas

Dan Parker 21 months ago

Simply said

When baby boom exit so does middle class family, and blue collar workers.

GX hire Mexicans to do their manual labor.

phillipghee 21 months ago

INNOVATIVE THINKING:Something that us baby boomers, for the most part, have failed at.

'Why should the last years of our lives be any less the joyous then the early years?'''

Missing the Mark: Post World War II America

After World War II the United States of America was afforded the opportunity to become perhaps the most prosperous, egalitarian and enduring civilizations of all time. This crucial juncture in American history sorely missed it marked and instead of laying the foundations for a great society and lasting empire; it ultimately laid down the corrupted and greatly flawed cornerstone that can no longer support the weight of its multiple indiscretions and may very well signal its fall as emulated leader on the world’s stage.

Although the factors are numerous that are now leading to our decline, I hold that many can be grouped and traced by to just a few roots of origin, all of which could have been either eliminated or greatly reduced if acted upon during that crucial period after World War II.

Why the period preceding World War II? After the disruption in Industry, Commerce, and Society generated by WWII this country was afforded a Tabla Rasa (Clean Slate) as it were. America had been, for the most part, a unifying force and had not only defeated a dark and cancerous forces; the combined efforts of all American Citzens had saved the world from domination.

In order for this combined effort to be effective, gender roles had to be broken down, racial roles had to be broken down and even class structure had to be incorporated into the mix. No, I will not re-write history here. There was still segregation even in the military services as well as pay disparity between races and gender yet: with the victory came the overwhelming if understated reality that boundaries were largely illusion and counterproductive. Rather than seize on this opportunity to create a new society, America

went full steam in the opposite direction to enforce and cement the illusions of difference and that of privileged.

Root 1. The root of inequity

Race, Privilege and Identity

The American landscape was ripe for change and opportunity after WW II. Many of the returning troops secured VA Housing Loans and were encourage building as well as settling in the new green and spacious suburbs. However for the returning Black Soldiers, who were thought to still be the backbone of urban industry, their appointed destiny was the substandard, concrete bunkers known as the Projects. These areas were either still located in the inner city or on its boundary to maintain close proximity to the labor camps in which they were to serve.

Also rather than strike down segregation laws at a time when America was more embracing of it’s darker brothers, The Federal and Municipal authorities stood idly by while the old deep instilled racism and prejudices were once again allowed to bubble and rise to the surface and spoil the whole brew. It would take another twenty years, encompassing social movements and tremendous bloodshed and dishevel before the issue would be addressed.

Many of those white returning soldiers also took advantage of the GI education benefits and returned to comfortable colleges to pursue their goals and dreams whereas substantial numbers did not and thus competed with the Black labor force for the semi skilled and skilled labor market. Not being able to fill the projects with a substantial black work force the projects now became the haven of the unemployed and underemployed and thus the first significant welfare dependent generation is created.

All issues from social unrest, crime and drugs to urban decay can be predicated on aforementioned root of inequity.

Root 2. The root of Postponement

Plastic, Pollution and Plausible Progress

We now face the beast of Environment Decay as if it is some new catastrophe dropped on the doorsteps of the 21st century by some unknown mischief maker. The roots of the Environmentalist Movement as a relevant and political active force can be traced back to the 1950’s. Whereas the Environmentalist sentiment and forewarnings can be traced back even further, into the early decades of the 20th century. Yet every subsequent generation hemmed and hawed and debated. They set up committee and impotent regulating bodies. They stifled innovation and relied upon the same old technologies and resources even in the face of mounting evidence that such risks far outweighed the temporal benefits.

The recklessly abundant use of non bio-degradable products, primarily Plastic

set the stage for ever expanding landfills and ocean garbage patches. And since innovation had been stifled the academic communities did not produce sufficient numbers of engineers to deal with the problems. Instead troves of cookie cutter, non-impact professions and studies reigned supreme on college campuses.

Our factories and manufacturing was in full production in the years preceding WWII . There was a renaissance of consumerism and a wealth of new and improved products to choose from. As Industry burned the midnight oil to keep up with the pace supplying products for this new insatiable market, greed blinded them to the environmental impact that was being levied against the planet. Forrest and natural habitats were decimated with no regards to future generations. I can go on and on but, we know the story as we have always known it. Yet we still fail to appropriately act.

Root 3. The Root of Neglect

Infrastructure

America focus was almost entirely on its cities and suburbs post WWII. We paid attention to the bread belt and ranch lands by allowing corporate giants to dominate the land and the trade. We allowed the poor rural areas to remain as such.

Much props to the Highway commission but also in their bid (in collusion with other business interests) to increase auto sales not only neglected rail traffic they actually dismantled it in many parts of the country. The rail service was the artery of the country as the highway system was the vein. Now subsist primarily on the clogged veins of auto and truck traffic.

The education system was an institution set up to educate as well as miss-educate

or at least miss-direct large numbers of arms and legs into the factories and labor camps of the early industrial revolution. Once an appropriate amount of relevant and functional

skills were offered to the masses the education was then radically switched to abstract learning. It was my no coincidence that this switch to abstract subjects and learning occurred around the same time that a youth could apply for a work permit. This system

may have served the robber barons of the early industrial revolution well by manning their factories with competent and teachable labor force but as we approached the dawning of the Space Age the system had long outlived its usefulness but due to neglect left on life support.

Root 4. The Root of Greed

Although it would not rear its ugly head as the beast that it is until the 1980’s the seeds of Corporate greed were sown during the period preceding WWII. Had proper regulatory gardening taken place at that time the strangulation hold of the weeds of greed upon the Corporate landscape of today’s America would have never arose.

By,

Phillipghee@yahoo.com

How to Save Our Health care System

By Phillip Ghee

Dear Healthcare provider, Organization and Concerned Citizen, included in this package is information critical to your quality of life as an individual and to the survival of American health organizations and perhaps that of the Nation.

After reviewing this document, you should imagine what numbers would fill in the blanks relating to cost incurred by your organization, institution or health insurance plan. Then once again, review the innovations I am proposing. We need to mount a campaign to promote new modes of thought in this nation. Armed with the new facts and figures that you have deduced, I wo

Laura H. McBride 21 months ago

It's too bad another comment mentioned you used facts. I'd like to see a few, but you didn't use any.

For example, where did you get the laughable idea that boomers began life with everything? Excuse me: Boomers were tripled in classrooms, were the first generation saddled with paying for their own educations, and had no more luck getting into the workforce than you claim you've had. Among us PhDs were flipping burgers; we had to stay in school that long, at our own expense, because it was either that or get shot up in a useless war our parents--the WWII generation--manufactured to get rid of some of us.

Moreover, the generation did not begin in 1940. It began in 1946, when the GIs came home and sprinkled their seed liberally about, without thought one as to what having so many kids would mean to those kids and to the world at large. Then they came up with Vietnam, as noted. They gave boomers perhaps one-third as much in GI benefits as their own parents had given them, despite the fact that WWII soldiers were in battle 40 days a year, while Vietnam vets saw action a minimum of 240 days a year.

Among your more egregious errors and those of your readers who have commented is this: Tea Partiers are not boomers. They claim it, but most were born before 1946 and are already retired. They don't want to own their own perfidy, so they maliciously try to pass themselves off as boomers. Or else, they just wish they were boomers. Sorry, but they are Silent Generation folks who, as far as I'm concerned, should have stayed silent.

You give credence to the boomer belief that you are uneducated, but mainly by your own inability to study history. By your own admission, you disregarded the true dates of the boomer generation, but ascribed attributes to us anyway that don't belong there. I hope to god you are not a journalist and that no one has ever hired you to write non-fiction. Your non-fiction is the most imaginative piece of work I've read in a long, long time.

And then there's your fan Frank who says Boomers turned down school bonds. Wrong, Frank. It was the Greatest Generation, already heading off to Florida so they wouldn't have to help take care of the grandchildren, and who didn't feel they had to help the boomers with their kids, financially or otherwise, as the parents of that so-called Greatest had helped them. They way you and a number of readers play fast and loose with exactitude because it suits you bespeaks either laziness or something worse, dishonesty. Malicious dishonesty.

And, of course, there is among the responses to this story the unconscionable smattering of wishes for boomers to die.

On that note, which to me says it all about Gen X....

Enough already. Next time you write a diatribe to excuse whatever is going on in your life, try getting the facts somewhere close to right. Cite a few studies; even cite a bona fide journalist's work. Until then, all you are doing is inciting lazy Gen X, Y, Jones, etc. members to riot, bashing boomers (and in this case, not even having a decent notion of what the baby boom is) and showing your ignorance to the rest.

Laura Destin 20 months ago

Funny thing,, being brought up by a baby boomer,, I was told and taught to pick a career and stick with it.. My dad had a job for 35 years before he got laid off. And oops! guess what he wasn't at retirement age. He collected unemployment for a year and went to work for for another 6 years before he retired. Lucky for him he didn't have to change careers. Now, I'm a woman, raised my kids by myself worked for the same company for 13 years, got laid off and collecting unemployment. (luckily got on the extention) Have all many degrees and certifications and I can't seem to get a job!,, I worked for a company that had no benefits, medical or retirement with all my degrees didn't know how to obtain my own retirement benefits and didn't have the extra money to put away for retirement. Needed to support the family. And your right, many times I tried to get a county or state job. A baby boomer who took early retirement got the job. (Retired Military they get extra points).. Who made this rule up.. hmmm... A baby boomer possibly?

Michael 20 months ago

"PhDs were flipping burgers, we had to stay in school that long, at our own expense"

I'm sorry but that is bunk, and someone from the Baby Boomer generation complaining about being overeducated for the work they did to people from the younger generations is preaching to the choir just a bit don't you think? You also make mention of that useless war your parents manufactured...well...yeah...you're right people 30 and younger have no notion of what that could be like...oh and lets also not forget that a good number of the degrees you "had" to have were only gotten as a means to avoid that aforementioned war in the first place. Though I also suppose I'm a bit confused why a woman would have felt worried about being killed in Vietnam in the first place, but then I am the "uneducated" youth.... I don't know where you get your 40 days versus 240 day figure either, but regardless you are also ignoring the fact that those in WWII didn't serve their time and get out, they were "in 'till the end" that said I don't discount the lesser benefits. Your generation was also the "first generation" that was educated en masse and to argue that you had to pay for it "on your own" doesn't mean that younger people didn't have to as well. I had to pay for it on my own, for my second degree I'm still having to pay on it and believe you me I would much rather be paying for school based on the ratio my parents had, hell for that matter I'd rather have paid on the ratio my sister had.

In 1990 roughly 90% of funding was provided via state/federal means to the State University where I'm from, 10 years later when I began that was damn near reversed you can blame it on the so called "greatest generation" if you want and certainly they share some of the blame but to hold your own generation blameless is wrong.

My father is 67 and my mother is 58, between their two jobs (driving a truck and working part time at a gas station) they paid their way through school and still had enough money to get two new cars and be into a home by the time my older sister came along. I'm not saying that the "baby boomers" on the whole had it easy but frankly listening to one tell me all about just how "hard" they have it today compared to me (I'm 28) it is the most frustrating thing in the world.

I'm sorry to make it sound personal but frankly your post and the fellow's posts before you are the typical self serving claptrap I get tired of hearing. "We had it harder.." I don't care who had it harder, frankly I have a hard time believing that anyone does, no what I do care about however is this sentiment amongst many of the "boomer" generation that having to "work" to take advantage of the opportunities present for your generation is the same thing as my generation's lack of opportunities. If you can honestly look at someone born to the "Gen X/Y" era and tell them that they have the same opportunities for the future with a straight face I congratulate you and to forestall argument (not that I imagine I'll check back but nevertheless) don't even pretend that every opportunity available to baby boomers was built, siezed, created by their own can do spirit or anything of the sort because it just isn't true.

ps: I would like to know when I as a GX/GY aged person will be promoted to the point wherein I can hire me some Mexicans to do "my" manual labor considering that odds are my boss is a retired baby boomer working on his second career for fun or one that hasn't retired yet in the first place. Oh and you're right, my father used his slide rule to do calculations in college that I was expected to do on my calculator in my connected world when I was in high school, seriously that kind of arrogance is what drives people up the wall. You don't like people bashing the baby boomers (justifiably so in most cases) but don't seem to extend the "lesser" which of course means younger generations the same courtesy.

mns 19 months ago

Most of America's problems started with the depression generation, not the baby boomers. Contrary to what Gen X thinks the Boomers did not have the economic good times that their parents did. The depression generation had a non stop boom from 1946 to 1974. NO RECESSIONS. The boomers however had one recession after the next: 75, 80, 90, 2000, and 2007-present. They were unable to save as a result of constant economic turmoil...which they didn't create. The Depression Generation saddled their kids with debts from WWII, the Korean War, The Vietnam War and the Gulf War. The depression generation created the energy crisis by constructing an oil based economy that Dwight Eisenhaer knew American didn't have the resources to supply. The DG did not allow boomers to rise politically or to management positions in corporate America. The DG wrote themselves massive government benefits, raided corporate treasuries and bankrupted the country before any of the boomers retired. In addition they bleed many companies dry by faiiing to invest in new technology, yielding markets to foreign competitors and shipping jobs overseas. Our politicians have traded US Economic Might for Military Bases for the past 50 yrs. The boomers opposed this. Now we have nothing. Why are the boomers made the scape goat for situations they didn't create? The GOP was favored by the Depression Generation which saddled the USA with 40 years of bad leadership. The GOP stole the tax base and gave it to the upper classes. Most of increase in National Debt was not due to the war on poverty it was due to Monetarist Economics and the flawed Presidency of Reagan/Bush. If I were a Gen X kid I would put blame where blame belongs: on The Depression Generation and the Silents.

knatoli 18 months ago

Boomers were born after the end of WWII in August 1945. Troop ships were months coming home. So Boomers were born 1946, not 1940.

M 17 months ago

I am a baby boomer - and to the GENERATION X who is smug I say this, AT LEAST you were young enough to continue to have a future and get through those times. You think its cool that the baby boomers are suffering. Buddy I hate to tell you but things are not going to change much in the near future for you either. When you get to our age group ( and it will come on you in a flash) it won't be pretty for you either. In fact if something doesn't change soon it will be worse then having to live with Mom and Dad - (you poor thing)be thankful YOU had a place to go.

Now lets fast forward to you being 59 or 60 and how about loosing your retirement monies, oh and then you will lose YOUR job (because you are too expensive) AND you won't be able to afford healthcare so if you get sick - well you, like us, will just be a statistic. If there is Social Security you will need to be - lets see 70 - 75. Oh and the younger generation has this gripe against you and won't hire you because - lets see you are too old AT 59! You will think, like we did, that I am saving all this money, I will be rich, I will retire....get a grip on reality.

The REAL ISSUE is that its time for ALL GENERATIONS to BAND together and look at the futures FOR ALL OF US and for the little one's behind us. Its time to speak up about what is going on and what is not only going to happen to the baby boomers but what it will be like for both X and Y and whoever follows....it isn't going to get any better until everyone gets up off their back ends and start putting pressure on our politicians to do the right thing for all of us, and until "big" business starts letting some of the "billions" of dollars in profits and bonuses filter down. At one time business did take care of its workers.

The one thing our generation did well was to fight for what was right. More then I see X or Y doing. We fought for civil rights, for the war to end in Vietnam. For equal pay. It didn't come without a price, but what it did do was give YOU Generation X opportunities you never would have had without us fighting for it, demanding it, demanding accountablity. Just once, I would like to see your generation and Y get off your mobile communication devices long enough to really TALK to someone and really put your neck on the line, put your values, if you have any, first. Look at your community, your neighbor and do something to make a difference.

Brandy 17 months ago

To M

I must say as a gen x that what you have written is a bunch of BS. For one we really aren't that smug we are very hard working people who I hate to say it bluntly but we saw this coming and some of our parents warned us it was coming. I grew up in an economic boom town (Las Vegas boomed for 90 years) but as soon as the big bus guys (mostly of boomer age) decided it would be a wonderful idea to build high rise condos as far as the eye could see I new what was on the horizon. Mass economic Destruction!

Let's not forget that Medicare and social security were just fine how they were until low and behold it needed to be "made better" also we didn't have the rather huge burden of overloaded social programs such as welfare for anyone who can have a kid with no job. Let's also not put aside the lack of education growth since the 50's which has not exactly put my kids future in a great place.

I'm sorry your pissed that people of your age bracket are hurting but guess what you get to hand the reigns to us and leave this huge mess right square on the shoulders

Of those who you feel are so smug. We don't get social security cause that's all used up.... Yet I have still spent 20 years paying in to a program that will only help your group. All the while getting accused of being socialist and un-American.

What makes me most angry about this is how clueless you boomers appear to be of your blame in all of this. I am financially responsible pay my taxes and obey the laws but I can admit that I may not always spend my money wisely and I can also admit when I might have an idea that didn't work out so well. All my generation asks or even expects is that your generation do the same..... But thats just us being smug I guess.

Oh I also forgot to mention that my generation and the one after us give more time to charity then any since the greatest generation so get over hating on the technology we use cause while your winning about us were out truly trying to change the world for the better not just patting ourselves on the back for talking to the neighbor about how much everything sucks.

oldfooljarhead 17 months ago

Good article, but DO BLAME THE BOOMERS, forgive, BUT DO BLAME THE BOOMERS.....selfish, naive, selfish.....the Y generation characterized as slackers??? Jeez folks, I have been a bottom of the barrel scum bag Nixon Nazis war criminal, emotionally disturbed victim for forty years...forgive them, but DO BLAME THE BOOMERS..they changed the world alright....they destroyed the great middle class along with corporate america (now turned international). And believe me, as a group the BOOMERS do not care about you or anyone other than themselves. never have and never will....

Amanda 16 months ago

I'm angry.

Jack 16 months ago

"and for Generations X and Y to feel some solidarity." - Sherri L. Souzen

We feel it,we know it,and taken as whole both GX&GY love each other. And that folks is something the Boomers,the Silents,the G.I.'s and even before never had,and for those still living,never will!

GX(I am one),I implore you,leave the Boomers be.

We know the score,and so do they!

Our reward,is not this nearly dead,used up carcass that has become America.

Our reward,is knowing that younger generations are looking up to us,not the Boomers,to be their mentors and mature elders.

GX,we must not fail them!

X(scuse_me) 14 months ago

Great article! I must say that, as a Gen X'er, I am profoundly disappointed in the way the Boomer generation conducts themselves. Most of the people I know in the Boomer generation lack sincerity, empathy, and compassion for the plight of others, choosing instead to hoard whatever they can from whomever they can. It's as if they were not taught how to share in kindergarten.

As a Gen X'er who was recently laid off from a firm deeply entrenched in "good ol' boy" Boomer-level politics, I must say that the I witnessed on more than one occasion how Boomers railroaded others in an attempt to secure their own corner of a crumbling empire. The only way to secure assets was to pillage them from others in seriously devious ways (assets being time, money, dignity (I'm the boss of you!), talent, and on and on). Boomers are shameless! Everything boils down to dollars and cents and the Gen X demand for work-life balance was initially stunning to the Boomers (as in considered selfish and lazy), until Boomers realized they could have it if they made Gen X'ers do all the work while they golfed. 

It has been my experience that Boomers are a generation of spin doctors. Diversity initiatives and the like are for-the-record excuses designed to mask their guilt for not really caring about anything. They invent the diversity initiative and the watchdog organization to give them awards for their diversity initiatives. Not impressed. Is it any wonder that Boomers are the generation who created larger than life law firms that produce lawyers who defend corporations as if they are human beings and crush human beings as if they are merely enemies that stand in the way of their acquisition of one almighty dollar? Those same law firm lawyers draft incomprehensible contracts that do nothing but confuse the masses in such a way that they unknowingly fork over their hard earned money as victims of a big "gotcha" scheme. Nope, not a coincidence at all. Boomers are also the generation holding on to ridiculous notions of political parties. Gen X'ers were taught, while watching latch-key kid after school specials, that cliques were bad so forgive us for ignoring the whole jackass/pachyderm hysteria. We prefer to be Independent above all.

Not surprisingly, I do love Gen Y'ers. I don't think I have met a more caring, ethically ambitious group in my life. My experience with them indicates that, like Gen X'ers, they want to succeed, but not at someone else's expense. Definitely an admirable trait.

DaVinci 13 months ago

They own most of the wealth and politacl power! That's a pretty good summation!

Schuh 13 months ago

I was born in '75, small town Wisconsin. Since then, each year I've witnessed the utter destruction of my world a little more. The boomers thrived in a illusory world of lies and deceit and there was no way for the youth to find any truths or think for themselves. Gen X had only 5% hand in the mortgage meltdown. That right there tells you a lot about that gen.--something for nothing. Gen X was a very exploited generation, and continues to be. Judges sending kids away for doing nothing? Evil. Gen Y has the internet and a myriad of resources that informs them empowers them intellectually. Gen X couldn't exploit them if they wanted to. Now that the latest generations are at more even keels with these tiny little intangibles, we will hopefully realize that each person needs to be responsible.... Now.... not forty years later. It won't be easy considering the PC droolers, mysandry, federal debt, and the like which the boomers whole-heartedly and quite obviously supported. What upsets me to no end is that they continue to want to stick their big fat rear ends into MY WORLD until their last breaths. Nature made the boomers irrelevant years ago, yet they seem to think they are still a big part of the natural order of things. Please.....please please do not vote, boomers--your time is up. Your rockstars like Bundy and Dahmer, Madoff and the like will be your legacy, well, besides marketing useless products that never worked out of the box. JUST......GO......AWAY. The world will finally thank you.

william.fischer29 12 months ago

Thanks for sharing this hub.

Ted 9 months ago

I'm a Gen-Xer. I have made plenty of mistakes in my life, and I have also worked very hard. I have 2 degrees from top schools. Yet, I have received little rewards for my hard work, and have received tremendous penalties for my mistakes. OTOH, the Boomers had it in reverse.

For those Boomers who say, "Hey, I paid my way through school." Well, how much did school cost back in the 60's and 70's? Is it just a coincidence that governments are cutting education at all levels to continue paying for social programs aimed at older Americans? If you suggest that such programs should be means-tested, meaning that aid should only go to those people who actually need help, you will be ignored.

You guys got your degrees when they still had value. Now, it is not uncommon to find people with Masters working at jobs that 20 years ago would not require any advanced degree. And it is not just liberal arts majors. I know a young woman with a Master's in Chemistry who is working 2 part-time jobs (community college and test-prep). Corporations demand more education, but offer starting salaries for people with just a bachelor's.

Also - globalization. You did not have to compete against several hundred million increasingly well-educated Chinese and Indians. As for working with your hands, Boomers preferred to hire illegals to do the jobs their neighbors used to do. It was cheaper, and if they acted up, you could just get rid of them.

Boomers excelled in jobs that leave no legacy - expensive law firms that eat up resources, advertising, marketing. You let the space shuttle program die on your watch. Rather than pay people enough so they could start a life and family of their own, you instead gave them the option to just borrow the money. Having a child actually puts a family in debt the moment it is born. In no other developed country can someone go bankrupt just by being sick.

Why? Because you wanted your's. Any attempt at the common good was deemed "socialism" "social re-engineeering:, "class warfare". Germany and Japan re-built themselves after WWII, and even though their own economies have problems and issues, there is still a sense of unity that is lacking now in America. Germany has the most expensive labor in the world, and yet it is still the #2 exporting country in the world after China, a nation of 1 billion. Because they make excellent goods, and people will pay for quality. Boomers believe Wall Street chicanery was the best bet, and look where that got us.

Never has a generation taken so much, and given so little.

X 8 months ago

Dave Parker. Atleast GenX didn't call soldiers "baby killers" or help spread AIDS. Were not as loud and obnoxious either.

X 8 months ago

M says that they fought to end the Vietnam War. Yeah, it took you guys a decade to do that. I'm sure the Vietcong had nothing to do with the withdrawal. Civil rights? Your parents fought for those. You guys through X and Y eyes will always be those Hippies/yuppies who F' America. How's your Boomer president doing so far in creating jobs?

hlsuw 8 months ago

I agree with this article and with the assessment of those who have pointed out that the Boomers are, in fact, the greediest generation. They are living up to their 'Generation Me" nickname, even to the end. My parents are a perfect example. They did not help me with college or graduate school; told me my whole life I would be "on my own" and getting suitcases for my 18th birthday. They spent the money on gadgets, nice cars and campers for themselves. And they managed to covet substantial monetary gifts from ancestors on both sides of the families, which they saved for themselves. As it turns out, it is not nearly enough, for their care and their eventual health problems. Now that they have physical and mental health problems, guess what? They have decided to ruin my attempt to support my family by crying to me and guilt-tripping me in to decreasing my hours at my job -- not a good thing to do in this economy -- to help them, after they told me to go out and get a job and never ask them for anything again! And even now, the one parent who is still at home keeps buying crap for himself out of the money he can, and of course, thanks to the Medicare and Medicaid set-up, all the money they spend on their healthcare will eat up anything that's left of the grandparents' estates they enjoyed. They could care less that they are leaving my child not only out of any security for the future, but they are directly harming her by insisting that I reduce my work hours and the time I spend caring for her to do their menial chores that they should pay someone else to do. It's just all about them, all the damn time. Oh yeah, and they have always been too busy to take time away from their tv programs and shopping to help with childcare -- even though they took advantage of my grandmother, having her regular, everyday childcare for free so they could live a better life, which trust me, didn't translate to better stuff for us. They supposedly hated freeloaders but gladly accepted government hand-outs whenever they could. This generation is literally killing its own kids with the weight of its greed.

genxüberalles 8 months ago

To claim the baby boomers are not at fault is disingenuous at best, and down right dishonest at worst.

It was the baby boomers (and their parents) who continuously elected in officials who did not serve our national interests. It was the baby boomers who turned neglect and irresponsibility into social norms.

My grandfather worked a blue collar job for 25-26 years retired at age 65 with his house, 1 car, and 2 motorcycles completely paid off. Then again my grandfather didnt buy a new car every five years, he didn't need the latest biggest TV or gadget that was on the market. His life was not based on consuming therefore he had something left when he died not only for his wife but also for his children. The house I was raised in was owned by my great grandparents, and was sold to my parents at 50% below market value. By the time my parents had divorced and lost the house they had refi'd to the point that they owed more than 500% on what they originally paid for the home.

As pointed out above, those same people who only succeeded because they stood on the shoulders of giants then turned around and kicked their kids onto the streets at "legal age" to continue to live beyond their means. And now that their lifetime of consumerism has left them spent and broke they have the audacity to ask those same children they neglected to help them out. Like above my broke mother has been trying to get me to buy a home or get a bigger apartment for us to share. I laugh in her face every time she suggests it and look forward to the day I find cat-food in her refrigerator (my mother owns no cats). Meanwhile my father who insisted I "pull myself up by my bootstraps" is living in his deceased fathers home (siblings won't sell home for profit cause he has no where to go) rent free whilst making payments on a 2009 80k corvette.

Me generation is an understatement, more like spoiled rotted self centered myopic generation. Granted they had some help from their parents generation, but sorry the bulk of the blame lies with the boomers. My grandmother who is 80 years old realizes this and is disgusted with her two children, which is why they have both been left out of her will and everything is to go to the grandchildren.

harrma 8 months ago

It was so nice to see in print that I am not alone or insane. I have been saying all this stuff for years and wondering if I was the only one who had a hard time translating gen-X woes to my self-centered wealthy retired dad who claimed disability AFTER he retired, got caught, had to pay it back and then refused to help me file for my husband who had gotten to where he could barely walk from manual labor even with his college degree and is now DEAD because WE WERE BROKE! I still get that look like I'm just sorry and lazy and It just feeds the hate and resentment. Now HE can barely walk and has literally burried $100 bills in the back yard rather than helping me out and he genuinely wonders WHY I won't help him out? MMmmmm Seriuosly, would you drive an hour to go wipe his ass as the final insult to have been the one he shit on? Maybe Buddha or Jesus but I'm only human.

hemicoup 7 months ago

It still cracks me up to hear boomer say "they worked hard and paid for college or university" All U.S colleges were 100% free to ALL U.S citizens up to 1981 FACT. Both my parents, 3 of 4 grandparents , 4 Uncles and, 1 aunt graduated from selected colleges and paid NOTHING and all but 1 had very reasonable living allowances PAID BY FEDERAL AND STATE GOVERNMENTS .My father always told me how tough things would be in the 21st century and how LUCKY EVERYBODY was to have an education thrown at them in the 60's and 70's.

FACT- My Mothers older sister was asked by a college recruiter going DOOR TO DOOR to sign up and they did most of the foot work and took care of ALL of the FINANCE requirements for her..

sorry Boomers, writing lame excuses and lies for your CHOSEN laziness does not make them facts.

Find out for yourselves, oh im sorry that would take EFFORT, another term 85% of all boomers wouldn't quite understand>>>

Lee Harvey O 7 months ago

hemicoup hit it right on the head. My father paid nothing for his college degree in business and my mother had 95% of her university paid by the state of Illinois.

I am still paying my college tuition and i graduated 4 years ago. funny thing is , my dad made better money than me in 1989 than i did in 2004, literally.

Just my 2 cents, thanx

Generation X 7 months ago

I was raised by a greatest generation grandmother, and a Silent Generation Father. I have an inheritance from their hard work and honor their memory: a paid for house and government bonds and annuities. Without them I would be a financial loser. I learned to save for a rainy day from them. My mother is a baby boomer and has nothing to show for it but a lifetime of borrowing and spending. There are clear generational differences. I believe that the legacy of the boomer generation will be a bill. A boomer is a consumer not a saver.

paying 4u 7 months ago

Ward and June Cleaver were not boomers. They would have been either Greatest Generation, or Silent Generation. So would the writers of "Leave It To Beaver", and other tripe that we were forced to watch as kids.

So, kids, I paid for my college and professional education, to the tune of $81,000.00 in 1981. I have paid for two of my kids college educations, and I am now on the hook for two more in process. Where on Earth did "hemicoup" get that little factoid that all colleges were free before 1981? What a load of crap! Private schools were costly, even then, and we came out of them with heavy debt. 81 grand in 1981 would be like 300 grand in today's dollars. You kids are full of crap when you talk like this. You have no facts, just your half-assed opinions.

sam adams 7 months ago

As far as FREE tuition's go, not all schools were free in the 80's. "81,000 in 1981" is a little far fetched and very easy to disprove but I as well graduated from USF in '85 with my masters in business and communications and paid some out of pocket. Sure, Colleges were fully paid ( that is a fact) up to 1986 but not ALL Universities were.

The problem is is that I am a baby boomer as well but also a realist. My son has a college diploma from an accredited trade school and that did cost more in 2007 than 8 years of University for me did in the 70's-80's.

I will say he does have it a little harder than I did but some of us boomers still had to work very hard to succeed in life. Good luck to all you young ones out there, things will probably be getting worse.....

Partially thanks to us...

bourne 77 6 months ago

I can agree with sam adams that $81,000 for tuition in 1981 is a croc of shit. However paying 4U does have a point about paying for his own kids for a good education, something my generation, born in 59 NEVER had to deal with.

I dropped out of high school in grade eleven to help my mother out ( father passed away) and worked for 3 years to pay bills and feed my two younger sisters. I did not mind because I knew that my college was free and without minimal qualifications. I ended up receiving a diploma and red seal for class 5 mechanical in 1983 and never looked back. I still had to work nights at a local garage to help with bills and a pregnant girl friend , thank god that i didn't have to pay for school or would have starved to death. i am a business owner now and am doing great but have a hefty bill to help pay with my son in his 5th year as a neurologist. He finally moved out on his own and bought a used car, He's 27 and works his ass off every night and studies more than any other M.D grad from my generation would even dream of doing.

The moral, a certain number of our generation literally had to work to survive but today's youth have to work 3x harder to receive a 3rd of the things we took for granted in our teens and 20's.

AND my Father paid his house in full in less than 4 years and my mother has never worked a day in her life (except to raise us brats, lol) because she didn't have too. Try doing that today. Next to impossible...

Thomas Kimbrell 6 months ago

I am of the baby boom generation. I take offense I am being blamed for everything wrong in America. I had worked at low paying jobs all my life for what I have and now I had been unemployed for over a year and starting to wonder if I am every going to work again. By the way, I worked my way when I was getting my worthless college degree.

Elizabeth 6 months ago

I personally like the Boomer generation. I like their accomplishments, the contributions they have made over the years, & their creative vision in pop cutlure. I agree Generation X & Y does have it more difficult financially than the baby boomers did but you can't blame it all on them. I understand the anger you X'rs feel for getting a crappy deal. I am an Xer myself. We still need to look at the positve assests in each of the generations, use these ideas. When we learn from each other then we can make America great!

southboundtrain 6 months ago

I'm X. My favorite is when boomers tell me to save for a rainy day. We were born into a rainy day! When exactly should I have been saving? When I made $15/hr. and my student loan payments kicked in to the tune of $1054/month?! Oh, and thanks for the advise to buy a home at the height of the market and jumbo mortgage craze. And thanks for congratulating me that I didn't need you to co-sign for me to get the loan. And you capped the student loan interest deduction at $2500! Are you kidding me?! I pay about $13,000 in student loan interest every year! And let's not forget that you all could discharge your student loans in bankruptcy. Not only can't we do that, but we can't even continue to pay our student loans in a ch. 13 plan, which means the interest accrues and capitalizes, often leaving us worse off financially after a bankruptcy. Boomers, at least you had a way out if things got bad. X/Y literally can't afford bankruptcy. Just leave us alone, and for heavens sake quit trying to give us advice!

Kathy 5 months ago

There are some wonderful babyboomers and I am glad that the hippie movement happened. There are also a lot of boomers with a huge sense of entitlement and who have no sense of financial reality. ... It is truly sad when I live on my own and balace my checkbook better than the women and men 20-30 years older than me. Grow Up Guys!

Brett 3 months ago

Boomers... crawl under a rock and die, and quickly please, I'm not sure this world can take much more of your selfishness. You are by far the most pretentious generation this country has ever seen. You had cheap education, you had cheap housing, you had jobs, you had financial security, but really, I wish you all wouldn't have sold out your children to obtain all that.

Here's the great part though. For the first time in this country's history, parents will leave their children with a broken economy that their children simply cannot afford. Do you know how much it cost my father to sit for his CPA? Nothing... that's right, nothing. Let me say that one more time for you selfish assholes. NOTHING! Do you know how much it cost me today to sit for it? $925.00., oh and don't forget a master's degree (another thing that wasn't required for your generation) Wow. Thanks, Boomers. You're such hard workers that you need to use law, not your own hard work, to be in demand.

I like how the Boomer's have used government to compete with younger generations. Show me another time in this country's history when that has happened. Show me another time in this country's history that parents hated their (well, not their's, but everyone else's) children so much that they would write laws that would raise barriers of entry strictly due to age. You won't find one, because your predecessors had more integrity than you, your predecessors knew when to pass on the torch. Your generation seems to want to take the torch to the grave with you. You value yourselves too much, when the only thing you've done is create lie after lie to keep yourselves artificially inflated at the expense of your peers and your peers children.

These types of situations can be found all over this country, things that used to be free, now cost. Things that used to be cheap are now expensive. You all were not successful, know that, right? What you did was sell your souls for success that would have been your children' success. "Legally" you stole your children's futures and consumed them along side your consumption.

Again, hurry up and die so we Gen Y'ers can fix your mistakes and bring a little integrity back to this country. I would say go and live with your children, but oh wait, you already fucked up the economy so bad that we don't have any money to take care of you all. Good job, Boomers. Hope you all are happy with your fake success, because we know the truth, none of it was real, it was all borrowed from us. And we want it back. I think cutting social security and medicare should do the trick.

Brett 3 months ago

"The depression generation had a non stop boom from 1946 to 1974. NO RECESSIONS." To the person who said this above, this is compete nonsense. They were also on a gold standard. There was no Fannie and Freddie. Glass-Steagall was still around. The list goes on and on how bad that generation had it, and how good you had it. There was a recession in '48, '53, '57, '60, '69, and '73. And they were worse than any recession you had to deal with in the '80s or '90s.

You Boomers have benefited from government funded.... well everything. And you got in on it first, thus, got the most value for the programs. Now the programs are a burden on society, yet my generation has been the one's footing the bill.

So again, to the person above, even though you like to behave as though the post-WWII era was easy sailing, it wasn't. They actually worked, and they didn't need to write laws that stuck their children with loads of debt to do it either.

E.T. 3 months ago

Having failed to find a job the way my boomer parents did (namely by walking into whatever they fancied), I am now on my terminal taught degree (MSc), with what, if history is anything to go by, are false dreams of securing some form of employment doing something relevant in the world. No jobs without exerience, no experience without a job- the boomers running the companies want something impossible, seemingly blind to the fact that the economy they have been playing poker with for the last 30 years is caving in around our ears. Thatcher wrecked British industry, and now they've made a f*cking movie about her, starring that insufferable icon of the kind of ignorant indifference and self-absorption that typifies them as a generation, Meryl Streep. Meanwhile they destroy entire nations with their wars on whatever-they-feel-like-labelling-as-bad-this-week (many of the things which defined them in fact- drugs, politial protest..), and expect us to pick up the bill. They spent their parents' money, and they spent ours befoe we even had a chance to earn it- so if you won't say it, I will. The boomers have ruined the world. To make matters worse, generation Z are a bunch of narcissistic, vacuous, spoilt little tools, more concerned with updating their facebook pages and getting the latest iphone that with anything that has lasting value- so we, generations X and Y, are in fact doubly f*cked, as we are now in competition with these idiots- like attracts like, so guess who gets hired? Self involved, useless articles who talk the talk but couldn't walk if they wanted to, and who can code but are scare to get their hands dirty, as opposed to we who could trudge a mile in anyone's shoes, if only given the chance. It's enough to make you hope the whole thing does collapse, and soon- if only to give us a chance to build a fair and decent world, picking up where our grandparents left off- debt free, exploring space, making peace, calling a spade a spade and bullshit when we see it, and tearing down the MICs and corrupt casino banking systems which have been allowed to run riot since the WWII generation retired. F*ck the boomers and their nest eggs, they can fend for themselves for a change.

Jim 3 months ago

Why don't you tattoo infested pierced scumbags stop complaining about my generation. You should thank us for ending the draft so you worthless bums didn't have to die needlessly. You fools don't have a clue what type of shit world The Great Ass Generation left us. So you think baby boomers had a free ride and that we were selfish and that we ruined a wonderful world that was handed to us. Lets see how wonderful this world sounds. Your headed toward your eighteenth birthday and getting ready to be drafted to fight in a civil war half way around the world that has nothing to do with American freedom and a lot more to do with supporting the military industrial complex. Over 58000 young men came back in body bags because of an unjust war to reinstall colonialism to people who had freed themselves from French rule back in the fifties. You people in the tattoo generation don’t have a clue how it feels to know that your going to be ripped from your home and sent to your death trying to enslave a people who fought for their own freedom. I think you spent way too much time listening to your grandparents and reading silly feel good books about world war two and the great depression. Some people in your generation believe militarism is what makes us free, on the contrary it’s militarism that enslaves people. If there were no draft in Germany then there would not be any army for Hitler’s war. As Einstein said, “instead of allowing the German nation the right of conscription it should be taken away from all other nations”. So where does freedom come from? Civil disobedience. Yes those very hippies that got their heads busted by authorities, the same ones that were cursed and spit upon by the war mongering greedy industrialists who made a fortune in Vietnam are the people who freed you and your generation from the draft. But you ingrates want to turn the clock back and remove the freedoms you now enjoy. Freedoms you take for granted.

You have been told that we received this great inheritance from the previous generation and you believe we squandered it on ourselves. Now lets talk about this inheritance. In the 1960’s the larger cities in this country didn’t look like they do today, my hometown of Scranton Pa was a slimy dirty miserable mess. There were huge mountains of burning culm surrounding the city that were on fire for over twenty years. On a damp day the smell of rotten eggs from the culm bank fires permeated the air. The rivers flowing through the city were so badly polluted from sewage and industrial waste that you could smell the stench from them blocks away. There were mine cave-ins underneath the buildings and houses in the city. It wasn’t uncommon to see buildings standing one day and destroyed the next. On the very outskirts of the town were the strip mine pits. Huge deep holes in the ground left over from the coal mining days partially filled with junk cars that were riddled with bullet holes from target shooters. Back in the sixties we had open city garbage dumps that were rat infested. I actually considered myself lucky because some of the larger cities in Ohio were so bad that the rivers flowing through them caught fire from the pollution. This environmental mess, racial discrimination, the draft and the cold war were our inheritance from earlier generations. Because of the huge baby boomer protests of the mid to late sixties about the environment the government enacted clean air and water acts that freed up federal money for the cleanup of pollution in the cities and many baby boomers worked on the crews that cleaned it up. So today much of what I described above is gone and cities are much cleaner today than they once were. As for the many books written about the generation that came before us, the real story was quite different. It has been said they won WW 2, ended the great depression and put a man on the moon. Actually it was the Soviet Union who won WW2 in Europe and the atomic scientists won WW2 against Japan. The people who put us on the moon were the captured German rocket scientists and the great depression ended as a result of the country switching over to a wartime economy. Eight out of every ten Germans soldiers killed in WW2 were killed by the Soviets. Tom Brokaw’s Great Ass Generation wasn’t really all that great. They were great at one thing, taking the lion share of the SS money they got form the sweat of 76 million baby boomers who carried them into retirement. Unlike you I don’t blame them for all the woes we inherited, it was a collective failure of all the generations who came before for not having enough foresight to see the results of some of the decisions they made. And I would never place my generation, or any other generation, on a golden pedestal, only people of limited intelligence would do that. So you want an apology from my generation. You should thank the small percentage of liberal minded people from my generation who went out and protested so that many in your generation were not drafted to fight and die for the greedy corporate scumbags who put so many of my friends in the ground. So I guess it’s time to past on the torch, here take it and don’t burn yourself.

Erin 3 months ago

Extremely well written, enjoyed this immensely. :)

Born2bTaxed 3 months ago

Today Ginrich called “Generation Screwed” a generation of “coddled” easy-street kids. (Gingrich: No Role Model for Students?) Gingrich, tisk, tisk, tisk. First of all, a MARRIED man who was coddled by his parents through his entire education has no right to label the next generation as "coddled." Second, as one of the Boomers that fairly created the well-deserved title of "Worst Generation" for his era, there is irony in the fact that the "Greatest Generation" chipped in to ensure an affordable tuition for their children - free in CA – which you then had your parents pay for in the 60-70s. Since then, the Boomers’ self-indulged, creating the first credit society in U.S. history and rocketing the national debt to the location of your planned moon colony (1970: 370 Billion, Today: 15.3 Trillion). On top of this, the Boomers have decided that they will not pitch in to settle their bill, let alone the fact that responsibility to support the many Boomer-expanded institutions in the first place.

Because of your generation’s self-indulgence, it is becoming increasingly impossible for a student to self-finance an education the U.S. no matter what class he or she is from. You and other worthless Boomer politicians decided to take the system of government guaranteed loans created for the poor and turn it into a vehicle that would allow the Boomers to avoid paying taxes in favor of saddling today’s students with your bill. Your Boomer group wanted to make sure that there was no way out for today’s students, so the debt is now non-dischargeable (it would be irresponsible for student’s to avoid paying their bill, right Boomers?)

For example, the Boomers who run the academic institutions have exploded the price of education so that they can keep their bloated paychecks, keep their buddies around in the hundreds of public universities created to give themselves careers, and make up for the Boomer societies' unwillingness to fund this self-expanded institution. There is no incentive for the Boomers who overwhelmingly run the financial sector to reject lending for these tuition hikes because government backed means win-win. (If the student pays w/ interest, super win! If not, the taxpayer will pay it, win again!).

If it wasn't clear that mortgaging their childrens’ future became the Boomers' avenue to avoid paying their bill, it became clear when the Boomers in Congress created Direct Loans - which has almost completely replaced private loans with government so that government can collect all the interest, and decided to erase Subsidized Loans as a way to pay down the debt through more student interest rather than taxing the Boomers at all for their bill in the recent budget showdown. Both of these events have been explicitly touted by our current Boomer politicians as a way to clean up the Boomers’ mess.

So the result? Here at Penn Law, for example, the Ponzi scheme goes like this: First year, we are not allowed to work - for good reason. My scholarship cuts the $50.7K tuition down to $20K. This scholarship is supported by the kid paying $50.7. Living expenses are estimated at $20K on top of this, low when considering that books, supplies, and family, will mean that the school actually lends more for this. Working an increasingly rare summer associate position will allow me to substantially reduce my prospective debt of $160k now and in the future, but the kid who will be looking at $210k came into the school as a comparatively poor academic and will likely graduate with no career prospects (none of these debts are adjusted for interest, mind you).

To compare this to what the $2.3K tuition $1.8k living expenses the Boomers’ paid at the school in 1970, the enormous tax that the Boomers are now passing on to their children through education becomes clear. While law school is the biggest example of how education has been reinvented as an enormous tax, this is the standard situation at all levels of education today. Somehow, I was able to avoid all but $13K debt (wife + me combined – all subsidized, a luxury in hindsight) as an undergrad who worked through school to support himself, got scholarships (the wife too), participated in many community and student organizations, and began a family. Yet still, I avoided the worst of the tuition hikes that have seen the Boomer enforced student tax triple over the past decade while “union and administrative pay [at these schools] has also skyrocketed.” (CA, Political News).

The Boomers have ensured that their kids start adulthood not at the status quo, not at zero, but at a monumental negative at a time when most students will fail to gain the employment needed to erase this negative. So when Gingrich who represents a Boomer who controlled the levers that created this mess says that this generation is “coddled,” it is ironic to say the least. The Boomers, who were coddled by their parents’ societal contributions and are now coddled by their children who are paying the bill for them, are doing more than calling the kettle black. They are self-projecting in the extremist way possible. The Boomers, I’m sure, will continue to find new ways to pass accountability for their excess onto their children. The Boomers’ only hope is that the house of cards they created will not fall down before they can make a quick exit into oblivion.

If justice exists, they will be reincarnated as Chinese workers in one of their self-created free-trade-zone factories. An Apple Computer factory would serve these Boomers well, allowing them to learn the lesson that their parents tried to teach them by avoiding foreign products – thus keeping Sear’s products from all reading “made in Japan” at the time. Ironically, if their children can still afford Ipods, Boomers will be working on the opposite end of this system they created to provide their kids with the only good thing they every created: great advances in technology.

Sapphyreopal5 3 months ago

@ Dan Parker, I read your comment and laughed. Yeah it is actually the work of omg baby boomers that shipped our auto manufacturing jobs to Mexico not Gen Xers. Get your facts straight before blaming someone else.

Yeah congrats again baby boomers. They have voted us into the war on terror, the housing market crash, the current financial crisis we're facing, shipping out many of our jobs to Mexico and the Pacific region, selling us to China who can essentially takeover this country with the amount of debt we owe them, etc.

@ Jim, as for the baby boomer who claims that they voted away the mandatory drafting: yeah not everyone is necessarily "forced" to be drafted but young men between the ages of 18-25 today still have to register with Selective Services. Is being drafted as likely today as it was before? No. But guess what? It may come back thanks to... oh that's right, the baby boomers.I do have to agree with you that the US did not "win the war" but rather the Allies did (The SU did not like Hitler and eventually joined the Allies).

And guess what? The most selfish parents I have come across are... what a shocker, mostly baby boomers.

For example, my boyfriend's parents insisted on taking luxurious vacations, buying themselves a motorcycle, a snowmobile, a beautiful larger home, all before they had a kid. Oh no, now they must go to a smaller house, give him a room that is barely big enough to fit a twin size bed, a desk, and a dresser, and 95% of his clothes are second hand from people on his mother's mail route. His mother is retiring just this year and guess what his parents are going to do? They will be traveling across the country, to Europe, taking these wonderful vacations for months on end (yes they can afford this surprisingly) yet they can't even think to buy him something other than a couple electronic toys he'll use may be twice and some cash. Their idea of family time is watching TV or a movie, only for his baby to talk the entire time to everyone's annoyance. Otherwise, all they do is team up against him and criticize every little thing he does that deviates from their ideal vision of how children should be.

I'm not saying ALL baby boomers are as obnoxious, selfish, greedy, etc. as described above but my point is that in my personal experience along with what history and facts show us, the baby boomers take a big part in "the fall of Rome" state of mind America is in right now.

mjweinkauf 3 months ago

I can't say that Bush, Obama, and the Baby Boomers have ruined everything for the younger generations of America.

Its what the gov did for us americans during the first great depression and after ww2.

The government didn't see this problem until the early '80s but did nothing about it. Before the stock market crashed in 2008 President Bush said that this economic downturn was caused by years of work and I agree with him. Not to mention ppl drawing Social Security before the age of 65. The main street shops only wanting to hire ppl with experience when how do u get experience when they don't hire you. An on and on and on. I want to keep this article short. G2G.

Hummingbird 2 months ago

I am 50. I guess this is suppose to be the tail-end of the BB. My retirement is just around the corner; however, I am unsure what "retirement" means to me. I haven't defined it as of yet.

I think the eco decline is like a puzzle and there are many pieces to it. However, I do disagree to some extent with your posting. I think a group of people are definitely to blame for our situation. And the group may not belong to one generation...of sorts. People who had decision-making powers and were greedy were and are part of this "Perfect Storm' economic situation. Those in power were part of the "Silent Generation" and "BB".

X 2 months ago

We are Generation X. I am disappointed in the Baby Boomers. They soaked up all the resources the Greatest Generation built. They spent America's wealth on themselves. They waged the Drug War on us. They used "tough love" and "zero tolerance" on us. And now Baby Boomers think they are entitled to money they already spent.

Baby Boomers: You spent your entitlement money. Now you have nothing to support you in your old age. We expect you to stand on your own as you told us to do. Welcome to "tough love".

Jacob 2 months ago

Baby boomers ruined this once great country in ways too numerous to mention. 6 trillion dollars over 50 years in welfare programs aimed at blacks instead of letting them work it out themselves. And now that we are broke they want to turn Communist so the government will take care of them. Beyond pathetic.

Ezra 2 months ago

I love the fact that 'Generation Y' has the most votes, is that good or bad?

Does it mean we're on the internet way too much for b.s. reasons (not saying this 'hub' is bs, but people get on and usually find things accidently, like I did, and just read it cause they don't know what else to do with their time.)

Or is it good that my generation is exploring what is handed

down to us?

viscus 5 weeks ago

oh stop hating the boomers. its not their fault. they were literally raised to believe that everything in life was infinite. After all most of them didnt need to plan ahead for a rainy day and almost all have always had the "paid to sleep" mentality in their blood. Why work hard when the government will do it for you, Go back to bed, it only noon.

reality check 3 4 weeks ago

A BRILLIANT READ! THANK YOU.YOU'VE ANSWERED ALLLLLLLLL OF MY QUESTIONS. I REALLY STARTED TO BELIEVE I WAS JUST CURSED , UNTIL I STARTED TO OPEN UP TO FRIENDS - after getting over my embarrassment... Really, this was one of the best articles (blog) and truly a well written piece of TRUTH! I am ( as I now know my titled category) a Generation X boomer (so to speak). I have friends and close family members who can't understand or believe ( as I have worked myself from the bottom to the top - PROUDLY , so I feel I have earned a spot at the big table- in every job that I have had) , and how I am not thriving as I was in my 20's ( now! because I've paved the way for myself- I must have done something wrong, they say); and as well, still haven't gotten married and had children, yet! ....as a gay (no offense to those that are)male friend, from high school has told me more than once - That I was a CATCH. Thanks my friend.. i love him for saying it. (I just mention that ) because my Gay friend made me realize , he's complaining about my status. That open my eyes to , HEY, HE'S RIGHT! WHAT HAPPENED THERE? I started to notice and look at others and google people who come from the time frames you speak of...Well, we all know , no Man with an ounce of since will marry a woman if he doesn't have the very thing SOCIETY AND HIS NATURAL GROUNDS ( male hood) of how to be a man (which his PARENTS AND THE SOCIAL WORLD) ingrained in his male brain path; Be able to care for your own.

women have been having a hard time trying to meet the mark ( of time - our told number of age(s) to have things in it's path as it was for our parents and the women before us. I realize now , it doesn't matter how talented or educated or how well equipped I may be for any job I apply for, it may not help but hurt me more, because with that type of well groomed experience ,you , as that experienced person are truly in your mind "Entitled" to have the "I'M PREPARED FOR LIFE "ego. Which, is in the wrong time and place. Men don't want to marry you to let you down , so they date ( for long periods of time ) or marry someone lesser than they were told to engage with. She takes the pressure off because she is easy to manage... we tried make a better set up for our own lives, so we watched people suffer in the yester years ,and so we set up preparation to keep it from happening to us. However,we watched our parents do so much with very little , as we see it as winging it, and after watching and learning from that , which we were able to come to a conclusion and understanding - with the preparation of COLLEGE AND PROPER PLANNING ,our time will come , and even in a higher standing if prepared right, and will come the perks !but , no , with greed from the government and ego many flaring it all crashed and left us with nothing but and odd existence and no where to turn for guidance, because ...... "I PLANNED, THIS ISN'T SUPPOSE TO HAPPEN." no , one figured another back up plan. Because we had a plan!

Nip 4 weeks ago

Just some comments from a middle class worker bee:

Must have been nice to be a "wife" in the 70's, 80's... To have to decide if you "want to work or just stay home." Now my mom, who hasn't worked in 35 yrs (unless you count redecorating your house every year) is whining about how hard it is taking care of her mother and how expensive food has become.

No sympathy from me. I've been working since I was in high school, and worked to put myself through school. Luckily my grandmother (who lived through the depression) had a tremendous impact on my life. (She also was a worker BTW.) All the Boomer generation cares about is themselves and their precious retirement. They feel the world owes them, that they should continue to live gloriously after retirement.

Our generation will never be able to retire. I live simply, don't care about keeping up with the Joneses, wear clothes off Ebay, have a garden and make $300k/yr. Also, no kids. But I will never be able to retire. NO. Why?

I have many close friends who are boomers. What are they doing? Simultaneously whining about the economy and buying new Suburbans on credit.

So instead of working to secure my own future in old age I will undoubtedly blow it all on carrying them through their retirement. My father retired last month. What does my mother currently want: to replace her countertops with granite.

The boomers are waking up and realizing they need more money to support the disco lifestyle they became accustomed to, but they can no longer work. And who will they look to for support? Gen X?

Well, too bad most of Gen X is on welfare, can't find jobs, are trying to put their own kids through school... Can't get blood from a turnip. And those of us who do have some money? Well, we won't for long.