Arguments can be made about wealth disparity, sure.
The idea that American billionaires have too much because Smaug (who stole his fictional fortune) has less is the silliest argument on the topic I’ve ever read. What’s next, Scrooge McDuck is only worth $44B and he’s a real piece of work.
The best part is I saw this on Facebook with all these goofballs agreeing with it on a billionaire’s website.
I love some good irony.
The Chris Farley skit from SNL comes to mind.
I had a newly hired and fresh out of school paralegal argue with me this morning over the direction / answers on interrogatories.
What is with the inane stupidity in this new generation?
That’s probably a question asked about most generations as they grow into the world, but in different and more profound ways than it was 100 years ago.
Blame the parents and their contemporaries, not the kids who grew up in the world shaped by adults. The kids aren’t the ones who let standards slip and failed to prepare an entire generation for the adult world.
Older generations are responsible for the social conditions, the quality of education and the cultural norms that children grow up with. What we have now is the logical conclusion of my parents’ generation (Baby Boomers) deciding in the 1960’s that their parents were wrong about most things and that we should start tearing down Western Civilization and especially Christian values.
Now we’re here, over 50 years later. Baby boomers got to live through perhaps the greatest era of economic opportunity the world had ever seen, brought about by the previous generations selflessness and sense of duty, then more or less pulled up the rug on the following generations. The bill is now past due, and Gen X, Millennials and Gen Z are stuck with it while boomers are retired comfortably.
Meanwhile, lots of politicians got themselves elected by promising lots of spending and delivering on that spending. All on the inter-generational credit card they decided to take out on the promise of their children and children’s children’s labors. All while the benefits promised fail to materialize. Now the local parks I brought my kid to when he was 5 are open-air drug markets unfit for adults, let alone children.
Now we’re “here”, and as the next few decades go by we’ll all get to learn where “there” is when we arrive.
I don’t think it’s correct to blame Baby Boomers as much as a large share of the blame should be on the particular boomers who went into academia and influenced society via the terrible ideas that have now infected every university. These are the people who get into teaching, journalism, politics, government jobs that create and enforce policies, etc.
When I was in college I could see a difference between older professors and younger ones.
Yep. A weird thing I hear is when people that are of the boomer age complain about stuff like participation awards. The millennials were not the ones who wanted those. It was the adults (baby boomers) at the time.
For the most part the baby boomers didn’t capitalize on the economy they enjoyed. The median net worth for that group is not very much IMO. I think many will have spartan retirements that are heavily dependent on social security.
Bold strategy, let’s see if it pays off for them.
Which they will enjoy much more than you or I possibly will, because it is still solvent. Whatever payout we get at whatever age it gets moved out to will be a pittance compared to all of the pre-inflation dollars we’ve pumped into it.
The plus side for Gen X and Millennials will be the competence void as the relatively competent boomers retire and leave more and more important jobs to be filled by a smaller and smaller group of competent people. Unless, that is, you don’t have the skills to fill that void, or the demand for your skillset gets wiped out by AI. Good luck adapting, I suppose.
Gen Z may be too irreparably handicapped to overcome the setbacks imposed upon them by their Gen X parents, and society as we know it may collapse. Or maybe we’re headed to greener pastures with this whole AI thing, with the young’uns showing us all how it’s done. I’m buckled in for the ride either way.
I’ve had similar thoughts. I’ll put them into a maybe bucket.
Messing with social security is risky business for the party that decides to do it. The GoP brings it up “seriously” only when a DEM POTUS is in power. I don’t see any DEM POTUS signing off on it. For these reasons I don’t think it will happen.
They may do subtle things like play with the math to make inflation seem a lower, and therefore the adjustment to the SS payments lower. I just can’t see a major overhaul of the system as it would be political suicide.
Social security is getting messed with whether one party wants to approach it legislatively or not. The whole idea was based off the notion of having lots of babies who grow into productive adults, which just hasn’t happened. That’s why our so-called “population pyramid” isn’t a pyramid at all anymore, unlike when social security was enacted.
This also illustrates the competence gap that will be left when the boomers exit the workforce. It takes 40-60 years to make a competent 40-60 year old ready to assume a wide variety of important responsibilities, and there just aren’t going to be enough of them on the near horizon.
There is nothing wrong with social security, medicare or medicaid…its all a scare tactic that is always used
I’m sure we’ll all get payouts at some point, but I sure as hell ain’t banking on it being anything more than a minor supplement by the time I hit 65.
The fact that you can’t opt out of it shows exactly what’s wrong with it.
I have seen some weird shit as a street cop, but, this is a new winner:
He must have grown up playing “Metal Gear”.
Any time a story starts with “A Florida man…” its gonna be good. 
florida is not gonna be affordable for the “florida man” anymore
If florida man is anything, he is resourceful.
He’ll find a way.
