For those wondering what generation they are in, Wikipedia's got a nice list.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_boomer

Xoc --
I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic, but with China -- it's the other way around.

Why is this article acting like all our future obligations are due today? The implication is total BS. That's a lifetime obligation. A lifetime of earning and paying taxes. For the whole family.

And arguing about the worth of government with an idealistic libertarian is a foolish exercise in futility. They won't see it until they try living in anarchy and find out they're the biatch of the first guy stronger or smarter than they are who comes along.

Unfortunatly there are a few problems with this Us VS. Boomers argument we have going.

1. There are more of them than us, and they crawled uphill both ways to school in a blizzard, through broken glass. Therefore they are tougher than us.

2. They are louder than us, both in their youth with their loud music, and now in their old age with the rotten hearing, they can outshout us.

3. They broke the education system their parents built for them, leaving them with a fare bettur edumakation than many of us who went to public schools got.

4. And finally, because they had far more 'me' time, they learned both how to hunt, and equip themselves with the latest gadgets. Compared to most Boomers, the rest of us johnny-come-latelys are 3rd world barbarians against the US military.

In short my friends, we are doomed. But its too much effort to do anything about it, so if someone will pass me some chips, i'm gonna rewatch the season finale of 24.

*munch munch*

pearls before swine: And arguing about the worth of government with an idealistic libertarian is a foolish exercise in futility. They won't see it until they try living in anarchy and find out they're the biatch of the first guy stronger or smarter than they are who comes along.

Few Libertarians argue for a complete shift to a fundamental Libertarian style of government. We only want to see the ball moved down the field in our direction a little more.

Oh crap did I post my real name in my bio? maybe I am a boomer. Shti.!

Fark It

fark all of them, I am not responsible for the promises of corrupt idealogues, nor am I responsible for subsidizing the pharmaceutical companies (which is what 90% of retiree benefits are anyways, prescription drugs). You deserve retirement benefits from the government like I deserve a dick in my ass, in other words: Not at all.

You might not 'deserve' a dick in the ass. But If the man with the badge throws you in the slammer, dick in the ass is what you get. The constitution is literally just a piece of paper.

Sure, its paper you can rally around, and you can even put .gif's of it on fark to prove your various points.

For all you espousing a radically different form of governance whether libertarian or communist: GOOD LUCK!

Pissing and moaning doesn't stop the IRS or the FBI. You should take your eyes of the screen for a second and realize you are a citizen, not a god. The world does not revolve around you, and if you dont fit in, the system will extinguish you....

You have a few choices if you choose to reject our society... almost all of which are illegal. Even if you think it shouldnt be illegal, someone else thinks it should be... and these people often wear badges and carry guns. They wear the same uniform and are loyal to their own.

This is not a judgement call on your particular political ideals. Just please realize they are 'ideals'.

Don't get too worked up if they don't materialize overnight... many have come before you to do their part in changing society from within... you aren't the end or the beginning.

I don't think Boomer hatred is limited to Republicans. This guy, for instance, is certainly no Republican.

/stupid Gen-Xer

The Boomers were all born under the sign of "Gimme, Me, Mine" so this just seems a fitting coda to their reign of terror. Just wait for the Boomers to get uppity after retirement and we can label the AARP as a terrorist organization, problem solved.

XocThat article sucks, because it isn't clear from the article if they are talking about the present value of the amount owed, or the future value of the amount owed. Of course, being USA Today, they couldn't be expected to be accurate. A dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow.

You're right on that point. But big numbers like 58 trillion scare me, so I'm going to the sensible thing and panic instead of asking how they did the math.

/PANIC!
//Korovyov's right on China.

neonrisk
You should take your eyes of the screen for a second and realize you are a citizen, not a god. The world does not revolve around you

What the Fark!?!

Who failed to send me the memo?! You're FIRED!

Everyone has it backwards. It's the boomers who are screwed, not younger generations. The boomers paid into the system for decades, and the system will default before they get theirs back.

And default means release. You can't get blood from a stone. You can't get trillions of dollars from one hundred fifty million taxpayers. Ain't gonna happen. System defaults, boomers screwed.

I agree with stiletto_the_wise. Well said.

To monstera and others calling for more taxes?
At what point do you stop? There is only so much money you can pull out of an economy before it collapses. If you want to see what happens when you try to hard to create a socialist paridise look at California. It is currently the 9th heaviest taxed state in the union and it has a 10 billion dollar sturctual deficit. Our hospital emergency rooms are closing left and right directly because of our own attempt to help people. It is required, by California law, that if a person comes into an emergency room that emergency room is required to provide medical care to that person, with no reguard about the ability to pay. The assumption is that the bill will be covered by tax money. That last bit isn't happening, the money isn't there. As a result hospitals are closing emergency rooms to stay solvient.
Part of the reason that the money isn't there is that the people of California are getting fed up with the tax rate and are keeping another increse from happening. It was a proposed increse in vehicle license taxes that got Gray Davis recalled (there were other reasons as well, but this was one of the big ones).
I belive that now is when someone is going "but France..". France has a 70% tax rate, and has suffered a bunch of civil unrest recently because their economy is screwed up. A 20% unemployment rate among young adults is not the sign of a heathly economy.
Sorry, I don't buy the argument that you can tax away all of the government's troubles. At some point you need to start looking at programs to cut.
A good start on this would be to get a "one issue" type law at the federal level. e.g. Any one bill may only deal with one issue. This will help prevent the sillyness of attaching a bridge in Alaska to a town of a couple hundred people to a must pass budget bill.
Next step, we need to get the military hog under control. the US spends way too much money on defense. There is not a military in the world that can stand up to us individually, and we are not dealing with WWII level troop requirements these days. Time to cut back. Yes, it means we won't be able to fight a two front war at a moments notice. That's OK, one thing we proved during WWII is that we can retool over to a war industry very fast.
While we're cutting the DHS goes, sort of. The CIA and NSA become one, smaller, entity. The BATF gets axed, we don't need a federal agency who's name seems to be the making of a good party. The FBI gets "right-sized", they get to be nothing more than higher level support staff for state police, and for investigating state police and officials. FEMA goes bye-bye. The states can and should be the one's dealing with natural disasters.
Social Security starts keeping it's money. The money in SS was never supposed to be touched by Congress et al. Time to actually do what we said.
There is plenty of cutting we can and should do before we raise taxes. Damn things are higher than they should be already.
Did I miss anyone?

Snow Monkey


What the Fark!?!

Who failed to send me the memo?! You're FIRED!

Sweet! Unemployment insurance here I come!

A lot of these economic troubles must SOMEHOW be related to the USA's switch from a manufacturing economy to a nation of bureaucracies.

As far as I can tell from up here in Canada, everyone in the US is employed by and indebted to large insurance bureaucracies.

Its almost like, after ww2, all the people got together to decide how to divide up all the spoils. Now all that cash and influence has been wasted and Bush has to start Wars of Testosterone to assure international investors.

WE got these instead! Everyone look! how cool! You didn't want old people eating, now did ya? Not when you got Iraq!



Go USA! Home of misplaced priorities.

Programmer Cat

Kill the boomers.
Overthrow the government.
Repudiate the national debt.

Any questions?

Yeah. You bulletproof?

Boom!

;-) Now cough up the cash, son. I need that latte and some viagra.

I say fark the boomers. Compared to our generation or our grandparents generation, these bastards were raised with a silver spoon in their mouths!

They had cheap healthcare and education, have been at the right place and right time to take any advantage of the economic boom, and now they want us to stump up for their retirement while their parents generation were forced to rot in sub-standard rest-homes and while we are being charged through the arsehole to get the same level of education that they were given effectively for free!!

Fark em. Fark em all.

It's a partisan issue in the fact that we went from a balanced budget under Clinton to this INSANE debt. With the Republicans having control of all branches of government, I think pointing the finger is justified in this case.

The budget was only balanced by useing the SS money, and some serious accounting games.

Social Security will still be there, it's just that people who are supposed to collect it will only be able to recieve 70-80% of what they are currently promised. There are two ways to fix this, reduce what is promised or increase income in the form of taxs.

Now I'm in favor of raising taxes, in particular the cap. You only pay Social Security tax on the first $80,000 you make. If we raised the cap to say $300,000 all SS obligations would be met, raise it to $500,000 and you can even expand the program.

As usuall Republicans will make a huge domestic mess and Democrats will clean it up. Takeing the rap for being tax and spenders. Guess what we need to raise taxes or reduce government benefits across the board, you can not lower taxes and fight a war at the same time.

Your choice, but I know how I'm voting.

Single payer national health insurance anyone?

We need a version of the "That's racist!" kid where he says "That's socialist!"

The problem with health care is that the private sector is inefficient and has zero incentive for long-term solutions.

Let's say there's some vaccine that costs $500 bucks now but it'll prevent $5000 in health care problems 5 years down the line. 1000% ROI over 5 years? Sounds great right? The private free market ought to be financially motivated plenty to pay for this.

In practice, they'll skip it because in 5 years you'll have a different health care provider so why should they spend five hundred bucks now to save $5000 for their competitors? And of course, their competitors do the same thing. So 5 years down the line, they(meaning we) pay out the ass for something they could've prevented earlier. It's like a massive version of the Prisoner's Dilemma where no one ever cooperates.

If you look at how they turned around the VA, one of the ways they cut costs was that because they had their patients for life, they could invest in long-term preventative care. That's the model we should be following.

Boomers? I know the solution to that!

Stupid old farts and thier SS checks. I can't wait for this program to go belly up, I mean come on, its pretty obvious that the young people of this nation (United States) are going to have to pay thier own way through retirement or wind up in the street. Our corporations can't pay people to sit on thier asses and do nothing and the government shouldn't try it either.

/rant off

There is plenty of cutting we can and should do before we raise taxes. Damn things are higher than they should be already.

No actully your taxes are about 10-30% below where they should be to fund everything your government is doing.

darkhorse23,

Dear Submitter:

I pay taxes and I'm a boomer. I paid taxes all my life to take care of YOUR parents, unlike you, so kiss our collective ass.

Love, DH23

Dear Boomers:

I just want to thank you for mortgaging off our future in order to satisfy your sense of "gimme gimme mine now" entitlement.

Your decision to finance wasteful and bloated programs while leaving us stuck holding the bill shows your foresight and concern for our well-being.

Just remember: We choose your retirement home.

Kiss our collective ass,

The Red-Headed Stepchildren

Programmer Cat: As far as I'm concerned, if you voted, you're part of the problem. You choose to be part of the system, instead of merely supporting it under duress.

Bullshiat. Unless you're either sitting in jail for tax evasion or making sure your income is so little as to be untaxable -- there are still sustenance farmers in this country -- you've chosen to be part of the system just as much as we have. There are always options, tough titties if you don't like the consequences. Man up, Programmer Pussy-Cat, and help reform this system of which you are most undoubtedly a member.

I'm from Gen X. There will be no social security when I'm ready to retire in 30 years.

That being said, I have no problem with paying into SS. I treat it like a tax. A tax that does the following:

It helps families who lost their breadwinner.
It assists the elderly who would be eating cat food otherwise.
For some families it is their sole means of support.
It gives support to those who are most vulnerable in our society.

There is more to America that the Republican creed of 'I got mine.' We didn't have a lot when I grew up, but we made do, and now I'm quite successful. I also realise I didn't do it alone, and that it is only fair and right that I help those who helped me.

I'm part of the solution because I choose to be. What's your excuse?

Programmer Cat:

And I'll vote for the first candidate who promises to take the Constitution literally and start killing off unconstitutional programs.


A zero intelligence approach is never good. Don't encourage it.

There will be no social security when I'm ready to retire in 30 years.

Only if we as a country decide to throw away an entire social safty net.

RTFA: Social Security will be fine; it's the HEALTH CARE, stupid. Fix health care, then GM and Ford and all kinds of other companies (that hire people) stay afloat.

p.s. as a boomer, let me say HAW HAW to you punks.

Any one bill may only deal with one issue

That's the best idea I have heard all day.

/hates riders

glenlivid

If you think Democrats are not at fault for the SS problem, you are pretty stupid. Both parties are at fault; Democrats because they are making the problem worse by raising taxes to fix the problem (which will keep being raised), and republicans because they are doing nothing about it other than ignoring it.

I work a government job where I don't have to pay social security, just medicare taxes. So I'm neither part of the problem or the solution. Never once have I paid into SS. So ha. Of course I pay 10% of my pay into the retirement system, so I guess it all evens out.

/Turned down a gov job where I was going to have to pay into Soc sec.

SS will become insolvent far before I get any benefits. Our govenrment had a chance to fix it and it blew it. No, actually it actively attacked it, and killed any possibilty of it permanently surviving.

I will still pay my SS taxes. I just don't realistically expect any benefits from it. That just means I have to plan for its future absence. I'll just be content with the fact that our parents and grandparents have at least some income, and that I fulfilled the SS promise for them.

For me though, it's offshore investments.

At what point do you stop? There is only so much money you can pull out of an economy before it collapses. If you want to see what happens when you try to hard to create a socialist paridise look at California. It is currently the 9th heaviest taxed state in the union and it has a 10 billion dollar sturctual deficit.

O RLY?

The Tax Foundation Rankings

Any one bill may only deal with one issue

wittybanter

That's the best idea I have heard all day.

/hates riders

It works well in theroy, the problem is when the legislature is willing to pass all of the "spend tons of tax money on stupid shiat" only bills anyway. If we ever end up in a nuclear war, I really hope that Sacremento is the first target hit.

Programmer Cat

Hey if you need a dark wizard for an advisor, feel free to look me up. Think Rasputin with a buzz cut.

darkhorse23


Dear Submitter:

I pay taxes and I'm a boomer. I paid taxes all my life to take care of YOUR parents, unlike you, so kiss our collective ass.

Love, DH23


I'd sure like to know how we Gen Xers (and Gen-Y people) are going to support you. Aren't enough of us.

/thank roe
//not trolling

Did someone say Boomer?

It always feels like we're wasting money by spending on the old.

Youth is wasted on the young, and wealth is wasted on the old.

Boomers:



Die in a fire.

/Or multiple fires
//Either way
///That is all

Sorry, I don't buy the argument that you can tax away all of the government's troubles. At some point you need to start looking at programs to cut.

Quoted for truth. And now, a re-post...

I work with younger (high school age) people all the time as part of my volunteer work, and have spent a lot of time with older folks as well, so I think I have a pretty good idea of what "kids" today are like... and I have a good idea what "adults" today are like, based on the fact that I work with them every day.

The problem most younger people have with the Baby Boomer generation is that they were the generation that broke the social contract among generations (in aggregate; I'm not accusing any one individual of doing this - there are anecdotal counter-examples that still do not disprove the generalization on the whole). The contract works as follows:

Each generation is expected, while in its prime of life, to sacrifice for the benefit of the next generation while that next generation is young. In return, the next generation, when in its prime of life, will sacrifice for the benefit of the previous generation when the previous generation is old.

In other words, your parents helped you when you were young - they fought and died to protect your liberty (the ultimate sacrifice), they provided homes for you, massively funded education to help you get your feet under you, and in general spent a large portion of their "free time" raising you - including having mom stay at home when she COULD have instead been out earning more money for the family. They sacrificed for you by putting their tax dollars to work for you, their time to work for you, and in general, EVERYTHING to work for you. They built the infrastructure - both physical and educational - to help pull you up the ladder to reach greater heights.

In return, you have broken the contract with your parents by kicking them out on the street or (at best) shoving them into nursing homes - so that you wouldn't have to sacrifice your money or (more importantly) your time to help them. Once you grabbed control of corporate America from them, you started cutting their pensions left, right, and center... to benefit yourselves in the form of stock options and such. You have neglected the physical infrastructure that they built to the point where now the infrastructure (roads, etc.) is woefully inadequate for the amount of work it is asked to bear. Every decision you make is based on "how will this benefit me on the quarterly earnings report?"

In other words, you sold out your parents after they sacrificed for you.

You also refused to help the rising generation by aborting them en masse, because you couldn't be bothered to make the sacrifices required to raise them. This resulted a much smaller generation to shoulder the burden of helping you when you got older, but you weren't through - you were busy adding massive layers of bureaucracy to school systems (staffing school districts with nice, fat paychecks for middle manager types, who just happened to be yourself) in lieu of improving teacher salaries and taking care of the physical facilities - things which directly benefit your children. You cut funding to public universities once you had your degrees, thus "pulling up the ladder behind you" rather than sacrifice some of your tax dollars for the benefit of the children who weren't aborted, thus making sure you could saddle them with as much debt as possible (to be paid back, with interest, to the banks you control) before they could even start out in life. You pushed mom out of the home and into the workplace, forcing your children to fend for themselves as latchkey kids, and to grow up much faster than you had to because it was clear you weren't interested in taking care of them... you were too busy buying your own toys. From the time they could crawl, you spent your time denigrating them as "slackers" because they just wanted to have fun and be kids - the way you yourselves were. And did I mention that the "slacker" generation works longer hours, for less pay, and does more volunteer work than you ever did (in fact, the Baby Boomer generation is one of the LEAST apt to volunteer generations because there's nothing in it for you and you don't like to sacrifice). You medicated them into submission with Ritalin because you wouldn't make the sacrifices required to show patience and teach them how to behave. Now that they're getting older and getting out of school and into the workforce, you refuse to "get out of the way" by retiring, instead making sure that you keep your high salary for a few more years, and pushing back the time when they have the financial means to stand independent because they can't "climb the job ladder" until the guy ahead of them moves up, and he can't move up until the guy ahead of him moves up, etc. - which doesn't happen until the guy at the top gets off the ladder (retires). I know, you can't afford to retire - because rather than sacrifice and live frugally in order to save a nest egg, you spent and spent like there was no tomorrow to buy all the "neat stuff" today. And as if this weren't enough, you happily outsource your children's jobs to other countries so that (again) you can make a few more dollars this quarter in your 401k, again pulling up the ladder behind you in the job market as you did in the education field.

To wit, not only have you backstabbed your parents, you have backstabbed your own kids. You broke the social contract both ways!

And although you don't deserve it, you're fortunate. The next generation looks quite promising despite you, not because of you. They are a generation of hard workers who are prepared to sacrifice in order to clean up the incredible mess you have made. Not because they feel they owe it to you... but because unlike you, they appreciate the social contract, and intend to sacrifice like crazy to clean up your mess so that THEIR children will have it better than they did. They see you for what you are - the Baby Boomer generation is the "Me" generation, the "Slacker" generation, the "psychopathic" generation, the one that says, "I've got mine, screw you." Fortunately for your grandkids, there is a large number of the population behind you that looks at you in disgust and is determined to be as little like you as possible.

The parents of the Baby Boomers were the "Greatest Generation." I fervently believe that the Gen X/Y'ers will be "the Saving Generation" - the one that saved society from the havoc and ills wrought by "the Worst Generation" - the Boomers, who are (collectively) the worst group of selfish hedonists history has seen since the collapse of Rome, and who are basically interested in making sure that the sex (Viagra) and money (Social Security) keep on coming.

TommyymmoT: Tell ya what kids, "less bling, more bring", because I would rather piss on you, than pay for your education.

And the Asshat of the Thread award goes to...

How much are we spending in the War on Drugs each year?

How's that going by the way?

/Money well spent!
//Sarcasm

The solution is simple. Continue to raise the age in which SS can be collected, ahead of the Boomers, until enough of them die to start paying such a large generation.

Sure, as a Generation X I will continue to have to deal with them in higher job positions I'm wanting to obtain, but paying close to half my wages in SS taxes is not an option.

WigNosy: Cut off a large group of people of the ability to survive and see what the fallout is....

Your little "re-post of truth" isn't going to matter when you have scores of people out there with nothing to lose...