Free Republic

The Boomer Age is drawing to its close. When one speaks of this group, it tends to mostly focus on white Boomers (not that others are outside the group, but to such a great extent, it really does mean those of mostly European background, if for no other reason than they have been the largest demographic group). When that age does end, we will see an ever dwindling European demographic majority in many Western nations (Canada and the USA are almost certainly the first, soon followed by a variety of European nations). That significant point of majority will be fading,...

The Boomer Age is drawing to its close. When one speaks of this group, it tends to mostly focus on white Boomers (not that others are outside the group, but to such a great extent, it really does mean those of mostly European background, if for no other reason than they have been the largest demographic group). When that age does end, we will see an ever dwindling European demographic majority in many Western nations (Canada and the USA are almost certainly the first, soon followed by a variety of European nations). That significant point of majority will be fading,...

Research commissioned by The Atlantic Magazine shows that older white liberals may just be the most politically intolerant group in the country. The article by Amanda Ripley, Rekha Tenjarla and Angela Y. He, published Monday and titled “The Geography of Partisan Prejudice,” utilized polling and analytics firm PredictWise to “create a ranking of counties in the U.S. based on partisan prejudice.” While its findings showed “significant variations in Americans’ political ill will from place to place, regardless of party,” it also found that groups the authors expected to display partisan animosity, such as immigrants, paled in comparison to “the most...

We Baby Boomers timed it perfectly. We came of age during in an era of plentiful jobs and relatively high wages. Public pensions were generous. Stock, bond and home prices were low, and have since risen strongly, enriching anyone who managed to save regularly. College was (by current standards) insanely cheap, allowing us to upgrade our skills with minimal sacrifice. The result was a generation with high average net worth and, at first glance, a great shot at a comfortable retirement. But that’s an illusion, for several reasons. First, the “average net worth” stat masks the fact that many Boomers...

Everyone likes to bash millennials. We’re spoiled, entitled, and hopelessly glued to our smartphones. We demand participation trophies, can’t find jobs, and live with our parents until we’re 30. But is the millennial hate justified? Have we dropped the generational baton, or was it a previous generation, the so-called baby boomers, who actually ruined everything? That’s the argument Bruce Gibney makes in his book A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America. The boomers, according to Gibney, have committed “generational plunder,” pillaging the nation’s economy, repeatedly cutting their own taxes, financing two wars with deficits, ignoring climate change,...

Harley-Davidson Inc. announced early Tuesday with its fourth quarter 2017 earnings report that it is on track to launch its first electric motorcycle within 18 months and that it will invest more aggressively in the electric avenue in an attempt to inspire ridership. But on the flip side, the motorcycle manufacturer also revealed plans to close its Kansas City, Mo., plant and fold those operations into its Pennsylvania facility. The Milwaukee-based company's (NYSE: HOG) announcement on its significant commitment to the future of its motorcycle technology and plant closure comes as motorcycle sales fell 6.7 percent worldwide in 2017, with...

Today we will ponder America, a country, even a civilization, that existed long ago where the United States is today, but bore little resemblance to it. It will be like studying cave drawings, or Sargon of Akkad. Pay attention. The is original source material of historical importance. I was there, in America: Athens, Alabama, at age twelve. Athens was small and Southern, drowsy in summer, kind of comfortable feeling, not much concerned with the outside world. It left the world alone and the world left it alone. In those days, people in a lot of places figured this was pretty...

Fewer Millennials and youth in Generation Z are moving out of their parents’ homes than in recent previous generations. For the first time in the modern era, more 18- to 34-year olds live with their parents than in any other type of arrangement. That percentage reached its lowest point 45 years ago. In 1960, 62 percent of the nation’s 18- to 34-year-olds were living with a spouse or partner in their own household, and only one-in-five were living with their parents. How did this happen? The younger generations are used to their parents providing them with iPhones and cars. They’re...

With all the awful things happening now – the discord, the anger, the stupidity – at least those of my generation can rest easy knowing that the Millennials are going to suffer after we’re gone. Sure, I’m going to die a lot sooner than them – unless someone invents some sort of expensive life extension potion that I can buy but they can’t because they will still be paying off their degrees in Oppression Studies and Virtue Signaling Arts until the year 2083. But at least I’ll know that we left them a suitably terrible world, since they are a...

Looking ahead to the next phase of life can seem pretty dreadful if you can’t stand the person who you’ll be spending it with. That may be what some boomers are facing. Among U.S. adults ages 50 and older, the divorce rate has roughly doubled since the 1990s, according to a recent Pew Research Center report. Statistically speaking we’re healthier and probably going to be living a lot longer — possibly 30 years longer — than average retirees once did. The surge in late-in-life — or “gray” — divorce is one possibly unintended consequence of this so-called longevity bonus. Read:...

Older Americans own half of the houses in the market. Many are simply refusing to sell and others have adult “kids” moving back in since they can’t afford a place to rent or buy. It is a Catch 22 and many people are looking at countries like Italy where the number of adults that live at home is enormous. Multi-generational families just don’t coincide with the “rugged American” worldview where you go out on your own and you make it with your own two hands. Of course, many house humpers had mom and dad chip in but that doesn’t make...

<p>For 30 years, Pat Fryzel stored her children’s memorabilia, and her grandmother’s, too. But when she and her husband downsized, from a large Winchester home to a two-bedroom Boston town house, there was no room for the American Girl dolls or Nana’s cake plates. So Fryzel asked her grown kids to collect what they wanted.</p>

I was wondering when it would happen. For over thirty years I have been anxiously awaiting the backlash. Alas, for years it never arrived. What backlash have I been awaiting, you ask? Why, the backlash to the most self-important, morally superior, narcissistic generation to cast a shadow across this republic in its history, the Baby Boomers. Had the generation just been designated “the Babies” and been left at that, America would have been on the right track. As we now are about to discover, while the Boomers decline into senescence, they never really did grow up — at least their...

Baby Boomers: your millennial children are worse off than you. With a median household income of $40,581, millennials earn 20 percent less than boomers did at the same stage of life, despite being better educated, according to a new analysis of Federal Reserve data by the advocacy group Young Invincibles. The analysis being released Friday gives concrete details about a troubling generational divide that helps to explain much of the anxiety that defined the 2016 election. Millennials have half the net worth of boomers. Their home ownership rate is lower, while their student debt is drastically higher. The generational gap...

"It appears we're going to have an old folks' home." That's the ever-outspoken Harry Reid, Nevada's retiring senior senator, talking about Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders being the unofficial early front-runners for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. Warren, at 67, is the youngest of the Big Three, and she's the only one who excites both establishment Democrats and progressive activists. But is the senior senator from Massachusetts game for a presidential run? Some pundits believe she's already positioning herself for it. Warren, the former guiding light of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, recently announced she's joining the Senate's...

In business, the 80/20 rule states that 80% of your business will come from 20% of your customers. In an economy where more than 2/3rds of the growth rate is driven by consumption, an even bigger imbalance of the “have” and “have not’s” presents a major headwind.

I have seen the best minds of my generation, to steal a phrase from the late Allen Ginsberg, driven to heights of self-absorption, advocating policies that assure the failure of the next. Nothing so suggests the failure of my generation — the boomers — than its two representatives running for president. What Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump reflect are two sides of the same nasty boomer coin. On one side, there are aging boomers embracing Trump, an icon of materialistic obsession and a lack of concern for “losers.” On the other is a control-freak determination to tell everyone how to...

"...Now many in that class are turning 58 years old, and Butler is a shell of what it was four decades ago, with the mills long-since shuttered or shrunk — casualties of the globalized steel industry — taking most of the jobs and that old sense of security with them. People here are approaching their golden years with a sense of bitterness about the new, unforgiving economy and foreboding about what they will have to show for this life. Something their parents could count on — a comfortable retirement, debt-free and maybe in a warmer place — seems out of...

It’s like the last twist in a horror movie. You think the baby boomers are dead, or at least easing into retirement, and then they thrust their claw up from the dirt, or lunge from the bathtub with a knife. Or take over a presidential election. Or decide to “liberate” your country from an economic partnership that is imperfect but deeply popular among younger generations whose vision is more kaleidoscopic than the color scheme of a national flag. “YOU STOLE OUR FUTURE FROM US,” said a blue banner hoisted by two young women in front of Big Ben after the...

Baby boomers' long reign over the kingdom of American demographics has finally come to an end: Millennials have officially surpassed them as the largest living generation in the U.S. That's according to new population estimates released this month by the U.S. Census Bureau and analyzed by the Pew Research Center.