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> spend the country broke I'm 59. I don't remember doing that. (And are we actually broke?) I do remember voting. Everyone I voted for said one thing to me, an

by a3n 10y ago

> spend the country broke I'm 59. I don't remember doing that. (And are we actually broke?) I do remember voting. Everyone I voted for said one thing to me, and did what they were told by their donors and the MIC. I hope I live long enough to see what the currently upcoming generations get blamed for in their old age.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
badsock 10y ago
If any generation had the power to change things how things ended up today, it was yours. To pick one example: all the supreme court justices who presided over the Citizens United case were appointed during your prime years. If a generation inherits a better world than they leave to their kids, I don't think they get to blame how hard it would have been to have done better. The buck's got to stop somewhere. And having failed to do little but enrich themselves, at the very least your generation can stop talking about lazy and entitled the younger generation is. The hypocrisy is staggering.
- lawpoop 10y ago
  If you're going to blame voters for the Supreme Court nominees of their presidential picks, then it's fair to say that the political class is completely disconnected from the common people. In other words, it's not their fault, but rather the Elites'. Those nominated for the Supreme Court come from a short list of federal judges and other legal wonks. No average voter has any idea of the name of any of these people. Therefore, they cannot be said to be voting on a candidate based on their Supreme Court picks, except in the most liberal/conservative sense. Case in point: Merrick Garland. He was on everyone's short list, including mentions by Republican leaders as a candidate who could be confirmed by the Senate. But the average voted hadn't heard his name before he was nominated by Obama. It's really the political class that sold us out to privatization and globalization. That's where the buck stops. It happened regardless of who was voted in. Both parties were captured, and 3rd parties are not a realistic option in our system. We are /not really/ a democracy.
  - Roboprog 10y ago
    This fall's upcoming presidential election so perfectly illustrates that: which Wall St friendly New Yorker would you like? Both suck? Well, too bad!
    - Roboprog 10y ago
      Note: I still feel it's important to participate in local elections to try to have some counterbalance to the a-holes at the "Imperial" level of government.
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      > This fall's upcoming presidential election so perfectly illustrates that: which Wall St friendly New Yorker would you like? Both suck? To the extent that's true, its the result of major party primary elections and other processes and the decisions voters made in those (including the decision to stay out of them.)
      - Roboprog 10y ago
        FWIW, I did vote in the primary, just not for either of the remaining candidates :-) I can understand that many people did not / would not show up, though. That's a problem...
  - groby_b 10y ago
    > it's not their fault, but rather the Elites'. "Whoever is responsible, it's not me and my friends!" > No average voter has any idea of the name of any of these people. "I would like to not do any research, because taking responsibility is hard" > the average voted hadn't heard his name before he was nominated by Obama. Which is fine. The average voter knew (or should have known) what Obama stood for. What Bush stood for. What Clinton stood for. And so on. They could've then reasonably inferred what kind of judges they'd pick. And by looking at the age of SCOTUS judges, you have a good guess when replacements happens. The only judge where you could've made the case is surprising given who nominated them is Scalia - he tipped a bit further on issues than Reagan. Merrick is right in line with everything Obama ever stood for. Nobody is surprised that Obama would nominate a centrist with slight liberal leanings. The particular name might be unknown, but the choice isn't. > It's really the political class that sold us out to privatization and globalization. That political class didn't come into life fully formed. People voted for them, and shaped the direction of politics. And they're there because of money in politics. Which points us right back at the Supreme court, via Buckley vs. Valeo. (and Citizens United vs. FEC) (Not to mention that many people liked the initial effects of globalization and privatization. It's not like nobody voted for NAFTA, e.g.)
- a3n 10y ago
  > at the very least your generation can stop talking about lazy and entitled the younger generation is That sounds like demonizing a whole anonymous group based on personal perceptions.
- RobertoG 10y ago
  The grandparent didn't say anything about how the younger generations are lazy and entitled. Her/his point was, I think, that, even people in a democracy, have very little control over what policies are followed. And that you will see that happening to you, too.
- bmelton 10y ago
  Because I feel it's necessary to challenge this... > If any generation had the power to change things how things ended up today, it was yours. To pick one example: all the supreme court justices who presided over the Citizens United case were appointed during your prime years. The laws overturned in Citizens United had only been on the books a scant few years, and those laws made exercises of free speech illegal. Whether or not big money in politics is a problem, the Citizens United decision was decided in favor of free speech moreso than in favor of dark money, and it's quite likely that if you voted for the presidents who appointed the majority justices in citizens united that you also voted for the guy whose law was overturned by it. Ergo, casting it as a one-side versus the other form of complicity does not work.
6stringmerc 10y ago
It's a figure of speech. If you take the amount of taxpayer monies spent in questionably necessary war in Iraq (re: genuine threat to US Citizens - not interests - Citizens), toss in a large percentage of predatory student loans ($1T outstanding now), and make healthcare a ticket to insolvency, then yes, functionally speaking, we're broke. I'm just glad in 2008 the entire world felt the monetary swirlie as well, not that it improves the outlook of our species or anything, but purely from self-interest.
fweespeech 10y ago
> I'm 59. I don't remember doing that. (And are we actually broke?) I do remember voting. Everyone I voted for said one thing to me, and did what they were told by their donors and the MIC. You specifically, unlikely. Your generation brought in Reagan. Your generation (along with Gen X) pretty much has run the government since 2000. The great shift to the right was largely your doing and would never have been sustained if your generation wasn't what it was. :/ http://www.people-press.org/2015/04/30/a-different-look-at-generations-and-partisanship/ http://www.people-press.org/2015/04/30/a-different-look-at-g... You brought the country so far to the right your generation actually flipped from R to D. It was truly quite the amazing transformation from relative sanity to batshit crazy. It completely obliterated balance in this country. http://www.vox.com/2016/7/25/12256510/republican-party-trump-avik-roy http://www.vox.com/2016/7/25/12256510/republican-party-trump... > “Goldwater’s nomination in 1964 was a historical disaster for the conservative movement,” Roy tells me, “because for the ensuing decades, it identified Democrats as the party of civil rights and Republicans as the party opposed to civil rights.” For better or worse, your generation and Gen X has to own the shift to the right in this country because you are largely the generations responsible for it. That rightward shift has gutted everything the Millenials depended on to climb economically from schools to infrastructure to rational tax policies.
- 300bps 10y ago
  However, your generation (along with Gen X) brought in Reagan Generation X was under 18 when Reagan was elected.
  - fweespeech 10y ago
    Yeah I could have written that clearer.
  - Roboprog 10y ago
    I was 15. Eventually I realized wen I grew up what a disaster it was for (most of) the country to to reject a former naval officer, engineer, and family business operator in favor of an actor from monkey-movies. As well as allowing Reagan's cohort of clowns to reject Keynesian economics in favor of all this supply side fiction. Great for concentrating wealth, not so great for growing a bigger pie.
bitchypat 10y ago
I guess it depends on how you define broke. Is our debt greater than 100% GDP? Yes is it. Is there any sort of plan to repay that debt in a lifetime? No, not really. A lot of people would consider that broke. Any time there is a budget deficit, there is borrowing. The borrowing is done against future earnings by future taxpayers. Now it seems to me that if money is borrowed and not paid entirely back within a generation, then those who borrowed have essentially stolen wealth from their children and grandchildren.
- thesumofall 10y ago
  But what if the money borrowed was invested in such a way that it will create returns that benefit the next generation? Education and infrastructure would be obvious examples. I'm not saying that this is what happened but borrowing in itself doesn't necessarily inflict any harm on future generations.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > Is our debt greater than 100% GDP? Yes is it. That's (if the unit of analysis is "us", as in the country, rather than the government itself) arguably loosely analogous to one piece of one's personal debt exceeding 100% of annual income, and not at all the definition of being broke. > Is there any sort of plan to repay that debt in a lifetime? No, not really. That's having long-term structural debt, which, again, is nothing like being broke. > A lot of people would consider that broke. I don't really think that's true. The government is neither unable to pay its current obligations (it occasionally approaches choosing not to do so, but is nowhere close to being unable to do so).
- SamReidHughes 10y ago
  Why would being broke have anything to do with the movement of celestial objects?
- paulddraper 10y ago
  If someone makes 100k and has a 110k mortgage, they are broke?
a3n 10y ago
> I hope I live long enough to see what the currently upcoming generations get blamed for in their old age. Actually, if Trump wins, they'll get blamed for Donald Trump. Each and every one of them. :)

by a3n 10y ago

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

badsock 10y ago

If any generation had the power to change things how things ended up today, it was yours. To pick one example: all the supreme court justices who presided over the Citizens United case were appointed during your prime years. If a generation inherits a better world than they leave to their kids, I don't think they get to blame how hard it would have been to have done better. The buck's got to stop somewhere. And having failed to do little but enrich themselves, at the very least your generation can stop talking about lazy and entitled the younger generation is. The hypocrisy is staggering.

lawpoop 10y ago
If you're going to blame voters for the Supreme Court nominees of their presidential picks, then it's fair to say that the political class is completely disconnected from the common people. In other words, it's not their fault, but rather the Elites'. Those nominated for the Supreme Court come from a short list of federal judges and other legal wonks. No average voter has any idea of the name of any of these people. Therefore, they cannot be said to be voting on a candidate based on their Supreme Court picks, except in the most liberal/conservative sense. Case in point: Merrick Garland. He was on everyone's short list, including mentions by Republican leaders as a candidate who could be confirmed by the Senate. But the average voted hadn't heard his name before he was nominated by Obama. It's really the political class that sold us out to privatization and globalization. That's where the buck stops. It happened regardless of who was voted in. Both parties were captured, and 3rd parties are not a realistic option in our system. We are /not really/ a democracy.
- Roboprog 10y ago
  This fall's upcoming presidential election so perfectly illustrates that: which Wall St friendly New Yorker would you like? Both suck? Well, too bad!
  - Roboprog 10y ago
    Note: I still feel it's important to participate in local elections to try to have some counterbalance to the a-holes at the "Imperial" level of government.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > This fall's upcoming presidential election so perfectly illustrates that: which Wall St friendly New Yorker would you like? Both suck? To the extent that's true, its the result of major party primary elections and other processes and the decisions voters made in those (including the decision to stay out of them.)
    - Roboprog 10y ago
      FWIW, I did vote in the primary, just not for either of the remaining candidates :-) I can understand that many people did not / would not show up, though. That's a problem...
- groby_b 10y ago
  > it's not their fault, but rather the Elites'. "Whoever is responsible, it's not me and my friends!" > No average voter has any idea of the name of any of these people. "I would like to not do any research, because taking responsibility is hard" > the average voted hadn't heard his name before he was nominated by Obama. Which is fine. The average voter knew (or should have known) what Obama stood for. What Bush stood for. What Clinton stood for. And so on. They could've then reasonably inferred what kind of judges they'd pick. And by looking at the age of SCOTUS judges, you have a good guess when replacements happens. The only judge where you could've made the case is surprising given who nominated them is Scalia - he tipped a bit further on issues than Reagan. Merrick is right in line with everything Obama ever stood for. Nobody is surprised that Obama would nominate a centrist with slight liberal leanings. The particular name might be unknown, but the choice isn't. > It's really the political class that sold us out to privatization and globalization. That political class didn't come into life fully formed. People voted for them, and shaped the direction of politics. And they're there because of money in politics. Which points us right back at the Supreme court, via Buckley vs. Valeo. (and Citizens United vs. FEC) (Not to mention that many people liked the initial effects of globalization and privatization. It's not like nobody voted for NAFTA, e.g.)
a3n 10y ago
> at the very least your generation can stop talking about lazy and entitled the younger generation is That sounds like demonizing a whole anonymous group based on personal perceptions.
RobertoG 10y ago
The grandparent didn't say anything about how the younger generations are lazy and entitled. Her/his point was, I think, that, even people in a democracy, have very little control over what policies are followed. And that you will see that happening to you, too.
bmelton 10y ago
Because I feel it's necessary to challenge this... > If any generation had the power to change things how things ended up today, it was yours. To pick one example: all the supreme court justices who presided over the Citizens United case were appointed during your prime years. The laws overturned in Citizens United had only been on the books a scant few years, and those laws made exercises of free speech illegal. Whether or not big money in politics is a problem, the Citizens United decision was decided in favor of free speech moreso than in favor of dark money, and it's quite likely that if you voted for the presidents who appointed the majority justices in citizens united that you also voted for the guy whose law was overturned by it. Ergo, casting it as a one-side versus the other form of complicity does not work.

6stringmerc 10y ago

It's a figure of speech. If you take the amount of taxpayer monies spent in questionably necessary war in Iraq (re: genuine threat to US Citizens - not interests - Citizens), toss in a large percentage of predatory student loans ($1T outstanding now), and make healthcare a ticket to insolvency, then yes, functionally speaking, we're broke. I'm just glad in 2008 the entire world felt the monetary swirlie as well, not that it improves the outlook of our species or anything, but purely from self-interest.

fweespeech 10y ago

> I'm 59. I don't remember doing that. (And are we actually broke?) I do remember voting. Everyone I voted for said one thing to me, and did what they were told by their donors and the MIC. You specifically, unlikely. Your generation brought in Reagan. Your generation (along with Gen X) pretty much has run the government since 2000. The great shift to the right was largely your doing and would never have been sustained if your generation wasn't what it was. :/ http://www.people-press.org/2015/04/30/a-different-look-at-generations-and-partisanship/ http://www.people-press.org/2015/04/30/a-different-look-at-g... You brought the country so far to the right your generation actually flipped from R to D. It was truly quite the amazing transformation from relative sanity to batshit crazy. It completely obliterated balance in this country. http://www.vox.com/2016/7/25/12256510/republican-party-trump-avik-roy http://www.vox.com/2016/7/25/12256510/republican-party-trump... > “Goldwater’s nomination in 1964 was a historical disaster for the conservative movement,” Roy tells me, “because for the ensuing decades, it identified Democrats as the party of civil rights and Republicans as the party opposed to civil rights.” For better or worse, your generation and Gen X has to own the shift to the right in this country because you are largely the generations responsible for it. That rightward shift has gutted everything the Millenials depended on to climb economically from schools to infrastructure to rational tax policies.

300bps 10y ago
However, your generation (along with Gen X) brought in Reagan Generation X was under 18 when Reagan was elected.
- fweespeech 10y ago
  Yeah I could have written that clearer.
- Roboprog 10y ago
  I was 15. Eventually I realized wen I grew up what a disaster it was for (most of) the country to to reject a former naval officer, engineer, and family business operator in favor of an actor from monkey-movies. As well as allowing Reagan's cohort of clowns to reject Keynesian economics in favor of all this supply side fiction. Great for concentrating wealth, not so great for growing a bigger pie.

bitchypat 10y ago

I guess it depends on how you define broke. Is our debt greater than 100% GDP? Yes is it. Is there any sort of plan to repay that debt in a lifetime? No, not really. A lot of people would consider that broke. Any time there is a budget deficit, there is borrowing. The borrowing is done against future earnings by future taxpayers. Now it seems to me that if money is borrowed and not paid entirely back within a generation, then those who borrowed have essentially stolen wealth from their children and grandchildren.

thesumofall 10y ago
But what if the money borrowed was invested in such a way that it will create returns that benefit the next generation? Education and infrastructure would be obvious examples. I'm not saying that this is what happened but borrowing in itself doesn't necessarily inflict any harm on future generations.
dragonwriter 10y ago
> Is our debt greater than 100% GDP? Yes is it. That's (if the unit of analysis is "us", as in the country, rather than the government itself) arguably loosely analogous to one piece of one's personal debt exceeding 100% of annual income, and not at all the definition of being broke. > Is there any sort of plan to repay that debt in a lifetime? No, not really. That's having long-term structural debt, which, again, is nothing like being broke. > A lot of people would consider that broke. I don't really think that's true. The government is neither unable to pay its current obligations (it occasionally approaches choosing not to do so, but is nowhere close to being unable to do so).
SamReidHughes 10y ago
Why would being broke have anything to do with the movement of celestial objects?
paulddraper 10y ago
If someone makes 100k and has a 110k mortgage, they are broke?

a3n 10y ago

> I hope I live long enough to see what the currently upcoming generations get blamed for in their old age. Actually, if Trump wins, they'll get blamed for Donald Trump. Each and every one of them. :)