Warning: Beware Automation Sedation

[gordo]

OK I'm (Boomer) in! :-D

The entitlement thing is really interesting and it's perversely hilarious that the Boomers and GenX blame us for it because they created it, preached it and are now suffering the consequences. Generationally we were constantly told by our parents, teachers and figures of authority that we were special and that we could do anything we wanted.

I sure agree - everyone gets a medal at the school's sports day. "Good Job!" But I don't think it was the Boomers that had that attitude. I blame it on our progeny: Gen X.

We were constantly told if we didn't graduate high school and go to a university we'd be delegated to a horrible life of running a fryer at McDonalds. But that if we graduated college (not in any specific program mind you) that life would be a paradise of milk and honey and we'd never have to take a shitty job or work for less than an upper middle class salary.

Boomers were told the same thing.

Technical jobs or "trade" jobs were never mentioned as opportunities in my high school despite coming from a very rural and blue collar area.

Trade jobs were for the less...ummm...gifted. Once I left university I realized that while I was in school the trade folks snagged all the high paying jobs. They still do!

While I was in college the Boomers and GenX crashed the economy by borrowing too much while simultaneously telling us to borrow our way though university.

I don't think I agree with that.

Add on the fact that globalization (what feels to the American middle class like a race to one behemoth global lower middle class ruled by tiny corporate oligarchy) is gutting the modern lifestyle expectations of the US worker built upon mid to late 20th century norms. Probably those are unsustainable but they did set our expectations.

War and post war rebuilding are often good for the economy. Maybe that's why the US has been pretty much at war since 1776 ( �America Has Been At War 93% of the Time � 222 Out of 239 Years � Since 1776� :� Information Clearing House - ICH )

Boomers and GenX also expect us to pick up the bill for climate change, their healthcare, infrastructure rebuilding and their retirement welfare. It doesn't help they also let the government kill pensions through empowering Wall street sucking up a crazy amount of their retirement money through 401k. It also doesn't help they en masse borrowed and borrowed and borrowed and didn't bother to save for retirement.

A lot of us couldn't save much due to high taxes and cost of living leaving not much left to save (at least in Canaduh).
Climate change is about greed, cheap energy to fuel the economy, political systems that make changes for long term benefit impossible, and an inability of corporations to make an economic argument for changing.
Healthcare works in most countries that have universal health coverage - the US seems not to be able to figure it out.

To top it all off they'll be damned if we are going to make any social progress like gay marriage, immigration reform, end the war on drugs, etc. 'cause when they're not busy bitching about us, holding on to jobs and fighting the future they go vote and we don't.

I don't think it's the boomers who are against gay marriage. When Canaduh legalized gay marriage it barely made the news and we've sure got a lot of boomers here.
I think the US is totally at odds with itself about immigration in a way that few other countries are about it in their countries. I don't see how the US can sort that one out.
And drugs? Which generation embraced drugs like no other? The Boomers! "Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out" ( Turn on, tune in, drop out - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia )

I don't buy the lazy bit. Most everyone my age I know wants to work and earn. They just aren't willing to take ~$20 an hour for an engineering position which requires a masters degree and government licensing when 2/3 of their income will be towards paying off student loan debt.

Some countries have the student loans get paid off through income tax levies. So, if your degree increases your income - that's how you pay it back.

They don't want to do inside sales and order entry when they educationally attained more in 4 years of business school than the CEO did with his MBA in the 90s. My sister-in-law (the absolute end of the millennial generation [born '99]) is actually at a public high school and has so much homework that I really don't believe that she could handle working a part time job (if she could find one) and keep up her grades. Her curriculum is also twice as hard as mine was (probably a good thing). When they get to university the amount of material covered is a paradigm shift or two more than what was covered only as a decade ago (we're figuring a lot of shit out a lot faster - hooray science!).

I have no experience on that.

I'm very hard on the Boomers and GenX. They got to have all the sex without fear of AIDs, do all the drugs without fear of life imprisonment or a black mark against employment for life, and got the best music at its freshest.

OI! There were STDs then too, maybe not AIDs but a few that could make your delicate bits drop off and other horrors. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twwVISQ_Frg )
We got busted for drugs and even went to jail. A US buddy of mine was busted in the late 60s for carrying some weed in the US south east but got to Canaduh before his case came to trial. In 1998 he went back to the US to clear his history. They put him in jail for two years.
Ah, the music - before the corporations and accountants took control. No quarrels there.

Then they borrowed their way through life and left us to pick up the bill and clean up the mess. We are a discouraged generation with a load on our plates that hasn't been seen since the Greatest Generation.

Yup. You've got a hard road to walk. But there's also a lot of opportunity.

Would you be eager to work your ass off for some faceless corporation who'll lay you off without warning from your mediocre job that'll leave you living a lifestyle less than then one you were raised in? I don't let this keep me down but a lot of people do.

It has always been that way ( about the threat of being laid off ).
Of course I don't remember much about that time which is how I know I lived it.