Lost Generation, wow sucks to be young today.

[denner]

Quote from Mayhem:

... and now massive, massive, massive public debt as they are retiring, and they want to ride this gravy train until the wheels fall off. They only have 20 years left on the planet, so they are going to sell subsequent generations into slavery to the Chinese to keep their "lifestyle" high.

Exactly. They ratcheted up their gravy train when the last "guardians of the public estate" died off or slid into retirement some 20-odd years ago. The Boomer's took over and voted in their massive pension payouts and unprecedented amounts of spending and expansion. The ponzi has run out and we have another President that is trying to save their asses from an onslaught of deflationary asset prices with unprecedented amounts of "borrow and spend". It's simply nauseating to watch this crap continue.

Of course, anytime one brings these facts to light, they are accused of being from "the other party"; both Dems and Repubs alike seem to take issue since their hyper-sensitivity to any and all criticism has reached epic proportions these past few years. As has been said by many before, both parties have gone hog wild expanding the scope of the public sector. It's a generational issue.

 

[clearinghouse]

Quote from achilles28:

+1

I'll take a sick joy watching these douchebags get flushed

I kind of resent the older Americans who consume mainstream media. There is no way anyone in this country should take anything seriously that comes out of any major media outlet. It's just spin on top of spin on top of spin. Being a trader helped me understand this because it felt like the financial news was always saying the wrong thing, and then skepticism of the financial news eventually spilled over into other things when I started seeing a lot of news sources as just shady.

The thing is, if you aren't paying attention, it's really easy to be lulled into the mainstream mold. It takes an effort to break free from the system, and a few cases of seeing where the system is just outright wrong before you can "see clearly."

Nowadays, I can't even watch TV without feeling like I'm in some sick alternative universe. I think non-Americans have it much better in this regard.

 

[clacy]

There is way more blame to go around than just the Boomers. They may be the poster child for this type of attitude, but almost everyone participated.

The fact is, everyone wanted free stuff from the government, but didn't want their taxes raised to pay for it.

Lyndon Johnson and FDR are probably the most to blame in all this.

 

[denner]

Quote from clearinghouse:

I kind of resent the older Americans who consume mainstream media. There is no way anyone in this country should take anything seriously that comes out of any major media outlet. It's just spin on top of spin on top of spin. Being a trader helped me understand this because it felt like the financial news was always saying the wrong thing, and then skepticism of the financial news eventually spilled over into other things when I started seeing a lot of news sources as just shady.

The thing is, if you aren't paying attention, it's really easy to be lulled into the mainstream mold. It takes an effort to break free from the system, and a few cases of seeing where the system is just outright wrong before you can "see clearly."

Nowadays, I can't even watch TV without feeling like I'm in some sick alternative universe. I think non-Americans have it much better in this regard.

I agree, but as soon as you "break from the mold" and confront the groupthink idiocy, you have to be prepared to be labeled a "conspiracy theorist". The groupthink takes great comfort in knowing that their belief systems are widespread and held by many, no matter the lack of logic that confronts them on a daily basis.

Even on this site, otherwise intelligent people, will bristle and re-coil if you confront their groupthink with evidence that points to such obvious contradictions.

 

[DT-waw]

God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables – slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our great war is a spiritual war. Our great depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars, but we won't. We're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.


Fight Club. The Movie which predicted everything.


On the other hand, current times are the best for young generation:

- You can design Iphone game and earn a $ million in a year.
- travel all over the world
- fast and free access to all knowledge thanks to Internet and YouTube
- you can autotrade and make lots of $$$ without watching the charts 15 hrs/day
- amazing choice of cheap bitchez all over the planet
- buy cheap real estate in many locations and MUCH cheaper if you can wait 12-18 months from now

- start your own online, worldwide business

I'm sure Baron, the owner of ET will agree
he did the right thing at the right time.

 

[budcampbell]

Quote from denner:

Exactly. They ratcheted up their gravy train when the last "guardians of the public estate" died off or slid into retirement some 20-odd years ago. The Boomer's took over and voted in their massive pension payouts and unprecedented amounts of spending and expansion. The ponzi has run out and we have another President that is trying to save their asses from an onslaught of deflationary asset prices with unprecedented amounts of "borrow and spend". It's simply nauseating to watch this crap continue.

Of course, anytime one brings these facts to light, they are accused of being from "the other party"; both Dems and Repubs alike seem to take issue since their hyper-sensitivity to any and all criticism has reached epic proportions these past few years. As has been said by many before, both parties have gone hog wild expanding the scope of the public sector. It's a generational issue.

Defense expenditures have reached the point where decisions will have to be made. Too many people living high off the hog with outrageous pension benefits, true. The equation must include massive waste and redundant positions in gov't, defense, and entitlement cuts(food stamps will be hard to cut). The boomer variable is just one (although large) of this massive problem.

 

[oldtime]

Quote from noob_trad3r:

I am glad I was the last generation to get on the bus to wealth before it left the station. Looks like the folks left behind are screwed. With 100K college debts which are non dischargable and penalties stacking up compounding to infinite. working minimum job at best.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/09/22/national/main20110000.shtml

In record-setting numbers, young adults struggling to find work are shunning long-distance moves to live with Mom and Dad, delaying marriage and buying fewer homes, often raising kids out of wedlock. They suffer from the highest unemployment since World War II and risk living in poverty more than others — nearly 1 in 5.

I achieved the Old American dream, a house, two cars, three kids.

New American Dream is no house, no mortgage. And for men, no wife.

Kids today are just smarter than I was.

Kind of hard to collect on student loan when you live in Costa Rica.

 

[Mayhem]

Quote from denner:

both parties have gone hog wild expanding the scope of the public sector. It's a generational issue.

We have the fundamental problem of democracy: tyranny of the majority. The Baby Boomers have such a huge voting block that all the politicians are busy bending over backwards doing their bidding.

That's why a Ron Paul doesn't have a chance. Ron Paul is proposing austerity. And, the Baby Boom generation just does not do austerity... EVER.

Last presidential election they trotted out Obama and McCain, and both sides threw up as much flak into the air as they could. The whole charade was designed to make the brain-dead public believe they were actually making a meaningful choice. McCain played the old cranky, hard-nosed, pro-military character... Obama played the young, aspirational, "Hope and Change" anti-war guy. The young douchebaggery of the country voted for the "Hope and Change" guy and we got the same damn bullshit bailout, money-printing, re-inflate some bubble, Middle East war president that we would have gotten had the "other guy" won. But, we got the guy with the dark skin, so we can all feel good about that slavery shit we did to black people hundreds of years ago.

We're going to have to rebuild this whole shithouse once the Bill and Hillary Clinton generation finally die off in significant numbers... by that time the Chinese will own half the country.

 

[denner]

Quote from clacy:

There is way more blame to go around than just the Boomers. They may be the poster child for this type of attitude, but almost everyone participated.

The fact is, everyone wanted free stuff from the government, but didn't want their taxes raised to pay for it.

Lyndon Johnson and FDR are probably the most to blame in all this.

It certainly is more complicated, I'd agree. It's easy to fall into exaggerated generalizations in these types of discussions. Nonetheless, I think that the reaction to the reality of our financial black hole has gone a long way towards illustrating the sort of mentality at work here. Literally minimal effort is made to reign in spending, the pension debacle still lingers, along with numerous other problems that we've yet to even uncover. The bullshit "kick the can down the road" of unprecedented borrow and spend has really gone a long way towards fomenting these stereotypes and generalizations.

 

[oldtime]

Quote from Mayhem:

Some served. Most got high. Then, they turned into the "Me" generation and brought us leisure suits, latchkey kids, swinging, AIDS, cocaine, Three's Company, 80's excess, power ties, the tech and housing bubbles, and now massive, massive, massive public debt as they are retiring, and they want to ride this gravy train until the wheels fall off. They only have 20 years left on the planet, so they are going to sell subsequent generations into slavery to the Chinese to keep their "lifestyle" high. The Baby Boomers are a generation of no self-restraint... a generation that is about feeling-good-all-the-time... a generation about consuming like locusts.

Don't forget, we invented the BUll Market of the 90's, when any idiot could make 10% on any stock anytime and who can remember how many times we doubled our money in INTL?

The best you young whipersnappers can come up with is chop chop chop and an occasional bear.