Great article Bocchi… but to me, this all comes back to 9/11… and the fact that Bin Laden, has thus far won the war of ideologies. The amount of State instituted financial Inflation/quantitative easing and the like, have left us with what we see.. a breakdown of cohesive culture and scarce possibilities for the you… even myself, I wonder how much longer I have as a late 40’s successful GenX Exec…..
Covid only exasperated the 9/11 issue by a factor of 3 or more.
I have three children, and can think of only making the most amount of wealth I can in the next 20 years, so that they may have a shot, because on their own I am not sure it’s a fair shake.
It’s a different time, and one I think most of the west never anticipated post WW2. The rise of China, and Russia now powerful again..
Alessandra, I wish you all the best. I would never categorize you or anyone else in the way you just did to me. Why trouble yourself so dramatically over something you have no control over? That is a rhetorical question. I don’t need an answer. I’ll see myself out.
To your readers from X, your thesis on Boomers has been a long gestating gnawing that has finally taken bite. My parents were at the end of what you call the Silent Generation, what we called here in America, the greatest generation. They were the children of Italian immigrant, my grandfather from Catanzaro Calabria and my mother primarily Sicilian. They worked hard, had few educational opportunities, and while my mother is alive, will leave nothing of monetary value when she's gone.
I am at the beginning of Gen X, a few years removed from the Baby Boomers, and I am circa 1966. I joined the military after school, worked incessantly (what you might call grind culture), took every assignment I could get to move up until one day I was CEO. I worked exceptionally hard and no one gave me anything. I most assuredly will do better financially in life than my own son, a chiropractor, who barely makes more in 2025 than I did in 1990, yet he has a US dollar eroded by inflation, that for every $1 I earned then, he needs to earn $2.45 now. Home prices alone, and the idea of a 50 Year Mortgage, this is another unsustainable brick on the road to demise of Western Civilization.
All of this said, and the Boomers were more lucky than incessantly evil. They played the game that was before them to be played. They rode a wave of prosperity that was born on the backs of the deaths of 70-85 Million worldwide deaths in World War 2 and the explosion of goods, services and technologies that the war machine developed (shout out plastics, shout out PFAS, , microwaves, TVs and advanced manufacturing). I don't begrudge the Boomers for the wealth, I begrudge them for the attitudes that are tearing about the fabric of society that matter to me: faith, family, respect for all life, decency. They took what was good and replaced with abortion, destruction of the family and pervasive drug use (shoutout Boomers, yeah!)
My favorite part of being CEO is working with the younger generations and getting to know them as people. Conditions are harder for them when i left the military and started my family, but many of them embrace the ideals of faith and family again. I hope my anecdotal views aren't wrong.
The world is different than it was half a century ago. The conditions are not the same, the playing field is not level, the headwinds stronger. The next generations will adapt, perhaps AI will give young families a chance to work less and earn enough to not scrape by. My faith requires me to pray and hope for the best.
I genuinely find your Boomer writing interesting, even though little reflects my life’s experiences and observations, even though I am ‘just’ in the that age category. But it helps to resist confirmation bias, for me.
And a very small percentage of people I know aged +62 would nicely fit into the characterisation that you described. Perhaps that applies to the other age groups, that generalisations by nature can be unsubtle.
Though the generation imbalance is clearly real, but an agreeable solution to all appears unattainable. Perhaps a younger generation revolution s the only way to resolve it, and that may be the cycle going forward, when the current younger generations become the older ones.
Great article!
Great article Bocchi… but to me, this all comes back to 9/11… and the fact that Bin Laden, has thus far won the war of ideologies. The amount of State instituted financial Inflation/quantitative easing and the like, have left us with what we see.. a breakdown of cohesive culture and scarce possibilities for the you… even myself, I wonder how much longer I have as a late 40’s successful GenX Exec…..
Covid only exasperated the 9/11 issue by a factor of 3 or more.
I have three children, and can think of only making the most amount of wealth I can in the next 20 years, so that they may have a shot, because on their own I am not sure it’s a fair shake.
It’s a different time, and one I think most of the west never anticipated post WW2. The rise of China, and Russia now powerful again..
GIA is quaking for sure…
I’m an Atheist mang’- calling them as I see them.
How is Russia powerful again??? American Orthobros living in an alternate reality.
Whew…why are you so focused on someone else’s wealth? Also, why box yourself into all these categories?
Thank you for your comment, Boomer. You managed to prove my point by making a comment that exemplifies the thesis of my argument perfectly.
Alessandra, I wish you all the best. I would never categorize you or anyone else in the way you just did to me. Why trouble yourself so dramatically over something you have no control over? That is a rhetorical question. I don’t need an answer. I’ll see myself out.
To your readers from X, your thesis on Boomers has been a long gestating gnawing that has finally taken bite. My parents were at the end of what you call the Silent Generation, what we called here in America, the greatest generation. They were the children of Italian immigrant, my grandfather from Catanzaro Calabria and my mother primarily Sicilian. They worked hard, had few educational opportunities, and while my mother is alive, will leave nothing of monetary value when she's gone.
I am at the beginning of Gen X, a few years removed from the Baby Boomers, and I am circa 1966. I joined the military after school, worked incessantly (what you might call grind culture), took every assignment I could get to move up until one day I was CEO. I worked exceptionally hard and no one gave me anything. I most assuredly will do better financially in life than my own son, a chiropractor, who barely makes more in 2025 than I did in 1990, yet he has a US dollar eroded by inflation, that for every $1 I earned then, he needs to earn $2.45 now. Home prices alone, and the idea of a 50 Year Mortgage, this is another unsustainable brick on the road to demise of Western Civilization.
All of this said, and the Boomers were more lucky than incessantly evil. They played the game that was before them to be played. They rode a wave of prosperity that was born on the backs of the deaths of 70-85 Million worldwide deaths in World War 2 and the explosion of goods, services and technologies that the war machine developed (shout out plastics, shout out PFAS, , microwaves, TVs and advanced manufacturing). I don't begrudge the Boomers for the wealth, I begrudge them for the attitudes that are tearing about the fabric of society that matter to me: faith, family, respect for all life, decency. They took what was good and replaced with abortion, destruction of the family and pervasive drug use (shoutout Boomers, yeah!)
My favorite part of being CEO is working with the younger generations and getting to know them as people. Conditions are harder for them when i left the military and started my family, but many of them embrace the ideals of faith and family again. I hope my anecdotal views aren't wrong.
The world is different than it was half a century ago. The conditions are not the same, the playing field is not level, the headwinds stronger. The next generations will adapt, perhaps AI will give young families a chance to work less and earn enough to not scrape by. My faith requires me to pray and hope for the best.
I genuinely find your Boomer writing interesting, even though little reflects my life’s experiences and observations, even though I am ‘just’ in the that age category. But it helps to resist confirmation bias, for me.
And a very small percentage of people I know aged +62 would nicely fit into the characterisation that you described. Perhaps that applies to the other age groups, that generalisations by nature can be unsubtle.
Though the generation imbalance is clearly real, but an agreeable solution to all appears unattainable. Perhaps a younger generation revolution s the only way to resolve it, and that may be the cycle going forward, when the current younger generations become the older ones.