I understand that the majority of the members on this forum are Boomers, and thus are unlikely to support the notion that their generation has been anything less than heroic, virtuous saviours of our society. But the fact is that the children of Boomers are the first generation ever to be less well off than the generation that preceded it.
Boomers benefitted from the war economy, defined benefit pensions, cheap housing, and cheap education. Yes, yes, I'm aware that for a month or two in the 80's, mortgages were 18% or whatever, and you had to wait in line to fill up your car's gas tank. But you also had the most prolonged and bullish run up in equity markets since the stock market's inception.
I'm a Gen-X'er. Back in '99 when I graduated university, I was lucky to get my toes into the high-tech market just before the bubble burst. I thought I was getting screwed by housing and education prices that were multiples higher than those my parents faced leaving college, but it turns out they've continued outpacing inflation in the intervening 16 years, and now I really pity Millennials and whatever we're calling the generations after them.
Decades of neglect have left our society's infrastructures crumbling, and the mountain of debt run up by Boomers have left us with few options for fixing them. Boomers are quick to say, "We BUILT this country!" Yes, you did - but it would have been nice if you'd PAID for it, too, instead of passing the bill on to your children.
You had unions, job security, and defined benefit pensions. Those are all relics. Do you really think a kid graduating college this spring will have any of those? You could run a household on a single income while still saving up a retirement nest egg (not that you needed it, with the aforementioned pension). Now it takes 2 incomes, which are hamstrung by the concordant requirement for daycare, and the crippling one-two-punch of enormous student loan debt and outsized housing cost leave nothing left for saving. And on top of that, we're supposed to take time off work to care for aging parents, too? There's a reason we're called the "sandwich" generation.
These concerns are actually some of the major reasons my wife and I decided not to have kids. Kids I would have deserve better than the world we've created for them.
Good point. In fact, why blame anybody? That's life. "Stuff" happens and yet we just keep on doing the best we can. What other choice to we have? Drive ourselves to an early grave with all this bitterness and blaming? Not something I care to do.
