I get really, really tired about Xers and Zoomers and Millennials telling Boomers how we had it easy. Uh, nope. 70s gas crisis? Alternate days to line up for limited gasoline? National 55 MPH speed limits? Living out of the back of our trucks because we couldn't afford housing? (And out trucks were NOT late model skylight roof SUVs - they were decades old beater pick ups and vans with rust as a major feature of their body panels.) We paid for our "Silent Generation" parent's lifestyles with our taxes, and then helped them as they lived in luxury in their final years in "senior living" facilities, while paying for the education, and in many cases, paying for food, energy, internet access and all lodging associated costs for our still living at home millennial kids - ooohh, they have is sooooo hard. Uh, no. They play streaming games on the freaking internet all day and night, and wake up when the sun comes up, don't get up, get dressed, and go find entry level jobs, because, "they feel those jobs are beneath them". This current recession (probably actually a depression) is going to be a real mind blower, folks. Welcome to drudgery. THAT sucks. Ask us, sometime. We actually know how that world works....
I’ve taken for granted my whole life that every penny the government takes from my paycheck is pure theft that will never and can never possibly benefit me in any way. And I’m not wrong.
I know I’m getting nothing … Gen X … We might as well come to grasp with the reality of that situation sooner rather than later.
And respectfully, Boomer, I’m a bit pissy that while you were out spending my inheritance (not that I was entitled to it, but maybe you should’ve saved some for your old age) and intentionally NOT making enough children or supporting an open enough border to get enough wealth creators necessary to support you in your elder years … the well is dry.
Boomer, you are the greatest takers the world has ever seen. And before death you still intend to drain the reservoir dry. Do is this favor … quit on social security before the economy collapses.
Actually, our parents (the so-called "silent generation") had it a lot better than most boomers. Early boomers, born between 45 and 54, have done far, far better than later boomers (born between 55 and 64). For later boomers, the early boomers got all the goodies, and when we showed up, it was: pay up sucker, the good days were a couple of years ago. Want to understand who the powers that be are today? Look at those early Boomers. But don't paint the late boomers in the same picture with the early boomers, because for us, it was suck it up, buttercup, and your bill was just doubled. Just sayin'...
My parents are early boomers … working class. Dad was a cop, mom was a secretary. We had enough to get by, but occasionally came up short. Now (and I don’t begrudge my parents) they are living comfortably. They stayed the course, and it paid off.
I do not have that confidence for my twilight years. I’m 50, and bet I work 15-20 more years only to not have a retirement plan that outpaced inflation.
I get it Lex. My wife and I were, for the most part, a single income family. We never bought or owned a new vehicle. I think something over 25,000 miles was the newest we ever owned. Never really did stocks, either - couldn't afford them. at the end of he month, there wasn't much saved up. We were able to buy some precious metals with savings back when they were cheaper than dirt, but that has always been savings, not speculation or spending money. We purchased a vacant lot (on time, with a five year mortgage) that did pretty well for us by the time we finally sold it. The first house we bought, got caught in a new construction housing boom, and we had to wait 16 years to break even and finally sell it. During those years, although we usually were able to rent it out, we lost money (a little) on rent (versus the mortgage, taxes and insurance) every month we owned it. We were basically subsidizing the Gen Xers that were living there as long as we owned it. Most did OK to us, but two renters trashed the place and stiffed us. Their security deposits never came close to covering the damages. I'll admit I am lucky. I did a full career in the Army, and then a second career as a DoD civilian, with defined pension benefits. Never did Thrift Savings Plan while on active duty, but did as a civilian, and was, over the decade +, able to save a bit. A couple of homes we have bought and sold have slowly, over time, built equity for us. But we've also dropped a bunch of money into rehabing those old places. (Again, nothing was every new construction, and in one place, we celebrated it's 200th anniversary. That place soaked up a bunch of money.)
And I don't think we are alone. It's all too easy to look at "Boomers" and see what you may want to see. Fact is, we've all had it tough. Since 1971, when Nixon took this nation off the gold standard, inflation has slashed the value of the dollar, wages have diverged (steadily downward) against cost of living, and genuinely greedy financiers have used their "vulture capital" tools to hollow out American business - killing solid, long standing businesses with excess debt, (used to pay out the venture capitalists, who've gotten filthy rich in the process) and then laying off the workforce, selling off the business and lands, and heading to the bar for a drink. In doing so, they have left behind a legacy of ruined lives, bankrupted pension funds, hollowed out an entire economy and shipped manufacturing overseas to China and the "Asian Tiger" nations, only to have them send us back cheap stuff to buy in bog box stores. This may be called capitalism, but it isn't. It is corporate financialization, and the money stripped out us used to pay off politicians who enact favorable laws enforcing the whole process. It's left everyone in the work force starting from the early 1970s on worse off. And yes, the individuals doing it were almost all early Boomers and late Silents. (Octogenarians these days are not boomers.) Those in Washington, and those with Washington politicians in their pockets, did pretty good. Some did great. Larry Ellison (Oracle) bought 95% of the entire island of Lanai, in the state of Hawaii (for a bargain 300 million). Bill Gates owns more farm and ranch land than any other American. I could go on, but it's not necessary. ALL the rest of us, regardless of when we were born, are behind that power curve, and will never catch up. A major downturn in the economy - a second Great Depression - would unwind real estate prices enough so that homes were affordable again. It's coming. Commercial real estate - office buildings and malls and the like - are seeing collapsing prices. We are into a major recession, and it may become a depression. If this one isn't the greatest depression, then the next economic downturn almost certainly will be. Aging folks will be selling their homes, or dying and passing them on to their kids. Ditto with stocks. Got to use something to pay for those old folks homes - they are not cheap to live in, and the system (medical and housing support) is designed to suck the very last buck out of old folks' pockets on their way out the door to eternity. The outsized prices of what has been called The Everything Bubble WILL pop, will come down. They cannot be indefinitely sustained. The bankers like to tell you all debts have to be paid, but it's not true. They don't. When the enforcement mechanisms the suits rely on to twist arms on debtors no longer work, the entire system falls apart. The end game of vast inflation is historically the same. The supposedly wealthy financiers holding the bag just hold empty bags when their muscle walks away, and their debtors flip them off. Paper currency values go to zero, or close enough thereto. Try to overtax productive landholders, and they just walk away. This was such a problem for the late Romans that they had a specific name for it: agri deserti. Agri deserti refers to deserted agricultural lands that were no longer productive enough to tax. Landowners and peasants just walked away, and the lands lay fallow and no longer produced food.
System collapse isn't pretty. And a case can be made that we collectively are coming to such a time. We may, possibly, be able to shift an entire economy from a financialized consumer focus, back to a producer focus, but it's hard. It will take ALL of us, of all generations, working together to make it happen. The very best way to transfer wealth intergenerationally is by paying viable wages to the workforce, for improving infrastructure, housing, all the real aspects of our nation. But doing so means deliberately making those payments, seeking out opportunities to renew, rehab, refurbish. Whether it is increasing natural soil fertility and tilth in worn out farmlands too long abused, or rehabing older, affordable houses to offer solid, nice rental opportunities and eventually selling those homes on at affordable prices, or fixing up brownfield sites to bring manufacturing and productive activities back to rust belt cities - that's the need we face today, and the community minded spirit we all need to bring to undertaking these sort of ventures.
I fully get the intergenerational anger, because greed and inflation have beggar all of us to some extent, except for the vultures themselves. But such anger is misplaced, and it doesn't really help enable us collectively to figure out our roles in solving these intractable challenges. The problems affect us all, and they are bigger than any of us individually. We need to work together to collectively renew our nation, our families, and our future prospects. I truly hope you are able to save in these most productive decades of your life, Lex. But I also hope you will work with others to repair, rehab, renew and renovate your home, your neighborhood, and your ties with others. The draconian response to COVID shattered communities, and shuttered small businesses. We need to collectively rebuild trust, community and local small businesses. It's a big challenge, but I truly believe Americans of all ages and walks of life are up to the tasks ahead.
Maybe if more of us go bowling together, or starting up games of catch in the park, or seeking out opportunities to volunteer and work together, instead of staring at screens alone, we can start making some of those first steps. I sincerely hope so, for all our sakes.
So what are we to make of the hundreds of billions the US is giving out in foreign aid to countries that don’t matter to us? I understand your point, it’s reality, but how can they spend a penny on illegals or Ukraine or Israel when Americans are getting the shaft? That’s what will start the violence. Great article.
The thing is, those billions, while totally unnecessary, are a drop in the bucket compared to what it'd cost to fund something like universal healthcare. If we did print the money required to fund universal healthcare at the federal level, we'd have some serious inflation.
Right but there’s about a thousand “drops in the bucket” we can cut. Including 50% of the entire federal system. I’m sure you’re more knowledgeable on the numbers, but what about the Social Security that going to all these illegals? I read that it’s like 800 billion per year? I wonder what the total foreign aid number is? I bet we can come up with 2.5 trillion a year savings easy.
I definitely do think the boomers are setting themselves up for catastrophe for actively antagonizing the younger generations of social media. To be perfectly frank, I also think that Zoomers and Millennials going on TikTok and sobbing their eyes out, even for valid reasons, are doing themselves no favors in making their concerns look justified - I understand that, for many of them who lack stable or concrete or reliable personal support networks, screaming out into the void may seem logical, if not their only real option, to be heard, but to older generations who were raised on what effectively might as well have been another planet at this point, it all comes off as the caterwauling of a spoiled child. Which, to be totally clear, it's not - I believe that Zoomers and Millennials have every right to be complaining, given they've had their futures sold right out from under them and were lied to about it the whole time. You're right when you say that no good, sensible, hard-working and contributing member of society should be forced to live in some violent ghetto and suffer a long commute. As someone who used to drive an hour and a half to two hours to go twelve miles, I sincerely mean it when I say I think I'd rather jump off a bridge than ever spent an extra twenty hours of my week sitting in traffic. Sounds extreme, but anyone who's ever done the same can probably sympathize. I suspect this disconnect between what the middle class Zoomers and Millennials were raised and conditioned to expect for their adult lives and now facing the very real possibility that they may have to live in, if not adjacent to, serious violent crime and abject, grinding poverty is partially responsible for what appears to be a generation-wide mental health crisis. Just one factor, but definitely one of the biggest.
Where I was going with that, though, is that the boomers (and even just less socially adept or aware Gen Xers and Millennials) callous dismissal of the suffering of younger generations is ensuring an equally callous and most likely disproportionately violent response will inevitably arise. You can only a kick a dog so long before it bites, after all. To put it as simply as I can, the lion's share of Zoomers and Millennials have socialist sympathies, if not outright socialist beliefs, already. They're okay with the idea of taking from others for the (supposed) benefit of the community or society, right? This is only going to cement itself more in their heads as time goes on and conditions continue to deteriorate, and they begin to feel as if government intervention to take from those who have and redistribute among the have-nots will be their ONLY way to get any kind of come-up. True or not, doesn't matter - it's what they'll think. And, when there's serious political will to do so, there's a not insignificant chance it will happen, especially in the midst of an economic crisis. And if and when it does, how kindly do you think they're going to treat the people who were, only a scant few years ago, laughing and taunting them over airing their grievances? It's all fun and games to tell the crying girl on TikTok to tough up, buttercup, until Zoomer Commissars are at your front door and ready to take everything you own to give her some of it.
Obviously, that's a very extreme and probably unlikely scenario, but all in all I think that this harsh and dismissive treatment the boomers are showing the younger generations will be repaid doubly to them, whether it be economically, or just by their younger family members tossing them in some subpar nursing home and leaving them to rot without a second thought. Once younger generations acquire more political power, I believe the "untouchable" quality of Social Security will fade, since, obviously, most of them won't get to see their share of it, and they'll hate the people who are getting it. They will have no qualms with taking from it, cutting it, slashing it, doing away with it all to benefit themselves at the boomer's expense. If the boomers didn't help them when they needed it... why would they help them when they need it? And, no, I'm not saying it's right or ethical or anything like that, obviously. All I'm saying is that I see like being met with like, and if one party treats another with such disdain, it only stands to reason they'll be met with the same with the shoe in on the other foot.
‘Likewise, creating a world where men and women were forced to compete with each other economically turned out to be a decision with destabilizing consequences.’
Great point, but I would change it to
’Likewise, creating a world where men were forced to compete with women economically turned out to be a decision with destabilizing consequences.’ I remember that time though I were just a child; men didn’t want this-women did.
So what can we do to prep the children in a practical way? I can’t go whole hog with the professional prepper trend. It looks expensive.
If you are blaming the creator of the world for making men and women have to compete with one another to survive, you’ll have to take that up with The Big Guy. No, not Joe.
I don’t believe you understood my inference; it wasn’t God who created the situation, feminists did. I related a memory that I thought had made that clear. I don’t know who you are referring to when you cite ‘joe’ but I didn’t mention anyone by that name at all.
Over the next two decades 90+% of the Boomers will shuffle off this mortal coil. That will relieve a lot of the current pressure on the Social Security/ Medicare side. Can the current regime muddle along using a variety of One Wierd Economic Tricks long enough for the current bubble of geezers to pop? I guess we'll see.
One thing that I believe will become apparent as the Boomers expire is how frivolous much of their generation will prove to have been. Given the place in time that they were born into and the financial opportunities they were presented, I'm afraid that far too many of their heirs will still be inheriting nothing but their debts. There's still going to be a massive wealth transfer coming from the last of the Silents and all of the Boomers between now and the early 2040s to Gen X and the Millenials, due to the massive number of geezers waiting to croak, but I'm afraid it's not going to be as much as it should have been.
As a GenXer, I think it is imperative for us and the Millenials to not repeat that mistake with our Zoomer and Alpha offspring. No matter the reasons, be they institutional or personal, it is going to be nearly impossible for our kids to buy their own homes without our help. They're probably going to need our help and support quite a bit just making ends meet for awhile, even after they get their first "real" job.
To quote one of the greatest philosophers of our time, drug kingpin Marlo Stanfield from HBO's The Wire, You (Boomers and others dumping on the youth) want it to be one way, but it's the OTHER way. Why is the financial situation screwed for our kids? Don't know. Doesn't matter. Don't care. It just IS. It's our responsibility to help them through it and make sure we leave them with more than the Silents and Boomers will be leaving us.
Rerunning the underlying data from one of Lyn's charts (https://www.lynalden.com/does-the-national-debt-matter/ ) produced something really eye-popping. If you had $100 at the signing of the US Constitution in 1789, your purchasing power would have fluctuated in value from about $62 to $130 over the next 130 years, but on the eve of WWI, your $100 from 1789 would be worth exactly $100 still. The gold standard had lots of faults, but that kind of currency stability is incredibly impressive.
One thing that muddles the debate over Social Security and Medicare is the sense people have that they are paying into these programs in order to get that money back later, when in reality that money is for current beneficiaries. The injustice that would be paying into that program and not getting benefits down the line is, therefore, not because some politician in the future would take them away, but because some politician in the past has already set up the system that way.
The money is already gone, we're just being left to hope that, when it's time to get ours, there's still a system in place that functions, or at least retains the appearance of functionality.
This is democracy manifest. Generations of rubes who swallowed lies have mortgaged the future and the note is coming due as the howling winds of the crucible wait. As you have very aptly named your substack: We're Not At the End, But You Can See It From Here.
The Boomers are not owed the blood they are sucking from the young because of some sort of "invincible ignorance" and women are not owed a safe place to independently live as they engage in unproductive labor during their years of fertility because they were told to "go to college." As things degrade, I think that Hobbes will slowly be vindicated as a world more dominated by "continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short" returns.
On a material front, everything will be getting worse. However, this chastening may be an opportunity, for those who embrace it, to return family, community and faith as the material comfort of the present age is pulled from their grasp. It is that or eating shit all the way down.
To answer some of your questions: Cuts won't save us. He is not heartless; in fact his heart is in the right place, he is just wrong and you are right. Yes, even MORE money will be printed. Her story is indicative of reality, which in part is a systemization of bad choices. However, Branca et al are undignified for their gloating. If he considers himself an American, as I consider myself, dunking on some agreeable midwit that is 1000 yards off the path and headed to perdition should be beneath him. However, the internet is great at enabling our worst selves.
When the social security trust fund runs out, incoming social security taxes from those still working will be enough to cover roughly 75% of the social security benefits people have been promised. Not good, but social security isn't going to vanish. Medicare, Medicaid, and SSI are the budget eaters and sooner or later are going to have to go. Those costs will rise with inflation, so you can't print your way out from under it. Sooner or later reality is going to have to assert itself that the government cannot be a charity.
Conceivably, they could default on their debts a couple times. Restructuring happens, bond holders take a haircut and interest rates rise. Generally speaking the default process usually forces a state to temporarily return to fiscal sanity. Sometimes for 10 years, sometimes for 10 months. We will see which way we get. Point is, this whole unfolding can take place over decades, the end may not come quickly. It can unfold over time, and people will tolerate nearly anything if it happens slow enough. When Adam Smith said "A great deal of ruin is bound up in a nation." He didn't just mean there was a lot of ruin to unwind. He also meant it could take awhile.
The medical end is actually easier to solve than it looks. About 25% of Medicare expenses are from the last year of life. To be brutally honest, many of these expenses can be controlled via hospice or MAID. As a Christian, that is appalling to me. As an economist, it will happen. If you're not going to ration care on the basis of price, you to ration it some other way, and that means bureaucrats deciding when grandma doesn't get chemo.
Kulak had a piece about the debt spiral the other day, and a key takeaway is that one population is going to get the gibs, and the other is going to be written off hard. Right now, there’s every reason to expect White kids will be forced to suffer austerity while so-called minorities will continue to get EBT, healthcare, etc. (Arguably, this is happening right now.)
But why suffer for these people? The System’s contempt for them has burned off whatever love many (most?) Heritage Americans had for it. America in its current configuration is unworthy of their loyalty. If the System can’t even offer gibs (to you, at least), what good is it?
The minority groups that get the gibs (it's certain groups, not all) will continue to get them in part because of the credible threat of violence they pose. The people who support the lifestyles of these groups, on the other hand, pose no credible threat of violence.
The eventual fracturing of the LGBT group will be interesting to see. Because racial minorities and Ts already occupy the highest rungs of the internal Oppression Hierarchy, and White/Cis LGBs are already getting quite visibly sick of being spoken down to.
Watching affluent liberal women react to that will be intriguing. Ridiculous and idiotic, but intriguing.
That violence only has utility on a localized level for most of them. So as federalism disintegrates, they will become a millstone around the neck of those who keep them as pets. Eventually, places like DC will become truly Brazilified, with helicopters and PMCs.
This place will collapse into anarchy with a quickness when the day comes, and the survivors/dissidents will retreat into the Santa Cruz Mountains and hold out there.
The residents of Urban areas will also have zero meaningful skills to contribute to survival in a serious WROL or collapse situation.
I'm in one of the weirdest civilizational situations I can imagine: a gay, atheist, heavily-armed farmer who still believes in the Western Tradition despite my own personal situation, who lives in the exurbs of SF.
I think it is hard to say what post collapse looks like if the intense is collapse. I am inclined to think whoever can control the supplies and "human capital" of local law enforcement/military will best any but the best private competitors.
You are correct, as far as it goes, but their will be plenty of high IQ individuals from urban areas whose worldviews and skills will change rapidly given the preference cascades attendant to the transition to a harsh ecology. Luxury beliefs will give way to "based survivalism" or they will be part of the boil off.
I suppose in the general context, sure, that situation sounds weird. However, I am with Aristotle who would say we are all pursuing our own idea of the Good. You have your reasons, no doubt. I pray you find God and his truth, but all the best to you out in weirdoland sir.
I get really, really tired about Xers and Zoomers and Millennials telling Boomers how we had it easy. Uh, nope. 70s gas crisis? Alternate days to line up for limited gasoline? National 55 MPH speed limits? Living out of the back of our trucks because we couldn't afford housing? (And out trucks were NOT late model skylight roof SUVs - they were decades old beater pick ups and vans with rust as a major feature of their body panels.) We paid for our "Silent Generation" parent's lifestyles with our taxes, and then helped them as they lived in luxury in their final years in "senior living" facilities, while paying for the education, and in many cases, paying for food, energy, internet access and all lodging associated costs for our still living at home millennial kids - ooohh, they have is sooooo hard. Uh, no. They play streaming games on the freaking internet all day and night, and wake up when the sun comes up, don't get up, get dressed, and go find entry level jobs, because, "they feel those jobs are beneath them". This current recession (probably actually a depression) is going to be a real mind blower, folks. Welcome to drudgery. THAT sucks. Ask us, sometime. We actually know how that world works....
I’ve taken for granted my whole life that every penny the government takes from my paycheck is pure theft that will never and can never possibly benefit me in any way. And I’m not wrong.
I know I’m getting nothing … Gen X … We might as well come to grasp with the reality of that situation sooner rather than later.
And respectfully, Boomer, I’m a bit pissy that while you were out spending my inheritance (not that I was entitled to it, but maybe you should’ve saved some for your old age) and intentionally NOT making enough children or supporting an open enough border to get enough wealth creators necessary to support you in your elder years … the well is dry.
Boomer, you are the greatest takers the world has ever seen. And before death you still intend to drain the reservoir dry. Do is this favor … quit on social security before the economy collapses.
Actually, our parents (the so-called "silent generation") had it a lot better than most boomers. Early boomers, born between 45 and 54, have done far, far better than later boomers (born between 55 and 64). For later boomers, the early boomers got all the goodies, and when we showed up, it was: pay up sucker, the good days were a couple of years ago. Want to understand who the powers that be are today? Look at those early Boomers. But don't paint the late boomers in the same picture with the early boomers, because for us, it was suck it up, buttercup, and your bill was just doubled. Just sayin'...
My parents are early boomers … working class. Dad was a cop, mom was a secretary. We had enough to get by, but occasionally came up short. Now (and I don’t begrudge my parents) they are living comfortably. They stayed the course, and it paid off.
I do not have that confidence for my twilight years. I’m 50, and bet I work 15-20 more years only to not have a retirement plan that outpaced inflation.
I get it Lex. My wife and I were, for the most part, a single income family. We never bought or owned a new vehicle. I think something over 25,000 miles was the newest we ever owned. Never really did stocks, either - couldn't afford them. at the end of he month, there wasn't much saved up. We were able to buy some precious metals with savings back when they were cheaper than dirt, but that has always been savings, not speculation or spending money. We purchased a vacant lot (on time, with a five year mortgage) that did pretty well for us by the time we finally sold it. The first house we bought, got caught in a new construction housing boom, and we had to wait 16 years to break even and finally sell it. During those years, although we usually were able to rent it out, we lost money (a little) on rent (versus the mortgage, taxes and insurance) every month we owned it. We were basically subsidizing the Gen Xers that were living there as long as we owned it. Most did OK to us, but two renters trashed the place and stiffed us. Their security deposits never came close to covering the damages. I'll admit I am lucky. I did a full career in the Army, and then a second career as a DoD civilian, with defined pension benefits. Never did Thrift Savings Plan while on active duty, but did as a civilian, and was, over the decade +, able to save a bit. A couple of homes we have bought and sold have slowly, over time, built equity for us. But we've also dropped a bunch of money into rehabing those old places. (Again, nothing was every new construction, and in one place, we celebrated it's 200th anniversary. That place soaked up a bunch of money.)
And I don't think we are alone. It's all too easy to look at "Boomers" and see what you may want to see. Fact is, we've all had it tough. Since 1971, when Nixon took this nation off the gold standard, inflation has slashed the value of the dollar, wages have diverged (steadily downward) against cost of living, and genuinely greedy financiers have used their "vulture capital" tools to hollow out American business - killing solid, long standing businesses with excess debt, (used to pay out the venture capitalists, who've gotten filthy rich in the process) and then laying off the workforce, selling off the business and lands, and heading to the bar for a drink. In doing so, they have left behind a legacy of ruined lives, bankrupted pension funds, hollowed out an entire economy and shipped manufacturing overseas to China and the "Asian Tiger" nations, only to have them send us back cheap stuff to buy in bog box stores. This may be called capitalism, but it isn't. It is corporate financialization, and the money stripped out us used to pay off politicians who enact favorable laws enforcing the whole process. It's left everyone in the work force starting from the early 1970s on worse off. And yes, the individuals doing it were almost all early Boomers and late Silents. (Octogenarians these days are not boomers.) Those in Washington, and those with Washington politicians in their pockets, did pretty good. Some did great. Larry Ellison (Oracle) bought 95% of the entire island of Lanai, in the state of Hawaii (for a bargain 300 million). Bill Gates owns more farm and ranch land than any other American. I could go on, but it's not necessary. ALL the rest of us, regardless of when we were born, are behind that power curve, and will never catch up. A major downturn in the economy - a second Great Depression - would unwind real estate prices enough so that homes were affordable again. It's coming. Commercial real estate - office buildings and malls and the like - are seeing collapsing prices. We are into a major recession, and it may become a depression. If this one isn't the greatest depression, then the next economic downturn almost certainly will be. Aging folks will be selling their homes, or dying and passing them on to their kids. Ditto with stocks. Got to use something to pay for those old folks homes - they are not cheap to live in, and the system (medical and housing support) is designed to suck the very last buck out of old folks' pockets on their way out the door to eternity. The outsized prices of what has been called The Everything Bubble WILL pop, will come down. They cannot be indefinitely sustained. The bankers like to tell you all debts have to be paid, but it's not true. They don't. When the enforcement mechanisms the suits rely on to twist arms on debtors no longer work, the entire system falls apart. The end game of vast inflation is historically the same. The supposedly wealthy financiers holding the bag just hold empty bags when their muscle walks away, and their debtors flip them off. Paper currency values go to zero, or close enough thereto. Try to overtax productive landholders, and they just walk away. This was such a problem for the late Romans that they had a specific name for it: agri deserti. Agri deserti refers to deserted agricultural lands that were no longer productive enough to tax. Landowners and peasants just walked away, and the lands lay fallow and no longer produced food.
System collapse isn't pretty. And a case can be made that we collectively are coming to such a time. We may, possibly, be able to shift an entire economy from a financialized consumer focus, back to a producer focus, but it's hard. It will take ALL of us, of all generations, working together to make it happen. The very best way to transfer wealth intergenerationally is by paying viable wages to the workforce, for improving infrastructure, housing, all the real aspects of our nation. But doing so means deliberately making those payments, seeking out opportunities to renew, rehab, refurbish. Whether it is increasing natural soil fertility and tilth in worn out farmlands too long abused, or rehabing older, affordable houses to offer solid, nice rental opportunities and eventually selling those homes on at affordable prices, or fixing up brownfield sites to bring manufacturing and productive activities back to rust belt cities - that's the need we face today, and the community minded spirit we all need to bring to undertaking these sort of ventures.
I fully get the intergenerational anger, because greed and inflation have beggar all of us to some extent, except for the vultures themselves. But such anger is misplaced, and it doesn't really help enable us collectively to figure out our roles in solving these intractable challenges. The problems affect us all, and they are bigger than any of us individually. We need to work together to collectively renew our nation, our families, and our future prospects. I truly hope you are able to save in these most productive decades of your life, Lex. But I also hope you will work with others to repair, rehab, renew and renovate your home, your neighborhood, and your ties with others. The draconian response to COVID shattered communities, and shuttered small businesses. We need to collectively rebuild trust, community and local small businesses. It's a big challenge, but I truly believe Americans of all ages and walks of life are up to the tasks ahead.
Maybe if more of us go bowling together, or starting up games of catch in the park, or seeking out opportunities to volunteer and work together, instead of staring at screens alone, we can start making some of those first steps. I sincerely hope so, for all our sakes.
So what are we to make of the hundreds of billions the US is giving out in foreign aid to countries that don’t matter to us? I understand your point, it’s reality, but how can they spend a penny on illegals or Ukraine or Israel when Americans are getting the shaft? That’s what will start the violence. Great article.
The thing is, those billions, while totally unnecessary, are a drop in the bucket compared to what it'd cost to fund something like universal healthcare. If we did print the money required to fund universal healthcare at the federal level, we'd have some serious inflation.
Right but there’s about a thousand “drops in the bucket” we can cut. Including 50% of the entire federal system. I’m sure you’re more knowledgeable on the numbers, but what about the Social Security that going to all these illegals? I read that it’s like 800 billion per year? I wonder what the total foreign aid number is? I bet we can come up with 2.5 trillion a year savings easy.
This is why THEY want depopulation. You useless eaters are too expensive to take care of!
I definitely do think the boomers are setting themselves up for catastrophe for actively antagonizing the younger generations of social media. To be perfectly frank, I also think that Zoomers and Millennials going on TikTok and sobbing their eyes out, even for valid reasons, are doing themselves no favors in making their concerns look justified - I understand that, for many of them who lack stable or concrete or reliable personal support networks, screaming out into the void may seem logical, if not their only real option, to be heard, but to older generations who were raised on what effectively might as well have been another planet at this point, it all comes off as the caterwauling of a spoiled child. Which, to be totally clear, it's not - I believe that Zoomers and Millennials have every right to be complaining, given they've had their futures sold right out from under them and were lied to about it the whole time. You're right when you say that no good, sensible, hard-working and contributing member of society should be forced to live in some violent ghetto and suffer a long commute. As someone who used to drive an hour and a half to two hours to go twelve miles, I sincerely mean it when I say I think I'd rather jump off a bridge than ever spent an extra twenty hours of my week sitting in traffic. Sounds extreme, but anyone who's ever done the same can probably sympathize. I suspect this disconnect between what the middle class Zoomers and Millennials were raised and conditioned to expect for their adult lives and now facing the very real possibility that they may have to live in, if not adjacent to, serious violent crime and abject, grinding poverty is partially responsible for what appears to be a generation-wide mental health crisis. Just one factor, but definitely one of the biggest.
Where I was going with that, though, is that the boomers (and even just less socially adept or aware Gen Xers and Millennials) callous dismissal of the suffering of younger generations is ensuring an equally callous and most likely disproportionately violent response will inevitably arise. You can only a kick a dog so long before it bites, after all. To put it as simply as I can, the lion's share of Zoomers and Millennials have socialist sympathies, if not outright socialist beliefs, already. They're okay with the idea of taking from others for the (supposed) benefit of the community or society, right? This is only going to cement itself more in their heads as time goes on and conditions continue to deteriorate, and they begin to feel as if government intervention to take from those who have and redistribute among the have-nots will be their ONLY way to get any kind of come-up. True or not, doesn't matter - it's what they'll think. And, when there's serious political will to do so, there's a not insignificant chance it will happen, especially in the midst of an economic crisis. And if and when it does, how kindly do you think they're going to treat the people who were, only a scant few years ago, laughing and taunting them over airing their grievances? It's all fun and games to tell the crying girl on TikTok to tough up, buttercup, until Zoomer Commissars are at your front door and ready to take everything you own to give her some of it.
Obviously, that's a very extreme and probably unlikely scenario, but all in all I think that this harsh and dismissive treatment the boomers are showing the younger generations will be repaid doubly to them, whether it be economically, or just by their younger family members tossing them in some subpar nursing home and leaving them to rot without a second thought. Once younger generations acquire more political power, I believe the "untouchable" quality of Social Security will fade, since, obviously, most of them won't get to see their share of it, and they'll hate the people who are getting it. They will have no qualms with taking from it, cutting it, slashing it, doing away with it all to benefit themselves at the boomer's expense. If the boomers didn't help them when they needed it... why would they help them when they need it? And, no, I'm not saying it's right or ethical or anything like that, obviously. All I'm saying is that I see like being met with like, and if one party treats another with such disdain, it only stands to reason they'll be met with the same with the shoe in on the other foot.
To add insult to injury, that Zoomer Commissar will do a Fortnite dance over the Boomer's corpse after he shoots him.
Don't forget that it will be livestreamed on TikTok.
‘Likewise, creating a world where men and women were forced to compete with each other economically turned out to be a decision with destabilizing consequences.’
Great point, but I would change it to
’Likewise, creating a world where men were forced to compete with women economically turned out to be a decision with destabilizing consequences.’ I remember that time though I were just a child; men didn’t want this-women did.
So what can we do to prep the children in a practical way? I can’t go whole hog with the professional prepper trend. It looks expensive.
If you are blaming the creator of the world for making men and women have to compete with one another to survive, you’ll have to take that up with The Big Guy. No, not Joe.
I don’t believe you understood my inference; it wasn’t God who created the situation, feminists did. I related a memory that I thought had made that clear. I don’t know who you are referring to when you cite ‘joe’ but I didn’t mention anyone by that name at all.
Men have competed economically with women since the origins of the human race. It didn’t take government to make it happen.
LOL no.
Over the next two decades 90+% of the Boomers will shuffle off this mortal coil. That will relieve a lot of the current pressure on the Social Security/ Medicare side. Can the current regime muddle along using a variety of One Wierd Economic Tricks long enough for the current bubble of geezers to pop? I guess we'll see.
One thing that I believe will become apparent as the Boomers expire is how frivolous much of their generation will prove to have been. Given the place in time that they were born into and the financial opportunities they were presented, I'm afraid that far too many of their heirs will still be inheriting nothing but their debts. There's still going to be a massive wealth transfer coming from the last of the Silents and all of the Boomers between now and the early 2040s to Gen X and the Millenials, due to the massive number of geezers waiting to croak, but I'm afraid it's not going to be as much as it should have been.
As a GenXer, I think it is imperative for us and the Millenials to not repeat that mistake with our Zoomer and Alpha offspring. No matter the reasons, be they institutional or personal, it is going to be nearly impossible for our kids to buy their own homes without our help. They're probably going to need our help and support quite a bit just making ends meet for awhile, even after they get their first "real" job.
To quote one of the greatest philosophers of our time, drug kingpin Marlo Stanfield from HBO's The Wire, You (Boomers and others dumping on the youth) want it to be one way, but it's the OTHER way. Why is the financial situation screwed for our kids? Don't know. Doesn't matter. Don't care. It just IS. It's our responsibility to help them through it and make sure we leave them with more than the Silents and Boomers will be leaving us.
Rerunning the underlying data from one of Lyn's charts (https://www.lynalden.com/does-the-national-debt-matter/ ) produced something really eye-popping. If you had $100 at the signing of the US Constitution in 1789, your purchasing power would have fluctuated in value from about $62 to $130 over the next 130 years, but on the eve of WWI, your $100 from 1789 would be worth exactly $100 still. The gold standard had lots of faults, but that kind of currency stability is incredibly impressive.
One thing that muddles the debate over Social Security and Medicare is the sense people have that they are paying into these programs in order to get that money back later, when in reality that money is for current beneficiaries. The injustice that would be paying into that program and not getting benefits down the line is, therefore, not because some politician in the future would take them away, but because some politician in the past has already set up the system that way.
The money is already gone, we're just being left to hope that, when it's time to get ours, there's still a system in place that functions, or at least retains the appearance of functionality.
And heck if I know what to do about it.
This is democracy manifest. Generations of rubes who swallowed lies have mortgaged the future and the note is coming due as the howling winds of the crucible wait. As you have very aptly named your substack: We're Not At the End, But You Can See It From Here.
The Boomers are not owed the blood they are sucking from the young because of some sort of "invincible ignorance" and women are not owed a safe place to independently live as they engage in unproductive labor during their years of fertility because they were told to "go to college." As things degrade, I think that Hobbes will slowly be vindicated as a world more dominated by "continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short" returns.
On a material front, everything will be getting worse. However, this chastening may be an opportunity, for those who embrace it, to return family, community and faith as the material comfort of the present age is pulled from their grasp. It is that or eating shit all the way down.
To answer some of your questions: Cuts won't save us. He is not heartless; in fact his heart is in the right place, he is just wrong and you are right. Yes, even MORE money will be printed. Her story is indicative of reality, which in part is a systemization of bad choices. However, Branca et al are undignified for their gloating. If he considers himself an American, as I consider myself, dunking on some agreeable midwit that is 1000 yards off the path and headed to perdition should be beneath him. However, the internet is great at enabling our worst selves.
Finally, I really enjoyed this piece, great work.
When the social security trust fund runs out, incoming social security taxes from those still working will be enough to cover roughly 75% of the social security benefits people have been promised. Not good, but social security isn't going to vanish. Medicare, Medicaid, and SSI are the budget eaters and sooner or later are going to have to go. Those costs will rise with inflation, so you can't print your way out from under it. Sooner or later reality is going to have to assert itself that the government cannot be a charity.
Conceivably, they could default on their debts a couple times. Restructuring happens, bond holders take a haircut and interest rates rise. Generally speaking the default process usually forces a state to temporarily return to fiscal sanity. Sometimes for 10 years, sometimes for 10 months. We will see which way we get. Point is, this whole unfolding can take place over decades, the end may not come quickly. It can unfold over time, and people will tolerate nearly anything if it happens slow enough. When Adam Smith said "A great deal of ruin is bound up in a nation." He didn't just mean there was a lot of ruin to unwind. He also meant it could take awhile.
The medical end is actually easier to solve than it looks. About 25% of Medicare expenses are from the last year of life. To be brutally honest, many of these expenses can be controlled via hospice or MAID. As a Christian, that is appalling to me. As an economist, it will happen. If you're not going to ration care on the basis of price, you to ration it some other way, and that means bureaucrats deciding when grandma doesn't get chemo.
No disagreement here. That is arguably already happening throughout Canada and the EU
Kulak had a piece about the debt spiral the other day, and a key takeaway is that one population is going to get the gibs, and the other is going to be written off hard. Right now, there’s every reason to expect White kids will be forced to suffer austerity while so-called minorities will continue to get EBT, healthcare, etc. (Arguably, this is happening right now.)
But why suffer for these people? The System’s contempt for them has burned off whatever love many (most?) Heritage Americans had for it. America in its current configuration is unworthy of their loyalty. If the System can’t even offer gibs (to you, at least), what good is it?
The minority groups that get the gibs (it's certain groups, not all) will continue to get them in part because of the credible threat of violence they pose. The people who support the lifestyles of these groups, on the other hand, pose no credible threat of violence.
The eventual fracturing of the LGBT group will be interesting to see. Because racial minorities and Ts already occupy the highest rungs of the internal Oppression Hierarchy, and White/Cis LGBs are already getting quite visibly sick of being spoken down to.
Watching affluent liberal women react to that will be intriguing. Ridiculous and idiotic, but intriguing.
That violence only has utility on a localized level for most of them. So as federalism disintegrates, they will become a millstone around the neck of those who keep them as pets. Eventually, places like DC will become truly Brazilified, with helicopters and PMCs.
This place will collapse into anarchy with a quickness when the day comes, and the survivors/dissidents will retreat into the Santa Cruz Mountains and hold out there.
The residents of Urban areas will also have zero meaningful skills to contribute to survival in a serious WROL or collapse situation.
I'm in one of the weirdest civilizational situations I can imagine: a gay, atheist, heavily-armed farmer who still believes in the Western Tradition despite my own personal situation, who lives in the exurbs of SF.
Apologies, consolidating two replies into one.
I think it is hard to say what post collapse looks like if the intense is collapse. I am inclined to think whoever can control the supplies and "human capital" of local law enforcement/military will best any but the best private competitors.
You are correct, as far as it goes, but their will be plenty of high IQ individuals from urban areas whose worldviews and skills will change rapidly given the preference cascades attendant to the transition to a harsh ecology. Luxury beliefs will give way to "based survivalism" or they will be part of the boil off.
I suppose in the general context, sure, that situation sounds weird. However, I am with Aristotle who would say we are all pursuing our own idea of the Good. You have your reasons, no doubt. I pray you find God and his truth, but all the best to you out in weirdoland sir.
How does it work to drop out? How does one manage to eat and avoid living out of a cardboard box?