Does the entitlement/welfare/ warfare state benefit the Boomers or the Millenials? Has the massive consumer and government debt accumulated over the last 30 years benefitted the Boomers or the Millenials? Who will vote in massive numbers to keep the status quo? Who didn’t save enough for their retirement so they are not leaving the workforce, keeping young people out of the workforce? Who gets sent to die in wars started and managed by Boomers? During Fourth Turnings the Prophet Generation is supposed to lead and the Hero generation is supposed to follow and do the heavy lifting. Not too much leadership coming from the Prophet generation, just finger pointing, greed and blaming the youth for their own sins. Yes, Boomers have earned their reputation as the Shallowest Generation.
Older generations to the young: Drop dead
The acronym NEET first gained wide exposure last August, when riots blamed on young people “Not in Employment, Education or Training” broke out in London’s Tottenham district. It’s a useful term, particularly with youth unemployment fueling the angst over the European debt crisis.
The NEET rate among those 15 to 24 years of age is 19 percent in Italy, 18 percent in Greece and 17 percent in Spain and Ireland. In the United States, it’s almost 15 percent, according to figures compiled by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Urban development expert Joel Kotkin has another term for this group of young people: “The Screwed Generation.” Writing at his website NewGeography.com, Mr. Kotkin calls these young people “the victims of expansive welfare states and the massive structural debt charged by their parents.”
Mr. Kotkin has a knack for a blunt phrase. In 2004, when he was at Pepperdine University in California, he was hired by the Greater St. Louis Economic Development Council to study how St. Louis could attract young professionals and entrepreneurs. Mr. Kotkin had some useful recommendations, few of which were remembered after he told a Post-Dispatch editorial board meeting, “Your downtown sucks.”
His view of the dim prospects facing today’s young people is rooted not just in NEET numbers, but in studies that show many college graduates are struggling to find full-time employment at a living wage. One study of 444 recent graduates by the Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University showed that only 51 percent of graduates of four-year colleges between 2006 and 2011 had found full-time employment. Twenty percent had gone back to graduate or professional school, but the rest were working part-time or not at all.
Data from the 2010 census show the number of unemployed young people, age 16 to 29, declined 18 percent between 2000 and 2010 to its lowest point since World War II. Nearly 6 million Americans aged 25 to 34 are living with their parents, up 25 percent since 2007. Among families with heads of household younger than 30, the the poverty rate was 37 percent.
Ninety-four percent of them came out of college carrying at least some debt; the median debt load for graduates of public universities was $18,690. It was $24,460 for private university graduates.
It’s not just that companies have been slow to expand, it’s that older workers are staying on the job longer, working at least until full Social Security and Medicaid benefits become available. These are benefits that young people will be taxed for (assuming they get work) but, given long-term budget outlooks, may not be available in 40 years.
And not only are older Americans hogging the jobs and the benefits, they’re voting in large numbers against changing the calculus. Having enjoyed the benefits of post-war prosperity, many older Americans don’t want to pay the debts they’ve incurred, much less preserve benefits, repair the infrastructure or fix global warming.
Screwed is right.
In the 2008 presidential election, record numbers of 18- to 24-year-old voters turned out at the polls. They may not match that 49 percent turnout this year. Their elders vote at rates of up to 70 percent.
It’s easy to understand why America’s NEETs and debt-burdened college graduates would be disenchanted with politics. But they really can’t afford to take the year off.
Maybe this will get The Pessimistic Chemist to comment.
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“Strangling Nazis” This led to the expanse of the Soviet Empire deep into Europe.
“Sinking the Rising Sun” This opened the door for commies to take over China, half of Korea, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.
Side effect: The creation of the military industrial complex and endless 3rd world wars.
Yeah, WW2 was worth it. Nice job, GI generation.
Let’s examine what would have occured if FDR hadn’t fucked with Japan, and Britain didn’t drag us into war with Nazi Germany.
a) We could have stood on the sidelines and enjoyed the spectacle of Germany and the USSR kicking the shit out of each other.
b) There would have been no holocaust since the Nazis would have been able to create a Jewish state in some place such as Madagascar (which one Nazi scholar recommended), then shipped them all to it.
c) There would today be peace in the Middle East, save for their eternal blood and religion feuds.
d) 20 million or so wouldn’t have died.
Yeah, WW2 was worth it.
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Colma
That’s more like it. Your chart and comments, that is
I would submit that the chart’s wild fluctuations in the budget figures during the two Boomer presidents (Obama was born in 1961 and, per Strauss and Howe, is not a Boomer) were due to the fact that many of the entitlement programs, including Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, were starting to explode with recipients of those entitlements. Something that was totally out of the control of Clinton and W.
I agree with you that the GI Generation spoiled the shit out of their kids, who are now totally dominating our failing educational system and other “gimme more” sectors of our society such as labor unions. The Boomer concert at Woodstock in 1969 was widely viewed as a positive event by the liberal media. It should have been a big “Uh, oh.”
Damn, those hooters are huge.
399.
400. I win.
DPZ:
Give me a fucking break with your speculation and endless default to the “I Hate America” Club booo hooo waaah waaah if-only-we-held-hands-and-did-it-in-the-road horse-shit.
So solly, you goose-stepping assmonger. You profess to be some sort of “non-statist” and spout off quotes like:
“b) There would have been no holocaust since the Nazis would have been able to create a Jewish state in some place such as Madagascar (which one Nazi scholar recommended), then shipped them all to it.”
I guess that’s ok when you’re a hater.
Oh, one thing there Einstein: The holocaust included Christians, Gypsies, any and all dissidents and of course, the Jews who you profess “shipping off” to an island is just a great alternative.
You are fucking WEIRD
Colma, books. Discover them.
PS. Fuck off.
SSS: Being a “Big Dog”, this does not apply to you.
The shit flash and DPZ (Zarita) profess is so profoundly strange, I must offer the FACT:
BBES!!!!
I vote for Selma Hayek. Not a boomer…but I digress….
Boomers gonna keep ruining crap ’til they’re dead. Entire cities built for Boomers (Sun City). Is there no end to the madness. Meanwhile, I’ll be sleeping in my Jeep at this rate.
CR, here ya go, chief:
http://history1900s.about.com/od/holocaust/a/madagascarplan.htm
Bonus: It might have required the defeat of France.
I reckon Admin must have gone beddy bye. I was figuring he’d angle for #400 if he was up & around.
500 here we come.
Akanon:
Maybe he’ll let it stay sunken in wordpress purgatory now…
As a boomer what is happening to the young is not just tragic but economically devastating. I was fortunate in that I could retire at 58, in part because I could keep my health coverage and in part because I saved when saving made sense.
One of the more interesting ideas to make available decent jobs for today’s un and underemployed might be to lower the age of eligibility for Medicare. There are a fair number of boomers with paid off homes, decent savings and who might like to retire but whose health insurance is tied to continued employment. Private health coverage when you are over 55 is incredibly expensive. More like a mortgage payment on a McMansion so many work just to keep that medical insurance.
I have seen data that suggests Medicare costs the government about $11,000 per year per recipient but that is for people 65 and older and the big costs are inevitably for those nearing the end of their life. It shouldn’t cost near that for people aged 55-65. Making medicare coverage available for this cohort for say, $300 per month, which is what I pay for my group coverage through my former employer, might induce many to retire. Lett’s be honest too. Most people 55 and older are not as productive as those between 25 and 55 and many of us are paid salaries that have more to do with our seniority than our actual utility to the economy. Getting us out of the full time labor force would benefit the economy by allowing younger workers to move up and apply their energy to our old jobs. Further, young people are of necessity better consumers. I don’t want the latest Iphone. I don’t do apps and I may have bought my last new car last year!
Hangell:
You are brave and civil. Thanks for posting, and you are correct that private insurance for the elderly is incredibly expensive.
I wish there were an easy answer.
Admin
When you wake up and are enjoying your morning coffee, I want you to note that a Tweener Boomer was the first to hit the 400 comment mark, which I believe is a TBP record. Here’s how this wiley old spook got to the finish line.
I laid out a fact-filled, insightful comment to distract Colma and AWD. It worked. Colma slowed down and had to dig out a chart to counter my comments.
Then I posted a pic of Salma Hayek. Again, it worked. AWD was immediately focused on tits and got delayed by reviewing his 500 gigabyte photo collection of Kate Upton. He even stated in comment 398 that “Damn, those hooters are huge.”
I am a friggin’ genius. What’s my prize for this award winning accomplishment?
SSS
As your reward for pushing this thread past 400, I will bestow the honor of Knighthood in the GenX army on you, so you don’t have to be associated with the low down greedy materialistic delusional cowardly Boomer generation any longer.
Your assignment as a Knight in the noble GenX army is to push this thread to 500.
Avalon was complaining last night that this thread is so big, the pictures no longer show up on her iPad.
a) We could have stood on the sidelines and enjoyed the spectacle of Germany and the USSR kicking the shit out of each other.
-Zara
Sounds great, until one considers that the brain-drain from Germany would have overwhelmingly gone to the USSR….
IF the Germans didn’t manage to finally complete that little firecracker called the atom bomb first… How long do you think the “conscience” of their physicists was going to last? How long do you think the Russians would have taken with the brains we took instead?
Let me guess…. You’ll speculate that the Nazis and Commies were really just happy people and would never have developed this terrible power. Stalin was a happy old vodka slurper, Adolf a mindful vegan who just got a little testy on “vitamultin” binges. Unlike the “Evil” Americans in your mind, they would never use these weapons, right?
Idealism is a good thing, but assuming that the war machines wouldn’t have developed just because we stayed out of the fights is folly. It denies the entire history of man. We are VIOLENT beasts. POWER-HUNGRY animals. Addicted to hierarchy. Imperfect, cruel creatures.
Try reading a book where a time traveler goes back to “change things for the better”…. Tell me how the story always turns out.
Shoulda-woulda-couldas are phantasmal.
That entire argument is almost useless in the face of the world’s problems… which are probably bigger than any of us know.
Bottom line: Unintended consequences or not, we better start looking at the big picture. That means giving the younger folk a chance. That means giving a shit about things other than ourselves. Look at the theater of public discourse and what our society is becoming and ask why kids should give a shit right now.
So far, they’re just getting a big fat bill for some farcical dreams….
If that’s all, they may be fortunate.
SSS:
You are a wily mofo.
OMG This thread will not end! Did I mention I love unions LMAO!!!
CR, you are assuming that the USSR would have won. Had Germany been able to exert its’ full force, both armored and aerial, against the USSR, who knows what would have happened? My guess is that it would have exhausted both countries and ended as a draw. My personal opinion is that a German victory would have required Japanese intervention, but that was unlikely to happen since the asswhipping of their infantry-based army by soviet armor in 1939. The japs were scared to death of the soviets. Likewise the soviets were scared of the japs tying up Molotov’s divisions in the east when they were needed in the west. The axis was always a marriage of convienience and not a real alliance. If it were otherwise, Japan would have declared war on the USSR when Hitler invaded it.
I’m torn. Salma? Upton? May I have both?
The crushing of the young is having more consequences than we realize. Just a TINY, MINUTE example…
A recent law has passed stating that only vets can administer prescription strength medications to animals. Unfortunately the US does not have enough large animal vets to take care of its herds. Even more unfortunately, there are little to no up and coming large animal vets, the cost is too damned high (130-150k) and the return is too low (60k a year if you are lucky for a large animal vet).
Thats just one example. A very, very small one.
Earlier AWD linked a graphic depicting the plight of the Millenial generation, the one that states how many are moving back in etc. The entire graphic was entirely true. Its depressing, but to a man/woman every professional I know my age is saddled with mountains of debt and is either living with 4 other people or with their parents.
Underemployed, or completely unemployed. The jobs data is shit, things are getting better. The housing data is shit, things aren’t getting any better.
Salt in an open wound, I’m paying into SS and Medicare and will never see a dime. The issues are numerous.
The nationwide bankruptcy can only last so long, things will have to change. Curtail medicare.
Then give Hospitals the go ahead to turn away patients that don’t deserve their care. If you way 400lbs fuck you. Want care? Fine, we’ll give it to you. Just first sign a document that the hospital has the right to terminate your care if you do not follow a strict fucking weight loss regimen.
Smoker who gets double pneumonia each year? Fuck you. You can have a bed if you sign up for a smoking cessation plan.
Either of them falls off the wagon they get one strike. Fall off again and your ass is on your fucking own.
I’m sick of paying massive amounts of medical bills for SIMPLE things because hospitals are trying to make this shit up from their few paying customers, who just happen to fucking be the middle class.
Actually, I take all of that back. Just write them a morphine prescription, one with endless refills. They’ll OD in 24 hours. Dump them in a mass grave called “Fat Mountain” and we can start rebuilding.
“The jobs data is shit, things aren’t getting any better” – fixt. wtb edit fxn
Yes, PC, they probably would gulp the pills to death.
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And….
….it made it to….
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wake up all, Selma Hayek is on the tonight show tonight……..
she is much more attractive w/o audio….
Admin, I have several patents myself. How many do you have?
I have a patent on a Boomer gas chamber. It has a sign that advertises free shit and unlimited buffet to lure the Boomers in and then we can just press a button. Unfunded liabilities bye bye.
This may help fuel the Boomer hate fire. The Boomers have already kicked the shit out of future generations, “it’s too late, good luck”
From the Baby Boomers, a Big “Screw You”
Americans overwhelmingly say that in general they prefer cutting government spending to paying higher taxes.
A comforting thought, and a bit of a no-brainer. Problem is, as we will see, that these Americans, who more than likely belong to the Baby Boomer generation, haven’t given much thought beyond this sentiment. So, when they’re pressed with specifics, they back off.
Yet their preference for spending cuts, even in programs that benefit them, dissolves when they are presented with specific options related to Medicare and Social Security …
Nearly two-thirds of Americans choose higher payroll taxes for Medicare and Social Security over reduced benefits in either program
Yeah, no kidding. Higher payroll taxes because they’re all reaching retirement age and won’t have to pay those taxes, yet reap the full benefit of those programs.
But given a choice of often-discussed revenue options, they preferred a national sales tax or a limit in the deduction for mortgage interest to a higher gasoline tax or taxing employer-provided health benefits
http://www.labspaces.net/blog/1134/From_the_Baby_Boomers__a_Big__quot_Screw_You_quot_
I have a patent on a world that fucks the independent inventor. Several actually.
Boomers bankrupting Chinese restaurants
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My patented Boomer gas chamber. You enter here. It’s like Hotel California. You never leave.
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Zara
You WW2 scenarios way up above are off the mark.
1. China. That they went commie was baked in the cake when FDR signed the Silver Purchase Act and was buying silver above market rates. China, at that time on a silver-backed currency found themselves in fiscal and monetary strife as a result. The government fell, and voila!
2. The prelude to the MIC was also FDR’s gift that keeps on giving — demonize business and then assist them to cartelize. And then, co-opt for war work. A cunning plan.
There’s more but it’s too late.
Sorry, Admin, but this post will never make it to 500. But maybe that’s just my cynical, engineering attitude speaking.
AKAnon
500 will be a piece of cake as soon as AWD and Colma start provoking flash and Zara again. I’ll drop in and post an insulting picture of a Boomer or government drone to fire everyone up.
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Ever notice how they look like toads? Their jowls are so massive that it pulls their lips downwards in a perpetual grimace, and the way their head merges seamlessly with their shoulders makes it look like their is no neck.
Then of course there is the weird accumulation of back fat, which looks like the ribs on a toad.
SSS:
A genius indeed. I posted some tits then went to bed. But you can take credit if it helps your self esteem.
Great picture John. FSA on display. Only you need about 65 million more people in the picture.
Admin: love the boomer gas chamber.
SSS:
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Admin: I think you’ve already posted every insulting picture known to man. If you haven’t, AWD has. I apologize for statements I made regarding your flag-draped coffins. I was probably a bit over the top and shouldn’t have said what I did. Of course, that doesn’t mean I will ever admit that Boomers caused all of the problems for Millenials and X-boxers. They did not. As for the coffins, I lost personal friends in Vietnam, and for what? Sometimes, late at night after an adult beverage or two, i tend to dwell a bit too much on fallen comrades. You, AWD, and Colma had nothing to do with this, but y’all can still bite me!
ragman
I never take anything personal on TBP. My reference to the Boomers in the coffin post was as the generals sending the millenials to the Middle East for no good purpose. I would never scorn the 58,000 Vietnam soldiers who lost their lives also fighting a war without a clear mission.
Ragman has a little hard time seeing after getting a face full
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but still tries to make nice
I hear wars on abstract thoughts always work out for the best.
Off topic, but this screen is pulled up so I’ll share it here:
http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-5-biggest-pussifications-schools/
Boomer designed programs are turning out useless shits. Then they bitch when the programs that THEY DESIGNED fucking work, and the useless shits hit the real world and are….guess what? Fucking useless.
“You want some more?… Here’s some more….”
-Frank Zappa (Silent Generation) “Dynamo Hum”
Time for a little doom? Only about 50 more to go…..what’s the record for one thread anyway?
The 2012 Index of Dependence on Government, released today, should be a wake-up call for America. Published by The Heritage Foundation for the past 10 years, the Index tracks the growth in government dependence dating back to the early 1960s. This year’s edition shows an alarming trend. Among the most troubling facts:
One in five Americans—the highest in the nation’s history—relies on the federal government for everything from housing, health care, and food stamps to college tuition and retirement assistance. That’s more than 67.3 million Americans who receive subsidies from Washington.
Government dependency jumped 8.1 percent in the past year, with the most assistance going toward housing, health and welfare, and retirement.
The federal government spent more taxpayer dollars than ever before in 2011 to subsidize Americans. The average individual who relies on Washington could receive benefits valued at $32,748, more than the nation’s average disposable personal income ($32,446).
At the same time, nearly half of the U.S. population (49.5 percent) does not pay any federal income taxes.
In the next 25 years, more than 77 million baby boomers will retire. They will begin collecting checks from Social Security, drawing benefits from Medicare, and relying on Medicaid for long-term care.
As of now, 70 percent of the federal government’s budget goes to individual assistance programs, up dramatically in just the past few years. However, research shows that private, community, and charitable aid helps individuals rise from their difficulties with better success than federal government handouts. Plus, local and private aid is often more effectively distributed.
I think the immortal “He should have ducked” thread went to 464 comments.
How much carbonite would it take to freeze 77 million boomers?
How many oxycontins would it take to help 77 million boomers to overdose?
Where would you put 77 million boomer bodies?
How many buffets would it take to get 77 million boomers to eat themselves to death?
How much is it going to cost for 77 million hoverounds and depends undergarments?
Oh, tough shit, it’s all “unfunded” liabilities. Boomers are screwed.Oh, too bad.
A-dubs:
Fuck it. Fuck them.
The chips have been tossed…. they’re going to fall where they may.
I would say cremation but the toxic plume would make China’s look like a dog fart….
Dog farts, old farts, guacamole bean dip farts.
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Send them to a rendering plant. Everybody wins.