The Rich Are Still Getting Richer

[BumbleBus]

It is in fact quite illegal to love someone of the same sex in many places in the US. Sodomy laws remain on the books in various states

Hell in Montana it is illegal for married women to go fishing alone on Sundays, and illegal for unmarried women to fish alone at all.

[glasseye]

It is in fact quite illegal to love someone of the same sex in many places in the US. Sodomy laws remain on the books in various states, Same-sex marriage is NOT an accomplished fact in more than a few jurisdictions, and prejudice remains.

I didn't say that it was now universally legal to marry. Nor did I say anything about sodomy. The fact remains that until relatively recently, homosexuality was grounds for blackmail. In other words: "Do what I say or I'll report your sexual behaviour to the police and you'll go to jail." It's evident that both society and the law are a little more tolerant today. And for that we can all be proud, not just the Boomers.

"In the eyes of the law you're equal" ~ really? Tell that to Trayvon Martin's parents.

That story is not complete and the law has yet to have its say in that case. Pointing to that anomalous incident weakens your case. I think you've overstepped the bounds of reasonable argument.

Also, I said "in the eyes of the law". I didn't say "in the eyes of everyone." The fact remains that many forms of discrimination that were commonplace in the recent past are now illegal.

They did not create the fight for equality; it is as old as America itself, and many, many Americans have risked more, and fought harder for the rights of others than the Baby Boomers.

Again, you're saying I said things I didn't. Please don't do that.

Of course the fight for equal rights pre-dates the Boomers. It also predates America. But it became LAW under their watch.

2. The fight wasn't "won" with equality before the law; that was merely one step in a long succession of battles that is NOT finished.

Of course it's not finished. Nobody said it was finished. I said that inequality was now illegal by law. That some continue to break that law is another story.

...Most of what was done in the 60s was done for the wrong reasons. The sexual revolution wasn't about freeing society from centuries old ideological oppression; it was about young kids not wanting to be responsible.

And you're accusing me of being sanctimonious? The fact is that the sexual revolution resulted as much from technological change as it did from irresponsibility. And the music. The music helped, too. Especially the stuff from the late fifties.

I remember watching an interview with Steven Spielberg some years ago (the uber-Baby Boomer; also born in 1946) where he was talking about his film, Close Encounters of the Third Kind; he commented that if he wrote the film now, he would probably have written it differently. In the original film, the lead character Roy Neary (played by Richard Dreyfuss) leaves his wife and children (with no explanation), and takes off into space with aliens. Spielberg said that now, as a husband and father, he was uncomfortable with the way the film portrayed the family relationship as meaningless to the main character.

And that is pretty much the Baby Boomer ethos right there ~ "hey we had a great time being selfish, and you're totally going to have to pay for our mistakes, so sorry."

And that's exactly why I made the comments about the party. In fact, it's a huge failure on my generation. One for which there can be no sufficient reconciliation.

And that pretty much brings us back to where we started this post, doesn't it? It's very much easier to be selfish and then apologize, than to simply do the right thing to begin with. And that is the center of the Baby Boomer ideology: "It's all about us"

It was all about us, for a while. You put a bunch of kids unsupervised into the biggest candy store in history, what do you expect? Universal responsible behaviour? Gas was less than thirty cents a gallon, right? Suddenly this generation could go anywhere and do anything. You'd expect us to stay home, wringing our hands that maybe our road trips might result in the melting of the Arctic ice caps?

For those of us who followed, that's a hard pill to swallow. What makes it worse in many ways is the endlessly sanctimonious crap that flows from Baby Boomers about how they changed the world. Yeah, they did a lot. But they also gave us Lloyd Blankfein. Oh, you can't remember who he is? He's the CEO and chairman of Goldman Sachs. The guy who said that Goldman Sachs was "doing God's work".

Ah. So now we have to wear the failures of both organized religion and the banking industry. Pretty broad brush you're wielding there. Nobody's excusing criminal behaviour, whether by church or bank officials.

I'll bet, from what you've written elsewhere that you're not a selfish idiot. But I hope you can start to see how it looks to those of us who came after, and have to live with the effects of the Baby Boomers, even after their gone.

Whatever good was done by those kids so long ago, in the that special five years, has been greatly overshadowed by what has been done since.

I can see I need to brush up on my irony skills. My original "party" metaphor was intended to be as direct an indictment of my generation as I could level. There's no denying it. The world in general and some places in particular are a fucking mess and my generation is at least partly to blame. But blaming only the Boomers is a mistake. No one generation could have screwed things up as badly as what we see out there now. Dick Cheney is not a Boomer.

We continue to make valuable contributions, however messy our room. Ever use turn-by-turn navigation on your phone? Software, semiconductor electronics and space flight, all initiated on the Boomers' watch, make that little feat of magic possible. I notice that you studiously avoid my comment about the Internet, perhaps my generation's greatest achievement and without which this discussion and millions of others like it could not be contemplated.

[DjEep]

Wearing a paper hat at Pizza Hut might not cut it.

Not when collecting unemployment and entitlements nets you more money that's for sure.

Stirring the pot...

Well this is a big part of what recently made me go nuts. Seeing the latest generation of "adults" (ages 20-26) living fat on free-this and gov't funded that, oblivious to where this and that come from. And all the while, hatin' on the man. The thing that bothers me most is that I wholeheartedly support social assistance, when needed, so seeing people play right into the very arguments used against it is supremely frustrating. We, as a culture, have made it all too easy to expect everything for minimal work, from the "rich", who think money is just something to be "made" to the "poor", who long to live like the rich, and will step all over each other and themselves in an attempt to do so.

Take a 22y/o kid I know as an example. During the federal budget fiasco last year, when threats of a shutdown loomed, he posted a rant on FB about how he hoped the shutdown would occur, so the employees at the local Human Services offices didn't get their paychecks, as they had denied his re-application for food stamps. I told him that the very reason there was a threat of a shutdown and pay freeze was because the Repubs thought the gov was spending too much on "entitlements", such as his food stamps. And if he really needed food stamps that much anyway, he wouldn't be wearing nice new designer clothes, spending his days playing with music, driving his girlfriends brand new car or sticking gobs of cocaine up his nose.

I think the failure comes not from the existence of said entitlements, but from a culture that elevates play and status above the real work that it takes to sustain a "comfortable" lifestyle, combined with a rigged system that makes a large part of the population feel ripped off, and therefor willing to rip off right back.

Oh, and that kid, about a week after I called him on that, joined the Army, probably out of a combination of a sudden feeling that he had to give something back, and the fact that joining the Army is about as easy as it gets when it comes to a career path. (Not saying being in the Army is easy, it's just simpler in the short term to put your life in Uncle Sam's hands than to do the critical thinking necessary to forge your own way.)

The baby boomers and the events of the sixties were needed to save us from the appalling rigidity of the conservative fifties, and there will always be a place for limit pushing, but we need to start teaching ourselves and our children that the freedoms we have earned in our past battles come with the price tag of responsibility.

And don't get me started on the music.... The music of the last great social upheaval was filled with soul and experience and potential. This time around, it's all gimme-this-I'm-a-baller-look-at-mee drivel

[Lanval]

It is in fact quite illegal to love someone of the same sex in many places in the US. Sodomy laws remain on the books in various states, Same-sex marriage is NOT an accomplished fact in more than a few jurisdictions, and prejudice remains.

I didn't say that it was now universally legal to marry. Nor did I say anything about sodomy. The fact remains that until relatively recently, homosexuality was grounds for blackmail. In other words: "Do what I say or I'll report your sexual behaviour to the police and you'll go to jail." It's evident that both society and the law are a little more tolerant today. And for that we can all be proud, not just the Boomers.

"In the eyes of the law you're equal" ~ really? Tell that to Trayvon Martin's parents.

That story is not complete and the law has yet to have its say in that case. Pointing to that anomalous incident weakens your case. I think you've overstepped the bounds of reasonable argument.

Also, I said "in the eyes of the law". I didn't say "in the eyes of everyone." The fact remains that many forms of discrimination that were commonplace in the recent past are now illegal.

They did not create the fight for equality; it is as old as America itself, and many, many Americans have risked more, and fought harder for the rights of others than the Baby Boomers.

Again, you're saying I said things I didn't. Please don't do that.

Incorrect. I didn't put words in your mouth; I pointed out the extent to which the claim you made ignored vast swaths of history.

Of course the fight for equal rights pre-dates the Boomers. It also predates America. But it became LAW under their watch.

No it didn't, and apparently you need to study a little history; some changes were made for sure, not all, not even most. Some.

2. The fight wasn't "won" with equality before the law; that was merely one step in a long succession of battles that is NOT finished.

Of course it's not finished. Nobody said it was finished. I said that inequality was now illegal by law. That some continue to break that law is another story.

...Most of what was done in the 60s was done for the wrong reasons. The sexual revolution wasn't about freeing society from centuries old ideological oppression; it was about young kids not wanting to be responsible.

And you're accusing me of being sanctimonious? The fact is that the sexual revolution resulted as much from technological change as it did from irresponsibility. And the music. The music helped, too. Especially the stuff from the late fifties.

I remember watching an interview with Steven Spielberg some years ago (the uber-Baby Boomer; also born in 1946) where he was talking about his film, Close Encounters of the Third Kind; he commented that if he wrote the film now, he would probably have written it differently. In the original film, the lead character Roy Neary (played by Richard Dreyfuss) leaves his wife and children (with no explanation), and takes off into space with aliens. Spielberg said that now, as a husband and father, he was uncomfortable with the way the film portrayed the family relationship as meaningless to the main character.

And that is pretty much the Baby Boomer ethos right there ~ "hey we had a great time being selfish, and you're totally going to have to pay for our mistakes, so sorry."

And that's exactly why I made the comments about the party. In fact, it's a huge failure on my generation. One for which there can be no sufficient reconciliation.

And that pretty much brings us back to where we started this post, doesn't it? It's very much easier to be selfish and then apologize, than to simply do the right thing to begin with. And that is the center of the Baby Boomer ideology: "It's all about us"

It was all about us, for a while. You put a bunch of kids unsupervised into the biggest candy store in history, what do you expect? Universal responsible behaviour? Gas was less than thirty cents a gallon, right? Suddenly this generation could go anywhere and do anything. You'd expect us to stay home, wringing our hands that maybe our road trips might result in the melting of the Arctic ice caps?

Given the extent to which the Baby Boomers lectured everyone about rights and responsibility, yeah. If you can't do what you tell others to do, be quiet.

For those of us who followed, that's a hard pill to swallow. What makes it worse in many ways is the endlessly sanctimonious crap that flows from Baby Boomers about how they changed the world. Yeah, they did a lot. But they also gave us Lloyd Blankfein. Oh, you can't remember who he is? He's the CEO and chairman of Goldman Sachs. The guy who said that Goldman Sachs was "doing God's work".

Ah. So now we have to wear the failures of both organized religion and the banking industry. Pretty broad brush you're wielding there. Nobody's excusing criminal behaviour, whether by church or bank officials.

No the Baby Boomers have to wear the intellectual and moral failings brought on by the unbelievably self-righteous attitude that they foisted off on the rest of the country. "Don't trust anyone over 30" indeed. If you are uncomfortable with the likes of Blankfein, how about you go out and do something about it. But no, Occupy Wall Street was left to the youth, because that kind of protest would have required honesty, effort and sacrifice for others ~ not the Baby Boomer strong point. Besides, it might affect the Baby Boomer retirement funds...

I'll bet, from what you've written elsewhere that you're not a selfish idiot. But I hope you can start to see how it looks to those of us who came after, and have to live with the effects of the Baby Boomers, even after their gone.

Whatever good was done by those kids so long ago, in the that special five years, has been greatly overshadowed by what has been done since.

I can see I need to brush up on my irony skills. My original "party" metaphor was intended to be as direct an indictment of my generation as I could level. There's no denying it. The world in general and some places in particular are a fucking mess and my generation is at least partly to blame. But blaming only the Boomers is a mistake. No one generation could have screwed things up as badly as what we see out there now. Dick Cheney is not a Boomer.

No, but George Bush is. A guy who dodged the draft, then went AWOL and claims he can't remember what he was doing was elected by whom exactly? The Baby Boomers, the largest single voting block in the nation.

To wit:

"In the 1985 study of US generational cohorts by Schuman and Scott, a broad sample of adults was asked, "What world events over the past 50 years were especially important to them?"[27] For the baby boomers the results were:
Baby Boomer cohort #1 (born from circa 1946 to 1955), the young cohort who epitomized the cultural change of the sixties
Memorable events: the Cuban Missile Crisis, assassinations of JFK, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr., political unrest, walk on the moon, risk of the draft into the Vietnam War, anti-war protests, social experimentation, sexual freedom, drug experimentation, civil rights movement, environmental movement, women's movement, protests and riots, Woodstock.
Key characteristics: experimental, individualism, free spirited, social cause oriented
Key members: Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, Former U.S. President George W. Bush"

from here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_boomer

We continue to make valuable contributions, however messy our room. Ever use turn-by-turn navigation on your phone? Software, semiconductor electronics and space flight, all initiated on the Boomers' watch, make that little feat of magic possible. I notice that you studiously avoid my comment about the Internet, perhaps my generation's greatest achievement and without which this discussion and millions of others like it could not be contemplated.

The Baby Boomers didn't invent the internet. Go read up on it first. ARPANET was deployed in 1969, so unless the Baby Boomers were doing advanced computer research for large scale government-funded entities, NO. Nothing about the internet comes from the Baby Boomers ~ computers, networking, pretty much everything was developed by the preceding generation. The Baby Boomer generation developed no important technological achievements. Cell phones existed in WWII, computers were developed in the 1960s using semi-conductors and transistors from the previous decade, building on already-current tube-based technology.

The only real long-term positive effect of the Baby Boomers appears to be in the area of social/individual rights, and I see that, as I said before, in terms of incremental change. Nothing they did was more significant than what had come before. Hell, it's like they have never heard of the Civil War, union organization or Suffragettes... I just can't fathom it.

At the end of the day, though, I'll say this. The only thing that I really want at this point is for the Baby Boomers to stop saying, Oh well, that's how it goes" and start giving a shit again. Hell, they're starting to retire; do you think they'll use their newly found free time, and their substantial financial assets to reshape the world in a positive way? Don't bet on it, because like I said; it's a lot easier to say, "Oh sorry" after you've trashed everything, than it is to stick around and pick up the pieces. I can hope, but I've never seen anything that suggests I should.

One more thing; before you start with the notion that I'm some kind of angry crank with personal issues (which on this topic Colin has indeed suggested) you need to know that many, many, many of my compatriots ~ people who grew up with baby boomers for parents ~ not only agree with what I've said here, but feel that if anything, I'm soft pedaling, because I don't talk about the ENORMOUS social damage done by the long-term selfishness and self-centeredness of the Baby Boomers. Endless tales of broken families, lost fortunes and more at the hands of people who were handed the best the world had to offer and blew it on pot, speed, sex and great music (I can't help it; the music really was better).

So the upshot, for me, is this: Baby Boomers, don't apologize, 'cause the past can't be changed; the future hasn't been written though, and the Baby Boomers have the chance (owing to time + money + huge numbers) to still have a huge impact on the direction of America. G

But as I said, I'm not hopeful; the discussion surrounding the healthcare legislation by Obama shows what is more likely; the Baby Boomers have theirs (medicare! Paid for by the working young!!), so why bother taking care of the working young? I can only hope that the irony of that situation comes to fruition.

Finally, Glasseye, I'm not condemning you, though some of the things you've written encode the types of thinking I've been talking about; I also got you're irony. I'm just not satisfied with an apology, 'cause that's the easy way out. Personally, I'm through with letting the Baby Boomers take the easy way out. It's all they've done, and we all are paying for it. If I have to pay the price, I get the luxury of holding them accountable for that payment.

Best,

Michael L

[DjEep]

Seeing as learning is an ongoing and undulating process, I think it's a good sign that the children of baby boomers are seeing their parent's generations excesses and learning from them. Now we just need to be careful not to undulated too far back in response.

Also, I think we are using terms like baby boomers as a generalization. Not all BB's are free-loving children of excess, but the tendency as a whole generation was/is there.

[Amskeptic]

Given the extent to which the Baby Boomers lectured everyone about rights and responsibility, yeah. If you can't do what you tell others to do, be quiet.

No the Baby Boomers have to wear the intellectual and moral failings brought on by the unbelievably self-righteous attitude that they foisted off on the rest of the country.

The Baby Boomers didn't invent the internet. Nothing about the internet comes from the Baby Boomers ~ computers, networking, pretty much everything was developed by the preceding generation. The Baby Boomer generation developed no important technological achievements. Cell phones existed in WWII, computers were developed in the 1960s using semi-conductors and transistors from the previous decade, building on already-current tube-based technology.

The only real long-term positive effect of the Baby Boomers appears to be in the area of social/individual rights, and I see that, as I said before, in terms of incremental change. Nothing they did was more significant than what had come before. Hell, it's like they have never heard of the Civil War, union organization or Suffragettes... I just can't fathom it.

At the end of the day, though, I'll say this. The only thing that I really want at this point is for the Baby Boomers to stop saying, Oh well, that's how it goes" and start giving a shit again.

Baby Boomers, don't apologize, 'cause the past can't be changed; the future hasn't been written though, and the Baby Boomers have the chance (owing to time + money + huge numbers) to still have a huge impact on the direction of America. G

But as I said, I'm not hopeful; the discussion surrounding the healthcare legislation by Obama shows what is more likely; the Baby Boomers have theirs (medicare! Paid for by the working young!!), so why bother taking care of the working young?

I'm just not satisfied with an apology, 'cause that's the easy way out. Personally, I'm through with letting the Baby Boomers take the easy way out. It's all they've done, and we all are paying for it. If I have to pay the price, I get the luxury of holding them accountable for that payment.

Honestly?

This is tedious drivel bordering on ludicrous ranting.

The moral failings of some individual human beings known as Baby Boomers can be laid at the feet of their parents, and their failings can be laid at the feet of their parents, and so on, the sins of the father do visit upon the son.

I know and love many wonderful human beings categorized by you as baby boomers, and you will not tar them with this horseshit, nor will you tar me with this horseshit, nor my family members.
"Hell, it's like they have never heard of the Civil War, union organization or Suffragettes"
You denigrate every day that my union-organizing sister has been on this planet raising hell against the corporate capitalists.

"Personally, I'm through with letting the Baby Boomers take the easy way out."
This ^ here is an easy way out. Are you through? OMG now what?
Geeze, you think you have it tough? Do you? Have you been personally subject to privations hunger disease? Are you seriously going to stew in this pathetic "waa if I have to pay the price, I get the luxury of holding 'them' accountable?" Just curious, what does a generation of diverse human creatures aka boomers *owe* you??

You know me well enough that I could rant on all damn day not about a generation (?) but a group of certain unbelievably self-righteous individuals who belong exclusively to a class of people who have shown no regard for the welfare of others, and this group of certain unbelievably self-righteous individuals who belong exclusively to this class has a historical record of exploiting people of other lands all along, before, during, and after the Baby Boom generation, this class is still at it. Real Bastards! In the 40s! In the 50s! In the 60s! In the 70s! Unbelievably Self-Righteous Bastards! In the 80s! In the 90s! In the 00s! And we have a new crop here on Wall Street! Bastards! Who Still Don't Give A Damn! And Lanval, if the forces and sources of all that you rail against precede and succeed your favorite whipping boy, perhaps it is those forces and sources you need to focus your unbelievably self-righteous attentions upon . . . oh well, that's how it goes.
Colin

[HiRoller]

Just have to jump in here and say as a historian and geographer I don't think I've ever heard or read anything as erroneous and inaccurate as what Mr. Lanval says (if I have the correct individual identified). There's a lot of misplaced, misunderstood anger there. History is a continuum, not blocks of generations.

And with all due respect to Mr. Glasseye, I apologize for absolutely nothing, not for myself nor my 'generation'. When times get temporarily tough young people tend to think the 'good ol' days' were better ... easier. Not much could be further from that 'truth'.

[Lanval]

Given the extent to which the Baby Boomers lectured everyone about rights and responsibility, yeah. If you can't do what you tell others to do, be quiet.

No the Baby Boomers have to wear the intellectual and moral failings brought on by the unbelievably self-righteous attitude that they foisted off on the rest of the country.

The Baby Boomers didn't invent the internet. Nothing about the internet comes from the Baby Boomers ~ computers, networking, pretty much everything was developed by the preceding generation. The Baby Boomer generation developed no important technological achievements. Cell phones existed in WWII, computers were developed in the 1960s using semi-conductors and transistors from the previous decade, building on already-current tube-based technology.

The only real long-term positive effect of the Baby Boomers appears to be in the area of social/individual rights, and I see that, as I said before, in terms of incremental change. Nothing they did was more significant than what had come before. Hell, it's like they have never heard of the Civil War, union organization or Suffragettes... I just can't fathom it.

At the end of the day, though, I'll say this. The only thing that I really want at this point is for the Baby Boomers to stop saying, Oh well, that's how it goes" and start giving a shit again.

Baby Boomers, don't apologize, 'cause the past can't be changed; the future hasn't been written though, and the Baby Boomers have the chance (owing to time + money + huge numbers) to still have a huge impact on the direction of America. G

But as I said, I'm not hopeful; the discussion surrounding the healthcare legislation by Obama shows what is more likely; the Baby Boomers have theirs (medicare! Paid for by the working young!!), so why bother taking care of the working young?

I'm just not satisfied with an apology, 'cause that's the easy way out. Personally, I'm through with letting the Baby Boomers take the easy way out. It's all they've done, and we all are paying for it. If I have to pay the price, I get the luxury of holding them accountable for that payment.

Honestly?

This is tedious drivel bordering on ludicrous ranting.

The moral failings of some individual human beings known as Baby Boomers can be laid at the feet of their parents, and their failings can be laid at the feet of their parents, and so on, the sins of the father do visit upon the son.

I know and love many wonderful human beings categorized by you as baby boomers, and you will not tar them with this horseshit, nor will you tar me with this horseshit, nor my family members.
"Hell, it's like they have never heard of the Civil War, union organization or Suffragettes"
You denigrate every day that my union-organizing sister has been on this planet raising hell against the corporate capitalists.

"Personally, I'm through with letting the Baby Boomers take the easy way out."
This ^ here is an easy way out. Are you through? OMG now what?
Geeze, you think you have it tough? Do you? Have you been personally subject to privations hunger disease? Are you seriously going to stew in this pathetic "waa if I have to pay the price, I get the luxury of holding 'them' accountable?" Just curious, what does a generation of diverse human creatures aka boomers *owe* you??

You know me well enough that I could rant on all damn day not about a generation (?) but a group of certain unbelievably self-righteous individuals who belong exclusively to a class of people who have shown no regard for the welfare of others, and this group of certain unbelievably self-righteous individuals who belong exclusively to this class has a historical record of exploiting people of other lands all along, before, during, and after the Baby Boom generation, this class is still at it. Real Bastards! In the 40s! In the 50s! In the 60s! In the 70s! Unbelievably Self-Righteous Bastards! In the 80s! In the 90s! In the 00s! And we have a new crop here on Wall Street! Bastards! Who Still Don't Give A Damn! And Lanval, if the forces and sources of all that you rail against precede and succeed your favorite whipping boy, perhaps it is those forces and sources you need to focus your unbelievably self-righteous attentions upon . . . oh well, that's how it goes.
Colin

It is not drivel, though you may find it tedious. Ludicrous? Ranting? You sound like Louis XVI at the window in Versailles.

Fine; every generation sucks. Let me just remind you that the generation that gave birth to the Baby Boomers sucked so much that while they built the strong modern American economy during the 1950's, they also managed to keep the top tax between 86-91%. Of course good Ol' Bush, Baby Boomer president extraordinare drove it back down to 35%. Oh, and ethics? Yeah, the BB kids have a few; Tax rate went up to 39% under Clinton (probably at the behest of Bush I, though, who unlike Bush II, and a member of the Depression/WWII generation, raised taxes as a responsibility to the nation, even though doing so contradicted his own promises not to do so. In other words, Bush I put the nation before his own good. Clinton kept it up. Bush vomited on the US people. Nice.)

If you don't agree that a large group of people can believe in a set of ideals broadly, though not absolutely, but still have a measurable effect, then I challenge you to explain the Reformation, Slavery in the US, or the Abolition movement. Not every in the South believed in the institution of slavery, but I don't see or anyone else talking about slavery "wasn't an institution, it was just the random outcome of individuals".

Whether you like being "tarred with the same brush" as Bush or others isn't for me to decide; the Baby Boom exists. It has large, measurable effects. And for you to castigate me for talking about them, while at the same time speaking of any other group of individuals (as if any group couldn't be further parsed according to whatever elements we might wish to draw out) IS ludicrous. Large scale demographic studies ARE scientifically acceptable; your feelings about the results of such studies, while important in an individual sense have no use in a discussion of the measurable truths derived from those studies.

I will point you to a few things to chew on:

1. 78 million Americans who were 50 or older as of 2001 controlled 67% of the country's wealth, or $28 trillion (U.S. Census and Federal Reserve).

2. Households headed by someone in the 55-64 age group had a median net worth of $112,048 in 2000—15 times the $7,240 reported for the under 35 age group (U.S. Census and Federal Reserve).

3. The 50+ have $2.4 trillion in annual income, which accounts for 42% of all after-tax income (U.S. Consumer Expenditure Survey).

4. Adults 50 and older own 65% of the aggregate net worth of all U.S. households (U.S. Consumer Expenditure Survey).

5. By 2010, adults 45-years-old and older will out-spend younger adults by $1 trillion annually.
6. In 2004, people aged 50 and older spent an average of 47.6 percent of their family's budget on "nonessentials" (Bureau of Labor).

Colin, the wealthy you despise, the avaricious social consumers eating the planet are overwhelmingly Baby Boomers. You may not like what I have to say, but that in no way negates the truth value of it.

Fin

[Lanval]

Just have to jump in here and say as a historian and geographer I don't think I've ever heard or read anything as erroneous and inaccurate as what Mr. Lanval says (if I have the correct individual identified). There's a lot of misplaced, misunderstood anger there. History is a continuum, not blocks of generations.

What I said is neither erroneous nor inaccurate, unfortunately. Try Strauss-Howe Generational Theory, as a start. It's not misplaced anger, unfortunately.

And with all due respect to Mr. Glasseye, I apologize for absolutely nothing, not for myself nor my 'generation'. When times get temporarily tough young people tend to think the 'good ol' days' were better ... easier. Not much could be further from that 'truth'.

Just to be clear:

1. In an argument in which I said the problem with a given group of people is that they are so self-centered that they did tremendous damage which they neither acknowledge nor attempt to fix, you're response is "I apologize for nothing, not for myself nor my 'generation' ]"?

2. The times are "temporarily tough"?

And people accuse me of hubris...

I had intended to finish with my response to Colin, but you posted before I could get it up, and I felt your response deserved an answer.

Also, if you guys feel like getting out of your bubble, you can read this:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1244581 ... lenews_wsj

Finagain.

Michael L

[glasseye]

No, but George Bush is.

He doesn't count. And you know it.

The Baby Boomers didn't invent the internet. Go read up on it first.

"Go read up on it first" Fuck, man. That's just plain insulting. I bet you the microbrew of your choice that I had an email address before you did. Also, I know perfectly well what ARPANET is despite your condescension.

Nothing about the internet comes from the Baby Boomers

I have no appropriate response to that rash, inaccurate generalization other than to name a few names. All of them Boomers.
Gates. Jobs. Woz. Berners-Lee. Bezos. Robert Metcalfe. (invented ethernet, born a week after me) Marc Andreeson (Netscape) Gary Kildall.

Must I go on?

Baby Boomers have theirs (medicare! Paid for by the working young!!), so why bother taking care of the working young?

That's a silly thing to bring up with a Canadian. You know exactly what I mean.

Finally, Glasseye, I'm not condemning you, though some of the things you've written encode the types of thinking I've been talking about; I also got you're irony. I'm just not satisfied with an apology, 'cause that's the easy way out.

Obviously, you didn't get my irony. The apology was a fatuous remark poking fun at those of my generation who do think that an apology is all that's necessary. I was channeling that other master of fatuous, ironic behaviour - my hero Stephen Colbert.

Apparently wasted on you. Sorry.

Oh, there's one more thing. While walkie talkies and primitive, operator-assisted radio telephones did exist right after WWII, the first documented cell phone call was made in 1973 by its inventor, Martin Cooper of Motorola. Go read up on it.

regards,

Peter

[Elwood]

Happy Birthday Peter, you have mail.

[DjEep]

If it makes you feel better, my generation brought us Snooki, Gangsta Rap, and PBR as a beer-of-choice.

[Amskeptic]

It is not drivel, though you may find it tedious. Ludicrous? Ranting? You sound like Louis XVI at the window in Versailles.

they also managed to keep the top tax between 86-91%. Of course good Ol' Bush, Baby Boomer president extraordinare drove it back down to 35%.
Fin

He's done. Ronald Reagan and his cohort dropped the top tax rate down to 28% in what, 1982?
The whole attitude against government and participating in the social contract via paying your damn taxes was most absolutely started in earnest with good ol' Reagan, a Not A Baby Boomer.

Whether I sound like Loius XVI or not, is not germaine to the discussion if you do not offer some sort of example. I have offered examples of why I find your analysis as holey as The See. That's in Italy.
I love you like a brother, regardless.
Colin

[Lanval]

It is not drivel, though you may find it tedious. Ludicrous? Ranting? You sound like Louis XVI at the window in Versailles.

they also managed to keep the top tax between 86-91%. Of course good Ol' Bush, Baby Boomer president extraordinare drove it back down to 35%.
Fin

He's done. Ronald Reagan and his cohort dropped the top tax rate down to 28% in what, 1982?
The whole attitude against government and participating in the social contract via paying your damn taxes was most absolutely started in earnest with good ol' Reagan, a Not A Baby Boomer.

Whether I sound like Loius XVI or not, is not germaine to the discussion if you do not offer some sort of example. I have offered examples of why I find your analysis as holey as The See. That's in Italy.
I love you like a brother, regardless.
Colin

No, the tax rate didn't go down to 28 until Reagan was done in 88. It went to 31% under Bush I and 39% under Clinton, facts you could verify

here: http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts ... ?Docid=213

here: http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/151.html

or some other places. Yeah, Reagan was a Republican, so sure, he cut taxes. I never said everyone is innocent except the Baby Boomers. If you had been paying attention to what I've argued, you notice that over and over again, I've suggested that much of what the BB's have done is part of a larger movement that transcends generations. That's why it's so egregious when I hear things like "The BBs invented the internet". or, "made minorities equal before the law". In nearly every instance we can find, the BBs CANNOT take sole responsibility for shit ~ yet they often do.

And the things they DID do: Rock and Roll, Sexual Revolution, Restructuring the Academic System, etc. often brought about effects that were fundamentally negative in ways. What really makes the BBs a problem is fairly simple: They were unbelievably arrogant, selfish and self-righteous; yet they rarely held themselves to any of the standards they deployed as doing so would have required meaningful sacrifice; they DID do this when it came to social issues: race, gender and sexual equality are all rightfully part of the successes the BBs achieved. Those successes though, are now 40 years past, and in the meantime the BBs have managed to ransack the economy to enrich themselves while telling everyone else along the way that "it's really important because I'm experiencing it!" as if no other generation has ever had kids, sold out, experienced mid-life crisis, grown old, dealt with sexual dysfunction or failed to realize their dreams.

Read this, if you can:

"“Baby boomers have changed norms and started movements at every stage of our lives,” asserted Laurel Gaumer, 57, a trim and lively entrepreneur from Los Angeles. “Here we are facing 65 and we all want to keep going, to keep contributing. We want to know -- how do we do this? This society is still largely functioning from a model of aging that’s 60 years old. We look at what it’s like for so many old people today, and think: none of us wants to do that.”

“As a generation we’ve learned from experience that we can change the world if it’s not one that we want to live in,” said Roy Earnest, 57, a gerontological social worker for the Corporation for National and Community Service, a federal agency. “Most people have a good 20 or 30 years post 50, where people can live an intensely involved life that has meaning for them. “" (emphasis mine)

complete article is here, if you can stand it:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/2 ... 06529.html

That sound you heard was the sound of my head exploding for the millionth time. Yeah, Colin, there's no such thing as a group of people who share a set of ideologies... except that the BBs claim JUST that fact. Over, and over, and over again.

Or maybe you'd like to read this book, claiming the BBs are better than their parents:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Greater-Gener ... 367&sr=1-4

or how 'bout this one claiming BBs are cooler than their kids?!

http://www.amazon.com/Hipper-Than-Our-K ... 67&sr=1-11

Enough. As I said, you're welcome to your opinion, but it's not a question of "holier than thou"; the facts are what they are. Since I have to live with this legacy, I have to understand it so I can explain to my son why so much of his money goes into SS to fund a generation that:

1. Has more money than any generation before, and;
2. Has no interest in using it on anyone but themselves.

In the words of my generation: "the future's so bright, I gotta wear shades"

Michael L

[Lanval]

If it makes you feel better, my generation brought us Snooki, Gangsta Rap, and PBR as a beer-of-choice.

Oh, we've all got our sins, to be sure. It's just that most people have the good sense to recognize the silliness of our youth, and most generations lack the demographics to affect the mainstream media/values, etc.

That's why were not surrounded by people making absurd statements like this one, which I overheard a few weeks ago: "Janis Joplin was the greatest white blues singer ever!" (spoken with the fervor of a penitent sinner before the Pope).

See my generation knows that we should be embarrassed by Flock of Seagulls; we may listen as a guilty pleasure, perhaps, but "great"? Not even in secret would we whisper such a thing!

Also: Acid. Wash. Denim. *shudders*

Michael L