Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Did Baby Boomers Break America? (time.com)
"Automation taking jobs is only one symptom of a larger problem," argues an anonymous Slashdot reader, sharing a link to this excerpt from Steven Brill's new book Tailspin, which seeks to identify "the people and forces behind America's fifty-year fall -- and those fighting to reverse it." The excerpt has this intriguing title: "How Baby Boomers Broke America."
As my generation of achievers graduated from elite universities and moved into the professional world, their personal successes often had serious societal consequences. They upended corporate America and Wall Street with inventions in law and finance that created an economy built on deals that moved assets around instead of building new ones. They created exotic, and risky, financial instruments, including derivatives and credit default swaps, that produced sugar highs of immediate profits but separated those taking the risk from those who would bear the consequences. They organized hedge funds that turned owning stock into a minute-by-minute bet rather than a long-term investment... Regulatory agencies were overwhelmed by battalions of lawyers who brilliantly weaponized the bedrock American value of due process so that, for example, an Occupational Safety and Health Administration rule protecting workers from a deadly chemical could be challenged and delayed for more than a decade and end up being hundreds of pages long. Lawyers then contested the meaning of every clause while racking up fees of hundreds of dollars per hour from clients who were saving millions of dollars on every clause they could water down...
As government was disabled from delivering on vital issues, the protected were able to protect themselves still more. For them, it was all about building their own moats. Their money, their power, their lobbyists, their lawyers, their drive overwhelmed the institutions that were supposed to hold them accountable -- government agencies, Congress, the courts... That, rather than a split between Democrats and Republicans, is the real polarization that has broken America since the 1960s. It's the protected vs. the unprotected, the common good vs. maximizing and protecting the elite winners' winnings... [I]n a way unprecedented in history, they were able to consolidate their winnings, outsmart and co-opt the forces that might have reined them in, and pull up the ladder so more could not share in their success or challenge their primacy.
Brill argues that the unprotected need things like "a realistic shot at justice in the courts," writing that instead "the First Amendment became a tool for the wealthy to put a thumb on the scales of democracy." And he shares these statistics about the rest of America today:
As government was disabled from delivering on vital issues, the protected were able to protect themselves still more. For them, it was all about building their own moats. Their money, their power, their lobbyists, their lawyers, their drive overwhelmed the institutions that were supposed to hold them accountable -- government agencies, Congress, the courts... That, rather than a split between Democrats and Republicans, is the real polarization that has broken America since the 1960s. It's the protected vs. the unprotected, the common good vs. maximizing and protecting the elite winners' winnings... [I]n a way unprecedented in history, they were able to consolidate their winnings, outsmart and co-opt the forces that might have reined them in, and pull up the ladder so more could not share in their success or challenge their primacy.
Brill argues that the unprotected need things like "a realistic shot at justice in the courts," writing that instead "the First Amendment became a tool for the wealthy to put a thumb on the scales of democracy." And he shares these statistics about the rest of America today:
- For adults in their 30s, the chance of earning more than their parents dropped to 50% from 90% just two generations earlier.
- In 2017, household debt had grown higher than the peak reached in 2008 before the crash, with student and automobile loans staking growing claims on family paychecks.
- Although the U.S. remains the world's richest country, it has the third-highest poverty rate among the 35 nations in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development...
Has he identified the source of a societal malaise? Leave your own thoughts in the comments.
And is Brill's thesis correct? Did baby boomers break America?
Boomers broke the planet, never mind just the US. The global economic crisis, unaffordable housing, climate change, student debt, the pensions crisis... Many countries are suffering from their mistakes.
That's not too only malice, although it is frustrating that there is so little willingness to fix things now. Us gen X are in the middle, struggling a bit but also aware of how much more screwed millennials are.
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Eh, there are legal ways to give you as much spending as you want (e.g. Super PACs) and the GP is probably also talking about lobbying, not just campaign contributions. These are about the most corrupt things you can have in a government system, indeed called "bribery" everywhere else, and you just "institutionalize" it so you can "control" it and call it a day.
It is fucked up. And just one of the aspects of the US political system that is undemocratic.
Isn't that a question of density of population? Like in population has grown so much that everything is getting scarcer for everybody. I know the US are huge (I'm European), but nonetheless, some areas are so overcrowded that it's impossible but for the wealthiest to buy a property. The same goes for jobs: there are already a million people with the same skills than you but better at them, and available from all over the world thanks to globalization. It's becoming more and more difficult to stand out and not just be useless. You can make similar reasoning for almost all the things that people in their 30s have more difficulties to obtain than their parent. Isn't that all linked to the size of the population compared to the size of our little planet?
Video of some good progressive thrash music
millennials: treating games like real life.
That doesn't sound right, but I don't know enough about the Civil War to dispute it.
Na, just kidding.
South Carolina
A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that “Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free,” and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction. This sectional combination for the submersion of the Constitution, has been aided in some of the States by elevating to citizenship, persons who, by the supreme law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens; and their votes have been used to inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the South, and destructive of its beliefs and safety.
Mississippi
Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery—the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin
Louisiana
As a separate republic, Louisiana remembers too well the whisperings of European diplomacy for the abolition of slavery in the times of annexation not to be apprehensive of bolder demonstrations from the same quarter and the North in this country. The people of the slave holding States are bound together by the same necessity and determination to preserve African slavery.
Alabama
Upon the principles then announced by Mr. Lincoln and his leading friends, we are bound to expect his administration to be conducted. Hence it is, that in high places, among the Republican party, the election of Mr. Lincoln is hailed, not simply as it change of Administration, but as the inauguration of new principles, and a new theory of Government, and even as the downfall of slavery. Therefore it is that the election of Mr. Lincoln cannot be regarded otherwise than a solemn declaration, on the part of a great majority of the Northern people, of hostility to the South, her property and her institutions—nothing less than an open declaration of war—for the triumph of this new theory of Government destroys the property of the South, lays waste her fields, and inaugurates all the horrors of a San Domingo servile insurrection, consigning her citizens to assassinations, and. her wives and daughters to pollution and violation, to gratify the lust of half-civilized
If ordinary Americans want better lives for themselves then they need to take a hard look in the mirror and resolve to be better people: more honest, more generous, and with much more integrity.
Having been to other countries, Americans are plenty honest, generous and upstanding. I've met maybe 3 Americans lie or act disrespectfully towards me, out of thousands. Most of them go out of their way to help.
The problem is, none of those attributes actually make anyone wealthy. Do you ever wonder why "making an honest living" is synonymous with not being rich? If anything, Americans are too naive and trusting. Just by being told "I'm going to bring back jobs", half of the country votes for Trump. Nevermind that he's a billionaire who could not possibly understand what poor folks go through, or the fact that the only thing of note that he did so far was giving himself a tax cut.
Life is objectively, scientifically going downhill. I don't blame the boomers for anything, but they did live their lives on the top of the hill, being born after a long ascent from badness, and dying just before a clear and obvious descent into badness that will probably span hundreds of years.
This is reality:
https://www.theguardian.com/en...
And this:
https://www.theatlantic.com/in...
And I could give you loads more from reputable government, scientific and military sources detailing coming food security crises, mass refugee chaos and other hell coming from perfect storm of global problems. The unique stress young people today face doesn't come from badness in the present moment, but rather well justified anxiety of what the future holds.
-The art of programming is the pursuit of absolute simplicity.
I have to lay it at the feet of Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of Economics.
He shilled for the very wealthy who had gotten the short end of the stick (very high progressive taxation) as a result of the Keynsian New Deal
While he was not actually from the Baby Boomer generation, his ideas influence them to behave how the author describes.
The only thing wrong with people is their internal attitude and their sponge like ability to soak up bad news, and as much as people make up the country that is what is wrong with the country.
There's a simple fix for the current political situation:
1. Ignore all news/media/talking heads/fear mongers
2. Vote for a third party
Only when you have a third party (even a crazy one) that can alter the balance of power, will those in power start listening to the voters.
If ordinary Americans want better lives for themselves then they need to take a hard look in the mirror and resolve to be better people: more honest, more generous, and with much more integrity.
It's easier than that. Stop voting for only Democrat or Republican.
Get a third party in the mix with some double digit voter turnout then watch the how the game changes.