Is the Future Going Down the Drain? Baby Boomers Going Bust

[babylonsister]

Is the Future Going Down the Drain? Baby Boomers Going Bust

By Alexander Zaitchik, AlterNet. Posted March 6, 2009.

Millions of boomers born into the dawn of the largest economic expansion in history are being forced to re-imagine their retirement futures.


It all happened faster than you can say, “senior discount.”

Millions of baby boomers born into the dawn of the most spectacular economic expansion in history are being forced to re-imagine their retirement futures. Few news outlets have failed to seize upon the low-hanging pun: the boomers have gone bust.

Among the adjustments forced by the new circumstances, perhaps the cruelest twist for many boomers is the need to join younger generations in the roommate queue. The housing crash has forced record numbers of late-middle age homeowners to take in boarders or risk becoming boarders themselves. From California to Vermont, home-share organizations founded to assist the elderly are scrambling to meet the demands of newly bust boomers.

“In the last few months we've experienced explosive growth in interest by homeowners age 50-plus to find rooms and roommates,” says Jacqueline Grossmann, Chicago coordinator for the National Shared Housing Resource Center. “The trend now is getting younger and younger. People in their 50s and 60s are losing their nest eggs and increasingly willing to give up their privacy in exchange for rents of $500, $600 a month.”

“We've seen a 400 percent increase over the last few months of people nearing retirement age,” says Rita Zadoff, director of Housemate Match, a shared-housing program serving the Atlanta area. “We haven't been this busy since we helped Katrina victims find housing.”

Kirby Dunn of Home Share Vermont reports a “huge increase” of boomers seeking roommates in the last six months. “There has been a dramatic shift from elderly clients seeking a 'protective presence' to younger people with 'too much house' seeking financial help to make mortgage and utility payments,” she says.

more...

http://www.alternet.org/workplace/130361/is_the_future_going_down_the_drain_baby_boomers_going_bust/?page=entire

[MADem]

1. Kind of a drag....

You spend your whole life trying to shape your career and plan for your golden years, and your golden years are way too similar to your college years. I suppose if the futon is comfortable and you're into smoking herbs, you could make it reasonably amusing, but it's gotta not be the life that so many had planned for themselves.

[Demeter]

2. Hope It Makes All The Boomer Critics Happy

because it's not just Boomers who are suffering for this catastrophe set up by their Elders!

This fiasco has been the GOP game plan since Nixon. Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush, Bush 2...the heritage of the crisis is plain to see. Boomers neither caused this crisis by their actions, nor endorsed the game plan. But thanks to a supine, bought-out media, a corrupt Wall Street AND Main Street, and quivering, cowardly Democrats in Congress, we are ALL brought low.

The real justice is those with the most to lose (the originators and promulgators of this collapse) will very likely be the ones most badly hit, now and in the future. They wanted a revolution, but they aren't going to like the one they get!

[Tyrone Slothrop]

3. You can't simply blame it on the Presidents

Those people were all elected by the American people after all...(well, with the exception of Ford).

This is what the people wanted.

[Demeter]

4. That's a Bad Assumption on Its Face

[bemildred]

5. The system was rigged.

Much has been swept under the rug. That the public bought it does not in any way exonerate the people who rigged the results for self-serving reasons.

[Raphael88]

6. Baby Boomers Setting... Gen X Rising

Perhaps, but you know, the Baby Boomer generation (1939-1953) ~ at least the first wave of this generation, has had it all, and has spent the last 40 years continuing a cultural inter-generational war that did not end when the Baby Boomers entered societal power in 1992-93.

Since that time, the boomer generation has failed all institutions, and we now see the result in the global economic crisis and the coming of The Second Great Depression.

Barack Obama is the first Generation X President, and the time is now here for Generation X, the children born in the 1960s and 1970s to take over societal power. We are in the midst of a generational transition from the baby boomer generation to Generation X.

I've been seeing this coming for a long time now, and there's a lot of talk about this already having been forecasted:

See ~ http://www.fourthturning.com/html/

See ~ http://www.fourthturning.com/forum/index.php

[BirminghamExaminer]

7. That's a sweeping generalization

I was born in 1958 and have never "had it all." We're all in the same boat basically, the truth is that people were fooled into believing a lot of stuff that began with Reagan. I was a young adult when Reagan came into office and soon afterward noticed that corporations and companies that had given pensions and health insurance, etc., gave less and less while their CEOs got more and more. It seems that within just a few short years you were no longer supposed to depend on pensions but start saving for your own retirement through 401Ks, etc.

Suddenly white collar workers were supposed to buy into the stock market when they never had before.

I don't have a retirement or a 401K or a stock portfolio. I run a used, antiquarian books store business and pay my own health insurance which is $1100 a month for my husband and me.

The so-called delineation of people into constraints based on the year they were born is absurd. Being born in a certain era doesn't make you smarter or less evil or more greedy than others. The only cultural inter-generational war that exists is the one in your mind.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

11. I was born in 1950, and I've never

owned a house or a new car. I've spent my entire adult life as a graduate student, a low-ranking teacher, and a free-lancer. I'm not complaining, but I deeply resent younger people insinuating that I lived high on the hog all my life.

The one thing I'll say is that college, especially state colleges, was a lot cheaper when I was young.

[diane in sf]

8. bullshit, born in 52, never had it all, every time the repugs were in power my

various jobs would be screwed. I remember my friends who graduated college in 72 saying there were no jobs, stay in school as long as possible. Many of my friends couldn't get decent jobs till around 1980 and then there was another recession in the 80s, and again in the 90s until Clinton could repair some of the damage caused by Raygun and Bush 1. My entire working life has been a series of booms and busts, I've had to reinvent my work so many times I've lost count. According to what I've read, people in the middle of the baby boom lost about 10 years income relative to people 10 years younger and 10 years younger than themselves.

By the way, the baby boomers were born from 1946 to 1964.


(edit for typo)

[BirminghamExaminer]

10. Which is why Obama is NOT a Generation X'er

[tonycinla]

12. Right!

All boats in the bay rise and fall with the same tide.I actually feel more sorrow and pain for the 30 something crowd.Most boomers have had a great ride living through the heady 60s etc.But people in their 30s who are just really getting their "sea legs" in life. Maybe they have a child or two and are probably under water on their house,they will be harmed more by this revolution and less able to adjust than the boomers.Just sayin.......

[diane in sf]

13. most boomers were still in school in the 60s, the silent generation enjoyed that

financial boom due to all the services needed by the little boomers. When the 70s recession started the boomers were just getting started in their careers.

[natrat]

9. it is sad and the system is corrupt beyond belief BUT

there were plenty of people smart enough to read between the lines sell stocks at historically high valuations and if they needed money to retire sell residences and rent
Honestly, if you run with the pack you have to have the sense to suspect when its headed for the cliff. And even then if you banked a million dollars it may not do you any good as the dollar seems headed for worthlessness. There is no free ride, it's like musical chairs , if you are left standing you are screwed,sorry