The Christmas (and Hanukkah for our Jewish friends) holiday season is upon us. This means family get-togethers, and those can mean inter-generational conflict. Boomers, don't accuse the youth of being lazy, needy and weak. Just don't. No, stop. Don't even start. 2024 is nearly upon us, so please for the love of all that is holy, stop and think about what people have been dealing with for more than the past two decades.
We know you lived through the Vietnam War, 1970s stagflation, gas rationing, and so on. That means you should have some sympathy for modern struggles instead of looking down your noses. Let me give you a recap, in case you forgot.
Our world changed on September 11th, 2001. Almost all Millennials were still in high school or grade school. We grew into adulthood in an atmosphere of fear and rumors of war. The economy that had boomed in the 90s started to crumble and shift just as we entered the workforce. We were told Muslim fanatics were out to kill us because of our freedoms. And then the government ramped up regulating away our freedoms and imposed a massive surveillance state we still suffer under today.
Oh, and once we got out of high school, many of us went to college. "Why are you whining about student debt," you ask us? You told us a college degree, any degree, was a guaranteed path to a better life. Demand was high, government subsidies completely destroyed any opportunity for rational calculation on all sides, tuition rates outpaced inflation, and many of us did what we were told was the smart thing to do. And then as a direct consequence of degree inflation in employment and a complete misallocation of educational pursuit compared to real-world realities you told us we could ignore, jobs to pay off these high costs were in short supply. If you need to comment on college debt, offer an apology for bad advice, not snide condescending remarks about lack of discipline and drive.
I'm lucky in a way, because I stopped after getting an Associate's degree in drafting after paying my way with a summer job, something already losing feasibility at that time. If I had gone on to a Master's in architecture, I would have graduated with debt just as the economy took a new hit when the 2008 real estate bubble burst. That's right, our housing situation has been a roller coaster of ballooning prices way outside the scope of typical inflation as measured by CPI. If we weren't in a position to buy, we were stuck with rising rents and often stagnant wages. Your generation was broadly feeling comfortable as your houses appeared to be an appreciating investment.
Even with the bubble bursting in 2008/2009, the government responded by dropping interest rates to near zero to maintain support for you, but we had little reprieve, and flatlined interest rates meant we lost wealth by saving cash in the banks. Millennials and Zoomers have basically never had an opportunity to benefit from a basic savings account at a local bank, forcing any and all investment toward the stock market and maintaining your portfolios.
And speaking of maintaining your standard of living, the entire political system is built to buy your vote with Social Security, medicare, Obamacare insurance subsidies, and so forth. Who foots the bill? Us. Social Security is a straight-up Ponzi scheme, and it looks like Millennials and Zoomers will be left holding the bag because there is no trust fund, just a cycle of new marks paying put to the old ones, and fewer new marks are getting roped in. Medicare is a wealth transfer from the working class, again because new workers pay old beneficiaries. Obamacare massively jacked up insurance rates for the young and healthy to subsidies the old and onform. And this only scratches the surface. So shut up before you stick your foot in your mouth bitching about the youngsters and their sense of entitlement.
"Just get another job," you say. Did you not notice how the regulatory impositions meant to "help" us resulted in terrible jobs? Benefits mandates means most open jobs only offer hours to just below when the mandated benefits would kick in. We need two jobs for "full-time" hours, and get no appreciable benefits from either one while you look back on careers spanning perhaps decades with real pensions, health insurance, and most importantly, stability. WE. DO. NOT. HAVE. THAT. NOW.
So, yeah, we were hit with a 20-year pointless war, an economic roller coaster, skyrocketing expenses, bad education advice, little reliable opportunity to save/invest, poor job prospects, oh yeah, and escalating regulatory burdens on every single thing we have tried to do to make our world better. Old farts in Congress who probably still can't program a VCR to save their souls want to regulate cryptocurrencies and internet businesses, pry into every little Venmo or Paypal transfer, and generally squeeze us dry with taxes to fund the ballooning bureaucracy your generation voted to build and maintain. We had no voice in any of it, and nothing is as permanent as a temporary government solution.
We've also spent our entire lives being told we're killing off the planet, and it's somehow our fault despite the fact you were the ones who created the world we've been handed. I'm not exactly a Greenpeace guy, and I have a lot of skepticism about the climate change models used to push for various political schemes, but it seems like once again we are getting left to foot the bill while you benefit from what was possible before and impossible now, whether the justifications are true or not.
Oh, and let's not forget COVID. Many millennials who manged to survive war, college tuition, a housing collapse, regulatory growth, and other obstacles got kicked in the balls by what is now objectively, undeniably a massive propaganda-fueled overreaction to a nasty virus. It was dangerous for you to be out in public, perhaps, since it disproportionately harmed the elderly, but for us it was statistically insignificant, and essentially zero danger to kids. But lockdowns devastated us. We lost access to family and friends. We were cut off from jobs and then subjected to one of the most evil propaganda and regulatory schemes of our lives or yours. Many of you were willing participants in this massive delusional coercion scheme. If you weren't, I applaud you, but if you were, don't even think about making the slightest comment if anyone mentions mental health issues or unemployment or relationship trouble.
This holiday, show us some empathy for Christmas. Maybe you had it hard decades ago. Maybe you had it worse than we do now. I don't know. It was different, though, and comparisons don't always line up. I do know most of us have hard times now, and your experiences even of life today almost certainly does not reflect ours. So take a moment for self-reflection the instant you feel that self-righteous stereotype of Baby Boomer smug superiority tingling away, and just don't say anything. If you can't build bridges, just buzz off. We have been through hell, and you owe us silence at the very least if you can't bring yourself to admit your errors and ask forgiveness.
Upset by the rant? Think it's just whining? I have the receipts right here.
If you're not on Hive yet, I invite you to join through PeakD. If you use my referral link, I'll even delegate some Hive Power to help you get started.
