Part III
Revised 04/10/09: My actual story, strange but true.......
Kurt Anderson - The ? Generation:
I remember when I was a kid, old people were so nice. This group was mostly the World War II generation-the parents, or more accurately, the grandparents of the Baby Boom generation, but I think the Baby Boomers were more like the Luckiest Generation, in that they escaped the remnants of poverty that plagued earlier waves of Americans. WWII survivors had a lot of opportunity when they shipped back to the states, but it took them a lifetime to take advantage of it. They achieved prosperity just in time to spoil their kids and grandkids, the Baby Boomers and the later boomers, whose parents were of the Depression-era generation. I can't just pick on the Baby Boom generation, of which I am technically a late member. Regardless, they all benefited from the WWII generation's resultant wave of prosperity after the war. Whoever had survived WWII had their pick of jobs, property, and women. This was indeed a rare and opportune moment in world history, and the "Boomers" would be in the best position in human history to profit from such good fortune.
So the WWII generation would lead to the birth of the largest and wealthiest generation in history, the Baby Boomers, and later become notorious as the Greediest Generation. Where the WWII people were relatively kind, hard-working, religious and honest, the Baby Boomers would be relatively atheistic, dishonest, and greedy.
The "Boomers" ahead of us would soak up all the jobs and cash, and set the tone, well before we showed up. This would be our lifelong curse. These jokers would be one step ahead of our generation every step of the way. They were too cool, and yet, by the year 2009, their presence would be evidenced by the general and mass decline of Western civilization. Originally 78 million-strong, every day, they're dropping like flies now, finally. It's actually quite fascinating to witness, because I think this group truly thought they would live forever.
Where the WWII generation fought and died for their country, the Boomers would betray their country and be proud of that. How did the Boomers eventually screw later generations and their own country? Here are the six main areas that my exhaustive research has borne out:
As of 2014:
Back to my experience: Starting around 2003 or so, the gray-hairs started to get meaner and meaner, not all of them of course, but a whole lot more than when I was a kid through the teen-age years-the sixties and seventies. I never saw geezers flip the bird when I was younger, that's for sure. Luckily they abused their bodies so badly from drugs and partying, they're not living that long, so we're getting rid of them pretty rapidly, at an increasing rate every day.
This generation always seemed intent on giving the country away to outsiders under the guise of affirmative action, wide open borders, and the liberal agenda. Later on, when they finally realized what they had done, and the country really did start to slip away, they tried to take it back through the Tea Party movement, but it was too little, too late. The damage had been done.
I see that currently, economically, the Baby Boomers are finally getting their due. Maybe there will be justice after all: Tom Brokaw reported in 2009: "(They became) the richest and the greatest consumers, for good, bad or indifferent," Brokaw reported from Vancouver. "And now they're in a stage in their lives — coming into their late 50s and early 60s — during this economic downturn, when a lot of the assumptions that they grew up with, that they assumed would be there forever, have not just been challenged, but have been turned on their head. It's forcing Boomers to re-evaluate their lives and their expectations", Brokaw said. "Boomers thought they'd continue working if they wanted to, but they can't because many are being pushed out. On the opposite side", Brokaw said. "A lot of Boomers who had hoped to be able to cut back on working can't afford to. The economy worked for them, and now it's turning against them".
Our generation's appearance on the other hand, Generation X, seemed to be hardly noticed. We just kind of quietly showed up.
There would be nothing to mark our generation, no age of prosperity, like the early baby boomers, no great war, like our grandparents. We wouldn't get the chance to be heroes, to walk around with our chest sticking out after saving humanity from some evil empire.
There would be no Vietnam or Woodstock, Charlie Manson, or campus protest for us. We were the wide-eyed innocent children of the sixties.....hypnotized by idealistic TV shows like Gilligan's Island, Bewitched, and I Dream of Genie, too young to comprehend the rebellion all around us. Some people refer to our time as that of Generation X. Actually, we arrived just after the Baby Boomers and before Generation X. We never had a name. We can best be described as members of a forgotten generation. We got to college too early to benefit from computers and the internet, and too late to enjoy the massive generational party that was the Baby Boomer Generation.
God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need. We’re the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War’s a spiritual war…our Great Depression is our lives. We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off. -Fight Club
As far as wars go, we were involved in a more subtle kind of war, one with no body bags. The corporate culture was being born, especially that of the "pharmaceutical drug cartel". All in the name of profits, this one dimensional marketing machine would end up dwarfing the sins of the Nazis in regards to the body-count resulting from pushing prescription drugs in the name of health.
For example, take the huge marketing campaign push of the original birth control pill. Corporate had finally perfected "the pill", building on the unfortunate Thalidomide morning-sickness pill disaster of 1958 to 1961 (updated article, 2010). Their mantra was that the "World is over-populated. Save the world, blah, blah, blah.....", and we fell for it. The Woodstock generation screwed like rabbits, with no apparent consequences. If you're white and you were born in the 60's, consider yourself lucky to even be here.
The 40 million-person vacancy left in the U.S. population by the Pill's popularity would open the door eventually, years later, to a massive influx of illegal immigrants to take their place. Every effect has a cause. This one thing would drastically change the face of America forever, and set the precedent for the huge profits of the drug industry for the foreseeable future. The emphasis went from health care to health care profits.
The world was empty then, compared to now. If we wouldn't reproduce, the Third World certainly made up for it in later years.
Life's Goals:
In my 30's-to start a successful business and buy a house
In my 40's-to do something right.......
I accomplished none of these goals. In fact, the harder I tried, the further away it seems, I got from achieving even a semblance of any of these basic goals in life. The reasons for this were mostly my fault, mainly due to poor decisions, bad advice, sabotage, the era, and just plain bad luck.
"I've dated guys with a little bad luck, but I've never met anyone with bad luck like you have it."
Ex-girlfriend number 3
I suppose I will die an unsung man, but it won't be for lack of effort.
Now that I'm older, here is what my goals should have been:
In my teens-find a competent career counselor, plan my career path, date a lot of girls...
In my twenties-establish my career and reputation, marry my girl, buy a house...
In my thirties-bank the cash, raise the kiddies....
In my forties-enjoy the fruits of good planning....
Well, this is how our parents did it anyway. It seemed the country was changing, unfortunately for me and my aspirations to accomplish anything meaningful....
Unfortunately, I was raised to be super-fair and honest, which is no way to get ahead in the world as it is, but my mother was very naive in her teachings, and my stepfather was non-existent as a mentor, as he was always away chasing the dollar, except for Friday nights, when he would come home in a rage over his work-week, and I would go hide under the bed. Selling insurance must suck as a job, because he was always pissed off. (1966-70, King of Prussia).
As far as planning, there really was no plan, except to survive college, which I was ill-suited for, except for the wrestling thing. I think, specifically, to begin with, I really regret even going off to college. It's not like I was some academic prodigy, in which case I could understand the push to go to college. My going to college was akin to sending Stephen Hawking to wrestling camp.
When I left for college my parents just got wealthier and devoted all their energies to helping my much younger adopted brother achieve his dreams. He also got a lot of slack because he had been diagnosed with dyslexia. I guess that severe color-blindness condition that I was born with didn't count for much....
So while I was away at college learning drinking 101 and wrestling 102, it gave my brother a chance to look like a hero by helping out on the new 40 acre farm, which soon became an 80 acre farm. He subsequently got a job just working on the farm doing the same thing I was doing before I got sent off to college, except he got to just keep doing it the rest of his life, while I was chasing around the country after graduation paying overpriced rent and expenses and working jobs that I usually hated and that didn't pay much above survival wages.
I would have gotten much further merely by staying in my parent's basement and continuing my lawn business, and keeping my moped and bike rental business at the beach, instead of going off to some far-away college and pissing away the next five years, with nothing to show for it at the conclusion. More importantly, I lost the connections I had nurtured during my 8 years living in a fairly wealthy area, because, as I know now, connections are everything. In fact, I never did recover from college, never bought a home, got married, or sampled anything else meaningful that life has to offer.
Even if I had stayed in that basement, I don't think my Dad would have let me be successful anyway. In fact he spent a fair amount of his energies ensuring I would not be successful, at anything I got involved in. Unfortunately I did not realize this until too late.
Better yet, I should have attended a trade school, plumbing, or carpentry, along with sticking with my two businesses and moved to a tiny house to start, in a decent area. I know a cabinet-maker who lived like a king, up until the latest economic meltdown of 2008 or so. The trades really have been gold through the 80's and 90's, and well into the 21st century. Things have only recently slowed down for the skilled trades people (2009), relatively speaking. I lost count of how many times I was jobless and broke, for months on end, while my plumber or construction buddies had all the work they could handle.
Plus, there's the fortune in living expenses you blow while attending college. I see now why the community colleges are packed. At the very least, you should attempt to buy a house in the town where you attend college, rent some rooms to other students to pay the mortgage, then sell when you graduate. Ah, but experience is something you get.........just after you need it.
That would have been a better plan, but they say we have no real control. Destiny is destiny.
Next: Part IV
Revised 04/10/09: My actual story, strange but true.......
Kurt Anderson - The ? Generation:
I remember when I was a kid, old people were so nice. This group was mostly the World War II generation-the parents, or more accurately, the grandparents of the Baby Boom generation, but I think the Baby Boomers were more like the Luckiest Generation, in that they escaped the remnants of poverty that plagued earlier waves of Americans. WWII survivors had a lot of opportunity when they shipped back to the states, but it took them a lifetime to take advantage of it. They achieved prosperity just in time to spoil their kids and grandkids, the Baby Boomers and the later boomers, whose parents were of the Depression-era generation. I can't just pick on the Baby Boom generation, of which I am technically a late member. Regardless, they all benefited from the WWII generation's resultant wave of prosperity after the war. Whoever had survived WWII had their pick of jobs, property, and women. This was indeed a rare and opportune moment in world history, and the "Boomers" would be in the best position in human history to profit from such good fortune.
So the WWII generation would lead to the birth of the largest and wealthiest generation in history, the Baby Boomers, and later become notorious as the Greediest Generation. Where the WWII people were relatively kind, hard-working, religious and honest, the Baby Boomers would be relatively atheistic, dishonest, and greedy.
The "Boomers" ahead of us would soak up all the jobs and cash, and set the tone, well before we showed up. This would be our lifelong curse. These jokers would be one step ahead of our generation every step of the way. They were too cool, and yet, by the year 2009, their presence would be evidenced by the general and mass decline of Western civilization. Originally 78 million-strong, every day, they're dropping like flies now, finally. It's actually quite fascinating to witness, because I think this group truly thought they would live forever.
Where the WWII generation fought and died for their country, the Boomers would betray their country and be proud of that. How did the Boomers eventually screw later generations and their own country? Here are the six main areas that my exhaustive research has borne out:
As of 2014:
*1) Voted for Spending with Almost no Fundamental Return on Investment, like wars, and instead of paying for it added it to the national debt. Now we have huge debt payments due to their recklessness.
2) To support their lifestyle they voted for tax cuts, allowed funding for colleges to be cut as well as poorly negotiated trade agreements that made short term financial sense but undermined many industries that supported the economy. This fueled the growth of China and India, two countries that now consume the resources we used to have a near monopoly on.
3) They rode the real estate bubble hard. They turned their backs on the corruption of the lending industry because property values were doubling every 5-10 years. They saw their $30,000 starter home go up to $250,000 and thought "free money", not realizing it also meant their kids were all paying for those "tax free gains".
4) They voted massive benefits for themselves with no thought on how to pay for it. Like allowing the social security age to stay at 65 without raising their taxes until much later. Most were contributing at half the rate their kids have to contribute. Over 50% of our health care expenses go for the last parts of a persons life, meanwhile a young person who has an injury can be financially ruined.
5) Valued social issues over long term economic growth. They fought "culture wars" instead of investing for the future.
6) They didn't guard the country for the next generation. They allowed the institutions that supported the young people, like college loans and health care, to run rampant over a bunch of 18 year olds.
Really this is just a starting point and not an inclusive list. I will keep adding to it as long as I am able.
*Source: Reddit.com, MLBAccount 2014
Back to my experience: Starting around 2003 or so, the gray-hairs started to get meaner and meaner, not all of them of course, but a whole lot more than when I was a kid through the teen-age years-the sixties and seventies. I never saw geezers flip the bird when I was younger, that's for sure. Luckily they abused their bodies so badly from drugs and partying, they're not living that long, so we're getting rid of them pretty rapidly, at an increasing rate every day.
This generation always seemed intent on giving the country away to outsiders under the guise of affirmative action, wide open borders, and the liberal agenda. Later on, when they finally realized what they had done, and the country really did start to slip away, they tried to take it back through the Tea Party movement, but it was too little, too late. The damage had been done.
I see that currently, economically, the Baby Boomers are finally getting their due. Maybe there will be justice after all: Tom Brokaw reported in 2009: "(They became) the richest and the greatest consumers, for good, bad or indifferent," Brokaw reported from Vancouver. "And now they're in a stage in their lives — coming into their late 50s and early 60s — during this economic downturn, when a lot of the assumptions that they grew up with, that they assumed would be there forever, have not just been challenged, but have been turned on their head. It's forcing Boomers to re-evaluate their lives and their expectations", Brokaw said. "Boomers thought they'd continue working if they wanted to, but they can't because many are being pushed out. On the opposite side", Brokaw said. "A lot of Boomers who had hoped to be able to cut back on working can't afford to. The economy worked for them, and now it's turning against them".
Tom Brokaw-March 1, 2010, USA Today
Our generation's appearance on the other hand, Generation X, seemed to be hardly noticed. We just kind of quietly showed up.
There would be nothing to mark our generation, no age of prosperity, like the early baby boomers, no great war, like our grandparents. We wouldn't get the chance to be heroes, to walk around with our chest sticking out after saving humanity from some evil empire.
There would be no Vietnam or Woodstock, Charlie Manson, or campus protest for us. We were the wide-eyed innocent children of the sixties.....hypnotized by idealistic TV shows like Gilligan's Island, Bewitched, and I Dream of Genie, too young to comprehend the rebellion all around us. Some people refer to our time as that of Generation X. Actually, we arrived just after the Baby Boomers and before Generation X. We never had a name. We can best be described as members of a forgotten generation. We got to college too early to benefit from computers and the internet, and too late to enjoy the massive generational party that was the Baby Boomer Generation.
God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need. We’re the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War’s a spiritual war…our Great Depression is our lives. We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off. -Fight Club
As far as wars go, we were involved in a more subtle kind of war, one with no body bags. The corporate culture was being born, especially that of the "pharmaceutical drug cartel". All in the name of profits, this one dimensional marketing machine would end up dwarfing the sins of the Nazis in regards to the body-count resulting from pushing prescription drugs in the name of health.
For example, take the huge marketing campaign push of the original birth control pill. Corporate had finally perfected "the pill", building on the unfortunate Thalidomide morning-sickness pill disaster of 1958 to 1961 (updated article, 2010). Their mantra was that the "World is over-populated. Save the world, blah, blah, blah.....", and we fell for it. The Woodstock generation screwed like rabbits, with no apparent consequences. If you're white and you were born in the 60's, consider yourself lucky to even be here.
The 40 million-person vacancy left in the U.S. population by the Pill's popularity would open the door eventually, years later, to a massive influx of illegal immigrants to take their place. Every effect has a cause. This one thing would drastically change the face of America forever, and set the precedent for the huge profits of the drug industry for the foreseeable future. The emphasis went from health care to health care profits.
The world was empty then, compared to now. If we wouldn't reproduce, the Third World certainly made up for it in later years.
Life's Goals:
In my 30's-to start a successful business and buy a house
In my 40's-to do something right.......
I accomplished none of these goals. In fact, the harder I tried, the further away it seems, I got from achieving even a semblance of any of these basic goals in life. The reasons for this were mostly my fault, mainly due to poor decisions, bad advice, sabotage, the era, and just plain bad luck.
"I've dated guys with a little bad luck, but I've never met anyone with bad luck like you have it."
Ex-girlfriend number 3
I suppose I will die an unsung man, but it won't be for lack of effort.
Now that I'm older, here is what my goals should have been:
In my teens-find a competent career counselor, plan my career path, date a lot of girls...
In my twenties-establish my career and reputation, marry my girl, buy a house...
In my thirties-bank the cash, raise the kiddies....
In my forties-enjoy the fruits of good planning....
Well, this is how our parents did it anyway. It seemed the country was changing, unfortunately for me and my aspirations to accomplish anything meaningful....
Unfortunately, I was raised to be super-fair and honest, which is no way to get ahead in the world as it is, but my mother was very naive in her teachings, and my stepfather was non-existent as a mentor, as he was always away chasing the dollar, except for Friday nights, when he would come home in a rage over his work-week, and I would go hide under the bed. Selling insurance must suck as a job, because he was always pissed off. (1966-70, King of Prussia).
As far as planning, there really was no plan, except to survive college, which I was ill-suited for, except for the wrestling thing. I think, specifically, to begin with, I really regret even going off to college. It's not like I was some academic prodigy, in which case I could understand the push to go to college. My going to college was akin to sending Stephen Hawking to wrestling camp.
When I left for college my parents just got wealthier and devoted all their energies to helping my much younger adopted brother achieve his dreams. He also got a lot of slack because he had been diagnosed with dyslexia. I guess that severe color-blindness condition that I was born with didn't count for much....
So while I was away at college learning drinking 101 and wrestling 102, it gave my brother a chance to look like a hero by helping out on the new 40 acre farm, which soon became an 80 acre farm. He subsequently got a job just working on the farm doing the same thing I was doing before I got sent off to college, except he got to just keep doing it the rest of his life, while I was chasing around the country after graduation paying overpriced rent and expenses and working jobs that I usually hated and that didn't pay much above survival wages.
I would have gotten much further merely by staying in my parent's basement and continuing my lawn business, and keeping my moped and bike rental business at the beach, instead of going off to some far-away college and pissing away the next five years, with nothing to show for it at the conclusion. More importantly, I lost the connections I had nurtured during my 8 years living in a fairly wealthy area, because, as I know now, connections are everything. In fact, I never did recover from college, never bought a home, got married, or sampled anything else meaningful that life has to offer.
Even if I had stayed in that basement, I don't think my Dad would have let me be successful anyway. In fact he spent a fair amount of his energies ensuring I would not be successful, at anything I got involved in. Unfortunately I did not realize this until too late.
Better yet, I should have attended a trade school, plumbing, or carpentry, along with sticking with my two businesses and moved to a tiny house to start, in a decent area. I know a cabinet-maker who lived like a king, up until the latest economic meltdown of 2008 or so. The trades really have been gold through the 80's and 90's, and well into the 21st century. Things have only recently slowed down for the skilled trades people (2009), relatively speaking. I lost count of how many times I was jobless and broke, for months on end, while my plumber or construction buddies had all the work they could handle.
Plus, there's the fortune in living expenses you blow while attending college. I see now why the community colleges are packed. At the very least, you should attempt to buy a house in the town where you attend college, rent some rooms to other students to pay the mortgage, then sell when you graduate. Ah, but experience is something you get.........just after you need it.
That would have been a better plan, but they say we have no real control. Destiny is destiny.
Next: Part IV
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