During my weekly phone conversation with my dad, he brought up that he has been hearing a lot of chatter about the void in the job market that will need to be filled as the Baby Boomers retire. A good deal later my brain started to process bits and pieces of information on this topic. And I didn't care one bit about the void in the job market.Even in my teen years, as a Generation X'er, there has always been the haunting notion that Social Security and Medicare would not be able to handle the burden of Baby Boomers quitting their jobs. But as this generation retires, they will also be cashing in their 401k plans. What effect will this have on our stock markets? Many hope to cash in the equity of their larger homes to purchase smaller retirement housing. What effect will this have on the already struggling housing market?
Is it possible that 45 years after the Summer of Love that the hippies will finally succeed in the destruction of the post-WWII consumer culture they supposedly rebelled against? Could it be that the generation that held Happenings and Be-Ins and all manner of demonstrations in an effort to bring down the system might finally see their efforts come to fruition? Could a generation that seemed determined to change the world through the strength of their numbers, that later seemingly embraced the system they rebelled against, now see the strength of their numbers do exactly what they at one time had set out to do at the time most inconvenient to them? Is karma that big of a bitch?
And why does the thought of all this happening make me giggle?
4 comments:
That'll kind of fix the "void in the job market" won't it? Of course, you'll need to watch out for those 18-wheelers driven by 75 year-olds going 40 mph in the left lane with their blinker on.
The biggest problem with the boomers is that in my lifetime Americans went from being called citizens to consumers, all on the watch of the so called anti-establishment hippies. Then the older they got the more they wanted government to subsidize them. Well maybe they'll have to go back to being citizens, live within their means, like cashing out the equity in their homes and go back to juniors farm.
They ain't moving in with me.
Isn't it interesting that Baby Boomer retirement should peak in about 5 years, say somewhere around December 21, 2012?
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