Posted on 10/14/2012 8:53:42 PM PDT by Lorianne
The economic legacy left by the baby-boomers is leading to a battle between the generations ___ ANOTHER economic mess looms on the horizon—one with a great wrinkled visage. The struggle to digest the swollen generation of ageing baby-boomers threatens to strangle economic growth. As the nature and scale of the problem become clear, a showdown between the generations may be inevitable.
After the end of the second world war births surged across the rich world. Britain, Germany and Japan all enjoyed a baby boom, although it peaked in different years. America’s was most pronounced. By 1964 individuals born after the war accounted for 41% of the total population, forming a generation large enough to exert its own political and economic gravity.
These boomers have lived a charmed life, easily topping previous generations in income earned at every age. The sheer heft of the generation created a demographic dividend: a rise in labour supply, reinforced by a surge in the number of working women. Social change favoured it too. Households became smaller, populated with more earners and fewer children. And boomers enjoyed the distinction of being among the best-educated of American generations at a time when the return on education was soaring.
(Excerpt) Read more at economist.com ...
No kidding! What is it with all the Boomer bashing? We are the ones left holding the empty bag. We are the ones paying exorbitant taxes to support the current crop of retirees while trying to raise our own children. Not having many kids? Well, the government made sure it would be expensive to have children.
It was not Boomers who voted for FDR, and it is the young voters today who most support Obama.
Enough of this crap! It’s time to lay the blame where it belongs - on government programs that rob us all and pit us against each other. Americans should look in the mirror if they want to see whose at fault. If we did not have a majority voting for politicians who promise to give them other people’s money, we wouldn’t be in this mess.
Oops, “who is” not “whose”
I was on a roll there. ;-)
Boomer economic ping
But we do need to get into the "fiscal reality" game. There are government programs which were promised to people, and which we cannot afford. We need to take a step back and ask ourselves "What should government really be doing?" and I'd say that the answer is: "helping people a lot less".
Or it could be laying the emotional and social groundwork for death panels, denial of care and euthanasia. It’s easier to get rid of people after they’ve been dehumanized. By screaming the horrors of old people on government healthcare and pensions, people who supposedly take more than they paid in, it could then be easier to justify denial of medical care, poor quality nursing homes or outright murder of the elderly who are on government benefits of any type.
Social Security is a TRUST, not an entitlement program like other government programs. There is a difference. We have the IOUs to prove it. Instead, supposed conservatives join the Democrats in calling for boomer heads.
Another hate the boomers article. Haven’t read much of this one, but I bet it’s like most: filled with blame for the boomers for government programs and policies passed into law when the boomers didn’t have enough political power to pass a local school board resolution, let alone huge programs such as the welfare and poverty programs passed in the ‘60s, let along SS from the Roosevelt years, before boomers were even born.
Good points. The lifelong politicians never fail to feather their own nests, but somehow the blame is always on the ordinary citizens. Boomers have been paying into Social Security for 30 or 40 years in most cases, and very few of them have drawn out a dime so far.
You’re on the right track. The Boomer generation is being set up for the kind of abuse that we have never seen here in America.
Let the “Gray Wave” roll.
Some of the new limitations have already kicked in. Later age of first mammogram (from 35 to 40 or higher) and the government stating not to do it in very old age, though the risk of cancer increases with age. Age is now considered in organ transplants. The mandate to discuss your plans for death and denial of care with Medicare doctors periodically. The financial punishment of hospitals with readmissions, which will lead to hospitals refusing to readmit patients; more people then die. I can’t say to what the degree the push for legalizing assisted suicide is part of this, or simply a reflection of the anti-human movement.
Look at England. They are killing their old people. Outright murder. The sickness is coming ths way.
BS. They knew this.
“We have the IOUs to prove it. Instead, supposed conservatives join the Democrats in calling for boomer heads.”
An IOU is better than a paycheck deduction we’re told is to pay current retirees, for a program from which we will never benefit.
I guess they should just stop telling us that.
I have no beef with boomers; I feel bad that their children are fighting for the right to euthanize them (seriously).
“it could then be easier to justify denial of medical care, poor quality nursing homes or outright murder of the elderly who are on government benefits of any type.”
I thought that Obama was very up-front when he took money from Medicare for a national healthcare program that would NOT deny benefits to illegal alines (Joe Wilson was right - HE LIED!). Amazingly enough, AARP along with many seniors will still support Obama - and I will shed no tears for any of THEM that are euthanized.
They had every warning, directly from the source - no work, no use for you.
As boomers retire, they spend money, which supports occupations from the pharmacist to the sporting goods stores to the pet groomer and lawn boy. that should be 'generational redistribution' enough.
they’re killing them here, too.
my 91yo neighbor and dear friend was asked by a cardiologist, at an appointment to see about getting a pacemaker, “just how long do you want to live anyway”?
this is a woman who walks without a walker, has a mind as clear as a bell, and still flys to Hawaii once a year to visit her great grands. It’s a good thing I wasn’t at her appointment with her
It will have everything to do with race.
Blacks, Hispanics, and new immigrant citizens are the spinal cord of the Democrat Party and the Socialist Left.
When their voter participation rate equals white voter participation rate - and that will happen - sooner, not later - America will turn into South Africa.
Non-whites have been taught since birth to blame every problem on whites.
Does anyone believe that non-white Americans are going to willingly hand over 30% of their income to pay for white pensions and white health care?
Does anyone believe that non-white Americans will create wealth or display generosity at the same level white Americans have done?
It's not going to happen.
There will be a war, a political war, and the aging white Boomers are going to lose.
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