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The Economist ominously reports: 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. The statistics are frightening: The average federal tax rate for a median American household, including income and payroll taxes, dropped from more than 18% in 1981 to just over 11% in 2011. Yet sensible tax reforms left less revenue for the generous benefits boomers have continued to vote themselves, such as a prescription-drug benefit paired with inadequate premiums. Deficits exploded. Erick Eschker, an...

Gay-rights supporters are openly rallying sympathizers who until now may have been content to stay in the closet - young conservative Republicans. “Freedom and family are core conservative values,” said conservative gay activist Margaret Hoover, a leader of a new campaign called Young Conservatives for the Freedom to Marry. “We have a historic opportunity to reaffirm these.. values by supporting the fundamental freedom to marry... ” ... Other members of Young Conservatives for the Freedom to Marry leadership... said they expect their new group to inspire other young conservatives “to ... “accelerate” the acceptance of same-sex marriage. However, the leader...

Though everyone seems to be feeling sorry for millennials, who are experiencing one of the highest unemployment rates and boomers, who are delaying their retirement due to the economy, the generation in between, Gen X, deserves their own time in the recession limelight. A Census report released on Monday found that people between 35 and 44 saw a 59 percent decline in median household net worth between 2005 to 2010, the largest drop of all age groups. Those 55 to 64, only saw a 25 percent drop, though they had a larger decline in actual dollar amount.

As kids, they sat on gas lines in the backs of their parents’ cars. As young adults, they saw the stock market crash, and when it finally came time to settle down, they bought a house at the peak of the housing bubble and then were faced with the worst economy since the Great Depression. It’s no shock that Generation X — those born from 1965 to 1981 — may get short changed in their golden years. Though they’ve watched parents and grandparents nestled with pensions, Social Security and strong economic growth, these are no longer guarantees. On the other...

Thanksgiving is the holiday that pulls families together, squeezing them around a table for a feast of turkey, tradition and togetherness. We encourage conversations meant to be personally relevant, but sometimes they turn into a horizontal Babel, with each generation speaking in a different tongue. It's a stretch to identify an entire generation by its tastes in fashion and music, but such tastes offer strong clues. You can separate boomers from Generation Xers and millenials by who prefers the Beatles, Michael Jackson or Lady Gaga. Seniors who came of age during World War II still groove on Glenn Miller and...

I have often said to my mother, who is a baby boomer and liberal, that my generation (Gen X), would have to clean up the mess that her generation left behind. As time wears on, that statement rings more and more true.

"Show us your tattoo" contest draws critics BY STEVE PARKER Posted: Friday, October 1, 2010 11:36 am The Modesto Bee is reporting that it's online "show us your tattoo" contest met with some criticism. The contest -- which ended Thursday -- was aimed at attracting younger readers. Interactive media director Dan Day wrote: It's that under-30 generation we're trying to reach with the contest, hoping they'll stop by our website to view a few tattoos and maybe even pick up a copy of the newspaper. In a column explaining the contest, Day said he heard from critics: "What kind of...

Generation X, the set of Americans who came of age in the late 1980s and early 1990s, is often branded as a rules-rejecting, authority-questioning group. But when it comes to religion, new research has revealed that Gen-Xers are surprisingly loyal to their faith - a finding that also suggests the rising non-religious tide in the United States may be leveling off. In a study published in the latest edition of The Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, University of Nebraska-Lincoln sociologist Philip Schwadel showed that Gen-Xers are, in comparison with their Baby Boomer predecessors, far more likely to adhere...

The entertainment industry is in the full throes of the changing of the generations; films and television are beginning to reflect the visions of Generation Xers like Jason Reitman, (Up in the Air), Judd Apatow, (Knocked Up), Brad Byrd (Up, The Incredibles), and other young artists who dare to buck the tired irony-cool cynicism that has shaped and stifled too much of the culture. Suddenly, after decades of being shut out, minimized, or mocked, film characters have room in their lives for optimism, and even something almost like faith. The Church, if it seeks to be relevant in the future,...

Parents don’t believe their kids have sex By Associated Press Wednesday, June 16, 2010 - Added 20h ago RALEIGH, N.C.— Carole Bullard considers herself open-minded when it comes to dealing with the sexuality of her teen son and her almost teenage one. She and her husband, Roger, have age-appropriate talks with their sons, ages 17 and 12. And though she believes the older boy and his girlfriend have not had sex, she’s realistic that they might. "Do I want them having sex? No," said Bullard, 42, of Cary. "I’ve told them I’m not going to be a grandparent until I’m...

Young adults in the United States are being squeezed out of the labor force as older workers either delay retirement or seek jobs to rebuild nest eggs destroyed by the recession, a study showed on Wednesday. The size of the labor force fell 6.3 percent for young workers, but increased 8.5 percent for workers 55 years and older between December 2007 and January 2010, according to the study by the Washington-based Economic Policy Institute (EPI).

For many months now, many of my posts have been, admittedly, overly lamenting the on “loss” of American culture. As a member of Generation X, perhaps I have often been very overly vitriolic in my opinion that life is just not as it once was in America. I recently watched my first few episodes of the series “Mad Men” on DVD. And the experience has been enlightening on my own view of American culture and cathartic of my own personal history. I must say, I am coming to grips with my own political views. And my watching a TV show...

They branded us "Generation X". They said we had no cause to fight for. They labeled us as lazy, and lost, all the while feeding us their rhetoric of "Equality". They drowned us in a sea of political correctness, while they continued on living contrary to their own words. They tried to use the Earth herself to enslave us. We grew up knowing that we could never trust them, but we never knew where to turn. We remember the values of the founding fathers, and we know that our politicians are not up to par with them. Now is the...

Is Obama a disaster zone? Of course he is. Let’s cut through the crap, shall we? The SOB has never had any experience. And, but for the failed phrase “Compassionate Conservative,” we would never have been where we are today. What the hell does America have to show for its liberal agenda? Can anyone stand up and affirmatively tell us? An educational system occupied by apologist leftists? The ideal of community values now epitomized by a lack of gang bangers saying “trick or treat” on Halloween? The concept that “family” is a couple of homosexual men with a child and...

Is Obama a disaster zone? Of course he is. Let’s cut through the crap, shall we? The SOB has never had any experience. And, but for the failed phrase “Compassionate Conservative,” we would never have been where we are today. What the hell does America have to show for a liberal agenda? Can anyone stand up and tell us? An educational system occupied by apologist leftists? The ideal of community values now epitomized by a lack of gang bangers saying “trick or treat” on Halloween? The concept that “family” is a couple of homosexual men with a child and “nice...

The sad news of the death of former correspondent and newscaster Walter Cronkite gripped the entire nation last week and continues to do so. Many generations are grieving for the man who brought the truth of living history into our homes and into our lives. Each generation has its own vision of the man who became affectionately known as “Uncle” Walter. To the older generations, born during the Great Depression and prior, he first gained national attention by reporting firsthand on the struggle of World War II. His coverage of the war included North Africa and Europe, where he participated...

I have never done a vanity before but today I just needed to let my FREEPER FRiends that I turned 40 today and am stunned. I just can't believe that I remember my parents turning 40. Enjoy life cuz it is short. I tell you my life has been enhanced with my membership to Free Republic. Thank you to all of you and my family Julie (Mrs. NAPS), Nick, Kyle, Alex, and Abby. May 2, 1969 as a lucky day for the world...lol. Just kidding.

Two months shy of its 150th birthday, the Rocky Mountain News breathes its last. Elsewhere, the state of Minnesota shifts tax money from retraining manufacturing workers, to helping newspaper staff connect with an online audience. Before the World Wide Web, I was one of those journalists in training. As fate would have it, the year I graduated in 1993, an invention called the web browser would soon change everything. While starting my career as a journalist for a pauper’s salary, my brother emails me something that blows my mind. It’s called Netscape Navigator and allows people to share “web pages”...

You’ve likely heard the expression, “Mugged by reality.” It usually refers to having a treasured ideal shattered by some stubborn feature of human nature or unbending aspect of science or geopolitics. I’ve been eager to proclaim that the financial meltdown shows our world being mugged by economic reality. But increasingly, it seems humanity is attempting to perform a multitrillion-dollar mugging of reality. This is the first postmodern recession. It combines baby-boomer self-absorption with the ahistorical ignorance of the following generation, plus the acute narcissism common to both. The accompanying histrionics erase perspective and proportion – and the chance for rational...

We’re Not Gen-X, We’re Gen-Reagan This is for everyone who was raised to believe that our young lives would soon end in a nuclear war, of mutually assured destruction, quivering under our school desks with President Reagan to thank for making the pink and gray tile on our classroom floors the last thing we would ever see. This is for those of us raised in the post-graduate, post-doctorate suburbs where Volkswagens and Volvos taught us that we “can’t hug our children with nuclear arms” and that “war is not healthy for children and other living things.” This is for the...