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How the baby boomers — not millennials — screwed America

Bruce Gibney

The baby boomers are conventionally defined as people born between 1946 and 1964. But I focus on the first two-thirds of boomers because their experiences are pretty homogeneous: They were raised after the war and so have no real experience of trauma or the Great Depression or even any deprivation at all. More importantly, they never experienced the social solidarity that unfolded during war time and that helped produce the New Deal.


But it’s really the white middle-class boomers who exemplify all the awful characteristics and behaviors that have defined this generation. They became a majority of the electorate in the early ’80s, and they fully consolidated their power in Washington by January 1995. And they’ve basically been in charge ever since.

Sean Illing
So how have they broken the country?

Bruce Gibney

Well, the damage done to the social fabric is pretty self-evident. Just look around and notice what’s been done. On the economic front, the damage is equally obvious, and it trickles down to all sorts of other social phenomena. I don’t want to get bogged down in an ocean of numbers and data here (that’s in the book), but think of it this way: I’m 41, and when I was born, the gross debt-to-GDP ratio was about 35 percent. It’s roughly 103 percent now — and it keeps rising.

The boomers inherited a rich, dynamic country and have gradually bankrupted it. They habitually cut their own taxes and borrow money without any concern for future burdens. They’ve spent virtually all our money and assets on themselves and in the process have left a financial disaster for their children.

We used to have the finest infrastructure in the world. The American Society of Civil Engineers thinks there’s something like a $4 trillion deficit in infrastructure in deferred maintenance. It’s crumbling, and the boomers have allowed it to crumble. Our public education system has steadily degraded as well, forcing middle-class students to bury themselves in debt in order to get a college education.

Sean Illing

What’s the most egregious thing the boomers have done in your opinion?

Bruce Gibney

I'll give you something abstract and something concrete. On an abstract level, I think the worst thing they’ve done is destroy a sense of social solidarity, a sense of commitment to fellow citizens. That ethos is gone and it’s been replaced by a cult of individualism. It’s hard to overstate how damaging this is.

On a concrete level, their policies of under-investment and debt accumulation have made it very hard to deal with our most serious challenges going forward. Because we failed to confront things like infrastructure decay and climate change early on, they’ve only grown into bigger and more expensive problems. When something breaks, it’s a lot more expensive to fix than it would have been to just maintain it all along.

CAA Flagship wrote:The Boomers gave us the music of the 60's - the greatest decade of music.

kalm wrote:

CAA Flagship wrote:The Boomers gave us the music of the 60's - the greatest decade of music.

I won't reply until you state your generation...

This is a generation that is dominated by feelings, not by facts. The irony is that boomers criticize millennials for being snowflakes, for being too driven by feelings. But the boomers are the first big feelings generation. They’re highly motivated by feelings and not persuaded by facts. And you can see this in their policies.

kalm wrote:

CAA Flagship wrote:The Boomers gave us the music of the 60's - the greatest decade of music.

I won't reply until you state your generation...

Ibanez wrote:

kalm wrote:
I won't reply until you state your generation...

Millennial - 1983

CAA Flagship wrote:

Ibanez wrote:
Millennial - 1983

You killed Rock-n-Roll. You Bastard.

∞∞∞ wrote:Given everything to them on a silver platter, stole from their own children, and want to burn the entire thing down on the way out. Their enduring legacy will be a lesson on how not to run a nation.

As a whole, definitely the most selfish generation too. You see it on here all the time from the Boomers - all they care about is themselves and their family...the rest of America be damned.

Facts be damned too. It's all about their snowflake feelings.

edit: I definitely don't intend for SS to be around when I'm retired.

CAA Flagship wrote:The Boomers created the 401k. Much better than SS.

Winterborn wrote:Do not agree. Every generation has pluses and minuses. I really do not see much different between their generation and the ones to follow. Passing the buck or blaming somebody else for the mess is just par for the course with us humans.

xennial

∞∞∞ wrote:

CAA Flagship wrote:The Boomers created the 401k. Much better than SS.

The Boomers came into power in the mid-1980s. The 401K was created in 1978.

Only about 1/3 of working Americans have 401K accounts and less than half of employers offer them.

And you typically have to be educated or be part of a Union to get a job with a 401K.

∞∞∞ wrote:

CAA Flagship wrote:The Boomers created the 401k. Much better than SS.

The Boomers came into power in the mid-1980s. The 401K was created in 1978.

Only about 1/3 of working Americans have 401K accounts and less than half of employers offer them.

And you typically have to be educated or be part of a Union to get a job with a 401K.

Pwns wrote:The Millenials will fix these problems, and create a whole new set of them. Yay us.

Gil Dobie wrote:Boomer

CAA Flagship wrote:

Gil Dobie wrote:Boomer

Gil Dobie wrote:

CAA Flagship wrote:

CAA Flagship wrote:

∞∞∞ wrote:Given everything to them on a silver platter, stole from their own children, and want to burn the entire thing down on the way out. Their enduring legacy will be a lesson on how not to run a nation.

As a whole, definitely the most selfish generation too. You see it on here all the time from the Boomers - all they care about is themselves and their family...the rest of America be damned.

Facts be damned too. It's all about their snowflake feelings.

edit: I definitely don't intend for SS to be around when I'm retired.

The Boomers created the 401k. Much better than SS.

∞∞∞ wrote:

CAA Flagship wrote:The Boomers created the 401k. Much better than SS.

The Boomers came into power in the mid-1980s. The 401K was created in 1978.

Only about 1/3 of working Americans have 401K accounts and less than half of employers offer them.

And you typically have to be educated or be part of a Union to get a job with a 401K.

Ibanez wrote: Ted Benna isn't a boomer. He was born in 1942.