Bad Boomers

bbsam

Moderator
Staff member
Nothing too shocking here. What I find interesting is how easily the capitalist class gets the average citizen to buy into the notion that less government will lead to their prosperity, as if the Wagner Act, the SSA Act, the GI Bill, Medicare and progressive taxation didn’t create the middle-class to begin with.
I thought it an interesting collaboration of right leaning corporations and left leaning academia/legal in order to build the rationale to limit the individual.
 

vantexan

Well-Known Member
Nothing too shocking here. What I find interesting is how easily the capitalist class gets the average citizen to buy into the notion that less government will lead to their prosperity, as if the Wagner Act, the SSA Act, the GI Bill, Medicare and progressive taxation didn’t create the middle-class to begin with.
Some of that helped, some of that ultimately didn't. Long before those were implemented America was a place being built from the ground up. To prosper all you really had to do was find a need and fill it. Post WWII was the pinnacle of that as we were in a unique position through our factories to fill the world's needs as they rebuilt. Prosperity isn't peanut butter though, you can't spread it evenly. People can work hard, but not everyone is clever enough to figure out a new way to do things and capitalize on it. We can't all be an Edison or a Gates. As some got fabulously rich in our society the focus of our entertainment centered on the kinds of lives they must be living. An influence that many discount but I remember growing up so many older movies stories revolved around the lives of the rich. People could see others doing well and they wanted more for themselves. Unions started demanding more and more. We all know how everything has turned out. This constant push for more in this country, whether by the rich or poor or everyone in between, has lead us here. The takeaway I got from the above article is we can fix it with a much bigger, stronger government that's stripped of outside influences. Big government is a primary reason we're $20 Trillion plus in the hole. What will fix it, if anything can, is an acknowledgement that we don't need 8,000 sq ft homes, or even 4000 sq ft ones. We don't need the latest fashions. We can all live much simpler lives and our striving shouldn't be to make our bank accounts as fat as possible but to make sure everyone has an appropriate amount to eat and a decent roof over their heads. To get illegal drugs completely out of our lives. Eat healthier. It'll near happen. Nor will a big government make the difference because they've already proven that it's another vehicle by which some make themselves wealthy and to keep it going they create dependency. Nor will big corporations make the difference because they are set up to enrich the few at the expense of the many and resentment of that fuels hatred that wants to tear the whole thing apart. In other words don't expect easy answers, just strife. Luckily for some of us we got in when traditional pensions were still available, and are in a time where we can while away hours on these neat little inventions called tablets that connect you to these cool places like Netflix. If there was ever a better time to be poor in the world that must have been something because I can't imagine anything better than this.
 

Old Man Jingles

Rat out of a cage
Fake News---Boomers didn't screw up anything.
Spoken like a boomer.
A 90 year old born in 1930 didn't fight in WWII. Their parents were the Greatest Generation. That being said my father is 81, mother 76. But before laying on the guilt today's 90 year olds are the parents of today's Boomers. They experienced the country's greatest era of prosperity and accumulated wealth. It was in the latter half of the Boomer generation that it became difficult to get raises and keep up with inflation as the economy changed to a service economy and manufacturing moved offshore. So don't tell all of us living paycheck to paycheck for decades how little we've sacrificed.
United States birth rate (births per 1,000 population per year). The Boomer segment for the years 1946 to 1964 is highlighted in red, with birth rates peaking in 1949 and dropping steadily around 1958 reaching pre-war Depression-era levels in 1963
1280px-US_Birth_Rates.svg.png
 

Old Man Jingles

Rat out of a cage
That is a good article of a viewpoint.

Lately, most Americans, regardless of their political leanings, have been asking themselves some version of the same question:
How did we get here?
How did the world’s greatest democracy and economy become a land of crumbling roads, galloping income inequality, bitter polarization and dysfunctional government?

United States birth rate (births per 1,000 population per year). The Boomer segment for the years 1946 to 1964 is highlighted in red, with birth rates peaking in 1949 and dropping steadily around 1958 reaching pre-war Depression-era levels in 1963
1280px-US_Birth_Rates.svg.png
.
.
Obviously, the answer to that question is that we did not get enough sex!
.
.
.
 

vantexan

Well-Known Member
United States birth rate (births per 1,000 population per year). The Boomer segment for the years 1946 to 1964 is highlighted in red, with birth rates peaking in 1949 and dropping steadily around 1958 reaching pre-war Depression-era levels in 1963
1280px-US_Birth_Rates.svg.png
Not sure what you're getting at?
 
Top