Talkin' Bout My Generational Theft

[Brad Kenney]

A quick rant on the concerns about "generational theft" that I keep hearing of late.

As a hardworking member of a generation (in my case, the tail end of Gen X) that has been part of the workforce in both the 1990s and 2000s, I have watched as the element after element of the decades-old social contract between employee and employer, and between citizen and government, has fallen apart like a Minneapolis highway bridge. Pensions disappear and are replaced by 401Ks, employer matches and tuition assistance disappear and are replaced by nothing, insurance premiums rise, prescription drug prices rise, rents rise, costs of living rise, unemployment rises, bridges and levees fall, home values drop off a cliff as does American soft power and moral authority, and all of this while the money funnel set up by Wall Street and Washington D.C. was delivering the wealth my generation was working so hard to create elsewhere. Where did it all go? (Illegal tax havens for the ultrarich brought to you by the tax cheat specialists at UBS, perhaps?)

Meanwhile, despite the increasing productivity of the American workforce, the last 20-30 years have seen an unprecedented ballooning of all types of debt: household, financial, government debt -- all of it.



And now the same people that created all this debt with self-destructive fiscal irresponsibility are clutching at their pearls and crying about how a stimulus plan that is needed to patch up the huge hole in the economy caused by their irresponsible policy choices is somehow "generational theft."

It's like a team of burglars rob you, set your house on fire and then try to keep the firefighters from putting it out by screaming a bunch of nonsense into megaphones at once. It would be funny, if it didn't matter.

Little wonder that people hate politicians with a passion. Me, I've watched the members of the baby boomer generation fight old battles into a perpetual gridlock standstill that solves nothing and benefits no one (but their re-election campaigns), while they lie our way into costly and unneccessary battles overseas, while all the while using shady "off-balance sheet" accounting tactics (no doubt borrowed from their friends in the private sector) to conceal the real costs of all this mismanagement from the American people.

Meanwhile, I've read how the numbers are trending, and despite the new administration's best efforts to rein in entitlement programs and make them solvent again (again, with honest and transparent accounting) I honestly don't expect to see a dime of Social Security -- one of the New Deal programs created by FDR to combat the last major American housefire -- if/when I ever get to retirement age.

(Interesting side note: as far as I can tell, the Fox News/Limbaugh/CNBC "axis of evil" is now trying to blame the entire Great Depression on FDR, as well as blame the current economic meltdown on President Obama's month-old administration. It would be a shockingly presumptive gambit if we didn't already know that compulsive prevarication is the last bastion of the modern conservative movement.)

So, my message to all those who are suddenly concerned about the theft of wealth from mine and future generations -- to borrow an apt phrase here, we weren't born yesterday. We know you've been stealing us blind for years. We'll just keep working hard, and taking every shot we can get to run you out of office, so you too can join the growing ranks of the unemployed.

[Rog]

Whilst I understand and largely agree with what you say one aspect of the graph tells a tale also. The level of private debt.

Yes our disposable income may have shrunk because the house my father bought for a year's salary would now cost me 4 year's salary, I have to contribute to my own, seemingly risky 401k and ever increasing health insurance costs, but there is something else. Something that I feel is the opposite side of the same coin.

My father never owned one new car let alone two. He took one local camping vacation a year. We had one TV (purchased when I was 6). What I'm getting at is that everyone who has run up debts that they cannot afford to pay, taken credit without the ability to pay it back the next month (save for cars and housing) has fuelled the theft. It's like stealing car stereos. No-one would do it if there was no market for stolen car stereos.

Excessive credit has been made available, a very large number of people have been suckered into creating a market for more and more of it that has eventually collapsed. Bouyed up by the apparent wealth successive governments and financiers have dined very heavily and now have severe indegestion.

Many, many people are in some way culpable. With liberty comes responsibility and instead of being free to take care of each other we have used liberty to fleece each other. If we had not fuelled the market for credit it would have collapsed long ago. Is it therefore right to get credit flowing again?

[tne_llc]

Whoa Brad, let's take a deep breath here. As a citizen born under the sign of Boomer but on the cusp of X, I feel your pain.

The boomer generation will go down in history as one of the worst ever: totally self absorbed under the guise of being socially responsible. What a crock. I can't tell you how many '60's communists I know who's only concern now is getting the right color for their BMW (BTW see Obama bud William Ayers for a great example).

As for boomers fighting old battles to a stalemate, that may be their only contribution to posterity. Keep 'em fighting and they can't pass stupid legislation that wastes money and restricts freedom.

But the fact is that the very basis of U.S. government since the New Deal has been theft. Take from one group and give to another based on political whim. Take from the "rich" give to the "poor". Borrow today and make the next generations pay for it. It's all a Ponzi scam.

Until we get back to the constitutionally limited government envisioned originally we will never get this under control. There's no Democrat or Republican, only government -v- real people, us-v- them. And they are kicking our a$$e$.

[dreck]

Funny how conservatives are now suddenly outraged. Where have they been while we've wasted nearly a trillion in Iraq?

Just think how "well off" we'd be if our social security had been invested in the stock market?

Now, that the bad old government is cutting off the easy money to corporate farmers, defense companies and the oil and gas business...they've finally "found" fiscal restraint.

To be sure, no one likes the boat we are in, but letting the country implode and running things have they have been running simply isn't going to fix things...if they even can be fixed.

All this outrage is laughable...a bunch of ninnies running around "acting" outraged...too bad this effort wasn't better placed.

[rbrooku]

A movie script pitch that explains it all:

DON’T GET CAUGHT

A man wins a large lottery

Draws up a set of papers in secret that outlines his goals.

Starts Institute of Circumstantial Morals - the Don’t Get Caught (DCG) Institute

DGC starts a campaign to educate the countries youth on the theory that the only immoral action is getting caught. Uses the political leaders (individual past drug use of various politicians and the War on Drugs), the moral leaders (church officials and clergy caught in sex scandals) and business leaders (high compensation for low performance, golden parachutes, stock options and other ways of stripping value from companies as well as outright fraud).

In two years, after numerous interviews, talk shows and death threats (this period is where the juxtapositions and contradictions can really play to humor), the man reveals his original plans which state that the institute was a way to show the collapse of real ethics in Western Culture, and that the purpose of a moral life is to achieve real happiness (The Good), not to gain material or social rewards.

[MichaelBP]

Note to tne_llc:

(1) There is no exceptional generation. There are only exceptional human beings.
(2) Former commies picking paint jobs is better than present-day commies planting bombs.
(3) The very basis of all governments everywhere has always been extortion. The experiment here has been to see if we can limit its extent.