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The Federal Reserve Has Declared The Winner In The Generational Financial War
Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,
The policy of safeguarding Boomer benefits with asset bubbles will lead to the destruction of the unprepared, the unwary and those who foolishly trusted our "leadership" and central bank to tell them the truth.
Though it is exceedingly politically incorrect to mention it publicly, a financial war between the generations is being fought in the U.S. and every other developed nation that has promised social welfare benefits to its burgeoning class of retirees.
The war is being fought on multiple fronts: political promises, interest rates, housing, central bank policies and official rates of inflation, to name a few of the top battlefields.
Though no one in power will state this publicly, the Federal Reserve has already declared the winner of the generational war: the Baby Boomers won and Gen-X and Gen-Y lost. Fed policies insure the Boomers will benefit from financial bubbles inflated by the Fed, and the following generations will lose--not just this year or next year, but for decades to come.
Any nation that offers its retirees social welfare benefits (pensions and healthcare) faces a no-win demographic crunch: the number of retiring people entering the class of beneficiaries far exceeds the number of additional full-time jobs being created. In other words, it's not just a matter of having enough young people to support the rapidly expanding cohort of retirees--there must be enough good-paying full-time jobs for the young people so they can pay high taxes to fund the retirees' benefits and support their own consumption/saving.
Let's cover the fundamentals of the mismatch between what was promised to retiring Baby Boomers and the generations that must support their retirement.
The fact is that the number of full-time jobs paying more than minimum wage has stagnated while the number of retirees qualifying for pensions and healthcare benefits has soared. In the good old days of expansion, there were roughly 10 full-time workers for each retiree drawing social benefits (Social Security and Medicare).
The ratio fell to 5-to-1, then to 3-to-1, and is now 2-to-1: that is not a ratio that is sustainable without crushing tax burdens on the young.
Estimates are even worse in other developed nations. In Europe, the ratio of retirees over 65 to those between 20 and 64 will soon reach 50%--and that's of the population, not of people with full-time jobs paying taxes to fund social welfare programs. (source: Foreign Affairs, July/August 2014, page 130)
All government social welfare programs are pay-as-you-go. The Trust Funds touted in propaganda are illusions, backed by nothing but the promise to sell more Treasury debt.
The Problem with Pay-As-You-Go Social Programs: They're Ponzi Schemes (November 5, 2013)
While the costs of defined-benefit programs such as Social Security can be extrapolated relatively accurately, the program's revenues cannot be predicted because they come from wages. If recession slashes millions of jobs, or earned income declines as wage increases slip below the rate of inflation (which is precisely what's been happening for the past 6 years), revenues won't meet wildly optimistic forecasts that presume high, sustained wage and employment growth forever.
No official forecast of tax revenues supporting Social Security and Medicare ever factor in a recession, much less a decade or two of declining wages. If the forecasts were more realistic, the programs would be revealed as insolvent.
That is of course a political impossibility, so delusional forecasts are issued and accepted as "real" lest the unpalatable reality be recognized.
Defined-benefit programs such as Social Security have costs that can be estimated with some accuracy, but programs such as Medicare are open-ended: their costs cannot be predicted. Every attempt to control the ballooning costs of healthcare benefits for the retired lowers the rate of growth for a year or two, and then the costs soar once again as the number of beneficiaries and costs of delivering ever-expanding services both explode higher.
As a result of these fundamentals, the Powers That Be face a dilemma: they cannot reveal the insolvency of these huge social welfare programs, even though the insolvency is guaranteed by demographic and global-economic dynamics.
There are a very limited number of financial solutions to this dilemma.
1. Taxes can be raised. This is problematic for several reasons. One is that taxes on the self-employed and upper-middle class are already 40%-50%, as I have outlined many times. Two, the number of "wealthy" people (households earning $250,000 or more) is tiny compared to the 100+ million army of social welfare program beneficiaries.
Higher taxes and junk fees are already suppressing consumption. Every dollar of additional tax paid is a dollar that won't be spent by the household that earned the dollar.
Tax the rich is politically popular but in practical terms, it doesn't generate the revenues that are expected, for the simple reasons that A) the number of wealthy is relatively tiny and B) the super-wealthy either move their capital elsewhere or they buy political favor-tax breaks.
2. Slash benefits and limit the total Medicare costs per beneficiary. Since young people tend not to vote and older people tend to vote, this is a political non-starter, at least until 90+% of young people start voting.
3. Raise interest rates to 10+% to encourage saving and to generate a healthy return on pension funds and retirement accounts. The net result of 10% yields is the immediate collapse of the Fed-fueled asset bubbles in housing, bonds and stocks. All these currently bubblicious assets would implode.
This is also a non-starter, because the financial/political Aristocracy and owners of these assets would be devastated by the implosion of the bubbles.
4. Inflate bubbles in housing, stocks and bonds to boost the value of pension funds, retirement accounts, and government tax revenues from capital gains by pushing interest rates to zero and extending credit to speculators, financiers and marginally qualified borrowers.
The Federal Reserve has clearly chosen #4 as the only politically palatable solution. While asset bubbles create the politically positive illusion that pension funds can pay the benefits promised, retirement accounts are swelling in value and tax revenues are rising thanks to higher property taxes and capital gains taxes, this legerdemain comes with a heavy price:
Younger generations are either priced out of assets such as housing or they are forced to buy assets at inflated prices-- prices that will inevitably implode as these stupendous speculative bubbles pop. When the bubbles pop, the young people who bought into the illusion that asset bubbles can expand forever will be underwater, and not for a year or two but for a generation.
The system rewards silence and complicity. Everyone bellying up to the social welfare trough is implicitly encouraged to support the Status Quo, lest their share of the swag be diminished. That the trough will collapse is not important to each beneficiary; what's important is that their share of the swag is not diminished, even if cuts are the only sustainable way to save the programs from collapse.
I am a Baby Boomer, and in 4 short years I will be entitled to belly up to the trough and extract hundreds of thousands of dollars in open-ended benefits (at least for Medicare). I have long proposed that the Boomers collectively fall on our swords and accept the draconian cuts necessary to align our benefits with the cold reality of declining wages and employment.
The equally cold reality is that the current "solution" impoverishes the younger generations and generates a tsunami of risk that will wash away the Status Quo--including the benefits of the Boomers.
Right now, we as a nation are greedily collecting the financial fish flopping around as the coming tsunami pulls the water out of the bay and briefly exposes the sea floor. The Federal Reserve and our self-serving political "leadership" is reassuring us the water has left for good and we are free to collect the free fish forever.
This is a blatant lie. The demographic and economic tsunami is gathering force over the horizon, and the policy of safeguarding Boomer benefits with asset bubbles will lead to the destruction of the unprepared, the unwary and those who foolishly trusted our "leadership" and central bank to tell them the truth.
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I have long proposed that the Boomers collectively fall on our swords and accept the draconian cuts necessary to align our benefits with the cold reality of declining wages and employment.
lol, good luck getting many boomers to sign one to that one!
They'd have to ask... their kids! ... for help! They'd have to ... sell! ... their mcmansions! Oh the horror!
The entire Western world is ripe for a Charismatic young leader and his kristallnacht against the over 65's.
I remember discussing this subject with my father as far back as the 1980s. He said "don't worry, they'll raise the retirement age and start means-testing the benefits when things get bad." Now, at the time the point of his message was "so don't depend on SS being there in any meaningful way for you- prepare as if you're totally on your own". But still, that's what this is going to come down to, eventually. "Eventually" being the point at which the rest of the world won't endlessly finance our debt. Which still seems a long way off (and probably will right up until it isn't).
Considering the high unemployment rate among the young and the number of seniors working I'd say the government isn't worried.
SS did not bankrupt the US. War has destroyed your way of life. They have you arguing over something, anything
to divide you so you do not think. No war since WW2 has been necessary.
How has any of this improved your life? Your most powerful enemy is the US state department. At one time they were called the War department. Changed their name only. They are insane.
If TPTB cannot divide you with SS than they will try race or the environment. It has been stated here that more money
is made in one day of war than a year of peace. Has it helped you?
Wave the flag and harvest some more young people.
Boils down to govt being incompetent. I have always said just give me back what I have paid in, not a penny of interest and I will go away happy. I've paid for everyone before me and now change the rules. Fuck all of you.
Falling on their sword would be a wonderful gesture to make way for the next generation(s). But first, a story...
During the wine-making process, yeast cells just keep munching sugar, reproducing & shitting alcohol, bless their little souls.
This idyllic life continues with the chubby, happy yeast blissfully unaware of the impending consequences of their activities. As we all know, doom arrives in a sea of alcohol - essentially drowning themselves in shit of their own making. The end. (Cheers!)
I submit that today's baby boomers are little different from yeast. Or Locusts, for that matter. As long as they have the power and the numbers to make their desires happen... they will. It would be unimaginable for them to do otherwise. They will ride this bitch down to the ground.
The wise among gen x & gen y should avoid boomer schemes & bubbles as much as possible so as to enjoy the eventual glass of wine.
The "Social Contract" between citizens and the state is that your taxes put aside to fund your retirement. The issues have been known for decades. Governments worldwide have stoen that money to fund daily expenses. They have broken that contract. If you haven't been paying attention that your pension is worthless then you deserve everthing you're going to get (ie nothing)
The 'social contract' has always been a lie or some half-baked ponzi scheme to get some Washington politico between me and my money. Where would paying attention have made a difference?
So a 'kristallnacht' against a bunch of US citizens whose only sin is being 65 or older.
Short comment for your Nazi type "Charismatic young leader" - '.308 + Leopold'
Not to mention that all the people who are 65 today turned 18 in 1968, next year in '69, etc. There's a certain group of veterans with skills that got shit on when they came home that doesn't have a whole lot of respect for the government that are still young enough to do something and old enough to not care about consequences.
Don't know why you have any down votes since you are correct. I fall into that category at the ripe old age of 66 and a Vietnam vet. I'm only good for cannon fodder and willing to do my part. As the saying goes, don't mess with an old guy, he's not going to fight you. He's just going to kill you and move on.
"You cant take away my benefits because i paid for it!" I hate it when people say thst because they have no concept of reality or how economics work.
Just tell them "That's fine. You're going to take your own benefits away by using them all up."
I'm in gen x,,,,feel like I've been losing for 10 years, having kids thru this is tuff
"B) the super-wealthy either move their capital elsewhere or they buy political favor-tax breaks."
This is the point that is almost always missed. Fuck raising taxes on the "rich" schlubs making 250K a year. That's not rich.
Go after the hidden capital and political favors. The Canary islands alone has enough hidden capital to pay off the US debt, and then some. Cut off all communication (no electronic xfers) , send in the marines, then the forensic accountants.
Pay off the U.S. debt, put the excess in Al Gores SS "lock box". Raise interest rates to 10%(no more worries, the debt is paid off)
Anyone who complains about thier Canary islands money is declared a "financial terrorist" and shipped to Gitmo.
Get rid of the IRS - you cant have 70,000+ pages of tax law without the net result being billions, if not trillions, going to 'special' groups. The IRS is the power arm of politicians - both left and the right.
more like mafia enforcers...italian...irish.....jewish....goverment. does it matter?
TROLLS OUT IN FORCE TODAY
Head hunter--In 2016 there is to be a Constitutional Covention. (See Article V) Far more important than the 16 Elections. WE THE PEOPLE can have our say (thats what is implied in the script) REmove or repeal both Articles 16 and 17 amd resore the ORIGINAL 13th Amenndment that was passed in 1819.
The information has been kept out of the news of the MSN but it has been declared by the media to stay away from the story.
Call your represenentives (ha-ha) in D.C. and get the skinny. This could well spark the internal revolution that is absolutely going to be necessary if this country and maybe the world is going to stay away from a major uprising. Milestones
Yawn. What good is the constitution when nobody follows the law? Make wealthy people, cops and politicians follow the same rules as everyone else, or go to jail. Then worry about some stupid con con.
Toady, going after "hidden capital and political favors" is like tilting at windmills or searching for unicorns. Not. Gonna. Happen.
Only two ways out of this: we voluntarily reduce the size of the Federal government drastically, or the Federal government expands like a Supernova and then implodes.
I'm betting on #2.
But.... but.... it's so simple! It's just a tiny little island! And we spend trillions on the MIC!
#2 is my bet as well. As long as you can stay out of its claws during the blow-up phase, one can get through this without putting a lot of effort into helping it along.
Of course it takes money to expand, and there's no way tax collections will generate the required sums, so it's print, print, print.
We're deflating now so we're following the pattern pretty well, I'd say.
I can tell you this, I have paid more taxes to the Fed alone then I will ever see if I live to be 120+
Aside from that fact, the government has been mainlining our tax dollars, including SS tax directly into the veins of the government pensions and the many, many pointless and useless union jobs and pensions in government.
"I have paid more taxes to the Fed alone then I will ever see if I live to be 120+"
generic socialist/Statist response: "muh roads!"
ANYONE who supports taxation isn't paying their "fair share" (i.e. doesn't pay taxes) or completely deluded into thinking that their taxes actually get put to good use.
If the Federal government will merely return all that I have paid them over the years (with interest, naturally), I would be more than happy to opt out and call it quits.
As a boomer myself, I have always been opposed to the whole concept of SS. That said, when I first "contributed" a few dollars to SS (summer job in 1962) a Ferrari cost $12,500. 40 years later, after SS having taken approximately $200K from my labor, I want my money back. (Adjusted for inflation it would be even more.) That will take me approximately 8 years of collecting 'benefits' to be made whole, and again that does not include inflation effects. Worse, because I do have an IRA, and my wife still works, my marginal tax rate is 30 percent even though we're only in the 15% tax bracket. Through the magic of tax laws, up to a certain point every extra taxable dollar withdrawn from the IRA is matched by a dollar of SS benefits made taxable. Some deal, right? And it's not as if I hadn't been taxed on the SS 'contributions' to begin with.
Before asking boomers - or anyone else - to fall on their swords, how about asking government employees to do so, accepting both salary dimunition and reduced pension benefits? How about asking the welfare/FSA class to go live in FEMA camps and grow their own food there rather than getting lots of free stuff while sitting - or worse yet screwing - on a couch? How about asking all those who came here illegally to go back home and stop beeing leeches on those American citizens who are actually working to support themselves and their families? You won't hear politicians making a peep about those groups, even though the amount DC spent on all these programs probably approximates the national debt.
There are lots of ways the US government could save loads of money by cutting the rewards for indolence - of those I mentioned, only the government workers are earning (or at least pretending to earn) what they get. Boomers on SS at least paid into the scheme - unwillingly, in my case - and should be supported before we support the parasites who have never contributed in any significant manner.
And don't asy I have no concept of reality or how economics work. I read ZH, don't I?
good point about the illegals, they dilute the employment pool so a job that now pays minimum wage would pay much more if the employment pool is 14+ million smaller.
I agree with your point about the gov workers, but I don't see how SS can be sustained.
I don't plan on SS or any other forms of gov assistance when I retire, because I know that it is not going to be there for me in 40 years.
It really troubles me to see people in my father's & grandfather's generation, start only thinking of themselves. These men and women were people that I looked up to as a child for their attitude of self reliance. I know that the market turmoils have caused them trouble, but I couldn't even find a good job until I had an MBA and had spent most of my life savings.
At some point in time we are going to have to fix the system, and I would like to have it fixed before I have children so they don't have to deal with the same problems. I used to think older generations would feel the same, but many just want "what's theirs."
.
the older "boomer" generations have lived with a meme of being special all their lives, a nice comfy cushion under their collective asses, enforced by a global military culling "resources" for their special lives, they see "social security" deductions as a private bank account that they have "saved" to draw on as they age. . .
when in fact it's a gov't. ponzi scheme they have been paying into, and that military that brings in the resources to prop it all up? THEY have been paying for it via "deductions" unrealised. . . but they have their narrative of "special" and who in their right mind would surrender that, who would consent to acknowledging the
reality of being used (up) all one's waged-working life?
so many fondle their bank statements, virtual pixels that could disappear in a heartbeat - there will be no "red pill" moment until the "red numbers" appear in their accounted-minds.
Excellent point on the "trickle-back" rate of payout on your SS plan, because if you had all that as a lump sum, you would likely be able to invest it as equity into something were you get a bonus yield...income rental property, etc. It's like giving up a field that produces wheat in exchange for weekly loaves of bread into perpetuity.
How about the fucking government falls on their swords and cut the fucking budget.
There are never any cuts in government, they use baseline budgeting and the net result is our taxes go up and the government and their union sycophants suck it all up like a coke whore at breakfast.
The gov't takes its cues from Krugman and China where the recommended move is to pay off your gov't elite with more cash to stimulate the domestic economy. In the US, all we got was a housing bubble in DC/VA/MD and more debt to payoff.
Cut the budget or gov't workers salaries? Not in our lifetimes. Even suggesting that makes you an enemy of the state.
Exactly,
The only solution to any govt is "give me more of your money"
The baby boom generation enjoyed having a large and humming American manufacturing sector for most of their lives, which offered high paying jobs. The baby boomers didnt have to compete with slave wage workers in other countries, or experience treasonous free trade deals.
Protectionist trade policies allowed the baby boom generation to gain job experience and build savings.
Then along came Reaganomics starting in the 1980's, where millions of good paying American jobs were shipped to China. The history books and the media ignore this fact, but I am telling it here. The decline of the USA started with Reagan getting rid of protectionist trade policies. Many of today's economic problems are attributed to Ronald Reagan.
For the GEN Y and Gen X, all they know is failed Reganomics, globalization, and high college costs. So of course the baby boomers won the financial war. The greatest generation set things up great for the baby boomers, who then wrecked the country economically for the younger generation.
GEN Y and GEN X wont get ahead until after the next major economic crash and we can declare Reganomics and globalization dead, and hit the reset button.
The FED and their money printing stimulus tricks are keeping failed Reganomics alive on life support-- for now.
yes he behaved after they shot him, didnt he
I'm a late boomer (55) and I got no problem with doing so. I never planned on collecting from the SS and Medicare ponzis that I have been forced to participate in.
Simple, just fund everything with a windfall profits tax on all the crazy interest boomers are earning on their retirement savings. /s
Seriously. Take my boomer mother (please). She got herself knocked up for the express purpose of spending every cent my dad ever made and then some, and do nothing for it but watch soaps and drink grocery-store vodka. Unfortunately she gave the vodka up and is now determined to take thirty years to die. My dad, of course, has no hope of being able to retire soon (he's 65 and still up to his eyeballs in debt---Mom, of course, refuses to leave "her" house except in a coffin).
The nice thing about getting the chance to flee the USA is I won't have to pay a thin dime of her Medicare. The only medical treatment I'd willingly pay for her at this stage is a needle full of sodium penthothal or a sippy cup of cyanide-laced Flavor-Aid. I'd gladly admininster the treatment myself. That old bitch has had her day and is the best argument for euthanasia I know.
If you're out there, Mom, I hope there's a hell, because me and Dad both look forward to seeing you there.
She got knocked up and you are the progeny. Way to keep it classy, Niall.
As a Gen X to the Boomers.... FUCK YOOOOOUUUUUU!
I shit on your hippie records, piss on your graves and will do my best to wipe every memory of you off the face of the planet.
I agree. As a baby boomer at the beginning of that generation class (a maximum payer in), I would gladly forfeit what has been confiscated from me in return for an increase in government employee unemployment. An 80% reduction in size of all governments would be ideal. A 30% reduction would be a good start.
10k seniors begin SS benefits every day. After 45yrs of paying in, you want ME to take the hit?FU. Stopping the war machine is where an honest person would start with cuts.
IBM stock is rallying on rumors that they'll do the largest corporate layoff in history:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/ibms-stock-gains-amid-reports-that-a-massive-layoff-is-coming-2015-01-26?dist=beforebell
Cringely put his ass on the line with this call. Laying off 112,000 people all at once is pretty epic. IBM is a giant zombie corporation being eaten alive by its C-level executives.
http://www.cringely.com/2015/01/22/ibms-reorg-hell-launches-next-week/
Yeah but their "healthcare", isn't worth a shit...
LOL!!! Yes, but it sure as hell is expensive...
"winning"
Obamacare was a payback to the healthcare industry / money launderers. Fuck Obama.
Good luck with that. Enough with the bullshit propaganda. Following the "money". It is very clear what the Fed has done. The Fed has continued to give free money (QE & ZIRP) to useless fucking paper-pushers (bankers and financers) while imposing austerity on everyone else.
Fuck em, stop using their useless paper and start taking some fucking heads. Nothing changes otherwise.
lawsofphysics.....zerohedge was putting the banker free money at upwards of $30 trillion. that is enough to pay down the national debt and leave major bucks towards soc. sec. and medicare. just imagine $18 trillion in bonds paid back to the owners and what that would do to not only our economy but also worldwide. however there would be no warfare between grandchildren and their grandparents. no us vs. them story to be told by some couldn't make it as a hippie artist/bankrupt developer from hawaii come to torment us with bullshit. OF TWO MINDS.......to many bad drug trips? good grief
Like so many empires before, the entire planet now suffers from the ultimate CON where useless paper-pusher BUY the political class and governments while shafting all the really productive engineers, scientists, craftsmen, etc.
Moreover, all the desparate ignorant fucks in the ghettos of the world seem all too willing to follow the race-baiting and propaganda to do the bidding of the oligarchs. This is the natural outcome of human nature as there simply is no "monetary", "economic", "fiscal", or "political" solution to resource scarcity.
I am sure even Easter Island had their own oligarchs before people started eating each other. The good news is that at the end of the day all economies are local. In my neck of the woods we are prepared. IN fact I still export a bunch to Brazil and they still pay me in dollars, so life goes on.
zerohedge was putting the banker free money at upwards of $30 trillion
Just ignore the unpleasant facts such as Kotlikoff putting the outstanding US government liabilities at $210 trillion...
This is a hit piece - pure Peterson Propaganda - last year at this time, it was: Druckenmiller & Krasting - endless rationalizations for cutting SS and Medicare when the problem has always been since 1947 the spending on the MIC and CIA - $20 Trillion in 65 years which never was necessary and created the $18 Trillion in debt.
If SS went away and the marginal income continues to decline then there will be no solution for all these millenials in 30 years. They will be out in the street with their begging bowls - their savings today is non-existent plus their education loans are still with them in another ten years.
The military culture of this country and the promotion of the empire of chaos
will be the death knell for the entire system.
Of course they won. They had a 30 year head start on most of us.
They rapped the country for 30 years
Hey now, I enjoy that geriatic rap music.
3. Raise interest rates to 10+% to encourage saving and to generate a healthy return on pension funds and retirement accounts
Yes, because it's just that simple for simpletons.
Yeah. People don't seem to understand that there is no real solution at this point. We are a late stage alcoholic. Going cold turkey means having a grand mal seizure and waking up the reality that in fact the body has already been ruined. There's no "fix" except death and succession.
<== bite the bullet & stick to your principles
<== fuck that ~ file for SSDI and pour all your proceeds into stacking
It'll be a phyrric vistory at best. When the Boomers try unloading their assets at inflated values to pay for their retirement, only to find that nobody can afford them at those prices, the reality of the situation wilil become abundantly clear.
what a crock. if you feel guilty don't take the money. better yet, donate every penny to a youth group. you are a liar and a fool.
Eliminate ALL income tax, Fed, State, local, etc., eliminate the IRS and implement a sales tax.
That type tax takes away all the power (by right or left) over citizens and captures income even from off the book income, everyone has to eat, buy clothes, auto's, etc.
They love you. They will implement your value added tax (VAT) then keep the other taxes in place. Covert to a flat tax.
"Eliminate" not add
Death squads to the rescue ......
So far the death squads have only gone after banksters and people who ask inconvenient questions with the expectation of going public with the answers. It's the death panels that boomers have to worry about.
In the words of Arthur Ponzirelli, "We've jumped the shark!"
<---the rich boomers
<---everyone else
Which ingredient makes the best soylent green?
The 'rich boomers' are those on some sort of union/government pension.
The 'rich boomers' are having their life savings stolen from them as they try to exist on SS and any savings they have/had is sucked dry by zero return on any relatively safe investment.
Their 'wealth' is the biggest wealth 'redistribution', by government edict in the history of the USA if not the world.
<== The Kardashian sisters
<== Chewbacca & Oprah
Whose' @ss makes the best bar of soap?
Assbama
So it's the boomers fault that the money they paid for retirement has been squandered on foriegn wars?
I didn't see many boomer protestors, but maybe I missed it. It seems like most supported those wars.
You mean you didn't see any boomer protesters sucking the medias cock, just leftist whiners and c**ts.
There were plenty of people who saw these wars as imperialist wastes of money. Both "conservative" and "liberal" boomers humped it all the way to the trillions that were spent.
Its their fault for not understanding the system. The same can be said for just about everybody else.
Not to mention psychopaths setting up a political economy that pours wealth upward while decimating the domestic economy. Nobody voted for that shit. You'd think we live in a genuine democracy.
This is one ignorant fucking analysis.
Generational warfare . . . what an astute approach.
Yes you hired liars to run the country. Your forefathers would have taken a pitchfork to them. My generation is following in your footsteps.
1-you didn't pay for retirement, you paid a tax for your parents retirement
2-as the largest voting block for 30+ years, you are responsible for the wars
Using your same logic; as the youth is the lowest voting percentage block of voters - you are responsible for the wars.
Just what the government wants - divide and conquer - don't fall for it.
Not sure how the opposite logic is using my logic. I'm not falling for anything. My generation is smaller than the BB generation, due to 30 million abortions. The BB are the largest in absolute numbers, therefore the largest voting block. Take a look at the 2010 census for details.
My main point is that paying a tax doesn't guarantee you anything. You have not prepaid for a retirement. Somehow my kids now owe you a retirement because you paid for your parents. But the numbers are not the same as they were back then. We need a plan B. I'm not dividing us, the divide is fantasy and reality.
Not sure how the opposite logic is using my logic. I'm not falling for anything. My generation is smaller than the BB generation, due to 30 million abortions. The BB are the largest in absolute numbers, therefore the largest voting block. Take a look at the 2010 census for details.
My main point is that paying a tax doesn't guarantee you anything. You have not prepaid for a retirement. Somehow my kids now owe you a retirement because you paid for your parents. But the numbers are not the same as they were back then. We need a plan B. I'm not dividing us, the divide is fantasy and reality.
The youth of America has the lowest percentage turnout and complains the most.
The youth of America is a large enough voting block to turn any election we have had over the last 40 years, by not voting you implicitly vote for the wars - using your logic.
The government has told all of America that they would be given Social Security retirement since it's inception. I personally have paid enough Federal tax alone to fund my SS to live to several hundred years old. The government collects a SS tax and then lies to the American people and puts it into the general fund. Your kids don't owe me shit, the government owes me and every citizen they have been collecting the lie called Social Security tax from a retirement. Your kids and you owe those who fought the wars a 'thank you' so you and your kids have the freedom to type the stupidity you do without government kicking down your door.
I wouldn't be too proud of a generation that uses abortion as birth control in particular when there are many easy to use birth control methods available to prevent pregnancy.
Huh!?
The debt that has been built up over many years and under the purview of many different politicians isn't solely due to a war in the middle east.
The debt has primarily accrued b/c of social security, medicare and medicaid. Go take a look at federal spending. This country is 18 trillion in debt with another 300 trillion in unfunded liabilities (SS). Go on. take a look. The wars only account for a very small portion of that. Somewhere around 700 billion.
Quit watching MSNBC.
Military/security complex sucks up about 1.2 trillion yearly when you parse it out of the various Federal Agencies.
Quit watching Fox News.
The premise of the article is the assumption that the federal reserve actually cares about anything other than its member bankers. Pretty far fetched since history has shown that has never been the case.
If the federal reserve was 'concerned' for the boomers retirement and benefits the interest rate would be between 6 and 7 percent ..... not at a negative or zero interest rate.
For the last 10 years I have been lamenting the fate of the younger generation as we watched and gloated at the sight of our property values and stock values rise without regard to the availability of well paying jobs for the younger generation.
Asset values are out of sync with what the younger generation are facing and as a result the asset values will not be sustanable as there will be a shrinking market and a shrinking pocket able to buy up the assets of us baby boomers.
Household formation is wilting everywhere because young people cannot get a foothold that enables them to start families and if families do not form guess what happens?
The early baby boomers might ride this storm fairly well but those down the middle or end of the baby boomer spectrum are in for one hell of a fright.
Here is a quick economic shot in the arm for the youth in this country.
Vote for someone who will enforce our immigration laws which will remove 14+ million illegal (that means they broke the law) immigrants from the job pool. That move alone will turn a minimum wage job into a good paying position with companies competing to hire the best of this group by offering better benefits also.
Dat's rayciss
Yeah there will tons of cool jobs for millenials picking lettuce, cleaning houses, mowing lawns, dispensing coffee, etc. Somehow it's all the boomers' fault, because they happened to spend their most productive years in a time when the US empire was at its peak.
I see this generational divide-and-conquer bullshit on ZH from time to time... don't buy into it. BTW, the millenials are more numerous than the boomers... http://money.cnn.com/interactive/economy/diversity-millennials-boomers/
Boomers aren't even going to see what was promised to them. The"greatest Generation" already made more promises than they can keep.
A large portion of the blame rests with Bernanke and Greenspan as a result of their ZIRP policy which caused an explosion in asset prices but which destroyed the returns on savings as well as destroying the returns on property which could not rise in line with the rapidly inflating asset value.
So a boomer is stuck in a house which is valued way beyond the means of the younger generation to buy but simultaneously cannot earn any sort of retirement income due to ZIRP and terrible share earnings. Everyone is a loser except those who can accumulate wealth without worrying too much about cash flow.
Right so the idea is: more austerity not only for the young, but also for the old, and the 0.001% keep getting more of everything. Got it.
Hey Charles,
All your life you have been lied to by those who seek to control you. Did you think the laws were written to protect you?
Get a fuckin' clue. The war is not between generations, it is between the government and the governed.
You failed to provide any proof that a perfect government could fix those problems easily, or at all for that matter.
Some may call it bad management, But most call it a policy coup. I call it financial war.
As victims of a ponzi scheme let's argue over which victims fault this is.
Divide and conquer
I don't hear this divide and conquer idea when an article is written about millennial unemployment levels and boomers are on here ranting and raving tooting their own pompous horns about how this unemployment is due to millennial being fuk ups and not as great as the boomer generation. Please show me where, please (Draghi)
Boomers, don't be so fuking self righteous, you were handed a very good economy on a silver fuking platter by the greatest generation. Now you hand Gen X and Millennial’s a pile of shit on a thin styrofoam plate and blame them? Give me a break.
Shit comes back around and if you are lucky, very lucky, the Gen X and Millennial as they start to come into power, won’t be as selfish and self righteous as your generation. Maybe you'll have a pot to piss in in a few years after what you’ve done to the generations below you just because you could.
This has to be trolling.
"Hey millenials and gen x, fuck you we got ours. Now were gonna ship the factories overseas so we can get our stuff we used to make cheaper. Oh ya i went to college by working over the summer, got a job got married and bought this new house and car the next year. In 5 years I'll be dept free with 4 kids. Why are you young kids so lazy? where is my prozac and penis medication"
....
Good news & bad news...
Good: the tooth fairy will fix this as the boomers loose their teeth
Bad: Yellen is the tooth fairy
Wrong. The tooth fairy is a woman. Yellen, not so much.
Eliminate entitlement. Everyone's going to be responsible for their own retirement.
Sure, if they eliminate any SS tax and any tax remotely related to it.
Eliminate unentitlement. Everyone's going to be responsible for their own retirement.
There, fixed it for you. I invested 15% of my hard earned income for over 40 years in this system I am entitled to some benefit.
You have not invested anything, you paid a tax. The $ money you paid is gone. The claim you're making is to my kid's future income.
No, Social Security was a forced savings plan that you could not opt out of. If I wasn't forced to pay into this, that money could be diverted to my retirment. I've been getting Social Security statements that for years has been telling me what my benifits will be. I WILL structure my retirment income so that I extract as much money from this scam as possible. It is my patriotic duty to break the back of this beast.
I agree everything you have said. Just don't tell my kids they owe you something.
Restructure, the only way.
GET A LOAD OF THIS GUY.
Just because you got taken by the ponzi means you deserve a bailout, you are not Jamie Dimon. Sorry about all that money you lost in the ponzi scheme by the way. Maybe you should of hedged a little better.
They've already been teaching the millenials to value phones more than homes. Media is desparate to convince them that their lowered standard of living is more enjoyable than that of their parents. If a reset is allowed to occur, it will devistate nearly everyone, but especially the old as their pensions and savings are confiscated and reduced to zero. Boomers better play nice with their younger relatives because they are going to have to move in with them just to survive. It's not like they can even pretend that retraining is an option and no one will hire a 65+ psuedo retiree.
"a 65+ psuedo retiree"
For the moment, those (including 55+) are the ones getting the jobs. One of the few demographics who tend to actually show up on time and work.
They're keeping their jobs, not "getting jobs". Over 55 new hires are a myth.
The Fed is from Bizarro Land. So, whenever you see the words "Federal Reserve Has Declared...", the words that follow should be read with their opposite meaning.
I'm in my 50's, and since college I knew they wouldn't make good on this thieving Ponzi. The only question is, will they let us die or actively kill us while covering the murder with kind, merciful Orwellian dis-info?
The millennials voted for Obama looking for free shit Medical Care, and you blame boomers for voting this or that way. Or was that our fault too. Are we to blame for the Sun rising every morning?
This whole problem is from the production and the jobs that go with it are now located overseas. Obama's last 6 years have increased our "children's debt" 100 times. Guess that's the boomers fault too. Yes gov has robbed SS. Sorry, we didn't get to vote on that. Yes the "Free Trade" treaties eliminated jobs... We did not get to vote on that either.
At 66 I am not sitting on my fat ass. I am still working, and will have to remain working to support my family and most likely your fat ass and your brethren getting 5 grand for simply shitting out two kiddies.
Yea, Right Charlie. The Boomers won!
Boomers making a fortune on that .00000015 interest on all the money financiers like yourself said to invest or save.
And Gee, all that mullah made from those asset bubbles now that the younger gens can't afford to buy them. It's one thing, Charlie, to have an asset worth a lot of FRN' fake dollars,,,Quite another finding someone who can afford it.
How' bout that supposed one (1) percent bullshit inflation rate you and your fellow 'financiers' speak about. From where I stand its somewhere between 8-12 percent using the proper formulas, not your mark to fantasy crap.
Thanks to financiers like you and your ilk this boomer has screwed the younger gens so bad, made so much from interest and selling all my high value assets he has to continue working just to survive. Yes sir,,, we really got em!
It wasn't the corporations offshoring production and importing cheap slave labor or the Central Bank printing, and printing, and printing ,,,, NOPE!,,, twas all the boomers fault. You might want to consider why the charts show the increase in boomers returning/staying in the work force. According to you,,, it's probably because we REALLY want to screw those young fellers by taking their jobs too!
Oh Yea,,, just sitting out here and watching the money roll in! That's us boomers.
And why are you choosing the only group who has paid,, at least partially,,, into the system. How much do the Medicaid recipients pay in? Mostly it is Boomers still working. How much do the SNAP Food Stamp recipients pay in? How much do the HUD housing recipients pay in....... I mean separate from income taxes. Hell, for that matter, how much does that group pay in income taxes?
I'll tell you how much..... It's NITR... Negative income Tax Rate. 1 Child == $3000,,, 2 childs == $5000 EARNED INCOME! and more stupid shit like that. How many under age children do most boomers have? ZERO. How about Papa Gov paying for Child care? This boomer paid 100% for raising his children. No HUD, No SNAP, No Medicaid, No O-Care, No 'Earned' Income.................... Just worked and provided for those same younger gens that now say it's all our fault, we are living the life of Riley and it just ain't fair.
Up Your Baby!
I really wish these writers would dispense with the term: 'decades'. The translation being: Horrors, Horrors!!!, but not for a long time yet so don't worry - and plus, my doom-porn hooks need the $$$... We're here, right now Charles Hugh Smith...
Boomers are parasites. By the time I got to the party all that was left was Zima's and half eaten cocktail weenies. FUCK YOU BOMMERS.
Reorganize Social Security. Eliminate all payments other than from what people have paid in. Period. Like an annuity.
This is the only way Social Security will survive.
Technological advances will make SS irrelevant.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SObzNdyRTBs
Run, the tower is falling
Fed protects bankers. Everyone else will be robbed.