Millennials Must Overcome a Bad Situation With Help From Gen-X and Boomers

A recent Federal Reserve economic analysis shows that years of mainstream media criticism of Millennials was unfair.

A partial compilation of unfair criticism of Millennials was compiled at the Atlantic.

Problems of higher unemployment, less spending and lower accumulated wealth are hangovers from the Great Recession of 2007-2008.

The causes of the Great Recession go back to financial deregulation and credit default swaps. This is entertainingly explained in the book “The Big Short” and movie made from the book. Deregulation, Walls Street Gambling with other peoples money and the toxic financial products were created or abused by Boomers and GenXers.

Getting generational blame assignment correct is an unproductive game. However, we should get to the truth and then move forward.

The Great Recession was not the Millennials fault. The oldest Millennial was 27 when the crash started. They were not in any key positions which caused or triggered the crash. It is unfair to suffer the effects of someone else’s bad choices.

This article will use a summary of economic and history to explain a deeper insight than life is unfair. Life is unfair but generations, people, nations and the world can make things a LOT worse by not effectively looking forward in spite of unfair history.

Now we move on to a different example of life being unfair.

Other Generations Dealt With Problems Created by Prior Generations

The Greatest Generation was born between 1910 to 1924. They had to fight World War 2 and the after-effects of the Great Depression.

World War 2 was the result of bad negotiations from the end of World War 1. World War 1 was fought by the Lost Generation which was born 1890 to 1915. The negotiations for World War 1 were performed by people born before the Lost Generation.

World War 1 Mistakes That Set up World War 2

The problems with the end of World War 1, were that the Germans lost WW1 but were not occupied. The Germans were stopped part way into France. The Germans surrendered while its army was inside France. The US entry into WW1 did create conditions that made victory impossible for the German side.

The Germans launched risky military operations in the last year or two. They tried to break through and achieve victory in the last year or two. Those efforts failed.

World War 1 did not end with unconditional surrender. The Versailles Treaty was not completed until the next year.

The Versailles Treaty was negotiated after the soldiers from the USA, UK and France left the field. It happened months after soldiers went home. Demobilization happened first and then the peace treaty was completed.

The German loss was not reinforced with sustained facts on the ground to the population of Germany.

The Versailles treaty was not enforced. The treaty was not overly punitive compared to other treaties before or after.

German propoganda and popular belief could spin the loss of WW1 as an internal betrayal. They could claim that Germany would have won WW1 and were winning if not for bad military leadership and the Jews.

What are the lessons?

The first draft of history is usually wrong. People do not understand the mistakes they made.
A generation in their twenties or younger is correct that they are suffering for the mistakes of previous generations. Previous generations always make mistakes and some are bigger than others.

They may not be correct about which generation is source of the root mistakes.

Some of the behaviors and cultural roots of problems for China and Japan can be traced back to the reaction to Mongol invasions. The case can be made that the Mongol invasions led to isolationism which resulted in the burning of the Chinese Navy by the emperor.

A lot of problems in the Middle East are because entire nations cannot let go of the fall of the Ottoman Empire. They are obsessed with the fall from a Golden age in the 1400s or splits in religion over a thousand years ago.

China could have been obsessed with the Opium wars or the various losses and mistakes from 1800 to 1970. The winning approach was to move past it. They changed to state capitalism and focused on making money.

It is not just the history. It is letting someone use a story about history to blame others. The blaming of others is used as an excuse to either not overcome or for even more destructive behavior.

Join Together and Overcome

I am describing that people should look to voluntarily perform what I am proposing as the better solution.

Challenges must be overcome. The Millenials must overcome the challenges but the Boomers and GenXers must help. The Boomers and GenXers are still very important in economics, politics and business.

The impact of the problems that the Millennials have do fall on them. There is only spillover to others. The emphasis is on the individuals to work on their own problems. Getting optional help is nice to have but the individual should expect to shoulder the task of fixing their own problems.

Make the best financial and policy choices now both personally and at larger scales.

83 thoughts on “Millennials Must Overcome a Bad Situation With Help From Gen-X and Boomers”

  1. Too many degrees in: Non-Heteronormative Gender Hermeneutics of Transformative Underwater Basket Weaving. And such. 🙂

  2. 20something in 1958: Boy, i’m sure glad i dropped out of highschool for this factory job so i can own my own house and support my three children!

    20something in 2018: My boss is an app and i owe it money

  3. “No I am not.”
    Incorrect:
    “It was a pointless ‘sacrifice’,”
    oh, you used quotes; yea, like we didn’t lose 60,000 guys and several hundred thousand casualties. Thanks for the observation, pal.
    “Because the Boomers took/damaged more than they contributed/sacrificed, period. INCLUDING Vietnam”
    What the fuck are you even talking about? The Boomers didn’t even orchestrate that mess. That was politicians a whole generation or two older than them, and very few of them. The Boomers were largely forced to FIGHT that mess.
    “Vietnam doesn’t even remotely equate to WW2. ”
    Again- what the fuck are you even doing comparing this to WW2 as if it’s the end all?
    Nevermind that you originally said the numbers in Vietnam were a minute fraction, even though the numbers were roughly equivalent to that of WW2[within an order of magnitude].
    https://www.archives.gov/research/military/vietnam-war/casualty-statistics
    We lost over 60,000 guys and hundreds of thousands seriously injured, physically and mentally, thousands of POW’s and this stupid asshole dares to use sacrifice in quotes.
    You have got to be the biggest, stupidest asshole on the internet at this moment.

  4. No I am not. Because the Boomers took/damaged more than they contributed/sacrificed, period. INCLUDING Vietnam.

    Vietnam doesn’t even remotely equate to WW2. And only an arrogant Boomer would try to even say it does.

  5. Almost 3 million served. Nevermind the wives and children of those affected by the men that didn’t come home in one piece[physically or mentally].
    “It was a pointless ‘sacrifice’, unlike what their parents did in WWII.”
    Oh, now you’re arguing the merits as outlined by someone else. Now you’re just moving those goal posts.

  6. We can only hope.

    I do feel a bit bad for them. At work, they don’t know what Gilligan Island is. They don’t know how to use a manual can opener. When we passed around a meme around Halloween time from the infamous Poltergeist movie scene with the staticky TV screen, they didn’t get that because they’ve never seen analog TV and never saw ‘snow’ on TV — yes, that is what we told them: That there used to be a ‘snow channel’ on network TV so people can watch snow. They bought it hook, line & sinker. <– no joke, we actually hoodwinked them with that.

    Technological change has been so tremendous during their life time that they are more culturally clueless than the last generations were. And it will be worse for them as they age and the newer generations will be even further removed.

  7. Looks like some NPC code leaking out here:

    printf (“Firstly the %s …really?…when you use terms like %s you sound like %sn”, m_retorts[“Heritage foundation”],
    m_venerated_institution[std::chrono::system_clock::now()],
    m_bad_persons[std::chrono::system_clock::now()]);

  8. In fairness the Millennials will be too preoccupied with Fortnight and avocado toast to procreate so there is hope for the future.

    Post status: fake but accurate.

  9. “I bet the Chinese have their share of spoiled brats.”

    The Taiwanese neologism for these spoiled brats is the “Strawberry generation” in that like strawberries they bruise easily.

    Also like strawberries they are only good if you if you cut them up or throw them in to a blender. (I made that up but lets face it- it is funny).

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strawberry_generation

  10. “Do we really know how many rain-forest animals are killed every time we buy a new car?”

    Umm zero? Does Ford put out contract hits on forest frogs that are paid whenever someone buys a F150?

    “Where did the diamond and the gold in a diamond ring come from, did it fund wars using child-soldiers?”

    Diamond: Russia or South Africa. Fund child soldiers? No although both of these nations are basket cases.
    Gold: Klondike. Watch some Gold Rush to see how your gold is made.

    “The differences between grass-fed and feed-lot beef on our health and green-house gases?”

    We all know that eating protein is better for our health than a carbohydrate heavy diet (aka govt food pyramid).

    “Most consumers don’t have a clue of the real consequences of their actions.”

    Oh please.

  11. This is satire…but I don’t think it will be for long:

    https://npcdaily.com/1372/all-college-degrees-should-guarantee-80k-minimum-salary-regardless-of-major/

    About NPC Daily

    Make no mistake. NPC Daily is indeed a satire site. The content of this site is not meant to be taken seriously. The content of NPC Daily is political and cultural commentary that satirizes the liberal left wing mindset. Furthermore, it is in no way calling for attacks either verbally, physically or any other way on anyone from any political perspective or worldview.

    Because of the aforementioned disclaimer, NPC Daily assumes no responsibility for anyone’s feelings or thoughts. You should not take offense to anything posted on NPC Daily any more than people should get offended by skits by Saturday Night Live. Should you find yourself getting offended by the content of NPC Daily, simply exit the site and appreciate the world around you.

  12. Why are people foolish for go to private institutions?

    I see zero responsibility for me to foot the education bill for ANYONE.

    By the way, you are being silly with your argument because there are few areas of life that deserve any kind of meddling by the state because of their cost to the average person

    No there isn’t.

  13. How about we simply properly fund our state higher education institutions and let those foolish enough to want to go to private institutions fend for themselves and in the mean time offer some relief for those that suffered from our lack of willingness to fund education. I see zero responsibility for the public to foot the bill to Harvard for anybody…

    By the way, you are being silly with your argument because there are few areas of life that deserve any kind of meddling by the state because of their cost to the average person. Of course, there are people out there that argue any kind of help for the poor is bad and that we don’t need a social safety net but these people can’t be argued with.

  14. largely is tarring the Millennial Generation and the Boomer generation, at the same time. For I guess producing Millennials…And geopolitically estranging them to eternal indentured servitude for buying into, and having to eternally pay off ridiculously low-expectation ”university educations”, for prices that’d make King Solomon blush.

    The crux of my bītch is: I mostly blame the Boomers for the national debt, the coming entitlements crisis & foisting the cleaning up of said mess onto GenXers.

    The Millennials are mostly a non-financial burden they have already foisted upon us GenXers. That is mostly because of the vast difference in how GenXers and Mills were raised and see the world. Latch-Key kids rolling their eyes at the little squeaks from Helicopter-Parents kids. Mostly in how the latter expect the former to keep on helicopter parenting them but are rudely introduced to reality otherwise. But you covered that as my position rather nicely already…

    I’m just saying that GenXers won’t put up with it or cannot. i.e., only so much blood can be extracted from the GenX turnip, so to speak. And for the little helicopter brats we are forced to manage, well…there’s limits to that as well.

    Otherwise, I could care less about the Boomers or Millennials. Long life to both of them, in fact. I just won’t depend upon the latter to open a can of tuna for me in my old age. I pray that the robots are good enough by then.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQbmjKCbFLE

  15. He feels personally attacked by that argument.

    No I don’t. I can’t feel much of anything from someone who makes bizarre statements, after all.

  16. No proof is given, no links or resources,

    Ah yes. You again.

    The one who basically demands the equivalent of me proving to a blind man that the sky is colored blue.

  17. Firstly the Heritage foundation…really?…when you use terms like mainstream media you sound like Sarah Palin.

  18. Boomers are like the first-born – it’s “me” and no one else. Life is good. Xers are the middle child living off of handmedowns, life is ok, but not great. The Millennials are the spoiled younger kid, life sucks and it’s not my fault. I think Boomers and Millennials are mirror images of each other. The only difference is that Millennials are not experiencing economic booms anymore though they saw a glimpse of it 10 years ago. The NEXT cohort coming (not even sure what group they are in, but the <25 year olds) are not even family members, but some strange cousin from afar. They have never experienced economic booms, they have muddled through stagnation. Somehow they’ve been brainwashed by IT titans selling their soul, and sucked into a low attention span existence where “likes” is more important than human interaction. The first connected, but disconnected, generation.

    the concept of helping others is noble, but it isn’t a generational thing. I’ll gladly offer my seat on the subway to someone who needs it, but never to someone who wants it.

  19. I think this softening is a world wide problem having to do with prosperity and easy living. I bet the Chinese have their share of spoiled brats. When I was growing up, the concern was how do I get a good paying job to take care of my family. Now it is about cyberbullying or if the kid is getting enough praises in school or at home (no matter if he deserves it or not).

  20. But the rest of the generation?

    I’m sorry. IQ 120+ … and still … not achieving more than a barely-minimum wage position at a medical services factory (AKA “hospital”) isn’t much to show or 18+ years of college. My daughter is a brilliant, absolutely juicy young lady, driven by something “The Boomer in Dad” generation gave her. And… its barely enough.

    We’re (Boomers) asked to foot the bill for it all.
    The “Angry Boomer” in me rebels: I worked two jobs, went to Cal, got well educated.
    And then started a business in 1981.
    And did poorly.
    And then better.
    Then got married. Had … The Kids.
    Bought timeshares, winter hangouts. Learned to ski. With kids.
    Got them all through those miserably predictable teen years.
    And off to The Big School.
    Where indoctrination began.
    And never stopped.

    Where did we go wrong?
    Why are we CONTINUING to promulgate it?

    Just asking,
    GoatGuy

  21. Hmmm… on the one hand, there’s WarrenTheApe, who — with a few (hopeful) caveats — largely is tarring the Millennial Generation and the Boomer generation, at the same time. For I guess producing Millennials. And geopolitically estranging them to eternal indentured servitude for buying into, and having to eternally pay off ridiculously low-expectation ”university educations”, for prices that’d make King Solomon blush.

    That pretty much encapsulates it.

    I’m a Boomer technically (tho’ it doesn’t feel like it), and my spawn are technically Millennials (tho’ they don’t anti-aspire to the woe-is-me-‘cuz-of-these-loans-and-oppression narrative). Exceptional boomer? Exceptional millennials? Definitely goat-people.

    So then, without taking umbrage at the class-sniping, I think WTA is partially right. The woe-is-me snowflake culture is just an enormous waste of (fleeting!) human talent. A very few amongst them are doggedly making their way into the orthodoxy-of-the-feckless-career, openly pretending to drink the KoolAid, PC and all, railing against plastic straws, imprecise icosovariable waste separation, and all that, and at the same time deeply resenting the Great Snow Job that mass-socialism-and-chicanery have done to so-called higher education, which ‘without’, they’d not even have phony-baloney careers. They’re buying their Prii, their Volts, Bolts like Dolts. A few high-achievers amongst them — my kids included — have taken the bait, and are well hooked.

    (1)

  22. Homes are expensive. Lets give tax credits for those too. Everyone needs clothes or you die. Tax credits. Without food and water you die in a few days. Tax credits.

    The federal government made college loans freely available, schools charged more and more because the money was there and people think that the solution is to offer tax credits to people who spent a quarter million dollars on a degree that makes $45k a year. Schools will raise tuition based on the tax credit just like how home prices went up due to unlimited mortgage interest deductions.

    How about we reduce the maximum student loan levels by 5% per year for a decade until college prices are in line with their inflation adjusted valued from the 1990s before the college loan bubble?

    Or is that too fixy-fix-it and inadequately touchy-feely? If you are still reading by this point then i’ll also say that I am even willing to reduce student debt burdens for the poor souls who paid the highway robbery loan prices. It’ll cost the US about $200 billion but I think that it is worth it to help millennials who never did a cost benefit analysis of their major so that they can buy some avocado toast.

    See? I’m not heartless.

  23. The current generations have leveraged their life styles off the future incomes of their grand children.

    This is primarily the result of many of the factors associated with liberalism

    Intergenerational theft.

    The worst of the worst are the states : Illinois, Connecticut and New Jersey.

    Shameful followers of leftwing plutocrats.

    These states should be forced to fail.

  24. “German propoganda and popular belief could spin the loss of WW1 as an internal betrayal. They could claim that Germany would have won WW1 and were winning if not for bad military leadership and the Jews.”

    That wasn’t the propaganda. The civilian politicians and especially socialists were blamed. The military leadership ensured that the armistice negotiations would be thrown in chaos, but the generals deflected their responsibility.
    The Jewish people were far from the centre of the blaming about the defeat in WW1, at least the German Jewish people.

  25. Most consumers don’t have a clue of the real consequences of their actions.

    So? Why should they?

    What I mean is: Why hold the expectations that goes against human nature? That is the way of failed policies, no matter how well intentioned (right or left).

  26. Yes, experts who are tied into shoring up the BS about regulation as the rent seeking elites WANT it to be spun as.

  27. More than once I have thought of renaming my username to ‘Dowager Countess’, that character in Downton Abbey played by Maggie Smith. 🙂

  28. Vietnam = a small FRACTION of the total amount of Boomers born.

    And it wasn’t for anything. It was a pointless ‘sacrifice’, unlike what their parents did in WWII.

  29. There’s also the illness of laziness, and just watching honey-boo-boo and the Kardashians instead of being informed of real world events and voting and living appropriately. Do we really know how many rain-forest animals are killed every time we buy a new car? Where did the diamond and the gold in a diamond ring come from, did it fund wars using child-soldiers? The differences between grass-fed and feed-lot beef on our health and green-house gases? Most consumers don’t have a clue of the real consequences of their actions.

  30. I’ve often thought that young adults have the roughest time. Starting new jobs, paying off college loans, and trying to raise kids. Their parents meanwhile have gone thru all that, and are now (hopefully) building up retirement money.

    It would be nice if parents could give some of that money to their kids, to be repaid when the parents retire. But we don’t really have a good tax structure or loan system to support that. By the time you get an inheritance, it’s often too late to help with raising kids. Tax-free intra-family loans would be good (not just under-the-table cash that doesn’t have legal standing and may or may not get repaid).

    In olden times (before widespread mobility) extended families would live together, and resources in a family were shared. Grandparents could watch the young kids, then in turn were taken care of when they couldn’t cook or work. (Putting your parents in a nursing home is shameful in many cultures). But that communal effort gets harder to do when you have serial marriages, mixed families, people move out of state, etc.

    In the future this is just going to increase as people live longer lives. There will be more re-marriages, moves, and inheritances will come even later.

  31. Haven’t you met Warren’s type before? He’s never wrong. Not in the actual sense where everything he says is correct, but in the argumentative sense that you cannot win. There is only one way to deal with that – say your piece and move-on. I enjoyed reading all this BTW.

  32. I agree with MTCZ. Warren is clearly stating opinions. If he was a Millenial he’d be blaming Gen X, if he was a Boomer he’d be blaming everyone else. No proof is given, no links or resources, just angrily blame others once again.

    The fact is, every generation does some good and does some bad. And pretty much everyone thinks the generation coming after them isn’t as respectful or hard-working as they were, but somehow they still raise families and keep jobs and buy homes like every generation before them.

  33. I see, the problem with American Gen-Xers is that they are not Chinese enough. They need to change their attitude and beg and scrape before their elder generations. /sarcasm

  34. Is he a FINE specimen because he deosn’t want to lay down his hard EARNED treasure for the Boomers AND their kids?

  35. To be certain, the Great Recession was not the Millennial’s fault, and financial deregulation and credit default swaps we only symptoms of a far more notorious cascade of Progressive blunders.

    During the era of President Jimmy Carter, he signed a bill called the “Community Reinvestment Act” which on it’s face was a good thing; preventing banks for discriminating in loan approvals. However, when the Clinton’s took office, they put the CRA into high gear using the fed to force bankers to literally strip out their loan approval standards. The lenders agreed after receiving assurances from the Fed that federally insured loans would be covered; and the Tax Payers would be on the hook for FDIC Insured loan defaults.

    The result was tens of thousands of loans made to people who were financially marginal or clearly unable to repay them. I remember a Groundskeeper where I worked in Marin County getting a loan to build a 4 bedroom custom home… and he already had a note on an existing house! He made $18.00 an hour and his wife was a Hair Stylist.

    When insurance rates when up, it was too much for most of these new mortgage holders and the massive defaults began. Predatory Lending and Loan Bundling were merely cover for the Progressives who concocted the entire scheme.

    As for the millennial’s, millions of them were failed by academia. The big lie: a degree in Liberal Arts or Women’s Studies were sought after hard skills… NOT!

    Truth…

  36. > Arguably since boomers are exiting the workforce and shifting to government support,

    The oldest boomers are now 72, which means they are starting to die off, and transfer their wealth to their heirs, which would be Gen X and Millenials.

  37. ….why would I give money to the generation that has the most only children with all their complexes and issues and who go damn near everything free growing up…..I am just above poor…I have no money to give them.

  38. We as parents will certain have to help them along. What I see though, the GenX are very demanding and not willing to put out. In fact, this has been a problem with America, perhaps the world, that peace and posperity have reduced the capacity of the people to deal with adversity. Each generation gets weaker. No amount of help from us will fix this problem.

  39. A few things to be noted:

    1) yes Millennials in the US will have a hard time going on, but Millennials in China and Iran are doing much better , and even in RUssia, so it is Just the US , Italy and .. who is suffering, not everybody else. African millennials are doing great if compared with their parents . US millennials are doing bad because of the wars started by GWB and Obama . They increased the be debt from 50% to 100% of the GDP and Millennials will have to pay back that debt . And in 2020s China will pass the US in GDP

    2) analysis of WW1 treaty of Versailles is wrong. It is precisely because the treaty of Verssailles was so strong against the Germans and people in germany were starving in 20 the 20s (http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/millions-billions-trillions-germany-in-the-era-of-hyperinflation-a-641758.html) that things went out with Nazism. Again bullying of other countries do not work.

  40. The University of Chicago had an experts panel titled “Factors Contributing to the 2008 Global Financial Crisis” and concluded the leading cause was “Flawed Financial Regulation and Supervision.” University of Chicago is probably the chief proponent of Free Markets so if they conclude flawed regulation was the most important cause then how can you argue with that???

    Note, I don’t argue that Dodd-Frank is deeply flawed regulation. It was a political compromise and wasn’t meant to be effective regulation.

  41. “forget about the Boomers. They have never…nor will they ever..hav to sacrifice for anything)”
    Vietnam.

  42. deregulated banking and finance to the extent that the Great Recession was inevitable

    No it didn’t. Not one provision of the current Dodd-Frank joke would have prevented the Great Recession, for example.

    In fact, it is regulation that makes banks more risky, not less. This is because of the moral hazard of covering their butts when something blows up — which is exactly what happened. No ‘deregulation’ before that caused Congress to earn their pay for the Banksters post-collapse. If de-regulation were truly applied, then those Banksters would be out on the street right now, their banks capitalized by the depositors who would have taken over. In fact, those procedures were long on the books (remember FDR’s bank holiday that was completed for thousands of banks nationwide over a four day weekend..that’s what they did) but the regulators were prevented from doing that from both Congressional/WH pressure in 2009.

    Ditto in Europe. Heck, they even went one further and RAIDED the deposits of that Cypriot bank, remember? That was outright theft.

    ALL regulated tho! EU style!

    So no. I did not vote for any of that. Nor did I vote for ‘more regulation’ that is anything but that except a nice fuzzy wuzzy virtue signalling high that I am sure you were gunning for in how you voted.

  43. It’s kind of unavoidable that eventually there’ll be a UBI.

    UBI is just welfare by another name. More EFFICIENT and TRANSPARENT welfare, I give you that. But welfare all the same.

    And that includes the dependency part of welfare. Worse, putting yourselves at the mercy of a Government that can take it away if you “don’t behave”.

    Whereas UBA is a non-welfare alternative or at least one that only transfers money from group A to group B once per UBA transaction and no more, unlike UBI payments. And once you have those assets, they are legally your property.

    UBA is also economically sustainable, unlike UBI. Both in the various ways in initially captializing it as well as ongoing growth of it. Especially for a nation like the US that is presently sitting on an estimated $120 TRILLION in national assets that can be sold or leased or otherwise developed to fund the UBA AND pay off the national debt in short order.

    The Alaska Permanent Fund is a crude form of UBA. So is the equivalent fund that the Norwegians have.

    Capital Homesteading and Virdism are proposed forms of UBA as well.

    The fact that most UBI hucksters don’t even know that distinction is why they should not be taken seriously in any economics discussion at best and are probably just in it for more control over people at worst.

    https://futuristech.info/posts/opinion-why-i-am-pro-vyrdism-and-not-pro-universal-basic-income-ubi

  44. I did mean to say Millennials and not Gen X. 😉

    I said that there should be some limits on the tax credits. A lot of kids nowadays go to private schools and study really stupid things (I just want to slap any kid that says they want to study Psychology or Sociology but few of them will become anything more than a barista or clerk.) The later probably can’t be addressed but the former can be addressed by limiting the credit to what the average student that when to a state school (I can’t see bailing out those that acted totally stupidly) would have to pay off (that could vary by state and year to make it even fairer.)

    Everybody that voted for the politicians that deregulated banking and finance to the extent that the Great Recession was inevitable deserves the blame and is responsible for attempting to make things right for the Millennials, at least to some extent. Every generation got hit by the recession but they had it worse and are the least to blame for it. You probably voted for the slash and burn free marketeers most responsible for the recession so you should be the last one to complain.

  45. I would also like to state for the record that I have met some Millennials who are exemplars of humanity. As in I’ve been really, really impressed in them as individuals according to how they live their lives, etc. Much more so than I have Boomers or even those of my own GenX.

    And also as I have state elsewhere: The ONE break I give to Millennials that pretty much is in alignment with your article is that they got a lousier deal than us GenXers, in general. Furthermore, I identify their Boomer parents as being the primary cause. Boomers have been generational poison, in my view. And that view is well founded by actual facts of screwing over the generations that came after.

    …but it is not enough to generate within me the levels of sympathy required to pay up for fixing this mess. Not especially given how my generation doesn’t have much to give relative to how screwed we are and…mostly…because in general these brats aren’t OUR kids but the kids of late Boomers, yet those very Boomers ARE going to join electorally with the Millennials to screw over my generation anyway.

    So, call me jaded. But I have good reason to be. All GenXers do.

  46. It’s kind of unavoidable that eventually there’ll be a UBI. The question is when that dam breaks. I personally don’t know if I agree with it in human terms. Like from a political standpoint. But from a technical POV it’s unavoidable. Tech changes (improves) but human dignity should be a constant. So eventually people cannot just be left out because they drew the short straw, or because someone drew it for them.

  47. Upon a re-read I agree that there was not enough emphasis on fixing your problems and being the focus of not looking at blaming others.

    I added as part of conclusion:

    The impact of the problems that the Millennials have do fall on them. There is only spillover to others. The emphasis is on the individuals to work on their own problems. Getting optional help is nice to have but the individual should expect to shoulder the task of fixing their own problems.

  48. There are no good solutions. GenX will be legally forced to give up some things, but largely as a stalling tactic to maintain the current structure (pushing retirement age to 75 being the tactic most commonly proposed).

    Part of the solution is somehow reducing the cost of elderly health care. Looking around the world, single payer government healthcare systems for core healthcare seem to be the common method for reducing costs, but inevitably devolve into long wait times and effectively “death panel” rationing (though that must be put into the context that in some sense, people have resigned to the fact that do not actually have a right live, as no one is immortal). Single payer does effectively allow health care continuity and portability, which is a critical factor in labor mobility, which is a critical factor in wealth generation.

    Considering all the necessary structural changes, I usually believe single payer healthcare and UBI seem like the only rational paths forward. People derive various amounts of meaning in their life from work and their workplace, and there is a certain dignity of work itself, as our society currently educates us to believe that being a contributor to society is the preferred form of citizen. A UBI with a right to work (where the government provides various kinds of employment opportunities beyond what the private sector provides, similar to the old public works administration building and maintaining infrastructure) may satisfy that itch.

  49. My condolences. I could read it, though.

    I my comment the definition of natural is what ‘is’ and comes from nature (our body, its genetics and its evolution history, the environment we live in) vs ‘the engineered’, what comes from a mind or groups of minds and is not an instinct nor part of what exists without design, like language, culture, science, technology and the results of self organization of social systems (e.g. economy, nations and political systems).

  50. Refutal. It’s a dysfunctional attitude and it’s poisonous on top of that because it’s voluntarily malicious.

    No. Refutal of BS is called being logical and not signing up to drink your Kool-Aid, nothing more and nothing less.

    And you just proved that you are not a rational person by writing that quote, btw.

    Someone will have to pick up the pieces eventually

    So what? What’s your point? Doesn’t refute the logic of others trying their best to avoid paying the tab for that.

    In other words, as long as it isn’t me, I don’t care. I didn’t create this mess and it is perfectly logical for me to not pay to clean it up. That you confuse not liking that position with it somehow proving I am not being perfectly logical is not my fault.

  51. And the rest of your assault on what you mischaracterize as my stance is only fed from that aforementioned incapacity, too. Not my fault either, btw. That’s all on you. You’re entitled to it; you are just not entitled to others to fall in line with it, tho.

    Refutal. It’s a dysfunctional attitude and it’s poisonous on top of that because it’s voluntarily malicious. I mean it’s in the post, you can take my words to mean something else, but it’s pretty clear when I say:
    Someone will have to pick up the pieces eventually. It’s a message of peace, but that’s an “assault”.
    LOL

  52. Acknowledging observed, factual reality is not being immoral. Whereas your refusal to acknowledge observed, factual reality because it doesn’t jive with the BS you are selling CAN be considered immoral. But not by me. I just don’t take your position seriously and leave it at that. Not worth the neuron activity to dive any deeper than that.

  53. Yes, if you want me to fess up that my view is ‘tribalistic’, fine. So what? That (tribalism) is reality that will never change, either. Suppressed, yes. But organically changed from bottom up? No.

    Just an excuse for more immorality

  54. Show me how
    …Well I saw you start a reply. Show evidence or retract your accusation. This was before you started posting here, but I actually got banned for calling Luca (or whatever his name was way back then) on his toxicity and had to ask to be let back in on promise I would stay civil and be very transparent with anything that could be taken as personal arguments.

    Which I’ve done above with warren. In a nutshell he asks for war to have peace, while I argue for peace to have peace. He feels personally attacked by that argument. That’s always been the gist of my argument with him here, in previous occasions, and all the way back to when I did the same with Luca except impolitely.

    Actually read what I wrote. Strip out the perceived emotions. Don’t read between the lines, there’s nothing there. I very specifically chose the words I used. There’s nothing meant beyond what they mean at face value. This isn’t some complex or obscure problem.

  55. GenX finally learned something from the boomers, the whole “got mine” mantra. Post-WW2 prosperity deluded politicians into expanding a social welfare system predicated on endless growth and near endless population expansion. Boomers then bought into the system, such that they feel entitled to receive the benefits they were promised. The politicians who made those promises are mostly dead now. Arguably since boomers are exiting the workforce and shifting to government support, you can make the claim that they are no longer in a position to change the system, and deserve the benefits promised.

    Everybody else, from GenX down however, needs to face the fact that a system predicated on supported:employed ratio in excess of 1:2 no longer fits with current lifespans (we seem to be approaching 1:1). There is also the fact that those over 65 are not necessarily in a position to continue working, even if they are moderately healthy, as they no longer have the stamina and quickness of thought that modern employment requires.

    Business as usual is unsustainable. The pyramid is starting to collapse. GenX sometimes think they will barely within the group that can still claim benefits before the whole thing collapses. Millenials and GenZ rightly know that unless substantive changes occur, they face a life of despair.

  56. It’s semantics, but we’re products of nature and the products of our nature necessarily are natural, except if we intentionally seek to distinguish the former from the latter in our own little philosophical model of reality. It’s important but irrelevant in this discussion because the truly not natural is the supernatural. Which really has nothing to do with curing aging and finally catching a break from our multimillenium groundhog day.

    Agreed otherwise.
    And I agree with Aubrey de Grey that most likely there won’t be such a cultural shift till the schnitzel hits the fan, so to speak, when aging therapies actually happen. Just like every other instance where people couldn’t ignore what’s right in their face instead of merely a prospect still in abstraction.

    Nothing else guarantees well being like curing aging does. Even if the first generations to deal with the consequences of it, spend a relatively long time suffering thru that transition.

    Not curing aging condemns more people to die unnecessarily, and not orienting policy towards curing aging sooner or later, is likewise morally indefensible.
    The more I think about it, the more I see no rational alternative.

    And this goes hand in hand with the article, because generational issues like in the article are an inherent consequence of aging not being cured. There’s only so much you can do in one generation, vs the time you’d have if a generation were as long as it would be with negligible senescence.

  57. The only absolute fact is stating your opinion. It’s not absolute fact that your opinion is the One True Way, as it would be if it were so “absolute” and factual.

    No. I am stating an absolute, empirically proven fact in what I said. No opinion is involved.

    It would be pretty telling if you actually couldn’t tell how toxic your attitude is or even just guess.

    Saying things that don’t fit your personal narrative is not ‘toxic’. The fact that you think so heavily implies an incapacity to deal with reality in general on your part, I would say.

    My view of the world is that there’s too many people with a selfish, narrow minded, and otherwise intoxicatingly flawed attitude.

    Ok. But so what? Specifically, how does that obvious facts you just happen to now like existing? It doesn’t. Sorry to be the messenger on that to you, but it is true.

    Yes, if you want me to fess up that my view is ‘tribalistic’, fine. So what? That (tribalism) is reality that will never change, either. It can be suppressed, yes. But organically changed from bottom up? No. Not as long as people are people.

    And the rest of your assault on what you mischaracterize as my stance is only fed from that aforementioned incapacity, too. Not my fault either, btw. That’s all on you. You’re entitled to it; you are just not entitled to others to fall in line with it, tho.

  58. The only absolute fact is stating your opinion. It’s not absolute fact that your opinion is the One True Way, as it would be if it were so “absolute” and factual.

    It would be pretty telling if you actually couldn’t tell how toxic your attitude is or even just guess.

    My view of the world is that there’s too many people with a selfish, narrow minded, and otherwise intoxicatingly flawed attitude. I mean if you can’t tell that your attitude applied as described is at best going to lead to just another pyrrhic victory for one group of people at the expense of another if not everyone else (because someone’s going to have to pick up the pieces eventually unless this Gen+1 suffering Gen+0’s mistakes is supposed to go on forever), the way basically every other damned Us vs Them conflict has gone, like in the Middle East and like between card carrying Republicans and Democrats or Lefties and Righties or whatever other stupid self-serving artificial tribe, then you’re just self-determined to not understand.

    Which arrogantly enough is what I thought the first time I read one of your toxic posts, and the first time I replied to one, and what I’m thinking right now. Because there’s nothing special about your attitude and myopia, in fact you are in the overwhelming majority, even if you all pretend your respective ways are The One True Way.

    You and your opposites deserve each other because you live to perpetually be opposite each other.

  59. The illness is called mortality. Or scarcity of time, which is the only thing we really have and that we can’t trade or negotiate with.

    We are have always been doomed to remain as children and forget the lessons of life, because we grow old and die before we can learn and pass them. Writing our science, history and philosophy in books has reduced this problem, but not eliminated it, as history grows distant and the situations are always slightly different and then we say “this is new”, even if most of the time it really isn’t. We simply have no way to know.

    By growing old and separated from others by the obvious signs of our frail bodies, it becomes easy to separate us. It’s “old people did this”, it’s always “old people problems” and tribalism kicks in. It’s in our genes, we can’t help it.

    The only way out is to remove the original sin: scarcity, that of our short lives and that of our resources, that is, transcend the limits of our animal nature. To have time, space and energy to really grow into mature, worthy sentient beings, aware of how the world works but not bitter or damaged by scarcity.

    Such an outcome has nothing of natural in it. It’s a fully engineered state. One that we have started marching towards since we became eusocial and memetic instead of purely instinctive and genetic. Civilization has grown a self imposed goal: make life easier and plentier. Before there were real limits. Now it’s mostly our fear and old ideas that are keeping us away from it.

  60. What is poisonous about my attitude when all I am doing is stating an absolute fact? Other than it doesn’t jive with your view of the world?

  61. How about a tax credit for student loan payments???

    Why? That will just be ringing the dinner bell for colleges and universities to raise tuition rates even more to capture future student loans issued, all the while issuing even more worthless degrees.

    but student load debt is probably the biggest economic drag on Gen X

    You mean biggest drag on Millennials?

    Boomers were born between 1946 to 1964.
    GenX 1965 to 1984
    Millennials 1985 – 2004

    As a GenXer, college tuition never cost me more than $400/quarter in the late 80s/early 90s. Total student debt amounted to around $7k. And that was paid off long, long ago.

    So you weren’t talking about GenX when referring to student loan debt, I believe.

    Last, why should I pay more in taxes so someone else should get a tax break for deducting debt they stupidly gotten themselves into and are having trouble paying it back? It’s bad enough that I pay more because I don’t get the mortgage interest deduction as a renter, as it is. And Boomers get the most benefit from the mortgage interest deduction, it should be mentioned.

    Brian is right about one thing: Even *I* agree that the Millennials are what they are because of the bad shakes they got…mostly from their terrible (Boomer) helicopter parents.

    But I’ll be d***ed if I am going to pay one cent because of that. Not w/o a fight. And what is scary is that I am sure that I am speaking on behalf of most GenXers, too.

  62. There is difference between legally demanding and enforcing sacrifice upon an entire class and asking or requesting voluntary sacrifice.

    Except that is not what is going to happen. It will be propagandized as such..just as it was for the sacrifice the French normals were expected to cough up.

    Already GenXers will have paid more into FICA than they will ever get out, net. This is already baked into the cake. And it will get worse going forward. This was not from being asked. That is called, being screwed from legally sanctioned and enforced theft all this time.

    And there is no logical conclusion as far as I am can see in your point. That is because your point is predicated in that the GenXers owe Millenials anything. They don’t, as a rule. For GenXers, pretty much everything Millennial they have had to deal with has been on the downside. Remember, we are the managers who have to deal with these brats every day.

    The Boomers who are the overwhelming sires of the Millennials do owe them. But they won’t sacrifice. No way. Perhaps at an individual level. But that isn’t enough nor will it translate at a collective level, as Boomer voters rightfully see giving any inch — however it is not deserved given how much THEY will get out relative to what they actually paid in — in any entitlement reform as the first step in ending up sacrificing more. Older people have savvied up on how politics really works. Especially intergenerational politics.

  63. So the attitude in your post is poisonous and one more example of the same dynamic that keeps the middle east stuck in its rut.

    <<I can get into an entire history […]>>
    the chorus of every tribe with a grudge

  64. So? Individual exceptions doesn’t transform Boomers in general into saints.

    I can get into an entire history what that GENERATION has done, mostly simply because of its vast demographic size if nothing else.

  65. There is difference between legally demanding and enforcing sacrifice upon an entire class and asking or requesting voluntary sacrifice.

    I am using oratory or a logical case for a logical conclusion. There can also be the moral or emotional case that parents and grandparents should do something for the generation of their children.

    This is more than a minor detail.

  66. << (forget about the Boomers. They have never…nor will they ever..hav to sacrifice for anything) >>
    This is an insult to my parents who sacrificed their lives and marriage for the sake of me and my siblings growing up to be fair with everyone we know and deal with (incl as far as not using govt handouts ever), and to my adoptive grandparent family who sacrificed their own lives for their children, among other things teaching them very similar values, volunteering for Korea and VietNam, etc.

  67. How about a tax credit for student loan payments??? Note, I’m say “tax credit” and not “tax deduction.” There could be some limits on it because students that were frugal deserve more relief than those that weren’t but student load debt is probably the biggest economic drag on Gen X.

  68. We can keep having generation after generation each one having to remember their own mistakes and lessons, while realizing the parallels and intersections with previous generations’, when history is actually recorded accurately, hoping that things will be different and better. That human nature, as known historically, will win out. Like people did when they expected a New Man, etc.

    Or (and consider Einstein’s, or whoever said it, maxim about insanity) we can actually change the paradigm and make people live long enough that they have time to learn more than one or a few generations’ worth of lessons.

    The world is not well because people are not well. The illness is unnecessary. Why perpetuate that root cause? We have a whole freaking cosmic backyard to properly stretch our legs in, yet we insist on overcrowding our space and time in here and now. It’s completely absurd.

    This might seem like a tangent but IMHO it’s a direct symptom.

  69. Article vs comments — read and see for yourself where the dysfunction comes from. Right at the grassroots.

    All I can say (if brevity is obligated) is Schadenfreude makes the world go round. I actually made a shirt with that on it.

    Maybe every person who argues that curing aging would necessarily make people go crazy or get bored or increase generational obstruction, etc, is evidence of people’s innate inflexibility and navel gazing pessimism. I’m going to be unacceptably arrogant and assert this:

    I’ve been to dozens of countries and within those countries multiple neighbourhoods. My native family is a schizophrenic patchwork of cultures and nationalities, and myself I was born in a foreign country to those families before globetrotting.
    One of the few constants is this: Every country, every religion, every tribe, every clique and niche and party and family, thinks they‘re the special ones. Every one of those social circles cannot see the forest for the trees, save a disappointingly (this only in retrospect; maybe I’m getting old) small bunch of exceptions.

    When Socrates rooted his epistemology on the acceptance of one’s ignorance he had it right. Likewise the hubris of pretending that things must continue to suck. Likewise not seeing the undiscovered country of tomorrow and every day after that into the deep future beyond the scientifically predictable horizon.

  70. Can’t top laughing.

    First, Brian excellently posts about how those who call for sacrifice are rarely, if ever, the same who are called upon to do the sacrificing.

    THEN he posts how GenXers should sacrifice for the Millennials.

    Well, this GenXer says: —k that!

    (forget about the Boomers. They have never…nor will they ever..hav to sacrifice for anything)

    As a GenXer, I have already gotten the shaft as it is from the Boomers. And I can’t stand Millennials — the only worst form of demographic pollution inflicted upon America other than Boomers (and that is saying a lot) nor did I have anything to do with berthing that generation — late boomers did that.

    What is really going to happen: Millennials and Boomers will stick it to GenXers anyway. The Ms and Bs together outvote the Gs. It will be like two wolves and a sheep ‘voting’ on what to have for dinner. THAT is what ‘joining together and overcome’ will really play out as truly meaning.

    GenX is going to rebel. We’ll figure out ways to reduce the taxes we pay…either earn less from wages and more from ‘unearned’ income, or work under the table or not work as much at all. Then we are going to demand top %%% on loaning out our money to Millennials when the coming credit crunch arrives as the Boomers pull their money out of everything to live on. Either way, the Boomers are screwed and so are the Millennials.

    You think the Yellow Vests of France are the only ones who will rebel? Just sit back and watch, kiddies.

  71. China could have been obsessed with the Opium wars or the various losses and mistakes from 1800 to 1970. The winning approach was to move past it. They changed to state capitalism and focused on making money.

    It helps that Mao was dead and the cult of Mao was widely understood to be crazy. It made it possible for Deng to make a break from Mao.

    Another example of “moving past it” and onward to success that I have been thinking about was the (very wrong and illegal) internment of Americans of Japanese ancestry in WWII.

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