6 ms·

Baby Boomers: We had it all, and still do.

76 points by bishnu 15y ago

danielschonfeld 15y ago
Not sure if this was sarcastic or not, but the words are true. Boomers had it and continue to. Whats left for the younger generation is a world of fear and terror, where standing outside of the yellow marked line can and most likely will castrate you.
- guard-of-terra 15y ago
  Where did you notice any sarcasm? The numbers and facts mostly speak for themselves.
- ktizo 15y ago
  Sounds jolly. I guess the best thing to do in this future hellworld is invest in some yellow road paint and a pair of shiny metal underpants. Will there still be ice cream?
schraeds 15y ago
You can have the entitlements, we have a chance to change the world. For all the hippy protests, and idealism, and futurism, that generation did SQUAT.
- karamazov 15y ago
  The problem is how much it'll cost us to pay for those entitlements.
rwmj 15y ago
There's a good book about this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Pinch-Boomers-Childrens-Future/dp/1848872313 http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Pinch-Boomers-Childrens-Future/d... ... by a serving UK cabinet minister (so I guess it didn't do a lot of good).
JonnieCache 15y ago
There's a much more substantial article in esquire about this: http://www.esquire.com/print-this/young-people-in-the-recession-0412?page=all http://www.esquire.com/print-this/young-people-in-the-recess... It was submitted recently but didn't make the front page. If I think about this stuff too much, it makes me want to burn things. It's going to come back to bite the boomers in twenty years when the youth feel absolutely no obligation to support them. I and a lot of my peers are planning to leave our home countries specifically so we don't have to spend a single penny supporting the twilight indolence of that morally vacuous cohort who literally ruined the world for their benefit, after spending their youths supposedly saving it, and their middle ages talking endlessly about how great they are for having done so, all while they carved chunks out of their children's future.
- switch007 15y ago
  Honest question: how have they ruined the world? I understand what baby boomers are, but I don't see how their actions have ruined everything! Was it their action or inaction? Are you referring to a specific subset of them?
  - JonnieCache 15y ago
    I was referring primarily to the wanton exploitation of finite natural resources without regard for the consequences: they know that there will be no consequences because they will be dead. Then there was the entrenchment of the cult of the market into every corner of human thought, the sacrifice of compassion on the altar of misread darwinism and thermonuclear psychosis which now dictates every aspect of existence as a matter of presumed necessity. The deliberate development and adoption of a pseudomathematical framework to justify and rationalise absolute contempt for one's fellow man. Nothing short of the death of enlightenment ideals. I freely admit that I cannot rigorously justify every aspect of my views in the manner that HN usually demands, but IMO pretty much anything that happened in the world during the period of time that the boomers had/have geopolitical, financial and cultural power is fair game to blame them for to some extent. TBH I'm just trying to express how I feel when I think about my future and that of my friends. This probably isn't the best place for it, and so I'll leave it here before I say anything even more ill-thought-out.
wheaties 15y ago
This kind of thing will continue in any government system wherein the current body can borrow large sums of money now to pay for perk's now with little to no consequences now. Eventually someone pays the price but the bet is that someone will be around when the current beneficiary isn't.
- hemancuso 15y ago
  That might be a problem for the NEXT generation, but paying back government debt isn't what is driving the numbers in these articles.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
zzimbler 15y ago
I hope the baby boomers realize that the 20 somethings out there don't give a damn about their entitlements and we'll pick up and move to Africa if we have to because all we need is a solid internet connection.
guard-of-terra 15y ago
Speaking from outside North America: We're hoarding popcorn right now to see if you can figure out this one. (however I've heard some west europe countries are sharing the milder form of the same disease)
- rdl 15y ago
  China is going to have plenty of demographic issues of its own. One-child led to a demographic bulge. Other countries with huge youth populations (Egypt, Iran, Oman) seem to have difficulty with it due to lack of productive economic activity for them, too.
- Locke1689 15y ago
  It seems as though many non-North American countries have much in common with Canada, especially in health care. Why do you think that this article only applies to North America?
  - guard-of-terra 15y ago
    Well, at the moment it doesn't seem to apply to where I live (Russia) - the set of problems is just so different. Not that there are many good things going on here, but anyway: We have an unique, first time in a few centuries, moment when we can sit in the back row and enjoy the entertainment.
ww520 15y ago
Simple fix in two steps. 1. Delink entitlement with inflation. 2. Inflate away. Non-working Boomers with fixed incomes will lose due to inflation. Working late comers will have their earning raised with inflation.
- trevelyan 15y ago
  What a cruel and cynical recommendation! Who cares if Canadian health care costs spike for a number of years as the population gets older and baby boomers require treatment. This the point of having health care. The source of the bitterness many feel towards the baby boomer generation is the perception (rightly or wrongly) that the group as a whole advocates politically hypocritical policies -- not because anyone sane wishes ill of the weak or poor or infirm.
  - ww520 15y ago
    Who had stopped the Boomers when they looted the later generations with their oversized entitlement? The later generations are just trying to get things back to order. There ain't no free lunch.
    - trevelyan 15y ago
      Looted? If you want to argue from a position of fiscal soundness you will have to do much better than suggest Canada adopt the US approach to health care, which provides less coverage at significantly higher rates. Or advocate the intentional debasement of a currency as measure of fiscal sanity. Your proposal leaves the poor much worse off and the rich paying considerably more for health care. The difference in costs buys a lot of lunch.
goodcanadian 15y ago
There seems to be a lack of intelligent conversation on this subject, but this article (despite not being very substantial) hit upon one of my pet peeves, so I'll give it a go. Western society, or at least North American society, has long been set up to the benefit of the boomer generation. That is not terribly surprising as they make up the largest single group. I don't blame them individually or collectively. It is, after all, my parents generation. The real issue, to my mind, is that they still occupy the top positions they they have been occupying since their 20s and 30s. This point of view may not get much sympathy on a forum dedicated to entrepreneurial pursuit, but I feel I have been seriously disadvantaged in my career as there is still a glut of boomers occupying the middle and upper rungs. I have a good job, but it is a limited term position, and I am still at the bottom of the totem pole. I am in my 30s, but I am still considered and treated like a "young person." When is it my turn? This is, of course, part of the reason that I lurk on HN, and that I consider launching a start-up almost on a daily basis.
- WalterBright 15y ago
  I find it strange to reconcile this position with the other oft-repeated position that people over 50 cannot get hired.
  - mojowo11 15y ago
    At the moment, people under 50 can't get hired either.
- Dylanlacey 15y ago
  You might find this supports your argument: http://www.amazon.com/Please-Just-Off-Its-Turn/dp/1864033282 http://www.amazon.com/Please-Just-Off-Its-Turn/dp/1864033282 My partner complained about this as a CTO of an investment company. Dealing with OTHER COMPANIES had them trying to marginalize him because he couldn't possibly be skilled enough. His own boss was often told to replace him by his peers, because he wasn't "Senior" enough to hold the position.
LVB 15y ago
It will be fun getting entitlement changes through with this age distribution: http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-CONGRESS_AGES_1009.html http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-CONGRE...
wavephorm 15y ago
The way the baby boomer generation has raped our society of wealth by piling on debt to be paid by future generations is an abomination. To me, it is concrete proof that democracy doesn't work. How is it possible make things fair in a popularity contest when you're outnumbered? I honestly don't know why everyone under the age of 30 isn't rioting and burning down the system right now. They got dealt a shit hand.
nitrogen 15y ago
(Compared to the protest movement of the Sixties, the Occupy movement is a toothless tiger.) Maybe that's because the Occupy protesters have seen the videos of what happened in more extreme cases to the 60s protesters (not to mention advances in crowd control techniques, like microwave guns, pepper spray, and using LRAD at close range).
jes5199 15y ago
Did she forget Vietnam?

76 points by bishnu 15y ago

Not sure if this was sarcastic or not, but the words are true. Boomers had it and continue to. Whats left for the younger generation is a world of fear and terror, where standing outside of the yellow marked line can and most likely will castrate you.

guard-of-terra 15y ago
Where did you notice any sarcasm? The numbers and facts mostly speak for themselves.
ktizo 15y ago
Sounds jolly. I guess the best thing to do in this future hellworld is invest in some yellow road paint and a pair of shiny metal underpants. Will there still be ice cream?

schraeds 15y ago

You can have the entitlements, we have a chance to change the world. For all the hippy protests, and idealism, and futurism, that generation did SQUAT.

karamazov 15y ago
The problem is how much it'll cost us to pay for those entitlements.

rwmj 15y ago

There's a good book about this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Pinch-Boomers-Childrens-Future/dp/1848872313 http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Pinch-Boomers-Childrens-Future/d... ... by a serving UK cabinet minister (so I guess it didn't do a lot of good).

JonnieCache 15y ago

There's a much more substantial article in esquire about this: http://www.esquire.com/print-this/young-people-in-the-recession-0412?page=all http://www.esquire.com/print-this/young-people-in-the-recess... It was submitted recently but didn't make the front page. If I think about this stuff too much, it makes me want to burn things. It's going to come back to bite the boomers in twenty years when the youth feel absolutely no obligation to support them. I and a lot of my peers are planning to leave our home countries specifically so we don't have to spend a single penny supporting the twilight indolence of that morally vacuous cohort who literally ruined the world for their benefit, after spending their youths supposedly saving it, and their middle ages talking endlessly about how great they are for having done so, all while they carved chunks out of their children's future.

switch007 15y ago
Honest question: how have they ruined the world? I understand what baby boomers are, but I don't see how their actions have ruined everything! Was it their action or inaction? Are you referring to a specific subset of them?
- JonnieCache 15y ago
  I was referring primarily to the wanton exploitation of finite natural resources without regard for the consequences: they know that there will be no consequences because they will be dead. Then there was the entrenchment of the cult of the market into every corner of human thought, the sacrifice of compassion on the altar of misread darwinism and thermonuclear psychosis which now dictates every aspect of existence as a matter of presumed necessity. The deliberate development and adoption of a pseudomathematical framework to justify and rationalise absolute contempt for one's fellow man. Nothing short of the death of enlightenment ideals. I freely admit that I cannot rigorously justify every aspect of my views in the manner that HN usually demands, but IMO pretty much anything that happened in the world during the period of time that the boomers had/have geopolitical, financial and cultural power is fair game to blame them for to some extent. TBH I'm just trying to express how I feel when I think about my future and that of my friends. This probably isn't the best place for it, and so I'll leave it here before I say anything even more ill-thought-out.

wheaties 15y ago

This kind of thing will continue in any government system wherein the current body can borrow large sums of money now to pay for perk's now with little to no consequences now. Eventually someone pays the price but the bet is that someone will be around when the current beneficiary isn't.

hemancuso 15y ago
That might be a problem for the NEXT generation, but paying back government debt isn't what is driving the numbers in these articles.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

zzimbler 15y ago

I hope the baby boomers realize that the 20 somethings out there don't give a damn about their entitlements and we'll pick up and move to Africa if we have to because all we need is a solid internet connection.

guard-of-terra 15y ago

Speaking from outside North America: We're hoarding popcorn right now to see if you can figure out this one. (however I've heard some west europe countries are sharing the milder form of the same disease)

rdl 15y ago
China is going to have plenty of demographic issues of its own. One-child led to a demographic bulge. Other countries with huge youth populations (Egypt, Iran, Oman) seem to have difficulty with it due to lack of productive economic activity for them, too.
Locke1689 15y ago
It seems as though many non-North American countries have much in common with Canada, especially in health care. Why do you think that this article only applies to North America?
- guard-of-terra 15y ago
  Well, at the moment it doesn't seem to apply to where I live (Russia) - the set of problems is just so different. Not that there are many good things going on here, but anyway: We have an unique, first time in a few centuries, moment when we can sit in the back row and enjoy the entertainment.

ww520 15y ago

Simple fix in two steps. 1. Delink entitlement with inflation. 2. Inflate away. Non-working Boomers with fixed incomes will lose due to inflation. Working late comers will have their earning raised with inflation.

trevelyan 15y ago
What a cruel and cynical recommendation! Who cares if Canadian health care costs spike for a number of years as the population gets older and baby boomers require treatment. This the point of having health care. The source of the bitterness many feel towards the baby boomer generation is the perception (rightly or wrongly) that the group as a whole advocates politically hypocritical policies -- not because anyone sane wishes ill of the weak or poor or infirm.
- ww520 15y ago
  Who had stopped the Boomers when they looted the later generations with their oversized entitlement? The later generations are just trying to get things back to order. There ain't no free lunch.
  - trevelyan 15y ago
    Looted? If you want to argue from a position of fiscal soundness you will have to do much better than suggest Canada adopt the US approach to health care, which provides less coverage at significantly higher rates. Or advocate the intentional debasement of a currency as measure of fiscal sanity. Your proposal leaves the poor much worse off and the rich paying considerably more for health care. The difference in costs buys a lot of lunch.

goodcanadian 15y ago

There seems to be a lack of intelligent conversation on this subject, but this article (despite not being very substantial) hit upon one of my pet peeves, so I'll give it a go. Western society, or at least North American society, has long been set up to the benefit of the boomer generation. That is not terribly surprising as they make up the largest single group. I don't blame them individually or collectively. It is, after all, my parents generation. The real issue, to my mind, is that they still occupy the top positions they they have been occupying since their 20s and 30s. This point of view may not get much sympathy on a forum dedicated to entrepreneurial pursuit, but I feel I have been seriously disadvantaged in my career as there is still a glut of boomers occupying the middle and upper rungs. I have a good job, but it is a limited term position, and I am still at the bottom of the totem pole. I am in my 30s, but I am still considered and treated like a "young person." When is it my turn? This is, of course, part of the reason that I lurk on HN, and that I consider launching a start-up almost on a daily basis.

WalterBright 15y ago
I find it strange to reconcile this position with the other oft-repeated position that people over 50 cannot get hired.
- mojowo11 15y ago
  At the moment, people under 50 can't get hired either.
Dylanlacey 15y ago
You might find this supports your argument: http://www.amazon.com/Please-Just-Off-Its-Turn/dp/1864033282 http://www.amazon.com/Please-Just-Off-Its-Turn/dp/1864033282 My partner complained about this as a CTO of an investment company. Dealing with OTHER COMPANIES had them trying to marginalize him because he couldn't possibly be skilled enough. His own boss was often told to replace him by his peers, because he wasn't "Senior" enough to hold the position.

LVB 15y ago

It will be fun getting entitlement changes through with this age distribution: http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-CONGRESS_AGES_1009.html http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-CONGRE...

wavephorm 15y ago

The way the baby boomer generation has raped our society of wealth by piling on debt to be paid by future generations is an abomination. To me, it is concrete proof that democracy doesn't work. How is it possible make things fair in a popularity contest when you're outnumbered? I honestly don't know why everyone under the age of 30 isn't rioting and burning down the system right now. They got dealt a shit hand.

nitrogen 15y ago

(Compared to the protest movement of the Sixties, the Occupy movement is a toothless tiger.) Maybe that's because the Occupy protesters have seen the videos of what happened in more extreme cases to the 60s protesters (not to mention advances in crowd control techniques, like microwave guns, pepper spray, and using LRAD at close range).

jes5199 15y ago

Did she forget Vietnam?