Generational Pillaging and Warfare

Good evening folks!

Yesterday, I was reading the comments section of a Yahoo! article when I stumbled across a bitter argument going on between two readers.  One reader, who seemed to be close to retiring (so I am guessing he is a Baby Boomer), was ranting about people calling for Social Security reform.  His position was, essentially, that he worked his whole life and deserved every penny of every check Social Security was going to send to him.  According to him, it was not his fault government officials spent Social Security's surpluses; he should not have to sacrifice some of his Social Security benefits to fix the government's mistakes.    

His opponent, a younger fellow, did not take too kindly to the first person's comments.  He believed that the Baby Boomers created a lot of the country's messes (such as the Iraq War, Social Security's problems, the mortgage crisis, and the inflating student loan bubble) and they should have to pay up.  (I sided with this gentleman, but I do understand where the older man was coming from).    

Anyway, the really interesting part of this argument came when the younger man argued that most of the USA's current troubles can be blamed on the Baby Boomers because the Baby Boomers have more seats in both houses than all other generations combined.  After doing my own research, I found the younger man was right.

I found that 58 Senators (58% of the Senate) and 254 Representatives (58% of the House) are Boomers.  Our President is a Boomer.  So was the previous one.  Clinton, too?  Yep.

All this scares me.  Why?  Because the Boomers are, quite possibly, the most selfish generation in America's history.  Don't believe me?  Read what one prominent journalist (Robert Samuelson) has to say about his fellow Boomers: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/09/AR2007010901334.html.

For more information, feel free to read this article on Boomer selfishness and failures by the WSJ: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124458192890699487.html. 

Given that there are 76 million or so Boomers getting ready to retire and the fact that our legislative and executive offices are controlled by the most selfish Americans ever, there is little hope that meaningful changes will be made any time soon.  We young people will probably be stuck in a a truly crappy economic, political, and fiscal situation for decades because, as Mr. Samuelson pointed out in the aforementioned article, Boomers failed to make small (but important) changes to SS, Medicare, and education reform when they had the chance.

We young people, though, may be catching on to this sad fact (it's about time).  And the results (at least according to this article: http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/the-best-life/2011/04/18/how-the-budget-deficit-could-lead-to-generational-warfare) could very well be a brutal battle that tears the country apart.

The USA will be locked in a huge generational struggle.  The young will be fighting against the old, and the old will probably lose.  (The reason the elderly will lose, I fear, is because when my generation is old enough to take over the country, they will exact revenge on the remaining Boomers).

It's just a shame that we came to this point.  America will be torn apart by internal strife caused by decades of poor fiscal management and bad public choices.  These were issues that could have been solved by some modest compromises in the past.  Instead of grasping those opportunities and making the best of them, the Boomers (and other previous generations) let those chances slip through their fingers.  And they don't seem to care.