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Comment by rphlx | Hacker News Reader

Perhaps if the baby boomers didn't rig the financial system in their favor, inflate housing prices, crash the dollar, grant themselves unfunded medicare and social security benefits for their vastly extended lifespan, increase college and healthcare costs 20-40%/yr, start two hugely expensive and mostly pointless wars, burn half the world's oil, scalp the science/tech sectors that their parents built for WWII and the space race, replacing them with finance/real estate ponzi schemes to extend an empty consumer lifestyle, and then outsource virtually everything except for senior executive and imigrant service jobs, their kids could start their own lives?

Just sayin.

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Couldn't agree more. I'm 23. When my father entered the workforce there was a clear expectation of lifetime employment and a very nice set of increasingly better benefits and career opportunities with time. I worked in the same company a few years ago and the outlook is completely different.

Because of this outlook I decided that I'd be better off working as a consultant and travelling. Really, I see little benefit to working in a corporation when we have today's lack of job security.

And with the exorbitant cost of real estate, which is several times what my parents had to deal with during their time, I see no reason to stay in one place when it'd be actually easier to move around.

The cost-benefit relation to having a commitment to a company and place is not the same as it was before. At least that's the way I see it.

Those are the cards you have been dealt. Now you can either complain about it or you can take action and get yourself ahead. That's part of being an adult. Part of being an adolescent is pointless raging against the machine.

Yes the unfunded social security and medicare is a disaster, but it's not going away, so all people in their 20's now will have to start working out ways around this particular problem.

That is a false choice. You can complain while at the same time taking action.

Correctly pointed out. I should further this and say 'you can either invest your energy in complaining or invest it in getting ahead'.

My take on it is that spending time on negative emotions like this gives yourself an excuse to fail.

True, but I think maybe rphlx didn't so much mean to rant himself as explain the questions the article raised. As a 20-something who agrees with him, it is annoying to see these articles which paint my generation in this negative light by members of the older generation who have dealt us a pretty crappy hand.

Your comment reminded me of this op-ed (also NYT, 2005): http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/01/opinion/01kristof.html?_r=...

I don't know, a lot of those aren't really the fault of baby boomers. It's more just government subsidies in these specific areas, which end up distorting prices and incentivizing certain behaviours. The Federal Government provides loans and subsidies for healthcare, education, housing and defense spending, so it shouldn't be a surprise that you end up with massive increases in house prices, tuition, healthcare and war costs.

Speaking as a 28 year who has not yet "grown up" (as defined by the nytimes), I think those of us who find ourselves in this situation shouldn't seek to blame anyone else, least of all the baby boomers. We should remember the good things that the baby boom generation in America has done, like:

- protesting the Vietnam war, which was started and heavily supported by the "greatest generation"

- pushing for Civil Rights legislation in the U.S. for women and minorities

- creating greater awareness of environmental problems, and spreading the belief that we must be proper stewards of our planet, not only for own survival but also for future generations

- developing the computer hardware, software and telecommunications industries, which has made an incredibly positive change in the lives of billions (including all of us here who have these advancements to thank for our livelihood)

Question of the day;

Is opting out becoming easier, or is the beaten path simply becoming so hard that opting out is easier by comparison?

Full disclosure: Perpetual traveller, about as far as it is possible to opt out of the expectations discussed in the article.

The previous two generations have created a system wherein the young subsidize the old. They've placed expectations on the young (go to college, buy a house, etc.) that have led to inflated demand and therefore inflated costs, and they've positioned themselves to profit from it all. And then they get upset at the "kids" who either (1) choose not to dive headfirst into that system but instead to use their parents' built-in advantages to get ahead, or (2) get confused by the system and struggle to get started in it.

Can we be friends?

Sure! I'm not much fun at parties though.

Ditto.

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