Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Middle-Age Manifesto


Sometimes a song is so glaringly befitting of a situation that to ignore it would be pundit-sacrilege.  (I am well aware that Queen is probably not the choice band of the Boomers, but this is an accessible reference for the reading public, plus it helps me avoid explaining how I know half of the old music that I do.)  We are battling a stagnant, if not receding economy while a large segment of the baby-boom generation is getting ready to retire, poised to plunge a generation of youths into chaos for their own gains.  Melodramatic? Take a look - on average public debt has grown at a faster rate than GDP during the boomers' tenure of the economy - we haven't even isolated consumer debt here!  

Let's start by setting the stage.  Baby-boomers were raised in a strong savings and production economy, but heavily flocked to "make money by doing nothing" fields (we need almost every field that exists today, though the employment ratios could be better).  They decided that they didn't want to have as many children, but instead of saving even some of the not-insignificant extra funds, they took on massive amounts of debt.  The generation leveraged itself to the hilt amassing previously unheard-of levels of consumer credit while lobying for lower taxes to augment their income even more.
Fast forward to today.  Social security/government funded pensions as well as medical expenses are underfunded and this is only projected to worsen.  Boomers are working to manage their debts and prepare for retirement, though with significantly smaller savings rates than will be required to sustain even a portion of their lavish lifestyles.  Often boomers hold jobs that they retain out of seniorty rather than competence, yet they push for more debt and more government spending, while avoiding any of the consequences that their actions have wrought; truly they are an "all for me" generation.

The boomers set themselves up, ignoring the wisdom of their parents(a generation of devout savers), and now want to be coddled, wantonly disregarding the damage they will do to future generations (even if we ignore the damage that's already been done.)  Fair?  Hardly.  And the boomers are setting up my generation to act in the same way because survival will demand it.  Get your act together!  I realize that this is entirely against your nature, and in fact it is your nature that got us into this mess in the first place, but stop prioritizing yourselves over everyone else!  A lot less me and a little more we will go a long way to getting us onside to not legalize "preemptive euthanasia."

How about we make this deal then: if you want my generation to foot the bill for your retirement, get out of the jobs market so we actually have jobs and money with which pay down your fiasco of a debt.  Your other option is to keep employment as is, but lose all sorts of government support.  Baby boomers have been having their cake and eating it too (actually more like eating their cake and a large chunk of ours) for too long, and it isn't right to keep taking food out of the mouths of the youngest generations.