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> The Boomers were the beneficiaries of post-war prosperity, but they also decided to steal money from the future to finance their generational party/gravy trai

> The Boomers were the beneficiaries of post-war prosperity, but they also decided to steal money from the future to finance their generational party/gravy train. I hear this a lot, but what exactly do you mean? The real reason we don't have the same great lifestyles our (let's be honest - mostly white, male) parents and grandparents did is because no one can get a good paying factory job right out of high school anymore - an inevitable, global, structural change that no one could've prevented.

hx87 10y ago
It's also because they consistently cut taxes and public investment in infrastructure while passing legislation to inflate the costs of basic life necessities such as housing.
monocasa 10y ago
I'd point to the massive amounts of privatization of what was public infrastructure. If you're into documentaries, I'd really recommend some of Adam Curtis's stuff on the topic; he covers the topics much more completely and eloquently than I. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trap_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trap_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Watched_Over_by_Machines_of_Loving_Grace_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Watched_Over_by_Machines_o...
anigbrowl 10y ago
No - that's an important structural reason, but I dispute your claim that it's the overarching economic factor or that it's entirely out of our control.
logfromblammo 10y ago
I don't know about your family, but 50% of my ancestors were female. What I mean is that as Boomers took control of government and business from the previous generation, they overwhelmingly preferred current consumption over future growth. They preferred to benefit their own generation rather than attempt to improve the lot of future generations. And in many cases, they took on a lot of public debt, spent it for private benefit, and mailed the bill ahead to the year 2030. Then they forgot to build the businesses, infrastructure, and capital investments that are absolutely required to be able to pay not just the interest, but the principal, too. So now we get events like interstate highway bridges collapsing into the Mississippi River. But we can't have that, so instead how about we sell an interstate highway bridge to a private company and let them collect tolls on it? Then maintenance is their problem, right? Oh, and hey, we're driving cities into bankruptcy with the benefits we voted to ourselves, so let's make sure that rather than avoid the bankruptcy by stepping back some of our own foolish economic choices, we instead focus our efforts on making sure they can't discharge those future obligations when the bankruptcy happens. And when retirement benefits finally exceed the productive capacity of all the working people in the nation, the Boomers will mostly be dead already, and the Gen-Xers will be the ones stuck scavenging meals from the garbage while dodging the roving bands of Gen-Z cannibal marauders in their spiky, Mad-Max-style wasteland buggies. It's all just exactly what can go wrong when you have too much democratic leverage in your republic. The Boomers had just enough of a numeric advantage over other generational voting blocs that they got a disproportionately large share of representation. Then they just voted themselves all the cookies out of the cookie jar.

hx87 10y ago

It's also because they consistently cut taxes and public investment in infrastructure while passing legislation to inflate the costs of basic life necessities such as housing.

monocasa 10y ago

I'd point to the massive amounts of privatization of what was public infrastructure. If you're into documentaries, I'd really recommend some of Adam Curtis's stuff on the topic; he covers the topics much more completely and eloquently than I. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trap_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trap_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Watched_Over_by_Machines_of_Loving_Grace_(TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Watched_Over_by_Machines_o...

anigbrowl 10y ago

No - that's an important structural reason, but I dispute your claim that it's the overarching economic factor or that it's entirely out of our control.

logfromblammo 10y ago

I don't know about your family, but 50% of my ancestors were female. What I mean is that as Boomers took control of government and business from the previous generation, they overwhelmingly preferred current consumption over future growth. They preferred to benefit their own generation rather than attempt to improve the lot of future generations. And in many cases, they took on a lot of public debt, spent it for private benefit, and mailed the bill ahead to the year 2030. Then they forgot to build the businesses, infrastructure, and capital investments that are absolutely required to be able to pay not just the interest, but the principal, too. So now we get events like interstate highway bridges collapsing into the Mississippi River. But we can't have that, so instead how about we sell an interstate highway bridge to a private company and let them collect tolls on it? Then maintenance is their problem, right? Oh, and hey, we're driving cities into bankruptcy with the benefits we voted to ourselves, so let's make sure that rather than avoid the bankruptcy by stepping back some of our own foolish economic choices, we instead focus our efforts on making sure they can't discharge those future obligations when the bankruptcy happens. And when retirement benefits finally exceed the productive capacity of all the working people in the nation, the Boomers will mostly be dead already, and the Gen-Xers will be the ones stuck scavenging meals from the garbage while dodging the roving bands of Gen-Z cannibal marauders in their spiky, Mad-Max-style wasteland buggies. It's all just exactly what can go wrong when you have too much democratic leverage in your republic. The Boomers had just enough of a numeric advantage over other generational voting blocs that they got a disproportionately large share of representation. Then they just voted themselves all the cookies out of the cookie jar.