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Generational war is brewing
Tracey Press ^ | 11/10/05 | Froma Harrop

Posted on 11/10/2005 1:22:46 PM PST by qam1

America should prepare for a big fat war between the generations. It’s going to be ugly.

On one side is the baby boom generation, which retires and claims a ton of government benefits. On the other are younger workers, forced to fund those benefits plus pay the bills their elders left them.

When the war comes, the Federal Reserve chairman will have to be a general. That person will likely be Bush nominee Ben Bernanke. The question is, for which side will he fight?

Outgoing Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan tried to represent both sides. He supported the Bush tax cuts.

This gave comfort to today’s taxpayers, who chose not to charge themselves for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the new Medicare drug benefit and the quarter-billion-dollar bridge to nowhere.

Last spring, Greenspan did service for the other side. “I fear that we may have already committed more physical resources to the baby boom generation in its retirement years than our economy has the capacity to deliver,” he said.

One solution would be to ramp-up means-testing for Medicare, the health insurance plan for the elderly. Greenspan would reconfigure the program “to be relatively generous to the poor and stingy to the rich.”

The political reality is that the baby boom generation expects to see the nice government handouts its retired parents enjoyed, and then some. Younger workers expect to be taxed at today’s lower rates. One group will be very disappointed — or perhaps both groups — because there is no way the Candyland economics of today can go on.

The whole alarming future is nicely mapped out in a book, “The Coming Generational Storm,” by Boston University economist Laurence Kotlikoff and Scott Burns, a personal-finance columnist at The Dallas Morning News.

Kotlikoff and Burns clearly sympathize with younger Americans and Americans not yet born, who will be paying both our bills and their own. “Does it feel better,” the authors write, “if those unknown victims of our rapacity are someone else’s children and the children of those children and the children of those children of those children?”

Sounds like war to me. Kotlikoff and Burns try to be meticulously nonpartisan, but I won’t. Though the irresponsible policymaking spanned decades, today’s mad deficits rush us closer to disaster. Democrats are not shy about pushing for retiree benefits, but at least they consider raising taxes to pay for them. Not the current crowd, whose spend-and-borrow strategy is the 1919 Versailles Treaty of this-century America: an unstable setup that guarantees future conflict.

The scam is that the tax cuts are not really wiping the nation’s slate clean of tax obligations. When spending exceeds tax revenues, the difference must be borrowed. That debt does not disappear. It gets paid for, with interest, by someone’s taxes. So the Bush cuts simply move the taxes from one generation of shoulders to another.

Bernanke would certainly come to the Fed job with good credentials. Head of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers, he formerly chaired the Princeton economics department. Bernanke seems OK, but other candidates were more upfront about deficits.

One was Martin Feldstein, President Ronald Reagan’s top economic adviser. Feldstein drew flak for criticizing the Reagan deficits. The Bush White House wouldn’t want to hear that kind of thing. Anyway, there’s no need to worry about making ends meet when you can use the next generation’s credit card.

Another Republican contender for the Fed job was Larry Lindsey. He was fired as a Bush adviser in 2002, after predicting that the war in Iraq would cost up to $200 billion, a figure already passed. Lindsey did not understand: One simply does not talk price in the Bush administration.

Given the president’s tendency to give top jobs to those closest, we can give thanks that he did not nominate his banker brother. Neil Bush played a major role in the Silverado Savings & Loan fiasco of the 1980s, which cost taxpayers $1 billion.

Or perhaps the president was doing the big-brotherly thing in protecting Neil from a job sure to be filled with strife.

The person who heads the Fed in the next decade will be trying to steer the nation through the perfect economic storm. Good luck to the new chairman, and to all the generations.


TOPICS: Extended News
KEYWORDS: babyboomers; catfightingasses; generationalwar; generationgap; genx; greedygeezers
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To: thoughtomator
"Are you the only one who didn't understand that the whole Schiavo controversy was about boomers wanting the power of euthenasia over their own parents?"

Can you possibly be the only one who didn't know it was about a philandering husband who wanted to be free of his disabled wife? Amazing!

281 posted on 11/10/2005 5:15:29 PM PST by muir_redwoods (Free Sirhan Sirhan, after all, the bastard who killed Mary Jo Kopechne is walking around free)
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To: laney
I am not dis-counting what you do for a living at all, but it's far from the sweat that many men had to do to take care of a wife and 7 children with little education....

You aren't discounting my work... but you insist it doesn't begin to compare...

Reminds me of the immortal words of G. K. Chesterton: "may I say that while tortures would not tear from me a whisper about his intellect, he is a blasted old jackass."

282 posted on 11/10/2005 5:15:43 PM PST by Shalom Israel (Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.)
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To: RadioAstronomer
However, don't paint us like we are a bunch of stealing socialists.

I'll make a deal with you: don't steal my money and redistribute it, and I won't call you a socialist or a thief. Otherwise, here's my wallet, comrade, and please don't hurt me.

283 posted on 11/10/2005 5:17:04 PM PST by Shalom Israel (Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.)
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To: CompSciGuy
Not everyone who dies in service for this country is in the military, and not everyone who is serving need call attention to it

Agree completely. You notice I kept quiet for years aboput my service here on FR. Just got steamed today from some of the posts about how we screwed over everyone. Sorry for getting so ticked.

284 posted on 11/10/2005 5:17:06 PM PST by RadioAstronomer (Senior member of Darwin Central)
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To: Windsong

And any man not married at 40 had no......

I'm pretty sure that was Churchill, anyway. He wrote a lot of stuff!


285 posted on 11/10/2005 5:19:37 PM PST by SteveMcKing ("I was born a Democrat. I expect I'll be a Democrat the day I leave this earth." -Zell Miller '04)
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To: thoughtomator
Here's a radical idea... make the boomers pay for their own damn retirements with all that capital they've had their entire lifetimes to build, and stop stealing from their children and their childrens' children and the generations beyond that.

Here's a radical reply: I wish I could recover the $50,000 to $90,0000 in annual TAXES stolen from me by the socialist government. I could retire VERY comfortably. I earn plenty of money, but I don't get to keep much of it. What isn't taxed away is paying for my children to park their knees under my table. The two remaining at home will eventually join the rest of the Gen X crew welcoming people to Walmart and pushing extra large orders of fries. They got the best education the socialist teacher's unions could provide.

286 posted on 11/10/2005 5:20:53 PM PST by Myrddin
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To: RadioAstronomer
Hmmm... I pay taxes. I fought for this country. I still help defend it as we speak. Yup, guess I don't care about anything but myself.

By your reasoning, if a veteran becomes a mugger, nobody had better dare criticize his behavior.

287 posted on 11/10/2005 5:21:06 PM PST by Shalom Israel (Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.)
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To: CompSciGuy; All

"spare me the"We won the Cold War" attitude, most of the people that did that are worm food now"

I am not yet 50, and see no worms munching on my body.
BTW, that "We won the Cold War" attitude is one I have.
Because I did participate in that one, for eight years.
It was an all volunteer force, at the time.
And no, I do not consider myself in the same category as any combat veteran of any war, past or present.
But let me clue you in on something, just so you do not insult me and my fellow veterans unintentionally.
If you think the USSR folded on a "bluff", you are dead wrong.
"We" were not bluffing.We knew the price, and prepared ourselves to pay it every day.That was our life.That is how I spent my young adult life.
And although the DOD denied me the opportunity to wear a uniform and "do what I did best" one more time,I and my peers, are still milling about, amongst the general civilian population.Lurking, for want of a better word.
I invite you to look closely into any of our eyes, and tell me/us we have no right to be proud that we "Won the Cold War" .
Especially around Veterans Day.
And as to the thread topic, the generational Social Security argument...
Make the cutoff date the day before my birth, and I will call all the taxes I have paid, sunk cost, and we will be done with socialism.
Better that I absorb the price of injustice, than pass it on to my child.
I, and all my "Cold War Veteran" peers, are supremely qualified to make that call.



288 posted on 11/10/2005 5:23:15 PM PST by sarasmom ("The French are revolting." Some phrases are true on so many levels, it's mystical!)
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To: Shalom Israel

Again your opinion....
I made the comparisson based upon the sweat of your brow.


289 posted on 11/10/2005 5:23:44 PM PST by laney (little bit country,little bit Rock and Roll!)
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To: A CA Guy
As far as the national debt, just direct the current estate tax to only go to reducing debt...by a new law.

Estate taxes are THEFT of private property. Only a damn communist would advocate stealing the private property of another person for the collective benefit of the government.

290 posted on 11/10/2005 5:24:08 PM PST by Myrddin
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To: suzyjaruki
After reading some of the posts on this thread, I can understand why some retirees are taking out reverse mortgages. They want to care for themselves and not depend on children and, at the same time, not worry about leaving anything to children who are selfish.

Flapdoodle. Every one of us objecting to SS robbery, has parents we either do or will care for in their old age. Our astronomer friend is after something entirely different: he wants everyone else's children to be forced to take care of him against their will. The reason he's entitled to this slave labor is... that he fought to keep them "free".

291 posted on 11/10/2005 5:24:28 PM PST by Shalom Israel (Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.)
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To: Shalom Israel
You mean, you were robbed, and it gives you the right to rob in turn.

No. I paid in good faith that I would get my money back (forced BTW). I would not pay nor ask to collect SS except I am given no choice.

As for paying for my education, you most certainly did not.

Indeed I did. Go figure how much I payed in school tax all these years even though I do not nor ever had children.

No wonder you're so eager to rob me and mine.

Robbery? I have no choice but to pay into SS.

For some reason socialists usually turn out to be people who didn't provide properly for themselves.

I put 20% of my pay away for the future. I don't rely one bit on SS or any other Gov dole. I also payed my own way thru school and grad school. You see the military reniged on my GI bill after serving 12 years.

The guy who scrimps and saves isn't usually the one demanding that the government redistribute his savings.

Bet I pay more in taxes than you make.

Keep me free? Apparently, you did it with the expectation of robbing me. What's so noble about that? The noble guy keeps me free and then doesn't rob me. At least, that's my idea of noble, comrade.

Comrade? I stood the front line fighting communism. If I said what I really thought of you I would be banned from this forum. I think you get the picture however.

292 posted on 11/10/2005 5:27:32 PM PST by RadioAstronomer (Senior member of Darwin Central)
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To: RadioAstronomer
Not a problem... Have been around way too many Boomers today talking about their time during the cold war. (Getting assigned at Edsel is no hardship tour.) This "slacker whiny" stuff I hear too much, and yes, I am still working doing my time before I go back. Some of us use rifles, planes, ships, and tanks to defend America, others uses bits, and phonetic sounds. I'd gladly swap a story or two privately, its amazing what people can find on a google search these days.

Cheers,
CSG

293 posted on 11/10/2005 5:29:01 PM PST by CompSciGuy ("A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject." - Winston Churchill)
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To: Shalom Israel
Our astronomer friend is after something entirely different: he wants everyone else's children to be forced to take care of him against their will. The reason he's entitled to this slave labor is... that he fought to keep them "free".

You want to talk about me, at least have the guts to ping me. No one is going to take care of me. I take care of myself and all the freeloading welfare scum of your generation as well.

294 posted on 11/10/2005 5:30:03 PM PST by RadioAstronomer (Senior member of Darwin Central)
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To: laney
Again your opinion.... I made the comparisson based upon the sweat of your brow.

...which is a stupid comparison. One's marginal revenue product is not a function of sweat. I think thoughts too large to fit in the average mill-monkey's head. Only reverse elitism would argue that this is of lower value, or that one effort is less than the other. I do what's impossible for such a person, so by what reasoning do you conclude that it suffers by comparison?

295 posted on 11/10/2005 5:31:33 PM PST by Shalom Israel (Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.)
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To: thoughtomator
Seems that the WW2 generation had its priorities in order, but sadly their success enabled the next generation to have all the wrong priorities and suffer few consequences.

The WWII generation developed an economic powerhouse in a world where there was no other competition. That produced a false euphoria where unions demanded enormous benefits and employers allowed the excesses as the pot of gold seemed to be endless. The socialist New Deal was cooked up with a ratio of 23 to 1 workers to beneficiaries. That ratio is three to one today. Today's world has cut throat competition as the rest of the world caught up with ability to manufacture. The 'golden years' of operating without competition are over. The boomers were children in the heyday of this economic boom. They didn't cause the problems that drive all the whining in this thread. The socialist policies were cooked up from the New Deal Democrats and accelerated by the Great Society Democratic welfare state invented by LBJ.

296 posted on 11/10/2005 5:33:17 PM PST by Myrddin
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To: Myrddin
Estate taxes have been in place for a long time. I have no problem with personal responsibility, so as long as they direct the current estate tax to repayment of the national debt, that's fine with me.

How else were you going to suggest we pay off this national debt instead of leaving your responsibility to others?
Do you suggest a one time assessment of thousands of dollars or what?

You wouldn't create a bill at a restaurant and run away without paying, it is no different here.

Once the national debt is payed, stop the tax and also have limits on spending so they stop deficits.

Lots of work, but I do believe the bottom line is self reliance and responsibility.
I do not think the dead should leave the world with their national debt unpaid to be left to others.
This seems a somewhat painless way to continue what is and to get some pay-down.

I look so forward to what you instead suggest, because budget controls and other things have yet to ever be manifested and seem an unrealistic dream at this point. Plus we are at war.

For our actual and financial future we should be self reliant and responsible.
We do not have a right to cut and run on our national debt IMO, even by death if we left an estate.

Private citizens all owe this public debt despite how desperate people want to argue for free stuff from their parents.
297 posted on 11/10/2005 5:35:07 PM PST by A CA Guy (God Bless America, God bless and keep safe our fighting men and women.)
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To: RadioAstronomer
You want to talk about me, at least have the guts to ping me.

Calm down. I assumed you were following the thread. I'm content to ping you, however.

No one is going to take care of me. I take care of myself and all the freeloading welfare scum of your generation as well.

No one is going to take care of you? Oh, I apologize--I was under the mistaken impression that you were planning to receive money confiscated from me. Now that I realize you plan to refuse the stolen funds, that changes everything.

BTW, slick use of ad-hominem. I have nothing to do with the "welfare scum" you try to connect me with by virtue of being the same age. And of course, it was clever of you to insinuate that "welfare scum" are all found in "my" generation rather than yours.

298 posted on 11/10/2005 5:35:13 PM PST by Shalom Israel (Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.)
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To: CompSciGuy
Getting assigned at Edsel is no hardship tour

I understand. However post 279 is not just another war story.

299 posted on 11/10/2005 5:36:10 PM PST by RadioAstronomer (Senior member of Darwin Central)
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To: Shalom Israel

Sorry you still DO NOT get it...
I am saying the Computer Generation has had much given to them Education, Technology, Freebies all the way..

Generations as in the World War II folks were not given the luxuries YOU have, and had to work long manual labor hours for little money and raise a family all by his lonesome, maybe that is why men of that generation were hard drinkers and distant father's...They had to work by the sweat of there brow!


300 posted on 11/10/2005 5:37:00 PM PST by laney (little bit country,little bit Rock and Roll!)
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