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Guest Post: Generation X: An Inconvenient Era
Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,
A data-based look at the financial context of the past 30 years from the perspective of Gen X.
I am honored to publish an insightful essay by longtime contributor Eric A. on the inconvenient financial era Generation X finds itself in. What sets this essay apart from most other generational analyses is its focus on data and charts.
(Eric's most recent essays here were A Brief History of Cycles and Time, Part 1 and Part 2.)
In The Brewing Generational Conflict (May 15, 2013), I mentioned the Cultural Monster Id (CMI) that arises whenever inter-generational emotions are freely expressed. Every generation-- the Baby Boomers, Gen X and Gen Y/Millennials--is slammed for its supposed character flaws.
Personally, I don't find much value in these outpourings of Cultural Monster Id, for several reasons. One is that generations do not naturally divide into crisp cohorts; people are shaped by the events and shifting myths/worldviews of their culture. As a result there is an inescapable arbitrariness to bright lines between generations.
There's also a bit of intrinsic falsity in defining generational characteristics. Were the draftees of the Vietnam Era any less heroic than the draftees of World War II? Were the volunteers of World War II and Vietnam any more heroic than the volunteers of Desert Storm?
We can while away many a night around the campfire lambasting or lauding various supposedly generational traits, but I don't think that gets us anywhere useful. Ultimately, there is an element of luck in history, and it doesn't neatly favor generations evenly.
For example, the Silent Generation (born 1925-42) got stuck with a thankless war in Korea (1950-53), but was handed a golden opportunity to buy housing in the late 1960s before Boomer demand and geographical constraints sent it skyrocketing. Homes in high-demand areas purchased in the late 60s (before most Boomers could afford to buy a house) doubled in value in a few years and went on to rise 10 or even 15-fold in the ensuing 35 years.
Luck matters, timing matters, but so does context.
There are four Grand Narratives at work: demographics, resource extraction/pillaging, geopolitical conflict and the nature of the economy. The last two are heavily influenced by the first two; some studies suggest that large cohorts of unmarried, under-employed males are precursors to war, as political leaders channel that restless and potentially disruptive force against external enemies.
Economies based on endless resource extraction founder when the resources are found to be less than endless.
The Grand Narrative of the U.S. economy is a global empire that has substituted financialization for authentic, sustainable economic expansion. In shorthand, those people with capital and access to credit can take advantage of the many asset bubbles financialization inflates. They have a chance to do very well for themselves, if they have the presence of mind to exit the asset bubble before it deflates.
Those people who do not have capital or access to credit become poorer. That is the harsh reality of neofeudal, neocolonial financialization. Neofeudalism and the Neocolonial-Financialization Model (May 24, 2012)
Large cohorts generate their own self-referential feedback loops. A large cohort of home buyers drives up real estate as demand exceeds supply, and those who get in early are handsomely rewarded. Those seeking similar returns provide the fuel for further advances. This is the basic story of housing from 1970 to 2006 and the stock market from 1981-2013, as the Baby Boom cohort bought houses and saved for retirement via stock and bond mutual funds.
As the Boomer cohort sells its homes and stocks, supply will exceed demand and prices will decline, especially if household capital and access to credit are also declining. This selling cycle will also be self-reinforcing.
In my view, the reality Eric describes is part of the larger destructive narrative of financialization. Those people who are prepared for the inevitable collapse of the financialization era of debt, centralized manipulation and fantasy will do well for themselves and their families.
My position on the entitlements promised to the Baby Boomers has been clear since 2005 (Boomers, Prepare to Fall on Your Swords June 2005): demographics, the changing job market and the destructive consequence of financializing the U.S. economy render the entitlements promised (Social Security and Medicare) unpayable.
Here is Eric's essay:
Lately there has been some talk about Generation X and retirement.
“The typical Gen X couple, born between 1966 and 1975, only has enough savings to replace half of its pre-retirement earnings. Married Americans born during the first part of the baby boom, from 1946 to 1955, can expect to retire with about 82 percent of their income.” (Gen X Has New Reason to Resent Boomers as Retirement Looks Bleak).
The response from some circles has been that the net worth of GenX is half that of their parents because they’re slackers who blew the money. Really?
Setting aside how the Boomers have been the most spendthrift generation in American history, quadrupling personal household debt and doubling US Federal debt in a single lifetime, I’d like to focus on something much simpler: 6th grade math.
Financial people should easily recognize this chart:
This is your standard net worth chart, starting with an income of $20,000 at age 20 and increasing income by 3% a year to a pleasant $40,000/year at age 43. This person saved a standard 10% of their income, and invested at the standard 6%/year compounded.
Standard lifetime incomes have a tendency to rise from your 20s to your 50s and level off, so your real income-generating years are strongly back-loaded. This earnings chart from Canada is pretty standard:
As for 6% compounding markets, this is what portfolios from 1980-2000 looked like:
Wow, this investing stuff is easy! But we know what happened after that. The Dow has since gone sideways for a brutal 13 year Bear market:
Oh well, those are the breaks. Markets tend to have a periodicity that rise for >20 years, but then reverse or at least stall in a bear market for <20 p="" years.="">
So what does this have to do with GenX?
Everything. Investing is an exponential function. One of the interesting aspects of the exponential function is that interest compounds very slowly at first, then increasing the amount contributed by interest ever-faster as time goes on. This is why Brokers are adamant about people beginning to invest when they are young: no realistic level of interest can make up for the compounding effect of time. Here is the same assumption as above—3% income rise, 10% savings with 6% compounding -- taken from age 20 to 65, halting peak income at a reasonable $55,000/year:
Note it takes 21 years to reach the first $100k, but only 8 to reach the $200k and 4 to reach $300k. This compounding-made-real actually happened from 1980-2000.
Here is a matrix of the 4 Generations:
Note anything on this chart? The Boomer generation had a rough start in the bear market of the 70’s, but were only about 25 when it ended, so the Bull run coinciding with 20 of their core income years. Very nice.
Quick look to the right and you’ll see GenX. When did they come into their equivalent earning years? Year 2000, just as the market was cut in half:
Why should that matter? The Dow has now recovered and gone to new highs of 14,000.
Well, let’s run the charts and see. Again assuming $20k starting income, 3% income growth, 10% savings, and full investment in the Dow as a proxy, let’s compare GenX income theory to reality:
Wow! Right at the 10-year compounding point in 2000, the X-er’s market clock was re-set to zero. Then in 2008, the next 10-year compounding point, they were re-set to zero again!
Remember what we said about compounding being strongly back-loaded? The difference in 6% compounding vs the market stalling at the critical 10 year mark has cut GenX net worth in half! And if this chart was inflation-adjusted their net worth would be another 30-50% lower!
This is even assuming the massively optimistic assumption that GenX incomes are neatly rising from $20k to $55k. They’re not:
What did the Bloomberg article say again, that GenX has half the retirement savings of their parents? That reality is exactly what we predicted given the math. Anybody want to argue about how Boomers worked hard to succeed but GenX and Y are slacking wastrels? Or does math trump all?
But okay, maybe despite advertising to the contrary GenX should have known better than to trust a 19 year-old bull market. Maybe they should have gone short. If so, when? Going short in 2001, they would have to have reversed and gone long in ’03, then short in ‘08, then long in ’09, and possibly short again sometime soon? Is asking a whole generation to pick 5 exact tops and bottoms reasonable? Perhaps not. If not, where should they have put their money?
Bonds? Interest has averaged under 3% since 2000:
The chart of 3% vs 6% interest: a 25% difference over 10 years:
Maybe they should have invested in houses. Here’s your table of average buying ages:
Severely burned by stocks, GenX statistically became first-time homebuyers at the age of 32, not much older than when their parents did. However, they bought their first home in 2005, not 1985. How did that work out?
Whoops! Sorry, suckers, stole your money again: your peak home-buying years coincided with another bubble! Housing was no safe-haven. Not only that, but again, the catastrophe is not the up-front losses but the 10 years of lost compounding that can never be re-made. The math says that if GenX worked until they were 80, they will NEVER recover.
But there is only one national economy, all the same houses, same stocks, same companies: to some extent it’s not a matter of national wealth, but the DISTRIBUTION of wealth in the nation. So if GenX was systematically disenfranchised by engineered stock and housing bubbles plus low interest rates, who was their expected slice of GDP transferred to?
Again:
That’s right, the Boomers, in allegiance with the financial elite, engineered a transfer of all other generations’ income to themselves. This, plus being born in an expanding demographic, was the totality of their investing genius.
Why should anyone protest this observation? What do you think the decades-old phrase “the national debt has enslaved our children” means? It means that the Boomers, who were in power at that time, took all the wealth of the nation for themselves and left their children with the bill.
That’s not a surprise, it’s well-known fact that has been approved of by everyone in power for 20 years. I’ve been hearing it openly stated since before the National Commission on Social Security in 1983. When I was 13, my national parents said that I would pay their debts so they could get wealthy at my expense, and they have fully kept their promise. Now I am 43 and not only had the $80,000 of my net worth systematically stolen, but being unable to outvote them, have been saddled against my will with the $50,000/person of the national debt. An estimate of $130,000 per person has been transferred. From us, GenX and Y, to them. And with 10,000 Boomers a day retiring and a 1:1 worker to recipient ratio, they expect much, much more.
So think again before you so easily dismiss the 25% unemployment rate and 3rd-world incomes of Generations X and Y and start with a short lesson on the problems of exponential functions.
Yet this terrible math leaves the question of what's next? Can this unequal state of affairs remain a permanent feature of American life? Can the work of one group-- the very hours of their life--be morally claimed and transferred to another by dictate? That is to say, does one generation have the right to enslave another, whether physically with chains they never earned, or financially with debts they never accrued? And if this transfer was voted into power by a generation and enforced by government dictate, why can’t Generation X and Y vote to transfer all the Boomers’ wealth back to themselves?
We don’t know at this time, but with the Dow at all-time highs it would seem that, one way or another, incomes and prices can only revert to the mean. And brother, speaking from the bottom, it’s a long way down to here.
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If Americans don't deal with this... Things are just gonna be worse and worse.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rw397VbRyM
there is a level of thinking that informs , where
cause and effect are considered and evaluated, where
risk assessment is viable. this is the level of thinking
the elite and powerful are attempting to eliminate in the
greater population.
.
looking at 9/11 a thinking person would conclude, due to the
facts and the reaction by political authorities, that those
same authorities were culpable and are guilty of the crime.
not alone but culpable. that is obvious to informed, thinking
people.
conclusion: take special notice whenever you hear the word
"exercise" uttered by a political "authority", a monetary "authority".
the exercise is the concealing decoy, signature of murder and deception,
today. the means of accomplishing the false flag are hidden in
these "exercises". if you want to know who is guilty ask and answer
who, exactly who, requested-ordered the exercise. this is never asked or
answered. who did that in 9/11, 7/7/05, boston bombing...etc.?
this line of investigation would tell the story complete, if followed
to the source, so the question is avoided. that the press is instrumental
in accomplishing this implies their complicity. no shit, Sherlock!
@"If Americans don't deal with this... Things are just gonna be worse and worse."
.
comment; agreed, the people losing their capacity to think rendered
good for sheering like sheep, not much more, by social engineering
and the design of usurpers, thieves and international global con
artists and unconscious homicidal psychopaths, banksters and murder contractors.
aka. leadership today.
and let me add there is nothing these media shills,
heraldo, bill o'reilly, bill mar, glen beck, and that other
pig, what's his name, will not suck on or bend over for
to get their hands on a snickers bar and a dollar, faux journalism
today? real journalist, in their graves, might likely
prefer their current state of existence or lack thereof to being
anywhere near these frauds and the horrible noise they produce
designed to dull the mind and promote death for their personal profit.
too late to learn? probably, but karma always kicks in.
The first election I was old enough to vote in and I cast it for Perot. The next election Harry Browne got my vote. I like to think if my picks had actually won that our whole country would have dodged the mess we are in.
The recesssion in the early 1990's was brutal. Many in the generation were set back by not finding employment. 20 years later and they faced the great recession, lost the job they finally found, and are now too old. Others ended up thinking the military was a good idea, only to die in Iraq(like their father had done in Vietnam)... A few of the generation were able to buy homes while they were still affordable. Those who waited found Clinton/Rubin wrecked the dream by inflating bubbles. Great if one were buying with credit. Bad if they had learned lessons from their Grand Parents about debt and the great depression. The prudent ones really thought they were going to get a break when the bubble broke in 2007. Thought they would pick up deals like their GrandFather had talked about. Nope. Government decided deflation would not happen. At least in the last depression you could make it without needing money. Today? Everywhere you turn you need a license, or fee, or to pay taxes. Told you can't grow a garden or water it. Can't fish. Now you are even forced to have health insurance for just breathing. Here we stand, enslaved like never before. Give me the 1930's depression. At least I could afford that one.
I guess that is what happens when you allow psychopaths, who care nothing about others (despite their crocodile tears), to be in charge.
Seriously, those who are supposed to be leading and managing the future of this country and the world seem overly concentrating with feathering their own nest at the expense of the rest of the population.
Baby Boomer's, if you hadn't already noticed, the most selfish generation ever. They were born of the Greatest Generation and systematically abandoned them in old age, the first generation to do so and then proceeded in mass to abandon their children, also a first. Meanwhile they were into "free love", "acid", "dont' trust anyone over 30" which escalated to the me generation and cocaine and STD's of the likes never seen. Yes they contributed to technological advances for sure but for the baby boomers (world doomer's) it's always been about "what's in it for me?" carefully hidden with the notion of saving the planet. (See Al Gore.) Cradle to the grave expectations. The first generation to expect, demand it and get it. Also the last generation that expects it and get's it.
"KID'S OF THE BABY BOOM"
"It was a time of new properity in the USA. All us fortunate offspring never had to pay. We had sympathy for the devil and the Rolling Stones. Then we got a little older and found Haggard and Jones. A generation screaming for more room. Kids of the Baby Boom..."
"Kid's of the Baby Boom, we have freedom we have money, Baby Boom, here in the land of milk and honey. Counting our chickens way too soon. Kid's of the baby boom..."
"As our lives become a capsule we send up to the stars. Our children look at us like we came from Mars. As the farms all disappear and the sky turns black. WE'RE A NATION FULL OF TAKER'S NEVER GIVING BACK. WE NEVER STOP AND THINK WHAT WE CONSUME. KIDS OF THE BABY BOOM."
"OUR OPTIMISM MINGLES WITH THE DOOM. KIDS OF THE BABY BOOM".
Well put Belamy Brothers, over 20 years ago they saw it and put it to song.
Growing up, I noticed my friends parents who had the nicest homes and cars claimed to have been hippies. Somehow every last one of them had made it up to Woodstock or saw Jim Morrison whip his dick out. Those parents didn't like it when the kids tried doing the whole retro hippie thing with grunge. They didn't like the slackers being around when Ma and Pa should be out living it up....
This made me chuckle because just yesterday after hearing a Doors song I was trying to find the date of the show where I saw the Doors with Country Joe as the opener at Brandeis U. gym. All I remember that it was winterish, cold and raining and I smoked a doob outside with one of the campus security guards. I can't even remember what year...
Woodstock was easier to remember because of the movie and album...
You really shouldn't be too surprised that a lot of us came to have a bit of a conservative bent after witnessing the utter failure of leftist socialist utopianism and it's corrosive growth during the 70's and it's pervasive influences in academia today. The 80's excesses left us looking for a rational middle ground where we could hang our hats in comfort to no avail.
The parents did what parents are supposed to do and try to warn and protect theirs kids from the hard lessons they learned by experience and survived by dumb luck.
Thankfully, I've succeeded beyond my wildest expectations with my own kids although they look at old pictures of my wastrel youth with bemusement and mild scorn.
"Hippies look gay."
I don't want to hate on the Boomers, because it is a wide swath of the population, and generalizing is often meaningless. But... IMO, the Boomers may have accomplished a lot, saved a bunch of money (with the help of some bubbles) but what they have not accomplished is: They have not left the world A BETTER PLACE for their children!
How was that lost sight of? That is the real question.
Incorporation, bitch, and the Boomer "government" dripping with Fascism since the coup d'etat in the middle 1960's. Heads in the sand since. Vietnam, Desert Storm, Enduring Feeedom, Afganistan, and you get the picture of Boomer-stimulus. It's quantified in blood, and it ain't the elite all-about-me 1% kind.
Hope won't pay the bills, and neither will the precious, lawless incorporated in Richestan.
Boomers brought us social destruction. How do you put a price on that? Boomers made drug use and divorce a common household theme. They also gluttonized themselves into obesity and diabetes.
Fuck them. They don't even have the decency to admit what they did. They were given the most and pissed it all away.
We are still feeling the effects of their wanton greed, avarice and gluttony. What a licentious group of fuckers.
One of the previous posters said (I'm going to paraphrase because cut'n'paste won't work for me today.) "unless you are lucky enough to be born with a silver spoon in your mouth, don't ever expect to earn a positive net income".
Well they don't come less entitled than I do, yet I manage this feat most days, and even manage to buy small amounts of PM's from time to time.
The secret? Stop doing what everyone else does.
Stop working for an employer. Don't buy anything new except food. Do not give your postal address to anyone unless you really, really need to. And above all, do no banking, credit, or mortgages. Do not pay any "fine" or "fee" without being successfully taken to court, if THEY want your money MAKE them come and get it! (Most times they decline because there is plenty of easy meat out there). There is no such thing as security, just luck, and you make your own luck, and as yet no human authority seems to be able to regulate your luck, so why pay them to provide "security" especially as they seem so ineffective at it?
In my personal case, being forced to find an alternative to fiat has made my life more satisfying and I now actually get to live like a rich man, doing what I want when I want, without fear. Sure I can't afford a lot of expensive trinkets, and most "normal people consider me an object of ridicule, with my unfashionable clothes, non-conformist attitude and ancient car, (although since I look after it and it's a Jaguar, some people actually quite respect the car) but I don't HAVE to work in a job I hate because I "need the money".
"Money" is a crooked game set up and operated for the benefit of those who control it.
Ever played monopoly? For most players it becomes well tedious after the first couple of rounds because those who were lucky enough to land on the right squares soon get an unassailable advantage. For most players most of the game is just spent waiting to lose all their money to the guy who built his hotels first. That game seems like a model for modern life.
Who's forcing you all to play? And why would you want to?
It's not so much they weren't born with a silver spoon. It's that government has devalued the dollar you earn where you can't buy that silver spoon anymore. Today you can't even pass on that silver spoon to your own kids without government taxing it.
heh - contrarians always wonder why the herd doesn't behave like, well, a contrarian.
I hear and applaud you, brother. But what you say here will fall on largely deaf ears. Most people are not like you, which may be one reason it's made you successful.
Anyway, it's good advice, and I'm glad it's working well for you and those of us who pursue this kind of lifestyle.
Seconded. (jumps on his 35 y.o. harley parked next to his 20 y.o. truck.)
The renter next door with 3 brand new vehicles complains that he cant buy the house because "The Bastards" don't pay him enough.
He works for the State.
Not a natural tongue-biter, I have to smile and say..."Yeah, the bastards."
We are forced to Play the game to earn fiat to pay rent or mortgage and property Tax and buy clothes. The Day I can use bitcoin to for these necessities, I will - just to pull out of the game as far As possible. Until then...I work for fiat.
yep, that's me too. And I have come to the same analysis. And I too don't know where this leads us. But I sure as hell won't pay the bills.
I'd green-arrow you but you started with italics.
<<But I sure as hell won't pay the bills.>>
Bears repeating until people GET it. Sometimes this takes awhile.
Go Galt. It's the only answer, and the best revenge.
Agree 100%
Easier said than done.....but well worth the effort.
Only difficult things are worth doing in the Age of the Cheap & Easy.
The only fly in this ointment (and it's a big one) is the supposition that this expected income was stolen by boomers. This is nonsense.
The assumption is that the phenomenal growth tide that the boomers rode in on was somehow 'normal' growth that could be counted on forever. Short version is:
A post war boom left America in a unique position as supplier to the world, while Euro and Asian economies were shattered by war.
The close of gold convertibility and the rise of the petrodollar was another anomaly (although engineered) that allowed America to escape it's folly and export its inflation and negating any corrections to markets.
Add in the computer revolution that was comparable to the Industrial Revolution in increasing production and efficiency in every facet of the economy with a concurrent explosion in wealth creation.
Now we add the far less positives of the growth of financialization and globalism that gave the appearances of wealth creation for many years but in reality eventually lead to crippling debt and outsourcing of well paying jobs that came into sharp focus only in 2008.
All these elements combined to create a 'perfect storm' rouge wave of prosperity that the boomers rode without counting their lucky stars for their enviable place in history.
Admittedly, we did little to discourage the false wealth creation in the last example so we can reasonably take some blame here for ignoring the Austrian prognosticators who warned us of the consequences but for most of the boomers lives, the Austrians occupied a provincial backwater of the economic landscape.
To claim that the 6% compounding we are using as a metric to measure was somehow normal and its subsequent loss equates to theft is silly.
We were damn lucky and benefited from external events we had little power to shape but were poor stewards and didn't correct things we might have, were we more prescient about the turn of the future. We slept at the wheel while the crooks took over and stole.
We didn't steal but we sure didn't save either.
Nice whitewash attempt.
The close of gold convertibility was actually the start of another Ponzi scheme.
(Social Security and Medicare became the first Ponzi schemes, especially after you (the boomers) conveniently ignored falling birthrates since the late1960's.)
Financialization then was Ponzi squared on top of those.
And pushing a Ponzi is stealing.
It's not just economics, either. See Dingleberry's post above.
It's about the destruction of standards. It's about the corruption of institutions. It's about the broken families, the cracked communities, the mere anarchy loosed upon the country their ancestors built, because they just didn't want to follow anybody's rules.
Go back and watch Rebel Without a Cause. James Dean, Boomer Icon, spoiled crybaby, whining about his parents' stable marriage, solid home, safe neighborhood, and vague conformity to established social mores. Who bought you that nice car and that spiffy leather jacket, bitch? Your Dad. He worked hard. He paid cash. Oh, but you're a big, bad Rebel, aren't you Boomer, and you know better than all that.
So they got older, and the cause found them. The Fabians, The Frankfurt School. The Marxists and the Oligarchs. The rest is just the Death of the West.
+666 for mention of The Frankfurt School.
Sorry,
I'll do better next time.
Interesting graphs, but cherry-picking non-garbage. Without inflation being put front and center, Gen X's Y's are bankrupt and on the streets.
"No one saw it coming!"
It will cut across generations, that's the best part--I have marketable skills, doesn't matter if I lose all my savings, I'll get by. Anyone 50 and over is fucked, though, because it's too late to earn back anything. Might as well jump off a bridge.
"I have marketable skills, doesn't matter if I lose all my savings, I'll get by."
Marketable to whom, when the currency becomes worthless and all wealth not hidden is seized to "level the playing field", "for the children" , or whatever other redistributionist slogan is popular that day? What skills will you be selling to support yourself, when no business greater than ten employees exists and those are filled with relatives of the founders?
Perhaps you should be developing survival skills - farming, metal work, self-defense - instead?
"Anyone 50 and over is fucked, though, because it's too late to earn back anything. Might as well jump off a bridge."
Seems mighty dark, yes, but not totally, I plan on becoming a moonshiner - as well as a repairman, machinist, farmer, cook - 50 isn't the limit, though - giving up is. Did you know Harlan Sanders started KFC when he was over 60?
Attitude and ability, determination and direction determines more than age - much more than age.
I used to get really pissed off about crap like this, but then I realized that I can't change the year I was born. The only thing I can do is find a way through for myself and my family. So I just don't play the game as much as possible. It does absolutely zero good to sit and complain about the situation you find yourself in--history favors bold action, and no matter how bad the post-Boomer generations think they have it, it is still far, far better than the generation of Europeans had it just after WWII when their entire world was in shambles. They were starting form less than zero. We started from "major kneecapping." Everything is by and for the Boomers, including this gigantic, ridiculous stock market bubble--can't let their 401Ks drop, damn the consequences. We will be lucky to not have a nuclear war because of their nonsense.
I guarantee that the future will be replete with horror stories of neglected elderly and while some may sympathize, I will relish the irony--we've been fucked over and over and over by these ignorant shytes and revenge is a dish that is best served cold. Americans will only be compassionate if they have the luxury of being so. Europeans will be absolutely brutal by necessity.
"...the Boomers, in allegiance with the financial elite, engineered a transfer of all other generations’ income to themselves."
Lucky for Xer's it was all fake, and X and Y will have the last laugh when Boomers are Soylent Green.
Pretty compelling.
As a Gen-Xer there is much I could say but here are my initial thoughts:
1. In this race to the bottom, we are all going to end up there. Some will get there sooner than others.
2. In 10 years, getting sick will probably mean a death sentence for most people. In general, those of us that remain healthy, might be spared some of the worst of socialized medicine. Go visit an ER in a big city and just think that this is the future for nearly all of us (the elite and political class excluded). And just imagine the fate of all of these obese americans.
3. The current economic cycle hasn't even ended so just wait until the mid to late boomers go to retire and try to sell their homes and sell their stocks. Ouch! 14 years ago when clinton left office not making the necessary generation fix to social security I knew that there was going to be no social security for me. And now you go to a lot of places and see older people working and it is just sad. Going to my local costco sometimes is like the old photo of hitler meeting some of the last soldiers in berlin - teenagers and old men - only now it is more progressive because there are old ladies working there. It is sad knowing that this is our future until after this charade collapses.
4. And do the early boomers realize that they will be the last wealthy generation and what that means? They are going to bitch like only that generation can bitch when the inevitible cuts to social security, medicare, etc. take place. The problem with being the last man standing is that there is no one else to steal from. And the younger generations have been indoctrinated so well that many actually beleive in wealth redistribution and tax fairness - to them it isn't just a campaign slogan. And they are going to be really pissed in a few years when reality is bitch slapping them constantly. Right now, drugs, sex, and facebook keep them occupied but that won't last much longer.
So what does this all mean? AW, FUCK IT!
+1 Well said!
Yep the "boomers" did transfer wealth to themselves at the expense of their children...but it didn't stop there. Boomers, by way of their actions, pretty much hate their kids, or, care little to nothing about them. I'm no bed wetting liberal that looks for the next "victim" to complain about, but, in the context of our victim-based culture and society I find it very strange that the all the Gen "blanks" post the boomers have never been "empowered" to discuss the severe consequences of divorce. Look into that some more and you'll connect the dots between a generation of people who knowingly and willingly stole and continue to steal from the very same children, which they basically said "FUCK them, I want to cheat on my spouse, cause I love a momentary spasm more than my children." Look at the numbers too, consider the divorce rates, even those of the boomers (after all they started this trend). I suspect you'll see staggering numbers, no, not 1 or 1.5% of the population (ahem to which we're being forced to (no pun intended) literally bend over frontwards and backwards to accommodate)...no, this is a huge statistic that dwarfs all the other approved "aggrieved groups". By way of my own heuristics, I can tell you without hesitation that divorce is the number 1 cause of fuck-upness among my generation and others. Time to look it in the face and it's time to put blame where it's due...my suggestion, as we start getting into office, let these scumbag drug and sex addicted geriatric babies die in horrible conditions...oh and we should let them know how much their hated. Perhaps the new moto for us Gen X'er and Y'er is "paybacks a bitch".
Yep the "boomers" did transfer wealth to themselves at the expense of their children...but it didn't stop there. Boomers, by way of their actions, pretty much hate their kids, or, care little to nothing about them.
Nop. There are some guys messing things up and nobody is willing to confront it.
So elaborated theories are offered to the public to explain how "The Economy" is fucked up, how "The Market" isn't responding, how we're gonna "run out of Energy" (against the law of Phisics), how we're "gonna run out of water", that we are "too many" and how aliens are gonna come here to destroy us all.
Bullshit, bitchez.
There's a Power who is trying to dominate/enslave us all.
And there is us, the World population, the biggest power, which members have been so brainwashed or who are so lazy... To just think, to figure it out.
I guess when the time comes, the people will realize how plain, simple, things really are... Perhaps?
Actually that is not something only divorce related.
Giving kids no or only homeopathic doses of appreciation and love cripples them, mostly for the rest of their lives. That needn't even be malice by the parents, just indifference suffices to fuck things up.
Edit:
But I should point out that I do not expect close to perfection parents or something.
There is a reason why one of the deepest thoughts I ever read was, and given to no one in particular: "Have you forgiven your parents already?"
Yep, after learning your own parents will blow up your home, conspire to hide the how and why, emotionally manipulate you in spite of your total dependance on them, and tell you they did it for "the good of the family", it's more than a little difficult to believe in anybody's "good intentions" later on in life.
Painful as it is; in the end, it may be a good thing, since our rulers are exactly these kinds of lying sociopaths. I think of it as a harsh lesson in the way of the world today: You're On Your Own. Never be dependent on anybody. Trust deeds, never words. And if parents will do that to their own children, imagine how their authority applies to strangers. Submit at your own risk.
On a personal note to all children victimized by divorce: Healing begins when you look your parents in the eye and tell them they are assholes. Healing begins with the truth.
The first of those Baby Boomers are just now reaching retirement age so let’s take a look in the crystal ball and see what’s in store for them. Their 401k took a hell of a beating in’08 so they probably moved most of their savings into bonds...which are going to tank soon. That lovely big house that they raised their 3 or 4 kids in and paid off most of the mortgage (apart from that home equity loan for the condo in St. Pete’s, pity the developer went bust) that they were planning to downsize, well who’s going to buy it? The generation Xers cant afford to move up, and only have 1 or 2 kids anyway, so they’re staying put thanks very much. So no market for that.
Social Security, well, they’ll probably get the dollar amount they expected each month and due to inflation it will probably buy them a tank of gas and a month’s supply of beans and rice. Now, way back in their memories of childhood they can remember helping grandma, who grew up in the depression, canning tomatoes and helping grandpa feed the chickens in the back yard. At least I hope they do because that’s how they will be repurposing the back yard of the house they can’t sell.
Obamacare is going to consider them very low priority for very scarce medical care, but barbiturates are cheap, so there’s that. Maybe they can get a few nice Mexican labourers to rent out the spare rooms they no longer need for the grandkids that resent them and live a half a continent away.
So all in all, they’re just as fucked as the rest of us. Go long All-American pressure canners and chicken feed suppliers.
Lol,
renting to Mexican laborers will be far preferable than renting to hostile Xer and Yers who may slit your throat while sleeping.
No rooms available...Sorry.
it is clear that people learn to, are capable of, stealing
and writing, walking and talking, competing and formulating
strategies before they are capable of thinking coherently.
the elite know this very well, it is the essence of marketing
and advertising and is extremely dangerous, like a teenager
with a bottle of southern comfort and a Maserati.
the way I see it that is where we are and the bottle is almost
empty however, the gas tank is not.
Charles, a great article, but this:
In shorthand, those people with capital and access to credit can take advantage of the many asset bubbles financialization inflates. They have a chance to do very well for themselves, if they have the presence of mind to exit the asset bubble before it deflates.
Those people who do not have capital or access to credit become poorer. That is the harsh reality of neofeudal, neocolonial financialization.
is exaggerated black and white thinking -
I hope you don't really believe that the only choices are riding the Ponzi or going under? Because that sounds an awful lot like "I couldn't help it" to me.
The third and correct way is saving (a good part in physical) and not partaking in/pushing Ponzi schemes.
Actually, buying bonds has been a great investment, too bad this writer only looks at yield not capital gain, because when bond yields go from 5% to 3% thats a huge gain.
I'm Gen X. Right before I could drink at age 18...they changed the drinking age to 21. When I reached the age where drugs seemed to be everywhere, they passed the rockefeller drug laws so you'd go to jail for 25+ years if you got caught with any drugs. Am I suprised my generation will get screwed as far as retirement? No.....
starting in a corp job in 1994, change career in 2002, again in 2009.....i roughly figure every $ i have put into retirement savings has not made any net gains. the first chunk seemed to do welll until 2001, then lost half, dollar cost averaging only added some shares while low, then seemed pretty fair in 2006, when i bought my second and much more expensive home in florida. while the dow and spx might be back up, those emerging markets certainly are not.
while some boomers lament they 'will work till they die', I already figure 70+ is the target age. none of thsi bs 63/65 retirement crap they feel they deserve.
bubble after bubble after bubble. and now we see them pledging multiple future generations tax liability to keep the illusion alive.
when they use 1980 forward statistics as what 'normal' returns are, they might aswell also say 'abracadabra'.
as niall ferguson, the brit historian, said. "growing up in a declining empire is not fun." or words to that effect.
as a baby boomer, i have to say gen x and the millennials are useless.........just as my father thought the baby boomers were useless.......but gen x and the millennials really are useless. lol
Yeah and what generation was their example? When you are left to raise yourself as many Gen X'ers did and now these generations are children raising children you can easily see where the rot of society started.
As a GenXer, I'd like to just saying the following.
I'm pissed off. GenX has been getting screwed over by the selfishness and self-centered, hypocritical boomer generation and their equally, if not moreso, selfish, spoiled and twisted offspring (GenY).
That is all.
Wow!
Who knew phasers had a snivel setting?
Most of the 60 and under did not pay any attention to who or what was being elected to run the nation all they wanted was more toys and debt to be paid off in the future, now the future is here and they find that they are in dire straights. Add a corrupt government of which we now have and the finincial future of the whole nation is in peril At this stage it dosen't matter wheather it is led by a Demo or a Rep we are being had fron all directions.
Forget all the talk about this generation trying to screw that generation. The issue is people who want more government interference vs. those who want less. They are found in all generations.
That said, older people believe in government while younger people are less likely to (how long will it take them to learn how badly they got screwed by Obama--and whoever follows him--and whoever preceded him?).
Yeah, all that demographic stuff happened, but the boomers also inherited a world lying in rubble after WWII during a time of great technical progress that was highly concentrated in the US. The US was the first mover, was the beneficiary of the stupidity and destruction of everyplace else, and now is the stupid one chasing capital and intelligence and hard work away as fast as it can.
It's a good thing so many other countries are as cluelessly mercantilist and control-freaky as this one, or the process would be happening even faster than it is.
Per Bastiat, if plunder is easier than production, then plunder you will get. People have to want to produce while also not plundering. With too many people of all ages you tend to get either pure plunder or production privileged by plunder, but rarely pure production. We have met the enemy, and he is us.
Present company excepted.
Wait - im cofused. Is it the Boomers that are the source of all our problems? Or the Chinese? Or the Liberals? Or the terrorists?
Tell me Mr. Bankster who's to blame?!?!
And despite any outrage, do not count on any politician or bureaucrat going quietly into the light and surrendering their power to fellate oligarchs or worship power.
And yet this current political system of "capitalist-fascist-socialism" with some soft core totalitarianism thrown in for good measure is going through the stages of decay that ALL empires go through. While I see some misguided thinking on behalf of the boomers, as an xer, I also feel extremely happy to have the internet and forums like this where we can have open discussion.
Ufortunately, throughout time, peeps with the unlimited legal power to use force, ALWAYS DO! The state has always grown to the limit that it was allowed to grow, for the time. But we have the internet now, and things can change on a local level. Unfortunately, things usually do not change until after the peeps with the absurd ideas die off.
Interesting times indeed.
I'll turn 60 in December, so, yes, I'm a boomer. But, I can't fucking stand the people I grew up with. They all think alike, they're all hypocrites, and were even in HS when Vietnam was ripping the country apart. Then, they were radicals. Later, they became liberals. They still mostly are, and pretty much suck ass. I do not communicate with any of the people I went to HS with, even though I'm still living in the same town.
Generally, I started checking out in 1992. I saw the system as just one big hand-job and didn't much want any part of it. Drifted a while, but the internet put me back in business, where I still am today, with no blood-sucking employees and a lifestyle that consists mainly of working about 4 hours a day, gardening (when the weather is good enough, like now) and just enjoying life more, drinking when I like and smoking some herb late in the day.
Retirement? Don't even give it a thought. Haven't put much into SS, and don't expect much from it.
Friends? Most are fucking stupid drones who think playing in a golf league every Monday with a bunch of people you loathe is the good life. A lot of these people have 600K or more in investments and continue to work, which I consider stupid. Why beat your brains in when you could actually be enjoying life a little while there's still time.
Fuck the Boomers, my generation. I much prefer the company of people in their 20s through 40s. They seem to share my cynicism and have better attitudes. Besides, most of the women that age aren't yet sagging bitches who moan about everything.
Good food, good booze, good herb and perky tits. Is that too much to ask?
Ewwww, an old boomer dude, hitting on younger women. Gross.
Hate to break it to you fella, but men do NOT age any better aesthetically, than women do.
But if you can buy them off with drugs and booze, I suppose that you can get their company.
Government stealing boomers' inheritances will start the war.