Do you disagree with any of this?

First and foremost, the boomers have broken the most sacred bargain that every American generation will pass a better country on to its children than the one it inherited. The Boomers took the economic equivalent of a full buffet and left the crumbs for everyone else. I'll grant you that certain advantages the Boomers enjoyed were circumstantial so the boomers cannot actually be blamed for them. That said, the overall narrative of what existed before the boomers and what is being passed down now are light years apart, and not always because the circumstances dictated it to be so.

Boomers graduated from high school or college into the strongest economic expansion in the nation's history. They needed less education to find a good job than their children do now and a college education cost the boomers a fraction of what it cost gen-x'ers or millenials. Boomers enjoyed a time when one income was sufficient for a family to get ahead financially. Top marginal tax rates have steadily declined since boomers began entering the work force, with a few exceptions during the 90's, while government retirement benefits have proliferated. At almost every juncture of their lives, boomers chose to delay the costs of those tax cuts and spending hikes until now when it falls at the feet of their children and grandchildren.

The stock market rose twelve-fold from the time the first boomers began working until last year, when the boomers began cashing out their retirements. The growth trend over the past 17 years while I have been in the workforce suggests that the market will double exactly one time before I retire, and chances are that it will be less than that for my children. Boomers will leave the work force far wealthier than their parents did with even more government benefits awaiting them, will be the first generation of retirees to enjoy the medicare prescription drug program and because social security payouts rise faster than price inflation, boomers will draw more generous retirement benefits than their parents did and will do so at their own children and grandchildren's expense. The Urban Institute estimated last year that a couple retiring in 2011, having both earned average wages, will accrue around $200,000 more in Medicare and Social Security benefits over their lifetimes than they paid in taxes to support those programs.

Now let's take a look at what the Boomers are passing along to future generations: Young people are unemployed at record levels, global competition is stronger than ever before but what has been done to prepare new workers for those challenges or what has been done to even prepare our infrastructure to be competitive. Boomers have run up incomes for the very wealthiest Americans, shrunk the middle class, and because of careless borrowing and reckless financial engineering, driven the economy into the worst recession in 80 years. Pew Research Center reports that middle class families today are 5% less wealthy than their parents were at the same point in their lives, adjusting for inflation, even though families today are far more likely to have two wager earners.

Boomers built an economy where young people increasingly had to have a college education to move into the middle class yet Boomers who run state legislatures and private universities have systematically pushed the cost of tuition into the stratosphere. Tuition has risen at twice the rate of inflation. In today's dollars tuition, room and board at a four year public college ran around $6800 in 1967 and it costs about $13,300 today. This price hiking has saddled young workers with more than a trillion dollars in student debt.

Boomers also enjoyed the benefits of dirt-cheap fossil fuels which freed up cash for them to save or spend on things that their children can no longer afford. Because gas was so cheap they burned too much of it and filled the atmosphere with carbon dioxide. The sad part is that they knew what they were doing all along but refused to stop. climate change will cost untold riches for future generations. part of this blame also goes to the GG as they were also poor stewards of the environment but GG also were not as informed about the effects of CO2.

Perhaps the worst sign of neglect from Boomers is the runaway national debt and a gaping federal budget shortfall that their children and grandchildren will have to pay for through higher taxes and reduced benefits. Last year the IMF said that to balance our future receipts and obligations we would have to increase taxes by 35% and reduced benefits by 35%. Now, in fairness, the IMF isn't always that reliable on their figures but to some extent their argument is very true...whether 35% or not, I don't know.

During the 90's it looked for a second like the Boomers might get serious about tackling some of our big challenges but instead of applying budget surpluses to cushion social programs that they knew were going to experience short falls what did they do instead? They gave themselves tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 followed by a prescription drug program that will heavily benefit the boomers when they retire. Why did they do this? I can only assume it was to pad their retirements one last time before retiring and dumping the shit bag they created on the next generation. Do you realize that the CBO said, in a 2004 study, that the tax cuts combined with the medicare part D likely raised the expected tax rate on future generations anywhere from 30% to 55%.

Lastly, Baby Boomers chose the leaders who have paralyzed Washington for the past 30 years. You can stomp your foot all you want, Red, and claim that the nation owes a great deal of gratitude to the Boomers but the facts just do not support it. Boomers are a selfish generation who have been takers, not givers. It is now incumbent upon my generation and those that follow to clean up the mess that Boomers created. As I said before, this does not apply to every single person who was born into the Baby Boomer generation. I am sure that you have lived a financially responsible life as have many others in your generation. But as a whole, as a complete unit, the Boomers have failed the only bar that any generation must clear: did you leave a better American than your parents left you?

 

Red I am a boomer (born in 1952) and have to agree with NC on this. Of course we have been financially successful as we stood on the shoullders of our parents. However we have been short sighted and selfish and rather than fertilizing the field for future generations we have stripped them for our own gain. I don't have figures but look at the schools and other essential services that are required to build a future they are much worse than we took them. Look at the general demeanor of the people it is meaner in every way.
These are the signs of our failure and meanness as a generation.
Your own response is focused on individual accomplishments ...that in itself is a sign of selfishness. What have we accomplished as a generation except to leave our children and grandchildren a big bill and poorer future.

Truely NC's question in the post did we leave a better America than our parents left us is key? The answer, I think not.

 

Also Red our history is a continous march where one generation lays and builds on the foundation of the one before it. Our parents did (they didn't start it) as did their parents all the way back to the first settlers and founding fathers. Every generation until ours has felt the pull of history and the call to make the path better for the next. We explicitly rejected this concept and our children will pay the price.

 

I am a millenial, and I will have to work until I die. That is just the reality I live in. Most of the reason I will never be able to retire is because of the piss poor leadership and governance of the boomers. They kicked the can down the road, and my generation is going to have to deal with it.

 

i finally watched this. there are many things that are not true in it.

republicans were not shellacked. they lost by what, 4 points? basically the nation is half and half.

lower taxes on the rich do in fact help the economy. lower taxes on the rich dont help the rich that much, they help the poor. rich people are rich, they dont care. its the poor people that taxes hurt. even if the taxes are not on them.

maddow is unquestionably the exact same as fox news in terms of partisanship. and that is fine. and they can both deny it, say they are balanced. they are not.

earlier i tried to post a clip from bill maher demonstrating how partisan she is. i messed up because my internet was terrible. i found it:


"you will always take the side of a democrat" - gillespie

maddow has no answer. she is just embarrassed and angry. she wont even admit to liking romneycare, which is essentially obamacare for states, which even maher likes.

"you are not partisan, but you will always be against republicans"



gillespie continues to be critical of the obama adminstration ATF (the atf is terrible under any adminstration), but maddow will not have it, PURELY becasue its obama adminstration.

curiously, maher isnt really partisan in the same sense that maddow is. he is simply wrong on lots of things. maddow is blindly partisa, and a cunt. i can disagree with peple and respect them, maher even. not maddow.

 

She is a cunt.

Never has anything of substance to say. Even Maher said he wasn't partisan.

 

maher likes romneycare. and he is getting worse over time, but maddow is insane.

everything is democrat vs republican with her. take the stupidest people fom the opposing side and taunt them. the same thing fox does. the exact same thing.

the reality is that romney is a fucking prick, i know that. but obama is also a horrible shithead jesus freak liar. either say that, or dont take a side at all if you want to be nonpartisan.