Baby Boomers Suck and They Are Going to Screw Us All (1 Viewer)

specklebang said:

Hey! I paid in $180,000.00. So far, I've drawn $49,000.00. At $1 a week, it will take 131,000 weeks to pay me off. I'll be 2,519 years old by then. And what about some interest on my pay-ins?

Maybe you should re-examine your math. Or I should re-examine my cost of living. At 12.5¢ a day, I'll have to shop very carefully.

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Thanks for doing the math. I wasn't going to go pull my statement from the file to know what I've paid in and I'm not done yet, mind you, but it's well more than dollar per week over a couple decades.

Matt Foley said:

S.S. will be trashed when the time comes to do it.

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There was supposed to be a social security lockbox, but the Dems who controlled congress for the last 40 years made sure that never happened.

cpwill said:

Yeesh.



For cripes sakes. I am 29 and I have a higher retirement savings than that, and I did that on a low income.

These idiots are the highest-income generation in human history. And they blew it all. And I guaran-frickin-tee you when the bill comes due for their profligacy they are going to expect everyone else to pick up the tab.

Worst. Generation. Ever.

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If this is your only basis then you have a long way to go in understanding the facts and circumstances that shaped the baby boomers including their overindulgent parents (The Greatest Generation), the shift from an industrial oriented economy to a service oriented economy, social issues, issues regarding the military and the various wars or conflicts to name a few.

What I do know is that the generation that came before me and effected me did not value education, but, were blue collar who did not graduate high school, they blindly trusted government and elected officials, did thought that health care initiatives and civil rights were issues for others because it did not effect them personally. They feared change and what was good for their parents was good for them.

Like any generation Baby Boomers had to face challenges their parents did not have to and did their best, much like the current generation will have to. Hopefully we all can do better then our parents. Unlike my father I do value education a great deal and my 6 year old's college education is all but paid for, safely tucked away where no matter what happens I will never be able to touch it. My college education fund consisted of zero; I was expected to work full time, if and when I graduated High school, I never did "graduate". I cut my own path and did not sit around bemoaning the fact that the generation before me cursed me through their actions and attitudes. I got off my ass and helped myself.

Gina said:

Um, what hasn't been mentioned, is that boomers worked their whole lives, contributing to SS, with the promise that benefit would be there. So, essentially, the argument is, we should renege on that promise and they should just shut up about it. It's their fault they want to collect something owed to them?

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I used to believe in this argument, but after some reflection its obvious that just because you were stolen from doesn't give you the right to steal from others and pretend its right just because it happened to you.

DiAnna said:

Not going to read the entire thread because I've seen plenty of the "old people suck and should die" kind of threads in the past. I will just say that some people seem to forget that a middle-class income of $20K-$30K was considered pretty damned good back in the day. Also back in the day, there was no such thing as income deferment, IRA, 401k's, or any other tax-deferred retirement accounts. People just put their money in savings and earned a whooping .5% to 1.5% interest. People who socked the maximum away through the 30-40 yrs of maximum earning ended up with about $150,000 in retirement savings... which back in the day would have lasted 10 years. Today, it wouldn't last five.

Inflation sucks, young'uns. All the planning in the world can't prepare for a retirement in an economy where people need a 6-figure income to live what was back then a "middle-class" life.

I realize it's fun to blame everyone who came before for today's problems. Someday your grandchildren will be saying the same things about y'all.

Now pick up your pitchforks and carry on.

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I just laugh at them...I do know one thing...we were alot more respectful when I was younger to older people...these youngsters today are classless and clueless and they think theyre all that....like I said...I just laugh at them..they are meaningless to my life

as I mentioned in my post, I have a younger brother who is "another story".....between me and him the world must have turned on a dime....he never worked a full time job except for 9 years in the Navy. In his early 20's he finally left home, learned a trade, and traveled to places only the Navy could send him....then he got out, and went back to mom and dad and lived on thier income until they died. He had a small Veterans disability pension for bad hearing, and found that he could not pay the taxes and utilities on the shack our parents left him. Lucky for him the state won't take his house until he dies. He got his disability increased so that he has just enough to get by. He is 63, and only worked for 9 years, and will soon be eligible for a pension from the VA in lieu of his disability pay. He didn't have to face the draft, didn't have to support himself, much less a family, he never married, just spent his time in idle, non-productive pursuits.
You know, more and more he is starting to sound like part of the post-boomer generation.

Denial. The vast majority of boomers paid less into the system than they get out of it. Sorry if you don't like it.

lpast said:

I just laugh at them...I do know one thing...we were alot more respectful when I was younger to older people...these youngsters today are classless and clueless and they think theyre all that....like I said...I just laugh at them..they are meaningless to my life

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If we are meaningless you won't need our money in the form of your SS payments.

My 2 cents is that there is probably a lot of their money that is in investments. I doubt the baby boomers blew their life's savings on pot, beer, and hookers and now they have nothing.

All those stats in post #1 were showing is the retirement account balances.

What will happen is that as the older people die off and then middle aged people fill their positions they will be in the top income bracket in their industry and so on. Just because someone's making 25k when they're 25 doesn't mean they won't be making 75k when they're 50. Generally speaking of course. Someone has to fill the jobs of retiring people.

johnny_rebson said:

There was supposed to be a social security lockbox, but the Dems who controlled congress for the last 40 years made sure that never happened.

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I'm sure the angelic Republicans had nooooooooooothing to do with it.

Matt Foley said:

johnny_rebson said:

There was supposed to be a social security lockbox, but the Dems who controlled congress for the last 40 years made sure that never happened.

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I'm sure the angelic Republicans had nooooooooooothing to do with it.

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omg... someone hold me back please...

If you want to argue about who's silly little team is better then watch sports.

Baby Boomer's parents were depression era- tended not to borrow money, but to live on what they made. The Baby Boomer and subsequent generations have embraced the credit card, car loans, etc.- to their own detriment[/QUOTE]


Baby Boomers' parents were kids during the Depression. The only reason they didn't get hooked on credit after they grew up in the 40s was that there was little credit available. Credit cards weren't even invented until much later. Ronald Reagan, who was no role model for fiscal responsibility, came from that generation. To him, the Depression was something his father went through. Judging by his attitude towards capitalistic greed and government help, he probably resented his father and felt that all the victims of 1920s laissez-faire were losers with no initiative.

Lets be fair about this. Al Gore ran for President and the "lockbox" was one of the central issues of his campaign.

Instead, GW Bush was elected (and astonishingly re-elected) and we all know how well that worked out.

I think Al Gore would have been a good President and the world would be a lot different today had he won. I'll have to check in on some parallel universe to find out.

We are in our 12th year of big spending presidents. It looks like at least another 4 years lie ahead.

johnny_rebson said:

There was supposed to be a social security lockbox, but the Dems who controlled congress for the last 40 years made sure that never happened.

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specklebang said:

Lets be fair about this. Al Gore ran for President and the "lockbox" was one of the central issues of his campaign.

Instead, GW Bush was elected (and astonishingly re-elected) and we all know how well that worked out.

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yeah. he attempted to reform social security to make it sustainable and both parties rose up against him for doing so.

haymarket said:

Cp - have you ever read GENERATIONS by Strauss and Howe? It really is the definitive work on the subject. In my humble opinion, it is one of the five most important non fiction books written in the last 25 years.

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I suffered through that gibberish. Intellectual cult books hook their followers through creating an imaginary world that is strictly structured to fit the ideas that cult members' minds have been programmed to look for. This generational fantasy's main error is in categorizing a generation according to which members of it got the most publicity, which is another cult. Whoever is loudest and most insistent gets banners wrapped around the Ivory Tower (academentia).

Ryanm said:

My 2 cents is that there is probably a lot of their money that is in investments.

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See the OP. No there isn't.

I doubt the baby boomers blew their life's savings on pot, beer, and hookers and now they have nothing.

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no, they seem to have blown it on general consumption rather than those particular items. a new car every 3-4 years, a bigger house than they really could afford, the latest massive flat-screen television, etc.

All those stats in post #1 were showing is the retirement account balances.

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....and it is your theory that instead they have all been investing in...... llama farms?

What will happen is that as the older people die off and then middle aged people fill their positions they will be in the top income bracket in their industry and so on. [/qutoe]

yeah. that's the position that the boomers are in today. they are either in or just coming out of their peak earning years.

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PrometheusBound said:

I suffered through that gibberish. Intellectual cult books hook their followers through creating an imaginary world that is strictly structured to fit the ideas that cult members' minds have been programmed to look for. This generational fantasy's main error is in categorizing a generation according to which members of it got the most publicity, which is another cult. Whoever is loudest and most insistent gets banners wrapped around the Ivory Tower (academentia).

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I'd have to disagree...I find it hard to believe that people of a generation aren't shaped by the major events that happen in their lifetime. Maybe not everybody...and in no way are millions of individuals a monolith with one set of ideas....but enough to shape policy and contribute to their world view.

haymarket said:

Cp - have you ever read GENERATIONS by Strauss and Howe? It really is the definitive work on the subject. In my humble opinion, it is one of the five most important non fiction books written in the last 25 years.

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I have, and I read part of their follow-up, millenials rising. I don't know if I'd put it in that bracket, but it was interesting.

Yes. You are very correct. Responsibility is not one of our political strong-points.

cpwill said:

yeah. he attempted to reform social security to make it sustainable and both parties rose up against him for doing so.

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PrometheusBound said:

I suffered through that gibberish. Intellectual cult books hook their followers through creating an imaginary world that is strictly structured to fit the ideas that cult members' minds have been programmed to look for. This generational fantasy's main error is in categorizing a generation according to which members of it got the most publicity, which is another cult. Whoever is loudest and most insistent gets banners wrapped around the Ivory Tower (academentia).

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Sounds like you have not read it at all. If you did you would never make such absurd claims about its content.

I wish I was raising my family in the 80s and 90s. This sucks.