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War Against Youth?

who is going to have the balls to say "screw you old people who have nothing better to do than pay attention to all of this stuff, and most importantly, VOTE in huge blocks." nobody.

it has nothing to do with a particular party.
 
Milhouse said:
who is going to have the balls to say "screw you old people who have nothing better to do than pay attention to all of this stuff, and most importantly, VOTE in huge blocks." nobody.

it has nothing to do with a particular party.
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Agreed.

There is a huge generation of 17-30 year olds out there though as well. If they could be mobilized to tighten the reigns we'd have some hope. But until that big weight above all of us goes away we're all sort of stuck.
 
Boomsday-cover.jpg
 
who are they going to vote for that will do something about it?

nobody
 
Until we have a party that's willing to cut entitlements for the elderly and raise taxes we're fucked
 
bobknightfan said:
Sorry, but that's just a copout. Politicians use the "squeaky wheel" theory in making their decisions. They are more likely to be swayed by the majority of people they hear...and who are going to vote. Which age group is most likely to be reliable votes on constituent issues? If enough people feel strongly enough about something....and follow up that feeling with action (read: votes), they can get something done. It seems to me that a lot of people want to bitch about what they feel is wrong, but aren't willing to take time from their "busy" schedule to actually get out there to work and try to change it. Your response is an example of that.

It's like someone once told me: "Wish in one hand and shit in the other....and see which one gets full first."
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your post is a whole lot of bullshit
 
bobknightfan said:
Sorry, but that's just a copout. Politicians use the "squeaky wheel" theory in making their decisions. They are more likely to be swayed by the majority of people they hear...and who are going to vote. Which age group is most likely to be reliable votes on constituent issues? If enough people feel strongly enough about something....and follow up that feeling with action (read: votes), they can get something done. It seems to me that a lot of people want to bitch about what they feel is wrong, but aren't willing to take time from their "busy" schedule to actually get out there to work and try to change it. Your response is an example of that.

It's like someone once told me: "Wish in one hand and shit in the other....and see which one gets full first."
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Young people are trying to get their lives and careers going. They don't have time to be squeaky wheels. On the other hand, old people are trying to run out the clock by seeing how much they can get the government to do for them.
 
Shorty said:
You can sort of see how that statement coming from the person she raised, fed, clothed, put through school, etc. could be a bit off-putting, tight?
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Oh yeah. But at least I recognize that I'm being selfish about some of the things I take for granted. I'll say something like, "I can't believe that we're doing such and such as a nation." And she'll defend it. She hates Obamacare, because she's aftraid that she's not going to get the healthcare she needs in her old age, fuck everybody else.

Baby boomers act like they have a birth right to everything in the world because they're the offspring of the generation that conquered the world for America.
 
bobknightfan said:
You've got it wrong. Until we have enough people (read: voters) who are willing to have entitlements cut & taxes raised, we are fucked. The politicians don't care. They are just doing what will get them re-elected....and the problem right now is that they know if they come out for entitlement cuts and increased taxes they will get their heads handed to them on a platter. This situation is our own fault....not the politicians. The anger should be directed at ourselves. The politicians are only doing what the majority of the voters evidently want them to do. So blaming the politicians is a copout, too.
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good to know!
 
bobknightfan said:
You've got it wrong. Until we have enough people (read: voters) who are willing to have entitlements cut & taxes raised, we are fucked. The politicians don't care. They are just doing what will get them re-elected....and the problem right now is that they know if they come out for entitlement cuts and increased taxes they will get their heads handed to them on a platter. This situation is our own fault....not the politicians. The anger should be directed at ourselves. The politicians are only doing what the majority of the voters evidently want them to do. So blaming the politicians is a copout, too.
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Oh I'm aware the political parties are a direct reflection of the electorate. I was just being simplistic.

Trust me I hate pretty much every part of society. The old for being greedy bastards; the young for being spoiled, lazy assholes; the rich for guarding all their money and buying their way around legislation; the poor for complaining all day instead of working to get out of poverty. I hate everybody.
 
DeacMan said:
When I went off to grad school I spent my first year living in a delapidated dorm (that has since been torn down) eating crappy cafeteria food and walking or riding the bus everywhere I want to go. I had no cable TV. I did have a computer (there was no internet). That wasn't "roughing" it. It's how most of my classmates lived. And school was still too f'in expensive.
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I agree, grad school is different. Many see it as a decision to be temporarily poor. I was talking about working people.
 
We need a system like the NFL's rookie wage scale. It would only allow youth to gain a certain percentage of power. As they become older they can gain more power. I am half serious/half kidding.
 
york1313 said:
We need a system like the NFL's rookie wage scale. It would only allow youth to gain a certain percentage of power. As they become older they can gain more power. I am half serious/half kidding.
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That's what we do have in the real world.
 
PhDeac said:
That's what we do have in the real world.
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I don't think so. An 18 year old's vote equals a 98 year old's vote. The older population is seen more as in the way than a valuable resource. Companies fire older, experienced employees to make room for the younger who have degrees, but not real world experience.
 
Another problem with the article is that it kind of gives short shrift to legitimate claims of older folks. It's not fair to just take away old folks' vested benefits because we couldn't recognize how expensive they'd be when we offered them 30 years ago. A lot of my friends' parents are banking on (or already benefiting from) some pretty sweet government pensions/healthcare plans that, in retrospect, were way too generous. But they took the deal back in the 70s and worked 30+ years to fulfill their end of the bargain. I can't blame them for wanting the government to honor its end of the bargain.

Also, getting old really seems to suck. It's easy to say old people are wasting our money on healthcare, but we're not experiencing the pain.
 
deacz said:
The most staggering fact in that article to me was the percentage increase in national debt-to-GDP ratio under Bush. It demonstrates an absolute systemic failure in our political system. You cannot trust any politician to truly attack this issue, whether a "conservative" Republican or Democrat.
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Or young, or old, or in-between. And that right there is why we're screwed. We're already busting through our newest debt-ceiling increase and no one is even expressing concern.

As a boomer myself, I admit that my generation is guilty of creating the problem through our lack of action regarding entitlements. We did not put these hosed-up programs in place - we inherited Social Security and Medicare from the generations preceding us. But we are obviously an enormous lump in the population and we've done nothing to address the problems some saw coming decades ago. Guilty as charged.

But the politicians of subsequent generations are picking up right where we left off. A quick wikipedia search of the 112th congress by age shows 119 members who are gen X. I have not read about any groundswell from that group regarding entitlement cuts. Politicians of all generations are cowards when it comes to making painful decisions. They would all rather get re-elected than do the right thing for the country. We will be Greece on steroids before anything is done.
 
ProfessorDeac said:
Another problem with the article is that it kind of gives short shrift to legitimate claims of older folks. It's not fair to just take away old folks' vested benefits because we couldn't recognize how expensive they'd be when we offered them 30 years ago. A lot of my friends' parents are banking on (or already benefiting from) some pretty sweet government pensions/healthcare plans that, in retrospect, were way too generous. But they took the deal back in the 70s and worked 30+ years to fulfill their end of the bargain. I can't blame them for wanting the government to honor its end of the bargain.

Also, getting old really seems to suck. It's easy to say old people are wasting our money on healthcare, but we're not experiencing the pain.
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Eh, maybe in the 70s and into the early 80s people still had faith in those pensions, but I think by about 1990 when manufacturing was really drying up everyone with a brain realized that they were an unsustainable sham. Though it makes me feel old, that was over 20 years ago now, so I don't have much sympathy for someone who is starting to complain that he has put in his 20 and demands his bennies. At a certain point, having your head in the sand is not a valid excuse.
 
2&2 Slider To Leyritz said:
Eh, maybe in the 70s and into the early 80s people still had faith in those pensions, but I think by about 1990 when manufacturing was really drying up everyone with a brain realized that they were an unsustainable sham. Though it makes me feel old, that was over 20 years ago now, so I don't have much sympathy for someone who is starting to complain that he has put in his 20 and demands his bennies. At a certain point, having your head in the sand is not a valid excuse.
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Horseshit. If you contract with somebody to provide you certain benefits in exchange for you working for them you are entitled to those benefits. That was just as true in 1990 as it was in 1970.
 
york1313 said:
I don't think so. An 18 year old's vote equals a 98 year old's vote. The older population is seen more as in the way than a valuable resource. Companies fire older, experienced employees to make room for the younger who have degrees, but not real world experience.
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So does the NFL.
 
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