The Baby Boomers: Destroying America
May 13, 2009 / 9:38 am • By Dr. Melissa ClouthierThe biggest generation is about to be the biggest retired generation. Do you think a generation nicknamed the “Me Generation” will suddenly become the generous generation? No.
The market lost value so the Boomers lost their retirements. They were overmortgaged just as their health declined (it was a shock that they were getting older). Let’s just assume perfect retirement conditions. This is how the Boomers planned:
How bad are baby boomers at financial planning? Extremely bad, according to Annamaria Lusardi and Olivia Mitchell of the National Bureau of Economic Research. They found that more than one-quarter of boomer households thought “hardly at all” about retirement, and that financial literacy among boomers was “alarmingly low.” Half could not do a simple math calculation (divide $2 million by 5) and fewer than 20 percent could calculate compound interest. The NBER researchers also found that, as of 2004, the typical boomer household was holding nearly half its wealth in the form of housing equity. Uh-oh.
For a closer look at the retirement squeeze, consider a study released last month by the Congressional Research Service. Patrick Purcell analyzed the most recent data on consumer finances gathered by the Federal Reserve. He found that for the 53 percent of households that hold at least one retirement account, the median combined balance was a mere $45,000.
For households headed by persons between the ages of 55 and 64, the median value of all retirement accounts was just $100,000. Purcell noted that for a 65-year-old man retiring in April 2009, that $100,000 would buy an annuity that would pay a paltry $700 a month for life, based on current interest rates.
The Fed data used in Purcell’s study were gathered in 2007. With stock market declines since then, the median account balances are probably even lower now.
A scared Boomer is a scary Boomer. That is why I’m concerned about nationalized health care and every other big government program being the wave of the future.
I’m not sure any small government type leader can be elected just because of the demographics of the United States. And unfortunately for future generations, the Boomers have had access to the best medical advances and health care–so they’re probably going to live a long time which means expanding the government to meet their needs until they die which will be in forever.
President Obama is a tail-ender Boomer and look at the spending. He’s not going to have to pay that money back. His kids will. Wheee! No big deal.
The Baby Boomers believe the world will end when they end. Maybe they’re making the world end and fulfilling some subconscious wish–the world can’t possibly exist without them so the solution is killing the world before they go.
On the plus side, the Boomers embraced eugenics–they are after all the biggest proponents of abortion. And the same reasoning can be used, and is being used, when it comes to health care choices. Look at what’s being talked about on the floor of the Senate from Ed Morrissey:
What happens when the state controls all the resources? New resources do not develop, and the government winds up rationing care based on its own priorities, and not the priorities of the patients or caregivers. Professor Altman’s suggestion that the elderly get hospice treatment to save scarce care resources is exactly the kind of decisions the state will make for its citizens, and it won’t be limited to the elderly, either. Anyone whose value does not show a positive “cost-benefit” ratio to the state will also likely wind up without the kind of care necessary to stay alive and healthy.
Rationed, hospice care for the elderly…read, Baby Boomers. Poetic justice, if you ask me. The same people who used utilitarian arguments to kill babies will have an interesting time defending spending money on their “worthless” lives–I mean, it’s not like old, decrepit people produce anything.
Oh, they’ll suddenly get religion and defending the defenseless will become very important and the vast numbers of hanging on Boomers will ensure they have a very loud voice as usual. They’ll bankrupt America, live off their children and demand health care that will extend their lives. It will be their children and their children’s children who will pay for their selfishness–the ones who were lucky enough to be born, anyway.
Even the Boomers will die, but probably not soon enough to save America.
13 Responses to “The Baby Boomers: Destroying America”
May 13 2009 / 11:17 am
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Interesting blog and article, Dr. Clouthier. But Obama is not a Boomer. As many influential voices have said, Obama is part of Generation Jones, born 1954-1965, between the Boomers and Generation X. Google Generation Jones, and you’ll see it’s gotten a ton of media attention, and many top commentators from many top publications and networks (Washington Post, Time magazine, NBC, Newsweek, ABC, etc.) specifically use this term to describe Obama.
It is important to distinguish between the post-WWII demographic boom in births vs. the cultural generations born during that era. Generations are a function of the common formative experiences of its members, not the fertility rates of its parents. Many experts now believe it breaks down this way:
DEMOGRAPHIC boom in babies: 1946-1964
Baby Boom GENERATION: 1942-1953
Generation Jones: 1954-1965
Generation X: 1966-1978
Here is a recent op-ed about Obama as the first GenJones President in USA TODAY:
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20090127/column27_st.art.htm
May 13 2009 / 12:48 pm
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The author of this article is a typical avaricious juvenile. These are YOUR words not mine (as you accuse). Your true colors are apparent.
born: 1956
May 13 2009 / 6:23 pm
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Child, what really bugs me is that brats like you insist fogeys like me have to let you speak for us.
Born: 1954
May 13 2009 / 8:03 pm
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Election Observer,
I’ve never heard the demographic broken down that way, but it makes sense. On the radio show tonight, the distinction is made. There is, indeed, a cultural difference between the Obama folks and the Boomers heading toward retirement right now.
To those upset by the rest:
This was partly satirical, but maybe not funny because it was too close to the truth. I am anti-abortion and pro-protecting the defenseless and that includes people in their waning years.
Under Obamacare, though, my views of life and liberty won’t prevail. Under Obamacare, a person will be judged by utilitarian regulations and some bureaucrat will decide a person’s fate–family, doctors and the person himself will have little to say.
I do not pretend to speak for a generation, nor does the description fit all Boomers. Enough people in this generation create the statistics cited above that a thinking person is concerned by the demographics and the character traits exhibited by the majority in the demographic.
May 13 2009 / 8:11 pm
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I doubt if members of the boomer generation are less knowledgeable about economics & finance than are members of younger generations. Most likely, such knowledge declines steadily with age, reflecting the progressive deterioration of both K-12 and university education.
May 13 2009 / 9:30 pm
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Well, there are some very nice boomers that don’t fall in to that description. That said, you NAILED it. I have no illusions that I’ll get an inheritance like former generations of my family. (one parent dead, shack up part time girlfriend got everything.) Shack up boyfriends pretty much squandered everything my mom had.(And no, were not talking trailer park trash, but executives with typical me generation values) Yep, first person to pay my way through university in five generations.(‘Cause three girl friends in three years needed new boobs and new cars.) Made the mistake of buying a house off of my father in law when I was first married. He took 50,000 in downpayment, then promptly closed the deal with someone else. Begged us to let him make it up to us. Never did.
Money isn’t everything, but to quite a few in that generation, children put a cramp in their style. Perhaps my life experiences have just put me in the company of the most extreme cases of boomerisim. Old age should be interesting. Would I be too evil for hiring a bad babysitter?
May 13 2009 / 9:36 pm
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Aw, the Boomers are having a temper tantrum. Seriously, pretty much everything Melissa said is true. I’ll now add what seems to be the “chic” Boomer thing and add, Born: 1973.
The Millenials (and really much of the GenXers)
act the way they do mainly because they inherited the values of the Boomers. Think the Millenials are bratty, shallow, narcissistic and vapid? Guess who taught them? Nuff’ said.
BTW, I will predict that history will show that America went into the toilet starting with the Boomers. If you think otherwise, try watching our culture fall apart around us over the next 20 years or so. And yes, Obama is a Boomer (unlike some people who posted, I don’t believe everything the media tells me lock, stock and barrel).
May 13 2009 / 11:57 pm
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What’s going to happen when, in the new national health care, their Viagra and Cialis become too expensive for their plans to cover? Are they going to riot at the National Mall because of it? If they went bonkers before for the sake of sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll, should I expect worse?
My in-laws are Boomers – and they have frighteningly low FQ (financial quotient) levels, if you know what I mean. In summary: they’re bankrupt. Literally. They thought that a lump sum of less than $40 grand was good enough for my mother-in-law’s retirement. Their only child (my husband) told them to invest it in mutual funds and to make sure it grows into their late 60s. They squandered much of that money instead. Then came the IRS. ‘Nuff said.
When I talked about SS years ago, the hubby said in the most blatant way, “What are you talking about? We ARE their Social Security!” He’s right.
Funny thing is, precisely because he was raised in a financially wrecked environment (his parents barely had two sticks to rub together for a long time, figuratively speaking), he learned the best about financial responsibility. He did their taxes at one point. He even paid their revolving credit card bill because they were at risk for bankruptcy. (Even then!) And even now he is as penny-pincher and coupon-clipper as ever. (He sees my credit card bills – even small ones – and goes nuts!)
I don’t know if this Baby Boom generation ever had a course on financial responsibility in high school. If they did, they fell asleep during it. How many of them went into junk bonds in the 80s, dot-coms in the 90s, and “house-flippin’” during the housing bubble that just collapsed? I know many in my generation were just as suckers, but c’mon!
Husband: born 1969
Me: 1973 (“Generation Roe”, if you want to call it as such.)
May 14 2009 / 12:01 am
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“Think the Millenials are bratty, shallow, narcissistic and vapid? Guess who taught them? Nuff’ said.”
Yep, and a whole lot of that bunch voted for Obama. ‘Nuff said.
May 14 2009 / 12:53 am
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ElectionObserver–
I was born in the first half of 1954, and was always told that I was a part of the Baby Boom generation. Never in my life have I heard the term, “Generation Jones.”
It’s very disconcerting to be yanked out of one generation and thrown into another without warning.
May 16 2009 / 5:04 pm
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Hard to argue with your assessment of my generation(born 1947). IMHO they have destroyed public education, made it very difficult for the nation to defend itself, and trampled most of the traditional values that the country was built on. I can understand the frustration the young must feel because a lot of us feel it too.
August 12 2009 / 2:39 am
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For the most part I agree with what you’ve written. It’s sad to see the best of America behind us. But unfortunately, that is probably the case, and the Boomers are to blame. They’re pissed now because they see the possibility of all their schemes and plans going down the drain.
I really don’t put Obama and his health care plans with that group. Not sure really how I feel about this new health care proposal. I know that most of the arguments I hear against it seem irrational and unfounded. I work in healthcare as an RN, so I have first hand experience with the problems its facing. The most blaring one I see is the end of life issues that you somewhat elluded to.
What gets me is families who will have the healthcare team go to all lengths to save someone who is basically dying, only prolonging the inevitable and creating more suffering. It is a sad thing to see someone with tubes coming and going out of every orifice in their body, with no chance of living any life of quality, even if they make it out of the hospital, which is usually not the case in the examples I am thinking of. And who usually pays for it? Medicare, and who is paying for, will pay for Medicare? We are. And as the Boomers get older and become less productive and more dependent more resources will be required to keep them alive longer. Its really madness and bitter irony.
I’ve read that there is no “Death Panel” as some have called it, in this new health care bill. But there needs to be. It shouldn’t be based on money or a person’s productivity, but on common and medical sense.
Thank you for bringing this issue of the boomers to light. It’s one that is bound to raise the hair on the back of their necks in anger, but a truth that needs to be told.
I hate to think of what my children will have to face in their futures because of the greed of my parents generation and the ignorance of mine.
Born 1967.