Posted on 12/26/2006 3:44:13 PM PST by qam1
Continuing our coverage of the next generation of seniors, this one is for the kids - men and women in their 40s or 50s.
They are our grown children, most of whom have not known privation, economic depression, a world without television or what it was like in a country that was truly at war to save democracy.
In short, it's for a generation with little or no memory of what came before. As my late colleague Lars-Erik Nelson once wrote, few of these people "can imagine why there was ever a need for Social Security, Medicare, the GI Bill, federal wage and hours laws, a federally underwritten welfare program, environmental protection, affirmative action, banking and security regulation, consumer protection and public defenders."
Maybe because this busy, ambitious generation knows little about what life was like before those protective acts of the federal government, there has been only a shrug when these laws have been ignored, weakened or allowed to die. In the past decade or so, the nation seems to have turned again to Calvin Coolidge's nostrum that "the business of America is business."
According to several polls and studies, says AARP's policy director John Rother, many adult Americans younger than 50 have little regard for the federal government and almost no knowledge about its most basic social programs, Social Security and Medicare.
"They are busy with their own lives, and they rarely speak to their parents about their finances to learn how they depend on these programs," Rother told me. "They don't think about these things until they're 64. But they ought to, or these benefits could disappear."
Social Security and Medicare are seen as benefits for "old people" and seem far removed from their lives, says Rother. The men and women of Generation X...........
(Excerpt) Read more at newsday.com ...
And I'm going to type this JUST as slow,the article was a-b-o-u-t how the generations starting with boomers were nothing but spoiled brats who appreciated nothing,only your grandfathers generation and those before a-p-p-r-e-c-i-a-t-e-d what the country gave them and that opinion by Saul Friedman and I guess you is b-u-l-l-s-h-i-t-e !!!
"BTW, before the next time you lecture an X-er who served in the volunteer military about the vaunted patriotism of the Boomers,"
Both your posts do that, a straw dog response. I haven't lectured anyone, much less generation X veterans such as my son that served in the 10th Mt.
" A man who joined up served less time (2 years vs. 3, IIRC) and was far more likely to get into a technical specialty and learn a trade. Also, if one preferred a certain service it was best to volunteer rather than taking a chance. This was especially true of the Air Force and Navy, which received far fewer draftees than the Army and Marines."
The draftee served the shorter time, not the volunteer, and the air force and navy did not draft.
The army and marines have changed their enlistment requirements out of necessity, not because letting 42 year old women in was a publicity stunt.
the only question is whether we'll rationally privatize them now or slamm on the breaks in panic three decades down the road.
Nothing will change anytime soon. Politicians by nature don't have the guts to face up to problems and will continue to avoid a fix until they absolutely have to and even then 90% of their effort will be spent putting blame on the other party.
For someone named after a jedi master, you're thick.
I was not slamming the generations since WWII, I was just saying that WWII generation did not need a draft to get them to go fight Hitler and Tojo. I have nothing bad to say about the patriotism of Boomers, X-ers or Gen-Y.
Thank you. I think the 2 years vs. 3 years was for the army and Marines, and excluded those with tech training.
Thick,do me a favor try to stay on point because whether you meant it or not is irrelevant.The article essentually insulted everybody after the "great generation" and I thought it SUCKED !!!
Does he mean, like we are now? Because we ARE at war to save our democracy. The fighting just hasn't broken out yet.
I'm glad your son served in such a fine unit (my wife served in the AF Weather detachment at Wheeler-Sack on Fort Drum) but if you didn't mean to lecture or condemn you shouldn't have slammed the current generation for being too unpatriotic to sign up. Have your cake or eat it.
The draftee served the shorter time, not the volunteer, and the air force and navy did not draft.
I may have been remembering that wrong, but my point still stands: Both groups faced a situation where they could decide when and where they would serve and followed their self-interest. Given a choice between serving two years at Uncle Sam's whim or three years on my terms, I'd take the second option, and I have no shortage of patriotism. The groups I speak of are a significant percentage of the Boomer men who volunteered and all of the Gen Y men who aren't volunteering now. That doesn't mean the Boomers are an unpatriotic generation, but it sure as heck doesn't mean they were the last patriotic generation.
The army and marines have changed their enlistment requirements out of necessity, not because letting 42 year old women in was a publicity stunt.
I didn't mean she was let in as a publicity stunt (though I see there was almost no other way for you to interpret my poorly written post) but was saying that this publicity event is a poor thing to draw conclusions from. There are lots of reasons that recruiting is difficult, and there are a lot of reasons beside difficult recruiting that the Army has decided to allow older people in.
You haven't made the case that X-ers and Gen-Y lack patriotism. You certinly can't make that case based on the current state of the armed forces. You will call that last statement another "straw dog" argument, but if you aren't comparing militaries to militaries, your argument falls apart.
Um...where did I support the author's slamming of the last three generations, O Enlightened One?
Conflict Population Enrolled Ratio
(millions) (thousands)
Vietnam War 204.9 8,744.0 4.3%
Gulf War 260.0 2,750.0 1.1%
Yes, My HTML Skillz suck. Data from US Census.
Gen-X depending on how you define it is about 1/3 the size of the Baby boom generation, so you have a generation 1/3 the size supporting a military about 1/3rd of the size. So it evens out....
I take back my comment: Military participation rates by generation are actually just about the same between Gen-X and Baby Boomers.
Her kids and grandkids are all employed right now. She is the last living grandparent. My contributions alone are covering her and many other "grandparents" along with lots of slackers who never bothered to study when they had a chance to do so in school. Therein lies the real problem. A large generation of poorly educated persons who won't be able to carry the financial burden that is currently shouldered by the current boomers.
Trillions have been spent on the War on Poverty alone. Call it a draw and stop robbing the American public to redistribute "wealth".
There is no reason that programs like Social Security HAVE to be permanent. Especially now that telethons are held anytime there is a national tragedy. No more need for catastrophic insurance.
"...They are our grown children, most of whom have not known privation, economic depression, a world without television or what it was like in a country that was truly at war to save democracy... "
This writer is what my father used to call a "poor stupid b***tard." We're are involved in a war right now to save not only democracy but the core values of the Western civilization. So perhaps "an awareness of history and the outside world" might want to be included on this writer's list.
Actually, Gen-X is a small generation so no matter how many of us our educated, we will never be able to support the retirement of the boomers....
I'm a Y-er.
Our economy's like a parabola; at the end of the X generation, the economy was down.
Come Gen-Y (and Reagan), it keeps going up!
Thus;
Y = X^2
How that makes sense...I don't know.
It is a straw dog when somebody is pointing out that when we have 300 million people and the smallest military needs in generations, that we are having trouble filling it, and then you switch it to him complaining about the people that are in, or that are recent veterans.
Yes, I am saying the present generations are not patriotic enough to fill the army and marines with enough young men. Soon you will be hearing that the army and marines are desperate to grow by rather large numbers (the army wants maybe 100,000), and then you will hear more about this issue.
Already there is discussion of setting up recruiting offices in foreign countries, and already the military is 14% female and increasing, and already we are taking single moms and 42 year olds in as fresh recruits.
"I may have been remembering that wrong, but my point still stands: Both groups faced a situation where they could decide when and where they would serve and followed their self-interest. Given a choice between serving two years at Uncle Sam's whim or three years on my terms,"
You just don't know much about the draft, or the military.
When I'm discussing this with a 23 year old Sargent, he seems able to figure out that I mean his generation and others of age such as Matt Damon, not him, or anyone else that is in, or tried to get in, or is a veteran.
And that is the insurmountable crux of the matter. Too few people contributing to the ponzi scheme. Illegal aliens won't help the problem either. They cost more in public services than they contribute in taxes and purchasing power in the economy. The only solution is to work until you drop in your tracks. Those of us who have paid a fortune over a lifetime will have to work until the day we die. My parents generation was the last to experience a life long career followed by a comfortably funded retirement.
It was also the first generation to experience that.
'Retirement' is a fluke in human history, not a right....
Not true. See my post above. We are supporting a smaller military with a smaller cohort, but at about the same rate.
The military is 1/3 of the size of Vietnam, but so is our pool of volunteers.
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