Posted on 05/18/2005 10:06:08 AM PDT by qam1
Jan Murray believes boomers are right to demand your money.
I am having trouble empathising with the bleating about whose taxes will fund the ageing baby-boomer bunch in the near future. Such mean-hearted tripe. Such chutzpah - the high-chair set having a hissy fit just thinking about the load it's going to have to bear.
So, who started it and how do we stop it is what I want to know. I feel like digging out my pewter jewellery and hurling it at the next Generation-X pet who complains that his or her taxes will be supporting the likes of me because I haven't been clever enough to save for my Zimmer frame.
OK, so a decent slice of your taxes are going to have to keep us in the style we invented and will insist upon while there's breath in our used, abused (and increasingly refused) bodies. Pardon us for making up 39.76 per cent of the population.
Let's just hold that thought while I run through a few home truths.
Imagine a world without teenagers. Who invented the phenomenon? We did. The adolescent baby boomers were the social malcontents of the 50s who cut loose from the oppressive ruck and insisted on being recognised as individuals with a right to be listened to, marketed to and feared by a conservative Yesterday because we were Tomorrow - our own tomorrow, and yours.
Imagine if we had not rebelled. Elvis would have been sent back to his mum to have his mouth washed out. He would still be singing gospel in some clapboard church in Memphis, telling his grandkids how a rush of blood to his head a long time ago made him do some foolish things with his hips.
Look at it this way: the money you've been saving on dentistry - because we gave you flouride in your drinking water - is the equivalent of the tax rise you'll need to come up with on our behalf.
Between sorting my vinyls and renovating my sea-change home, I pause to wonder: why all the ingratitude and grumbling resentment? Should we have left off trying to make this a better world? Should we have just climbed the corporate ladders and left the multinationals to rip down the trees and put in their car parks?
I haven't even touched the 'f' word. This fight alone would be reason enough to drop a donation in as we pass the hat around. I'm not talking flares and fondue, either. Of course the boomers gave the world them. Just as we gave it fast-food, rock'n'roll, heart transplants, aerobics, tantric sex and the F-111. OK, so the Concorde proved to be a dud and the AK-47 was nasty, the multi-function polis never eventuated and body shirts were neither here nor there. But imagine a world without tampons, child care and equal wages.
Yes, I'm talking about feminism. Boomers went in hard on that one, and the Gen -ers who hold up half the sky today need to be reminded with each pay cheque. But that's an argument for another day. Why not just pay up and do it with a smile? Life's too short for hassles, man. Dig?
The company my husband contracts out to said all contractors should incorporate their business, since self employment tax is all SS and medicare. The amount saved from that will be invested.
Professional student was a good one.
What I do not get about the "Greatest Generation" L Many of them lived through the Depression and knew how to save and such. Yet, they complain about not being taken care of now?
I suspect that they were also the generation that got hit the hardest by the inflation of the 70s. There wasn't much personal investment at their top earning period (it was a very, very different market) and probably the only asset that might have appreciated was real estate and that's not always a given and then at the time they would have cashed out they were paying pretty heavy capital gains.
Purely a guess however, I'm sure there are serious and factual writings on it (but I couldn't find anything with a quick search).
Sometimes I post rhetorical questions in place of what I would really like to say. It gets a little of the frustration out without getting me banned. :-)
How charming.
You mean banned by the California Boomer who created and maintains this board?.......
I think you may be onto something. My old Deacon made a bad decision to open a business in his sunset years using his house as collateral. As a result, when the business failed, they were stuck paying the house note on SSI, a very difficult thing to do since the note took all of one of their checks. If he hadn't made that investment, he would have paid off his home and been able to live semi-comfortably but certainly not posh. To compensate, they rented out rooms in their home.
Aren't you brave enough to insult the dolts to their faces?
Nothing tackier than a collective insult.
Funny, your diatribe has supported every word I've said about Gen X. Now, can you debate without personal insult? Or is that your only means of defense?
And inflation in the 70s was brutal and, at least where I was (California) the increase in real estate prices didn't keep up because of 16% mortgage rates (yes, kids, 16%.)coupled with wage and price controls that controlled wage increases but didn't seem to control prices put a real damper on the market.
Unless you were nimble you could get hosed pretty bad. I do remember scarfing up a load of 90 day T-Bills at (I think) 18% and some high interest CD's at some very iffy S&L's that fortunately didn't go belly up, but if one was starting a marginally captalized business 99 out of 100 were doomed out of the gate.
Yep, the market was viewed with skeptisism and fear. A fool's game. We recently found a bunch of International Harvester stock owned by my Grandfather during that time. He was using it as a bookmark. Got it as a bonus when he worked there. I also remember the housing market when we first came out of school. I'm in California, too. It was more of the house owning YOU than you owning the house. Now I see the elderly with their homes paid off barely making ends meet, and their homes are falling apart with no money to fix them. Sad really.
At least, I think that's how it goes.
Let's see if you get it. We're the biggest voting block ever. Will continue to be for a long, long time. Our retirement is in danger. We'll vote accordingly. Gen X's retirement is doomed. Doomed. I don't like that anymore than I like my own situation. Like I said, time to find a resolution. I have a retirement account. In addition to SSI. Lots don't. Lots of older folk are going to hurt as a result in the future. That can't be ignored or avoided, unfortunately. Haven't seen anything posted here that will resolve the issue, though.
All of you people are fighting the wrong enemy.
It isn't generational, it's attitudinal. You can all find examples of people in their thirties who have gamed the system, and will ride a "disability" into their sunset.
And you also know folks in their seventies who may still be holding down two jobs.
So what's the problem? I'll give you an example: A few years ago, here in Maryland, teachers rode buses to Annapolis to demand increases in the tax burden. Yep! Increases.
Why would they do that? Because a small increase in their personal taxes would be greatly offset by a large increase in their negotiated salaries.
Who do you suppose rode to Annapolis to lobby against them?
No one. -- We all had to work.
There are problems inherent in a system where the squeaky wheel gets the grease, especially when some wheels do a lot of squeaking even though they have a "liberal" amount of "grease."
Pick your battles ... but always pick the right enemy to fight.
Thank you.
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