We are the worst generation.
I'm looking forward to even more exposure to today's somewhat leaded aviation gas as I contribute to the transition being made to alternative fuels.
I'll use that as an excuse any time I need to behave more erratically ;)
>sustainable growth could have continued for a few hundred years (and possibly have lead to a better system)
Yes, I did the math when I was a teenager.
But both of these impending eventualities did not look like they would ever be recoverable after Nixon was there for not that long a time.
I guess I was right, and here we are :\
This is not what my father fought in World War II for, and the whole country went through, just to end up in deeper debt [0], with more irrational leadership than so-called shitholes, and failing to remain orders of magnitude richer than China :(
As we go along, a lot of 21st century financial things that might have been recoverable just a few years ago are slipping out of reach faster each day now. Sooner or later the bottom rung of this modern ladder will be out-of-reach and not coming back either.
[0] When the only reason for any debt at all is a temporary situation like the need to vanquish authoritarian dictators who need it so bad that freedom-loving Americans just can't stand it any more.
Unless somebody puts some effort into combining the two, which does happen.
Psychopaths would have done damage whether they were affected by chemicals or not.
Now you do bring up a major conundrum which many people may not want to face at all, and would not know what to think no matter if it was true or false.
You make a legitimate observation whether that is coming from outside the USA or from freedom-loving Americans.
I new you were very sensible the whole time :)
peyton is right, and it's worth it to put in the effort to improve communication
Me too.
>We are the worst generation.
Nah.
>Pulled the ladder up on those after them.
It was only the ones that voted themselves infinite wealth and got it, and they pulled it up on most everybody in their same age group too way back then. IOW only a handful of boomers by comparison to all the rest.
When you do the math the vast majority of people over 65 have assets that are dwarfed by a halfway decent tech employee, after only about 5 years of employment.
Which is neither better nor worse, if everything went south right now you still couldn't say whether the retiree of 65 or the hard-working 25-year old would make it until they were 70 or not without running out of "runway".
This is by design no matter how you vote.
> It was only the ones that voted themselves infinite wealth and got it,
It was also the ones who spent generations pressuring their govs for ever restrictive zoning laws, wanting to freeze their neighborhood in time by tanking new builds. This is very much pulling up the ladder behind them.
The whole state?
How bad has it been everywhere else?
I've never seen that in action but it seems as corrupt and unfair as lots of other things that contributed to the snowballing lack of future opportunity in different ways. Very much pulling up the ladder like you have seen first hand, however the well-connected ones could pull it off they were getting it while the getting was good. With very limited oportunities to get on the gravy train as always, the remaining younger boomers never had a chance :(
In places like Texas and Florida it seems like development never stops for anything.
1: https://www.newsweek.com/americas-12-richest-men-worth-combi...
It's the upper middle class that fills educational institutions, prevents the construction of new property, hogs most of the old property and in general has impacted the upward mobility of the lower classes. Musk has a lot of issues, but he's not really getting in the way of people getting richer themselves.
That said, they do get to exercise infinitely more control and power than a bunch of old people who own non-voting shares and real property that's only valuable at the whim and pleasure of the local regulators.