Boomers vs. Millennials... and the economy

    The Boomers having been forced to stay in the workforce because their houses and retirement savings have been pillaged by Wall Street has had a backlash in the job market.
   We aren't just talking about high school dropouts either.

  The job situation with well-educated youth is so bad that Yale is suing its former students.

   If the participation rate is falling and older people aren't retiring, then someone is getting squeezed. Those people are young people.

 So many are at home because they can't afford to be elsewhere. And it's getting worse. The number of young adults ages 20 to 34 living with their parents increased to 24 percent during the 2007-9 recession, from 17 percent in 1980, according to a study published last month by Zhenchao Qian, a sociology professor at Ohio State University.. The biggest increase was among millennials under 25: 43 percent in 2009 compared with 32 percent in 1980.

 While the Boomers are so screwed that they may never be able to stop working, the Millenials are so screwed that they may never be able to start working.
    Also, those that are lucky enough to find jobs might not be so lucky after all.

 Nearly a third of the nation's working families earn salaries so low that they struggle to pay for their necessities, according to a new report.

 What does it all mean?

  When you break it all down, you quickly realize that this "generational conflict" thing is all manufactured. The fact is that both the workers of the Baby Boomer generation and the workers of the Millenial generation have been screwed (although the Millenials have been hurt a little worse) by the same people - the 1%.
   While the media manufactures "conflicts" to keep workers divided and distracted (illegal immigrants, War on Religion, racism, public vs. private employees, etc.), the elite are pillaging everything in site.

  the newest tactic to impose more austerity measures in the US comes from a group of over 80 CEOs who are starting with $60 million to spend on a campaign called "Fix the Debt". They plan to convince people in the US that not only are cuts to vital programmes necessary, but that such cuts will strengthen them when exactly the opposite is true.
    These CEOs are members of the Business Round Table, an elite corporate club that claims to create 7.3 trillion in annual revenues. That gives them a lot of political clout. The real reason for their push to cut spending on important programmes like Social Security and Medicare is so corporate tax rates can be cut further...This push for corporate tax cuts comes although corporate profits have grown by 171 percent during the Obama presidency alone, the highest growth in profits since 1900.

Medicare and Social Security were not designed to cope with America's new demographic realities. CEOs are calling for gradual changes that will modernise these programmes and preserve the safety net for future generations of retirees.
   - Gary Loveman, CEO Caesar's Entertainment Corporation

  See, the problem is generational. Right?
No, the real problem was that Social Security and Medicare weren't designed for a society in which all the wealth is funneled up to the 1%. Simply lifting the cap on Social Security tax and treating capital gains in the same way that the IRS treats wages would fix whatever modest problems our critical entitlement programs are forecast to encounter.
   But that might cut into those massive corporate profits.

  So the next time the media tries to inspire you to resent a different generation of workers for having a tiny bit more than you, remember that you don't share the interests or motives of the person giving that report.