Posted on 01/25/2007 7:12:35 AM PST by qam1
Unless they act, the baby boomer generation has a rendezvous with ignominy.
Two reasons: the bungled prosecution of the present war, and the coming collapse of Medicare and Social Security.
If the boomers — who pretty much run everything now — don’t act, these stunning twin failures will come to define the generation in American history.
Long after the boomers are dust in the wind, historians will ponder: How did this generation of Americans so badly misjudge the threat and screw up the pursuit of their enemies?
They will wonder: How did brainy Bill Clinton, the first boomer president, fail to understand the rising ideological struggle of his time? Even as the Islamists declared their plans and bombed Americans around the world?
After the catastrophe of Sept. 11, 2001, why did George Bush, the second boomer president, stick with a war strategy that led to stalemate abroad and bitter division at home?
How can it be that two Ivy League-educated commanders in chief of the greatest military force the world had ever known, could not quell a fairly small, poorly equipped, force of jihadists who operated on a shoestring budget?
The comparisons to ragtag Germanic tribes staring down the Roman Republic from across the Danube will be irresistible.
If Bush’s latest strategy fails (and I hope it succeeds), he will simply punt the war to another administration.
What, yet another baby boomer president dealing with war? No thanks. Two is enough.
Meanwhile, back home, Medicare and Social Security are set to go broke on the boomers’ watch.
Historians may ponder how a generation so proud of its own social conscience was fairly untroubled to bankrupt the nation’s two most popular social programs and then stick their kids and grandkids with the bill.
The leading edge of the boomer generation is moving into its early 60s. The Grayest Generation will begin retiring by the millions soon.
They will demand their cut of the Social Security fund, which will begin running huge deficits in 10 years. In 33 years, the system will pretty much collapse, according to a 2006 report by the Trustees of Social Security and Medicare.
Fixing Social Security requires one of two measures: a 16 percent payroll tax increase; or a 13 percent reduction of benefits — today.
Otherwise, financial disaster approaches.
All those cute little kids who surrounded Nancy Pelosi on her elevation to Speaker of the House might not feel so warm and fuzzy about the moment when, in 30 years, they realize they are forced to fork over eight or 10 thousand bucks a year to support boomers who didn’t bother saving enough for retirement.
But this pales, compared to Medicare.
Medicare, which pays medical bills for millions of elderly Americans, will go broke in 11 years. Keeping it solvent will require — catch your breath here — an “immediate” 121 percent tax increase or an “immediate” 51 percent cut in services, according to the ’06 trustees report.
Have you heard any baby boomer politician or pundit mention these grim facts? It’s an open secret. We mustn’t tell the Gen Xers.
If the war is lost and nukes spread, and if two vital social programs are allowed to be bankrupted, the baby boomers will be the first generation to see America cease to be a great world power as intergenerational resentment consumes our politics.
Some legacy.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Ping list for the discussion of the politics and social (and sometimes nostalgic) aspects that directly effects Generation Reagan / Generation-X (Those born from 1965-1981) including all the spending previous generations are doing that Gen-X and Y will end up paying for.
Freep mail me to be added or dropped. See my home page for details and previous articles.
They will print more money to pay this or enact mandatory euthanasia.
World power is a function of comparative power, not absolute power.
With all due respect to our demographic and financial problems, our prospects look great compared to our rivals. See EU, Russia, China, Japan. All have much greater problems looming in these same areas.
From Americas 'Greatest Generation'
To Americas 'Most Ungrateful Generation'.
Don't count on any foriegn nations allying
themselves with a Democratic run America
either. With the Democrats again betraying
our friends and allies, what nations would
dare count on us?
I clicked on this thread cause I thought it was going to be about submarines.
Hence most Gen Xers utter loathing of the Baby Boomers.
The Boomers will be remembered as the most selfish, self-centered, self-absorbed, self-important, self-aggrandizing, arrogant, sanctimonious hypocrites the world has ever seen. I wish I'd been born 20 years later so that I could actually enjoy some portion of my life WITHOUT the Boomers around to screw everything up for my generation. As it is, most of them will still be around when I retire... oh wait, I won't be eligible for retirement until I'm at least 72, so maybe some of the Boomers will have died by then.
Standard Disclaimer: I am well aware that not all members of the Boomer generation fit the description above (after all, the Boomers did manage to produce Rush Limbaugh).
Yup. I think the SS wage limit is up to 94 or 97K now, no limit for Medicare. It's a boatload of money with no guarantee of any return. I get furious thinking about how many extra years I'll need to work due to all the earnings the government is taking from me.
Does anyone expect anything positive from a generation named "the Destructive Generation"?
Love and peace brother.
How is it that the so-called "Greatest Generation" are the parents of the baby-boom generation, otherwise to be known as "The Worthless Generation"? The cancerous garbage and drivel of the 60's came from the kids of those who fought WW2. Were they such God-awful parents or what?
"Were they such God-awful parents or what?"
Not my parents, they were great! That's why I am great...
As to social security, he's dead on. The current generation of retirees are simply stealing from the next few generations and when the bill comes due they will be remembered for it harshly, but advance knowledge of that isn't going to change a thing.
"If the boomers — who pretty much run everything now — don’t act, these stunning twin failures will come to define the generation in American history."
They already have, in my opinion, defined themselves for history, for unmitigated greed, arrogance, and pure, unadulterated nonsense.
The rise of the Boomer has led us to:
massive debt that will take generations just to service the interest let alone the principle
complete and utter corruption of our legal system and politics
the complete and utter splintering and polarization of American politics
the complete destruction and corruption of education
the destruction of American industry and the middle class
the destruction of morality and honor in American society
fought for and enabled generations of people living off the taxes of others, let the poor and criminal from other countries invade and overwhelm ours.
Created a nanny state where they have corrupted our very language with PC ridiculousness and taken our rights away in the name of children and "the common good"
Stripped us slowly of the rights the Constitution stated wer bestowed upon us by God, that man could not take away, and the slow erosion of more of our rights to live free and to pursue happiness.
This has all happened on their watch, or is happening, and they show no interest, courage nor ability to change ANY of it.
Day by day I gorw more resentful of the generation that precedes me, as I watch our country go further and further into the abyss, and they continue to tax us to death and spend like drunken sailors, and strip our rights away, all teh while acting like children calling each other names in the schoolyard. I'm fed up and sick of people like Pelosi and Hillary, who only seek to destroy, not build, I'm tired of politicians in general with their lies and shady deals and complete ignorance of how their actions or inaction effects us working schlubs every day, I don't care what Donald Trump and Rosie O'donnel think about each other (like it matters!), I'm tired of being told Mexican nationals have ANY rights in my country, and I have less, I'm tired of not knowing how to refer to someone, or say the wrong thing and get hammered by the PC police...
I want out, or I want change. We started a revolution for far less, but I don't know it that's the answer. I'm just starting to not like this country much anymore, but there's really nowhere that's better. I have no faith in politicians, judges, or juries. It's all out of whack.
And I'm not the only one that feels that way. Most people I know my age feel unfranchised and ripped off.
Our parents did great things, but those things are overshadowed by the greed and corruption and BS that we face every day.
Something has to give. Some have turned to liberals, only to find insanity and unstable people. Some like me turned to conservatism and the GOP, only to be let down time and time again. Green Party? Libertarian? They have some good ideas, but both parties are infected with the moonbat syndrome.
I try to be optimistic, but it's getting harder and harder to not be pessimistic. I've watched the entire country get turned upside down in my lifetime, and I can't find my country anymore. I try to roll with the changes...but I don't like this new country thats been foisted off on me much.
Is there any hope?
Liberal Boomers are primarily short-sighted. It's one thing to be a self-centered, greedy, corrupt SOB, but it's another to destroy the seed corn that these morons have to rely on come the future.
By their corrosive and destructive reign, they've pretty much guaranteed that future generations will not have the societal stability, means nor motivation to support them after they've finished their stint at the pig trough.
And as for "brainy" Clinton and other would-be Einsteins, I have to say - it takes a high degree of "intellectualism" to generate the intricate networks of obfuscations and delusions that have so effectively obscured the blatantly friggin' obvious in their oh-so "refined" minds.
boomers just want to raise taxes (and feed the pyramid scheme) on the kids and grandkids generations so they can "get their entitlements"
What the writer also fails to mention is the declining birth rates in developed countries and the long term impact that is having on societies. In our country we are close to keeping pace but we are mortgaging the future by continuing to promise benefits that have not been accounted for.
His efforts to tie Boomers to the Iraq war are pathetic though...
Our dependence and reliance on government began to increase in 1932 and continued to do so until about 1995 (while the grandparents and parents of Boomers were "in charge"), after which that trend at least abated some.
Buckley began the modern conservative movement in the 50's when the dominant ideology of our intellectual and cultural elites was darn close to Marxist. Today the views expressed in the National Review are shared by many and Marxism has pretty much been relegated to a few aging academics.
The evangelical movement, which has revitalized Protestant Christianity in this country, is largely composed of Boomers and their children.
The middle class has not been destroyed. Kennedy was right. A rising tide has lifted all boats. Median (not average) household net worth adjusted for inflation is dramatically higher today than it was in 1950. Many of the "poor" of today live in a manner which would have been considered middle class in the 50's and 60's.
My two teenage daughters have career opportunities that my girlfriends in the 60's could only dream about.
Our political reluctance to reform Social Security and Medicare (it's not that difficult; just increase the eligibilty age to reflect longer lifespans) is not to be blamed on Boomers. It was the Greatest Generation that turned entitlement reform into the third rail of American politics.
Our environment, while sustaining many more people, is dramatically cleaner than it was in the 60's.
We do have corruption in government, but we always have. It's sort of in the nature of government to be corrupt; and it's hard to argue that the problem is worse now than it was in other periods of American history.
The average American worker is much more productive today than he was 40 years ago.
Life spans and the productive life spans continue to increase.
I'm not saying that we don't have problems or that the Boomer generation is not the principal source of some of those problems. I'm just saying that, measured in a lot of ways, the United States is wealthier, stonger, healthier, and more productive than it has ever been; and Boomers deserve at least some of the credit for that progress.
"My two teenage daughters have career opportunities that my girlfriends in the 60's could only dream about."
Remember, some social conservatives won't see that as necessarily a GOOD thing. ;-D
You are correct, the boomers actually brought a halt to the race to hell, of the previous generations, now the fight is on to roll back some of that destruction by the "greatest generation".
I look at the 1930s to the 1970s as the dark ages for America, a dark ages that we will never recover from.
Besides turning us into a socialist country, the WWII generation did something that cannot be removed, and that determines our future, they wrote the 1965 immigration act, to replace the American people.
If you follow the logic to abortion, it is the right of the woman to decide, our Government will enact euthenasia in the next 10 years. It will run something like "Logans Run" when you hit a pre-determined age (80), you will be required to report to a termination facility.
When I hit senior citizen status (65) and the Government tries this foolish idea, there will be a lot of body bags to be filled. I am an expert shot with both a pistol and high powered rifle. Before I "volunteer" for any termination of my bodily functions, they will have to come with force.
How can it be that two Ivy League-educated commanders in chief of the greatest military force the world had ever known, could not quell a fairly small, poorly equipped, force of jihadists who operated on a shoestring budget?
Uh, because the entire premise is flawed, that they aren't operating on a "shoestring budget" but enjoy state-level support in terms of funding, logistics, training, and sanctuary. That is, after all, what this is all about, and anyone who doesn't understand that hasn't been paying attention.
This sort of stuff is the tedious whining of someone whose principal fear is not that the Boomers have hogged it all for themselves, but that he won't be able to hog it all for himself when his turn comes. Which makes him better than those he accuses precisely how? Color me unimpressed.
I was ready to dismiss his arguments until I saw the author. He's a good reporter who isn't afraid to write as he sees it. And he's a conservative. He makes some good points, even similar to what the president made in his SOTU speech. I don't agree with his tying Boomers to the war, but he said he wants it to succeed which is much more than most of his colleagues can say.
__________________________________________
Nope, might as well shoot yourself.
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We can also thank them for Viet Nam and abortion on demand.
I'm proud to be one of the "boomer" generation. As a decendent of the "greatest" generation I was brought up on the American dream, that if you work hard, get as much education as you can, then almost all things are possible. America was the leading the world with manufactured goods produced by hard working people who earned a living wage with only one purpose in life, to make a better life than the parents before them had.
I did not invent Social Security, but was told by my government that the "trust fund" existed as a cushion so people, as they became elderly, wouldn't have to worry as much about money.
During the past ten years or so, everything I learned about this country has been just bull@!&t! Downsizing, global economy, anything for a buck. Social Security for illegal aliens. I doubt that any "gen Xer" playing ps3 in mom"s basement has any answers either!!!!!!!!!
I think boomers are getting a lot of the blame for these messes just because they were coming of age when the decisions were being made. No one seems to want to blame the "greatest generation", but they were responsible for abortion, social security, vietnam and the rise of terrorism.
Sure, boomers were responsible for not having the guts to confront these problems when they became too obvious to hide anymore, but I haven't seen any generation that came after boomers be any more willing to confront them either. Don't forget it was a boomer president who had the guts to even mention social security reform, let alone put it on the table for discussion. According to this article, boomers haven't even begun retiring yet, yet we're blamed for breaking the system?
Don't get me wrong, I have enormous respect for the "greatest generation", but that doesn't absolve them of guilt in starting these problems in the first place.
And as for the gen Xers, sitting in their high and mighty towers, bitching because boomers didn't save for their own retirement, that's a crock. Xers have had a heck of a lot more options for saving than any generation before. Boomers didn't have the opportunity to enter into the job market at 20 or 21 and have 401k options. Most boomers worked to support their families, leaving little left over for saving. We were told, by the "greatest generation" not to worry about retirement, they had it taken care of...and to prove it they took our money before we had the chance to invest it or save it on our own.
Before people complain about all the harm boomers have done, maybe they should take a trip back in history to see what confronted a coming of age boomer, and compare it to what confronted the next generations.
sorry for the rant :)
"a generation so proud of its own social conscience"
Anybody with a brain knows this is a BS myth made up to quell the conscience or the self absorbed.
"I think boomers are getting a lot of the blame for these messes just because they were coming of age when the decisions were being made."
By making it about the "boomer generation", the "60s", the "summer of love" etc., it makes it all seem inevitable, a sign of modern America, a revolution brought on by the young.
The strategy by the left is effective, it keeps us away from examining when fascism, and communism were sweeping the globe (including America), and we had an American president that threw out tradition, and won 4 elections and thank God, finally died to end his reign in office.
The strategy keeps us from examining the intense losing battles of the 50s, to defeat communisms gains in America.
During the decades of 1930 to about 1975, the left was mostly unstoppable and that was when the bulk of the damage was done, that was when the bulk of the legislative, and institutional damage was done.
As bad as things are from 1975 to the present, the period when boomers started voting and participating, things have been less destructive than the root causes which originated in those earlier decades.
Reading this I'm reminded of Louis XV of France, who, though aware his country was heading toward economic disaster, remarked, "Apres moi le deluge." (After me comes the flood.) He knew the Revolution was coming, but not till after his lifetime. And, he knew he was powerless to stop it, but not going to be affected directly by it anyway.
I imagine this is the attitude of many Boomers, who probably don't care about the impending crises. As long as they're not around, anyway, even though they helped cause it.
I am appalled by the absolute lack of leadership among what pass for leaders in my generation. The tactics they learned about enforcing conformity in dissent in the 60's has led to the enforcement of conformity ever since. Just watch Hillary to see how it is done. This is the generation that got ahead, ultimately, by going along.
I am at the bottom end of the baby boom generation, and let me tell you, looking up from my position it does not look a whole lot better. I went overseas for 3 years in the Navy in the 70's and came back to a country I did not recognize. All the pay I had scrimped and saved for graduate school was worthless. Inflation made rich those who had borrowed to the hilt and "invested" in real estate. Volker's dose of reality was short lived as Greenspan turned on the money spigot again, and has left it on ever since, rewarding those who owned assets over those who worked, studied and saved.
The reason you should feel ripped off is because you have been ripped off.
"First, boomers started to participate in the mid 60's, not the mid 70's.
Yes the very oldest boomer first voted in 1967, and the WWII generation will probably make their last vote in the the 2040s, but the participation, and level of leadership at those extremes is pretty weak.
""The tactics they learned about enforcing conformity in dissent in the 60's has led to the enforcement of conformity ever since. Just watch Hillary to see how it is done. This is the generation that got ahead, ultimately, by going along.""
If you look at conformity in 1965 versus now, now is much less conformist. In 1965 the left owned it all ABC,NBC,CBS,PBS, now we have Fox, and talk radio, and conservative magazines and books.
We even held the Congress and Senate until this last election, in 1965 Republicans were not very powerful at all.
Preach it brother!
I'm 32 years old. I have utter contempt for the baby boomers. They are the ruin of everything. If it were up to me, they wouldn't get two cents in entitlements.
Right, Boomers had pension plans too.
Most boomers worked to support their families, leaving little left over for saving.
We are also working to support our families, and knowing that many of us will have no pension available, some of us are saving in retirement plans as well. Not nearly as many people are saving as necessary, but that's true all over.
We were told, by the "greatest generation" not to worry about retirement, they had it taken care of...and to prove it they took our money before we had the chance to invest it or save it on our own.
Haven't we Gen X-ers been told the same thing? They take our money, just like they take yours. Unfortunately, we'll probably not see any of it. You likely will.
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