Posted on 09/12/2010 3:44:54 PM PDT by Impala64ssa
Let's get one thing straight, all of you millennials out there.
If it weren't for us baby boomers, most of you wouldn't be here. Literally.
We are your parents. You sprung from our wombs, from our love.
We don't just deserve your respect; we deserve your eternal gratitude — for the food you ate, for the clothes you wore, for the roofs over your heads. By the way, we're still giving food, clothes and roofs to the more than 10 million of you who still live in our homes.
And what have you millennials — the 50 million Americans born between 1980 and 1995 who are becoming adults at the start of this new millennium — given us?
Nada — except the smug expectation that we should give you more.
Let's start with culture — like the music you listen to, on the gizmos we boomers invented.
Not only are Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder, James Taylor, U2 and the late Michael Jackson bona fide, card carrying boomers born between 1946 and 1964. The music we boomers grew up on — the Beatles, the Stones, Dylan, Hendrix, Motown and James Brown — is the music you listen to now, because you hardly have any of your own.
Unless, of course, you count Lady Gaga.
We gave you technology like cell phones.
And did you ever hear of this little invention called the Internet?
Yup. Boomers (not including Al Gore) gave you that, too
Hardly. We have race wars, class envy and now "generational" warfare is being stoked. How about we stick to Conservatives against liberal loons instead of letting them divide us.
The point is, that the people who coined that slogan, are now on the wrong side of it - it would really mess with their heads (and deservedly so) if this caught on again... even if it was just young conservatives having a laugh.
The point is that you have fallen for the generational warfare. You're buying divisive rhetoric meant to harm, I'll pass. I want to defeat them, not us.
Every generation feels that the generation before them really screwed things up, and every older generation thinks the younger generation should be eternally grateful for all of the things they’ve done for them. It’s just the way of the world.
>>We are screwed.<<
You would be surprised. They are just settling down, but these are the kids that kept BO from being a landslide.
My niece and nephews, all in their 30s are just as conservative as I am.
>>How dare you even argue with your mother about something that threatens her very security? Shame on you.<<
Are you nuts?
Unless I’m mistaken, Marie’s mother still votes. She is trying to wake her up to facts. And it was a pretty low blow to suggest Marie would euthanize her mother. Please think before you type.
Where do you think that money is coming from? Marie’s mother is advocating spending YOUR grandchildren’s money for her lifestyle because she was “promised”. Marie’s mother, along with the entire baby boomer generation (and yes, that includes me) needs to realize that they were lied to. There is no lockbox. The money is not there and THAT is what Marie is telling her mother.
I am just like Marie’s mother. I’ve worked since I was 15. I’ve paid into that system. My dad died at 52 and didn’t take a cent, my mom at 61 and took a year of SS widows benefits (she worked too). All of us paid and the system is broke.
Marie was doing her mother a favor by waking her up while she can still save. Her mother thinks she is retiring on SS. It ain’t happening for Baby Boomers.
spot on ... i was born in 1947 and don't much care for anyone who wasn't ... so there
I was born in 1942, and I want everyone younger than me to learn how to spell ‘lose.’
I am a war baby, pre-boom, I was 22 and had already had my honorable discharge for a year when you were born. I agree totally with the following.
“I miss the 1980’s, it was the last time things really made sense.”
ping
Sounds much like President George W. Bush's plan.
President Bush waited until he had "solid" majorities in both houses of CONgre$$ to agressively campaign on the SS issue.
Those "solid" majorities joined the communist demonrats to fight him tooth and nail!
>>I told my kids that they were going to have to work *very* hard and stay out of financial trouble. “If you make us bail you out when you’re young, then we’re moving in with *you* when we’re old!”<<
I’m stealing that from you!
We were just talking yesterday about a condo that our older friends moved into. It’s perfect. One floor, two bedrooms and a shed in the back for storage. When the kids go (if they do, neither wants to move EV-AH), that’s where we are going.
My In-laws are in a retirement condo at 7200.00 a month. No way.
Sorry but in 1973 you guys won your hard-fought right to consider children a "choice." The millennials were your choice, so deal with it.
Sorry, I do know this, but in haste, I forgot to hit the “spell” button (or to self correct the mistake) ;)! From one youngie to an oldie :).
I was born in 1944 and lose is just the first word I want people to learn, it would take me an hour to try to list all the sloppy spelling and usage errors that I am sick of. English is being turned into pidgin American or is it pigeon now?
Social Security is a complicated subject. The main problem is demographics. My parents were born in 1913 and 1916, my father had three brothers and four sisters who lived to adulthood, one or two died as infants. My mother had six brothers and two sisters and one died in infancy. This was common for their generation. I have three brothers, most of my first cousins were born into families with from two to five children, this is a big drop from the previous generation. There is no way that people in America could have kept having families the size of my parents families, you wouldn’t be able to move now. The generation that started social security had no idea of the fact that it was impossible to sustain, there were no doubt some in government who understood the math but they were not about to tell people that this pyramid scheme will fail when the pyramid turns upside down.
Of course a lot of people bought into the idea that if they just had enough monetary income they would live the live of luxury in retirement but it isn’t quite that simple. Regardless of what a person sets aside, the only way people can live well in retirement is if there are a sufficient number of people of working age who are willing to support them. Anyone who doubts this can just imagine being the last person alive on Earth, you would own it all by default but you wouldn’t be able to get a crumb except by your own effort. As soon as all the gasoline in all the cars went bad you would have to walk everywhere you went. There would be millions of hotel rooms empty and available for nothing but you couldn’t get room service no matter what you did.
A lot of people thought that SS and retirement plans meant that they didn’t need to have descendants to take care of them but it isn’t quite that simple. I don’t know what the answer will be when all of this filters out but I know that the generation following the boomers is a much smaller generation and that does not bode well at all.
Spell-check won’t catch loose; I could have just crossed out an o, and said “Their, that will fix it.” LOL. Just keep paying your SS taxes, youngins.
What really bothered me about Marie's post was the tone. If that was the presentation style she used with her mom, I didn't care much for it. It didn't seem respectful. I had an opinion on a public forum about her delivery and that's all it is...an opinion.
I understand Marie trying to get her mother to understand the current issues. I don't believe in causing undue stress to people with petticoat flapping running with panties on my head terror either. There will be a phasing out of Social Security for sure. But, even conservatives resort to the panic mongering, we're going to have to cut it off attitude and that ticks me off. Have you ever seen the look on an elderly person's face that has heard that? It's not pretty.
This is the United States of America and we are not going to leave our elderly in the dust. However, knowing the huge waste, redundancy, and over kill that exist in the Federal Government, I also know that there are massive cuts to the Federal Government that can be made before we resort to cutting off individuals who depended on Social Security and did not have time to do anything much else.
If the average person saw more of where our tax money went, there would be revolts in the streets yesterday. I worked for a time in the office of Financial Affairs for a mid western University. I saw the Federal Grants that came through for unbelievable things....inexplicable things. You can't tell me we have to terrorize the elderly when we could cut off nationwide 50% of the kind of things I saw just at universities and make a lot of headway. It's like that movie, “Dave,” when the guy takes over for the president and brings his friend the accountant in to balance the budget. Believe me, the money could be there to phase SS out gently. But a lot of federal $ would have to be redirected and that would tick a lot of people off.
I have also seen some of the proposed ideas regarding individual accounts IRA’s and 401k’s and the frightening thing is, the government is after that too. Disturbing.
So, sorry if I offended you. You are a long time and respected Freeper. But I still think Marie's approach stunk.
So, when your mother, who depended on the “honesty” of the government doesn't get the money that she expected, and when she has nothing else to live on or not enough, you will be willing to take her into your home, as was done for hundreds if not thousands of years, and make your home hers?
Done and done. We've taken her in for a time and now she's living with another relative until we can build her a small house.
Or are you advocating the solution to which you alluded when bringing up Roe vs. Wade with regard to unwanted parents?
I normally don't "react" to comments made on FR, but this one burned me up. What I *said* was that I was *afraid* that the younger generations would lash out at the elderly. Maybe not by directly killing them, but by advocating the elderly to just check out on their own. Roe devalued life. The killing of the unborn is the first step. Killing of the infirm is the second. (Terri Schiavo) I am terrified that killing the elderly will come next.How dare you even argue with your mother about something that threatens her very security? Shame on you.How in the heck is *informing* my mom that SS is a threatened Ponzi scheme that might not be there for her (at least as much as she expects) a *threat*? What goes around comes around and you will be approaching that time in your life someday, when not all looks as possible as it does with the strength and blush of youth. When you lie awake at night after living your life and giving your all to family, and wonder if there will be enough and if you are going to be a burden.
Sorry lady, but I'm already there. Youth and strength left me before I had a chance to finish raising my kids. As for the "what goes around, comes around" crack... THINK. SS and Medicare WILL NOT be there for us. What goes around, comes around? What a load. If that were true, the Ponzi scheme would go on forever. But it won't. Your kids and grandkids are screwed. Yeah, we're going to be old one day. And we won't have Uncle Sugar to lean on.After the economic debacle we have just witnessed, if you think that this administration or group of progressives worldwide is going to allow individual solutions like IRA’s or 401k’s go untouched then you are suffering from the same trusting naivete that you proclaim your parents suffered.
Where in the heck did you get the idea that I thought that?? Hubby and I need twenty years to build a home that's as self-sufficient as possible and to get a farm up and running that can be managed by two broken old people.
You took everything that I said in the worse possible light and threw in much of your own interpretations. I was writing of my fears for my mom, myself and my kids. I was writing of my frustration at the unwillingness of the older generation to even admit that there's a problem.
>>But I still think Marie’s approach stunk. <<
I’ve know Marie for a long time and what we state on a forum is not what we say in person. You make some valid points. However, it’s safer to assume that a person is either in a heated conversation if such strong language is used or that it is embellished for drama on the board.
We have bigger enemies than each other. And as things are getting worse in the country we are getting stronger with our words to each other. This is not good. I’m exasperated with the attitudes of some people, I’m sure Marie is too.
I came off strongly and I apologize. Thank you for your kind response and have a blessed day!
Hey boomers, you aborted 35,000,000 of us. Maybe if we were alive we could pay for your stupid, narcissist lifestyle. Signed, Aborted Fetus
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