So I'm reading this book:
You're gonna get bl00'd on it, I promise; it's not what I wanted it to be but it's definitely what it is and it's worth discussion.
I'm GenX. My parents are "Silent generation" which means they were born before the end of WWII; Gibney argues they're 'boomers 'cuz he likes a different definition of 'boomer and I'll say this: they're fuckin' rich even though they squandered fuckin' everything on booze my entire goddamn life. Well, my dad is. Of course, he's paying for an ex-wife, a mistress, a daughter and a private plane. That's probably over-sharing.
So I'm GenX. And for the first time in a long time I feel pretty okay. But I look around and y'all are fucked. And I'm sorry. And we're doing what we can, kids; my wife pushed eight thousand dollars into Other Peoples' Payroll last month which is money I can't spend on knocking down the business loan but it's the difference between "driving for Amazon" and "having a career" so I don't begrudge a goddamn thing.
But the fuckin' 'boomers are yelling at you because they had to STFU when we created Amazon and Google and eBay and shit like that but they're still better off than you except for the ones that aren't
but they're still so goddamn spiteful and I don't know what to do about it and I'm sorry.
- Millennials will fight this fate. They are the most educated generation in American history. They work hard. And they remain optimistic — still expressing the same faith in the American Dream as the generations that came before. However, to salvage the millennial future, it is essential to see past stereotype and understand the reality of the millennial present.
The equation underlying the millennial struggle is as much about systemic inequities as bad timing. They graduated college carrying unprecedented debt burdens due to the skyrocketing cost of college. In 1975, college tuition for public, four-year colleges (in 2017 dollars) was $2,450. In 2017, that number reached $10,000, according to CollegeBoard. Student loans now make up roughly 74% of total debt owed by 25- to 34-year-olds, up more than sevenfold since 1989 when that number was just 10%.
That added debt burden may have been manageable if more education had equalled higher wages. In 1977, only 24% of Americans ages 25 to 34 had attended college. In 2016, that number was 37%. Yet, over that same period, inflation-adjusted median income remained roughly stagnant at $34,000 for that same age group.
Fuckin' VOTE. It's the only thing the goddamn boomers have over you. They don't even have the numbers anymore (and us GenXers never did) but they've been running things for so long that if you listen to them they'll grind you into powder.
I'm drunk. Not rich and drunk, but I sure as shit don't drive for Amazon and I'm drinking McCormick whiskey because I'm cheap, not because I'm poor, and I'm so sorry about this bullshit.
The gen X'ers in Congress are just as bad. Paul Ryan is the leader of that cadre and he makes the law-making boomers look like stewards of all that is right and holy. Devin Nunes? Rand Paul? All psychopaths. (I'm picking on GOP because they're the ones I can think of off the top of my head...Seems like every major Dem is 70+ years old--Corey Booker doesn't seem like a POS just yet. That's one I can name.) Some millenials are starting to be elected, but my guess is that they'll shit the bed, too. Everyone does, because it's too easy to love the wealth and power that are so easy to grab once you're there. Our tax laws are a big part of the problem, but as soon as you start making that $200k Congressional salary, you're not too likely to increase your own rate, I guess.... their future is being robbed blind by the Boomers and wondering why you and I did nothing to stop them.
Oh look! Something I think about all the time. I'll download the book once I get an Audible credit. Already read Nomadland last year when my own parents were considering that lifestyle. An RV + trailer full of beehives + Midwest croplands that need pollination = my parent's best retirement plan yet. I'm a young Millennial, born in the '90s. I'm what the Boomers like to see: college-educated, "workforce ready", full-time job with career plans, great credit score, responsible debt repayment, living in a major metro area, married young, professionally articulate and socially polite, etc. They love it, makes them feel good. They like knowing Millennials like me exist. After all, examples like me prove they haven't fucked up as badly as everyone says they have - I'm still recognizable as something they value, a worker. And in a world that's changing faster than they can keep up, they like the familiarity. But holy fuck if I don't hold some crazy ageist rage-blame for nearly every 50+ year old I come across Out There for the shit they've put everyone else through, and every Millennial/Gen Z-er I know feels the same. The Epic of America was written in 1931, and the "American Dream" was coined in it. By the time Boomers had come of age, the Dream was old enough to be believed. By the time they were through with it, it had been destroyed along with the environment that had allowed it to exist in the first place. The number of people who are ready for an alternative is growing. A parallel subject that gets brought up among my friends when talking about Boomers and all the shit ye have wrought is that we are well past-due for a global military conflict. The climate crisis will reach a head, migrant refugees will vie with national citizens over scarce resources, destabilized governments will topple, and superpowers will get antsy. During it all, 75 million Boomers and Donald Trump will slither into their coffins. We joke, but it's some consolation to think that we'll hopefully be dealing with that crisis on our own.
Speaking from an American perspective, "global military conflict" will never happen again. We've gone way too asymmetrical for any true boots-on-ground battle to progress much past the point of "drones perpetually overhead" and "garrisons that never leave." While the Air Force has spent the past 50 years attempting to win Wargames the movie, the Army has been busy attempting to win Vietnam; no first world nation will ever again engage in combat with another first world nation because the stakes are too high and the avenues for deescalation are too readily available. I think South Ossetia is as close as we'll ever get to old-style conventional warfare.
This is not just on the Boomers, but also on the tech industry, on those pumping billions of dollars in VC into companies that otherwise would be unsustainable on their own... and in turn vastly inflating the salaries of those who lead, code and dev for them. It's now at the point where it's blasted the economies of tech-rich cities increasingly out of reach. You're seeing prices go up because there's a lot of young people in tech making six figures who can afford them and are willing to spend the money. Not to vilify young people in tech because the problem is a multi-faceted one, but they are complicit in this as well. It's intellectually lazy to pin the entire problem on the Boomers... just as it would be in pin the balance of the blame solely on tech, or solely on wealthy investors, or whoever else. But at the same time, there's not a whole lot of social responsibility taking place from those who are benefiting most from the stratified economy.
Wealth distribution in the tech industry is as imbalanced if not more so than other industries. For every brocoder at Snapchat there are 20 temp-to-hires doing customer service chat at Amazon. More than that, you're talking about the tech industry while we're talking about the whole of the economy. It's not intellectually lazy - somebody wrote an entire book on it.
Voted in the primary this past week. Voter turnout was 23.45%. Yeah, it's a primary, but fuck you if you surrender putting a candidate on a ballot come election season. I can't see an age or demographic breakdown of voting, unfortunately. I'm so aggravated over this considering: 1. Ballots were mailed weeks prior to the voting deadline. 2. Ballots were mailed with paid postage and with a pamphlet describing each candidate in each race and ballot box locations. 3. I can't figure out a way of berating everyone on why this is important. But I want to scream at all of my friends and colleagues who just...decided not to participate...these are educated people. Hopefully they'll vote come November. We'll see.Fuckin' VOTE. It's the only thing the goddamn boomers have over you. They don't even have the numbers anymore (and us GenXers never did) but they've been running things for so long that if you listen to them they'll grind you into powder.
... in mail-in/absentee states, of course ;) You could theoretically do this in states where voting is more traditional, but it's a lot harder to ensure people take their prepared ballot lists to a polling place and actually do it.
Dude I am so doing this. That's an amazing idea.
I'm kinda in between generations. I have boomer parents but didn't always have the internet, least of all broadband. So I got some piss poor advice about college and what to expect with a degree. We're not of a generation that lived through a Great Depression but we're one coming out of a second Gilded Age and the people who lived through the effects of the first did great things.