Meet the Greedy Grandparents

Slate ^ | Dec. 10, 2003 | Steve Chapman

[Skywalk]

That's an extremely stupid post considering:

1)Your family is YOUR business.
2)If someone spent money up on you, that's THEIR mistake. No one told them to spend themselves out of their retirement to satisfy you.
3)Most people did not spend that much money on their kids. I have never gotten a new car for graduation or my birthday.
4)Besides the fact that not everyone was that much of an "expense" no one is telling old people to die. But why do they think they are entitled to other peoples money?
5)The "elderly" are the richest class in America. They aren't starving or dying.
6)You're an idiot
7)These are not people you are related to. If they had a program that took from you and put into an individual account that paid DIRECTLY for your own parents, then you'd have a point. But the government wastes the money on a huge bureaucracy and a labyrinth of agencies and regs and entitlements.
8)When did FR become home to socialists?

[freedumb2003]

Start a business, pay yourself a meager, subsistence-level salary, and take out most of your earnings in dividends

Have you actually done this? I owned my own business and I remember they hit me up for an equivilant of SSI to put into SSI -- based on gross profits.

But maybe I disremember....

[Mr. Bird]

Sounds familiar. I worked my tail off one summer at the age of 14, only to have Pop take my savings to go buy stuff. Spoiled indeed.

But to be fair: just as many of us young folk weren't showered with riches, there are many responsible Boomers who want the Social Security beast destroyed as much as we do. We should be careful, painting our generational counterparts with broad brushes....

[Joe Hadenuf]

What kinda amazes me is that I personally know of two people that never even cash their social security checks. They don't need to, they have a lot of money, and it goes right into their savings and investment accounts. Maybe they'll pass it down to their kids someday. I don't know. It just seems rather strange as they have deposited these checks for years now....

[wtc911]

You're kidding yourself and seem deeply troubled. The violent ideation that your posts contain indicate that there is much more going on with you than some self-congratulatory sense of outrage over abortion. (btw, how many boomers sat on the Supreme Court and decided on Roe v. Wade?)

Your obvious anger, thirst for revenge (your word) and the violence in your vision for the future of your parents' generation taken with the troubling comic book art on your profile page paint a picture of someone with too heavy an emotional burden. I sincerely hope you work things out.

Good luck.

[cupcakes]

I think that is a big part of it. What do the generations BB's produced feel they have to support. BB's are directly responsible for the state of affairs we live in today. I mean the cultural climate. I am 30 something and my brothers are 20 something. Our parents still use us to fight between them. I nearly passed out after my nasty father said something so horrendous recently. Self-centered, egotistical jerk and I know plenty of others my age who feel the same thing. and for those who think we just hate our elders. Rubbish. I loved my grandparents, all 4 of them. They were wonderful folks who I admired greatly. They had a great devotion to their families that somehow their children did not. I really idolize my now deceased grandparents. I don't see anything in my parents character that even compares.

[freedumb2003]

Memo to Gen X from baby boomers: Get over yourselves. You are least-productive and whiniest generation ever created. A bunch of slacker losers who can't even make their own music (you rhyme-speak or steal, oh excuse me, "cover" or "sample," ours). BB should be very ashamed of having built you.

[Area51]

I Hear you sister. Mine are now blowing about the new 40 grand filth wheel they just purchased with the 35 grand Deisel to haul in and how they had to make a second drive to their 80 foot Pole Barn built to put it in, so they don't damage their new paved drive way. Atlest while they are here, the rest of the time the rest up in their Place in Floriduh!

And then she bitches about how the New Republican Perscription coverage isn't going to cover alot of things.

Greedy old geezers is right! 900 bucks a month, both of them, plus medical coverage. Now Perscriptions. What a gig.

To bad she can't look me straight in the eye, when I tell her she ought to be arrested for stealing from her great grandchildren that aren't even born yet.

I also let her know that when the kids start complaining about the taxes I will show them a picture of Great Grandma and grandpa along with thier paved drive and 80,000 dollar traveling rig. And let them know that is what they will pay taxes for the rest of their lives for.

[thoughtomator]

Yes the genocidal holocaust championed by the boomers, and all the attendant perversion and deviancy ushered in with it, do disturb me.

What troubles you about my amateur cartooning, besides my obvious lack of illustration skills? Are you a supporter of the doctrines I mock - Roe v. Wade, Lawrence v. Texas, and the others cited?

[cupcakes]

I suppose his boomer parents had nothing at all to do now with his attitudes and "emotional burden" did they? Naw, of course not. Nothing new for the self-centered attitude of the boomers though.

Oh and as for abortion. Who was of child bearing age when Roe v Wade passed? Who was the group who would have effected the most pressure because they were of child bearing, free love age and needed their abortions to correct their mistakes? What's that *gasp* BABY BOOMERS!!! I know my grandparents weren't crying for Roe v Wade in the early 70's, but I do know my boomer parents were at least ambivalent. That says a lot about WHY Roe v Wade passed.

[Alberta's Child]

Were you organized as a corporation, or as a sole proprietorship? A sole proprietorship technically doesn't pay any dividends -- so all your income is taxed as income.

In the case of corporate ownership, there may be some regulations that are put in place to restrict how much you can pay yourself in dividends compared to what you pay yourself in salary. You can sometimes get around this by listing family members as shareholders and paying them dividends, too. Just make sure you have little Johnny buy his own school clothes and maybe spring for groceries once a month, if you know what I mean -- it's "his" money, after all.

[Area51]

Memo to Gen X from baby boomers: Get over yourselves. You are least-productive and whiniest generation ever created. A bunch of slacker losers who can't even make their own music (you rhyme-speak or steal, oh excuse me, "cover" or "sample," ours). BB should be very ashamed of having built you.


67 posted on 12/11/2003 1:17:51 PM PST by freedumb2003 (Peace through Strength)
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Keep kicking gramps. But know this. When the choice has to be made between providing for my kids and grandkids versus sending money to a bitter, whining, self centered generation of social parasites their won't be a bit of hesitation to cut you off at the knees.

Don't bitch to me because WE make the hard decisions that HAVE to be made your generation lacked the balls to make.
Or were too busy screwing your neighbors wife and smoking a doobie to notice.

[freedumb2003]

Were you organized as a corporation, or as a sole proprietorship? A sole proprietorship technically doesn't pay any dividends -- so all your income is taxed as income.

In the case of corporate ownership, there may be some regulations that are put in place to restrict how much you can pay yourself in dividends compared to what you pay yourself in salary. You can sometimes get around this by listing family members as shareholders and paying them dividends, too. Just make sure you have little Johnny buy his own school clothes and maybe spring for groceries once a month, if you know what I mean -- it's "his" money, after all.

I had both but it never occured to me to try to reduce my hit there. Good advice for everyone -- thanks

[wtc911]

There seem to be a more than a few kids here who never got over the fact that their mommy and daddy weren't perfect or were too self involved to wipe their noses for them every time they sniffled. Gee, too bad they missed growing up in the fifties when everything was Ozzie and Harriet. Of course, since they can't get over being screwed by the parental lottery, everyone in mommy's club is evil and must pay. Buncha losers. I wonder how long before they start a reparations movement.

[thoughtomator]

Yes I had exactly the same experience... my grandparents were loving, caring, traditional parents who held the care of their children to be their top priority. The spirit of the boomers was the explicit rejection of everything that makes for a happy healthy family - and their children (us) paid a staggering price for it.

But we remember our grandparents, and the way they expressed the love they truly felt for their families. I for one have sworn that I will not bring a child into the world until I am prepared to do as they did. (And I will certainly not bring a child into the world just to kill it off in the womb!)

I think what the boomers don't get about abortion is that it is the ultimate expression of how they view all other human beings - as objects to manipulate or destroy at their pleasure. And that only scratches the surface of the culture of child abuse that is now epidemic - miseducation, drugging active children into submission, the sexualization of children, ignoring the magnitude and seriousness of molestation, and on and on.

[tortoise]

Sorry, this is a sore spot for me. Perhaps I have incredibly greedy parents, but I don't think I'm alone in this.

My parents too, and a scarily high percentage of other Boomer parents that I know. They bleat on about how they "need" this and "need" that, but heaven forbid that they have to spend some of their personal time and resources acquiring those things. It is a total lack of personal responsibility on their parts, and therefore I feel a complete lack of sympathy for the consequences of undisciplined and immature life choices.

As I see it, GenX has a right to be completely unsympathetic to the "plight" of the older generations. While it is starting to be written about, I think that the Boomer and older generations still don't "get" that the younger generations feel this way pretty strongly.

[freedumb2003]

a bitter, whining, self centered generation

I think you have your generations confused sonny. Look in a mirror and look at your posts. Tell me who is "whiny."

For all the ills created by the Baby Boom at least we had ideals. Your generation just had toys.

their [sic] won't be a bit of hesitation to cut you off at the knees.

Quite the chip on your shoulder there, mijo. Shouldn't you be directing your anger at your parents?

[wtc911]

Pull up to the therapy couch...there's room for all you whiners. When I hear children like you and compare them to my own grown kids and their cousins it makes me realize how right we got it.

Good luck.

[freedumb2003]

Buncha losers. I wonder how long before they start a reparations movement.

LOL! Poor little babies are pining for a day that never existed.

[qam1]

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