Is this nations wealth static or fluid? is it a zero sum game, or can new wealth be created?

If new wealth can be created, then nothing has been squandered.

We could be brothers.
You get it, I get it, and a lot of other successful people here get it.

But there are lots of losers here, just looking for excuses.  
Funny thing is, the anger and envy displayed here, is just a drop in the bucket compared to the hordes of Morlocks on the street.
Here on Arfcom, we are generally educated and conservative.  The average American isn’t.

Yeah you are pretty much on point. But it's still funny to note that hilariously, the Boomers love to bitch about Millenials who oh by the way were raised by Boomers.  Participation trophies? Yeah a bunch of 5 year olds didn't invent the concept, that'd be Boomer parents. And so on and so on.

You're right that Millenials vote left, indoctrinated by their own Boomer parents. My glimmer of hope is that Gen Z continues to trend more individalistic and right-leaning. I'm the extreme tail of Gen X myself and our kids are turning out a little better, somehow. I think.  Maybe the pendulum is swinging back.

Anyway, if nothing else this thread lets me laugh in Gen X master race

Exactly so.

I don't buy it.  Any of it.

It's an easy way out - to blame others.  It's this generation's fault, no no, it's THIS generations fault.  Blah blah.

The secret of success is in your head.  It's all on you.

If you're not making your life a success you need to ask yourself what you could be doing to make it happen.

It isn't an accident, it's rarely due to luck, and you can be sure that the only possible way that you're going to achieve it is by gritting it out and hanging on until you do succeed.

Don't sit there and waste your time blaming others.  Get out there any get bloody.  The blame game is for losers.

Just my asshole opinion.

My parents predate the boomer generation.  Dad was born in 37 Mom was born in 39.  They were the most frugal people, and I imagine growing up as a small child in post Depression America and then during WWII rations gives you a perspective on things.

Dad passed last year and he did not spend down one penny of his retirement, neither will my Mom.  They live off of revenue from rents and dividends.  Mom's house hasn't been remodeled in 35 years, she buys clothes at a thrift store yet she has millions in assets.

My Brother was born in 1960, he has no retirements savings at all, is delinquent with he IRS and has creditors after him.  My Sister works for a university in fine arts and is complaining that she can't buy a house.

So the problem is not generational, or dependent on how you were raised... I think it is a matter of perspective.

Some people see the reality of life, some do not.

I am 20 years younger than my brother and live very differently.  I am 37 and I think to myself... I have 30 years left to work and then I am pretty much dead soon after that.  So I don't want to work until I am 67.  I wan to be done with a "job" in my early 50's.  Then go do something else, trade junk on E-bay, or restore motorcycles, or help build water treatment plants in the 3rd world... what ever I want to do.

So my family lives in a cheap house and the wife and I drive used cars so we can save and invest.

But if you listen to my sister,I live better than her because I am a privileged white male and I helped rig the system against everyone else.  Has nothing to do with being an engineer in the energy industry... nope nothing at all...

Yup. I well remember living on rice and beans when I was first married. McDonalds was a treat lol. Wife and I still joke about that.

We pulled up stakes and left our families, have lived all over the country now and life is good. In fact it's better than I ever thought I'd have it.  I've had some good luck, but we did have to take that leap too.

You and the fool would be wrong.

https://blog.ssa.gov/social-security-2019-trustees-report/

It’s life guys, it is what we make of it.  Even the bums know some moves.

Attached File

Eh, the Millenials aren't going to get it, old man.

I agree with this but the boomers did play their part

LOL from the exact page you linked -
"2052, extended 20 years from last year's estimate of 2032, with 91 percent of benefits still payable."

So just by going by your article in 2052 they will be able to pay out 91% and that is if no changes are even made. BTW in 2090 it will still be able to pay out 79% of each dollar and that is if no changes are made. You going to be alive in 2090?

ROFL Now this BS is sure to start a lot of stupid talk. Let the troll suckers have at it.

so who was it that shut down Bush's attempt at SS reform in the mid 2000s?
who was Medicare part D supposed to target?
boomers are the most influential voting bloc and have been for decades, I mean we can hardly lower the mortgage interest deduction without boomers flipping the fuck out

That is some shitty logic.

And yet if you had put that money in traditional diversified investments over the long haul you could pay yourself 1000% more than you saved.  8% return over 30 years.  Why do we let .gov have our money again?

Yup.

Though when handed the balance, the Boomers fucking RAN with it!

Boomers really?

A single B-52 training flight, SR71 mission, an hour of Carrier Op's and a single day of the 15 years  of war on Terrorism have spent more than I've ever probably made in my lifetime....let alone submitted in taxes.

Hell, just to pay the salary of one United States senator for a year.....

Or even a corrupt FBI official.

This Fucking .gov and it's out of control spending on shit has squandered this nations wealth.

What "commie bullshit" did I advance?

Do those Estimates account for inflation / Cost Of Living adjustments?

"Trust fund".

You funny guy.  

The generation that voted for FDR and his "new deal"  THAT is the generation that fucked us.

No it was setup to fail in the early 20th when SS and income taxes were passed

And I'm still at it - you whipper snappers!
Attached File

Lol. I’m not a Boomer but I remember 17-22% interest that millennials don’t have to pay...and current politicians are suppressing interest rates for who’s benefit?

I used to say things like "frakking millenials" but not so much anymore.  As they have aged and entered the workforce they are figuring out how hard you really have to work, very few of us have had things handed to us.

If my family debt rises to a point where the payments exceed our income, can I call up my creditors and say "I will be lowering my payment by 21%."?    We still have income, why would they not agree to that?  

The government is "us".
Ask yourself, "When did we stop paying attention, and let this happen?"

It appears that Soros has really gotten his money's worth.

[/thread]

CMOS

How true.  Deficit spending skyrocketed with LBJ (Greatest Generation) and his guns 'n butter program.   It caused the departure of gold from our reserves to accelerate.   Deficit spending hasn't stopped.  Every president seems to double the deficit.

Having been born in 1962, considered in some circles to be the last year of the baby boom (1960 is sometimes a cutoff too), I got the privilege of watching the older Baby Boomers buy up all the houses and turn into Yuppies. Those of us born after 1960 are the first to have to wait to age 67 for full SS though we have to start paying Medicare insurance premiums out of pocket at 65

Now you know I ain't talking about all Boomers...…..there were a lot of them that were/are asshole commies though.

You have a much better opinion of our generation than I do...….I am not proud of my generation in the main.

They bitched too much and were FAR TOO interested in left wing dumbass agendas IMHO.

The #1 lesser of two evils/death by 1000 cuts voting block. I’d say so.

If obama was a Baby Boomer, then that would be a positive. Obama doubled the national debt and caused the highest national debt than  all of other other presidents in the history of the US combined!!!

I don't think Nixon could have kept the dollar on the gold standard without outlawing fractional reserve banking and immediately cancelling all federal entitlements, including many veterans benefits.  A case he probably should have taken to American people in his own "fireside chat".  Can you imagine him doing a thirty minute televised presentation telling people where the country was headed?

My parents were at the tail end of the Boomers.  They don't resemble that paragraph.  They didn't have very much for most of their lives.  Some parts of their lives have been easier than mine, and some parts of their lives have been more difficult than mine.

There are far more 30 year old Millennials on public assistance today than there were 30 year old Baby Boomers on public assistance in 1976, and those enrolled in public assistance programs take much more per person than they did in 1976.

In this thread I can spot those who play the game well and those that don't. Age doesn't seem to be a factor.

For thier own benefit, no other way around it. Most folks don't save so they don't give a shit about prime. Those that actually pay taxes will notice when their tax bill doubles just so Uncle Sam can cover the interest.

The children you're agreeing with are talking about every single warm body born from 1946 to 1964. Aspie binary choices are part of their DNA.

And I keep asking for specifics, because every single complaint is either some vague crap or based on time travel or a tragically ignorant understanding of basic history (and occasionally basic math)

The problem is that 'tards actually believe memes, think life was peaches and cream, and they give up. Or they start talking about "living wages", or loan "forgiveness", or government price controls, which is real live actual "commie shit".

We're still working on it.

Don't bother.

One segment of the political spectrum hates white privilege, one hates boomers

Either way, it's a designated "kulak" to rally ideological constituencies around

The reason your life sucks, by and large, is probably you.

RDak?

Not much you can really do about it.

- A millenial

The single biggest employment sector in 1900 in the US was agriculture.  Today, it takes less than 2% of the labor force to enable everyone to be fat.  We moved to manufacturing, which reached it's peak during WWII, and for a period of a few decades Americans enjoyed stable employment.  Most people didn't really change jobs all that much, and what was considered "middle-class" was substantially poorer than what we consider middle-class today.  The average house was less than half the size of homes today, most families had 1 car, if they had a car.  A nice middle-class home had 1 main bathroom, and perhaps another small bathroom off the master.  You can still see these old middle-class homes, just ride through the poorer neighborhoods of larger towns.  But in even mid century there were still homes without indoor bathrooms in certain parts of the country.

People worked for one employer, and there were defined benefit plans (pensions).  So a person could work for 20 or 30 years and retire with a modest income guaranteed for life.   Which really wasn't that much longer after a typical retirement.

The Boomers came in on the tail end of all that.  Starting in the 80's employers moved away from the more expensive defined benefit plans, and replaced them with portable 401k's, which were defined contribution plans.  Salaries rose, and job stability diminished.  After WWII manufacturing jobs declined.  Technology and automation reduced the demand, and value of human labor.  That trends been going on for decades.  In the 80's and 90's we saw office automation reduce the need for many white collar jobs as well, and that trend continues.

Today most people are employed in the service sector.  None of this was the Boomers fault.

Social Security and medicare were flawed programs from the start.  No one is going to fix them until they have to.  Our political system is broken.  Lobbyist and Bureaucrats draft the laws, elected representative spend most of their time trying to raise campaign funding for reelection.  Our Republic is broken.  ...and no one is working to fix it.   Not the Boomers, not GenX, not the millennials, or GenZ who are starting to come of age.

No one is doing shit.