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.
20 years? That's optimistic.
I'M FROM 76 BITCHEZ!!! NO GIVE ME WHAT IS MINE!!!
The antidote to 1984 = 1776
+1
Lets see - 30 somethings also voted in , what , the last two elections . Bush twice , Obama once . They had a say - they "didn't chose wisely" . Now the crying towel gets passed to them . The fraudsters that I quit voting for after Ronald Rayguns have systemically robbed the Social Security trust and replaced with empty boxes ( full of IOU's ) just like the MBS tranches - empty boxes . We have had no REAL choice in elections since Kennedy . That is not my fault. The "system" offered nothing else, nor heeded thwe still small voices that screamed fraud . SS. has been robbed by those much more powerful than the colective "us". Now they are going to rob what is left from ALL THE GENERATIONS left standing . from cradle to grave they will rob you and me . Can't have a slave state if masses have financial power and security - even if that security is 600 to a 1000 dollars a month - chump change - I could live on it . You Boomer haters would blow through it in a day .
Idiot! I'm 31 and wisely voted against Bush both elections and for Obama. I realized that the US was stupid.....and voted Obama because I knew my unemployment stint would be longer in duration with him in office! Man, I made a good decision!
The age warefare has already begun with the new health care bill and estate taxes. Now, the government can pull the plug on you with one hand, and take your estate with the other.
The new health care law prevents you from spending your estate $$ to try to stay alive. Doctors are criminalized for treating you without state approval and can go to jail. The new consumer protection agancy inside the Fed will track every single transaction you make from checks to ATM w/drawals to loans.
It's all "their" money, don't you know.
That being said.......the underground economy will rival the "real" economy..........
Bingo
$600 transaction mandatory 1099s with 16,000 more IRS agents inside 0Care
No wonder at least 20 states want to repeal it
no wonder we are inching ever closer to blood running in the streets.
If you want to get into generational dynamics and the four generational seasons or archtypes, a great read is "The Fourth Turning" and the generationaldynamics.com website.
The children of the boomers will be the next 'hero generation' like our greatest generation from WWII, for what they have not yet done.
Supposedly there will be such an unraveling between now and then that all these entitlements will just be done away with summarily, like so many things were 'just done' during WWII.
Please go out and spend some time interacting with some members of that generation. Then come back here and try to make that same post with a straight face.
We will be heros in our childrens' eyes. I know it will be "lights out" for the baby boomers when it comes to my child/childrens' future! You can count on it!
. . . and with your "party hard" lifestyle & "900+ girls dated" one can only imagine how many boomers you'll need to switch off for yer "childrens". . .
the horrors.
We will be heros in our childrens' eyes. I know it will be "lights out" for the baby boomers when it comes to my child/childrens' future! You can count on it!
I didn't say I believed it, just that it is interesting.
"Kids these days..."
you grumpy old farts. there are some fantastic youths out there. Yes, leaders are fewer and further between, but this is absolutely no different than the Boomer generation.
I meet hard working and honest young people all of the time.
As for the stodgy misers in this chat room: you've become your parents.
funny, spinone. so true!
"There are some fantastic youths out there."
Having read your comments on this topic and others, I bet you think your one of them. Has it ever occurred to you that there might be "hard working and honest" "old farts"?
Regarding "you've become your parents". Thank you for the compliment, I am honored.
+1
my comments here are to rebel rouse mostly. I hope you do not take them too personally. I'm sure you are a hard working Boomer, and I appreciate that.
Will you join with me now to end centralized (communist) money planning, fractional reserve counterfeiting, and faith-based (fiat) currency so we can get back to being rewarded for our efforts?
Please go out and spend some time interacting with some members of that generation. Then come back here and try to make that same post with a straight face.
+100
Anyone who thinks people born in the 90s are going to pay our debts is dreaming. There will be a reset or hyper-inflation -- they'll shoot us in our rocking chairs before they pay all our ss benefits.
I warn my Millennial children to be good to me because I foresee a bill like this getting legislated in the US:
Maintenance of Parents Act
The Act provides for Singapore residents aged 60 years old and above, who are unable to subsist on their own, to claim maintenance from their children who are capable of supporting him but are not doing so. Parents can sue their children for maintenance, in the form of monthly allowances or a lump-sum payment.
http://infopedia.nl.sg/articles/SIP_1614_2009-11-30.html
One more reason to not to go to Singapore.
Or refuse to extradite people to it.
http://www.jubileeusa.org/truth-about-debt
Zeke, Ari and Rahm's brother, is a bright dual national whose father was an Israeli Irgun Terrorist Pediatrician.
His brother Ari, a Hollywood Talent Scout, was involved in the $70 M age discrimination settlement for Hollywood writers over 40.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2010/01/tv-writers...
Zeke, a double Harvard Doctorate in Medicine and Political Philosophy, as well as Harvard Associate Professor in Medicine, advised Obama Care, which described healthcare rationing as efficiency.
After accused of Death Panels and End of Life Ageism, Zeke repeatedly cited he meant liver transplant scarcity rationing.
His statement on the Complete Lives age rationing euphemism revealed:
The complete lives system discriminates against older people
He then said:
As far as rationing goes, it's nothing I've ever advocated for the health system as a whole, and I've talked about rationing only in the context of situations where you have limited items, like limited livers or limited vaccine, and not for overall health care
All medical care became so expensive it was de facto rationed.
Most people lose their life savings for medical care the last few months of life.
Worth keeping in mind, like cars, education, energy, food and other expensive government subsidized bureaucracies, throwing more bureaucrats, lawyers, marketing and money at healthcare did not make it better:
Zeke admitted:
Overall, US health care expenditures are 2.4 times the average of those of all developed countries ($2759 per person), yet health outcomes for US patients, whether measured by life expectancy, disease-specific mortality rates, or other variables, are unimpressive
heart attack patients in Miami receive vastly more care than similar patients in Minnesota at 2.45 times the cost, yet have slightly worse outcomes
We have the most expensive system in the world per capita, but we lag behind many developed countries on virtually every health statistic you can name. Life expectancy at birth? We rank near the bottom of countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
According to the Centers for Disease Control, 1.7 million Americans acquire an infection while in the hospital and nearly 100,000 of them die from it. Laboratory imaging tests are routinely repeated because the originals can't be found. Patients with such chronic illnesses as heart failure and diabetes land in the hospital because their physicians fail to monitor their condition. When patients have multiple doctors, there's often nobody keeping track of the different medications, tests and treatments each one prescribes.
Our doctors and hospitals are failing to provide us with care we need while delivering a staggering amount that we don't need. Current estimates suggest that as much as 20 to 30 percent of what we spend, or about $500 billion, goes toward useless, potentially harmful care.
Life expectancy in the United States is 78 years, ranking 45th in the world, well behind Switzerland, Norway, Germany, and even Greece, Bosnia, and Jordan. The US infant mortality rate is 6.37 per 1000 live births, higher than almost all other developed countries, as well as Cuba
The tipping point came when the media began reporting that the high cost of pharmaceuticals forced some elderly to choose between drugs and food ... When health care began compromising access to other important goods--food, heating, and education--it ceased to be so special it was beyond cost
Emanuel said
there were conflicts of interest between a physician's primary responsibilities (providing optimal care for patients, promoting patient safety and public health) and a physician's secondary interests (publishing, educating, obtaining research funding, obtaining a good income and political activism). Emanuel said that while it is difficult to know when conflicts of interest exist, the fact that they do is "the truth". When there is no doubt of a conflict, the issue is not a mere conflict of interest but fraud. For example, the makers of Celebrex published only six months of data favoring their drug when twelve months of data was available and indicated that the drug is ineffective.
Medical Journal doctors failed to disclose funding sources from the drugs they approved.
The backlash is here after a long history of professional and political abuse.
So much for socialized medicine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezekiel_J._Emanuel
Like most large, intractable problems, this too can be directly traced to Govt interference in the Free Market(s). Who is it that "MANDATES" that just about everything in use in a hospital be one-time use? (Hint: FDA).
Who is it that encourages the false belief that medical care should be low-cost or free? (Hint: Medicare/Medicaid).
Sorry folks, the biscuit wheels are coming off the gravy train -- assume crash position!
@ "Emanuel said
there were conflicts of interest between a physician's primary responsibilities ...."
.
primary responsibility is one: stay in business, ie. pay your bills and get paid
for your service/s.
two: stay in line with regards your license and the law ( monied consensus
regarding institutional fiscal restraints and demands. ie it is all about
money and everyone knows there is none, only debt, so good luck.
.
eat your home grown peas and carrots folks.
.
only in america could the idea of socialized medicine be turned into
welfare for the fire sector of the economy. can you believe it?
"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?"
Simple - you don't.
The hate for previous generations stems from the fact that the SS ponzi scheme was a simple matter of having your cake and eating it too while passing the bill to some following generation.
We are that following generation, and the general consensus among us is that they can go fuck themselves. This has nothing to do with our work ethic - it's about us getting screwed to pay for their fuckups and willful ignorance. I think "hate" might not be a strong enough description.
We will not work our asses off for 4 or 5 decades with a lower standard of living, no retirement savings, and no realistic hope of getting SS benefits in order to pay for others' pensions and SS checks.
Which is WHY most folks here recommend that you buy Gold & Silver!
golly, minus dog, you sound like an American!
how refreshing!!!! Who says the youth of America do not 'get it'?!!
...the days of a "right to a free lunch" are coming quickly to an end. Boomers, you've already spent the dough on other stuff, and then some ($14 Trillion and counting).
The gig is up.
You think that's true of all of us boomers? Nay, I say. I still have most of what I gathered over the years, or at least have converted it to, let's say more convenient forms. I don't intend to rely on gov't or kids for sustenance. So, don't generalize about all of us. A lot of us know who we are, and we know who you are.
hey, Rocky, i was referring to the government coffers. you know this. government is a scam. you know this.
what does this mean?
Yep. Government is a scam. Always has been and always will be.
We know who you are because we are the same. Call it generational rotation.
Tag! You're it.
got it!
and i know there are some badass Baby Boomers sick of the same crap!
You can put the Coon in that camp.
+1
If I had to write this over I would use some of your words.
"We will not...is a line in the sand. I understand.
I'm a boomer. But I have two kids under 30. The notion that "we" are going to stuff "them" is just crazy. But I don't see a way around the conflict.
Exactly Bruce. Two under 30's whose future I mapped out and will be financially helping.. In addition, have to help parents when their pension plan collapsed, leaving them with only SS..
Take two:
Math question cannot be longer than 3 characters but is currently 4 characters long.
FYI. I got this on another site. The battle lines are drawn....
There has been "age warfare" against the Boomers for every age they have been. So, if you want to ramp the rhetoric to warfare then you should keep in mind that Boomers are battle hardened veterans of any level of warfare you care to try. This is your only warning.
double post
There is a solution around the conflict - the one that always existed - Family. It will be proven to be true for those who "morally invested" while those who wouldn't live up to the responsibility suffer. Hell, we're already seeing it in the generational hatred coming from the Boomer's children - the Boomers being mostly divorced and almost as self-absorbed as their worthless children.
My two children will have everything I possess transferred to them by the time they reach their mid 40's. I will leave everything to them, and everything up to them.
I'll be hanging out far from healthcare, nursing homes and Medicare so they cannot get their greedy hands on me. Others will be hanging out far from their children so that they cannot get their greedy hands on them.
+1 ...all depends on how you raised your kids. sort of makes a nanny state irrelevant when you do things right.
when we do things right, we even have some left over to help a few others around us who may have been dealt an unexpected blow. Importantly, we can assess who is deserving of our help on a personal level. Unexpected widow = yes. Drug addict = no.
Government monopolies make far less distinction and continue to leave the public coffers wide open for career politicians and the Wall Street Industrial Complex to raid.
Too bad that estate tax is stalking your hard-earned wealth, too. Along with inflation and the rest of the "big government" taxes too numerous to mention here.
Rest assure, Boomers have had some great kids; yours may be some of those, stev3e.
Governments are not "family". They are deadly force.
WISE UP, BOOMERS!
FYI. I got this on another site. The battle lines are drawn....
There has been "age warfare" against the Boomers for every age they have been. So, if you want to ramp the rhetoric to warfare then you should keep in mind that Boomers are battle hardened veterans of any level of warfare you care to try. This is your only warning.
These posts are all generally generalizing about other peoples' generations. I know boomers who are as concerned about fiscal responsibility as ebenezer scrooge. I also know the type that waste oxygen. Same for generation x and y and z and whatever else name the smart guys who come up with these labels come up with. It does not matter if you are 90 or 19. If you have wisdom, share it (elderly people). If you have youth and a brain, learn from your elders and work hard just as any successful person does. Be good to those who need your help and tough on those who want to exploit you. Avoid narcissism because it is a farce. We are all water under the bridge, but if we can work together-we will have a real impact on the ages.
generalisations, stereotypes, pre-judging, all tools encouraged by those who shape the "message" in order to deflect attention away from their endless lies and thievery. . . weigh up all you meet as individuals, unless/until they prove to you otherwise - groupthink is real, but not everyone drinks from the same glass. . .
great thinking bigkahuna, appreciated here.
+ 10K..........
As a boomer I just regret not having soaked up all the gardening knowledge that my father-in-law had gathered over the many years that he fed us the best veggies in the world. Sharing what we know is the best thing we can do for those who follow us. Giving advice is not in that category, however. Advice, as they say, is worth exactly what you pay for it.
Agreed. Throwing all boomers in one spoiled, greedy and self-serving basket is disingenuous. As a boomer, though, I'm locked and loaded and ready for any confrontation.
+357, loving it!