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What nation? Italy, Spain, UK, Germany, Belgium, Greece, Serbia, France, Russia, Japan, you name it. Because of this worldwide rebuilding effort there was an in

by gizmo 10y ago

What nation? Italy, Spain, UK, Germany, Belgium, Greece, Serbia, France, Russia, Japan, you name it. Because of this worldwide rebuilding effort there was an incredible demand for products, construction, and so forth. US industry and exports boomed as a result. The greatest generation in the US had it a lot easier than their peers in Europe, but the economics are intertwined. By focusing exclusively on US prosperity you're missing that. The US prospered in large part _because_ of the miserable rebuilding effort in the rest of the world. WW2 also lasted for 6 years, not 4. As for your claim that boomers are the worst generation in American history, surely you're not suggesting that they're worse than the slave-holding generations? That position is frankly untenable.

logfromblammo 10y ago
Even so, their war actually ended. The Boomers experimented with extended war in Vietnam from about 1961 to around 1973, as the prototype. Gen X got to grow up with the Cold War, as the test type. Now Millennials get the production-model War on Terror, where the enemy is intentionally faceless, so that they can't spoil anything by surrendering, being defeated, or going bankrupt. The bogeyman is dead; fear now the new bogeyman. I think perhaps the concept of continual war has been advanced to conceal the fact that we as a civilization don't really need all hands on deck any more. Governments have been inventing busy work for people, desperately hoping that no one notices that an increasing fraction of the necessary labor is being done by robots, and unskilled laborers have become increasingly superfluous. But the Puritanical, Calvinist, Bradfordian cultural undercurrents in the US frown deeply and disapprovingly on idleness, even as those doing the majority of the frowning and tsk-tsk-ing are now "retired". In the slave-holding generations, the institution of slavery was largely perpetuated by wealthy plantation-owners, as a political minority. Slaves could escape on foot. Nowadays, the student loan debts may not be discharged in bankruptcy, and will follow you to the far ends of the Earth if you run. You generally cannot inhabit a dwelling without steep rent or mortgage debt. You cannot work without making payments into a system that transfers 15% of your earnings to mostly the retired Boomers, through a system that may not even be solvent at the time Gen X starts retiring. Is that worse than slavery? That's a matter of opinion. I think most would say not, but some might say yes sarcastically or as hyperbole in addition to those with a genuine and vehement disdain of Boomers.
- gizmo 10y ago
  Having to pay taxes and being burdened by college debt sucks, but it's not comparable to real actual enslavement. Your excuses why people might make that absurd claim (desire to engine in hyperbole and disdain for the Boomer generation) don't change the fact that slavery is worse. Your post is also bad history. Firstly, a full third of households held enslaved people in the south. Not just the rich elites. Secondly, enslaved people couldn't just run away. Of course some tried but the risk of getting caught was very high and the consequences dire: > The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 strengthened provisions for the recapture of slaves, and offered them no protection in the justice system. Bounty hunters and civilians could lawfully capture escaped slaves in the North, or any other place, using little more than an affidavit, and return them to the Slave master. > Many escaped slaves upon return were to face harsh punishments such as amputation of limbs, whippings, branding, and many other horrible acts (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugitive_slaves_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugitive_slaves_in_the_United_...) Not exactly comparable to the burden of college debt, wouldn't you say?
  - logfromblammo 10y ago
    Interesting choice of statistics, there. Most of that third of all households kept fewer than 10 slaves, if they even had more than just one. The majority of all slaves were held by a relatively small number of households representing the richest people in the South. The history of the Underground Railroad and Caribbean slave rebellions shows that it was, in fact, possible for slaves to escape slavery. Smuggling yourself to Canada won't get you away from Experian et al. But if you had read my post more carefully, you might have noticed that I did say that most people would share the opinion that slavery is worse, and those who did not were probably just doing it for rhetorical effect. It's the same sort of behavior as saying someone is "literally Hitler"--extreme hyperbole.
muninn_ 10y ago
We were discussing the United States in that context, I thought. Hopefully this was clear as I mentioned 4 years duration (1941-1945 versus 1939-1945) and the resulting economic prosperity which was heavily weighted toward the United States.
Grishnakh 10y ago
We're not talking about other countries, the context of the discussion here was clearly about the US, as seen in the reference to Millennial economic troubles which is an issue in the US today. For the US, the war lasted 4 years, not 6. No, slave-holding generations weren't worse, because not everyone owned slaves; that was mostly unique to the South. That's like claiming that Millennials suck because they all love 4x4s and mudding and having lots of guns and are big Trump fans. The US fought a nasty war over that issue because most of the population was not part of the slave-holding class, and even the poor white people in the South didn't own slaves either, only the rich ones, though they suckered the poor ones into fighting for their stupid cause.

by gizmo 10y ago

logfromblammo 10y ago

Even so, their war actually ended. The Boomers experimented with extended war in Vietnam from about 1961 to around 1973, as the prototype. Gen X got to grow up with the Cold War, as the test type. Now Millennials get the production-model War on Terror, where the enemy is intentionally faceless, so that they can't spoil anything by surrendering, being defeated, or going bankrupt. The bogeyman is dead; fear now the new bogeyman. I think perhaps the concept of continual war has been advanced to conceal the fact that we as a civilization don't really need all hands on deck any more. Governments have been inventing busy work for people, desperately hoping that no one notices that an increasing fraction of the necessary labor is being done by robots, and unskilled laborers have become increasingly superfluous. But the Puritanical, Calvinist, Bradfordian cultural undercurrents in the US frown deeply and disapprovingly on idleness, even as those doing the majority of the frowning and tsk-tsk-ing are now "retired". In the slave-holding generations, the institution of slavery was largely perpetuated by wealthy plantation-owners, as a political minority. Slaves could escape on foot. Nowadays, the student loan debts may not be discharged in bankruptcy, and will follow you to the far ends of the Earth if you run. You generally cannot inhabit a dwelling without steep rent or mortgage debt. You cannot work without making payments into a system that transfers 15% of your earnings to mostly the retired Boomers, through a system that may not even be solvent at the time Gen X starts retiring. Is that worse than slavery? That's a matter of opinion. I think most would say not, but some might say yes sarcastically or as hyperbole in addition to those with a genuine and vehement disdain of Boomers.

gizmo 10y ago
Having to pay taxes and being burdened by college debt sucks, but it's not comparable to real actual enslavement. Your excuses why people might make that absurd claim (desire to engine in hyperbole and disdain for the Boomer generation) don't change the fact that slavery is worse. Your post is also bad history. Firstly, a full third of households held enslaved people in the south. Not just the rich elites. Secondly, enslaved people couldn't just run away. Of course some tried but the risk of getting caught was very high and the consequences dire: > The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 strengthened provisions for the recapture of slaves, and offered them no protection in the justice system. Bounty hunters and civilians could lawfully capture escaped slaves in the North, or any other place, using little more than an affidavit, and return them to the Slave master. > Many escaped slaves upon return were to face harsh punishments such as amputation of limbs, whippings, branding, and many other horrible acts (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugitive_slaves_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugitive_slaves_in_the_United_...) Not exactly comparable to the burden of college debt, wouldn't you say?
- logfromblammo 10y ago
  Interesting choice of statistics, there. Most of that third of all households kept fewer than 10 slaves, if they even had more than just one. The majority of all slaves were held by a relatively small number of households representing the richest people in the South. The history of the Underground Railroad and Caribbean slave rebellions shows that it was, in fact, possible for slaves to escape slavery. Smuggling yourself to Canada won't get you away from Experian et al. But if you had read my post more carefully, you might have noticed that I did say that most people would share the opinion that slavery is worse, and those who did not were probably just doing it for rhetorical effect. It's the same sort of behavior as saying someone is "literally Hitler"--extreme hyperbole.

muninn_ 10y ago

We were discussing the United States in that context, I thought. Hopefully this was clear as I mentioned 4 years duration (1941-1945 versus 1939-1945) and the resulting economic prosperity which was heavily weighted toward the United States.

Grishnakh 10y ago

We're not talking about other countries, the context of the discussion here was clearly about the US, as seen in the reference to Millennial economic troubles which is an issue in the US today. For the US, the war lasted 4 years, not 6. No, slave-holding generations weren't worse, because not everyone owned slaves; that was mostly unique to the South. That's like claiming that Millennials suck because they all love 4x4s and mudding and having lots of guns and are big Trump fans. The US fought a nasty war over that issue because most of the population was not part of the slave-holding class, and even the poor white people in the South didn't own slaves either, only the rich ones, though they suckered the poor ones into fighting for their stupid cause.