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What went wrong with the Boomers?

Hugo Stiglitz

By Hugo Stiglitz
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Brisketexan

Brisketexan 106658

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7 minutes ago, slorch said:

everybody's fucked.  That's the spirit.  nobody should even want to live here.

Good gawd...this mentality.   If life doesn't fall in your lap, things are so fucking hard.

I fully expect both of my kids to make more than i did as adult, not that this is the only measure of success; but gotdam, sure seems like a shit-ton of the yutes have given up before they even got on the field, so to speak.  "They say we can't win, so why play?"

 

Fuck what "they" say...  that's as American as it gets.  Maybe that is dead though...

 

Oh, false dichotomy!  I LOVE that fallacy!  It's so....SLORCHY!

Nobody says everyone is fucked and nobody wants to live here.  We ARE, however, intelligent enough to actually digest data and reach logical conclusions.  And hey, if you don't think that OBJECTIVE DATA demonstrating that, for the first time since we've collected and analyzed such data, a generation will do WORSE than their predecessor, not better, presents a foreboding fact....well, dude, I can explain it to ya, but I can't understand it for ya.

I'm ALSO a YUUUUGE fan of your "anecdotes are evidence" logical fallacy.  Your kids will do better than you did -- congratulations!  That is often true, especially of folks who started out shitty in life, and worked their way up.  Their kids indeed often do better.  HOWEVER, the data set we're discussing isn't "Slorch's Kids."  It's the generation AS A WHOLE.  See, anecdotes are shitty evidence.  I could go into a thoroughbred barn, and break the leg of every horse but one.  But Slorch would watch that ONE HORSE run, and say "I don't see why people are saying these horses have it bad -- look at that one, running like the wind!"

Here, check out these summary snapshots from the whiny pinko libtards over at the Financial Times: https://www.ft.com/content/e5246526-8c2c-11e7-a352-e46f43c5825d

a71398e6-8c3c-11e7-a352-e46f43c5825d?sou

b0b2d4a2-8c3c-11e7-a352-e46f43c5825d?sou

a3ca72cc-8c3c-11e7-a352-e46f43c5825d?sou

e8d1def0-8c69-11e7-a352-e46f43c5825d?sou

e69c2950-8c3d-11e7-a352-e46f43c5825d?sou

 

In summary, STFU, the grownups are talking.

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Js1

Js1 86978

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23 minutes ago, slorch said:

everybody's fucked.  That's the spirit.  nobody should even want to live here.

Good gawd...this mentality.   If life doesn't fall in your lap, things are so fucking hard.

I fully expect both of my kids to make more than i did as adult, not that this is the only measure of success; but gotdam, sure seems like a shit-ton of the yutes have given up before they even got on the field, so to speak.  "They say we can't win, so why play?"

 

Fuck what "they" say...  that's as American as it gets.  Maybe that is dead though...

 

You do realize that the American dream is no longer white picket fence, 2.5 kids, American-made SUV in the driveway, etc., right?

Millenials are getting married later.  Maybe are foregoing children altogether.  They also don't own homes.  They choose to live in the city - apartment or townhouse.  Maybe they'd rather rideshare than own a car.  YOUR American dream is not that generation's American dream.

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Jiggy-Z

Jiggy-Z 3507

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8 minutes ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

I think a big part of it was that they were always behind the pace of technology. They just got used to tv's and radios and shit and then the computer comes along and fucks up their world. The younger generation(s) were born with technology in their lap and grew up using it, adapting with it. Boomers were always a step behind. The world changed too quickly for them.

...another thing, any why I think the MAGA slogan was so effective among boomers, is that post war America produced 65% of the world's manufactured goods.  Now-that was well on the decline by the time even the oldest boomers entered the workforce, but it was far and away still more than we have now.  So yeah, opportunity was there.

I have also written about this before:  When I joined the professional workforce as a CPA back in 1990 and as an elder member of the as yet unnamed generation X, my managers and CPA partners were all boomers.  There was this expectation among them that there was supposed to be all of this free shit I was supposed to do for the team/company.  And this was real work, not just attending functions or helping out with recruiting.  Their experience was that doing that stuff was expected and that the team would reward you in the future.  But my limited experience in the world told me otherwise.  In other words, I saw the world changing and they were still playing with the same old rule book. 

So, years later I would ask myself why would they think that way?  One explanation I had come up with was that as up and coming professionals, they had been well compensated and that that compensation had allowed them luxuries like being able to afford a house, new cars, a decent school district and some profit sharing. So yeah, they would do some extra work for that.  Whereas I could barley afford an apartment, food, or any discretionary spending while I was driving around in my old Mazda B2000 (paid for) truck which hardly used any gas.  Not unlike the current administration, I think they were tone deaf to the situation.  That first job was in Houston, so those guys had been raised on the oil boom as well.

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Foosters

Foosters 18232

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SIAP.  Lifted from Reddit:

 

Quote

Be a Baby Boomer

Go to a land grant state university that gets massive research funding from the government for almost no tuition

Be able to afford it with a part-time job and graduate with zero debt.

Get a high-paying job in manufacturing as the industrial world still rebuilds but before the developing world develops.

Put your money in a savings account that actually generates interest.

Get a mortgage from heavily-regulated lenders (regulations put in place by the Greatest Generation to prevent a new Depression).

Pay taxes that actually pay for services.

Get a house and kids. Decide you're sick of paying taxes. Vote for Reagan.

Eliminate the finance regulations designed to prevent a depression (and the inequality of the Gilded Age).

Decide colleges are turning out too many smug liberals, vote for reps and governors who promise to cut their funding. Besides, this whole affirmative action thing is reverse racism.

Decide you're sick of smug academics and TV personalities telling you everyone is equal.

Call your representative and ask them to repeal the Fairness Doctrine.

Decide you don't like that UN-loving Ted Turner and his CNN.

Turn on this new thing called Fox News from Roger Ailes, the Nixon political hack who helped build the Republicans' racist Southern Strategy and helped Lee Atwater make the Willie Horton ad.

Make a fuck-ton off the Clinton economy while calling Clinton the worst president ever.

Celebrate the repeal of Glass-Steagall and the final vestiges of the protections your parents and grandparents' generations set up to prevent another Depression.

Respond to news stories about skyrocketing college costs with smug diatribe about how you worked your way through your $500/year college.

Blame NAFTA for the fact that Europe & Japan rebuilt after WWII, sapping US manufacturing jobs, while the former USSR joins the world economy, as does China and to some extent India.

Ignore the fact that the world manufacturing base is now gigantic and America has competition it never had. Also ignore robots, which means rich countries need a fraction of the # of humans to run the same size factory as before. Blame it on immigrants, too, for reasons.

Make money off the tech bubble while Gen X loses its first savings account. laugh.

Vote for George W. Bush because he promises to give the federal surplus (yes, there was a surplus) to you instead of paying down the national debt.

Inequality reaches 1890s levels but who cares? greed is good. Support Iraq after protesting Vietnam because fuck it, you're not going this time.

Somehow decide the 2007-08 financial crash was because things are too regulated.

Incoherently argue that the center-left Democrat Barack Obama (but you always say his middle name), who wants to accomplish an agenda item the democrats have pushed for 70 years, is a radical. For some reason.

Cheer on smug turtle Mitch McConnell as he prevents the government from doing anything.

Call Obama a dictator for trying to work around Mitch McConnell.

Read about how whites will be a minority in 2040 Talk about how Trump is "our last chance" to "take back America."

Ask what's wrong with saying black people are more criminal.

Ask what's wrong with saying latino immigrants will ruin our culture.

Insist to your kids, who are crippled by student debt, but whom you chastise for not having a home or kids yet, that they just don't understand how money works.

Be completely ignorant that every generation before you and every generation after you has always considered the Baby Boomers to be the most titanically selfish group of humans to ever live and die on this earth.

 

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52 minutes ago, Js1 said:

You do realize that the American dream is no longer white picket fence, 2.5 kids, American-made SUV in the driveway, etc., right?

Millenials are getting married later.  Maybe are foregoing children altogether.  They also don't own homes.  They choose to live in the city - apartment or townhouse.  Maybe they'd rather rideshare than own a car.  YOUR American dream is not that generation's American dream.

The American dream is having the opportunity to do exactly that if they so choose.   I agree that the dream is evolving, and really isn’t the same for everyone. I strenously object(lol) to the notion that it is dead, however.

This fatalistic idea that life is over because everyone’s not a Mark Cuban or Steve Jobs is poppycock. A lot of folks have heard it so often it has become something of a mantra. That is bullshit b

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Brisketexan

Brisketexan 106658

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2 minutes ago, slorch said:

The American dream is having the opportunity to do exactly that if they so choose.   I agree that the dream is evolving, and really isn’t the same for everyone. I strenously object(lol) to the notion that it is dead, however. 

The dream that was sold to everyone is dead.  Yes, folks have to be adaptable and shape a new American Dream -- which is exactly what Gen Z and Millennials, to some extent, are already doing.  In short, they have had to lower the shit out of their expectations.  So, yes, the American Dream -- which can simply be defined as "doing better than the previous generation," is dead.

But also read that Reddit summary -- it's pretty close to spot-on.

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happyfunball

happyfunball 481

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53 minutes ago, Js1 said:

You do realize that the American dream is no longer white picket fence, 2.5 kids, American-made SUV in the driveway, etc., right?

Millenials are getting married later.  Maybe are foregoing children altogether.  They also don't own homes.  They choose to live in the city - apartment or townhouse.  Maybe they'd rather rideshare than own a car.  YOUR American dream is not that generation's American dream.

The Fed did a survey and found actually Millennials want the same life and have similar aspirations as previous generations. Only reason it hasn't been shown in consumption is the high debt load they are saddled with and low income they receive once they entered the workforce. 

In short, the economic situation of Millennials has screwed them for life and made it very hard for a large % of them to live the American dream vs Boomers who it was handed to as a result of free education and high growth rates. 

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hayden_horn

hayden_horn 11402

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so i'm part of the weird "oregon trail" generation, as it has been dubbed. we aren't millenial, and we aren't gen x. we are somewhere in between, having grown up without the internet, but growing into the internet in our teen years. 

further, my dad was born in the midst of the great depression, in 1931 and mom was born in 42 to a poor coal miner's family. so i wasn't raised by boomers at all, which compounds the weirdness of my position. both were strict, but they both spoiled me in their own way. dad never wanted me to worry about his next meal, nor did mom. any book i wanted, they'd buy. etc. still had to deal with hand-me-downs and second-hand stuff, because they both grew up poor, and you learn a lot of good frugal habits from that. as a result, i never wanted for anything, but still kind of grew up poor, if that makes sense.

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Captainant

Captainant 28415

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17 minutes ago, slorch said:

This fatalistic idea that life is over because everyone’s not a Mark Cuban or Steve Jobs is poppycock. A lot of folks have heard it so often it has become something of a mantra. That is bullshit b

You're right on this specific straw many argument, and I don't see anyone but you here extending that argument to the absurd. Nobody is claiming we should all be billionaires. Nice try to plant the straw many with "a lot of folks", very trumpian (people are saying... you look at...) to lay the claim and not provide supporting evidence.

Maybe you should consider that the boomer generation not only was born on third base thinking they hit a triple, but then they destroyed the things that provided the opportunities to them for the sake of more short-term gain. It's the tale of corporate and shareholder-owned businesses - of which the vast majority of controlling interests are shitty, narcissistic, short sighted boomers.

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6 minutes ago, Captainant said:

You're right on this specific straw many argument, and I don't see anyone but you here extending that argument to the absurd. Nobody is claiming we should all be billionaires. Nice try to plant the straw many with "a lot of folks", very trumpian (people are saying... you look at...) to lay the claim and not provide supporting evidence.

Maybe you should consider that the boomer generation not only was born on third base thinking they hit a triple, but then they destroyed the things that provided the opportunities to them for the sake of more short-term gain. It's the tale of corporate and shareholder-owned businesses - of which the vast majority of controlling interests are shitty, narcissistic, short sighted boomers.

You're right.

 

everybody fucked.  Nobody got a shot.

Depend on someone else to carry you...

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10 minutes ago, hayden_horn said:

so i'm part of the weird "oregon trail" generation, as it has been dubbed. we aren't millenial, and we aren't gen x. we are somewhere in between, having grown up without the internet, but growing into the internet in our teen years. 

further, my dad was born in the midst of the great depression, in 1931 and mom was born in 42 to a poor coal miner's family. so i wasn't raised by boomers at all, which compounds the weirdness of my position. both were strict, but they both spoiled me in their own way. dad never wanted me to worry about his next meal, nor did mom. any book i wanted, they'd buy. etc. still had to deal with hand-me-downs and second-hand stuff, because they both grew up poor, and you learn a lot of good frugal habits from that. as a result, i never wanted for anything, but still kind of grew up poor, if that makes sense.

Hope you don't get dysentery  

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21 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

The dream that was sold to everyone is dead.  Yes, folks have to be adaptable and shape a new American Dream -- which is exactly what Gen Z and Millennials, to some extent, are already doing.  In short, they have had to lower the shit out of their expectations.  So, yes, the American Dream -- which can simply be defined as "doing better than the previous generation," is dead.

But also read that Reddit summary -- it's pretty close to spot-on.

financially?

socially?

world leadership?

 

how the fuck is that defined?  I disagree that this is what the American Dream is.  The American Dream is the opportunity to make a go at it, or several, or none if you so choose.  That absolutely still exists.

The wealth has also continually grown in each generation.  Recent trends support the fuck out of that; yet again, I disagree that is the definition of "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

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Brisketexan

Brisketexan 106658

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3 minutes ago, slorch said:

The wealth has also continually grown in each generation.  Recent trends support the fuck out of that

You literally had to completely ignore the five data points I linked to in order to reach that conclusion (with no supporting data).  Well-done.

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Brisketexan

Brisketexan 106658

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4 minutes ago, slorch said:

The American Dream is the opportunity to make a go at it, or several, or none if you so choose.  That absolutely still exists.

And it's fucking harder than it was 30 years ago.  Not impossible -- nobody is saying that.  But harder.  That's the whole fucking point of this conversation.

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Bat Guano

Bat Guano 363

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Any generalizations made about an entire generation are necessarily overgeneralizations - this country is way too large and complex for it to be any other way. Nevertheless, the boomers caught capitalism's sweet spot, when a relatively large amount of wealth went to the middle class. Many of them did well enough to have financial security and a shot at the dream for their family by working ONE job that in eras before and after that sweet spot would be enough to barely scrape by, if the spouse was working as well, and if you were lucky. As people do, they thought they deserved this historically unprecedented level of reward and had earned it, when they were really just lucky. Sure, they tried to hold onto it; who wouldn't? And when they felt it slipping away anyway, lots of them became bitter and vindictive. Not all of them, though; it's a lot of people, and some of them turned out just fine. It was just a large generation that had a good thing going for a while, that's all.

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Onboard 2.0

Onboard 2.0 9083

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The US was in a unique position after WWII as the only economy left standing with an intact infrastructure. It was easy to be successful. That reality is now gone. That Boomers didn't see it coming is partly their fault, (being, fat happy and lazy lulls one into complacency), and also just what happens when everyone else starts to catch up and you don't innovate as a society. 

Put the Millenials in the same position and you'd have the same result. People are the same regardless of the era they grew up in.  Meaning they have the same propensities for weakness and success or determination of spirit. Millenials have the benefit of hind sight to create this Boomers suck mentality, and a much broader technological advantage boomers never had. Meaning the tools for success are much more readily available today than 25 years ago. 

Costs for college tuition has become ridiculous, and something needs to be done to address it.  However if you think spending $120k for a women's studies degree or a degree in sociology is smart (broad brush stroke example).  Nobody can really help you. That goes for the boomer parents who co signed that and the Millenials who thought it would pay off in the end.

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TwiceHorn

TwiceHorn 31996

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There was a lot of stupidity, short-sightedness, and selfishness at the highest levels of business, labor, and government in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, and into the 80s that made or exacerbated the current situation.  And those people were mostly Greatest Generation.  I am thinking largely here of failing to respond to globalization forces.

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TwiceHorn

TwiceHorn 31996

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11 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

It's like people think college is a vocational school.

You can't deny that many people think of it that way, erroneously believing that any college degree makes one instantly, or nearly so, employable.  That was probably true at one time but is no longer..

There are some that seek purely academic majors for purely academic and intellectual reasons, and some that fall into them while incurring massive studenr debt that have no interest in academic or intellectual pursuits, just the degree and the job that will surely follow. Or not, as the case may be.

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David Dennison

David Dennison 19441

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3 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

You can't deny that many people think of it that way, erroneously believing that any college degree makes one instantly, or nearly so, employable.  That was probably true at one time but is no longer..

There are some that seek purely academic majors for purely academic and intellectual reasons, and some that fall into them while incurring massive studenr debt that have no interest in academic or intellectual pursuits, just the degree and the job that will surely follow. Or not, as the case may be.

From the February edition of Harper's:

Percentage of US college graduates whose first jobs do not typically require a college degree: 43

Of college graduates whose jobs five years after graduation do no typically require a college degree: 35

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Onboard 2.0

Onboard 2.0 9083

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3 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

A lot of folks who have knee jerk opinions on the humanities and liberal arts.

If you're going to drop $65k or more for a very esoteric degree in English, history or any other similar program, don't expect to make a boat load of money when you get out of school, and don't complain about it.  If you go in with your eyes wide open about it then that's your choice.  

College is about learning first and foremost, and if those avenues float your boat go for it, but don't complain about your earning potential when your field just doesn't generate dollars that allow you to make a living.

College is evolving because of the cost associated, and what you'll get in return when you walk across the podium.  How you get that degree is changing as well. 2 years of accredited community college then transfer for your core classes will save thousands and thousands of dollars.

College also isn't the end all be all unless it's for a professional degree: law, medicine, accounting, engineering, architecture, etc.

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Onboard 2.0

Onboard 2.0 9083

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13 minutes ago, Skinny Tie said:

Dual majored in Government and History. Worked in finance since I graduated.

Most of college is a scam, but if people were required to take more humanities classes they’d probably have better critical thinking/reasoning than a potato.

I agree. I think History, English are great majors. The daughter got a French Literature degree with a minor in International studies at William & Mary.  She works for capitol One, and is kicking ass.  if you're smart and can use them to further your career, traditional degrees are valuable.

My comments are really confined to those degrees that are so focussed on a minute piece of a field of study (not in the scientific/engineering fields). You drop a boat load of cash to be saddled with a lot of debt you'll have trouble paying off.

The gov't gave low interest loans to Dessert storm vets. Many of those loans went to storefront colleges with degrees in photography to the tune of  $60K in many cases. That's a bit of a thread drift, but paying that kind of coin for a degree, and not having a realistic expectation of a return on that investment is beyond stoopid.

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