Boom or bust!
It’s the Yin and Yang of life and all you need know about economics.
Whether you choose to ride the wave of a boom or worm your way through the underbelly of a bust is your business. But, operating efficiently in either is key.
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Baby boomers, it seems, woke up yesterday.
“Gosh!” They say, “The Greatest Generation was also the greatest group of hoarders, breeders, savers, users, agers, self-aggrandizing bunch of pension depleters in America’s history.”
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They suffered through the Great Depression, lost their youth to World War II, and came home to make babies, recover lost time, and make certain it would always be about them.
Yes, it is a fantastic study in riding the boom after experiencing the big bust!
Baby Boomers (the oozy creamed filled middle) are sandwiched between these greatest beneficiaries and their own children (Generations X and Y).
Boomers discovered (too late) that they were the big wide base upon which the giant beneficiary pyramids of the FDR and LBJ era were built. You know, those good ol’ boy Ponzi schemes like Social Security, soon to be insolvent.
Boomers, however, were the great beneficiaries of better living through chemistry as in reliable birth control. And well, the rest is as they say, ‘in the pudding’—fewer people around to pay into those great Ponzi bonanzas!
The result?
In just one generation hope vanished like hula-hoops and hot pink velour hot pants.
No longer can boomers expect to retire on social security—with a defined benefits plan (or any retirement plan for that matter)— or off their worth-less 401K’s, the sale of their devalued homes, or their unemployed children’s generosity.
Tomorrow’s holiday, Thanksgiving, is the symbolic fête of a Boom after a Bust.
It is also a very big nod to the kindness of strangers. For, without the aid of Squanto who taught the Pilgrims how to plant corn, tap maple trees, fish, hunt, and avoid poisonous plants, their expectation of freely practicing their religious faith would not have been even remotely possible.
So, while that 40-something, head in the clouds, economist Edward Glaser extols the virtues of employment into your seventies (NY Times article, Goodbye, Golden Years) Boomers should take heart, raise a toast to family, and lower their expectations for retirement.
Perhaps, like the Pilgrims, the future for Boomers will likewise depend upon the ‘kindness of strangers’.
