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Generation Wrecked

Ryosen writes "Fortune magazine has an interesting article discussing how members of Generation X (those born between 1966 and 1975) have been damaged by the fall of the economy and the life-long ramifications of the dot.com boom-bust, stating 'No generation since the Depression has been set up for failure like this.' Particularly disturbing is the statement 'Worse yet, for some Gen Xers, their peak earning years are behind them. Buried in college and credit card debt, a lot of them won't be able to catch up as they approach their prime spending years.' Are the best years of our lives truly behind us?"

34 of 1,306 comments (clear)

  1. Thank GOD I was born in 1976! by mekkab · · Score: 5, Funny

    I missed all this crap!

    WHoo hoo! I'm living the high life like it was 1989!

    --
    In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
    1. Re:Thank GOD I was born in 1976! by RobinH · · Score: 2, Funny

      That's what I thought... year of the dragon, baby!

      --
      "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
    2. Re:Thank GOD I was born in 1976! by Arcturax · · Score: 5, Funny

      Could be worse, we could be Generation X10, the voyuer generation.

      --

      --Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
    3. Re:Thank GOD I was born in 1976! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

      Microsoft will buy it and make it "Generation X-box". *weep*

    4. Re:Thank GOD I was born in 1976! by Jonny+Ringo · · Score: 5, Funny

      I think the next one is "Generation Y oh God Y!"

    5. Re:Thank GOD I was born in 1976! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Isn't that the guy who killed himself because the best he could do was Courtney Love?

  2. Doesn't help me by nonmaskable · · Score: 3, Funny

    I was born in 62, so I guess things must be sucking for some other reason...

  3. Last thing I wanted to read now! by atomico · · Score: 2, Funny

    Frozen salary, every day reading e-mails with subjects like "Thank you and good-bye", helplessly watching how entire product lines are being discontinued, development units are closing, waiting for my turn to say goodbye...

    Another telecom engineer developing network products for an equipment provider... oh yes, and born in 1974! There lies my mistake! Unrecoverable error!

    1. Re:Last thing I wanted to read now! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Yup, sucks to work at HP these days.

  4. My personal answer? by Noryungi · · Score: 3, Funny


    Just don't believe any corporate BS. They are out to get you.

    --
    The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
  5. Re:Real Life Intrudes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Yeah, same experience here. We bought the house based solely on my income instead of mine + my wife's. When we told the banker it was "in case only one of us was working later on", he looked like I'd just pissed on his desk.

  6. Re:Sad truth is that by buzzdecafe · · Score: 2, Funny

    Hey are you hiring? I could send you a resume . . .

  7. Mod this down, I'm just in a bad mood by serutan · · Score: 5, Funny

    Interesting though the article was, their sampling could have been a little better. "Jessica, an art therapist and professional harpist, has $50,000 in student loans." Art therapist? Well duh! Everybody knows the big money is in pet psychiatry.

  8. Re:I dont understand how they could have missed th by brad3378 · · Score: 2, Funny

    > I mean come on this is like saying being overweight is bad, or shooting heroin can cause problems down the road.

    What?
    you mean they don't just cancel each other out?

    --

  9. Re:Life Adjustment Finally by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Perhaps instead of running out to a club hyped up on X and pot they might actually be forced to confront reality and THINK about important things instead of hiding from reality in superficial relationships.

    So do you have any friends outside of of your Bible Study group?

  10. Re:Didion Sprague's Take on Gen X by Captain+Gingersnaps · · Score: 2, Funny

    My question for you, Didion Sprague: Since when do nuns have boyfriends?

  11. Re:I think so by Student_Tech · · Score: 2, Funny

    So does that mean that all of the people born from 2020-2029 are going to be anonymous cowards?

  12. Re:I think so by technomom · · Score: 3, Funny

    Toddlers.

  13. Re:I think so by Andrewkov · · Score: 4, Funny
    If you do it that way, what do you call people born in 2k+?

    Maybe generation 2K? Or better yet, maybe a hexadecimal notation is in order! ... I'm from generation 0x08FA. Cool!

  14. Re:I think so by the+way,+what're+you · · Score: 4, Funny
    A while back I saw something saying that gen Y was 1980-1989, and gen Z was 1990-1999. If you do it that way, what do you call people born in 2k+?

    Generation [, if you follow the ASCII table.

    --
    example.org - powered by Linux!
  15. Re:Best years of my life... by foog · · Score: 2, Funny

    Utah beer? For the love of god Max, you live in Oregon. You should know better.

    foog

  16. SOLUTION: Kill the Old People. Kill the Young. by teamhasnoi · · Score: 3, Funny
    Kill them now! Then we can finally hear the end of GEN (insert cultural pun here). We'll just be GEN.

    Oh yeah, before I forget, stop killing the old people right before I get old. Thanks.

  17. Bah! Bite my shinny metal ass. by Dimes · · Score: 2, Funny


    First we were "Slackers" who were good for nothing and completely disolutioned.

    Then we were the "Uberkind" that could do no wrong, defied the establishment, and were successfull in spite of "how the previous generations had set us up".

    and now...

    We are doomed to a fate of financial ruin...so bottomless the pit into which we have fallen because of the ".com bust".

    Bah! I am pretty sure that we...(if you can call it a "we"...I have never been all that sure about clasifications) will continue to do what we have always done about the "world" arround us....Give it the Finger and get on with getting on.

    dimes

  18. Re:Real Life Intrudes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    That's funny, when I pissed on my bankers desk, he looked like I'd just bought a house based on my income, instead of mine and my wifes.

  19. Re:I think so by gfxguy · · Score: 2, Funny

    When I look at the kids today I think "Generation Why?"

    --
    Stupid sexy Flanders.
  20. Re:Thank GOD I was born in 1956! by dogfart · · Score: 2, Funny
    In the 1980s we would have said:

    Can you imagine driving your (due to be paid off in 1995) BMW home from your job as a DEC VAX System Analyst to the Condo you'll be working for the rest of your life to pay off, grabbing a California Cooler from the fridge to go with the sushi you got from the nearest Japanese place, and watching MTV (some things havent changed in 20 yrs) for a while before spending the rest of the evening playing PACMAN while listening to Depeche Mode CDs, until you get a message on your answering machine that says "wanna do some coke" or some such nonsense?

    And it WAS hell

    --

    "dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope"

  21. People try to p-p-p-put us down by sv0f · · Score: 3, Funny

    Just because the N-N-N-NASDAQ's down.

  22. I'd rather think of myself as... by Chris+Y+Taylor · · Score: 5, Funny

    http://www.inthe80s.com/dynamic/child8e.shtml

  23. Re:Thank GOD I was born in 1956! by KlomDark · · Score: 5, Funny

    "watching MTV (some things havent changed in 20 yrs)"

    Except that 20 years ago, MTV played videos, now it's just a bunch of really low-mentality "Stuffed morons at the beach" type shows. WTF happened?

  24. Re:US stats even worse by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Or we could just start issuing hunting licensces for old people. If every Gen X'er kills ten people who are 50 or older, we could save this country MILLIONS!

  25. Re:what a load... by argStyopa · · Score: 5, Funny

    heh heh heh, well, that was cheaper than $300 an hour to rant to a psychiatrist. :)

    --
    -Styopa
  26. Re:grasshopper and the ant by Arthur+Dent · · Score: 2, Funny
    You mean this one?

    The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. When winter comes, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving. CBS, NBC and ABC show up and provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to film of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.

    America is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can it be that, in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so? Then a representative of the NAAGB (The National Association for the Advancement of Green Bugs) shows up on Nightline and charges the ant with "Green Bias" and makes the case that the grasshopper is the victim of 30 million years of greenism.

    Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper, and everybody cries when he sings It's Not Easy Being Green. Bill and Hillary Clinton make a special guest appearance on the CBS Evening News and tell a concerned Dan Rather that they will do everything they can for the grasshopper who has been denied the prosperity he deserves by those who benefited unfairly during the greedy Clintonian summers, or as Greenspan refers to it, the "Irrational Exhuberance of the 00's."

    Richard Gephardt exclaims in an interview with Peter Jennings that the Ant has gotten rich off the "back of the grasshopper", and calls for an immediate tax hike on the Ant to make him pay his "fair share."

    Finally the World Trade Organization drafts the "Economic Equity and Anti-Greenism Act," retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of green bugs and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the government. Hillary gets her old law firm to represent the grasshopper in a defamation suit against the ant, and the case is tried before a panel of federal judges that Bush appointed from a list of single-parent welfare moms who can only hear cases on Thursday afternoon between 1:30 and 3:00 PM when there are no talk shows scheduled.

    The ant loses the case.

    The story ends as we see the grasshopper finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the government house he's in -which just happens to be the ant's old house - crumbles around him since he doesn't know how to maintain it. The ant has disappeared in the snow.

    And on the TV, which the grasshopper bought by selling most of the ant's food, they are showing Al Gore standing before a wildly applauding group of Democrats announcing that a new era of "Fairness" has dawned in America.

  27. Re: I have to save, save, save. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Excellent. You start saving while I continue to have fun.

    Then, when civilization collapses, I come and shoot you, take your money and resources, and then have a very good laugh.

    Get moving!

  28. Re:It's not just the Xers who are in trouble by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    You also don't know what a paragraph is.