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What went wrong with the Boomers?


Hugo Stiglitz

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Millennials are betas whose kids will look back and think what a bunch of weirdos who created elaborate systems to connect online and take pictures of themselves just to create mental illnesses within each other and invented cyberbullying. Have y’all met some of these generation Z or whatever? Oh my gosh they are whip smart. And cut throat. I’ve seen 24 year olds handle Wall Street internships, Big 4 20 hour days, and have more money than most millennials who traded in their upward mobility so they could wear chuck Taylor’s to work and drink beer in the break room between moving some sticky notes from one part of the whiteboard to another.
just saying, my kids will need to step it up.
Gen Z is in high school and below right now. Even being liberal with the definition, almost none of them have graduated college. You just praised millennials. U triggered?

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I have no real beef with any major.  Kick ass in it, be self aware and "proactive," and a student will be fine.  Probably would have been fine regardless.

But for marginal students with no real interests who just stumble into any old major, or fall down into one for lack of success in others, things should be done to shunt them into vocational-type education and they should be discouraged from obtaining student loans.

Lewis mentioned the problem in connection with the mortgage crisis:  people incur debt and risk often with a sense of boundless optimism that isn't constrained by reality or history.  Young people typically should not be confronted with taking on six figures of debt.

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As for the boomers, they were brought up in an environment where the US was the unquestioned global economic and industrial power, and had everything needed to foster success: affordable housing, education, and healthcare, employment even for the uneducated, and the white ones benefited tremendously from racism too.

They didn't start the process of pulling the ladder up - they weren't in charge in the 70s or 80s - but they sure have kept the process going. They seem to have a really hard time grasping, on a fundamental level, that economic and social realities have shifted. Partially due to their own actions. And of course, they love them some climate change denial, despite overwhelming evidence. Which is really just a desire to not change their problematic behaviors and the system they've profited from their whole lives.

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2 hours ago, OatmealRaisinCookie said:

That being said, has anyone met either a “Scrum Master”, a “masterful networker and connector” or a [occupation here] wizard/ninja/rockstar who was not a milllennial?

This part cracked me up because I've encountered so many made up titles and phrases on resumes.

With that said, scrum master is a thing.

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11 hours ago, OatmealRaisinCookie said:

Man you really are late to the party, regurgitating in an inferior way at least a half dozen posts and points. Go back to sleep.

I think the point is not that much in error, except in the inference that it is at all "representative".  The boomer generation is as diverse across multiple parameters as any other.  Alot of what people notice is the gray hair they see, and correlate that to some essence they get from a few interactions.  Still, my generation, and my white skin, was a great advantage in rising out of a shithole background.  It is not nearly so easy any more.  

Yet the '"dream", whatever that may mean, is not dead.  I'll go slorchy on that.  But a much slimmer piece of the poplulation distribution has access to it:  the well born, the very smart, and the very lucky.  That's a sizeable group, but no longer the "mode" that saw success when I was a kid, and when my parents were coming up.

 

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I know it's that rag of a publication NYT, t but they have some great data and discussion that backs up what myself and some other folks have been saying. And not just liking the rhetoric, they have some eye opening graphs on generational wealth trends

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/27/opinion/buttigieg-2020-millennials.html

Edited by Captainant
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On 1/26/2019 at 11:42 PM, F250 said:

This part cracked me up because I've encountered so many made up titles and phrases on resumes.

With that said, scrum master is a thing.

also guys who move sticky notes from one part of the board to the other and then drink beer are called software engineers (referring to an earlier cookie post).  they make good money and have more technical expertise and knowledge than the dipshits in patagonia vests over in commercial.

 

it's really easy to give shit to early and mid millennials going way into debt to get degrees without a lot of direct utility.  these are 18-22 year olds who were raised on the idea that work hard in school-> go to college-> get degree-> success.  That's not a great plan, but if you hear something over and over and over at home in school on TV everywhere for the first 18 years of your life, as a 22 year old in say 2009 it's pretty easy to be fucking surprised that generic college degree from decent school isn't enough to easily nab a job that lets you get an apartment without roommates.  Every person is responsible for their own choices and actions, but it is a raw deal generationally.  For an average person it can be a big burden you're stuck carrying with downstream effects for the rest of your adult life, and salt in the wound is when the same shitheads who told us this stuff, tanked the economy with their bullshit, and never had this problem are super proud to opine about how we shoulda known better.

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well, the one near me, the ferris wheel is always busted, they had the putt putt course closed down, and the kids working the counter couldn't be bothered to look up from their phones to hand me a bag of overpriced stale popcorn.

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6 hours ago, Hot Chick said:

Boomers were terrible self centered parents but their kids turned out okay.

Yep.  Best way to raise great kids is to be a total asshole.  Worked for me and my kids.  I could not begin to match the criminal assholeness of my parents, but they set a fuckin high bar.

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7 hours ago, NBMisha said:

Yep.  Best way to raise great kids is to be a total asshole.  Worked for me and my kids.  I could not begin to match the criminal assholeness of my parents, but they set a fuckin high bar.

We figured if the kids were pissed, we were doing it right. Not sure if that's the same thing.

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7 hours ago, NBMisha said:

Yep.  Best way to raise great kids is to be a total asshole.  Worked for me and my kids.  I could not begin to match the criminal assholeness of my parents, but they set a fuckin high bar.

Being a total asshole is also a good way to have total asshole kids.

That doesn't mean being an asshole parent doesn't work every now and then.

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15 hours ago, Rimbo said:

well, the one near me, the ferris wheel is always busted, they had the putt putt course closed down, and the kids working the counter couldn't be bothered to look up from their phones to hand me a bag of overpriced stale popcorn.

i was hoping this joke would've gained some traction by now

:(

 

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16 hours ago, Celery Man said:

also guys who move sticky notes from one part of the board to the other and then drink beer are called software engineers (referring to an earlier cookie post).  they make good money and have more technical expertise and knowledge than the dipshits in patagonia vests over in commercial.

 

it's really easy to give shit to early and mid millennials going way into debt to get degrees without a lot of direct utility.  these are 18-22 year olds who were raised on the idea that work hard in school-> go to college-> get degree-> success.  That's not a great plan, but if you hear something over and over and over at home in school on TV everywhere for the first 18 years of your life, as a 22 year old in say 2009 it's pretty easy to be fucking surprised that generic college degree from decent school isn't enough to easily nab a job that lets you get an apartment without roommates.  Every person is responsible for their own choices and actions, but it is a raw deal generationally.  For an average person it can be a big burden you're stuck carrying with downstream effects for the rest of your adult life, and salt in the wound is when the same shitheads who told us this stuff, tanked the economy with their bullshit, and never had this problem are super proud to opine about how we shoulda known better.

In your experience who counseled students to get a “generic” college degree?

Asking because I never counseled my children to do that.  I do remember the argument that everyone should go to college, however.

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1 minute ago, SaucyJack said:

 I do remember the argument that everyone should go to college, however.

Sooooooo, when students don't care about what to study in college but they're being compelled to study.... What else sort of degree would they would earn? I know a shitload of people, some of em my friends, who did just that and now are working a job they easily could have had without the degree, and would have had four years of career advancement instead.

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I've heard the everyone should go to college my whole life and always wondered why.  Some smart ass mother fuckers out there that never went to college. I think I was the first in my family to get a 4 year degree. Our 2 kids did well in college, and it's paid off for them so far.

 I know plenty of plumbers, electricians, carpenters, and welders who make really good coin.

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8 minutes ago, Captainant said:

Sooooooo, when students don't care about what to study in college but they're being compelled to study.... What else sort of degree would they would earn? I know a shitload of people, some of em my friends, who did just that and now are working a job they easily could have had without the degree, and would have had four years of career advancement instead.

 Really depends on what you want to do in life. 

Evaluating my kids’ strengths, they were exposed to areas like Engineering, Computer Science, Accounting, Pre-Med. 

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13 minutes ago, SaucyJack said:

 Really depends on what you want to do in life. 

Evaluating my kids’ strengths, they were exposed to areas like Engineering, Computer Science, Accounting, Pre-Med. 

Well yeah, technical/professional degrees are the best way to recoup costs, and college is the only way to get those basics to prepare you for a career (currently).

I'd have loved to get a degree in history, but that's a harder slog to make money.

 

Always loved the scene from Max Dugan returns home:

Kid asks Max: what kind of degree should I get ?

Max:  Philosophy.

Kid:  Can you make money with a degree in philosophy ?

Max:  Oh Yeah, if you have the right one.

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9 minutes ago, Xian said:

Some of y’all apparently had some selfish asshole parents. Guess this millennial was lucky (I was born in 84 so I might actually be genx. Not sure)

I'd say it's borderline. You might as well identify as Millennial, because Gen X might as well not exist as a marketing audience.

Now if you find the notion that you're an audience that can be marketed to offensive, you're at least somewhat Gen-X.

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1 minute ago, Rimbo said:

I'd say it's borderline. You might as well identify as Millennial, because Gen X might as well not exist as a marketing audience.

Now if you find the notion that you're an audience that can be marketed to offensive, you're at least somewhat Gen-X.

Thank you baby Jesus and spot on. Bill Hicks was 100% correct about the advertising industry.

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59 minutes ago, SaucyJack said:

In your experience who counseled students to get a “generic” college degree?

Asking because I never counseled my children to do that.  I do remember the argument that everyone should go to college, however.

Yeah I wasn’t talking about you specifically.    My experience (born in ‘85) was that there was a whole bunch of talk about getting good grades and going to college in order to be successful.  From teachers and guidance counselors and motivational speakers and parents and through after school tv programs and stuff like that.  The goal was college.  Maybe some “pursue your dreams.  Shoot for the moon and you’ll land in the stars”, not much talk about different degree paths or how college != success or at least middle class.

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sharp satire FB page 

TODAY IS HOLOCAUST REMEMBERANCE DAY AND I CAN NOT BELIEVE THAT WE ONLY CELEBRATE REMEMBERING THE HOLOCAUST FOR ONE DAY EACH YEAR !!!! WHAT SORT OF ANTI-SEMITIC BS IS THAT?????? IM NOT A GAMBLING MANbut. YOU CAN bet that NAZI MOSELM HUSSEIN OBUMMER is RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS . its NO SECRET that COMMIE has ALWAYS hatedOUR GREATEST ALLY along withALL our JEWISH BORTHERS AND SISTERS ..,. MEANWHILE HE MAKES US CELEBRATE COLORED PEOPLE HISTORY for a WHOLE MONTH and they are not even CHOSEN BY GOD !! DISCRIMINATION IS ALIVE AND WELL MY FELLOW PATRIOTS . the theLIBTARD CUPCAKES in the DEMONRAT PARTY ARE PROOF OF THAT so all us REAL AMERICANS need to do LOTS OF PRAYING and get some BIG AMENS for. Our persident DONALD J TRUMP 

 

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I ain't slogging through 5 pages of sewage-

 

They're a generation that, if they were white and male, had to have a plan to fail. They were shoved into unprecedented prosperity by and large due to government policy, policy gifted to them by those who survived the Depression, were convinced by a Hollywood actor that government was the problem hindering them, that ignored its value, that government was aiding the "others", and if government would just unhitch this drag, pull up the ladder behind them, they could realize their boot-strapping, delusional, snowflaking, completely independent arc to even greater prosperity. 

 

They're fools and most will die that way. Fools.

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5 minutes ago, happyfunball said:

There is hope from an election standpoint.

 

The numbers are nice.  I kept fiddling with them in November and concluded that if the 2016 election had happened with the 2020 electorate, Trump would have lost.

 

Also, if I recall, boomers liked Trump more than the silent generation. I found that odd.  

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On 1/28/2019 at 4:58 PM, SaucyJack said:

 Really depends on what you want to do in life. 

Evaluating my kids’ strengths, they were exposed to areas like Engineering, Computer Science, Accounting, Pre-Med. 

 

On 1/28/2019 at 5:04 PM, Onboard 2.0 said:

Well yeah, technical/professional degrees are the best way to recoup costs, and college is the only way to get those basics to prepare you for a career (currently).

I'd have loved to get a degree in history, but that's a harder slog to make money.

 

Always loved the scene from Max Dugan returns home:

Kid asks Max: what kind of degree should I get ?

Max:  Philosophy.

Kid:  Can you make money with a degree in philosophy ?

Max:  Oh Yeah, if you have the right one.

When you think about it, though, a first generation college student today may have barely literate parents that don't know philosophy from philately or engineering from driving trains. Thry may be very well-intentioned and encouraging, but they aren't going to be much help in that department.  School counselors also probably mean well, but are overinvested in the "education for education's sake" notion, which is noble but impractical, especially considering six figure student debt.

And as far as incurring debt, it appears that a lot of economically disadvantaged will take any loan a lender will give them, which works more or less fine in day-to-day life (they get no loans because they don't  qualify), so they are in a really rotten place to judge the probity of taking student loans.

Hell, even second or third generation students with parents who should know better commit grievous errors in this area, as you guys are outlining.

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6 minutes ago, MissingInAction said:

The common thread I tun into with Boomers is a sense of entitlement,and they act like raging toddlers if they don't get their way. 

i thought that applies more to the younger generation of brats.  I see boomers as highly rigid inflexible types stuck in ultra conservatism, religious dogma, xenophobia and deep insecurity about a changing world. 

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18 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

 

When you think about it, though, a first generation college student today may have barely literate parents that don't know philosophy from philately or engineering from driving trains. Thry may be very well-intentioned and encouraging, but they aren't going to be much help in that department.  School counselors also probably mean well, but are overinvested in the "education for education's sake" notion, which is noble but impractical, especially considering six figure student debt.

And as far as incurring debt, it appears that a lot of economically disadvantaged will take any loan a lender will give them, which works more or less fine in day-to-day life (they get no loans because they don't  qualify), so they are in a really rotten place to judge the probity of taking student loans.

Hell, even second or third generation students with parents who should know better commit grievous errors in this area, as you guys are outlining.

Stupid is as stupid does of course.  All pretty good points.  And yeah with the way college has been painted as the end all be all for so long now, you do get people going that have no idea what they want in life, have the tools necessary to make it thru college, or really need college if they aren't looking for white collar employment. All while not even fathoming the amount  of debt they're accruing before they get their first paycheck.  

Trade schools and apprenticeships are an old concept whose time has come again.  They created the first really strong middle class folks IMO.

I Don't know I concur about what people know or don't know about the differences in the potential value of college degrees, or the barely literate part. I'd say those are a bit of an outlier % (crossing fingers in fervent hope for society that's correct).  

I think most semi educated people / parent recognize the value of a medical or legal degree, and some an engineering degree. Our popular culture has painted those two as avenues to money pretty consistently.  The smart folks are the ones that recognize the pit falls of those degrees as well, and can weigh the options, paybacks and potential.

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On 1/28/2019 at 11:37 PM, Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand said:

I ain't slogging through 5 pages of sewage-

 

They're a generation that, if they were white and male, had to have a plan to fail. They were shoved into unprecedented prosperity by and large due to government policy, policy gifted to them by those who survived the Depression, were convinced by a Hollywood actor that government was the problem hindering them, that ignored its value, that government was aiding the "others", and if government would just unhitch this drag, pull up the ladder behind them, they could realize their boot-strapping, delusional, snowflaking, completely independent arc to even greater prosperity. 

 

They're fools and most will die that way. Fools.

This is a good summary. They have the audacity to scold Gen X and Millennials for their life choices, approach to work/life, or politics with seemingly no awareness that they were set up for success in a way no generation before or after them could, or ever will even come close to. They were born and came of age in a time when this country wielded economic dominance the world has never seen, and probably never will again given that a third world war won't leave anyone as last man standing. They were born with first and goal on the one and fumbled the ball away on third down. And they won't even be alive to see the havoc their leadership from the 90s until now will wreak on the world in terms of climate change, stratification of wealth, etc.

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11 hours ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

I Don't know I concur about what people know or don't know about the differences in the potential value of college degrees, or the barely literate part. I'd say those are a bit of an outlier % (crossing fingers in fervent hope for society that's correct).  

I think most semi educated people / parent recognize the value of a medical or legal degree, and some an engineering degree. Our popular culture has painted those two as avenues to money pretty consistently.  The smart folks are the ones that recognize the pit falls of those degrees as well, and can weigh the options, paybacks and potential.

In my dealings over the years with economically disadvantaged folks, especially minorities that have been actively oppressed or are fairly recent immigrants from poverty-stricken countries, the lack of sophistication with regard to things "above their class," if you will, finance, education, legal matters, is startling.  It's really things like this, that we kind of take for granted, that constitute "privilege."  They haven't chosen ignorance of these things as some "poors" have, they have just never had the opportunity to "explore" them, or see their families, friends, and neighbors explore them.

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7 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

In my dealings over the years with economically disadvantaged folks, especially minorities that have been actively oppressed or are fairly recent immigrants from poverty-stricken countries, the lack of sophistication with regard to things "above their class," if you will, finance, education, legal matters, is startling.  It's really things like this, that we kind of take for granted, that constitute "privilege."  They haven't chosen ignorance of these things as some "poors" have, they have just never had the opportunity to "explore" them, or see their families, friends, and neighbors explore them.

Yeah of course there are folks who don't understand simple economics, and interest rates, and risk factors.  They're not the typical demographic, but certainly represent a % of folks out there in the system. There are enough of them in the system to make an impact, otherwise we wouldn't see such a huge pay day loan industry.

 

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