Happy New Year to you! I'm going to read your review now.

Here's the ironic reality of our current troubles (and correct me if I'm wrong). The Money Party wealth is concentrated in securities, including derivatives. If we listen to people like Robert Reich, these are greatly over valued in a rigged game operated by, guess who, The Money Party. If the game is ever widely exposed, there will be a panic and those values will fall precipitously. Hence, while they "have all the money," the paper is largely worthless unless they maintain the the delusions that form the foundation of their market.

The super rich have much less money now than they claim on paper and, given the inevitable, they're going to be broke as soon as reality intrudes and exposes the scam. That's why they fight so hard to maintain the status quo and that explains why neither party would go near getting rid of derivatives, their shakiest basket of assets.

1) I think it's more than an issue of boomers - it's even more specifically (not exclusively, but particularly strong there) about boomer men. This is part of a longer trajectory - look at the stats in labour participation among men over the past two decades.

2) I'm unconvinced that this generation will actually be objectively poorer than their parents at retirement. They will be poorer than they believe they should be, which is a different thing. The current anger is fueled MHO in large part by a quite stupendous sense of relative privation.

Let us overthrow the totems, break the taboos. Or better, let us consider them cancelled. Coldly, let us be intelligent. ~ Pierre Trudeau

They seem to be rejected from professional jobs once they reach age 50. Their earnings potential goes way down. Women, who never reached the same earnings level as men, are allowed by corporations to stay employed. This seems to me to be a cost-based downsizing rather than a gender-based act of discrimination by corporations.

On average, the Boomers may not be poorer than their parents at retirement, because their earnings over time have been much higher. But the averages don't reflect the skew in the distribution. Whole swathes of Boomers will be indigent. They will be the ones who are already poor, in the middle class, working for government, etc. They will find the benefits they were expecting in retirement won't be there the way they were for their parents. They won't have the savings built up to provide themselves with the lifestyle they have now, and medical care will be rationed to such a degree that there will be many clear cases of Boomers dying because they could not afford some expensive treatment or drug.

I'm interpreting your statement about relative privation to mean that Boomers will find themselves less comfortable in retirement than they expected. That will probably be true.

...than they expected. My view, there is also an increased sense of inter-class envy. It's not a coincidence that the luxury goods market has exploded since - to pick an arbitrary date - the 80's. Every fashion house of any size has at least one "diffusion line" and frequently a number of them. Similarly, the press stands are full of house, car, vacation home, travel, etc. pron. The boomer demographic cohort represents the mass in this market. Recently, however, many have been finding that their services are not as essential as they once believed and the adjustment is proving a challenge. It's a bugger when monkey-see, monkey-do lifestyle can't be sustained by monkey-earn and one lacks the skills to monkey-hack.

Let us overthrow the totems, break the taboos. Or better, let us consider them cancelled. Coldly, let us be intelligent. ~ Pierre Trudeau

"Inter-class envy" may be a phenomenon north of the border but the deal here is fear for survival among multiple generations. It's not a matter of services not being "as essential" as they were, it's about jobs disappearing or not being there at all. There have been no net new jobs in the USA since 2000. That's a big problem, not just for boomers but for the 20 somethings as well. More specifically, those 22 to 32. That's just a ball park on college graduates and those with technical training who've entered the job market in the last decade. There are NO net new jobs for a decade. It's multi generational, definitely early 20's to early 30's and above 50.

You followed the campaign enough to know that the 10 year stagnation was not a key issue discussed by either party. We have a fascinating situation in which the Democratic president responded to an economic crisis with the failed second term policies of Roosevelt (focusing on balancing the budget, which sparked a second depression when recovery was moving right along). Sharing power, we have the Republican House. They have nothing to offer except more restrictive fiscal policies for the people (not the military). They'll be nothing less than a Grand Guignol of strange irrelevance.

It's a mess and nobody is taking on the jobs issue, the one path towards real recovery and stability. Scandalous.

Those are arbitrary points to base measurement on. The issue is the decline since the onset of the economic downturn. Look through the unemployment numbers for white men (which I see as the heartland of the relative privation movement) - although all age groups get hit, those aged 45 and older get hit the worst (i.e., we see the biggest rate jumps in those groups) and they're recovering the slowest. There's a generational shift going on and that's the new thing - the stuff that I see among younger workers is largely a continuation of long term trends, exacerbated by the economic downturn. Among older workers, there's a phase change happening that I don't see reversing unless the economy gets really, really hot over a short period - which I think is unlikely on the timescale that would be necessary.

Let us overthrow the totems, break the taboos. Or better, let us consider them cancelled. Coldly, let us be intelligent. ~ Pierre Trudeau

10 years ago. It's a coincidence that helps simplify things and make the point. That's when it started, a decade ago. The 20 somethings are getting hammered. I can't see this as anything typical. The job market was great for that group in the 1990's but now it's awful. This is an interesting group. They've grown up being pulled over randomly by police who claim to smell pot then search the car. They find this or that, arrest or issue a ticket, or they find nothing and it's an obnoxious interlude. Add that highly negative experience of authority to no jobs after the promise that a good education, training, etc. would get you one and you've got a pretty hostile group.

I completely agree on the need for a "hot" economy to take care of things. If that happened, we'd have the happy coincidence of a worker shortage due to growth outstripping the younger workers. That would provide incentive for people to stay in the workplace past the 65 year old Social Security deadline and solve all sorts of problems. Unfortunately, the poo bahs are contemplating their navels and otherwise distracted with their pipe dreams of exceptionalism; domestic and foreign. I think that President Lula is quite right: "Politics is about doing the obvious." We need more politicians with a PhD in the obvious.

...trend is even longer term - which I would say it is. There's a bunch of stuff going on in the figures - look at the CPS figures for employment as percentage of population by age group. For a bunch of demographic groups the point of deflection is 1990.

As to whether the job market was great for the 20 somethings in 1990 - well, it definitely wasn't for the early 90's and it's quite interesting to note how that group actually didn't increase as much as many other age groups; drill below the surface into the changing nature of employment (more multiple job holders, more shifting employment etc.) and the picture is a whole heck of a lot less rosy. If you want insight into why so many of my generation are such hard asses, look there. (Also provides insight into why so many of us think organized labour doesn't speak for us [this is putting it mildly - many of us think it should go commit an act of self-love].)

Let us overthrow the totems, break the taboos. Or better, let us consider them cancelled. Coldly, let us be intelligent. ~ Pierre Trudeau

Advanced tech and capitalism don't seem to go very well together, do they?

I have trouble following analysis of "Boomers", which refers to a rather numerous cohort. Who will the right align with? The tea party gatherings seemed to have lots of elderly having conniptions about other people getting health insurance (the "Keep government out of my Medicare" nonsense), but my guess is that they'd get even more incensed at being painted as selfish, greedy and deserving of any problems they experience.

The Boomers are also the parents and grandparents of following generations. I can see the right wing continuing to go after handy scapegoats like immigrants and unions and government workers and people of color, but I think the Boomers will do everything to exempt themselves from cuts, whether from commitment to a good social welfare state or from selfishness. And their children and grandchildren will resist having to add financial support for their parents to their own expenses.

I don't think the attack will be directly on Boomers. I think it will consist of trying to shave money off future beneficiaries and THEN using the inequities to justify the looting of Social Security and Medicare. It's how the right wing is working on other pensions -- first let corporate management clean out their workers' pensions and then use the lack of pensions in the private sector to attack government worker pensions. It may work if the current system doesn't go down in crisis first, but I think the crisis will come first.

It's worthy of a post.

Here's the problem for the creeps in charge and responsible for all this. As you point out accurately: the boomers "paid up heavily into the system since the Greenspan Commission recommended much higher taxes in 1983." When you pay good money for something and you get screwed, you become angry. When the screwing takes away vital elements like income and medical care, you become furious. The boomers are not used to this and will not be silent.

I have to paint another picture for the reaction to this. There will be a Hell raising like nobody has ever seen in this country, with the exception of the railroad strike of the 1870's that almost toppled the economy. There will be protests. There will be coverage (by a new network, maybe, that wants to make a boatload on audience share). The right will try to triangulate generations but that won't work because the 30 and under crowd have been punished with no jobs. The media can ignore it all they want. We're in the age of the Internet and Wikileaks. There are way too many people hurt badly by this. And, as you say, this generation has paid much more in to Social Security due to the tax hikes.

Social Security tax hikes were a scam to provide the cash flow for all the wasted money on wars and Wall Street. The wasted wars and Wall Street bailout scams are hard wired into the minds of just about everybody. What's missing is the connection between that nonsense and the ability to fund it through those high Social Security taxes. Getting the word out on that connection is a noble cause.

We paid for their profligacy and now there's nothing left for us. Simplified, that thought is a battle cry.

Without any doubt, Obama will become one of the most reviled presidents of all time for what he did with the payroll tax in the lame duck session.

There will be suffering but it won't be silent.

Otoh, the suburbs have done a pretty good job of dispersing the malcontents, haven't they?

In light of that, I'm so thrilled that we've got a huge Manhattan-like project in full swing aimed at replacing oil as the core energy source. Without that, we'd really be screwed in about 10 years.

Here's the equation, from "Good News" in my post:

"Ad hoc communities of care and compassion are emerging to
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buck the tide of government indifference, malfeasance, and fraud."

The people are behaving with real integrity while the Nero cult screws up repeatedly. I'm not even going to begin to apologize for writing and spreading the word amidst the collapse of what was claimed to be the indefinite superpower. That would be like being in the middle of Kiev after an earthquake and not taking photographs because that would convey a negative message. There are plenty of people who don't get it and that's part of what I'm doing in my meager way (at least for now;). The rest of my life is wonderful at times and rewarding on a daily basis. But none of us can count on any type of future where we can feel reasonably optimistic while the fools remain in power.

exactly what was implied by the use of the term "boomers." The cut-off will be to the year, day, and second of birth. Absolutely. :P

The issue is no jobs and convenient denial by the PTB. They're smoking some good dope to check out on this one. The Boomer wedge issue, triangulation is a non starter. Everyone is in the sinking ship of our sorry state of affairs.

...and I linked the image. Thanks for asking.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/01/AR2010010101196.html