Posted on 01/01/2011 3:37:02 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
In keeping with a generation’s fascination with itself, the time has come to note the passing of another milestone: On New Year’s Day, the oldest members of the Baby Boom Generation will turn 65, the age once linked to retirement, early bird specials and gray Velcro shoes that go with everything.
Though other generations, from the Greatest to the Millennial, may mutter that it’s time to get over yourselves, this birthday actually matters. According to the Pew Research Center, for the next 19 years, about 10,000 people “will cross that threshold” every day — and many of them, whether through exercise or Botox, have no intention of ceding to others what they consider rightfully theirs: youth.
This means that the 79 million baby boomers, about 26 percent of this country’s population, will be redefining what it means to be older, and placing greater demands on the social safety net. They are living longer, working longer and, researchers say, nursing some disappointment about how their lives have turned out. The self-aware, or self-absorbed, feel less self-fulfilled, and thus are racked with self-pity.
[snip]
“But the pig has moved through the python, and is moving to the final stage,” Mr. Gillon said. “And we won’t describe what that stage is.”
Here is an attempt: retirement, old age, then a release to a place where the celestial Muzak plays a never-ending loop of the Doobie Brothers.
..... In addition to testing the sustainability of entitlement programs like Social Security, this wholesale redefinition of old age may also include a pervading sense that life has been what might technically be called a “bummer.”
A study...indicates that the suicide rate for middle-aged people, notably baby boomers without college degrees, rose from 1999 to 2005. ......
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
The New York Times print edition will die long before I do.
That will smell like “victory”.
I am not sure whether to thank you for posting or be angry that you forgot the “barf alert.”
Now, the author makes attempts to excoriate my generation, but some how really misses some crucial points in his venomous slander.
First and foremost the “self-absorbed, self-pity” thing sounds like they are describing 0bama and the liberal left. Their empty lives led and created today’s empty cultures.
Many of my more conservative friends are far from self-absorbed. They were/are married, had and raised outstanding kids, and while not happy with the government...are happy in their lives and homes.
Second, the youngster should be happy were physically fit, exercise, and most of us are not looking to 65 as a retirement age. We will continue to support the tax system, social security, and as health old people...we will be less of a burden on the future 0bamacare.
Of course, again that is my conservative friends...we’re looking at being to happily go on creating work and being productive long past retirement. The liberal left who look to people like me for their work...well I guess retirement and dwelling on their wasted lives....
Third, I really find this article offensive and age discriminatory. It is nothing but propaganda and stereotype.
The words in a paper such as, a study indicates, actually means get. Ready i’m going to hit you with some made up bullish**.
Since the author was born in 1958 the title might as well have been “It’s Still All About Me.”
Calling the boomer generation “self-absorbed” is quite the stretch when we have been the ones who ponied up the cash to pay for the retirements of the “Greaest Generation” (they voted that in even before we were born), paid for, and WON most of the Cold War, and now will get the shaft when the Social Security system collapses like the Ponzi scheme it really is.
Now these liberal hairballs are trying to paint us as greedy and self centered so they can get everyone younger than us to agree to trash our promised benefits and they will paint us as uncaring if we complain.
Mind you, I have planned for my retirement without any Social Security as I saw it for the scam it is back when I was quite young. I got in trouble with my teachers in High School and college for saying it was a Ponzi scheme.
The left knows Social Security will collapse if we Boomers attempt to claim all of our benefits as promised and now their plan is to vilify us without so much as a “Thank you” for supporting everyone who came before us.
One of the dangerous things in life is for the goverment to scare old people they will go off on you,hey what do they have to lose?.
Not only paid for those who came before us...
But I’d love to see a list of the “programs” that were created that drained the trust fund too.
Those programs went to the younger generation.
And as someone pointed out the author was born in 1958? He’s just like 0bama...a self-absorbed liberal...don’t project your failures onto other people.
This whole article is trash
ping
The left knows Social Security will collapse if we Boomers attempt to claim all of our benefits as promised and now their plan is to vilify us without so much as a “Thank you” for supporting everyone who came before us.
I think if one considers the benefits SS provides outside normal suplemental retirement income (SS disability, full survivor’s benefits to multiple ex-wives, etc.) one would see that aging baby boomer’s are the least of the systems problems.
In fact, while you and I may have been going to school (in a real track with purpose) and working, saving and building a future for your marriage and family, millions more of our g-g-generation were following the rainbow and finding themselves (their impulses mainly). Now that our g-g-generation has found itself in a jam, we're going to be on the hook along with everyone else that earns a dime or isn't on the dole.
I won't even go into the culture wars but as far as guilt for everything that has changed, there's certainly plenty to go around. But facts is facts and our g-g-generation has porked it up in the pipeline at every step of the way pleasuring themselves while trashing Judeo-Christian values and our nation values, laws and traditions. No, you're likely not included if you're here FR, can think rationally, read beyond grade school level and have enough money to pay your net/electric bills, but you know plenty of people who aren't and can't - and they sure as heck outnumber you and your family and friends. In fact, they're friends of our duly elected national leader . . .
Let us hope and pray that we don't run over the edge (and work like demons to that end) but if we do, the soundtrack will be strictly from our g-g-generation.
Here's a clue: The enemy is socialism and it's abettors, not the American people of any generation.
Agreed. “Divide and Conquer” comes to mind.
the death panels started early in 2009- remember when there was a “flu pandemic” and no one over 50 was “permitted” to be vaccinated as the govt controlled the vaccine stock?
amazing how many people let that one roll right on by
watch for the next one
Thank you for pointing that out.
For this Baby Boomer who for his entire life been listening to the Crap coming from those Bastards at the New York Times about how we have to keep the Safety Net and all their Government Give away Programs and How those Dastardly Mean Republicans were for trying to take them away,starve Children Kill Seniors,how Dare Bush try to give younger workers 2% of their Social Security money to put into their own accounts! NOW Oh these Self Centered old people now are going to collect some of what they Have been Raped for their entire Lives these left wing Scumbags start to Demonize them so the Younger Generation will despise them and Off them as soon as possible and The Kenyan Waste Receptacle will only be happy to Oblige them
Bingo. This is just one of several articles that seem to be a new mantra about boomers retiring. The short form of these articles is basically, having shelled out taxes for 35 or 40 years, "pay up, shut up, and die".
Every boomer should claim every dime ever promised by the vote-buying Communists that their parents voted for. Cloward-Piven can work for conservatives too, as they crash the Ponzi scheme that the Dems have been milking for votes since the Truman administration. The sooner it is flat broke, the sooner someone may remember the many conservative congressmen and senators who predicted that this Leftist scam would implode. The Supreme Court’s evil ruling finding non-existant “right” to abortion only made this outcome more certain, as 60 million future taxpayers were murdered with its blessing.
**** The self-aware, or self-absorbed, feel less self-fulfilled, and thus are racked with self-pity.****
So, having the government confiscate a part of your hard earned money each payday, and giving it to others, while promising to take care of you in your old age is beng self absorbed?
It is payback time! but there is no money for payback!
What the Gov’t said in 1964!
http://www.ssa.gov/history/ssa/usa1964-2.html
Self-Supporting
“The program is designed so that contributions plus interest on the investments of the social security trust funds will be sufficient to meet all of the costs of benefits and administration, now and into the indefinite future—without any subsidy from the general funds of the Government. Both the Congress and the Executive Branch, regardless of political party in power, have scrupulously provided in advance for full financing of all liberalizations in the program.”
Where your money REALLY goes! Read and weep you “self absorbed” b_s_ards!;-D
http://www.socialsecurity.gov/OACT/ProgData/fundFAQ.html#n4
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.