Boomer Bust

My generation, the baby boomers, (those born between 1948 and 1965), have come under a lot of fire and criticism lately from the younger generations, and not without good cause. It is now felt that we have squandered the future economic security of this nation for everyone else but our generation. Starting in the 80s, Regan era deregulation and tax cutting, gradually weakened the robust country that the boomers inherited. Constantly borrowing money to fund wars and social programs for ourselves, we have raised the national debt to incredible levels, leaving future generations the problem of how to pay it all off. We have allowed the country’s critical infrastructure to degrade, and the public education system to deteriorate, forcing students to go deep in debt to fund the ever increasing costs of a college education. We won’t even get into the disastrous consequences that the housing and tech bubbles exploding on our watch created, due to deregulation and relaxing the laws that kept watch on these potentially dangerous things.

And let’s talk about that huge elephant in the room, the one that everyone in our generation completely ignores, climate change. Yes, climate can be thought of as an important part of the fabric of the economy. It has also seriously degraded over the last 40 years. We knew about the dangers of continuing to burn fossil fuels way back then, but hey, it won’t be a problem until after we are gone. It is our ultimate failure and the one I am most deeply ashamed of, and the one that now, will be the most expensive to fix.

Though it is not going to get fixed, not any time soon. The boomers control the political process and it has now degraded into keeping the status quo for themselves. They have resorted to all kinds of strategies to maintain their political power and the horrifying consequences of this is now evident in the current administration and its frightening discriminate policies towards to anyone who opposes them. So have the boomers doomed American civilization? Let’s talk about that. (Below, young boomers, my sister Linda, me and my sister Debbie, Easter, 1958).