Boomers: The Evil Generation!

[yung.carl.jung]

OMG! Can I say that at my age?

I certainly can eat a real apple, but I have found the idea of an apple much less filling and hardy nutritious. We could argue your points for a long time and have a wonderful discussion about reality. This thread is not the time or place. The connection, if any, between the abstract and the concrete is pretty interesting.

I agree we will postpone this discussion to another time when it's more apropriate. just one concluding remark.

you can eat an apple. you cannot eat the idea of an apple. that much seems certain.

but the word apple is real, is it not? it was made up by real people, in our real past. you can write it on a piece of paper. it consists of real letters that you pronounce with your real tongue, that have real, measurable sound associated with it.

and the thing they named apple (the apple, the signified) was real, no? it existed at some point, like all of history existed at some point in time?

just because something does not manifest physically does not mean it aint real. emotions are real. opinions are real. insults are real, they actually hurt. relationships are real.

most money isn't printed money anymore. it's stored on a server perhaps, it's stored as one and zeroes. but it's still incredibly real to us. it can grow, it can be stolen, it can vanish if the server implodes. is it suddenly not a reality anymore if the server is gone?

things in our mental sphere have real, tangible, objectively measurable physical effects. I don't see a clear distinction to be made here. and with that, I'm out and back on topic. cheers and sorry for the rambling. I won't try to have the last word anymore

 

[El_Machinae]

Reagan was not a boomer. Blame the greatest generation.

So, the fact that Reagan is not a boomer literally has nothing to do with anything. I think that part of the problem is that I didn't predict that you would say something like this so far into the conversation.

Reagan was elected. A series of voting blocs voted, and he was the result of that election.

 

[rah]

I think the older generation were more his strength. But yeah we contributed. The only reason I did was because someone was blaming him and called him a con man. Do you blame the con man or those that he conned. Otherwise, I wouldn't have mentioned it.

 

[Lexicus]

Reagan was elected. A series of voting blocs voted, and he was the result of that election.

I'm not sure the generational breakdown of that. Did Boomers vote for him at significantly higher margins than others? I honestly have no idea. Is there good exit poll data from those years?

 

[El_Machinae]

Rah: Well, it really depends on whether you are assigning any moral weight to the idea of blame.

Both the con man and the conned are responsible, because they were both essential. But when you say the conned contributed to the problem, you're not saying that you're upset at them.

I have a bowling ball on my couch, and there is a depression because it is sitting there. Neither the coach nor the bowling ball are morally responsible for the depression. But it is still objectively true that if the cushion was more firm, or the ball was lighter, there wouldn't be as much of a compression.

Very little of what I've said in this thread has been blame in any type of sense of moral outrage.

Lex: there will be, because the Boomers created this amazing thing called the internet (I'm not just complaining!) My Googling is not working out as well as I wanted it to, but I'm quite sure you will find that the Boomers were an extremely important voting Bloc. Probably critical, if we are going to break things down so severely. Just remember, not voting is the same as voting for the person who won

 

[Birdjaguar]

I'm not sure the generational breakdown of that. Did Boomers vote for him at significantly higher margins than others? I honestly have no idea. Is there good exit poll data from those years?

As a leading edge boomer living in NC at the time, none of my friends or siblings voted for him. I even had one friend who moved to New Zealand for the 8 years he was president.

https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/how-groups-voted-1980

 

[rah]

I'm not sure the generational breakdown of that. Did Boomers vote for him at significantly higher margins than others? I honestly have no idea. Is there good exit poll data from those years?

Size-1980 Carter-1980 Reagan-1980 Anderson
Age
18–21 years old 6- 44- 43- 11-
22–29 years old 17- 43- 43- 11
30–44 years old 31- 37- 54- 7-
45–59 years old 23- 39- 55- 6-
60 years or older 18- 40- 54- 4-

Margins were pretty similar except the younger when a bit heavier on Anderson.

 

[El_Machinae]

Just so people don't stop the analysis too fast, remember that not voting is the same as voting for the person who won. When it comes to the consequences of an election

 

[Birdjaguar]

Lex: there will be, because the Boomers created this amazing thing called the internet (I'm not just complaining!) My Googling is not working out as well as I wanted it to, but I'm quite sure you will find that the Boomers were an extremely important voting Bloc. Probably critical, if we are going to break things down so severely. Just remember, not voting is the same as voting for the person who won

Yeah, I am working my contacts to make your use of the internet more difficult. It's part of our boomer service contract.

I posted exit polling data above.

 

[Lexicus]

Size-1980 Carter-1980 Reagan-1980 Anderson
Age
18–21 years old 6- 44- 43- 11-
22–29 years old 17- 43- 43- 11
30–44 years old 31- 37- 54- 7-
45–59 years old 23- 39- 55- 6-
60 years or older 18- 40- 54- 4-

Margins were pretty similar except the younger when a bit heavier on Anderson.

Figured as much. Like I told metalhead, there was a concerted conspiracy in virtually all parts of American society to push these narratives on people. I don't think Boomers were likely to be affected much more than any other generation.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Size-1980 Carter-1980 Reagan-1980 Anderson
Age
18–21 years old 6- 44- 43- 11-
22–29 years old 17- 43- 43- 11
30–44 years old 31- 37- 54- 7-
45–59 years old 23- 39- 55- 6-
60 years or older 18- 40- 54- 4-

Margins were pretty similar except the younger when a bit heavier on Anderson.

I was 32 in 1980 so most boomers were in the 22-29 age bracket. Boomers were only about 17% of the voters.

EDIT: If you notice the boomers were evenly split between Carter and Reagan. I think that we see the same split between liberals and conservatives among boomers for the next 40 years. Boomer camps went their separate ways in the late 60s and 70s and have never reconciled.

 

[rah]

Just so people don't stop the analysis too fast, remember that not voting is the same as voting for the person who won. When it comes to the consequences of an election

Yep
Been chiding democrats for this since 2016.


And if you want blame for Reagan, blame Carter and the rabbit.

 

[El_Machinae]

I was 32 in 1980 so most boomers were in the 22-29 age bracket. Boomers were only about 17% of the voters.

EDIT: If you notice the boomers were evenly split between Carter and Reagan. I think that we see the same split between liberals and conservatives among boomers for the next 40 years. Boomer camps went their separate ways in the late 60s and 70s and have never reconciled.

Don't stop your analysis too soon. Boomers were 17% of the people who cast a vote in your data. But they were not 17% of the voting population.

I seriously don't blame anyone for falling for trickle down economics during the 1980s. It was much too soon for people to understand the underlying macroeconomics.

 

[rah]

And people were really voting to make America great again. (hmmmm)

 

[Lexicus]

I seriously don't blame anyone for falling for trickle down economics during the 1980s. It was much too soon for people to understand the underlying macroeconomics.

I don't understand what you mean at all. The principles of basic macro were hammered out before the end of the 40s. By the 1980s people had decades of practical experience at managing economies based on those principles.

Supply-side was the result of a return to 19th-century thinking which was in turn bankrolled by people for whom the return of that thinking has proved extremely profitable. It wasn't that everyone was too dumb to know better.

 

[rah]

Again people didn't vote for Reagan because of trickle down economics. You had to be around to understand. America was perceived as weak. Carter was weak, and there was the bunny rabbit. Reagan was tough and he wanted to make America tough again. People bought it, even more than from Trump. Reagan was not considered a creep like Trump so he won by a lot more than Trump did. But the similarities were there. Kinda scary when you think back.

Which is really a same since Carter was such a decent man, like Obama.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Your specific experiences are not particularly relevant to the conversation. The fact, which cannot be dispelled by any number of stories about how hard you had it, is that it was easier to own a house and support a family in 1960 than it is today. It took fewer hours of less-skilled, less-credentialed work than it does today.

You guys are literally called the Baby Boomers because the economy was so good, there was a baby boom. Now the opposite is happening - a baby bust - I guess because we are a generation of whiners and not because the economy has changed such that many of us can't afford to support families.

Once again we see the failure to grasp the timeline. YES the economy was "so good that there was a baby boom." That doesn't make boomers the beneficiaries of that economy. I wasn't looking to buy a house in 1960. I wasn't even looking to buy my own diapers. I wasn't even born. My 'early' boomer brother and sister were still in grade school, so they weren't buying houses either. The economic policies that you are presenting as some sort of boomer conspiracy against you poor little youngsters were inflicted on the boomers, not by them.

Sure, if you want to get mad about the fact that boomers, by sheer weight of numbers, didn't suffer as badly from those policies as you are then go ahead and be mad...just understand that the people you should be mad at are the grandparents that showered you with gifts and had plenty of time for you because they were the beneficiaries of the policies they put in place and there were plenty of boomers for them to bleed. The major bloodletting struck in the early eighties, and yes I was in the workforce and knew I was getting screwed...but most of my contemporaries were just starting to pay enough attention to know who the president was, much less really analyze what he was saying and how it would affect them.

Now, @El_Machinae may have a valid complaint in that boomers failed to defend ourselves against those policies; a defense that would have defended you as well. But, for boomers the problem wasn't as bad because we just didn't have that big a 'retired class' to support compared to our own numbers. It sucked, and there was no justice in it, but it didn't have that urgency that it has for you.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Again people didn't vote for Reagan because of trickle down economics. You had to be around to understand. America was perceived as weak. Carter was weak, and there was the bunny rabbit. Reagan was tough and he wanted to make America tough again. People bought it, even more than from Trump. Reagan was not considered a creep like Trump so he won by a lot more than Trump did. But the similarities were there. Kinda scary when you think back.

Which is really a same since Carter was such a decent man, like Obama.

Do you remember the widespread remorse about Nixon, expressed as "better a smart crook than an honest fool"? That was pretty much the mantra of late seventies politics in my part of the country.

 

[metalhead]

Figured as much. Like I told metalhead, there was a concerted conspiracy in virtually all parts of American society to push these narratives on people. I don't think Boomers were likely to be affected much more than any other generation.

I think you have the cause and effect here backwards; those narratives were pushed on people as a result of the Reagan revolution, they weren't the cause of it. His election really kicked off a lot of the work of FedSoc, Heritage, etc. The Buckleys and such were the ancestors of the Reaganites, but they were considered fringe, Goldwater disciples that had been roundly and thoroughly rejected by the broader populace in 1964.

It wasn't until the consensus New Deal coalition began to fall apart in the 1970s that Reaganite conservatism began to gain traction in the Republican party. There was very much a choice made at the end of the 1970s and through the 1980s as to what kind of country we were going to be moving forward. Needless to say, Reagan conservatism won the day, even among Democrats. It's no coincidence that Bill Clinton won the presidency by campaigning and then governing like a Reagan Democrat
That vision has guided politics in America for almost 40 years now.

 

[El_Machinae]

I don't understand what you mean at all. The principles of basic macro were hammered out before the end of the 40s. By the 1980s people had decades of practical experience at managing economies based on those principles.

Can you think of an economy that managed that period of time with macro-policies you think were obvious? I mean, I'm understanding that a lot of the macro were understood. But, keep in mind, the 70s were a wild time, bonkers in a way that we are just not familiar. So, which countries adopted those policies, and how did the indicators turn out? Were they successful enough that they didn't get discarded? And, upfront, I will probably not credit petro-states all that much. I mean, there's a right way to do a petro-state, obviously, but it's also kind of obvious that sitting on a pile of exportables makes it easier to have any specific policy 'work'.