The Boomer Tsunami and the Generation Wars

In our last post ("The Impending Generation War"), we alluded to the rising crescendo of Boomer bashing, replete with generational stereotypes of Boomers as selfish and self-absorbed creatures of 1960s hedonism who sold out their counter-culture ideals, became a generation addicted to mass consumption, and spent, borrowed, and defaulted the U.S. economy into its economic predicament.

That argument is purely anecdotal. There is no question that American consumers in general spent too much and saved too little, but I have yet to see any persuasive evidence that Boomers were any more profligate than any other generation -- in particular, that they were any more profligate than the younger generations from whom most charges of Boomer bounderism emanate. The charges may prove to be true -- I just haven't seen them substantiated.

True or not, we expect to see a ratcheting up of intergenerational rhetoric as the United States hits the wall in its ability to borrow its way out of the entitlements crisis. Politics is a zero-sum game. For every winner, there is a loser. When there's not enough money to fulfill all the promises, either Boomer retirees have their lifelong expectations dashed, or younger generations of workers see their payroll taxes increase.

In that context, I find it interesting to read a recent blog post by Boomerologist Carol Orsborn with VibrantNation.com. The word "entitlements," she contends, has negative connotations. But is it helpful to characterize Boomer expectations about their retirement benefits that way? Writes Orsborn:

We concede to let the government withhold a substantial portion of the money we have earned from every single paycheck in exchange for benefits to be paid to us down the road.

I remember the very first time I received a paycheck, when I was in my early 20's. I'd been counting on every penny of my slim salary for living expenses. What a shock to see how much had been taken out for this then too-remote-to-even-conceptualize notion of "retirement." I must admit that on some levels, the amount taken out for Social Security, taxes, healthcare, 401(k)s and God knows what else, has never lost its shock value.

But here's the thing: I may have disliked the chunk of income that went missing from my paycheck every other week. But I never thought to question that grandma and grandpa and later mom and dad weren't deserving of their Social Security benefits. Society acknowledging the reality of physical and mental diminishments that come with age, and taking care of the elderly was the reality within which our generation was raised.

As a Boomer, I'm well aware that the age wave will do to the American social safety net what the Sumatra tsunami did to the coast of Thailand. But Boomers didn't set up the system, and we didn't resist tooth and nail efforts to reform it. Furthermore, we've been paying into the system our entire working lives -- we're not getting the same free ride that the early generations of beneficiaries did. Are Boomer expectations so unreasonable?

The only thing unreasonable about Boomer expectations is that they fly in the face of the irrefutable reality that Uncle Sam can't afford to keep the promises made by an earlier generation of politicians. Something has to give. As part of any entitlement overhaul, Boomers will have to work longer, have benefits curtailed and/or pay more into the system. I think they'll be willing to make those sacrifices. But it sure would help if the Boomer bashers dialed back their rhetoric. Demonizing a single generation won't get us any closer to reform.

Update: Regarding my assertion above that Boomers were no more profligate than any other generation, the McKinsey Global Institute's 2008 study, "Talkin' 'bout My Generation," does say that Boomers spent more of their income at comparable stages of the life cycle than the Silent Generation did. This is undoubtedly true. But McKinsey is silent on the issue of Gen X and the Millennials, whom, I would suggest, were as derelict in salting away savings as the Boomers were.

The Impending Generation War

If you thought America’s culture wars, foreign policy debates and presidential campaigns generated heated rhetoric, you ain’t seen nothing yet. The looming conflict between the generations over entitlements for the graying population could shape up as the most bruising domestic issue since the Civil Rights movement.

Indeed the generation gap – or, rather, the gap between the entitlements we think we deserve and those we can afford -- could soon supplant race, class and gender as the most divisive force in American politics. Won’t that be fun?

The issue is simple: Our government spends much more money than it collects. The Bush administration brought us half trillion-dollar deficits. The Obama administration is giving us our first trillion-dollar deficit. Meanwhile, we still have the massive entitlements obligations of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid to deal with – obligations that would run up the federal deficit to $4 trillion to $5 trillion a year in a $14.5 billion-a-year economy if Uncle Sam used Generally Accepted Accounting Principles like the private sector does.

For decades, the issue of deficit spending and unfunded entitlements seemed worrisome but remote. Disaster seemed so far away. Now, we can see it: The first Boomers are retiring, and the generation that would “never grow old” – and happens to be almost twice as large as the once that precedes it – soon will be drawing retirement benefits rather than paying payroll taxes. Add to that the worst recession since 1981. Seemingly overnight, everyone’s sensibilities have been sharpened to the mess we’ve made for ourselves.

At the Boomer Project, we track media articles and blog chatter, and we’ve seen a marked uptick in the number of commentators who put our current splurge of deficit spending in the context of a looming demographic and fiscal disaster. Washington Post columnist Robert J. Samuelson gloomily prognosticated that the Age of Obama could become the era in which generational conflict, or even “generational war,” could break out.

Read the rest of the column. (It gets more up-beat than what you see here!)

(Image credit: Richmond Times-Dispatch.)

Hank Paulson May Be a Baby Boomer, but Boomers Aren't Hank Paulson

Yesterday I commented upon the Boomer-bashing screed of Becky C. over at the "Just a Girl in Short Shorts" blog, who regards Baby Boomers' sense of entitlement as a driving force behind the government bail out of Wall Street. This morning, new polling data has fallen into my lap to contradict her blame-Boomers-first polemic.

In an early October survey of 800 Baby Boomers (ages 40 to 59), TV Land found that half of all Boomers "feel that the government is doing too much to solve Wall Street's problems," while only one quarter believe the government is not doing enough. (The TV Land network provides programming targeting the 40 to 59-year-old demographic.)

If this poll can be believed, it certainly wasn't Baby Boomers who were pressuring Congressmen to bail out the big New York financial firms. More likely, Boomers were behind the barrage of e-mails and phone calls to Congress that opposed the easy terms favored by Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson (born 1946) and other panicky politicians early on. Indeed, younger generations may have Baby Boomers to thank that the raid on taxpayer wallets wasn't worse!

Blaming Boomers for the Bail Out

The stock market crash provides more fodder for the generation wars. Becky C., a libertarian Arizona GenXer who blogs on "Just a Girl in Short Shorts," uses the occasion to engaged in some spirited Boomer bashing, putting a generational spin on the $700 billion government bail-out of the financial sector.

"In the last few months as their 401(k)s started slipping in value--- who would a guessed it—here come the Boomers. It instantly became imperative that the federal government bail them out. Who ever promised them that the stock market would go up in value for ever and ever? ...

"If you are a Boomer the operative word is entitlement-- and you will get all those things which you so richly deserve--even if it is necessary to mortgage the country and your children's future. Who cares about that—the kids and grandkids will pay the bill—and they will be happy to do it—because you are all so special."

As far as Becky C. is concerned, Boomers are pretty much the source of all problems. We Boomers are "worthless and hollow." We drive giant SUVs and suck up oil. We eat at McDonalds and get fat. Politically, we've totally sold out. Instead of saving the world, we're padding our wallets.

We've heard a lot of this before, and much of it is wildly off base -- even if it comes from a hot blogger in short shorts. Boomers, for all their flaws, are not the ones who set up the Social Security and Medicare systems to bankrupt the country. Those were creations of the New Deal and Great Society, with modifications by various presidents since then, and Boomers played little role in creating them. If Becky C. is looking for the guilty parties who have fought off every effort to put those programs on an actuarially sounder basis, she should take a drive through one of the massive retirement communities in her own state of Arizona, which she'll find comprised mainly of members of the Silent and G.I. generations.

Far from feeling entitled to an early, financially secure retirement, Boomers are the first American generation since... well, since forever... that has abandoned the dream of retiring at an earlier age than the preceding generation. The latest evidence, which reinforces numerous earlier reports, comes from a Sun Life Financial study. Nearly half the respondents said that they expected to work past 67 -- a sentiment that was strongest in the 50-59 Boomer age bracket. Only six years ago, the average retirement age was 62.

So, take that, hot pants!

(Photo credit: "Just a Girl in Short Shorts" blog.

Boomers Skewered in the Washington Post

No wonder Boomers aren't happy these days. It's articles like this one in today's Washington Post pointing out how unhappy Boomers are that is doing it. To wit:

Perpetually restless, utterly mysterious and so very multitudinous -- 76 million -- that the rest of us are doomed to study them, analyze them, wave shiny objects around for them. ...It's all part of the frantic tap dance of figuring out how to raise boomers' tender and flagging happiness, when what we want to say is, BUCK UP ALREADY.

The reporter, Monica Hesse, according to one source, is a twentysomething up-and-comer at the Post. Her story is about the recent Pew Research study that concluded Boomers are gloomier than other generations. We have been thinking about offering up our take on the Pew findings, and will weigh in with a separate post.

Hesse had contacted us last week for a comment, but we didn't connect and she proceeded with her piece. She mentions our Boomer Consumer book -- not exactly in the best context, but we'll take the publicity.

We sent Hesse a note and told her to expect an outpouring of comments from Boomers -- mostly defensive, but also agreeing with her. The reason Boomers will respond is that they don't like being generalized and labeled. Labeling them "whiners," as Hesse does, will surely stir the pot.

Sure enough, take a look at the growing number and intensity of comments the article has generated. There are too many great ones to share here, so here's two:

What an astonishingly ageist article. It would have had more impact without the snark factor, Monica. The way you've written it, the one who comes off as immature is you.

And this one:

My, the writer seems to have "issues" with the Baby Boomers. I thought the whole point of true journalism was to at least try to keep your own attitudes out of your stories - otherwise, there is another venue. It's called an "editorial." Might I say, however, that if the writer's attitudes HAD to have been incorporated, it would have been much more efficient just to say "neener neener neener" and let it go at that. The stick-your-tongue-out immaturity would still have been conveyed.

Gotta love those Boomers. Quick to defend their turf. And predictable.

Baby Boomers and Drug Use, Etc

At first glance, this is a fascinating op/ed piece in Monday's The New York Times called "This is Your (Father's) Brain on Drugs."

The premise is that teenagers are more responsible and have fewer drug arrests and binge drinking activities than today's 42-61 year-old Boomers. The data presented makes for a compelling story.

But the name of the author, Mike Males, rang a bell with us and we remembered he's a sociology professor at UC Santa Cruz and has been trying to "set the record straight" about today's Boomers for years. Here's a profile of him from the Los Angeles Times Magazine from last year.

Since at least 2004 he has been writing a new book, Boomergeddon, about the coming fall of Boomers. We can't find it on Amazon.com, so perhaps he's still working on it. He's appeared in several articles bashing Boomers (including this diatribe from earlier this year, Boomtastrophe) trying to get his message across.

We don't doubt that Boomers who experimented (and enjoyed) mind-altering drugs in the 1960's are still looking for a way to enhance their reality through a pill, booze or a joint. But some of his comparative statistics about increases in arrests and prison populations don't take into consideration that there are simply millions more Boomers than previous generations.

For example, in 1990 there were only 25,223,086 people age 45-54 alive in the United States. According to the U.S. Census, there are an estimated 43,834,784 alive today. That's a 75% increase in the number of people in that age range. So what's the big surprise that the larger population has produced more criminals than the smaller population would have back in 1990?

Now, we're not trying to explain away all his statistics, but just cautioning our readers to not get too swayed by his argument that we're all going to hell, sooner rather than later. Most Boomers probably believe there is still time to clean up their ways before it is too late. Plus, if Keith Richards is still alive, there's hope for the rest of us.