The Shallowest Generation 276 comments
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The Baby Boom Generation will never be mistaken for the Greatest Generation that survived the Great Depression and defeated evil in a World War that killed 72 million people. I hate to tell you Boomers, but putting a yellow ribbon on the back of your $50,000 SUV is not sacrifice.
Our claim to fame is living way beyond our means for the last three decades, to the point where we have virtually bankrupted our capitalist system. Baby Boomers have been occupying the White House for the last sixteen years. The majority of Congress is Baby Boomers. The CEOs and top executives of Wall Street firms are Baby Boomers. The media is dominated by Baby Boom executives and on-air stars. We have no one to blame but ourselves for the current predicament. Blaming Franklin Roosevelt or Lyndon Johnson for our dire situation is a cop out. Baby Boomers had the time, power, and ability to change our course. We have chosen to leave the heavy lifting to future generations in order to live the good life today.
Of course, not all Baby Boomers are shallow, greedy, and corrupt. Mostly Boomers with power and wealth fall into this category. There were 76 million Baby Boomers born between 1946 and 1963. They now make up 28% of the U.S. population. Their impact on America is undeniable. The defining events of their generation have been the Kennedy assassination, Vietnam, Kent State, Woodstock, the 1st man on the moon, and now the collapse of our Ponzi scheme financial system. They rebelled against their parents, protested the Vietnam War, and settled down in 2,300 square foot cookie cutter McMansions with perfectly manicured lawns, in mall infested suburbia. They have raised overscheduled spoiled children, moved up the corporate ladder by pushing paper rather than making things, lived above their means in order to keep up with their neighbors, bought whatever they wanted using debt, and never worried about the future. Over optimism, unrealistic assumptions, selfishness and conspicuous consumption have been their defining characteristics.
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Boomers are currently in their prime earning and spending years. A Baby Boomer turns 50 years old every 7 seconds. The older Boomers had a fantastic run from 1989 through 2004. Median net worth for those between the ages of 55 and 59 rose 97% over 15 years to $249,700 in 2004. Median income rose 52%. The younger generation between the ages of 35 and 39 saw their median net worth fall 28% to $48,940. Their median income dropped 10% over the same 15 year period. It is clear that all Baby Boomers are not created equal. Based on calculations made by the Federal Reserve, at least 50% of Boomers will not have a happy retirement. The bottom 30% will reach the age of 65 with net worth of less than $100,000. They will try to subsist in poverty, dependent upon social security and part time Wal-Mart jobs until they die penniless. The top 30% will retire to lives of luxury and leisure. The middle 40% will muddle through with social security payments the only thing keeping them from an old age in poverty.
We have become a have and have not society. Our economy favors education, entrepreneurship, and creativity. Those benefitting from a good education will make dramatically more money than the uneducated laborers. The top 20% of households make 12.5 times the lowest 20% of households. This ratio was 7 to 1 in 1982. The top 1% of households make 20% of all the income in the U.S., the highest rate since 1928. Does this statistic portend a decade long depression? The difference between now and 1928 is the huge household debt burden of Americans. This usage of debt by the poor has masked the gap between haves and have nots for the last 20 years.
As I drive to work every day in my fully paid for 2002 CRV with 110,000 miles, I have plenty of time to observe my surroundings. Sitting in traffic on the Schuylkill Expressway, I have noticed that the number of luxury Mercedes, BMW, Cadillac and Lexus vehicles seems out of proportion to the number of wealthy people in the Philadelphia population.
When I see an older gentleman, wearing a suit, driving one of these automobiles, I assume that he is a wealthy executive who has put in his time and rewarded himself with a luxury vehicle. But, most of these vehicles are being driven by Joe the Plumber types. As I take a shortcut through some of the more depressed areas of West Philadelphia, I see people talking on their Apple (AAPL) iPhones, Direct TV satellite dishes attached to dilapidated row homes, and Cadillac Escalades & Mercedes parked on the mean streets. This is not exactly the world that Henry Fonda’s character, Tom Joad, described in The Grapes of Wrath:
I'll be all around in the dark - I'll be everywhere. Wherever you can look - wherever there's a fight, so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there. I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad. I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry and they know supper's ready, and when the people are eatin' the stuff they raise and livin' in the houses they build - I'll be there, too.
When I see “poor” people appearing to live a more luxurious life than myself, I don’t feel jealous. The thought that goes through my head is: Which banks or finance companies were foolish enough to loan these people the money to live this lifestyle? These foolish financial institutions will never get their loans repaid. What does bother me is that the Bush-Paulson-Pelosi Bailout of Stupid Banks will use my taxes to buy these bad loans from the foolish banks.
So, who is the fool in this scenario? The “poor” person got to drive a Cadillac Escalade for a period of time, the foolish banks got bailed out, the bank CEOs took home $30 million, and I lived within my means and footed the bill for the reckless actions of others. It appears that the fools are the Americans who lived their lives according to the rules. The anger is building. I don’t think the politicians running this country realize what true anger looks like. They are used to Americans being herded along like passive sheep.
I’ve heard many Republican ideologues blame the current crisis on the people who took the subprime loans for home purchases. I’ve also heard many Democratic ideologues blame the crisis on the regulators. The ideologues are wrong, as usual. If a poor person has no home, no vehicle, and no prospects; then a bank tells them that they can buy a $300,000 home, drive a $55,000 Mercedes SUV, and live like people on TV; why wouldn’t they say yes? What is their downside? If you have nothing and “The Man” offers you the American Dream, you’d actually be foolish to say no. Now that they have lost the home in foreclosure and the repo man has taken the Mercedes, they are exactly where they were a few years ago with no home, no vehicle and no prospects.
The regulators were certainly asleep at the wheel. They did not enforce existing rules, foolishly waived leverage rules for the biggest investment banks, and believed that the banks would regulate themselves. They were wrong, but they never made a single loan. The commercial banks, investment banks, auto finance companies, and credit card companies made the ridiculous loans to people who could never pay them back in the search for short term profits. Greedy Wall Street executives created an artificial market for the loans in order to generate billions in fees so they could enrich themselves through stock options and obscene bonuses. They spent their false riches on $2 million NYC penthouses, $100,000 Porsche 911s, and $5 million beachfront estates in the Hamptons. Based on the estimated $2 trillion of losses that our banks have generated, the CEOs certainly deserved annual pay 500 times as high as the average worker. There is no way an “average” worker could possibly be talented enough to lose $2 trillion. You would need to be truly extraordinary to lose that much.
CEOs’ average pay, production workers’ average pay, the S&P 500 Index, corporate profits, and the Federal minimum wage, 1990-2005 (adjusted for inflation):
Source: Executive Excess 2006, 13th annual CEO Compensation Survey
The brutal necessary lesson that should have been learned is that if you loan money to people who can’t pay you back, your bank will go bankrupt. The “poor” people who made a bad decision in buying homes and cars they couldn’t afford have lost those homes and cars. The banks made a bad business decision in making those loans. The taxpayer was not involved in these business transactions. This is where Hank Paulson, Ben Bernanke and George Bush, formerly free market capitalists, decided to commit our grandchildren’s money to bailing out the horribly run financial institutions.
Our government has chosen to allow these banks off the hook for their bad business decisions at the expense of taxpayers. Rewarding bad decisions and bad behavior will lead to more bad decisions and more bad behavior. The government has made a dreadful decision that will haunt our country for generations. Now the Federal Reserve has lowered interest rates to 1% again. This is where this horrible nightmare started. The massive printing of currency throughout the world will ultimately lead to a hyperinflationary bust. The law of unintended consequences can be devastating.
Early in the 1st Reagan administration, Americans saved 12% of their income and household debt as a percentage of GDP was 63%. In 1980, the oldest Baby Boomers turned 34. They entered their prime earnings and spending years. This is when something went haywire with our great country. Deficit spending became fashionable for government, corporations and individuals. Dick “deficits don’t matter” Cheney was probably in his glory as the country ran up deficits of money, morals, and brains. The Boomers and our government chose to try and borrow and spend their way to prosperity. As we now know, Mr. Cheney’s advice about deficits not mattering was about as good as his belief that you can fire a shotgun in any direction without implications. The Boomer generation has freely made choices over the last quarter century that has brought us to the brink of a second Great Depression.
During the current Bush administration, Americans’ savings rate actually went below zero, while household debt as a percentage of GDP soared above 130%, a doubling in 25 years. These figures prove that the apparent prosperity of the last 25 years was an illusion. Beginning in 1982, Baby Boomers chose to take the easy road. Saving, investing and living within your means were cast aside as “Old School”. Boomers were handed a better future through the blood, sweat and tears of the “Greatest Generation”. Through their hubris, they’ve squandered that better future, the future of their children and imperiled our entire capitalist system. Between 1989 and 2007, credit-card debt soared from $238 billion to $937 billion, a 300% increase. Household liabilities that are in delinquency or default totaled $775 billion at the end of June, according to CreditForecast.com data. This is equal to 7.5% of all U.S. household debt, up from 3% just two years ago.
In the last five years, our live-for-today Boomers sucked over $3 trillion of equity out of their homes to fund their selfish lifestyles. At the end of June, there were 2.72 million mortgage loans in default at an annualized rate. For all of 2008, defaults will hit 3 million, up from approximately 1.5 million in 2007, and 1 million in 2006.
What “essentials” do the Boomers invest all this borrowed money in every year? The U.S. Census bureau provides the answers:
- $200 billion on furniture, appliances ($1,900 per household annually)
- $400 billion on vehicle purchases ($3,800 per household annually)
- $425 billion at restaurants ($4,000 per household annually)
- $9 billion at Starbucks (SBUX) ($85 per household annually)
- $250 billion on clothing ($2,400 per household annually)
- $100 billion on electronics ($950 per household annually)
- $60 billion on lottery tickets ($600 per household annually)
- $100 billion at gambling casinos ($950 per household annually)
- $60 billion on alcohol ($600 per household annually)
- $40 billion on smoking ($400 per household annually)
- $32 billion on spectator sports ($300 per household annually)
- $150 billion on entertainment ($1,400 per household annually)
- $100 billion on education ($950 per household annually)
- $300 billion to charity ($2,900 per household annually)
The priorities of our Boomer led society are clearly born out in the above figures. We spend more eating out than we give to charity. We spend as much on big screen TVs and stereos as we do on education. This may explain why 37 million (12.5%) of all Americans live in poverty and our high school students trail the students of 25 other countries (including Latvia) in science and math knowledge. Our school system processes many more clueless morons who don’t know the candidates for President, versus intelligent, thoughtful, hard working, driven young people. The $160 billion spent on gambling is indicative of the get rich quick without hard work attitude of the Boomer generation. Even worse, households with income under $13,000 spend, on average, $645 a year on lottery tickets, about 9 percent of all their income. Our government feeds this addiction by siphoning off billions in taxes from these gambling revenues to redistribute as they see fit.
What the data proves is that Boomers love to shop and eat, whether they have the money or not. The top 100 retailers in the U.S. have 250,000 stores that generated $1.7 trillion of sales last year. How could America function without 31,000 McDonalds, 35,000 KFCs, Taco Bells, & Pizza Huts, 15,000 Starbucks, 7,000 Wal-Marts, 2,000 Home Depots, 4,000 K-Marts/Sears, and 8,000 Blockbusters? There are 91,000 shopping centers in the United States. The Advertising industry spends $275 billion per year to convince you to spend money you don’t have for things you don’t need. This generation lacks self control, morals, a work ethic, and savings ethic. Based on the recent actions of our government and corporate leaders, we seem to lack any ethics at all. It is immoral for the Boomer generation to run up $53 trillion in unfunded future liabilities in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid to leave as our gift to future generations, while we live it up today. Optimists like to point out that Europe and Japan have much worse unfunded liability problems than the U.S. That is like taking pride in being the best looking horse at the glue factory. In the end, we’ll all still be glue.
The 25 year Boomer borrowing and spending binge is coming to an end. The hangover will be really bad. The Federal Reserve and Treasury are trying to keep the frat party going, but everyone is passed out on the floor. The Case Shiller housing data shows that the 20 largest cities have experienced an average 20% decline in price from their peaks. The futures index predicts a further 10% to 15% loss in value. There are 75 million owned homes in the U.S. One in six, or 12 million homeowners, owe more than the house is worth. With further expected losses, 20 million homeowners will eventually be underwater on their mortgage. In California, where home price declines will be 40% to 50%, half the homeowners in the State will owe more than the house is worth.
If you are one of these homeowners and can afford the mortgage payment, time will eventually bail you out. If you can’t afford the mortgage payment, you should lose the house to someone who can make the payment. This is the failure side of the creative destruction that is true capitalism. If the government steps in to subsidize and eliminate failure, the system will ultimately collapse.
Part two of the great Boomer credit contraction will be the collapse of credit card companies who have mailed out 27 billion credit card offers in the last five years. They are now reaping what they have sown. As Boomers could no longer borrow from their homes, they switched to credit cards to make mortgage payments and car payments. That well is running dry. The losses to card companies will make the losses in 2000 to 2002 seem like good times. Losses in the 1st half of 2008 soared to $21 billion. Losses are expected to total $55 billion in the next year and a half. This brings me to the latest outrage perpetrated upon the U.S. citizens by Hank Paulson and his Treasury cronies.
The credit card industry, which collects 23% interest and $12 billion in late fees from consumers, is lining up to get their piece of the $700 billion bank handout. Capital One (COF) has just received a $3.6 billion injection from the American taxpayer, one week after projecting that their write-offs will be $7.2 billion in the next twelve months. This will allow them to send another million offers to more people who shouldn’t have a credit card. Why not? The taxpayer will pay, if the losses are too high. Why aren’t the pundits on CNBC outraged at this misuse of taxpayer money? Would the bankruptcy of Capital One hurt our country in any way?
The Great American Empire has begun its long slow decline. It may take a few generations to reach its nadir, but the poor decisions already made and crucial decisions postponed in the last 25 years by our Boomer dominated leadership has put our country on a path to a declining standard of living. The U.S. is like a punch drunk ex-champion boxer who still thinks he has what it takes, but is living off his old press clippings. He lived the good life, got fat and didn’t do the hard work required of a champion. A slew of young brash fighters are itching to take him down. It is just a matter of time.
In our heyday during the 1950s, manufacturing accounted for 25% of GDP. In 1980 it was still 22% of GDP. Today it is 12% of GDP. By 2010 it will be under 10% of GDP. Our Government bureaucracy, which contributes nothing to the advancement of our society, now is a larger portion of GDP than manufacturing. Services such as banking, retail sales, transportation, and health care now account for two-thirds of the value of U.S. GDP. We have become a nation of bureaucratic paper pushers. Past U.S. generations invented the airplane; invented the automobile; discovered penicillin; and built the Interstate highway system. The Baby Boom generation has invented credit default swaps; mortgage backed securities; the fast food drive thru window; discovered the cure for erectile dysfunction; and built bridges to nowhere. No wonder we’re in so much trouble.
Now that I have laid out our bleak future, I can tell you that, like Dickens’ Christmas Carol, this is only a vision of what might be. There is time to change our course before our ship wrecks on a jagged reef. David M. Walker, former Comptroller of the United States, at a recent Fiscal Wake Up Tour at the University of Pennsylvania, described what has been happening in this country for the last 25 years in one word – laggardship. The last six months have been a perfect example of laggardship. Our leaders have floundered from crisis to crisis, overreacting and blustering rather than leading. True leaders are proactive, not reactive. After not addressing our energy policy for decades, as soon as oil reached $140 a barrel, Congress lurched into action so their constituents would think they were leading. As our financial system has imploded, government “leaders” have flailed about with one rescue package after another and Congress looks for scapegoats. Meddling, tinkering, and non-enforcement of rules by Congress and other government bureaucracies caused the crisis that they are reacting to. Government creates the problems and then assumes even more power over our lives with their ridiculous “solutions”.
No one in Washington has shown an ounce of leadership in decades. True leadership requires strength of character, clear vision to see the future as it is, the bravery to make unpopular decisions, and the honesty to tell the public the unvarnished truth based on the facts.
The facts are: we have a $10.5 trillion national debt; $53 trillion of unfunded liabilities; a military empire that has U.S. troops in 117 countries and has spent $700 billion on a pre-emptive war that has killed over 4,000 Americans; a $60 billion trade deficit; an annual budget deficit that will exceed $1 trillion in the next year; a crumbling infrastructure with 156,000 structurally deficient bridges; almost total dependence on foreign oil; and an educational system that is failing miserably. We can not fund guns, butter, banks and now car companies without collapsing our system.
I truly hope that President Obama can rise to the occasion and become a true statesman and leader. David Walker lays out our dilemma:
The regular order in Washington is broken. We must move beyond crisis management approaches and start to address some of the key fiscal and other challenges facing this country if we want our future to be better than our past. Our fiscal time bomb is ticking, and the time for action is now!
Ultimately, it is up to the Baby Boom generation to change our country’s course. The oldest Boomer is 62 years old and the youngest 45 years old. It is time for Boomers to take a hard look in the mirror and rethink their priorities. It is time to cast aside the $88,000 Range Rovers, $1,200 Jimmy Choo boots, $5,000 Rolex watches and daily double lattes at Starbucks. It is time to live within your means, distinguish between needs and wants, reduce debt, save 10% of your income, make sure your kids get a good education, not try and keep up with the Joneses, show compassion for your fellow man, and possibly pay more taxes and get less benefits, for the good of the country. We must support true leaders like [former Comptroller General] David Walker and get rid of the old time corrupted politicians who want to keep the status quo. Texas Congressman Ron Paul gives the blunt truth that a true leader is willing to give:
Our government has lived beyond its means for decades. We now face a crucial juncture, at which we determine whether to continue down the path of debt, inflation, and government intervention or choose to return to the economics of the free market, which have been ignored for almost a century. Increased debt leads to higher taxes on future generations, while increased inflation diminishes the purchasing power of American families and destroys the dollar. No society has ever been achieved prosperity through indebtedness or inflation, and the United States is no exception. We cannot afford to continue our current policies of monetary expansion and unending bailouts. Unless we return to sound monetary policy, sharply reduce government expenditures, and realize that the government cannot act as a lender of last resort, we will drive our economy to ruin.
The Baby Boom generation has one last chance to change the course of U.S. history, keep us from wrecking in a storm of debt on the approaching jagged reef and shed the title of “Shallowest Generation”.
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This article has 276 comments:
I believe it may be. We are seeing the joints coming apart, the beams sagging and about to crack under the weight of massive debt and enormous corruption. Paulson is just trying to steal a few billion more for his beloved financial organized crime rings, before he retires to a life of wealth and luxury, under very heavy security.
Many hail Ron Paul as some sort of visionary, but I would argue differently. He espouses "Free markets" but made all of his money as a doctor. As anyone who bothers to examine the facts knows, doctors bill enormous fees to patients (and Medicare/Medicaid) in a system that in no way resembles a "free market."
Rather, it is a rigged market that controls the number of available doctors, and legislates their financial advantage, to an extraordinary degree. The A.M.A. is the most powerful and mercenary union in this nation's history, and is sucking the country dry.
I would never vote for Ron Paul on purely moral grounds - he was part of the problem, in my opinion. If you are a wealthy doctor (one of the limited number allowed to be 'licensed' that is) then it is easy to throw stones and criticize others for debt. These jokers live in a fantasy world, just like the IB types shuffling paper around and committing fraud for million-dollar bonuses. Their sense of true economics is deeply distorted by their own self-manipulated and outsized pay package.
i hope there is room in the life raft for people that are ambitious and hungry enough to push the dead weight that caused this issue into the water to meet the fate they deserve.
I would be a little more optimistic. Based on my reading of history, the last time we had a hugh boom and bust was in the roaring 20's followed by a great depression in the 30's, which was followed by a World War. We are no where near a great depression and a World War --- thanks goodness. The time will get better. Our lives will continue to improve, living longer and playing with the latest gadgets. Both rich and poor will enjoy the advancement of the society: medicine, labor saving devices, be able to travel and entertain.
This is not going to end well. One would not choose to live in the last throes of the Roman Empire. I suspect our lot will be little different.
Or, as the old Chinese curse goes, "may you live in interesting times". How much more interestinger could it get ? I shudder to think....
The meek, by the way are not us - they are the Chinese.
Keep up the good work.
-Dave
So, essentially he ran his clinic the way clinics used to be ran before the health insurance industry became so overbloated.
Specifically,
1. IMHO, it is incorrect to blame the banks and CEO's for the calamity. They did not set the course, just followed what Capitol Hill told them to do and offered incentives for. Before we start fixing blame we must do a proper investigation and hold responsible the folks actually at fault, not the ones that are popular to blame.
The author (never signed the article, I wonder why??) seems to forget that we are guided by Common law, not Napoleonic law.
2. It is absurd to generalize behavior of a generation same way like it is incorrect to generalize and stereotype behavior of a race or nationality. The author refers to Baby Boomers and shallow behavior as specifically American phenomenon. He or she seems oblivious to the situation elsewhere in the world and why the problems in Asia and Europe are more severe and deeper than in the United States even though this generation supposedly is not shallow.
3. The simple check of the voting record (public) shows that Mr. Obama in Illinois and Washington legislatures has voted by party lines over 90% of cases. Based on publicly available documents this is the same party that pushed for the laws that led to the current financial situation and actively protected the same unpopular Wall Street CEO's they are blaming now. To expect that Obama and his crew (if elected!) to fix something is like believing in Santa Claus of Eater Bunny ... same shallow behavior the author is assigning to our generation.
I take my hat off to you James.
No country or society can sustain economic prosperity and growth by borrowing money to finance consumption.
Unfortunately, this problem has now spread to RUSSIA, INDIA and many other countries also. The current generation in many cities around the world want air conditioned schools, air conditioned school buses, cell phones, designer clothes and expensive sneakers not to mention the iPhone, the iPod and other gizmos.
Today children play video games rather than real sports, cannot go to school unless provided with an iPod just because everyone else has one and are simply growing up pretty spoilt.
You have to earn your money through hard work and learn to save it and invest it wisely. However, as you have said that the CEOs and Congress have made a mockery of hard working Americans who lived by the right thoughts, right standards and rules of the previous generation which fought two world wars and survived the Great Depression.
This article is a wake up call. Every reader needs to send this to his/her Congressman.
This article is an outstanding first step. The next is to understand that the problem won't be "fixed" by those at the top, but rather by each person individually living in a manner that reverses the poor lifestyle choices of the past.
America must rebuild the solid financial standing of a bulk of its citizens before things will get materially better.
The other logical approach is to be an eternal optimist, that human ingenuity and survival instinct will somehow pull us through this unexpected storm like us going through the tumultous 1930s, 1970s, and a better world at the end of it.
Anyway you look at it, tough times and re-adjustment lies ahead for countries and individuals. In future people will come to realise the shallowness of living on excessive debt and creating false prosperity on things of no value like CDOs.
P.S. Still laughing at the tough guy words.
I have noticed that a tremendous amount of CIA money is spent bad-rapping China. The Dalai Lama has been paid $15,000.00 per month by the CIA since the 50's to be a China irritant. The cause of the Dali Lama exile from Tibet revolved around his passing documents smuggled out of Russia through Tibet for the CIA.
Before the Olympics, The AP was full of negative news about China. Their favorite sources to quote were Reporters without Borders and Human Rights Watch, both heavily funded by the CIA.
I am not asserting that anywhere is perfect, but, if your view of China is supplied by the US media, you are clueless.
I believe the US decline in education began in the 60's. Perhaps Nixon and Kissinger noticed that the S.W.I.N.E. (students wildly indignant about nearly everything) were too well educated, liberal arts, history, all that stuff. In the 60's, technical education came along, no need to really educate people about the world, no need to convey the lessons of history, just teach them sufficiently so that they can work and consume.
Strangely enough, at about the same time, intergration of the school systems diluted the system. (Not that I don't think it was appropriate but It did lower the quality output of public schools and it is interesting that both occurred at that time.)
My autos are paid for, as is my house and property. I have no credit card debt. I have lived 59 years within my means. I have no sympathy for people whose financial behavior resembles "drug addict behavior."
If you're waiting on punishment of wrongdoers associated with our financial mess, regulators, Wall Street, the Burning Bush (as opposed to the Barfing Bush), congress, McFossil, or whomever, stop waiting, you do not understand the concept of honor among thieves. There will be no repercussion.
Happy Holidays to all, and good luck.
In my opinion, this financial situation - a clear symptom of the collapse that lies ahead, is the beginning of the long overdue torment North American's deserve for simply negating the rules of life as they had been until we found cheap energy and combined it with capatilism.
You simply cannot maintain exponential growth in a finite system. Humanity, in its technological infancy, must have said "...well, we can try it out...if it goes badly it'll be up to later generations to fix it." - a US president, guaranteed.
The empire is burning and all you can do is create more debt and call it a "bail out" to hold the fire back a little longer...Yes, money is debt in North America. In the US, oustanding debt & GDP has a correlation coefficient of 99%. I think when this system was created, they meant to name it "cannibalism" but mispelled it as "capatilism".
With this in-tow, my generation is also faced with these challenges:
- reversing the environmental damage caused by unsustainable growth fueled by the exploitation of every resource available
- invent a new economic model
- finding new energy technologies that can attempt to replace fossil fuels
- invent new city development methods, suburbia is over...
It seems impossible and it may be, because all of the time and resources we should have spent on these challenges went to building Wal-marts, SUV's and MacDonalds...not to mention raising useless children that lack integrity of any kind, they were too busy listening to their iPods, watching TV and admiring role models like Paris Hilton to even pick up a book or have a real conversation with an elder. How will this future generation even be able to define the problem(s)? Their youth was fueled by the very same addictions that created this situation in the first place.
Its always going to be someone elses fault; that's the root of humanity's short-sightedness, greed, selfishness and ultimate self destruction.
Every empire in the past has displayed these exact same systems, the only difference this time is that globalization made this a "global" problem which has never occurred before.
On the second point, while, yes, many blithely used their credit cards and home equity to live beyond their means, just as many, and I suspect more, did so out of sheer necessity, as their wages failed to keep up with prices (or productivity for that matter) and millions of good-paying manufacturing jobs were off-shored to exploit cheaper labor - or as their health insurance was lost due to loss of job due to the very illness that bankrupted them to pay medical bills. A transfer of wealth of monumental proportions happened, and the beneficiares - however deservedly - were to a large extent the Greatest Generation whose Social Security and Medicare came to a higher percentage of my income than I was able to save for myself.
When labor was granted a fairer share of the wealth it created from the late 40's through 60's (thanks in great part to the labor movement), our economy thrived and savings were healthy. The so-called neo-liberal Thatcher-Reagan Washington Consensus of smoke-and-mirrors debt-propelled prosperity that gutted the middle class of this country is equally at fault.
When you point your finger, free-market capitalist, there are three fingers pointing back at yourself.
If we weren't "shallow, greedy, and corrupt," not to mention "adulterous, mendacious, covetous, murderous, and all those other good things" then Christ would have nothing to forgive us for and there would be no need be a Christian nation because we would have heaven on earth.
But having heaven on earth implies socialism and socialism is evil.
Therefore, we are forced go on sinning to create hell on earth so we can be saved in heaven and fight against socialism which is heaven on earth.
Everyone knows that heaven is in heaven and not on earth and that is the explanation for the massive deficits of past administrations (in case you hadn't noticed.)
The truth is either funny, sad or insulting. Don't ask me why.
The US was able to sustain high wages in the 40s, 50s, and 60s, because we were the last developed country left standing after WW2. Those days are gone for good. Now we live in a globalized world for better or worse, and the value of unskilled labor is low.
So what do you propose, trade protectionism and tariffs?
Banking was a business once true
that borrowed from me, lent to you.
But some bankers got greedy
and stole from the needy.
With fractional reserves they do screw.
The "greatest generation" learned a hard lesson living thru the depression of the 1930s and subsequent generations are about to learn that lesson now too.
You must also stop saving more than you need. I also speculate on anything that moves. Up or Down - I don't care. The Gov. will run the printing presses night and day forever. So I slowly buy gold coins and with the rest, I speculate. Puts, calls, currencies. I don't care, as long as it moves.
All this recently printed money will be forced into an economy with nothing to buy. That means it will end up in stocks, gold, oil or some other speculative game. I used to be a big saver and very frugal, but starting in 2003 I gave that life up after rates went to 1%. I realized then that the spenders shall inherit the earth, the savers get screwed. I had bothered to save 50K over 10 yrs and realized that it would be worthless in 10 more.
Since then I have lived in huge homes, had great cars, great vacations and I don't pay for them, you do. I have loaded up on debt and maxed myself out to 1.4M in total debt (house included). I will file BK soon. (Thats why you buy gold coins, they are hidden from BK)
I want to thank all the tax payers for my latest fling to Australia, it was awesome. (16 days in NZ and Aust., 4-5 star hotels. Total bill - 18K.) Credit Cards all the way. I don't feel bad for Capital One, they got my payment check from Henry. Long live the printing press.
Don't feel too bad. If you repay your loans, the money will go back to thin air thus causing deflation. One of the "wonders" of fractional reserve banking.
BTW: Buying gold coins is one method of SAVING..(I like oil myself)
Ah, poetic justice.
I'm optimistic the early/mid 20's generation is removed from this infantile corruption and we'll have adults once again.
Yes you can, and every child will be above average.
Thankyou.
I think that attacks on physicians are completely unfounded (those of you who posted such) and you would have to go through the process in order to know what is fair. I am one and I can say that there is no wealth in the practice of medicine. If you want wealth, go into law. Medicine is a very unforgiving, sometimes thankless and very strenuous profession. If you truly want to understand it, go through it. The AMA is a very WEAK lobby for physicians and is centered around quality of care. For the last decade, the AMA has supported single payer healthcare, which is not in the best interest of physicians. Physicians have been getting pay cuts every year for the last 15 years.
The government cannot force anyone to work in the US (so far). Physicians cannot unionize (it's against the law). What is happening is a quick move to early retirement and concierge medicine. The void is being filled by second tier practicioners (nurse practitioners, nurse anesthetists, physician assistants and foreign medical graduates). The net result, quality and access go down. Americans want this, so no sense in arguing with it. To the NP's, PA's and CRNA's out there, I mean no disrespect, but your training does not come close to that of physicians. There are judgement differences that one should not discount or hope to learn on the job (without supervision, it will not be learned).
Medical schools across the country are starting to fail, and cannot keep the best and brightest faculty because they cannot pay them. We are not talking about exorbitant pay...but people not going through it believe what they wish.
I personally carry substantial debt and a 10 year period of unpaid training that I (nor any other physician) can get back. I take calls at all hours of the night and day for patients and am not paid for it. There are no attorneys, accountants or other professionals who work for free...especially at night and on weekends.
Take great care with decisions that affect medicine, they will ultimately affect your children and grandchildren. I am personally VERY concerned for the future of medicine in the US.
"I truly hope that President Obama can rise to the occasion and become a true statesman and leader. David Walker lays out our dilemma"
And:
"and possibly pay more taxes and get less benefits, for the good of the country."
Mr. Obama is all but a confirmed Socialist of the highest order, via his voting record and statements regarding government involvement. Hey - the Rebpubs are too in large extent - but he mentioned Obama in such a kind and 'hope'-ful way...
The 2nd quote - well, if you're an Obama supporter, as it seems the author is wont to be, raising your taxes for the betterment of the country is SOP for a socialist. After all, it's for the common good, right? Actually, can somebody tell me the difference between the government bailing out banks and the government raising your taxes for the betterment of everyone. Where is the ire for this aspect of government? Oh, I get it - don't bail out those evil capitalists, but don't worry either about burdening the taxpayer with - what? Higher taxes?
The author also mentions Ron Paul. Hmmm... Interesting.
I believe that most of the country - Repubs and Socialists alike, tossed him out on his ear as a 'kook', did they not.
But it's convenient for this piece of righteous indignation to drag him up for a quote?
How about you go back for some schooling on LIBERTY and perhaps after a few years of hard-core Socialism, we'll find the collective will to vote for a Ron Paul next time around.
Peace -
C.C.
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Now that that's off your chest too....
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Anything else you need to discuss with your self?
I'm a boomer who was born in 1947. The last time I bought a new car was in 1978. I drive a 17 year old Volvo. I have no debt. I pay off my credit card balance in full every month. I helped my parents until they died.
Am I angry? Damn right, I'm angry.
I lived within my means and footed the bill for the reckless actions of others. It appears that the fools are the Americans who lived their lives according to the rules. The anger is building.
Unfortunately, I feel like I'm in the angry minority.
P.S. I’m a baby boomer, but I’m pretty contemptuous of baby boomers in general, for the reasons you cited.
Dave
daveeriqat.wordpress.c.../
Give me a break. Social Security was put into place in the 1930's. It could have been changed at any time by Congress. Stop whining. Bush signed the Medicare Part D bill a few years ago. This program will cost more than Social Security. The Baby Boomers will get every dime plus that they put into SS. My grandchildren will have the 70% taxes. Every dime spent in deficit is a tax on future generations.
I noted that one person blamed religion. Since the response of most Baby Boomers toward God has been the raised middle finger, and the only God that most Boomers have paid any attention to is the one whose last name is DAMN, I doubt seriously that religion in any of its forms has been responsible for this.
I don't blame the previous generation. At least they had the courage and discipline to deal first with a great economic upheaval and then look tyrants in the eye and deal with them as they needed to be dealt with. My mom still has one of Dad's pictures from Buchenwald, with the bodies stacked up like wood. Those men like my dad looked all that in the face and dealt with it, and came home and tried to resume a normal life. Real tragedies played out across the entire world, with 60 million bodies, and the overwhelming majority of those died not in combat or as the result of direct military action, but singly or in small groups in concentration camps. 60 million is counting off every 5th person in this country and shooting them dead, or gassing them, or hanging them. Before you castigate that generation, tell me please how YOU would have dealt with Hitler, Stalin, and Tojo. Base your answer on the historical record of what they did, rather than your "feelings". Be sure you consider their reaction to what you do.
As far as I am concerned, that generation earned their keep. I'm willing to discuss how it's done, but that's a debt I see that needs to be paid.
The real contribution of the Boomers as a group is not just economic, though. It's moral. This is the crowd that decided that EVERY standard, EVERY convention, EVERY truth, EVERY tradition, EVERY EVERYTHING had to conform to THEIR understanding and acceptance, or they weren't obligated to accept it. And THEIR reasoning, no matter how immature, ignorant, or ill-informed, was the ONLY standard by which ANYTHING was judged. This group didn't say, "We're above the law". Nope, this group said, "We ARE the law". As a result, their standards for personal, corporate, group, and national conduct, since they entered puberty, have been based ONLY by their understanding (and, lest I forget, their FEELINGS), and they CANNOT admit that they were EVER WRONG about ANYTHING of significance.
This generation as a whole does NOT know how to do rigorous, peer-reviewed, objective scientific research, or how to review it. Instead, they even approach their understanding of science and math issues by turning to their emotions. Perhaps it's because they cannot accept the idea of objective, unchanging truth. In any case, they base even their understanding of science and mathematics on their intuition and those feelings rather than rigorously searching for the truth. This is the thing that caused the head of the Sierra Club in 1971 to scream that nuclear power was going to cause nuclear war, and in 2006 he's in the Washington Post saying, "Well, I guess I was wrong, but we were so concerned about nuclear war...". Any rigorous scientific study of the problem would have told him that the two are NOT the same, and such information was presented to him, but he was so self-wise, and so "in touch with his feelings" that he led other equally ignorant folks to protest what they didn't have any knowledge of, and here we are 35 years later with only a fraction of the nuclear-generated electricity that we could have had. France is sitting there getting 80% of their electricity from nuke plants. Who's doing a better job with carbon production??? Hint: It ain't the nation that produced the Sierra Club.
In politics, the Boomers' overwhelming sense of "I AM the law" has caused them to turn every major issue facing this country into just another front in an ongoing Cold Civil War (I know of no other way to describe it). Everything: economy, defense, education, environmental issues, labor, you name it...all are useful handles to beat up that ignoramus who dares to disagree with YOU. It's more important for a Boomer to be right than it is to solve a problem, unless the problem is solved by the other fellow surrendering what he believes. Even 9/11 was insufficient to cause the partisans on both sides to lay down their clubs and stop beating each other. Boomers also don't generally have a clue about what their responsibilties are as citizens, but they are quick indeed to insist on their rights. This should not be a surprise, since the Boomers look only to themselves as the last word in everything. Responsibilities means that I have to do something because SOMEONE ELSE decided I should, and that means that I'm not in charge.
Obviously not every Baby Boomer fails in all of these ways. A small minority may not have failed in any of these areas at all. Nonetheless, the Boomers as a demographic are just as predictable as every generation before them, and the sales and marketing types know very well that the Boomer generation is over-emotional, under-logical, and absolutely undisciplined, as Mr. Quinn noted.
I had an English teacher who summed it up nicely one fall afternoon: "Every generation has been told they were going to hang the moon. Yours has been the first one that's been stupid enough to believe it."
Again, I AM a Boomer...a middie type (born 1955). I see my generation walking away faster and faster from responsibilty, from citizenship, from sacrifice, all to chase increasingly ephemeral pleasures that grow ever more stale. But they absolutely will not give up their conviction that they, and nothing else, are the law in this world.
To those Boomers who don't fit these descriptions, well and good...just be sure that you are above all else rigorous in your self-assessment. To those like me who have some of these characteristics, and who fight them, and sometimes win, and other times lose, ratchet up the fight. It's time to win more and lose less; there's more to do than we have time to do, and we have large debts to pay. To those who are in denial, either wake up, or prepare to find that after all is said and done you AREN'T the law, after all.
Mr. Quinn: If you are counting on Mr. Obama because he's not a Boomer, you are not paying attention to the Congress. Most of them ARE, and they (regardless of party) are just as afflicted as the rest of the Boomers. If you want real change, start voting Congressional incumbents out. Doesn't matter what they've done, or how long they've been there...they are part of a system in which the Senator or Representative is effectively purchased by those "who brung them to the dance". There are sound economic reasons to believe this (some of them having to do with laws of incorporation). Presidents fit this description as well, but they have a span ot usefulness of only 4 or 8 years, and the Congress is the real power place in the country, because (a) they control the money, (b) the staffers aren't governed by civil service regulations and can therefore engage in whatever they can get away with, subject only to the approval of their Senator or Representative (in the Washington Post a few months ago was a news item that certain chiefs of staff of certain Congressmen and Senators were actually the powers in Congress, because they are the ones really making the deals...the Sens and Reps don't really know WHAT they are voting on).
Everything else you generalize without being clear -- you treat boomers as a personality disorder or racial-type. It ain't.
My thoughts are:
There will be no change until people in this country - of all generations - begin taking responsibility again for their own actions.
What was the term used? And not that I'm a huge fan of Herbert Hoover's policies, but I think we need to see a return of "rugged individualism".
I wish I could say I was more hopeful for the future, but with this current election - our choices, again (wtf), the state of the economy, and the general mindset of those around me, I find myself quickly losing faith.
What's next?
This will end in civil unrest. It is a pre-armageddon event. We have been brainwashed by positivism and the promise that if we believe things will be OK they will. I don't pretend to know how it will end but I am afraid.
Of course life is too complex to cover all issues in any article and as many have responded, some of us have lived reasonably appropriately. I have also complained that those who have paid down loans and saved have been: discriminated against by Government policy, mocked by investment companies who have encouraged everyone to borrow and borrow against their homes for a better lifestyle and sadly been mocked by those we sometimes loosely call for not jumping on the bandwagon.
I have spent a fortune educating my kids but I have also lived far better than those before me and therefore do not pretend to possess the mettle of my ancestors. I hope, however, it is not too late learn how to be strong as God knows a time is fast coming that will test us all.
Yeah time to buy commodities.
Our countries dollar is inflated and is only going to get worse.
Not my dollar though.
It just got crazy strong.
thank you
Exactamento.
You glossed over the fact that Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton were also along for the ride. And that we have done much more over these past 20 years like continuing to be the world’s builder of airplanes, inventor of wonder drugs, dozens of which are obscure and do not get the headlines of Aspirin or Penicillin, designers of the PC and its operating system and software applications that have essentially powered the greatest improvement in productivity and distribution of knowledge since the printing press.
And yes we are also the world’s power plant. We have the capital and knowledge to find the oil that powers the world. We don’t own that oil anymore, but we find it and dig it up for the rest of the world and then get told how much we will get paid for it at ROI’s that are nothing greater than average.
We are also involved in defending ourselves against people who hate us for no reason other than our religion and our success and our support of their enemy, Israel. Our volunteer army has cost us a tiny pittance over the past six years. We spend less on national defense as a % of GDP during this war than any other war in history! By far!! And BTW, this is OUR war, not some abstract alliance defending Europe or Southeast Asia. We were attacked!
But we have a hard time with it because we have hundreds of billions in off shore tax cheats even though we have the lowest marginal tax rates in the past 50 years! Now that’s obscene and no one is really talking about that. If you want a revolution, get that one started.
If Obama gets in he needs to worry if he can keep George Bush’s legacy of safety for the past seven years.
You also did not mention that three of the richest people (two boomers) in this country have now dedicated themselves to giving away most all of their wealth and supervising it during their lifetimes. Ted Turner, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffet. And they are not giving it to art museums. They want to solve big problems like Malaria which is not even a US problem!! How much does Carlos Slim give to his poor country? Hugo Chavez?
We also still GIVE AWAY about 1% of our tax dollars to both our friends and ENEMIES. And in exchange we get complaints from countries like little children saying it’s not enough, give me more. Greed is not a unique American thing.
Your article was very well written but the world is a big place and America still does most of the heavy lifting that is making it a better place. We’ve just become a little too full of ourselves, a little too comfortable, and in some cases way overpaid.
A few random thoughts -
Back in the late 60's, the guys at the gas co. told me they felt sorry for me because "all those women going to work - you're gonna need 2 incomes to live on" - I guess they foresaw the inflation coming. Mrs oldGoldBug thinks a lot of Gen xers and Yers grew up on their own cause Mom and Dad were too busy working to spend much time parenting.
Its all pretty much bull**** from the "Nifty Fifty" to the "TARP". The biggest companies are WMT, XOM, MCD, KO, PEP, GE. Only XOM and GE make anything we really need and GE getting pounded as it is at least half bank. Can we live without chips and Pepsi - I sure think so. What do we really make that the rest of the world wants???? Movies and TV shows? Airplanes? We need to get relevant - solar, garbage recycling, water conservation, etc etc etc
XOM could buy GM with net income from 1 month last quarter.
Mom - member of the Greatest Generation - still going strong at 86+ - (no good genetics for me unfortunately) - has been calling for the Greater Depression for years. If someone in your life is in their 80's or older and still able to communicate - LISTEN - Hear about walking to the milk store at age 9 to buy gallon of milk for 10 cents and loaf of bread for 5 cents and having milk and bread and sugar for dessert at night. Dad working 1 day a week to feed 7. Hear about having 3 dresses for 3 girls and washing them each night so other sister could wear it the next day.
I watched Youngstown OH, Steeltown USA, crash and burn because the companies refused to reinvest in new plant and equipment, unions got unbelievably greedy, and lots of workers thought working meant a 3 hour nap after coming to work stoned, drunk or hung over. The managers who oversaw the devitalization of America were part of the Greatest Generation. Unless you were a white Anglo Saxon Protestant, you "weren't capable of running a steel mill", and they ran it right into the ground. Whenever you cut out huge amounts of talent due to gender, race, ethnicity etc., you are going to lose.
I find the Republicans disingenuous at best. Who has had the power for 6 of the last 8 years?? Nobody was watching the store, performing the duties of the Executive Branch. My gosh, you got so many scandals it boggles the mind - and those are only the ones we know about.
What do you expect from a loser coke head alkie and a couple of 70's retreads? The fact that poor John McCain is even in this race is a testament to the racist, provincial attitudes that still are maintained by almost half of the population. You Republicans probably did far more harm than good by giving us W as a choice instead of McCain back in 2000. How could you fall for the fighting gay marriage crap and the racist rumor campaigns against McCain, especially in South Carolina?
Why not give Obama a chance? At least the world will see that you don't have to have generations of Senators in your family to be President. That didn't get us too far. Maybe he will be a disaster, and maybe he'll be a new Harry Truman - wouldn't that be refreshing???
Some of Quinn's info needs modification. First the Boom generation runs from 1943 to 1960, because the high birth rate boom was not the event that defined the generation. This comes from analyzing polling data and market research. The net effect is that the popular notion of a 1946-1964 Boomer generation looses people, taking in the low birth 1943-1945 group and loosing the high birth rate 1961-1964 kids to GenX (or the Thirteenth Generation of Strauss and Howe).
More importantly, The Fourth Turning describes an ongoing cycle of 4 generation types that appear successively in the US since European settlement (with a single exception). A generation instance (GI, Silent, Boom, X, etc.) lasts from 30 to 16 years, with a trend of declining length (say 26 years long ago to 19 now). The order the types appear never varies: Prophet (Boomers), Nomad (Xers), Hero (Millennial or GIs) and Artist (Silents). The single exception in our history is when the potential Hero's of the Civil War Era didn't become Hero's, ending up as the Artist Type of Teddy Roosevelt's Progressives. The Prophet and Hero generations tend to be dominant, larger generations than the Silent and Nomad generations.
Strongly related to the generation cycle is a social cycle that from start to end lasts the time of a long natural life (which also is getting shorter from 100+ years to 80 or so now). Again the extreme crisis of the Civil War shortened this cycle to only 71 years (a not-so-long life). These are called Saeculum (from Latin) and are composed of 4 Turnings. These Turnings are: the High, the Awakening, the Low and the Crisis. They have always arrived in this order. Today, with the financial mess and political gridlock it seems safe to say that we are about to enter the Crisis Turning. Past Crisis periods are Great Depression and WWII (1929-1946), Civil War (1860-1865), Revolutionary War (1775-1794).
During a High, society feels good about itself and continues to build civic structure started in the previous Crisis. The Hero generation rules, with some old Nomads in the top jobs. The new Prophet generation is born at this time. People feel safe and positive.
During an Awakening, the Prophets and some of the Silents (often as leaders) rebel against authority and try to remake society. The old Hero's call the shots and are shocked by the irritating young Prophets. The new Nomad generation is born at this time. People worry about change and direction. A great rebellion against the status quo occurs. Kids are not wanted or cherished, to the point of abuse.
During a Low, the previous Hero generation gives up elder control, and control is shared between the current Artist generation and Prophet generation. The new Hero generation is born at this time. Morals continue to weaken for adults but the new kids are protected and adored.
During a Crisis, the Prophet generation has gained control. The Nomad generation is solidly become our middle leadership (they make a large proportion of famous military leaders). The young Hero's are the grunts. The new Artist generation is born in this time. Things become overtime extremely intense. The kids learn to not be a burden, keep quiet and watch.
I would guess that James Quinn is either a young Boomer Prophet (like myself) or an oldish GenX Nomad from his comments. It's easy to criticize boomers for their excess, but they have a role to change society. It's a necessary role. Without this process, I suspect that society would look the Dark Ages. No static perfection has been obtained yet by mankind (at least since we gave up hunting and gathering). At this stage I believe that cycles of opposing swings is our only option.
The best thing about the works of Strauss and Howe for me is that the larger context that they put history in, and the revelation of the many forces and alignments that are in play makes it all seem much more reasonable and somehow more correct. Like the Byrds' Hallmark Card version of Ecclesiastes, the Strauss and Howe writings calm and reduces angst. Anyone who gives The Fourth Turning a thoughtful read will subsequently have a very busy mind and hopefully will also realize that todays situation isn't really that extraordinary.
I've made a PDF chart of the Strauss and Howe information, if you'd like a copy, send me an email at djluedtke@gmail.com and I'll reply with a biggish PDF attachment (gotta get it up on a website one of these days).
Environmental hyprocrisy. Boomers started the environmental movement aimed at cleaning up the air and water and land. But this movement has morphed into an expensive hypocrisy of pseudo-green products, faux recycling, and pie-in-the-sky alternative fuels. What a joke! In the meantime as the economy languishes so will the environment.
While I don't advocate voting for McCain, I will say that I agree with his energy platform over Obama's. First, drilling for oil in California, Florida, and the Northeast, and second building numerous nuclear power plants, and third building out refineries will not only create hundreds of thousands of jobs directly, but will create millions more jobs indirectly as fuel costs fall dramatically. McCain also supports CAFE standards for automobiles. Obama's energy plan is ludicrous: plugin cars are a joke. The energy grid can barely handle its current load. Remember brown outs of late? Well, add a million cars to the grid every night and see what happens. Not only that, but wait till all those plugin owners get their first plugin electric bill. They'll wish for the good ole days of high gasoline prices.
Second, racial hypocrisy. Basically, I think a vote for Obama is another boomer rebel vote to make them feel better because boomers, after protesting in the 60s and 70s for racial equality have lived a strict apartheid in their separate McNeighborhoods and McSchools. Go to Obama's web site and click ISSUES and read everything. He is basically a 70s liberal. Tell me what white guy today could get elected with that same web page. Certainly Dennis Kucinich got very short shrift. Clinton got elected as a blue dog more conservative Democrat. Now boomers are voting for Obama?? Hypocrisy.
Have a great day,
Jolly Rancher
uh2l.blogs.com/things_...
As for your quote...
"No one in Washington has shown an ounce of leadership in decades. True leadership requires strength of character, clear vision to see the future as it is, the bravery to make unpopular decisions, and the honesty to tell the public the unvarnished truth based on the facts."
Nobody will get voted in to office by saying unpopular things! That is the problem with a democracy/republic. Any mention of raising taxes or sacrifice will lead to an assurance that the other candidate will win.
UH2L
Morality, religion and God have entered this dialogue so let's see what they have to say about economics and money.
I'm not sufficiently familiar with the Qur'an to quote Muhammad on specific issues, but remember that his initial motive was the socioeconomic injustice he perceived as being perpetrated by the wealthy ruling merchant class of Mecca. Muhammad overthrew this class and implemented what he believed to be a system serving our spiritual, Godly interests rather than the interests of "Mammon". Mammon is the love of money and material values generally as opposed to spiritual values.
Jesus didn't say "money is the root of all evil". He said, "The love of money is the root of all kinds of evils." Money itself is neither good nor evil. It's how we use it that has moral content.
Bloggers who think fractional reserve banking is the root of our ills offer commodity money like gold as the system we should revert to. I have blogged extensively on this subject and won't repeat it all here, but any fixed money supply system like gold makes business profits, in money, arithmetically impossible. Business activity can increase economic goods, but it cannot increase "money".
The same is true of our bank-debt money system, though this fact is obscured by ever-increasing new loans/debt/money being poured into the system to keep up the illusion that the system of bank-debt money works.
If business cannot make monetary profits then our whole capitalist economic model falls. This is not unthinkable. What kind of economic system is served by commodity money?
Small scale local barter, where people use money to exchange the value of goods they produce and trade among themselves. Everybody has to produce. Productivity gains are realized not as additions to your "money" but as additions to your real economic wellbeing.
As productivity rises the exchange value of your fixed-supply money rises with it. You get value inflation as opposed to price inflation. Where you used to get 6 eggs for a piece of gold you now get 12. The supply of eggs has doubled relative to the supply of gold, so now gold buys more eggs.
If an agribusiness invested 10 pieces of gold in doubling its production from 6 eggs to 12, when it came time to sell the eggs it would find there is still only the 10 pieces of gold in the system that it put into the system by paying its production costs. To get its gold back the business now has to provide 12 eggs for a piece of gold instead of 6.
The business can only hope to break even by selling 120 eggs for 10 pieces of gold. Before the investment it could have collected 10 pieces of gold by selling only 60 eggs. In any event, the amount of "money" in the system does not change, so you can't make profit by increasing money, no matter how much you increase the quantity of real economic goods.
Our capitalist economic model of business profits--in money--does not work with fixed-supply currencies.
Is this a bad thing, that everyone has to work and produce things in order to live? That economies will be small and local rather than enormous and global?
After the apple incident God told Adam, "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your llife." Genesis 3:17 If we believe this then it would seem we are supposed to have to work to live.
On the other hand CH Douglas, who in the 1920s and 30s thought up the social credit system of money, thinks mechanized production driven by fossil fuels has delivered us from the curse of Adam. He thinks the idea that incomes should be tied to work is obsolete.
I disagree, but read some of his stuff and make up your own mind. Google "money and the price system" and you will find a link to to the text of a presentation Douglas made in 1935 to the King and government of Norway. It's only 13 pages and gives a concise statement of many of Douglas' ideas.
Nobody in the Bible ever advocated a welfare state. The prophets, Jesus and Muhammad all advocate charity, which has a spiritual dimension as it involves simultaneously opening up your heart as you open up your wallet. There is nothing spiritual in the tax-funded welfare state, which is why Jesus did NOT say to Herod,
"Look at all these 'poor'. Here's what you do. Quadruple everybody's taxes and hire all your idiot nephew and hangers-on as tax collectors and welfare bureacurats. Then hand out free stuff to the poor. Tell them they owe no debt of gratitude to the taxpayers because consumption is their right. The poor will multiply in response to this economic incentive to become poor. You will enjoy a permanent and growing base of support for your government."
So much for welfare state morality.
The people of Biblical Israel had a practice called "Jubilee". (Leviticus 25) Every 50 years they did the following:
-freed people whose economic straits had compelled them to sell themselves into bondage
-restored ancestral lands to those who had sold them due to poverty
The Bible is not kind to capitalists. Besides making you give everything back every 50 years, Isaiah says this about the acquisitive tendency,
"Woe to you who add house to house and join field to field til no space is left and you live alone in the land." Isaiah 5:8
Then there's all the rejoicing among the righteous over the fall of Babylon the Great that John writes about in chapter 18 and 19 of Revelation. Babylon the Great sounds very much like us.
Speaking to the whore of Babylon who rides the beast with 7 heads and 10 horns (G7 and G10?), the voice John hears said, "Your merchants were the world's great men. By your magic spell all the nations were led astray." Rev 18:23 The whore is money. The "masters of the universe" were the world's great men, the money merchants, spinning untold numbers of money out of nothing and paying themselves apocalyptic amounts of that money for their own benefit.
Some Bible translations say "Money" and some say "Mammon". Mammon is more inclusive so I'll use it. Here's what Jesus had to say:
"No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Mammon." Matthew 6:24 and Luke 16:13.
Is Jesus making himself clear enough? Service to the god of materialism is diametrically opposed to service to the God of people. We cannot serve both our material nature and our spiritual nature. Giving service to our material desires starves service to our spiritual desires, and vice versa.
You cannot get rich by giving away your wealth to the poor, out of the charity of your heart. Greed is the opposite of charity. You must harden your heart against the suffering of others. We must choose one or the other, God or Mammon.
Certainly we have to work and live and we cannot totally abnegate our material needs. The issue is the focus of our values, on becoming rich in goods or rich in spirit.
Isaiah describes the kind of economy that honors both the material and spiritual aspects of our human nature. In describing what life would be like in a righteous "new heavens and new earth", Isaiah writes,
"They will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit. No longer will they build houses and others live in them, or plant and others eat. ...my chosen ones will long enjoy the works of their hands."Isaiah 65:21-22
Biblical Israel's economic system involves private property, free enterprise, minimal government, and working directly to have what you need (houses, food), with restraints on monopoly and an attitude of charity. This kind of economy would be well served by commodity money to exchange the fruits of each other's efforts.
Mass society and a global economy would be unlikely to develop in such an environment. There would be no large cities, just regional trade centers. Most people would live by self-sufficiency and barter, without the need for any money at all. Is that bad?
According to Genesis, here's what God thinks about us building cities such as the city of Babel that Nimrod was working on:
"The people said, come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly. Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth."
"But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. The Lord said, If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other."
"So the Lord scattered them from there over all the whole earth, and they stopped building the city." Genesis chapter 11
None of these Biblical writings bodes well for Adam Smith's ideas about division of labor and trade, and the building of cities as centers of this commerce. Smith's system works very well to maximize material values, by minimizing spiritual values. The pursuit of self-interest advocated by Smith is the best way to satisfy our material needs, but these are not an absolute value. They must be balanced against our spiritual needs.
"Spirit" has 2 aspects, heart and mind. Loving is the perfection of heart and knowing is the perfection of mind. Both of these are goods in themselves so we can pursue either one with a clear conscience. We don't have to worry about being Faustus who sold his soul for knowledge.
Anyway, I thought I'd throw these Biblical references into the debate.
Give me a break. Social Security was put into place in the 1930's. It could have been changed at any time by Congress. Stop whining. Bush signed the Medicare Part D bill a few years ago. This program will cost more than Social Security. The Baby Boomers will get every dime plus that they put into SS. My grandchildren will have the 70% taxes. Every dime spent in deficit is a tax on future generations.
seekingalpha.com/artic...
Instead of helping the young tech companies from their "follies" and business in general for supporting the tech companies; govt decided to invest into housing from 2001 to 2006. Most business investments, likewise, went into China, India and other emerging markets.
Housing is an expenditure while business is an investment. That is the fact.
The US economy can never be able to sustain growth by investing into housing which is an expense generating asset rather than a profit generating asset such as business.
All is not lost.
There is a new "baby boomer" very few seems to be able to see.
It is the developing world baby boomers of the 1970's to 1990's. We call it population explosion or over-population back then when the developing countries were called the third world.
Now the third world of yesteryears are becoming the developing world or emerging markets of the 2002 to 2007. Developing for what? Developing for industrialization. Plain and simple.
China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico and other developing countries have "baby boomers" dwarfing the west by the billions.
Unlike the west, those used to be third world baby boomers have been forged, so to speak, in hardship and poverty.
They are young, unspoiled, resilient and have some savings and are not going to succumb to despair even if the aging western world baby boomers are trying to find which foot is left or right.
They have been able to have a brief taste of success and prosperity during the 2002 to 2007 massive rallies of the emerging countries.
But since most of them have spent most of their growing up years watching at and dreaming of the American Way of Life; they are not going to forego their burning goal of living like the Americans of the 80's and 90's.
It is time for the west to look outwards and not succumb to despair.
Who has more knowledge and experience on inventing, producing, and selling products to the "baby boomers" other than the Americans?
It will take time for US companies to be able to tailor and sell products to the billions of developing world baby boomers due to cultural differences.
Developing countries, likewise, are less likely to suffer from stock market meltdowns since a majority of their populations has little or no exposure to their own stock markets. Most of them dont even know the meaning of portfolio. Investing and stock markets are not subjects they teach in high school or in colleges except those taking majors in finance and banking.
Likewise, most developing countries have learned their lessons of 1987 and decided to save and invest most of their income into business and infrastructures with much less attention to housing.
They have billions of dollars of cash reserves and investments into the West. Those investments are in jeopardy but their cash reserves are not (unless "forced" borrowed by the west for Martial Plan Part II).
The West will have to provide leadership under the current global stock market crises.
Japan, China, India, Brazil and most other small developing countries are looking up to the United States not for financial help but for credible political leadership.
China, in particular, has already discounted the downward spiraling demand of exports to the west and have started implementing programs to develop their local markets in order to sustain existing manufacturing plants that were constructed for export purposes.
That will only increase the number of successful baby boomers in those countries. Most of which have already completed their college education and are starting to become productive members of their society.
A huge market the US and other western countries will be able to understand in due time and exploit in the future.
Aging baby boomers of the West may have already lost most of their aggressiveness and inventiveness but have gained knowledge and wisdom in the process.
The future never looks so good when viewed under those circumstances.
Is that what's happening?
First, we freeze all prices and wages, except for people making less than 30K. For them we double their wages or more. For people making more than 500K, we cut their wages in half. No one is allowed to make more than 2 Million/yr, regardless of what they do. This solves the wage problem and ends inflation.
Secondly, we take over the Fed, and then lower interest rates to a negative 3.67%. In other words, people are paid 3.67%/yr to borrow money. They qualify for the loan by finding a lender who is willing to lend them the money because they have a good idea for its use. The lenders are required to monitor the loan, and if it loses money, they eat the loss. The banks are required to loan out so much money per month, based on how the economy is doing. The days of tight money will be over.
People in default on home loans get to stay in their homes with reduced interest and/or price - whatever it takes. This solves the housing problem.
Everything, and I mean everything, is totally transparent, and by law, is put on the Web. New jobs will sprout up as entrepreneurs find ways to make fees by connecting have-nots with haves. This ends the transparency problem.
Anyone found cheating the system in any way, automatically goes to prison for 5yr. Get caught twice, and you are sent to China. This will get the beached, Dry Bulk fleets back in action, and create new prison building jobs.
All those found to have contributed to the current meltdown due to greed, will have all monies gotten from that endeavor, taken away. Their names, addresses, and faces will be published in all print media now going under. This will save the print media.
I could go on and on here, but you get my point. All problems can be solved in a similar fashion. Once this new system is in place, everyone will eventually realize how absurd we all use to think about money, jobs, economics, etc. People will realize that no one is any better, or deserves anymore than anyone else, simply because they had the desire for something big, and the luck to be at right place, at right time, and got to take advantage of the cards they were dealt. Not everyone wants to, or can be, a lawyer, doctor, financial adviser, banker, politician, scientist/engineer, hacker, etc. Some people just want to have an adequate, peaceful life, without the hassle of working their assses off into oblivion, doing something they don't like. Why should anyone make a ton of money for what they do, while someone else, who may work much harder, makes just enough to get by? It isn't fair folks.
Case closed; problems solved.
....so thanks; but we'll take it from here.
"you hit too low?" is that = H. Mac. ?
...
is that what we are talking about? i went to the blog page...
...
yeah its cool.
...
I already know. I can take on the extra student loans.
........
But if we are talking about UH2L on someone else, then I would be sorta offended for thinking that about me. well not really at this point so many conversation lines have been crossed at this point.
If this over Nancy, yeah I do still miss her, wouldn't mind getting back with her.
but I ain't staying out of the market because of her, I'm out cause I got stuff to study and work to get done. I'd like to retire someday.
...
if this is about something else... I aint even approaching it. lol
(I read financial/economics commentary daily, so it's probably the best article written this century.)
Unfortunately, as many of the comments reveal, many people don't like to hear the truth.
He live through all of that, even after being forced down in Normandy, almost being captured by Germans on several occasions, an almost being killed by US forces taking the town of Valognes in France.
He is too self-effacing and humble to claim any credit for anything. He merely views his participation in all of that as a required duty, unworthy of earning any special recognition.
He is right.
In fact, my father would be the first to accept blame and responsibility for not leaning the lessons of the 'Great War', and through blindness, selfishness and pure stupidity of an insular US, his generation holds accountability for the horrors of World War II.
Then, the 'Greatest Generation' stood by as clear, unmistakable threats grew on a global dimension. The 'America First' crowd insisted that the US keep out of 'foreign wars' not of our making. Japan invaded Manchuria, then China, then Burma, the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, New Guinea, an of course, Singapore. The Germans meanwhile marched into Bohemia, Austria, Poland, The Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, France, etc.
So, the 'Greatest Generation' and their fathers found themselves in a real mess.
What's my point?
You can cherry pick any time frame in history you want to fit a nice, neat argument that fits your narrative here. It is like all things in life; full of half-truths, lacking perspective but still useful.
The current generation has not waged a global war of mass death upon one another. How much GDP does that count for?
The current generation is also responsible for helping to spread democracy to so many countries I forgot them all. I did not see you mention the establishment of democracy in places like South Africa, Namibia, East Germany, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, Nicaragua, Albania, Bosnia, East Timor, Grenada, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania ... shall I continue?
How much selfishness and lost GDP and missing savings does that account for?
Also, in being such a lost generation, who should be accountable for the generational shaking advances in pre-natal birth care, eradication of so many diseases I cannot write them all, systems that protect people from the hurricanes and disaster of a generation ago that would kill hundreds of thousands, legal systems that deliver justice to peoples that never existed 50 years ago, etc.
Look. There is a huge chunk of what you say I agree with. But you miss perspective that would add credibility to your point. You view the pre-shallowest generation world as perfect, and parse the worse of what we have wrought upon the world.
Our system has self-correcting mechanisms, brute and unpleasant as they may be, that are now kicking into gear. That is the beauty of our system and democracy ... you can run, you can hide, but in the end you will pay. There is no escape.
James, you need to collaborate with other minds to get the missing perspective you are unable or are unwilling to include. Then, you will form a more perfect option.
Thanks for your thoughts.
A proud son of exemplary father of the 'Greatest Generation'
To protect our arsenal or get it ready to go.
"Past U.S. generations invented the airplane; invented the automobile; discovered penicillin... "
None of the above statements is true. While the US played a leading role in mass producing these items, none of them were invented / discovered by US citizens. Not even the airplane (giving the Wright brothers all the credit is what I call shallow)
"The time will get better. Our lives will continue to improve, living longer and playing with the latest gadgets. Both rich and poor will enjoy the advancement of the society: medicine, labor saving devices, be able to travel and entertain."
My, My aren't we in a nice little bubble.
I am one of the scmoes that played by the rules. What has it gotten me. I don't see any gadgets nearby. No cell phones or blackberrys. No airline or cruiseship tickets laying around. My most important gadget is my little 5" X 5" heater I use to heat my bedroom, since I have no central heat. I live as cheaply as possible. I own a mobile home, and a 12 year old Dodge Intrepid. And now the day before payday, I have $16 to my name. What gadgets and travel expenses can I afford with $16??? Maybe I can fill my tank up and... Wait, $16 won't do that. Maybe my friend and I can catch a movie.. No, won't cover that either. Guess I will stay home and watch sitcoms on the local T.V. Stations, while eating whatever was on sale at the discount grocery store.
The sad thing about this is, I am a lot more well off than some of my
neighbors.
I will try not to speculate on your situation RK so if this does not pertain to you, my apologies.
It is easy to be optimistic when your sitting in you $200,000 house with your wide screen plasma T.V. and your small fortune in unused exercise equipment, while sitting in a hot tub.
Meditate on this statement for a while. See if you can understand it. Maybe if you dim the lights, light some scented candles and play some traditional celtic music it will help.
"I have no money"
No money does not mean, "I have money in my savings account that I am deciding not to use" Or "I have money set aside for my Carribean vacation that I am deciding not to use" and It does not mean "I have money set aside for my childs college fund."
It means the total amount of money available to one is ZERO. Can you imagine that. Someone having NO money. Hard to believe, huh?
>What does bother me is that the Bush-Paulson-Pelosi Bailout of Stupid Banks will use my taxes to buy these bad loans from the foolish banks.
>So, who is the fool in this scenario? The “poor” person got to drive a Cadillac Escalade for a period of time, the foolish banks got bailed out, the bank CEOs took home $30 million, and I lived within my means and footed the bill for the reckless actions of others. It appears that the fools are the Americans who lived their lives according to the rules.
You're correct. Recall the story of the prodigal son? Particularly Luke 15:28-30:
>"The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, 'Look! All these years I've been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!'
The younger brother left with his money, lost it all, and ended up in debt. The good older brother, who saved wisely and worked hard, received no reward. In fact, some things that could be his are now being lavished upon the younger, foolish brother.
James Quinn, we are all fools. We are not being bailed out for our squandering, we are bailing out the prodigal son who spent it all on needless things. This is yet another reason religion is wrong.
I was going to say in UK and Europe right wing parties usually reduce deficit and left wing ones increase them, but thinking about it there plenty of example of right wing parties in Europe allowing deficits to mushroom. Right wing governments have a poor record of reducing deficits when compared to their rhetoric.
As a consequence, the Boomers were born & experienced childhood in the "perfect world." That world began to end in the late 1960s, just as the Greatest Generation was retiring... to Social Security payments that bought something & to a medical world that accepted Medicare patients... to defined company benefits.
But, our resources were in decline. Therefore, costs began to increase due to the need to import energy & raw materials. To keep prices down, our manufacturing moved overseas to benefit from cheap labor. Walmart took over... lower prices for people whose wages did not keep up. Free trade took over... with the idea that we would buy cheap products from China & in turn, they would buy our more expensive products with the money we paid them. That didn't work. They didn't buy. Instead, we borrowed.
The idea had been that our manufacturing should be replaced by other types of jobs, but the real benefit of manufacturing jobs is that it allowed people to work at jobs that require a high school or community college or trade school diploma & physical labor. They offered some stability & predictiblity. Many people do not want & cannot handle cubicle jobs. They don't want to constantly pursue more & more education that is outdated as soon as it is learned. They want a paycheck, a work life, & a family & home life.
But that is beside the point. Once our economy lost the manufacturing engine to power the economy & other things did not pan out to replace it, we became a "consumer" society. Consumerism replaced everything else as the economic engine.... Buy! Buy! Buy! Don't stop buying!... Do the patriotic thing... Shop! Consumerism replaced citizenship as the most important thing an American could be.
When we went to war, we were not told to cut back, to ration & sacrifice. To do so would hurt the economy. We were told to shop. It was the shopping that kept the economic engine running.
But it was foolishness. We literally were consuming the planet. The unfortunate part is that this is the ultimate goal of capitalism. Without comsumerism, there is no capitalism. Capitalism & even the very idea of "money" depends upon the sale of product.
Now the Chinese & the Indians will take our place as consumers.... & the world will continue to be consumed.
A new system must arise which does not requre a buyer & a seller. The consumer must be replace by the good citizen.
There are many issues in that article that are accurate, but the label of "The Shallowest Generation" is both insulting and shortsighted.
Yes, the priviledged boomers are in power, just as the priviledged have always been in power.
But Mr. Quinn ignores history in writing this article. He seeks to place blame without considering this country's past. This shallow generation, in the mean, fought in Viet Nam, in a war decreed by those he declares to be the "Greatest Generation".
This generation deserves more than shallow reporting.
When the "Greatest Generation" came home from war, they were declared national heroes, even if they were only camp cooks.
When the Viet Nam vets came home they were spit on by their contemporaries and reviled by the country at large (since we're being simplistic here) as baby killers, even if they were only camp cooks.
I'm on the young side of the boomer curve but old enough to remember these guys trying to reintegrate into society by going to college. Most were 8-10 years older than most juco students at that time and were great guys...until you gave them a couple of drinks or bong hits. Then their nightmares started coming out, didn't matter whether they were camp cooks or snipers or special ops, they'd lived with extreme fear and could withstand extreme pain.
I wasn't going to extend this story, but WTH. When I was in college, I knew this guy who was so calm, so sweet, and so caring you'd never have guessed he was a VN vet except he was 10 years older than most freshman.
One night at a party he drank too much, got into a fight (shocking, seriously. This was a calm as eff guy) and took off on his motorcycle. Predictably, he crashed it. He was 14 miles out of town in the countryside and missed a turn at 40-50 MPH and went through a triple strand barbed wire fence. I don't remember how far he went but he went through some trees too (I went and looked at the site and was frightened by the damage). He didn't call anyone for help, he picked up the bike and walked it back to his apartment...14 miles. He also showed up for his morning class two days later, limping and deeply torn up by the barbed wire.
I don't know what ever happened to him after that, I transfered to a 4Y 200 miles away soon after but the guy still haunts me and I wonder how Sandy is doing.
I donate to charities to help them, I rarely give money to individuals, but if I ever saw Sandy on the side of the road begging, I'd probably take him home.
Shallow? Maybe, but I don't think so. Brave and almost superhuman? Yes but no different than what your generation can expect in another 5-30 years from the Iraqi vets.
----
Speaking for myself as a younger boomer? I have no debt, no credit cards, no car payments, and my humble home is paid for. All I have is the taxes I owe to all of the government entities, insurance on what I own, and the dispensable extras I currently choose to patronize: cable, cell, and internet.
Not all boomers are the same, James Quinn, and you should be ashamed for pushing that meme forward.
Get yer debt off my lawn!
- By using guns (Rome, Kublai Khan, Spain, England used guns)
- By using gold (Spain and England used them)
- By using religion (Spain mostly, US is atheism if that is religion)
- By using culture (US is the only one who tried and succeeded)
- By using technology (US and England)
- By using morality (US is currently trying hard)
Generally, in all the above categories, the US was able to dominate the world like no other country or generation in the past.
US maybe suffering the side-effects of its own successes. Everybody did.
The question is whether the US can keep it up for the next century?
And will it remain a Democracy or something new and better type of govt or will the US degenerate into a monster the whole world has no counterbalance of any type or form?
I thought that the generations after the baby boomers were the yuppies that were filling their garages with junk. I don't know the reasons, or who is to blame, but I feel the same as you; I resent the hell out of bailing out people that I think deserve to go down, many of which are laughing at me for being a chump. But I do realize why we are doing it; I just wish some responsible people were in charge, so the perpetrators won't be rewarded more than they should.
When I was younger, during the downturn in the 80s, I believed it would be best if the system failed. We cheered when the stock market fell. Back then, I had nothing to lose. Now I realize that a complete failure is not a good thing. I just wish I could have done something to avoid this situation earlier, but I'm pretty sure I wasn't a part of the problem.
While I think Boomers share much of the blame... our entire society has contributed to the mess that we're in.... from the Realtors pushing families into houses they can't afford to the borrowers taking on enormous debts to the lenders letting horrible loans go through to get this year's bonus to the politicians standing by encouraging it all (just keep the prosperity going until the next election)... we tried to borrow ourselves to riches without thinking about what was going to happen when we had to pay it all back. We also have a system that discourages saving (low interest rates that are taxed) and encourages debt (the holy grail of tax-deductibility of mortgage debt).
The thing that ticks me off the most about the Boomers, though, is that they'll be laughing all the way to the bank with Social Security and Medicare while I'm struggling to pay their entitlements AND pay back all of the debt that they left me with.
Politicians have long known that they get reelected by spending more than they tax, and borrowing the difference. This has been going on since before most of the boomers were born. When Reagan became president in 1981 (he wasn't a boomer, was he?), the national debt was $1 trillion. When Bush I (still no boomer) left office 12 years later, it was $4 trillion. It increased by $1T under Clinton, who at least made a decent attempt at the problem. Remember all those Republicans telling us how the economy would fall apart because Clinton raised taxes at the beginning of his first term?
And then we come to our current disaster of a President, George Bush II. Yes, he is chronologically a boomer, but in reality he is the Greatest Generation's last gift to its children. What can you say about an incompetent, shallow loser like that, except how sad it is that he was put into this office, in large part by religious fanatics who want to return to an earlier time that we have thankfully left behind. It is the Republicans' unwillingness to tax enough to cover government expenditures that has largely created our financial disaster.
The Greatest Generation deserves far more blame for this mess than their children. At least they are pretty much out the door, having enjoyed the full benefit and left the mess for their descendants. Ultimately, our current situation is the legacy of our military and economic victory in World War II.
Horrorism is not an excuse.....
Those on the tail end of the GG are sucking up their fair share of the bennies. I know, I work with a few of them. Aside from that, rather than casting generational aspersion or blame, is that the trajectory of the Welfare System was set about 1930 and demographics has a profound influence on the rise and fall of the system, independent of lifestyle and spending choices......
Incidentally, departing from the great depression and the great war, the GG had many of the same personal attitudes and habits of the Boomers. Where else would they have learned them?.......
My wife and I have always lived beneath our means. We looked at expensive homes when we moved to our current location but bought a manufactured one. I have viewed the excesses of the marketplace with the same chagrin you have, and knew a major downturn was inevitable.
So tell me again how I'm part of the problem. Painting others with a tar brush is no more acceptable in a generational discussion than it is in a political one, and shows you cannot possibly be a professional journalist. Next time, try to be more even-handed. We need more moderates in this country, not screaming finger-pointers.
On Oct 31 05:43 AM Alan von Altendorf wrote:
> Hmm. Well written. Thank you. Wish I could agree with the conclusion,
> but you were much nearer the solution when you admitted that playing
> by the rules made you a chump, an enabler, who implicitly allowed
> the grifters to snowball wildly out of control. How you believe that
> Barack Obama and a Democrat Congress can save anyone is inexplicable.
The Fed:
1. Financed WWI.
2. Caused boom of the 1920's that led to the Great Depression
3. which led to huge social spending
4. and WWII
5. which killed over 50 million
6. which led WWII generation to think they were special.
Here is THE point. Take responsibility for your life. You say education is important, then get some. And then get some more. Improve yourself. Move when you need to, or want to. Get new skills, work hard, love what you do, love others as much as yourself, and put yourself in a better position to succeed, however you define that. This is a great and free country. Don't expect others, especially any government, to help you. The government has grown way too big. We encouraged foreigh trade and export of jobs too rapidly. Big mistake. But what's done is done. You can still succeed if you put forth the effort.
There are those who say, if it’s not broken, why fix it!
Well, the current system is irreparably broken and if the status quo remains, then the global society will collapse.
In looking for some foresight into possible futures, we first need to get some background on how we got here and where here is?
This event had its origins in the population explosion (commonly referred to as the Baby boomer generation), which started as the Great Depression was ending.
With a few relatively minor interruptions, the period 1945 to 2005 was the greatest Global economic BOOM in history.
In particular, the period 1995-2005 experienced massive growth, driven by the Peak earning and spending capacity of US & other Baby Boomer consumers.
In addition, around the same time, technology drove massive gains in productivity, leverage multiplied and interest rates in the US remained artificially low, for far too long, following the events of 9/11.
This was a perfect storm, for making money.
Inevitably, GREED followed, sub-prime (NINJA) mortgages flowed, on the assumption that property values would continue to escalate, the party would go on forever and leverage went into orbit.
However, around 2005, the Baby Boomer BOOM broke and the Supply & Demand basics went into reverse, as did US & Global housing prices.
Also, around 2005, Murphy’s Law also came to play, with Oil production Peaking and with demand exploding internationally, Oil prices burnt thru the roof.
So, we now see Supply & Demand constraints, the de-leveraging of markets, a Global population set to age, at first, then decrease over time and looming problems relevant to Climate Change and Food production.
And, with Debt levels already at historical highs and past fixes, either not able to be used or possibly set to cause more harm, than help, we really are between a Rock & a Hard place!
Now, expectations build of a slowing economic future, as reflected in stock markets and oil prices, next comes the reality.
Now, the perfect storm is reappearing, this time it is a Cat 5 in financial demolition!
Where do we go from here?
The truth is, I do not have any magic wand solutions and nor does anyone else.
The truth is, there is no pot of gold at the end of the Kansas rainbow.
The truth is, things are going to be tough, for quite some time.
Had corrective decisions been made earlier, then it may have been possible to reduce some of the worst side effects, regrettably, that did not happen.
Regrettably, if we opt for a better now, then future generations will pay for our mistakes and indulgence.
That reasoning is not acceptable and can not succeed!
As we look to the future, the effects of the Baby Boomer Bust increase in severity. Health and Social Security costs increase dramatically and Demand continues to fall, first as Boomer retirement numbers increase and then as Boomers leave us in increasing numbers.
As we look to the future, we need to look thru different eyes, thru different thought processes.
The days of Smoke & Mirrors, of Shock & Awe, of the Desire to Acquire & Retain Power, of Self interest, at the expense of Societal interest, must end.
There is an overriding need for a change in human psychology, in order for humanity to have a future.
Can we make those changes, the answer is YES!
Will the required changes be made?
The answers will come on these boards and others, in other forums, in politics, in business and the answers will need to come quickly.
Good luck & watch the Debt!
Quinn wrote: "I truly hope that President Obama can rise to the occasion and become a true statesman and leader." Democrat-majority Congress is a foregone conclusion.
Tax, borrow, and spend - full speed ahead.
James, great article, really makes you think that all these people who live in the world of entitlement (who believes everyone is entitled to 40 inch LCD TVs, new SUVs every 3 years or weekend shopping of trolley full of unnecessary goods) should be supported by the productive sector of people.
But where is this enclave?
This new 'feature' of voting on comments is dangerous. Quinn's article proves that discussion is good, but activist slamming of opponents in rating each other turns SA into a battleground. To what end?
Reason
Purpose
Self Esteem
These three things imply and require all of humanities virtues –
Rationality
Independence
Integrity
Honesty
Justice
Productiveness
Pride
In the name of the best within you, do not sacrifice this world to those who are its worst.”
Ayn Rand, whilst she certainly has followers and areas where she excels, was also human, like the rest of us, she was not perfect.
Regards
John & Friends
I too am a baby boomer, and saw first hand how members of my generation behaved like Ernst Rohm's Brown Shirts as they shut down my college and any notion of free speech - that was in 1970. If you disagreed with these Nazi "protestors" they would just beat you up; very progressive and "liberal" of them - right out of Hitler's playbook.
It IS different this time because every level of govt. - city, state and local - has been spending way beyond its means for over 30 years. It used to be "normal" that cities, states and the federal govt., would at least try to have balanced budgets.
This all went out the window beginning in the 60s.
This unparalled level of debt at all levels of govt, except in times of declared war, is unprecedented in American history. The California state budget and that of NY are prime examples; so is the ever increasing US debt. Even so, all these entities just keep spending more and more - independent of the revenues confiscated from citizens and from productive enterprises.
This is unsustainable as the debt load increases exponentially and revenues, at best, increase (at best) in a linear fashion. This necessarily will end very badly.
Now we have Obama as president; an individual who in his entire life has never held a real job, hates capitalism, and somehow believes that giving money (welfare) to those less advantaged will motivate them to work hard, get a good education and succeed in life. 40 years of Great Society programs demonstrate that this does not work.
Obama does not care. His world view does not consider that those less fortunate have made bad life choices. He does not consider the incredible success of recent Asian, Indian, etc., immigrants to this country. He is blind to the fact that he, a black man, is now a millionaire and his wife earns 350K. His world view is that economics is a zero sum game; a typically Marxian view of the world. (Marx - another guy who never held a real job and lived off the handouts of his mother and of Engels).
He will spend more money than the profligate, inept Republicans of the last 8 years.
It will take a miracle for this country to pay down its debt at all levels because when Obama gets in, urged on by Pelosi, Frank, et. al., debt loads will skyrocket . He will bankrupt this country.
He does not care. Ideology trumps everything.
It is no accident that many of Obama's mentors are baby boomers; Ayers, Wright, etc.
To be sure, Generations X,Y and Z have our work cut out for us. I'm sure there will also be plenty of room enough for Boomers who don't mind working through their retirement years to lend their helping hands; They'll probably have no choice. Any Boomer expecting to ride a golf cart off into the sunset of an easy retirement, however, is likely to be in for a very rude awakening.
I think the crisis or "testing period" for the US and the civilized world itself will be the 2010s, and will likely be known, at least in retrospect, as "The Long Emergency." If you want to know more, look up James Howard Kunstler's book of the same name. Interesting times, indeed.
I believe the reason we are in this mess is we do not have leaders that are men.
That's right, men.
As in, men with testosterone.
Men that can say NO to the demands of punks and slackers, and make it stick.
Bending over doesn't cut it.
You have to be able to say no, and when they whimper and bleat, and scream, and chant, laugh in their faces.
Until we have men like that in places of power, we will always be the victims of the greedy.
well spoken sir. well spoken.
well spoken sir. well spoken.
What I am wondering is what does the author suggest that we do about the problems that are currently here? what steps can we take today to change what we are doing now, so that the problem in the future taken care?
I mean, this was a lot of work this article, so I don't want to knock whoever wrote. but what I dont understand is what can I do to change the situation?
I think my issue stems not from the fact that I think the author was angry when he wrote it, but that he doesn't explain the situations so that I know how to fix or so that I can conceptualize the processes.
I can't understand the true nature of the issues, but I know all the facts.
but I don't know why.
I'm debt free including the house, the cars, there's college funds set up for the 3 kids and I save around 40%. Of course, the fact that I happen to be capable in the kind of work silicon valley values helps a great deal.
The debt build up does piss me off -- I think we should jack the taxes up (which will hit me hard) and pay up front for infrastructure and education (all of which pays back over time). People are big on the education gap, but I'm willing to bet, my local school demands and teaches much more than a school of 80 years ago. WAY MORE. It also doesn't use the cruel trick of long ago of just dumping out anyone who can't conform. Instead, I've seen people with ADHD, dyslexia, wheelchair bound and non-white come through and really succeed. Please note that the "greatest generation" were the same people who blew themselves up in the great depression and then had to fight their way out. So your piece is quite over stated.
Since Nixon, the right has equated taxes and government with evil itself destroying the notion of the common good even as it was the government that built the internet, enabled the microchip, developed rocket technology etc. Government is great at getting this stuff going, the markets are good at taking it forward.
What's needed is injecting more feedback into government -- for example, indexing taxes to spending. Want more, pay more.
Wealth does seem to corrode all societies -- do you think young Japanese work like their parents did? No. On the other side, do you really want to have to work that hard always?? We need a balance. We need to believe in formulating policy again. It often works. We need to fund research and then know when to turn it over to markets etc but to cast the boomers as some unusually wayward creation ... just false.
I see some of what you are talking about in exactly those more rural red state boomers. They are less productive, are net tax negative, governmental moralists and are the ones who are really in debt.
now that government and legal measures have eviscerated the monetary motivation of intelligent people, we will have fewer and fewer doctors qualified to perform medical miracles. our pharmaceutical industries will no longer invest in research because they will be taxed and regulated out of business. so, we should be able to afford future medicare and social security expenditures again, as we will once again be living shorter lives. see, things always work out for the best in the end. life has a way of restoring order and balance.
Boomers as a "generation" have literally taken a country they inherited and selfishly helped themselves. They helped themselves to their parent's share, their own share, their children's share and their grand children's share of a great nation. Unfortunately, there is little left, and one can see it almost monthly that we're running out.
Most of all, in my opinion the greatest let down of a generation is that of the failure to sustain. Piss poor political leadership, fiscal solvency (or not), big government, family erosion, and the list goes on...
For those posters that say there is anger brewing, that is a rather large understatement. Folks, one is seeing the precursor to a "revolution" of sorts in the silent behavior that has transpired.
I see a nation dieing every time I go into a grocery store. The populous is aging, people are discontent, and there is a profound void that words would be difficult to describe.
Unfortunately, I fear my generation more than the boomers.
Disclaimer: 30yr old, white, voting republican gun toting meat-eater.
Not accepting these entitlement programs allows his fees to be much more manageable to the average person.
On Oct 31 07:54 AM copperbaron wrote:
> iAccountant siad - "In my opinion it will take a total collapse of
> the system to bring the type of change that you are referring to.
> Is this the beginning?"
>
> I believe it may be. We are seeing the joints coming apart, the beams
> sagging and about to crack under the weight of massive debt and enormous
> corruption. Paulson is just trying to steal a few billion more for
> his beloved financial organized crime rings, before he retires to
> a life of wealth and luxury, under very heavy security.
>
> Many hail Ron Paul as some sort of visionary, but I would argue differently.
> He espouses "Free markets" but made all of his money as a doctor.
> As anyone who bothers to examine the facts knows, doctors bill enormous
> fees to patients (and Medicare/Medicaid) in a system that in no way
> resembles a "free market."
>
> Rather, it is a rigged market that controls the number of available
> doctors, and legislates their financial advantage, to an extraordinary
> degree. The A.M.A. is the most powerful and mercenary union in this
> nation's history, and is sucking the country dry.
>
> I would never vote for Ron Paul on purely moral grounds - he was
> part of the problem, in my opinion. If you are a wealthy doctor (one
> of the limited number allowed to be 'licensed' that is) then it is
> easy to throw stones and criticize others for debt. These jokers
> live in a fantasy world, just like the IB types shuffling paper around
> and committing fraud for million-dollar bonuses. Their sense of true
> economics is deeply distorted by their own self-manipulated and outsized
> pay package.
Boomers certainly seem to have abandoned the ideals associated with them in the 60s and 70s. I think the reality might be that those ideals were never adopted by the majority of the generation, which is to say that other than gross numbers, boomers fall into a similar normal distribution as any other generation.
One thing that did change for boomers was women in the workforce. That exploded in the 70s and I don't believe the "system" (financial, cultural, etc.) has ever really adjusted to that. I suspect it is a major factor in finanicial illiteracy that may have made post-boomer generations more suspectable the financial come-ons that lead us where we are today.
All things run in cycles that interact with other cycles. If we are lucky, we'll see a cultural reversal that will eventually reward us with a recovering economy. That cultural reversal must come before we get sustainable ecomonic improvements.
So the message wealthy America has sent to those of us at the bottom of the food chain is a new kind of Plantation Owner/Slave mentality that says 'you have to look like success before you can be successful' which is one of the attitudes that has fueled the problem with America now.
Another side of this issue is that houses used to be cheap to buy and maintanance was cheap. When my parents bought their 5 acre home from my grandparents in 1958, the house cost $20,000 and the payments were $120 a month. I remember two handy men that came twice a month to fix everything that needed fixing. My mother would hand them $20 at the end of the day for their work and they were happy. Who can really afford a nice home, let alone maintain one today with inflation? And should I also mention that recently after I had played a music gig here, a friend came by that night after I was completely exhausted and proceeded to criticize the furniture and the rest of my apartment, and did it in front of three of my shocked friends. To which I simply asked her to leave. Immediately.
So the pressure is muti-sided. Parents hammer into their kids to be a success, and the kids feel pressure they have to 'look the part' to be successful. It really is a pathetic nightmare. Stop the dream please and let me off. If this is the American dream who needs it?
There is only one party in America. The Corporate Party. GOP and DEM are just warring factions within that party. Much the same as Sunni and Shia. Enough of the bravo sierra.
The extremist-capitalist laissez faire IGMFU paradigm was hardly invented by the boomers.
The American Century lasted less than one decade. It wasn't espoused by boomers.
Good bye America. We're not going to miss you!
Props to you on your party’s selection of Sarah Palin as a “legitimate” political figure. Please, bring her back in 2012.
If possible read or alternatively have some read to you at the public library Naomi Klein’s, The Shock Doctrine - Disaster Capitalism !
· Who has been responsible for the “push” to eliminate all references to God and the 10 Commandments in all Federal and State buildings?
· Who has been responsible for the “push” to promote or allow pornography in the US by using the US Constitution as a “crutch” to freedom of speech when the majority of US population knows and agrees pornography is wrong and should be eliminated?
· Who has been responsible for the “push” to eliminate any mention of God, the 10 Commandments, and the pledge of allegiance in our public school system?
· Parents of the “baby boomers” did not fulfill their parental responsibilities by allowing their children to grow up without some foundation of moral education, a financial compass, and a firm understanding of hard work pays and laziness is failure.
· Below is my list of who should be held responsible and accountable for our present and deplorable moral and financial situation with a percentage of blame attached to each of the guilty.
o Parents – Not enough discipline and real lifetime reality when raising children. 25%
o Government - Lack of leadership, morals, selfishness and too much partisanship. 20%
o The Law profession – Promotion of Unions. Autoworkers, Teachers, AFL-CIO and Government workers to name a few. The ACLU. The slow and steady degrading of influence and respect of the American Teacher by taking away all class room authority and discipline and replacing it with lawsuits and intimidation. 20%
o The US Federal Reserve Bank: Promotion, recommendation, influence and policy changes to lead US citizens to buy on credit vs. buy on savings when you can afford it. 25% Example: Credit cards to college students that are not 21 years of age. Who’s fault? Government, Parents/Teachers and or Attorneys?
o The constant and never ending “push and goad” by the liberal faction of this great country to take our nation much too quickly and far beyond the basic 10 Commandment principles of what parents and teachers should be including in basic child rearing and education to all children and young adults. And, parents not instilling in their offspring and or letting them forget or throw away their moral and financial compasses in the quick journey to adult hood and future leadership. Parents and Teachers have a moral responsibility to teach and enforce those basic principles at all costs. They should be the basic requirement of anyone wanting to become a Parent or to be a Teacher of children and or young adults. And, we have not paid the Teachers of our children near enough for too many years! 10%
o With the 10 Commandments as a guide, hard work is success and laziness in failure. 100%
The main problem with our society is that over the last 50 years not enough “enablers” to our present and sad state of affairs have been, are presently or will be in the near future accused, investigated, tried and prosecuted, sentenced, assets and perks taken away and embarrassed publically for their failed leadership, lack of morals and principles, honesty, character and integrity. Until those principles are restored in our future Parents, Government Officials, The Law Profession, allowed in our Teaching Profession, Our Financial Professions and the 10 Commandments taught to our young children and adults, we will continue to get what we have always got for the last 50 years, a steady decline in the worlds greatest free Democracy. Additionally, and just as important, a steady decline in the values, morals and principles that our nation was founded upon.
Sounds like an adherent to christo-fascism to me!
Get over yourselves. Your generation SUCKED. The only lot of you worth anything were the poor guys who were drafted into Vietnam and then had to hear "baby killer" from the spoiled sh*ts whose parents got them deferments.
On Oct 31 10:51 AM LarryH wrote:
> People who lack intellect and understanding look for scapegoats and
> demons, and I guess the Boomers are that to this author. Dent and
> other economists have seen the same demographic economic shift discussed
> here. It isn't anything new, but other economists don't make insulting
> generalizations about ALL of a generation of Americans. It is totally
> unfair to paint all Boomers with your wide and insulting brush. Millions
> of us Boomers have worked hard, saved, invested, contributed back
> to society and never had an $80,000 vehicle. I bought my house three
> years ago for little more than that. While your description of excesses
> may be accurate for some Boomers (as it may be accurate for people
> of all generations) you generalization of Boomers is inaccurate and
> mean spirited. If you want to "call out" the Boomer generation, we'll
> take you on any time.
I am not an anarchist or socialist, but I am absolutely convinced we need a new and better system badly.
We should start with the abolishment of the Electoral College System.
Add a better method to fund, and elect our Congressional and Presidential Candidates, and count the votes accurately!
Eliminate the K Street Lobbying Empire.
Add Civics and Government in greater depth in our primary and secondary schools, and then,
require humane and fair but minimum intelligence standards and knowledge to voting rights i.e. a "driver's licence " for voting. A method must also be concurrently devised to include participation by All citizens , including those that do not meet the minimum standards, but on a graduated scale basis.
These just for starters, and the list is long and deep in order to create a Democracy, and not a plutocratic Republic, which, by definition, is merely one half step from a true dictatorship. The current administration proved this day after day, and each cycle it comes closer to ruining us.
Would appreciate Mr. Quinn and others joining in a massive and concerted effort to help us all define and list the governmental and political priorities to accomplish the best ideas possible to improve our sytem before it collapses into further chaos and ruin.
I've watched this process unfold as a 1956 boomer. Yes, our parents won WWII and were heroes, but they also had some huge advantages. After WWII, my dad had a law degree and hung his shingle in the town square where I grew up. He didn't worry about his ad budget, because he didn't need one. America needed everything then internally: almost all professionals and experts in any field back then became wealthy, because there was NO competition because the war effort leveled the business competition in all sectors. My dad's friends who sold cars, cut hair, sold insurance, ALL became wealthy enough to retire well. And to top it off, everything was cheap. My parents bought their home in 1958 for $20,000, and the payments were $120 a month.
My dad back then when he hung his shingle to go into private law practice, only needed a phone, a shingle, and business cards, and a small office. NOW to do the same thing it's phone, cell phone, internet, website, online ads, yellow pages ads...and....and.....a... you get the idea. And of course your online presence won't work unless you spend the money to be at the top of Google etc.....I think you get the idea. Just Staying in business now is an endless proposition. I just got a call from a new client, who in previous years would have signed up for my music lesson service over the phone. But he wants to see my website first so I have to go through the added work of sending him all that information. So there's Another issue: back in the 50's when our parents went in business everything was simpler. Now everything is more time consuming and complicated. I think that's true across the board in most fields.
Also everything is more competitive than ever in our history. I used to sell guitars in my studio, simply by my recommendation as one of the main experts in this area. Now I'll make a recommendation and the customer will go online and find the item cheaper. I've watched the internet slowly erode the market share I had built by very hard work since 1985. It's really quite disturbing. And my online presence has not increased my bottom line one cent, because I'm not able to pump enough ad dollars in now to make it pay for itself.....
So the Squeeze we are seeing has been a gradually unfolding process...for decades....it will be interesting to see how we all survive.
As for Ron Paul specifically, I haven't studied his position on all issues in enough depth. But I've heard some of his comments on needing to fund governement by other means than the income tax, and needing a Balanced Budget Amendment -- and he is right on! Power won't be returned to the people until we go to a tax system of solely sales tax. We currently have a 66,000+ page tax code for federal income taxes -- small wonder the super-rich can find loopholes!! By going with a sales tax on non-essentials (i.e. no tax on food and a few other essentials, but on discretionary items) to fund government, the public can decide to stop spending if they don't like what the government is doing!! You don't like the Iraq war? If we had a consumptive tax, and an amendment saying the government has to pay with money it already has...vs. debt...the people coulda shut that down.
People have to stop thinking that we can't do anything about this, and also that concepts of redistribution are the answer too...they're not...and start realizing that we are *all* taxed too much!! The government is outsized, and should not have a preemptive claim on *anyone's* income!!
On Oct 31 07:54 AM copperbaron wrote:
> iAccountant siad - "In my opinion it will take a total collapse of
> the system to bring the type of change that you are referring to.
> Is this the beginning?"
>
> I believe it may be. We are seeing the joints coming apart, the beams
> sagging and about to crack under the weight of massive debt and enormous
> corruption. Paulson is just trying to steal a few billion more for
> his beloved financial organized crime rings, before he retires to
> a life of wealth and luxury, under very heavy security.
>
> Many hail Ron Paul as some sort of visionary, but I would argue differently.
> He espouses "Free markets" but made all of his money as a doctor.
> As anyone who bothers to examine the facts knows, doctors bill enormous
> fees to patients (and Medicare/Medicaid) in a system that in no way
> resembles a "free market."
>
> Rather, it is a rigged market that controls the number of available
> doctors, and legislates their financial advantage, to an extraordinary
> degree. The A.M.A. is the most powerful and mercenary union in this
> nation's history, and is sucking the country dry.
>
> I would never vote for Ron Paul on purely moral grounds - he was
> part of the problem, in my opinion. If you are a wealthy doctor (one
> of the limited number allowed to be 'licensed' that is) then it is
> easy to throw stones and criticize others for debt. These jokers
> live in a fantasy world, just like the IB types shuffling paper around
> and committing fraud for million-dollar bonuses. Their sense of true
> economics is deeply distorted by their own self-manipulated and outsized
> pay package.
What needs to happen now is a complete re-think, top to bottom, of the way Corporation USA runs her business. It won't be pretty and it won't be easy. A gradual steady turning of the ship is the only way out of this mess. One step for Joe the Plumber American is to only pay cash for everything or don't buy anything, for starters. If you can't maintain what you own then get rid of it, and move into a maintanance free apartment that you Can afford. I'm thankful now I stayed in a building where I could live and run my business, and rely on cabs and public transportation instead of car payments and car maintanance. I have a feeling the rest of America is going to look just like me, in a few years or sooner.
We need to throw the "Corporate Congress" to the dogs. People matter more than GDP.
Sadly, I'm not expecting much -- "Viva viagra" seems to be all that matters, nothing of the sort concerning sustainability and the future.
(see ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/...
getting and spending we lay waste our powers,
little in nature we see as ours.
Obama scares me to death, and he will NOT be the one to get us out of this crisis. He will make it worse. Although McCain was not my first choice, he is the best candidate to ESPECIALLY KEEP THIS COUNTRY SAFE.
Americans have always been spoiled rotten, and we worked our asses off getting that way. The so-called "great generation" was also a bunch of sheep who let a depression and a world war go by without even asking why or wondering if there was a better way. They came home and created the most shallow materialistic society ever seen: the 1950's became the achetype of what you're complaining about. If the boomers are spoiled, its the great generation that spoiled them.
Certainly Americans might do better if they didn't consume so much, but that's true of every generation. The depression is actually due to a series of bubbles not unlike the ones we just went through. Shame on all of us for learning a damn thing in all those years.
You want to blame a generation for something, how about the people of the 1920's who nearly destroyed the world; first with hyper-inflation in some countries, then a bone crushing depression and finally with a monstrous war. That was a real low point.
I don't see any difference between the boomers and any of the peace-time generations that follow us. We are all spoiled, and we all borrow too much, and everybody including the great generation get blame for creating the incredible mess that Social Security and Medicare shortfalls will create.
FDR didn't set it up right, it got compounded in 1960's and we all have ignored the problem for the last 40 years.
On Nov 03 04:09 PM Keith - Let It Sink wrote:
> Well said. The pathetic spoiled Boomers have ruined this country.
> At least they will suffer for it. They may be shocked to find little
> interest on the part of post-Boomers in supporting the self-righteous
> leeches. Have a nice retirement with your zero home equity and portfolio
> full of tax losses. I hope those votes for Bush worked out the way
> you hoped they would. I will be reading the sob stories in the newspapers
> for the next 40 years with glee. Or maybe I'll just take my money
> and future earnings and go to a less disgusting country, and let
> you live in your own filth.
Wow, speaking of hatred! You write "if you think every other country is great why the hell don't do go ahead and renounce your US citizenship and move to that other wonderful place. Might I suggest Iran, Somolia or perhaps Myanmar, you piece of feces".
Hey Floyd, is the unreasonableness of your spite grounded in your inability to reconcile your nationalistic urges with the reality of life in Amerika today? Or has your mind been altered by the rah rah rah sis boom bah kool-aid you've been drinking?
Either way Floyd, get over yourself! America has become a cesspool in part due to the love it or leave it attitude you espouse. As for Somalia or Myanmar, you might want to study what happened in those places so you can develop some strategies for how to survive what is going to happen to you!
Long time readers of Mr. Quinn (including the founder of a major furniture company who shall remain nameless) can trace his warnings back several years. Back then he also used lots of charts and graphs and he also bemoaned the unprecedented expansion of private and public credit. ("The world economy is balanced on the backs of the U.S. consumer; and the U.S. consumer is up to his eyeballs in debt!") We should have killed this messenger when we had a chance for alas it has all come to pass. This makes it difficult to quibble with Mr Quinn's article; Fortunately, Difficult and Quibble is thy name.
First of all you leave out the credit agencies, those bastions of goodliness whose sleepless watch over every nook and cranny of the financial world make every step safe to trod. They rained down AAA ratings on instruments they could not possibly understand simply because they were told that housing prices would never decline and that even the least credit worthy was not even the slightest risk of default. CDO's, Triple A; MBS', Triple A. Sayeth one such genius "If it were created by cows, we would rate it." I'm sure this is very comforting to the Norwegian fishing villages who invested in this garbage based on a Moody's or S&P rating.
I also need to correct the shot (get it?) you took at Dick Cheney. During the Reagan years Cheney was a Congressman from Wyoming, and a deficit hawk at that. I'm sure if he could turn back the clock the federal expansion prior to September would never have happened.
The inventions you cite predate the greatest generation by quite a bit. In fact it is the greatest generation that welcomed the initial explosion of government during the 1930's. There wasn't a lot of invention going on in the 30's. The reason, government intrusion always limits innovation. If you don't believe me go back and review the Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) filed with the FTC and FCC prior to the invention of the airplane, automobile, and telephone, or the lengthy FDA approval prior to the release of penicillin. Better yet don't bother; before the outrageous expansion of government we got inventions, now we just get initials.
You HOPE President Obama can rise to the occasion? That's a hell of a hope. This guy is a tool of government, and regulation is his middle name. Less regulation? As they say in Brooklyn, fuhgettaboutit.
I must have missed that lurch in Congress on energy. Last time I checked they adjourned and went home. The good news was they at least stopped spending money. The bad news was they came back. I think you already covered what happened when they came back.
Finally I take umbrage at the cure involving me paying more taxes. Why the hell can't the government eek by on the 3 trillion we already send them. The more you give them the more they waste. Why can't we pay less taxes for a change and use the savings to help out the guy next door and make sure our kids get a good education. Right now it costs 50 grand a year to get a lousy education. Weren't all those Wall Street wizards products of IVY League institutions? The less benefits part I'm fine with. I'm pretty much used to that.
However, the reality is, as many responders have pointed out, rarely all black or all white (except, it appears, if you're a Republican). To me the charts and explanations show that many of the problems blamed on the Boomers actually started under Reagan and BushI who of course were not Boomers. The icing on the cake was really heaped on though by the administration of George the second(a Boomer). We've experienced what happens when an almost religious effort at DEREGULATION gives greedy people a green light to abuse the system, and consequently, the economy and the citizens.
I like many responders also worked hard, lived frugally, saved and invested. Most of the great points have already been made by other commenters. Some have commented about the FED it's chairman. However, I don't think the point was made that the real pupose of the FED is to create inflation which is a hidden tax on all of us. It penalizes those who would save and rewards those who borrow and pay back with cheaper devalued dollars later. The other purpose of the FED is to feed the Boom and Bust Cycle. Remember the low interest rates of the late 90's and the easy money policy that led the so called "dot com" boom and bust? Why bust?... because the FED very suddenly cut off the money supply and raised rates faster than the econmy could adjust. Result?
An entire generation of stock market, IRA, and 401-k investors had their life savings decimated. How dare they try to move from the Middle Class into the ranks of the wealthy. The same goes for all the uppity entrepeneurs of that period. Next, after a few years, many people were lured by FED's excessively low rates of 2003-2006 to get into the real estate boom and bust. AGAIN, The FED popped the bubbled it inflated. This time many home buyers who did nothing more wrong than to buy a house at the wrong time or be taken in by Mortgage Brokers and Bankers who used bogus appraisals to justify the inflated housing prices of the time.
Now those who have paid their bills their whole lives and were proud of excellent credit scores, find themselves owing 100 to 200 thousand dollars more than there house is currently worth, even with a 20% down payment! Today many wealthy investors are coming to South Florida to scoop up foreclosed houses at 60% to 70% off the inflated 2006 prices, If the FED's goal is to set up massive tranfers of wealth away from the Middle Classes (not just Baby Boomers), then it is succeding superbly. Of course, they always seem to be tardy at stopping the downturns, so the cycles are amplified to the down side squeezing any stalwart or responsible types determined to hang on.
BTW, the dead beats who took out the subprime loans were as often as not lured into houses they could not afford by the same unscrupulous lenders I mentioned before. Once they were foreclosed on, the Banks began dumping their houses on the market, thus driving prices down. That made more homeowners give up on their loans, get foreclosed on, and so on like a monstrous real estate snowball rolling down a very long and painful slope. The next wave of foreclosures will be the resonsible folks rolled over by the snowball. How does one justify paying back hundreds of thousands of dollars more than the house is worth to the banks that were involved in the creation of the problem? It will be impossible for someone at the front of the baby boomer pack to recover from such a financial disaster. Of course, once again a massive transfer of wealth away from the MIddle Classes, insuring that they never are allowed to amass true wealth. As the charts in the article showed, the wealthiest portion of the population keeps getting richer! It's part of the plan!
If you would like to learn more about the FED and it's creation and practice, copy and paste this link into your browser,
seekingalpha.com/artic...
OR a longer and even more eye opening article at this link
philologos.org/bpr/fil...
Come to think of it... Isn't it funny that quite a few of the boomers who support wars, nationalism and blind greed which hurts capitalistic systems by sabotaging trust in the markets, were the same hippies protesting war, corruption, nationalism, greed and absent minded money making for the sake of stuffing one's wallet?
Ummm....before you launched into your Ron Paul tirade, you might be interested to know he refuses to accept money from Medicare.
On Oct 31 07:54 AM copperbaron wrote:
> iAccountant siad - "In my opinion it will take a total collapse of
> the system to bring the type of change that you are referring to.
> Is this the beginning?"
>
> I believe it may be. We are seeing the joints coming apart, the beams
> sagging and about to crack under the weight of massive debt and enormous
> corruption. Paulson is just trying to steal a few billion more for
> his beloved financial organized crime rings, before he retires to
> a life of wealth and luxury, under very heavy security.
>
> Many hail Ron Paul as some sort of visionary, but I would argue differently.
> He espouses "Free markets" but made all of his money as a doctor.
> As anyone who bothers to examine the facts knows, doctors bill enormous
> fees to patients (and Medicare/Medicaid) in a system that in no way
> resembles a "free market."
>
> Rather, it is a rigged market that controls the number of available
> doctors, and legislates their financial advantage, to an extraordinary
> degree. The A.M.A. is the most powerful and mercenary union in this
> nation's history, and is sucking the country dry.
>
> I would never vote for Ron Paul on purely moral grounds - he was
> part of the problem, in my opinion. If you are a wealthy doctor (one
> of the limited number allowed to be 'licensed' that is) then it is
> easy to throw stones and criticize others for debt. These jokers
> live in a fantasy world, just like the IB types shuffling paper around
> and committing fraud for million-dollar bonuses. Their sense of true
> economics is deeply distorted by their own self-manipulated and outsized
> pay package.
Your article quantified all that I have watched unfold for years. Typically a very optimistic person, I realize today that I am Charlie Brown -- "good grief"! The authority figures continue to "wah, wah, wah" and Lucy holds the football to be kicked. As a spectator my legacy will need to be my children. I applaud the writer on his effort to make a difference. As for myself, I will proceed forward raising, small, scrappy, yellow, upside-down-flying Woodstocks. Woodstock characteristics: best friend to Snoopy, advanced intellect, reluctant to eat thrown breadcrumbs because they are welfare, when pushed too far stands up for himself, and when asked his net worth replied "four worms a day."
Continuing the Peanuts analogy, I will grab my blue security blanket, while supporting and sharing my views with my children, teaching hard work, responsibility for their actions, and creative thriftiness.
Lastly, as I know, there are no laws against or taxes levied on a sense of optimism. I hope that someday we may all see the Great Pumpkin.
The bloody, bloody bankers,
a most respected lot.
How many millions have they starved?
How many have they shot?
The bloody, bloody bankers,
since 1694,
booms, busts, depressions
and never ending war.
A few points I would like to add:
1) The war in Iraq is going to cost in excess of $2 trillion, not the $700B quoted in the article
2) As far as banks making bad loans and granting mortgages they should not have, it was not as simple as poor decision making. What occurred was the original lender was able to securitize the loans and sell them to a third party, earning a commission on the loans, so the incentive structure of the industry changed dramatically.
Before the era of securitization, a mortgage lender would have to do due diligence to ensure that people would be able to repay their loan. Once securitization began, they simply earned a commission on each mortgage, which they subsequently unloaded to Investment Bankers, who subsequently did a million optimization equations and got AAA ratings and sold them off. The bad banks were the banks which were caught with billions of these loans. Look at Goldman Sachs, they securitized billions of these loans and were a market maker fro CDOs MBSs etc, but foresaw the problems and got net short, evading the problems, while still making a killing during the securitization binge. A similar process occurred with consumer loans.
A great video that is in the same vein as this article is "In Debt We Trust". Google it.
People who can provide solution to this will be the ones who understand the issues involved. I'd rather have James Quinn to take the lead than the ones who were intimately involved in the creation of this mess.
If we just shift the amount spent on gambling to education, or 1/4 of what's spent on new cars, we chould have a much better educated population who understands the values and right from wrongs. Maybe the obvious solution is short term painful, we have no choice but to take the hit.
The news on US borrowing 1 trillion to finance 2009 budget deficit is exactly what we shouldn't be doing. It's not a solution to borrow more money to solve the problem of over-borrowing. Somebody's going to pay for all this debt someday. We better start saving up for our children and their children, that's if USD is going to still be worth anything then.
But no. Why? Well, if there is a draft, then you have to have a date and time to end any acts of war. Without a draft, and an all volunteer military you don't.
You see, the leaders can then say, "Well, they volunteered.." True, but that doesn't give you the right to abuse them or the military.
So the baby boomer's kids don't have to go to war unless they want too. That way, Johnny and Suzie can go to college, get jobs, and so on with out being put upon like those in the 1960's and early 1970's.
And that is the key to dealing with this generation: DON'T PUT UPON THEM THEY GET CRANKY!
Like Georgie Bush saying he wanted to get rid of Social Security. Well look at the financial institutions in the last 6 months and the fear of 401k's, 403B's and so on going down the drain. Or at least they used the fear of that.
Cute idea Georgie, but Social Security was set up as a safety net for those who loose everything should their bank or savings get destroyed. Social Security was never ever supposed to be a RETIREMENT program. But many many use it as such and think of it as such.
Same with Medicare. Set up to protect those who are retired from loosing their savings due to medical bills.
By the way, do you really think Bush needs Social Security? Or do his parents? Or Chaney? Come on....
Social Security and Medicare aren't going anyway. This generation will not stand for it. And they do know how to protest. Just look at AARP.
AARP is one of the largest lobbying groups in the nation.
But as a member of this generation I can tell you, you can get what ever you want as a politician if you just don't PUT UPON the baby boomers.
On Oct 31 05:22 AM The hand wrote:
> although i think some of your points are not correct, i does not
> detract from the overall point. i too am a baby boomer and we screwed
> this country up. we rejected the lessons of our parents and did
> our thing.
i like your article very much, but its a bit dramatic and i am not sure you have placed the blame completely where it belongs. i would say that it was the successes of the older baby boomers (i am a younger one BTW)) that made the younger baby boomers want the same things (keeping up with the jones') and then the decaying morals of the next generations (tv (x) generations) which intensified the effect. a bit like falling dominoes. this doesnt just include the baby boomer generation, it goes beyond that and is linked with what we teach our kids especially through the media (fast cars and perfect women).
we are living in the nightmarish result of the oldest capatalistic system in the world, and beyond that, we are teaching the other countries of the world how to do the same. (by the way, i teach abroad)
the real questions now are: does capatalism need some rules? how do we teach our children to live within their means and to be happy about it? what is healthy / unhealthy competition and can we teach our children about it? how do we impliment a moral code within capatalism?
whatever we have been doing so far seems to be flawed.
Seriously, how much simpler can it be? As you point out, it is infuriating to find out that those of us who made sacrifices to live within our means must now pay for the loose-living, no-discipline lifestyles of others. I consider folks like those who bought houses/cars/TVs they can't afford to be gaming the system. They are hedonists that know the worst that will happen is that those things will be taken away. Now, our government has sent the message that we won't even take them away, we'll help you pay for it.
Crazy. And it's not just the boomers, it's also their children who learned from their parents.
The boomers were the first to create the politics of youth, which stood up to an older establishment. They resisted the Viet Nam (of Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon). They bled in Chicago. They were murdered in Ohio. They then grew up, put on suits, and went to work.
Throughout their careers, they have paid vast sums into social security to support their parents, the "great" generation," in comfort well beyond what they had saved. They also support millions of immigrants and people of different ages who can't (or won't) work.
They now are told there is nothing for them, except what they have saved. So they will keep working, because hard work --they should be called the workaholic generation -- is a trait of the boomers. They cannot retire at 62 with a fishing pole like so many of their parents, or like so many of the government workers who are humorously called civil "servants."
No one generation can take credit or be blamed for the present, which is a product of centuries. Nostalgia about the past is silly, and a flaw of every current generation since the beginning of time. We should focus on the present and how to make it better. Whether there is a place in our future for the ideals of the previous "great generation" -- patriotism and love of God-- is a question for Generations X, Y and Z.
LordD
Sickening.
You are correct, however. It is now up to the latter generations. And, for all our disorganization and genuine individuality to a fault, I strongly suspect that Gen X is about the business of throwing you and your ilk out of your seats of power, in government and industry, so that we might set about putting some order to this mess you've left us all.
You left out personal computers, the Internet, and enough medical advances (beyond penicillin) to raise the average healthy lifespan a good 15+ years. The article dumps symptoms of every stripe onto a chimerical disease--sorry, "laggardship" falls short of a compelling diagnosis--with a therapy as jejune as the underlying motives you ascribe to the culprits who brought said malady upon us.
The argument and its prose are the utter stuff of glibness.
The US is heading towards ruin. It is going to take ALL of us to see it through the next dark time.
It's no longer about "fault" or "blame" its about accountability and redemption -- an American redemption.
We're the new guys in humanity. The rest of the world is licking it's chops to take the United States away.
this is an interesting post about divorce. I think that the high divorce rate is part and parcel of this artciel about the baaby boomers. they have things so easy , and if it's to topugh for them they just cut and run
heh
I honestly think the root of the problem is people in general. I am surprised that murders and suicides have not skyrocketed. There is not a single time that I read this site that I haven't wished that most of the authors and respondents would all die at either their hands or mine.
On Oct 31 12:50 PM LCACM wrote:
> The idea that deficits do not matter started during President Reagan's
> administration. To finance the deficits he opened the US markets
> to foreign competition. Presidents who followed him merely followed
> his lead of huge trade and budget deficits. Exception was President
> Clinton who was able to reduce the budget deficit but worsened the
> trade deficits by signing NAFTA. The current crisis therefore was
> started by the Great Communicator. His great communication abilities
> allowed him to popularize ideas that violate simple common sense
> of living within one's means at the individual and the national level.
> Since President Reagan had such endearing ways it is difficult to
> accept these painful facts.
Mr. Quinn is correct that we are up to our eyeballs in do-do. We can debate about the reasons why. Then he turns to Obama as an example of leadership? I'm sorry, but that is moronic.
Obama, who will likely be the next President, is at best an unknown quantity. His solution is to expand government with an additional $1 trillion in new programs. Tell me how this is good for America and how the progressive agenda will lead to the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness?
All Obama will do is finish the bankrupting of America. (BTW, I am no fan of McCain.) Obama is about creating dependency on government so that he and the progressives/liberals can entrench temselves in power. Why is that so hard to see?
Maybe I will discuss my ideas on how to deal with the current mess at another time. Mr. Quinn completely lost me when he held up Obama as some kind of virtuous leader. God help us all if he wins and has a bulletproof Democratic Congress.
We've refuse to properly invest in our schools and infrastructure. What will this cost us later? We continue to argue over bailing out large companies while average Americans are losing their homes, even though they have some equity in them, simply because they can't refinance their current mortgages to a lower interest rate, even though that means the difference between them keeping their homes or causing their towns to lose another taxpayer as they are forced to leave.
The life cycle of a boomer is such:
1. Young and idealistic - start hippie movement to change the world - dropping out. That's easy to do when you aren't yet looking to reproduce, with no responsibilities and your hormones are strong. Easy to rebel against the system and say no thank you. Loads of jobs available at this time as these people are consuming but not yet working career wise.
2. Less young and less idealistic (comes with age). Wants to reproduce and provide a nest for offspring - enter materialism. Men want to impress women with security so they can reproduce. Women looking for security through men (as they always have done). (feminism is a lie. Old conditioning very prevalent.) This is the mid/late 70s through the 80s. Housing goes up because of the demand for it to raise families. (They are the dominant generation remember). Also look at the type of movies in the 80s geared towards their children. Unemployment goes up as not all boomers can find jobs (there are too many of them). There is also unrest in the 70s and 80s. I agree that there is also a tendency of a spoilt child attitude which causes a "working class work is below me" attitude. In order to counter this, the government invents the finance paper economy and gets the Mexicans in to do those jobs.
3. Mid-life crisis occurs as kids leave the nest. They try and understand their place in the world. Enter the "New Age" movement in the 90s. "A Road Less Traveled" - "The Celestine Prophesy" etc. This is just intelligent hippyism for the aged. (I'm not making any moral judgements here). I imagine affairs and divorce rates go up in this time period too.
Real Estate takes a boost due to boomers children coming on board (they are the mini pig in the snake).
4. Boomers looking to retire - stock market shoots up in the 70s-80s-90s-00s as they put in the funds. Their children are doing the same in the late 90s and 00s. Same with real estate. Two pigs in the snake working here.
5. Baby boomers retire - they want to sell their big houses and down size a bit. They are looking to retire or are about to start taking funds out of their stock retirement fund. Nobody else can support that. Stock market crashes and then remains stagnant for years and years and years and years until another pig in the snake arrives (if it does at all).
6. Baby boomers have to work in retirement as stock market and real estate tanks and remains stagnant. Government goes insolvent as it can't pay all these state pensions for the boomers. The boomers take part-time government jobs to make ends meet. A period of relative poverty ensues with various possible outcomes.
7. As the boomers die off (morgues making a mint), the market for people's labour changes as the NWO somehow (don't ask) gives the rest of the Americans a way to sell to the billions of Asians instead of just the millions of boomers. Americans become even more wealthy than before. Yipee!
How's that for a boomer analysis. Maybe all our financial talk is the means for this to happen, but not the ultimate cause, if you know what I mean.
On Oct 31 07:54 AM copperbaron wrote:
> iAccountant siad - "In my opinion it will take a total collapse of
> the system to bring the type of change that you are referring to.
> Is this the beginning?"
>
> I believe it may be. We are seeing the joints coming apart, the beams
> sagging and about to crack under the weight of massive debt and enormous
> corruption. Paulson is just trying to steal a few billion more for
> his beloved financial organized crime rings, before he retires to
> a life of wealth and luxury, under very heavy security.
>
> Many hail Ron Paul as some sort of visionary, but I would argue differently.
> He espouses "Free markets" but made all of his money as a doctor.
> As anyone who bothers to examine the facts knows, doctors bill enormous
> fees to patients (and Medicare/Medicaid) in a system that in no way
> resembles a "free market."
>
> Rather, it is a rigged market that controls the number of available
> doctors, and legislates their financial advantage, to an extraordinary
> degree. The A.M.A. is the most powerful and mercenary union in this
> nation's history, and is sucking the country dry.
>
> I would never vote for Ron Paul on purely moral grounds - he was
> part of the problem, in my opinion. If you are a wealthy doctor (one
> of the limited number allowed to be 'licensed' that is) then it is
> easy to throw stones and criticize others for debt. These jokers
> live in a fantasy world, just like the IB types shuffling paper around
> and committing fraud for million-dollar bonuses. Their sense of true
> economics is deeply distorted by their own self-manipulated and outsized
> pay package.
If it's so "pedestrian" and "conventional", we wouldn't be in this mess, or are you proposing that we got into this mess intentionally?
Who preached to them?
Who taught them in schools?
Who elected the political leaders, say up until the Boomers were able to vote ('67)?
Was it the Boomers who started the ponzi scheme of all ponzi schemes Social Security?
The so-called Greatest Generation did what they had to do only after Japan and Germany forced their hand. Then they feathered their own bed.
I used those terms to describe this piece, not the economic crisis. He is just regurgitating all the conventional explanations. Not that they are wrong, but I look to this site ffor unique insight to help me with investing as opposed to poorly written populist rants.
The people who produce the least are getting paid the most.
Funny how that always leads to people homeless and starving then laws passed to protect those who produce nothingf but have all the money. Like Brazil where Personal Security is the Number One industry !
Extremely cheap energy was a fixture of the post World War II era. This major expense has returned to historical norms. The advent of television and television advertising changed politics, our sense of who we are and who we could be, and studies show, can induce a suggestible state in viewers. A global population boom has changed the face of the planet, and we are now much more vulnerable to the butterfly on the other side of the world. The unprecedented availability of knowledge on the internet, almost instantaneous communication, undreamed-of sophistication in tools from computers to medical devices: the effects of all of these are difficult to predict.
I will agree that greed is a great danger to our culture. And that we must consciously go against it. But we are not fundamentally different from previous generations.
bunch of crybaby pigs. Obama will "fix it and we can all live off the government teet", I suppose. Sell everything , buy gold and silver and head for the hills it is going to get ugly very soon.
Supporting that is like supporting unilateral nuclear disarmament. We have a central bank because "they" have central banks. Encouraging elimination of our central bank is an open invitation to countries like China to manipulate our rates to their advantage.
It is insanity. Much like the proponent of that policy and his supporters, most of whom advocate a "buy guns & gold & canned food" economic policy. I, for one, have had it with these ideological zealots. Perhaps we can give them a state, like Wyoming, where they're free to hunker down an lay in wait for whatever rapture they fantasize about.
On Nov 02 07:02 PM moonbat1775 wrote:
> I blame the generation that allowed the Federal Reserve to be created.
> It has been downhill since then.
>
> The Fed:
> 1. Financed WWI.
> 2. Caused boom of the 1920's that led to the Great Depression
> 3. which led to huge social spending
> 4. and WWII
> 5. which killed over 50 million
> 6. which led WWII generation to think they were special.
On Oct 31 05:22 AM The hand wrote:
> although i think some of your points are not correct, i does not
> detract from the overall point. i too am a baby boomer and we screwed
> this country up. we rejected the lessons of our parents and did
> our thing.
The Baby Boomers were mesmerized by a "con man".
Today the United States of America has a new President elect, Senator Barack Obama, brought to power by an unprecedented bloodless coup led by what a previous Secretary of State, Lawrence Egelberger has called, "a con man". He was supported by a mass left wing media who refused to investigate his background or intentions as thoroughly as they did his opponents. Additionally, the Senator received enormous amounts of money from unknown and un-declared sources that enabled him to swamp the population with supporting propaganda of his idea of "change". With an undeniable eloquence of oratory and his shifting positions of policy ideas, he successfully mesmerized millions of Americans, reinforced by an endorsing media and millions of dollars.
While blaming the Bush Administration for the current crisis Senator Obama was denying the fact that President Bush and his Administration had urged Congress on 17 separate occasions in 2008 and many other times since 2001 to control the management of Fannae Mae and Freddie Mac and it's GSE practices that ultimately caused the financial meltdown of world markets. www.whitehouse.gov/new...
With an unemployment rate lower than most countries and a gas price (even at the height of oil price hikes) lower than anywhere in Europe, Senator Obama has convinced the populace that they were in dire straits, even as they were allowed to leave their places of employment to gather and listen to his grand oratory of "change". The change will indeed be coming! We will now see the convergence of socialist ideologies from Russia to Europe to Africa and Asia and soon America, coming together in a world order of unknown controlling phenomena.
The America we knew, died yesterday and today we stand, re-born, naked and clueless. So go the great civilizations of the world!
David Huntley
There are many responsible Boomers, but the generation as a whole has been profligate.
In response to those harping on social security... it's probably the one sweeping government program that's ever completely served its purpose: to eliminate poverty among the elderly. I'm glad it's there, as it keeps our parents and grandparents independent and out of our homes.
You claim this was a selfish generation vs. the 'greatest generation"
Baloney
The boomers footed the multi trillion dollar bill to waged a decades long cold war against the greatest evil empire empire in history - and won - saving the world from communist enslavement and bringing freedom to Eastern Europe and Russia,. WW2 pales in comparison.
Baby boomers have footed the bill for trillions of dollars in US foreign aid for decades - tell me what other country has done even a fraction of that?
Baby boomers have paid for the 'war on poverty' by the Great Society - just look at the great standard of living the 'poor' people have in this country. As one person in India trying to get into the US said "I want to live in a country where the poor people are fat".
This hardly sounds like selfishness to me.
I say so what if the victors of the cold war, the baby boomers , want to drink their lattes and drive fancy cars.
You seem to think that all people wil live for 80 - 90 years - not so- most people live for today - so if you can get a house and car ect regardless of if you can pay for it 'tomorrow' they will do it.
If you want to drive you junkmobile forever that is your choice but you will be paying taxes along with the rest of us for the bailout.
the problem is not boomers but big government & it's regulations ( you can read in the WSJ a recent article how the Government caused the great depression) which the boomers can't change - this is a two party dictatorship run by PAC and their money - so to think the people can change what the US government wants to do is silly . did anyone ask you if you wanted to spend $700 billion a year on defense? I don't think so.
The ignorant cheap shots at doctors by some is outrageous
First, the doctors income is always reported as GROSS income - so deduct %50 in expenses off that.
Then add up all the hours per week the doctor works - any baboon who swings a hammer or does contruction ("joe the plumer") makes twice as much per hour - and does not have to go throught 12 (yes, I said twelve ) years of training before he can start work. If joe the hammer swinger makes a mistake he takes his money as dissapears - If doc makes a mistake he gets sued for a bizzllion dollars and carries this stigma around for the rest of his career - if he still has one.
I envy the cops and firemen in California - they make $130 - $190 thousand per year and can retire with 90 % of their pay at age 50 - thats more lifetime income that the majority of doctors will ever seen - and they are 40 hour/week employees ect.
so, if you think doc have it so good why don't you go to medical school and hop on your perceived gravy train.
Let me say from the start, that the world and its financial system are now more interlocked than any other time in history and that the butterfly effect is very real. We have also stepped into the unknown, into a new paradigm and there is no going back!
What is the Motor of the World?
There will be many opinions, some will say China is now the motor of the world, some will say modern computers, some the US, some Oil, some this and some that. The truth is there are probably over 6 Billion opinions and most opinions would be at least partially true, given a particular time frame.
It would be correct to say that China has been a very significant force in global economics, certainly in the last 10-15 years. Certainly, the impact of computers and related electronics, over the last 50 years, has truly moved the world.
And, over 150 years, the US and Oil have been inseparable, as the driving forces of the global economy. Such a large part of the global economy today can be traced back to the US and it’s partnership with Oil.
But, in back of everything, the steady and un-relenting growth in population has always been the engine of economic growth, at national and global levels.
However, that motor is stopping!
How did we get here?
Population Growth & Aging -
It took all of history, up to the year 1800 AD, for humanity to reach our first Billion people. Baby Boomers had their origins in the population explosion that started as the Great Depression was ending; they were a large part of our 3rd and 4th Billion.
The population explosion really took off in 1945, it Peaked in 1956, then levelled out to 1964, before slowing significantly since then. Now, at over 6 Billion people, we are starting to exhaust the earth’s capacity to support human species.
A continuation of past growth would have seen the global population increase to 10 Billion by 2050 and 20 Billion by 2150. Clearly, that is not likely to happen, as population growth is slowing and the global population may start to fall, in the not too distant future.
Why, because we are now bumping into immovable objects, such as Peak Oil, Climate Change and Peak Food Production, all driven by the Global population.
With a few relatively minor interruptions, the period 1945 to 2005 was the greatest Global economic BOOM in history. In particular, the period 1995-2005 was a Growth Tsunami, driven by the Peak earning and spending capacity of US & other Global Baby Boomer consumers.
In addition, around the same time, technology drove massive gains in productivity, leverage multiplied and interest rates in the US remained artificially low, for far too long, following the events of 9/11.
This was a perfect storm, for making money.
Peak Oil -
To make life more interesting, Oil has also gone from $10 to nearly $150 a barrel, in just a few short years. Whilst there may have been some external influences, the main reason for this huge increase was Supply & Demand.
And, while there are arguments for Abiotic Oil, Coal & Gas, there are drawbacks for these "replacements" and in some cases they may create more environmental problems.
Oil prices have since retraced to lower levels, in expectation of a substantial fall in oil usage, arising from a slowing economy.
Transport, Plastics, Medicines, Chemicals, the list is almost endless, that are dependent on oil, no wonder the US has had such a long lasting love affair.
When historians look back, they really will say, "did they just burn all that oil".
Climate Change -
Climate is our greatest asset, but changes are also starting to impact us now, as can be seen in the lack of water in some parts of the planet, increased storm severity in others and the melting of Glaciers and Polar Caps.
We have already passed major climate tipping points, the planets climate is set to get very difficult for humanity, including a possible new ice age. Sure, we can take the chance that the scientists have it wrong, but then if their right, this could be an Extinction Event.
Do we have the right to play Roulette, with the survival of future generations.
Peak Food Production –
With the total global population busting at the seams, we must make sure everything possible is done to ensure food production is provided for the increasing population, right?
Wrong, instead, we are diverting large parts of agricultural production away from food production and into the production of diesel, as a replacement for Oil.
Even if we wanted to boost Food production, Climate Change is and will continue to, raise serious questions on our present and future capacity, to deliver enough food, to keep the surging global population fed.
Where are we now and where to next?
Whilst the sub-prime debacle in the US has its own distinct origins, including NINJA mortgages (Greed), it has highlighted falling Real Estate values and New Housing starts, which has separate Demographic origins.
In economic terms, the primary driver of the real global economy is consumer demand. The largest demand driver is the 45-55 age group, primarily in the USA, due their big earning and spending capacity.
Demographic levels are already being re-shaped, as nearly two Billion Baby Boomers have commenced a 20 year transition from being big spenders, to big Retirement savers, to thrifty Retirees, before leaving us forever, in increasing numbers.
This massive aging of the global population is changing the dynamics of the world economy, with the bulk of Boomer wealth likely to pass on before they do and as the generations following behind the Baby Boomers, are relatively less in numbers.
In particular, Real Estate and New Housing markets, particularly in the US & Europe have already fallen and continue to do so, arising from a lowering in demand, led by thrifty and retiring Boomers.
As if housing issues were not enough, the aging process will also introduce some $50 Trillion in unfunded Health and Social Security costs.
So, we now see:
1) Supply (Oil) & Demand constraints.
2) A massive de-leveraging of financial markets, including some $500 Trillion in Derivatives.
3) Government Budget deficits continue to expand, due to the current Credit/Housing Crisis.
4) Massive increases Health and Social Security Costs, again expanding deficits.
5) Problems arising from Climate Change and Food production.
You can guess what awaits with Taxes, in the near future, to pay for past indulgences.
And, with Debt levels already at historical highs and past fixes, either not able to be used or possibly set to cause more harm, than help.
Now, we are just past the Peak of a once in history Population Growth Mega Cycle.
Now, expectations build of a slowing economic future, as reflected in stock markets and oil prices, next is reality.
Now, the perfect storm is reappearing, this time it is a Cat 5 in financial demolition!
What Futures await?
The very basis of modern life will be shaken, the magnitude of the quake, will be 9.9.
Whether we arrived at this situation, by accident or design, we are never likely to know, although events suggest a mixture of both, seems probable. So, the design has now been set in motion and we are now into the first quarter, of the highest stakes game, ever played!
Unlike the Great Depression, we are now truly between a rock and a really hard place.
The truth is, there is no magical, Hollywood, easy fix.
The truth is, there is no pot of gold at the end of the Kansas rainbow.
The truth is, things are going to be tough, for quite some time.
Had corrective decisions been made earlier, then it may have been possible to reduce some of the worst side effects, regrettably, that did not happen.
Regrettably, if we opt for a better now, then future generations will pay for our mistakes and indulgence. That reasoning is not acceptable and can not succeed!
As we look to the future, we need to look thru different eyes, thru different thought processes.
The days of Smoke & Mirrors, of Shock & Awe, of the Desire to Acquire & Retain Power, of Self interest, at the expense of societal interest, must end.
Can we make those changes, the answer is YES!
Will the required changes be made? Now there, is a $64 Trillion question!
The answers will come on these boards and others, in other forums, in politics, in business and the answers will need to come quickly.
There are discussions that must take place and Mindsets that must change; the time has come to look beyond borders and elections.
Good luck & watch the Debt!
Baby boomers have footed the bill for trillions of dollars in US foreign aid for decades - tell me what other country has done even a fraction of that?
Baby boomers have paid for the 'war on poverty' by the Great Society - just look at the great standard of living the 'poor' people have in this country. As one person in India trying to get into the US said "I want to live in a country where the poor people are fat".
This hardly sounds like selfishness to me."</i>
Oh, Lordy... so many fictions, where to start?
Boomers did not actually *pay* for any of the above, which is one of the reasons why per-capita government and personal debt levels are at all-time highs, as the author has already pointed out.
Aid to the poor --aka old school "socialism"-- went out of vogue during the Reagan Administration ('Welfare Cadillac Queens' and whatnot) and social program defunding accelerated under following administrations including Clinton's (welfare reform). Unfortunately, corporate socialism and unchecked military spending more than made up for any savings, by a huge margin.
As a Gen-Xer, I have been geniunely "poor", as in one unemployment or min-wage paycheck away from homelessness --and not for laziness, lack of skills, education or willingness to take menial jobs, either. I doubt many non-blue collar/minority Boomers can relate, hence the warped view of the "great standard of living" U.S. poor supposedly enjoy.
Boomers were born into an America of broadly shared prosperity, virtually free higher education, cheap housing and medical care, high manufacturing output, a large trade surplus, an expanding middle class, and an almost debt-free government.
Boomers are leaving my (and future generations) with prosperity for the very few, sky-high college costs mostly financed with debt, a massive housing bubble, the most expensive per-capita medical costs ever, a shrinking manufacturing base, an enormous trade deficit, a shrinking middle class, and government in hock to the tune of $11 Trillion + $53Trillion more in future unfunded liabilities.
I wish I had written this article. Kudos to the author for a job well done, and the courage to tell it like it really is, without pulling any punches.
I rate this overall as a poor effort with predominantly invalid criticism; there is, however, some value and astute observation. Overall, you have built too much of a strawman, and misinform on much of the data. I pity the university for which you perform strategy work.
I offer as rebuttal some of the fruits of my generation:
- Medical imaging
- Internetworking
- Accessible genomics
- Greatly reduced cancer mortality b/c of new treatments
- Widespread alternative energy deployments
- Commercial and governmental space research (who thought scotch tape could have x-ray properties?)
- Satellite TVS and radio with 100s of channels
- Low cost high effeciency light sources
- Wireless everything (voice, data, power)
- An African-American president
I could go on, but you get the idea...
Henry
What was blatantly missing from this election is the concern, "for our children and our childrens' children." The truth is the Greatest Generation is also the greediest and voted to maintain their entitlements rather than care about the ones ( their chilren and their childrens' children!) who are paying for it. Entitlement spending is over 52% of the Fed budget. Party affiliation and platforms, ideals will have little impact on the future emerging entitlement receiving voting ueber majority.
Now we have a politics of bread and circus! Maybe i am blind but i fail to see the "hope"
www.nytimes.com/2008/1...
"Oh, Lordy... so many fictions, where to start?
Boomers did not actually *pay* for any of the above, which is one of the reasons why per-capita government and personal debt levels are at all-time highs, as the author has already pointed out. "
So did the 'greatest generation actually 'pay' for WW2, social security ponzi scheme? NO
"As a Gen-Xer, I have been geniunely "poor", as in one unemployment or min-wage paycheck away from homelessness --and not for laziness, lack of skills, education or willingness to take menial jobs, either. I doubt many non-blue collar/minority Boomers can relate, hence the warped view of the "great standard of living" U.S. poor supposedly enjoy."
your a 'poor person' so you spend you days on an stock investment website! ( using you new apple mac notebook?)
yeah, right.
the poor people in this country still are fat (if they want to be), the poor people in other countries starve to death.
my point here is the silly superfical mea copas the author offers up have no buisness on an investment website, and the real greatest generation was the boomers.(yours truly included)
If the author feels guitly he should post on a 'guilty yuppie website',if there is such a thing.
Bottom Line: Don't defend any institutions that needed to be revolutionarily reshaped anyway.
All we need is another Reagan to bust the educational unions like he did to the air traffic controllers. All we need is another Reagan with the guts to raise the retirement/social security age, gradually, to make it commensurate with increased lifespans. All we need is another Reagan who will make Europe and Coastal Asia pay the full cost of military protection to the US, instead of getting a free ride.
cyclingscholar
The international corporate capitalist system is inherently voodoo economics, and we are almost certainly headed for total collapse followed by class war and possibly by urban cannibalism before the end of this century. We can spare our great grandchildren such a nightmare only by adopting a new economic paradigm of population control, economic democracy, and stringent environmentalism. Otherwise, we're on a course to emulate Easter Island within a century.
Baby Boomers should keep in mind that in the tine of Christ, the population of the city of Rome was between 1 and 2 million, and western Europe was mostly agricultural. 500 years later, Rome's population was less than 50,000, and much of western Europe was trackless forest. Rome's insatiable greed, arrogant military expansionism and wasteful consumption, led by the political and economic elite, led to its collapse. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, as Santayana said.
I like and respect Tom Brokaw, but I'm really sorry he thought it necessary to select and annoint ANY generation as the "greatest". Many of us Americans don't know much about our own history; too bad, because it makes us susceptible to believing even "essays" or articles as stupid as this one.
Maybe it would be well for all of us to keep just a few things in mind like: (1) The "greatest generation" was mostly in grade school or high school during the Depression; they survived primarily thru the efforts of the previous generation (their parents).
(2) When WW II happened, the greatest generation was drafted -- just like you boomers were for the Viet Nam debacle -- and went off to fight. They performed magnificently due, in large measure, to the leadership of the previous generation; guys like Generals Eisenhower, Bradley, and Patton and Admirals like Nimitz, Halsey, and Spruance. Oh, and what about Churchill and Roosevelt, by the way. Without leadership like that they could have all been slaughtered in a humiliating defeat -- more like you boomers suffered in Viet Nam.
(3) When WW II ended in victory, our surviving soldiers came home and produced --guess what?-- the boomers! Of course, then they had to raise you, educate you, and instill some values for you to live by.
(4) Soon it was your turn to be drafted and sent to war. Who was there to provide the leadership we so fortunate to have in WW II? The greatest generation, of course. Instead of Gen's Eisenhower, Bradley, etc; and instead of Roosevelt and Churchill we had LBJ, Nixon, Alexander Haig, and a bunch of crooked numbnuts in Congress who were primarily from --you guessed it -- the greatest generation.
Funny old world, ain't it? Every generation has its legacy, but most of us are not thinking "legacy" when we start families, jobs, and the bills start comming in. We mostly want to do what's right for our families.
Don't let other people (especially those as ignorant as the "author" who wrote this stupid article/essay) tell you who you are, or were, or will be. So you're a boomer -- every generation faces as well as creates its own problems. Don't hang your head....at least you're not as stupid or pretentious as the guy who wrote the original article! Good luck and keep your chin up. -signed, Capt Pete
On Oct 31 05:22 AM The hand wrote:
> although i think some of your points are not correct, i does not
> detract from the overall point. i too am a baby boomer and we screwed
> this country up. we rejected the lessons of our parents and did our
> thing.
"Mission Accomplished" if by accomplished you meant obliterated sustainability.
Military service and medical career
Paul considered becoming a Lutheran minister like two of his brothers.[14] Instead he decided to pursue a medical degree at Duke University School of Medicine in Durham, North Carolina, attaining it in 1961. He interned and began residency training, both in internal medicine, at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit (1961–1962);[28]
The medical training was soon interrupted when he received a draft notice and was commissioned a Captain in the U.S. Air Force during the Cuban Missile Crisis.[29] He was based out of Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio, and remained in the