I visit with my octogenarian grandmother weekly, and though that generation is laughably humble about how hard they worked, she'd tell you it was harder for her mother and father to raise herself and her siblings and feed them in the depression era with basically what amounted to temp traveling labor work and sharecropping than it was for her to feed her kids in the 50's and 60's.
The greatest generation are objectively the most awesome people, but their awesomeness and willingness to bust their ass didn't shoot American into prosperity after WWII. Tom Brokaw sentimentality kinda lays it on a little thick.
My great-grandparents raising kids in the depression busted their asses even harder, and they didn't shoot the country into prosperity solely because their of their work ethic. If you say the post-WWII economy was solely due to the greatest generations work ethic, you'd have to say that the greatest generations parents (who raised them in the depression) were lazy and entitled to maintain consistency in your logic train. People raising families in the depressing busted their ass, were poor, and lived in a poor country. The economy of America is not a direct, immediate reflection of how hard a given generation will work. It's hokey crap. The economy is a lot more complicated than "ass busting".
-Taxes
-Permanent war industry economy
-Labor unions
-Billions of dollars of bonds maturing
-Consumer demand was stifled during the war and exploded. Consumer demand is what drives a good portion of the economy.
-Automobile and highway economy devolved.
-Housing boom spurred by affordable mortgages for returning vets
-Aid going to rebuild war-torn European countries
The list goes on and on. Those things played a bit larger role in the post-war economy than "ass busting". We've had ass busting generations that ate dirt and picked oranges. Correlation does not imply causation.
/rant
The greatest generation are objectively the most awesome people, but their awesomeness and willingness to bust their ass didn't shoot American into prosperity after WWII. Tom Brokaw sentimentality kinda lays it on a little thick.
My great-grandparents raising kids in the depression busted their asses even harder, and they didn't shoot the country into prosperity solely because their of their work ethic. If you say the post-WWII economy was solely due to the greatest generations work ethic, you'd have to say that the greatest generations parents (who raised them in the depression) were lazy and entitled to maintain consistency in your logic train. People raising families in the depressing busted their ass, were poor, and lived in a poor country. The economy of America is not a direct, immediate reflection of how hard a given generation will work. It's hokey crap. The economy is a lot more complicated than "ass busting".
-Taxes
-Permanent war industry economy
-Labor unions
-Billions of dollars of bonds maturing
-Consumer demand was stifled during the war and exploded. Consumer demand is what drives a good portion of the economy.
-Automobile and highway economy devolved.
-Housing boom spurred by affordable mortgages for returning vets
-Aid going to rebuild war-torn European countries
The list goes on and on. Those things played a bit larger role in the post-war economy than "ass busting". We've had ass busting generations that ate dirt and picked oranges. Correlation does not imply causation.
/rant
I did go to college (father paid some, I paid some) and sought out a job that has both a pension and 401k (yea, I'm partially lucky to find one but I did deliberately seek that out almost a decade ago when applying). I did so because I didn't expect any government benefits to be viably available come the 2030s or 2040 when I retire. I sure don't think I am entitled.
But the real insult comes when we are called entitled by the people who were born possibly the most entitled generation generation the world has ever seen. One example, we as a country spend more dollar per prisoner than we do per student in this country. Students today gripe about their rising tuition, but then the people who call them entitled were the same ones going to college before a two thousand percent increase in rates. It's not that these students want entitlements, they just want a shake as fair as the people calling them worthless had. It is infuriating. I harbor more disdain for the 'Boomers than possibly any people in American history (except for maybe Andrew Jackson
).I think on the whole we're on the same page, just expressing different points about our frustrations with the criticism we as a generation receive (technically I think I am a Gen Xer and not a Gen Yer though, but the point for the most part remains).
This may be where I am a little skewed based on my family. My grandfather (he would be early 90s if alive, born in 1919) was raised by a single mom as his dad died when he was 2. He himself began working in the 1930s while still in his early/mid teens. Though oil-rich Bartlesville I imagine was not near as bad off as the rest of the Depression and Dust Bowl region, where you could find at least so menial work around town.
Yep. The difference in the greatest generation and the baby boomers is that while the greatest generation raised kids in a fairly stable economy, they remember what true poverty and desperation is like. Baby boomers never knew it, but they sure have been on a kick bashing my generation for being "entitled". I swear I want to find whoever put the words "entitled" and "socialism" into recent political dialogue and poop in their mouth. People don't know the definition of either.
This "if these damn socialist, entitled, spoiled, college kids would rabble rabble rabble some bootstraps rabble rabble we'd have a budget surplus rabble rabble" is some of the most retarded armchair socioeconomic theorizing ever.
In the post-Reagan Republican dictionary Socialist = entitled
My grandparents generation = more socialist-leaning than modern Democrats and damn sure modern republicans...but we ignore that because it doesn't fit our Post-Reaganomic, AM Radio rantings and rememberimg their "socialist" leanings doesn't sit well when we try to use that generation to shame the younger generation out of..."socialism".
Bottom line is the GOP base has turned into a bunch of fat, whiny old men that need to go back and study the first half of 20th-Century American history before they use the word "socialism" or "entitled".
R
RyanSixer
Guest
It's been nice knowing you, USA.
Absolutely nothing constitutional about Obamacare.
It's not the Court's job to save Americans from bad political choices? I don't know of anybody who voted for this "tax."
Obama said he would never raise taxes. On news reports and interviews, he said firmly that Obamacare isn't a tax. During oral arguments, it was argued as not a tax and a tax. What?
Fraud..
Absolutely nothing constitutional about Obamacare.
It's not the Court's job to save Americans from bad political choices? I don't know of anybody who voted for this "tax."
Obama said he would never raise taxes. On news reports and interviews, he said firmly that Obamacare isn't a tax. During oral arguments, it was argued as not a tax and a tax. What?
Fraud..
Seriously, reading this thread completely just show how delusional some of you guys are.
If you think the modern Democratic party is more liberal or socialist-leaning than it was, oh from the 1890's to the 1950's, then you're either ignorant or delusional. If you think Progressivism is being pushed now more than it was in the old days, then wow. You super-patriots would have predicted the world was ending under Teddy, FDR, and Ike if you'd been around then. They pushed more unprecedented progressive policies than Obama ever could - and the world didn't end. A 1950's conservative would be lynched on OSA.
If you think Obama is the most liberal, progressive president we've ever had, again you're either ignorant or delusional.
The Democratic party has effectively moved the the center-right and the GOP has effectively lost its collective ******* mind.
If you think the modern Democratic party is more liberal or socialist-leaning than it was, oh from the 1890's to the 1950's, then you're either ignorant or delusional. If you think Progressivism is being pushed now more than it was in the old days, then wow. You super-patriots would have predicted the world was ending under Teddy, FDR, and Ike if you'd been around then. They pushed more unprecedented progressive policies than Obama ever could - and the world didn't end. A 1950's conservative would be lynched on OSA.
If you think Obama is the most liberal, progressive president we've ever had, again you're either ignorant or delusional.
The Democratic party has effectively moved the the center-right and the GOP has effectively lost its collective ******* mind.
Why is "progressive" a bad word? Shouldn't we want progress? Shouldn't we want to move forward? There's an old adage that says, "time stands still for no man." It doesn't. Things change.
wrapping yourself up in anger, bitterness and a wistful longing for the "good old days" (that were not nearly as good as you think) is just a waste of time.
wrapping yourself up in anger, bitterness and a wistful longing for the "good old days" (that were not nearly as good as you think) is just a waste of time.
As the Chief Justice points out, not all taxes are designed with the primary goal of raising revenue. Some taxes are designed to influence behavior with revenue raising being a second order effect. People have already been taxed on the types of cars purchased (ever heard of the luxury vehicle tax or gas guzzler tax?) and the types of houses they own. If people with solar panels on their house get tax breaks, then people without them pay a higher tax rate than those without. Heck, property taxes already hinge on the value of your home.
Here's something I realized last night though: people who pay for health insurance don't pay this tax. If you're able to afford health insurance and don't buy it, then you effectively end up paying for someone else's health insurance instead of your own. If everyone in this category would purchase their own low cost insurance (yes it exists) then the goal of this legislation would be completely subverted. Don't get me wrong, it's still a crap piece of legislation and it makes me angry, but it isn't going to affect people at the individual level as much as the outcry would lead one to believe. I think the hardest hit is going to come on the small business side when small businesses refuse to expand past 49 people.
I agree with R.H. and J.B. about the "good ole days" not being that "good". BUT........
.......wrapping yourself in the failed policies of the defunct soviet empire and embracing the same economic and overreaching social policies that have bankrupted several semi-socialist European nations all in the name of "fairness" is not PROGRESSIVE. It's RE-GRESSIVE. Socialism failed. Doesn't work. Let it go. Move on.org.com.net
