on a federal retirement program that elicited some interesting
comments. It was clear to me that there is already a negative bias
toward the baby boomers. There is an understanding out there that the
boomers are going to be sucking up a great deal of resources in the next
decade or so. Some comments:
We have witnessed the unprecedented lack of fiscal responsibility from the majority "Baby Boomer" voter base.
We've met the enemy, and it is the emerging 'ruling class' pensioners of the Baby Boomer generation.
...get ready for AGE WARFARE
As if on cue, the Congressional Budget Office has thrown out some
numbers to fire up this emotive issue. The CBO report confirmed (to me)
that age warfare is in our future.
CBO looked at all of the scenarios regarding Social Security. They ran a
total of 500 simulations that reflect the different variables of the
puzzle. The analysis assumed that there would be no changes in current
law on SS. The objective of the exercise was to quantify the
probabilities of which generation would most likely not get the benefits
they were (A) paying for, (B) entitled to and (C) expecting.
The results of the CBO analysis is that there is societal/economic
trouble in front of us on this issue. It should come as no surprise to
readers that if you are young, you have a problem. The CBO report
defines which generation(s) will be hurt and by how much. I found their
conclusions to be very troubling.
If you were born in the 1940’s the probability that you will receive
100% of your scheduled benefits is nearly 100%. The people in this age
group will die before SS is forced to make cuts in scheduled benefits.
If you were born in the Sixties things still do not look so bad.
Depending on how long you will live the odds (76+%) are pretty good that
you will get all of your scheduled benefits. However, if you were born
in the Eighties you have a problem. The numbers fall off a cliff if you
are between 30 and 40 years old today. In only 13% of the possible
scenarios you will get what you are currently expecting from SS. If you
were born after 1990 you simply have no statistical chance of getting
what you are paying for. The full CBO report can be found here. This (hard to read) chart is from that report.
Sometime next year the issue of SS will have to come up. It will be
central to the recommendations from the toothless and worthless Fiscal
Commission. The results of that review and the recommendations that will
be made are already know. Payroll taxes will have to rise for both
employers and employees, the age for eligibility will raised for those
under 55 and benefits for that same group will have to reduced. If those
steps are taken the promised benefits to the baby boomers (60+) can be
met.
That can’t possibly work. How can we convince a 30-40 year
old that they should pay much more than any other generation and at the
same time get less back than their predecessors did? The boomers have a
big vote, but not that big. At some point it is inevitable that there
will be a backlash. Laws and tax policy that favor one (minority) age
group over all others have no chance of acceptance. The only question is
when and how badly it will end.
France has been ripping itself apart over a subset of this issue for the
past few weeks. America’s problems are much larger than France. We just
have not confronted ours as yet. In France they are burning cars to
vent their anger. I don’t think it will play out like that in America.
We will not burn cars. We will just grow to hate old people. Cars can be
replaced. The social consequences of age warfare will last a
very long time.
So you're saying that Karma really exists?
Karma should not be confused with Justice.
+1
easy, i'm a boomer and the only reason i bother
to live anymore is for the sake of the next generation.
if it was just about me i would have been gone some
time ago. so, you're welcome. but then again you may rightly
be unappreciative of the results thus far. for that i am sorry.
Exactly. When the time comes I'll be willing to bring this thing down so the more energetic and younger folks out there can build something new. Then they can be blamed for fucking things up for the next generation... and the next... and the next.
And so it goes...
now this is the type of Boomer with whom I can work anytime.
Great post - another example of the screwed up bastards of the screwed up Boomers.
Generational warfare is coming and there will be no winners.
Bastards we are:
"I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off."
You poor baby. Did advertising do this to you? Is it advertising's fault? Or was it television's fault? Did your Boomer Mommy and Daddy teach you to place blame somewhere else other than yourself so your precious self-esteem would not be damaged?
You mean you're really not going to be a millionaire or a rock star?
How sad.
I understand.
Now get to work.
happy to. lead, follow, or get the fuck out of the way. but do not ask us to do your work, too.
IS THIS THE LAND OF HANDOUTS, OR THE LAND OF OPPORTUNITY?
Get "Big Brother" out of everyone's way/pockets, so WE CAN GET TO WORK!
+1
Out of curiousity (and no google'ing it!) do you know who I'm quoting?
And I will be very busy working as there are more important things to do than being a millionaire or rockstar like taking care of you Boomers as you age and combating the global elite.
Dude! Aren't you Tyler Durden?
What is it about you and that picture?
only flirting, apologies if she's your daughter or something.... I think someone above posted about GenXer's only caring about chasing tail. For all I know that's some dude who just posted with a cute chick in his avatar.
Sure, is that a picture of you in your avatar? Let me know if you're ever around 1537 Paper Street in Wilmington, DE
Ida Fuller was the first social security recipient, 1935 or shortly thereafter. She made a few token payments and received $22,000 in benefits, a little under 1 million in Bernankebucks. Comparisons across time and space are at best, rough, but that's about the time my grandfather was buying some of the world's best farm land for $32.50 an acre (with a house in place).
Blame the boomers if you like, but this was pure fraud from the get-go. Rant and rave, or do your homework. Your choice.
They should put her image on a postal stamp - the original SS crook.
I appriciate your anger, but you stepped on your tongue on this post. The original crook.? With your comment you come off as the original punk.
I was hoeing in a victory garden as a little kid during WWII, and was working a 53 hour week when I was 15 and going to high school.
I agree, your generation whatever it is, is getting fucked (my daughter and son are included:36 and 40). But it was not that some how it was prearranged by the people that you direct your anger and thus my defense of this beleagured woman.
By chance of the draw lucky, yes. By some malicious intent, hardly.
Me thinks that there are several more current and vicious criminals about that you need not to go back to 1935 to vent your spleen.
Now I have vented mine I will shut the hell up. Milestones
+1
HOWEVER, Boomers EXPANDED Entitlements exponentially. So, lets not rewrite history you financial morons.
NEVER BEFORE IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND HAVE SO FEW RESOURCES BEEN SQUANDERED BY SO MANY.
...what a legacy to the world American Baby Boomers will leave.
.
Don't know which entitlements you're talking about, but Medicare/Medicaid and the whole great society shit storm were the work of Lyndon Johnson. Most baby boomers were in junior high.
Slandering all boomers is no more or less offensive than slandering all Jews, Blacks, Redheads... As Ayn Rand so wonderfully put it, there is no such thing as society, only individuals.
How about Section 8 Housing, Bush's Prescription Drug Benefits, and Obamacare? Will you at least claim these? ...jeez.
Anyway, I'm mostly just stirring the pot because these old farts get prickly when you poke them with a stick.
i also agree with Ayn Rand's viewpoint on "individuals". This is why I am opposed to "group rights", because all "rights" should fall under those of the individual and nothing more.
It is the Federal Government entitlements that group and label people which, of course, keeps us divided by design. Politicians live off of the feud. When there are no "group benefits" then we can get back to individual liberty.
as far as me being a bigot. save it, dude. if you knew who i was then you would know better. We are all cousins related within 30,000 years. I'm just ranting about some of my older cousins for entertainment more than anything else.
without the Boomers, we would not even be having this conversation!
The system will break down much more quickly than these guys can imagine. Social Security, Federal Disability, Medicare and federal and state public pension systems are putting rapidly more strain on budgets, and revenues are not bouncing back. Private pensions are underfunded.
No matter how retirement is handled financially, in real terms the retired live on redistributed resources created by the working. If the ratio of retired to working increases faster than real economic growth, and it is growing much faster, than either an increasing share of the value created by the working must be redistributed to the retired to main constant living standards for the retired, or the living standards of the retired must decline. It's just math.
This is why, dispite the rapidly rising cost of healthcare, no one wants to outlaw smoking.
Mr. Krasting, people like you, Chris Whalen, Karl Denninger, Dylan Ratigan, the ZEROHEDGE community have a platform. little housewives from DAYTON, OHIO (me) have no say in anything, in fact, in just another few years, the house i paid off will be virtually worthless. I never bargained for my elder years to be like this. Please continue to speak out, you are my hero.
Your house will NOT be worthless to YOU, so long as you maintain it. Look forward to spending a long time (probably the rest of your life) in it.
A great post. Thank you.
I read some of the anti-Boomer rhetoric and my felling is....ah... what hell, I can't help it:
The best way to avoid Age Warfare would be for the Boomers to quietly retreat from any connection, whatsoever, to a public life.
I don't wish them ill, and I certainly don't advocate taking any property from them or anything like that. Just go away.
If you are a Baby Boomer and thinking of running for office…Step off. You had your chance. You blew it: And now you’ll go down as the most pathetic, self-entitled, selfish generation in history.
Make no mistake: It's not simply a case where a few isolated individuals messed it up for the rest of you. I know you'd love nothing more than to say, "It was G.W. Bush's fault! He was just one bad seed!"
No, in 50 years, W. will be as memorable James K. Polk.
But you…you Baby Boomers…textbooks will be written about you. Entire college courses will be devoted to you (if you didn’t already fuck up future generations ability to go to college). And this is not your garden variety fuck up. No, this is A Millennial Fuck Up. This is the Six Sigma of Fuck ups. You don't get these without an entire generation conspiring to a continuous effort of epic failure.
In 300 years, Midas will still have his golden "touch", but there will also be the Boomer Touch added to the lexicon: “The moron who manages to fuck up everything he comes in contact with.”
If da Vinci was resurrected and commissioned to paint a modern-day Last Supper, his fresco would depict the decadence of an older and fatter version of Guns-N-Roses at an all-you-can-eat-buffet.
So...if you are a Baby Boomer commenting on economics, politics, science (yes…you even managed to fuck up science)…go away. And don’t come back unless you are writing some puke-worthy piece on the “true” meaning of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”. [We’re always up for a few laughs.]
Shoot, I would consider allowing a few of them to write for Rolling Stone...as they did make some good music...but they ended up fucking up the music industry too!
My God, Boomers. Your single greatest achievement was managing to fuck up religion, more than it was already fucked! How did you manage that?!?!
I know it’s going to be hard to disregard all the Baby Boomers. There’s several that I like as well.
But it has to be done. No More Boomers! No matter what they say–-ignore them.
Only then can we get about the business of Liberals and Libertarians working together to un-fuck all that this pathetic generation has managed to fuck.
[And if you don't like my language...if you think it's crass and pathetic of me to use "fuck" as a noun, verb and adjective in a single post...if you think this is "fuckly" of me (there's an adverb for you as well)....
It's because the Boomers fucked up our educational system, and in Boomer fashion, they demanded therapy, self-actualization workshops instead of conjugating sentences, and it was in these workshops that I learned in true Boomer fashion to blame everyone else for my fucking shortcomings.]
That was wonderful, thanks for posting it.
Signed: Your 62 year old fellow American. You probably have deserved your sour-grape time in the sun. Now get back to work. Turn off the computer that my generation developed, marketed, and tricked you into buying.
no problem. just end your entitlements. take your $14 Trillion in debt. and i'll even throw in my 20+ years of Social Security payments to give you a very generous send off.
then, go fuck yourself for squandering freedom and leave us alone.
am i making too much sense, Rocky?!
Ya know what? I really don't have a dog in the fight. I've been self-employed all my life and the "insurance" payments have been taken from what I've earned without my permission. It's not like I was given a chance. You know as well as I do that nobody was going to hold elected office who was going to stop the robbery. Didn't matter who I voted for so don't point your finger at me on that one. I'm ready to burn this fucker to the ground and I'll stand by your side any day in that battle. You'll get no generational fighting from me. If we are not in this together then the words are useless. It's not me against you, my friend. We have greater common enemies.
Boy howdy.
word. + 1776.
safe, Rocky. we'll get there.
Clearly the ranting of an overeducated/underemployed malcontent.
I rate it deserving of "two golf claps" for the mental imagery and artful use of colorful language.
any one of us can create a job right now by asking our neighbor if we can pick up trash in his yard for a few bucks. we can call ourselves entrepreneurs!
...of course we've got to get our union card, obey the minimum wage laws, consider the payroll tax, abide by city code at it relates to licensing, etc., etc., etc.
don't you just love freedom?!!
ha, ha. i quite enjoyed that. It must have been therapeutic to write. Yes, this Boomer generation will be compared to the gluttony of ancient Rome. The defiance among Boomers on this message board amazes me. Fess up, you fuckers. Stupid and arrogant is no way to go through life. Then again, you've lost all credibility, so "deny, deny, deny" may better suit your self-delusions.
I love it:
THE "REVERSE" MIDAS TOUCH = "everything that is touched turns to shite." = THE BOOMER TOUCH.
p.s. if this is the Dan Duncan from Central Illinois, then I know you. If not, I wish I did. well put, bud. very entertaining.
Wait, is this 60's?
Great post - says it all.
One fucked up generation calling the fucking kettle black.
Good luck in your fucked up world.
right, in your world Baby Boomers are national heros, and we'd be so much better off if it weren't for their spoilt kids. oh, except, for your kids. the only Gen Xer's who are not spoilt. ...but all the others.
get real, you fucking cunt. we've got a better chance of reasoning with a fence post rather than you. fuck you.
nice pic, dickwad.
Gen-X bankers helped destroy the financial system and the housing market with their creative products. Let's call it even.
...On second thought, it's not even. Destruction is all over the world.
Age war? Class war? Sorry folks the war is over..the elites won.
funny, they all loved us when we were young & consuming, buying cars, buying homes, raising children, spending $$$ on those children, all the dental, school fees, auto insurances paid for our teenagers, they loved it when we gave our teenagers $$$$ to go school clothes shopping (because, after all, our kids didn't have enough $$$ to support themselves, so good ol' Mom&Dad would subsidize them) . we were good enough to buy all the stuff for the past 30 years, NOW, ALL OF A SUDDEN NO ONE LIKES or WANTS US ANYMORE !!! I played the game right, stayed home to raise our children, paid off a home, put money in a bank ....... all for what ! .. all to see that money be lost during the coming hyperinflation (i hear it will be mid-decade for our new currency regime change). THE U.S. GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS & POLICY MAKERS KNEW FOR 40 YEARS THAT THIS DAY WAS COMING & IT IS HERE NOW, WE ARE OLDER. The baby boomers have been betrayed by their own government. I'm scared of starving to death.
Exactly, the Boomers spoiled their children with all those $$$ you mention so that their children would like them and be their friends, and so their self-esteem would not be damaged, and so they could realize their full potential, blah, blah ........................
FAIL
Sorry, linnybee but Steve speaks the truth.
All boomers ever wanted was to be known as bestest friends and the class that had the highest ever recorded SAT scores; the best, the brightest and look at me and look at my kids...what a nice house we have.
Ahhhh. So nice and paid for, I don't even have to be a parent. Cool. :)
Or, as Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam sang:
Admire me, admire my homeAdmire my son, he's my clone
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
This land is mine, this land is free
I'll do what I want but irresponsibly
It's evolution, baby
It's evolution, baby.
More propaganda. Who set up the system? Who profited from it? Who milked it dry? Now that the money is gone who is setting up someone else to take the blame?
They have gotten everyone to look to the government not their families for support. Now all they have to do is turn the generations against each other. Divide and conquer.
If you are ready to throw your elders under the bus for your personal profit, what do you think the next generation will do to you?
our elders were gullible and fell prey to the Wall Street Industrial Complex.
perhaps we could save them if we could save ourselves first. In order to do this, we need to reduce the size of the Federal government, return power to State and local government, end the Federal Reserve Bank, outlaw fractional reserve counterfeiting, and open up our economy to competing currencies including gold and silver.
otherwise, this whole scam will continue to be a house of cards that will only prolong the painful adjustment.
Ever notice the airline instructions for oxygen masks? "Make sure your mask is working before assisting small children or others that cannot help themselves."
Words to live by in all endeavours (buy Gold & Silver!)
It is the later born boomers whom are going to be the ones to lose the most because they will have put the largest amount of money into the system by the time it collapses.
Does anyone here honestly believe that the promises of the current pension/SS systems are going to be honored in 20 years from now?