Dave "Wear A Goddamn Mask" Cochran 
๐ฟ๐ถ๐๐ถ "not yet begun to fight"Low birth rates among the younger generations are a direct function of wealth inequality in America but Boomers aren't ready for that conversation. Do you know how bad you have to abuse a mammal to make it not want to have children?
Third spruce tree on the left@Lana I has having a depressing conversation with a friend of mine at lunch the other day. We were griping about the poor state of our retirement savings and how we're both in our early 50s and are starting to look at the next 15 yrs and our savings and are concerned. And that both of us are hoping... relying .. on some form of inheritance from our still.alive Boomer parents to float OUR retirements. And REAL concerned that we won't be leaving anything to our kids (screwed).
lia@Lana Many boomers are ready for the conversation, and they've been having it since they were politically active. The currently younger generations are statistically far more right-wing than baby boomers ever were.
As you correctly identified, it's never been a generational conflict but an economic one, so why walk back on that and frame it as "boomers are the problem" again?
Objectively and observably, tons of boomers are on our side here.
@lianna quick question, which cohort age group has been holding every major political and economic lever since at least 1976?
@Lana People old enough to amass wealth and hold public office? Gee, next you're going to tell me people born after 2007 drink less alcohol on average than those of any previous generation!
Baby boomers protested the Vietnam war way more than people born after the turn of the millennium; I wonder why that is. Must be that younger people are more anti-Vietnam, surely!
It's almost as if young people are young, and old people are old.
Do you seriously think that the baby boomer generation somehow magically born more evil than the later ones, and when millennial or Gen Z billionaires are in power, things will fix themselves because they're biologically born more progressive or something?
The very obvious causative relationship between right-wing politics and the people running it is economic power, not an arbitrary age group.
To spell it out: baby boomers hold conservative public offices because they've had more time on average to become rich and powerful, and not because they happen to be baby boomers.
There's a ton of progressive and left-wing baby boomers; on average less than there are progressive and left-wing younger people, but that is solely because the latter are more likely to be poor & working class.
@lianna I'll remind you that the question was which age cohort has held every political, social, and economic lever of power for the last 50 years.
@Lana You're arguing in bad faith just like anyone else who goes "so why is it that all crime is committed by <insert minority here>", so I'll leave this situation now.
Baby boomers are on average more conservative than younger generations, because they are statistically more likely to be powerful and wealthy capitalists.
Being a boomer has nothing to do with being conservative. Being a wealthy, powerful capitalist does, and most other generations simply haven't had the chance to get there yet.
This is literally the same simple logic that also allows us to conclude that minorities are statistically more likely to live in poverty due to socioeconomic factors and racism, and that that fact explains their statistical correlation in crime rates; it's not their minority status causing the crime, but the poverty, and some minorities are overrepresented in poverty due to racism.
Only that you're right now taking the side of the people going "why is it always foreigners committing the crimes, huh?" instead of thinking one step beyond and considering the average economic situation of that demographic as the cause for that statistical anomaly.
Jestbill@Lana @lianna Said it before, I'll say it again and again: Boomers all hit the job market together. The best strategy to have a life was to keep one's head down and work. That's what they learned about life and you're not going to change 'em.
They had already outdated prewar (Hoover) economics preached at them even while benefiting from the New Deal and aftermath.
All you can do is to outvote them.
They had already outdated prewar (Hoover) economics preached at them even while benefiting from the New Deal and aftermath.
All you can do is to outvote them.
@Jestbill @Lana This applies to all working-class conservatives, not 'boomers' as a nebulous, made-up group.
'Boomers' are also the ones who protested the Vietnam war and laid the foundation for post-war socialist movements. While one could (disingenuously) call younger generations the 'Tate generation' and make a point that 20-somethings directly caused the rise of the alt-right and Trump himself via 4chan et cetera.
Blaming reactionary politics onto an age group is exactly what they want โ a petty squabble between generations instead of actual left-wing politics that examines the classes at play here.
Lucy B@lianna @Lana I've often made the point that a 1946 car is way different than a 1966 car so the whole idea of a "generation" is suspect.
I like, though, to highlight the economic conditions when different people hit the job market. Moderns who lived in an age of low inflation are angered at anything above 2%. I seem to remember 1965-1970 or so and laugh.
I like, though, to highlight the economic conditions when different people hit the job market. Moderns who lived in an age of low inflation are angered at anything above 2%. I seem to remember 1965-1970 or so and laugh.
M.S. Bellows, Jr.@Lana Seriously, friend, please stop blaming the Boomers for everything. Ageism is still bad.
@msbellows told you you weren't ready for this conversation
@Lana I'm absolutely happy to have this conversation! It's one our family has been having! It's important! It affects my children profoundly! And many of my older friends are concerned about it too. It's a cultural and economic-class blindness, not a generational one.
(Also, I'm proudly Gen Jones, not a Boomer.)
Kineneโญ๐ป@msbellows @Lana Also Gen Jones... and no kids. I read The Population Bomb and The Limits to Growth when they were published.
Not my fault.
Not my fault.
Anne Ominous@c_merriweather @msbellows @Lana
GenX no kids
and my father, a Silent Generationer, told us so many stories about how awful it was to be a parent, how many sacrifices have to made, how little reward there is, that not a single one of his three children had kids themselves.
so ... i think there are people ready to have that conversation, it just may not go the way you think it would
Karl Auerbach@Lana By-the-way have you listened to the lyrics of Bob Dylan's "Masters of War"?
Here's the stanza I am thinking of...
You've thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain't worth the blood
That runs in your veins
I particularly like this cover of the tune:
Masters Of War
I agree that low birth rates are partly due to the economy. But hopefully we donโt also fall into the reactionary trap of seeing a high fertility rate as a measure of success. Birth rates are even lower in Europe, where families get much more support.
I feel that the wide use of the birth control pill (1960s) was one of the most consequential events in civilization. It is part of a greater movement for bodily autonomy, that will make the world a better (and less populated) place!
@lucybeahere agreed. High fertility rates aren't a measure of success. But as long as the people in charge keep bemoaning the fact that GenX and millennials aren't having babies, I feel like the conversation should at least include the economic abuse factors that are one of the reasons why.