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point the zombie bank will have to be cut off like bear sterns or lehman brothers see matt taibbi s wall street s naked swindle at rolling stone see robert creamer s take on the bloated and parasitic financial industry here bonus essay boomered out how did we get here i blame the generational gap for many of our woes the plunging fiscal position of our government may make boomer health care expenses and pensions impossible to finance few american boomers have saved anywhere near enough for their retirements perhaps harsh economic times are a method of reacquainting americans with the importance of saving and self sufficiency it s time to re evaluate where the values of the baby boom generation have taken us boomers had to have it now credit became a way of life material gratification was elevated to the highest attainment in american society moral relativism rules the boomer generation s values if it feels good it can t be so bad goes the sheryl crow song drug use skyrocketed along with divorce rates and premarital sex teenage pregnancies etc compared to the generation before them the boomers have slipped on morals ideals concerning class and respect for one another have disappeared along with any sense of shame replaced by me first the baby boomers can t be blamed for where we are today but one of their chief overriding values greed does frame the economic situation we re now in without kenneth lay and other boomers desire to be rich beyond their dreams the motivation to commit massive economic crimes simply wouldn t be there of course every generation has it villains but we may see before it passes on one of history s greatest intergenerational thefts of course there are redeeming characteristics to the boomer generation our standard of living has expanded remarkably since the 70s we have things many things american attitudes towards race shows how societal norms change between generations boomers were raised in a far more racially intolerant environment boomers themselves grew up in a mostly homogenized america in the 50s through the 70s their first exposure to injustice was probably the struggle for civil rights with vietnam of course their defining moment that war was an example of how society can reject the values of their parents timothy leary s dropping out there are plenty of exceptions but it would seem that americans born after the boomers are far less sensitive to race and many are in fact color blind most don t really notice anothers race at least beyond recognizing the superficial differences and filing them in the subconscious children tend to inherit many of their parent s values so one way to judge the boomers values is through their children making a study of boomer children or boomerspawn as i m prone to think of them harder is the trend for children to gravitate away from their parents values just like the greatest generation before them the boomers grew up to be quite the opposite forgetting perhaps the value of shared sacrifices like those made by their parents through world war 2 and the great depression by this standard we can reverse engineer boomer values if the young are lazy the boomers are hard working the young giving their parents selfish etc making inter generational comparisons can be useful boomers worked hard xers less so as a small business owner i tried to model my own work ethic on boomers and failed i realized that reaching my goals would close many of life s other interests ending things i d always wanted to do it was a sacrifice i wasn t able to make i m probably deluding myself by assuming my business could have been profitable enough anyway working hard is a perfect boomer behaviors to model but the present day work ethic is not so much about working for work s sake but working to own more to have more to get more pleasure with real wages flat for so many working stiffs it s simply impossible to work enough hours to enjoy life at least in places around here it s very hard to get a factory job anymore america economy is declining our social mobility is now less than europe s in other words an american born today is less likely to enjoy a standard of living higher than his parents working hard should deliver to x ers what the boomers got prosperity and a rising standard of living then again if those are the values that made boomers happy it s no surprised that the next generation might reject those things but x ers may not be victimized not so much by laziness but by devolution of the american economy at least for the working classes the capitalist system can be and is often labelled as the culprit the kondratieff cycle claims that that corrections every 70 years are inevitable in a system such as ours seventy years ago we were in the great depression are we in one now putting work above all other things exempting perhaps god and family comes at a price the more americans are consumed by their labors the less free time they have it s as if americans are in a perpetual state of destination disease a condition where happiness must always be deferred having a better standard of life doesn t mean having no free time or no fun even if sacrificing all one s time now might mean even more pleasure later perhaps much later or too late americans suffer from the ominous plague of always wanting to be happy according to victor frankl s man s search for meaning we re even unhappier than we should be because we expect to be happy and can t settle for less without accepting the idea that it s all right to be unhappy americans seem cursed to always want more rather than look at unhappiness as a symptom that something s wrong and needs to be changed americans tend to think they can just work harder and everything will get better look at the get r done perception so common among supporters of our mideast adventures don t complain just work harder and we ll win the mechanics of how to win and the nitty gritty can be glazed over by the idea that all we need to be successful is more work demographics have now turned against the notion that work will set us free many now have two or more jobs and don t have the benefits necessary to avert disaster in the event of medical or some other calamity if work were the panacea how is it that so many americans who work the most of any people in the world have little to show for it like mice on treadmills americans no longer seem aware that they re not getting anywhere the faster they run unfortunately the next generation will be the first that has a lower living standard than their parents the boomers they ll live in an america which won t have enough to go around as the ranks of the unemployed grow working harder won t be a way out many won t be able to work at all depressed yet well i guess if you ve made it this far you understand that understanding the truth is more important than how you feel our emotions happiness and the fear of being unhappy need to be sacrificed for the goal of learning what we need to know about our world the ignorance that so many of us know wear so proudly placated by knowing less despite the danger comes at a price far worse than the temporary emotional burden associated with depressing news the time has come for americans to grow up we need to shed the ostrich like preoccupation with pleasure as we re about to learn the pursuit of pleasure alone yields very little of substance we can fill our tvs with endless doses of entertainment lacking any substance it s like eating an endless diet of bland soup it may diminish our hunger but we re never truly sated we ve become easily manipulated branded targets for mass advertizers who convert wants into urgent pressing needs the pleasure seeking comes at the price of ignorance we cannot afford to question why we need the things we do we just consume to grant ourselves the pleasures we must work we exchange time for pleasure but how much is lasting at least we accumulate an attic full of things hyper capitalism and the endless pursuit of things has decimated the planet the american lifestyle if emulated worldwide will bring the planet to an end the american way of life is simply unsustainable and we must change to get there we ll need create new ideals which are the opposite of self gratification with its over emphasis on me what i need what american society is not more me but more us too often we see any effort which doesn t enrich us or our families is not worth it however we re also generous giving more to charity per capita than virtually anyone else so there is hope hope that we will change the political system alone can t guarantee change as i ve blogged we need to make change happen together not just for planet but four ourselves for our young so they don t end up rich in things but weak on character americans shy away from political differences so implementing change will be a challenge and a collective one as well if we can t agree to disagree we really won t be able to advance goals that make the american lifestyle about more than accumulating capital and things what of the future we leave behind for our young first off i don t see a coherent set of values being delivered from the boomers this would be the latter half of the boomers people about 45 55 the youth of america seem to lack any core defining set of values in this respect i see one one the greatest dangers we face as the failure to transmit distinctly american values from generations especially considering the detour they ve been on transiting the long strange trip through the boomer years boomers children are now on the scene i m surrounded by college students where i live i observe their behavior every day and i see some troubling trends criticizing the youth is probably a common predilection of people moving into middle age like myself we re grumpy and tend to see the young as incompetent and confuse youthful inexperience with foolishness however much the two might overlap judging from fraternities around here not exactly an archetypical group for study we ve become something of a mob sure we can display our feathers on national holidays and revel in all the abundance that our consumption oriented lifestyle has given us but younger people don t seem to have anything that binds them together for us the x generation we had respect for one another s individual identity that was our model this may be passed on to the y generation to the point everyone is trying too hard to be different lacking any way to incalculate value americans who come after the boomers will not know what they ve missed the greatest generation the boomers parents is dying off and few young people will know what our society was like during that period the shared values and perseverance that saved the world from fascism have been lost perhaps forever american society has become about me a truth we seldom admit i ve heard that modeling is the most effective method for teaching values and providing a leadership example the changing role of the presidency in american society offers a window on the lack of character at the top a place where we need it the most and the absence of character is most obvious sadly younger americans have known bush as their model of character enough has been said about our recently departed leader before him clinton a man who lied publicly to hide a sexual relationship another beef against clinton was his raiding the social security trust fund to balance the budget the idea that we are either with him or against him has taken hold partisan divisions have grown to the point the president s ability to lead our nation has been limited the partisan divide expanded during bush the younger s reign in an about face opposition to bush morphed into support for obama which appears to be plagued by town hall screamers birthers and other extremists now as obama waffles on domestic surveillance torture and other issues vital to advocates of less intrusive government he appears to be creating a new divide can we blame the dilapidated state of leadership purely on the president no at a certain point we need to concede the fact that maybe these boomer presidents have all screwed our country up like both his predecessors obama is a boomer though a young one in this media age we ve elevated the president into some kind of all powerful emperor the media coverage a sort of truman show covering every aspect of the great leader s life no matter how mundane obama s very much a product of the media age one where managing perception in the media has been elevated to an art form elevated rhetoric way over reality say one thing to one crowd one day another the next promise the world when it pleases the audience regardless of the ability to deliver on the promise typical cheesy politician stuff obama s just elevated it to a new level of sleaze disappointing so many who had faith in him the president is supposed to be a role model from these examples and the way how can the young know what honor is who is it that will teach them they will learn from whom their parents tv plays a big role in changing societal attitudes perhaps tv has become a surrogate parent except instead of sesame street we have south park many episodes carry a positive theme tolerance sustainability honesty etc but the way the show delivers its message is very crude appealing not to the merits of behaving well but rather turning misbehavior into a carnival of oddities and laughter the best relief crude homosexual themes run through south park exposing south park children to adult lifestyles in a way previous generations would consider unwholesome i guess the stigma and prejudices that prevail in our society towards bgl t people will fall if enough young people grow indifferent to what is done in its distinct way south park blends humor with the taboo details then smacks the viewer with the openness of its depictions of the gay lifestyle perversely south park spews a constant flow of flagrant cussing including every manner of discrimination used in the adult world one which they will inevitably enter when today s young grow up i guess we ll be better able to judge tolerance for sexual orientation scarily i just realized that south park kids have grown up and that the example for many of them has been no one other than george w bush though not made for children i think many americans wouldn t be troubled by their older children watching the show younger kids tend to prefer less adult shows with subject matter far easier to grasp so in many respects little has changed except the amount of tv viewing and the raw volume of data content input choices from the days of sesame street abc s after school special and saturday morning only cartoons dna reality check i ll admit this is a topic on which i know next to nothing so this is pure speculation based on wild conjecture interesting indeed it would be if our dna reprograms itself between generations reflecting adjustments in attitudes ...