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New office crisis: Boomers won't leave!
Dan Drezner
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Kai Ryssdal: How you feel about the economy right now might well depend on where you are in the pecking order, generationally speaking. To use a personal finance term here for a second, financial horizons -- that is, the time any given person has left to work and save -- can vary widely. And in light of the great stock market crash of 2008, everybody's reassessing their economic future, including commentator Dan Drezner.
DAN DREZNER: The financial downturn has left all sorts of casualties in its wake: more unemployment, depressed wages, and greater economic uncertainty. But I'd like to direct my angst at a different target -- the baby boomers.
A hidden effect of this crisis is that, in the workplace, as in popular discourse, they simply refuse to get out of the way.
To understand my lament, you have to realize that the oldest of the baby boomers are on the cusp of retirement. For younger generations, this should be a cause for relief. For decades, Gen X-ers like myself have had to hear the standard declarations about the uniqueness of the baby boomers. Maybe they were not the Greatest Generation, but they were the ones who glorified the whole idea of generational identity. For decades, Gen X-ers have had to hear complaints about our political apathy, our popular culture, and our musical tastes.
We have suffered many of these critiques without complaint. Why? Because so many of us worked for so many of them. They were the bosses of the business world. And they were supposed to be retiring very soon, but the recession has changed all that.
In 2008, U.S. workers aged 55 to 64 who had 401(k)'s for at least 20 years saw their retirement balances drop an average of 20 percent. A recent YouGov poll showed two-thirds of this generation have not made the necessary adjustments in their financial planning. This is not a recipe for leaving the workforce anytime soon.
What does this mean for the rest of us? Younger workers who expected promotions when the boomers cleared out are going to have to stew in their own juices. With this job market, looking for a better opportunity elsewhere is not in the cards. Which means that Gen X-ers are going to have to listen to baby boomers doing what they do best -- talk about themselves.
Office politics across the country are going to get a lot nastier. Of course, it could be worse. Generation Y not only has to deal with the boomers, they have to cope with people like me complaining about them.
Ryssdal: Dan Drezner is a professor of international politics at Tufts University.
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This drivel makes about as much sense as adults, or should I say oversized children, blaming their parents for their own dysfunctional tendencies. We all would like to have somebody else be responsible for us- but so far, each one of us eventually stands up and takes care of ourselves. Boomers, X'ers, Y'ers - get over it. Does a pilot get angry with the storm and quit? Or does the pilot navigate around around the disturbance and proceed on to the destination? Bunch of whiners......
Listening to Dan Drezner's commentary reminded me of the state of the American workforce when I was growing up--and yeah, I'm a boomer, Class of 48.
Back then, many of the manufacturing and basic materials industries were structured so that a worker could get in while young, work hard for good wages and buying power for a few decades, then get out with a decent retirement, making way for younger folks working their way up. That's what my dad did, and describes his career as a mechanic for Douglas Aircraft.
Sound like what you want Mr. Drezner? Don't want me to hang around forever keeping you down? OK, then let's re-energize the unions that were responsible for that earlier golden age and put the country back on track.
Oh baby! Let the games begin! Spoiled Boomers been riding on the back of the greatest generation their whole lives. Made endless series of bad choices as well articulated by Dan C. The day WILL come when they look to Gen X'ers to care for them. Yeah, and good luck with that! Oh wait, what am I talking about?! They'll be fine, because they are mortgaging their children's future to assure their own. What else would you expect from the most self-centered and selfish generation in human history.
I nearly dropped dead in my corporate punk, Generation X tracks, when I heard this story.
Finally, someone had the balls to say what we think, out loud, in public, and on NPR no less.
Oh the lament of the American Baby Boomer... the greediest, most self-centered, most self-destructive, generation of no-gooders that has ever walked Douglas Adams computer generated Earth.
You are sold out hippies, turned drug addicts, turned yuppies, who brought the world the worst artifacts of popular culture, TPS reports, Birkenstocks, The International Style, Suburbia, and the idea of thinking one quarter ahead.
The world revolves around the Baby Boomer. And they never grew out of their infantile state of existence. You are personified by Rush Limbaugh.
We blame you for everything. Please shutup and get on the spaceship that we are putting you on.
The Church of the SuperGenius names Dan the Man of the Year.
I'm sorry that the decimation of an entire generation's retirement savings has inconvenienced Generation X, but when it comes to being self-absorbed, the baby boom generation has nothing on Mr. Drezner. I wonder how he feels about those of his own generation who dreamed up the financial derivatives that sunk the economy in the first place.
You cannot generalize about an entire generation, just like you can't generalize about all White people or all Black people or all men or all women. This is basic civility 101. Learn it and we will all be happier together - which is how we much live, generation by generation, together. Lets help each other instead of aggressively suggesting one group or another should 'get out of my way.' Sounds like ethnic cleansing to me. What you do to one, will happen some day to you. Is this the world you want to make? A world of self righteousness and hate?
I can't believe all the whining!Complaining is rarely productive and complaining about people as a group is exactly what is at the root of prejudice, whether it is against a gender, a race,or an age group. Having been born after most baby boomer and before any of the other "generations." Being born in 1959,I am not really a member of any of those groups, but I don't complain about any of them either. How about spending that energy you are wasting on whining on trying to help people with real problems! The only good thing about this economic crisis is that it has helped some of us to appreciate what is good in our lives.
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