The goes around comes around conclusion might mean that age warfare was not the actual premise of the article.
The idea of age warfare is evolving as a theme and while I think it can be productive to look at past behaviors/mistakes and try to learn from them I don't think blaming a previous generation for today's problems is anything but a copout. The debt that has been incurred over the last 10-20 years (or any other timeframe you care to think about) will be a burden for some lengthy period of time but the impression I took from the article was something of a woe is me, how will we ever succeed mentality.
Many aspects of being an adult in this country are different than they were in 1980. Similarly being an adult in 1980 was different than being an adult in 1950 and so on, things are always changing. It seems plausible that 2012 is a more difficult time to be a productive adult than it was in 1980 however I have to think it was more difficult still in 1935 versus 1980 or now.
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When I was 18 someone said to me that you start making money in your 30s and 40s. I think that presumes that you've slotted into some sort of career track by your late 20s but if people who are today in their 40s got a later start for whatever reason then some of the complaints in the above linked article have been 15-20 years in the making. I would submit that things changed (as they always do) and recognition and adaptation was somehow hard to come by for a particular age group.
As I read the article it seemed like the 34 year old author wanted society to solve the problems that his generation is having. No one will care more about your problems than you will and there is no better solution to your problems than the one you create. There will always be something of a social safety net but hopefully it is obvious that the less reliance on that safety net the better off we'll be.
What happens if there is means testing for social security and what if people with a lot less money than you might think get tested out of a large chunk of what they think they will get? That is a problem that I think is very much a real possibility for people today who under the age of 50. Someone who is today 40 years old has enough time to at least partially mitigate that outcome.
This really is a bootstraps post. People who figure this stuff out for themselves will be much better off in the long run.
6 comments:
"No one will care more about your problems than you will and there is no better solution to your problems than the one you create." One of the best sentences I've read lately because I find it to be so true. Thank you.
My 28 year old son and I had a similar conversation not too long ago about the challenges his generation has to face versus the challenges previous generations, mine included, faced. I believe that my son's generations most immediate problem will be dealing with the gov't debt and unsustainable social programs it inherits from my generation. I believe the solution will be a combination of reduced benefits and higher taxes and inflation, all of which work to lower the standard of living for his generation. This lowering of the standard of living will be mitigated somewhat by increases in productivity.
I have heard the Fed is financing a significant portion of the current deficit ($1T+/year). Two questions that perhaps some of the more knowledgeable RR reader community could address: (1) What percentage of the deficit does the Fed finance? (2) Where does the Fed get its money and what does it represent. By this, I mean "money" is supposed to represent a store of value (ex: $100 equals 1 to 10 hours of work, depending on the work and who does it). Or, a dollar that the gov't spends represents a dollar's worth of work produced by someone that was taken by the gov't to pay for whatever gov't program it was spent on. If the Fed merely "prints" money to fund its purchases of gov't debt, what is the authority for the printing and what does the money it prints represent? My fear is that it represents nothing and will ultimately just devalue the money that we all have worked for. Responses requested. Thank you.
Anon 8:47AM, that is several very big questions packed into a bunch and even those who think they know the answers probably don't all of it including me; i.e., any short answer would be misleading and likely an outcome of ignorance. As Josh Billings once quipped, "It ain’t what we don’t know that gives us trouble, it’s what we know that just ain’t so." (Mark Twain is reputed to have loved this quote)
If you are genuinely curious and not looking for the short answer then bravo; this site at http://wfhummel.cnchost.com/index.html will provide all you need to understand what money is.
I can answer a little bit of the question though: as a matter of law only the US Treasury has the power to 'print' money and it does that through spending; not coincidentally it also has the authority to 'destroy' money through taxes. The Fed does not have that kind of power but the relationship between it and the Treasury is more complicated than a matter of statutory authority; e.g., the Fed can issue notes the Treasury must honor.
Hadn't heard of this outfit before but, speaking of taking care of your own business, this resource at http://www.brightscope.com/ratings/ rates the 401k plans of more than 46,000 companies; if you're employed at or own one of them you can see how your plan stacks up. There are other goodies on the main page. Nice.
It's a crisp, clear beautiful Fall day and I've got grapes ready to harvest but really feel the need to do a little more fishing; decisions, decisions.
8:47,
From a pragmatic viewpoint, isn't the only thing that really matters is how one fares RELATIVE to everyone else? We're all in the same ebb tides and slack tides together.
My children have never complained about their elders and money.
First,they are all well educated and in excellent jobs.
Second, the first one who bitches gets cut out of the will.
:)
T
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