FYI, this is a two year old thread.

bye bye baby boomers, time to push you off the cliff.

Pretty much every one over 50 I know these days is a douchebag. On one hand we owe the liberal boomers a lot. The conservatives not so much. I do think on the whole they were the most fucked up generation, in that they where clearly disorganized, the hippie movement was clearly half baked as where most of its participants. But the biggest irony here is some many of that generation did drugs and had sex to rebel against their parents ideals only to become just like them when they hit 45. Not to mention that so many of you are clearly in denial about what happens when we get older, and simply don't like it. The younger generation wants some security, the older generation wants to be younger, and these so called millenials ( not a real word?) in turn will have to be more like their grandparents generation one that is capable of dealing with enormous stress, able to face the depressions of life, the ability to create a life outside of corporate infrastructure because once America was made up of small privately owned businesses instead of cookie cutter anything. Remember the old soda fountains, the barber shops, drugstores and hardware stores? Remember when your mechanic was your neighbor? I don't. I was born in 79, and those things were almost extinct by the time I hit middle school. The simple truth of my generation is this, most middle class jobs that once supported their workers no longer pay enough money to justify the hamster wheel they create. But I suspect that any baby boomers out there who are not financially secure already who are basically in the same boat as the younger gens, know this already. At some point the reality of things may change to where this discussion is obsolete and or moot, because as much as we all think" it's not our job to......" Society is something we all have to be a part of, and the young and old should take care of each other, and for thousands of years the older generations have had the money but they realized in the past it wasn't much use without people to care about. Too many baby boomers are afraid to retire, because either they haven't really got what they need to do so or they don't want to get old, because when their parents did that they got even older almost immediately and often passed away, death is scary, and well we shouldn't be so quick to push people of a cliff. However , you guys are really confusing, many of you obviously never really had your shit together , and , as child born to wealthy parents who lost it all in the 80s, so e of you where really spoiled, and don't even remember it , because you most likely took it for granted. In the late 60s my dad drove a jag XKE. He had it 8 months before he wrecked it. It was then replaced a series of equally expensive cars. He also basically stole my college money from under my nose. He also told me that if I was gay and ever got aids he would disown me. It didn't matter, he had already take everything. By the time we got there, there was nothing to disown.

When the income gap is too wide for a long time and people cannot afford the basics is when we will have to worry about major uprisings. Bad news for our democracy and the 1%ers.

My parents, my in-laws and 90 percent of their friends are all retired with pensions and health care benefits from a corporation or from a public entity.

I don't begrudge them these - they were smart enough to collectively bargain for them or work for a company with a civic conscience - but they so don't get what it's like to not have a future with these benefits.

We have to save so much more and I'm not banking on SS or Medicare being there for me.

Cat food is still likely going to be the meal of choice even though I saved a huge percentage of my salary for retirement; what about the millions that couldn't save the huge amount required?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, for those of us who came of age in the 90s and more recently, SAHM + Federal employee = very modest lifestyle purchased at the expense of the possibility of savings. A SFH needing work in Fairfax County might still be a possibility, but it would be at the top of the family's price range and would prohibit energetic saving.

I don't think you realize how much you benefited from relatively cheap housing (compared to income) back in your day. Slow and steady no longer wins any races.

Huh! This makes no sense. There is affordable housing available to all income levels. Interest rates are at an all time Low. When we were starting out, interest rates were upward of 9%. There is wonderful affordable child care. There were very few options in this area when we were starting out. Mothers actually helped each other out!
We did start out slow saving for our future and slow and steady did win the race. I think it would be a good idea to review your family budget and check out your options. If you can't save, you are living above your means.

It doesn't matter how low interest rates are it matter the relation of the size / age of the house to income level at the age of purchasing. Compare what you can buy with your income now vs average income to the boomer's time and you will see the issue. It doesn't make sense that gen x's making 300k at triple the HHI of our area are buying the size of home that boomers of avg HHI income did back at the same age.

Anonymous wrote:Huh? Another nonsensical post!

This thread is filled with prejudice.

Replace Boomers with Jews, African Americans, gays.

This is prejudice and ageism and negative stereotyping.

Shame on all the specious reasoning.

you must be white cause no other race cares about that.

I am sick and tired of gays.
I am sick and tired of Jews.
I am sick and tired of African Americans.
I am sick and tired of Hispanics.

Prejudice applies to any group, including demographic categories.

There is hate in so many of these posts.

Huh? Another nonsensical post!

This thread is filled with prejudice.

Replace Boomers with Jews, African Americans, gays.

This is prejudice and ageism and negative stereotyping.

Shame on all the specious reasoning.

Anonymous wrote:goodness of their hearts. Ha at the typo "hate." That's what this Boomer is feeling. There is so much hatred for Boomers here, as well as misinformation, it is worrisome.

This thread is filled with generalizations about boomers; but, of course, the ones posting those comments don't think there's a problem with it. They pride themselves on their objectivity and only protest when a few select groups of their choosing are brushed with the broad stroke.

goodness of their hearts. Ha at the typo "hate." That's what this Boomer is feeling. There is so much hatred for Boomers here, as well as misinformation, it is worrisome.

11:30 What are you talking about? Where are Boomers taking credit for the Civil Rights movement? Most Boomers give credit where credit is due. The Civil Rights movement was fueled mainly by folks born before 1946. Do themath. Read your history.

A lot of anti-war protesters were not Boomers. Noam Chomsky, anyone? Walter Cronkite became opposed to the war. Pete Seeger. The Smothers Brothers. None are/were Boomers.

If you hate Boomers so much, why not Boycott the whole lot?

Stop using Apple products. Ditto Microsoft. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were/are Boomers. Bill Gates, a Boomer, is one of the biggest philanthropists in history.

Don't see any movies except those made by non-Boomers.

Call every restaurant you like and make sure the chef/owners are not Boomers.

Occupy Wall Street is people by lots of GenXers and Millenials who feel screwed by the system, not out of the goodness of their hates. It's self-interest through and through. What you ascribe to Boomers is human nature.

As for narcissism, another bad rap. It's human nature.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, for those of us who came of age in the 90s and more recently, SAHM + Federal employee = very modest lifestyle purchased at the expense of the possibility of savings. A SFH needing work in Fairfax County might still be a possibility, but it would be at the top of the family's price range and would prohibit energetic saving.

I don't think you realize how much you benefited from relatively cheap housing (compared to income) back in your day. Slow and steady no longer wins any races.

Huh! This makes no sense. There is affordable housing available to all income levels. Interest rates are at an all time Low. When we were starting out, interest rates were upward of 9%. There is wonderful affordable child care. There were very few options in this area when we were starting out. Mothers actually helped each other out!
We did start out slow saving for our future and slow and steady did win the race. I think it would be a good idea to review your family budget and check out your options. If you can't save, you are living above your means.

You know, there really are people who live paycheck to paycheck, who don't have cell phones, cable etc. So if living indoors is considered living above your means, then yes, I suppose there are many many people living above their means. Why don't you get that the people pouring your coffee, changing your mother's diaper, caring for your grandchild, bagging your groceries etc just don't earn that much? Many of these people are college educated and can't find a job in their field but took out student loans and/or worked 2 jobs to put themselves through college because they were promised a degree would garner a bigger paycheck but didn't. It just garnered more debt and the same pay (or less) than they earned before. Not everyone is living above their means, some people just don't have a lot of means to live on. Get it?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The WWII generation is to blame. They put Ss and Medicare into place. They had lots of kids. The boomers did nothing wrong except be born and then decide to have fewer children. It's not their fault that there are so many of them.

Gen Xers we have been voting for 20 years. It's time to stop blaming and take responsibility for our country. We font vote enough and we don't take this issue seriously when we go to vote. We are complaining but acting like victims. It's kind of pathetic really.

Don't be ridiculous. Elections in the United States are pretty much a pure expression of the Id of Baby Boomers. This will be even more true over the next 10-20 years because the retired and elderly vote in even greater numbers than the population as a whole. Finally, when they're dead at the end of that period, our politics will hopefully go through an evolutionary leap.

Of course Baby Boomers aren't to blame for their raw numbers, but whether they're to blame for their epic narcissism and complacency is an open question. Pretty much at every single stage of their lives: whether they were fighting so that only the poor and minorities would be drafted in their teens in the late 60s, or fighting for consequence-free andro-centric sex in their twenties in the 70s, or the elevation of greed to a religion in their thirties in the 80s, or their efforts to pervert Chrstianity into some sort of right-wing self-help parody of itself in their forties in the 90s, to the Teabagging support of the security state in the 2000s, it's one long cluster-fuck that they should rightly be held to account for. The sooner they're off booed off the stage, the better for each of us, for our country, and for the world at large.

Like so often happens in literature, the Greatest Generation gave birth to a prodigal son, and there's no sign of the wisdom that comes with age.

Whose fault is that?? Those damn boomers, always voting. Why can't they slack off like the other generations.

And in your tirade you failed to mention that the boomers protested and got the government out of Vietnam, a war started by the prior generation. It was the backbone of the civil rights movement. Yup, most of those kids getting their heads cracked and hit with water hoses were boomers. And they fought for equal rights of women generally and in the workplace.

Lastly, it seems to me quite ironic to accuse them of greed when this post is all about what they got that we didn't.

The Boomers protested the war to the extent that there was a general draft. In the early years, there were easy deferments, and the war was generally uncontroversial. (Just like Iraq/Iran today). It was only when the draft was made more fair that the anti-war movement got any traction at all.

As far as Civil Rights goes, let's be very clear on one thing: *black* people were the backbone of the Civil Rights movement. There were a very small number of brave, committed whites who contributed, but civil rights victories came from the sheer popular force of unified African Americans and the moral integrity of LBJ.

That Boomers clamored to take credit for the Civil Rights movement retroactively is exactly as if every Boomer claimed to have been a big fan of Hendrix during the 60s. Or to have been at Woodstock. These were a very small segment of the demographic. It's only later (after the heavy lifting was done) that the general population of Boomers picked up the flag.

Boomer policies have essentially fucked up the house their parents built; sure that was driven by greed and short-sighted narcissism. But the critique goes beyond jealousy. Boomers were given the most powerful, richest country in the world, and have put it on the verge of sinking into second-rate power status.

Anonymous wrote:Well, for those of us who came of age in the 90s and more recently, SAHM + Federal employee = very modest lifestyle purchased at the expense of the possibility of savings. A SFH needing work in Fairfax County might still be a possibility, but it would be at the top of the family's price range and would prohibit energetic saving.

I don't think you realize how much you benefited from relatively cheap housing (compared to income) back in your day. Slow and steady no longer wins any races.

Huh! This makes no sense. There is affordable housing available to all income levels. Interest rates are at an all time Low. When we were starting out, interest rates were upward of 9%. There is wonderful affordable child care. There were very few options in this area when we were starting out. Mothers actually helped each other out!
We did start out slow saving for our future and slow and steady did win the race. I think it would be a good idea to review your family budget and check out your options. If you can't save, you are living above your means.