Debbie,

This article reminds me of another one I read
recently trying to blame "baby boomers" for the
state of the country.

I am assuming since I am almost 60, I fall into the catagory of a "boomer". I do not defend well
but I am going to try to tell you that I DO NOT
agree with you at all. I know too many "boomer"
women who have spent their lives raising children
as single mothers, working 2-3 jobs because their
ex's have gone to younger women...they fall into
that group of men who you think have been emasculated by women.

I also do not think that "2.1" million comes close to the over 70 million who will be retiring soon. I see many women who are beginning to worry about how they will survive soon. They have SHARED their whole lives. The
culture of this country changed while they were
trying to raise their children. They became full time working mothers with jobs and the super
mom syndrome. When talking to these women...
it is NOT they who have been selfish, BUT their
parents...who have not been divorced and who DO NOT understand how hard it is to be a single mother and fulltime employee with part time jobs
also so that your children can have music lessons
and sports and juggling everything else that goes
with it. And trust me, these women HAVE NOT HAD
PARENTS who shared or even tried to help them...just as I have not.

I busted my axx to raise a daughter who is your
age and a set of twin boys. I worked my axx off
to be sure that she had everything she needed.
She now has her PHD because of the "battles" her
mother fought for her...to maintain quality in the
schools, her music, her sports and my lunchtimes
were spent picking her up to take her to the
"proper" daycare.

This article angers me beyond belief. I am now
living with my twin boys in a one bedroom apt.
because of the economic situation in this state...and because yet, again, another ex has
been scooped up into the arms of a young woman
my daughter's age. So who do you blame for that? The movies, what? You review movies.
Do you ever see an actor with a partner his own
age........well, the answer is NO.

You should do more research...there are soon to be millions of poverty striken women in the USA.

Give a little credit (blame?) to Dr Benjamin Spock for the the generation of spoiled sociopaths he helped create with his indulgent ego-centric ideas.

A substantial part of the intergenerational wealth transfer now occurs in the form of the funding of expensive education...not to mention the kind of hard-to-quantify but important help like cthelight describes.

If the parents pay for (1)private school, and (2)tutoring & college admissions consultants, and (3)college, and (4)grad school, then the money spent on these things is not going to be available as part of their estate. Hopefully, the additional earnings of the kids will more than compensate for the reduced inheritance.

A very funny link about Baby Boomers http://tinyurl.com/2u3pbz

I'm usually not one to defend the Boomers. BUT --Let's not forget the confiscatory death tax, which has yet to be repealed permanently. If the government is going to take 50% of everything over a certain amount, why NOT spend it yourself?

At the peak of the Vietnam war the U.S. Army had 1,500,000 men ("Baby boomers"), just at a given time, NOT in total over the course of the war.

2/3 of them volunteered, hence 1,000,000 volunteers, for anyone who wants to leave off draftees. Again these numbers are just for a given time

That is when the U.S.A. had about 180,000,000 population.

And it was for a war that was very unpopular in America, yet they went anyway.

NOW during Iraq/Afghanistan, the U.S. Army has ONLY about 500,000 men, with largely the SAME guys going back to Iraq/Afghanistan OVER and OVER again, and has to offer very HIGH bonuses and FAR HIGHER pay than during Vietnam to even keep at that SMALL 500,000 level.

And the U.S.A. now as about 300,000,000 population.

And Iraq and particularly Afghanistan are NOT as unpopular in America or as drug out yet anyway as Vietnam was.

Debbie, do the math.

I'm now 60. They went their way and I went my way. I always thought we were doing the right thing. They thought of me as a botched Kerry joke and a dreg of society. They have to worry if their money will last until death. We both have work histories of 40 to 50 years. In Nov 04 I was given a nice chunk of change from the government, totally blindsided me and a nice check for the rest of my life. I have a nice apartment in a nice suburb of Philadelphia, a place I never thought I would be able to live in. Worrying about will the money last is a concern we both have. They have to worry, I don't. I am a boomer's tax dollars at work. What do you call that, ironies of ironies?

I don't get it.

If you can broad-brush affluent baby boomers like this, how can you then turn around and criticize a news reporter for broad-brushing Jews?

I'd like to think I grew up in an affluent home. I registered for the draft when I was 18 (it was not being enforced by then) and enrolled in the ROTC when I went to college (until Jimmy Carter got elected and it became apparrent we'd never go to war for any reason.)

I have more than a few friends I grew up with; affluent homes like mine. They stuck it out in the military reserves during the Carter Administration (passed over for active duty commissions while college girls, in some cases, pregnant, got them). As military reservists, they were ripped out of lucrative jobs and businesses in 1990-91 to serve in Desert Storm. They were the baby boom generation, Debbie!

It was the baby-boom generation who provided the cadre of junior officers that led our troops into battle in Operation Desert Storm. I'm pleased to inform you that a lot of them grew up in affluent homes.

As a Xer I couldn't give a flip about inheritance, it's their wasteful spending that I abhor. Not only do they constantly complain about taxes (DocLiberty) but they believe that they are entitled to spend the country bankrupt. They have NEVER forgiven each other for their actions during 'Nam and their derisive politics have hamstrung a nation for a generation. Now in their twilight they demand subsidized healthcare, prescription drugs and an oversized stipend. One third has NO savings and will die impoverished leaving the bill to me and mine.
So the wealthy ones say "I DESERVE IT!!" and the poor ones demand "I DESERVE IT!!", neither take responsibility. But neither believe that they "owe" the system that paved the yellow brick road for them. The greatest generation begot a generation that destroyed every institution in their hubris and then complain that families are dying and the government is broken. They have left us a house divided with no foundation. I for one am tired of their demands and wish them a quiet farewell into that good night..

Amazing..

So lets see, your parents help put you through school, then you're annoyed that they're spending all their cash and you wont get anything? Who is the selfish one here?

Born in 1964, so I'm the very last year of the official 'boomer' or the very first year of the 'Gen X'ers' Parents helped out, but I did most of it myself through work and scholarships.

Saw some of those 'trust fund' kids running about. Never knew what real work was IMHO.

AFAIK my parents can keep whatever they have and spend every last dime of it. Yeah would be nice to have it, but it's not my money.

At either rate, they're gonna need that dough to pay for their medical bills, (due to living longer)

I expect the same of my kids. Sure, I'll be able to toss some $$$$$$$$ their way for college (I hope!?) but the object is not to set them up for life so they dont have to work a day of it.

Here's why it's so darn annoying. It's not that I'm selfish and would prefer to have their money for myself. It's that I'm really ticked off that the Boomers have driven up the prices on everything - yes, even driven up the cost of the education they bought for me - and now their intent is to check out with the money they've gotten because they've exploited every other generation.

Yeah, I even blame the Boomers that were struggling and are struggling, because when the world was in your hands, you let politicans screw around with MY financial future. You let them take money out of SS and never pay it back. You let them let the dollar bubble continue to rise, you accepted bad loans for unaffordable houses instead of renting. You did this. You couldn't rein the buying in, could you? Even broke, you couldn't stop it. Well it doesn't matter if you're broke or not, you broke the system in which we pay what goods are worth to us relative to our salary. You made the price of bread, the price of milk all rise to ridiculous rates.

I don't care about the money so much as I'm pretty sure that the Boomers are just going to continue to flush our economy down the toilet. I don't care about not working. I just want to be able to support myself on $40,000 a year. I want to be able to pay rent and insurance and gas and maybe even groceries.

The "baby boomers" are the EXACT reason why are nation is in such turmoil. The "Its all about ME" generation has hung the future generations out to dry. Its all of us younger generations who are going to be paying for all the baby boomers selfish choices. Let's name some of them out shall we?

1. TRILLION DOLLAR DEBT - I am pretty sure that a lot of us did not vote for the goverment that we now have. Some of us who could vote did vote but we voted for the other guy. The rest of us? We weren't old enough yet. Guess what, most of us young kids will be paying back all this money for the rest of our lives.

2. HOUSING CRISIS/DEBT CRISIS - Most of us now can't get loans or buy a house because of so many older folks buying houses that were will beyond their means and then defaulting on their loans because of the raising interest rate.

3. SOCIAL SECURITY - Does the younger generation get any of this since we also pay into this tax. Not a change and the "baby boomers" don't care either. Its all about "them".

4. JOBS - These so called millionare baby boomers have out sourced our future jobs to other countries just so they could fatten their wallets. Not caring how it would effect the rest of us who need those jobs to survive.

5. CLIMATE/ENVIROMENT - Yeah, not so much done to preserve the land in which they had the luxury to enjoy and grow up in. Do we have that chance? Not so much since they care more about their SUVS and not about cutting back emissions.

6. THE NEW GENERATION - Since the "baby boomers" like to point fingers at how this new younger generation is spoiled...guess who raised them? That's right, the "ALL ABOUT ME baby boomers.

I know not all "baby boomers" are like this. Unfortunately for them they are the minority. Don't be surprised if in a few years there will be a backlash against the older generation. Sad but we younger generations also want a future where we will at least be semi-comfortable and not struggling to survive.

Watch Evan Sayet's video on Modern Liberals.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaE98w1KZ-c

This selfishness is but one facet of a more complicated picture.

Okay...all you lovely children of we
so called baby boomers....WHAT HAVE YOU DONE
LATELY????????hmm. When was the last time
your vote counted? You HAVE been able to vote for
at least 20 years, some of you. Did it make a
difference? I doubt it. Did the government
change? Did you stop a president from starting
a war? Did you stop driving your cars so you would not be dependent on oil? Did you do any of that? Did you help spend the 6 trillion dollars that this country has in debt? Well,
I would not know what a trillion looks like...and
god forbid if I thought I could vote congress members or a president into office who was NOT
a wealthy over entitled creep who knows nothing about the real people of this country. So if
your future votes and attempts at trying to maintain a decent civilization in this country
worked...let me know. hey, just let me know if
you think your votes even counted in this country. What have any of you done lately????

I was born in 1960 which is unfortunately within the baby boom definition ('64 cutoff).

Boomer, hippy - whats the difference?

I make a decent living, faithfully married, raising three kids in a nice house. I live in Northern California, surrounded by old hippies that love to dictate how every one else should live, though are quite content knowing that I pay a massive amount more in taxes than they do, will, or ever have. I can only chaulk this up to self-centered, selfishness. Nimbyism is by definition selfish. I have often thought that the hippies, boomers, etc have all felt such a burning desire to change the world, was really just a journey to promote themselves. It is rarely done with selfless annonymity, but more often it is done in the political spotlight, or for personal gain. Al Gore is a great example. He is working on a cause, but lets see, it has made him rich, given him an oscar, a nobel peace prize, a partner at a VC firm, sits on several corporate boards (Apple)...you see?? Why do you think the boomers are retiring into the most egregious entitlement program in history? Because they care about their kids or grandkids or the greater good? Why is America up to its eyeballs in debt? Why do we have no energy policy -because hippies thought their view of the environment was more important than actually calculating a viable energy plan....ooooooo no nukes! Why? Because of great personal sacrifice with a concern for the future? No. It is me, me, my opinion, my feelings, and me.

And by the way, their are many hippies in suits. W has moments when the selfishness is obvious. Just another hippy.

The irony of the hippy generation is that they now want to continue this torture by living forever. Personally, I am counting the days, waiting to witness the beloved last hippy breath breathed. Then, maybe, my kids will actually be able to unshackle themselves from the legacy of the hippy boat anchor.

Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)

(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)

URL:
Remember me? YesNo

Comments: