|
Posted by Larry on January 14, 2010, 5:06 am
>
>
>
> >I haven't seen this posted or discussed hardly anywhere and I'd be very
> >interested in the groups take on my perception.
>
> > Part of what has been driving our expanding economy over the last 60 years
> > has been the growth of the baby boomers. As they've grown they've needed
> > cars, homes, TVs, clothes and all the stuff we all need and use daily.
>
> > This increase in consumption led to an increase in production. Hence,
> > we've had a lot of stuff produced which led to an increase in jobs.
>
> > But now, as the boomers are retiring and the following generations are NOT
> > continuing to expand - the boomers had fewer kids than their parent's and
> > the boomer's kids are having fewer grandchildren - it seems to me that our
> > economy will have no option other than to contract.
>
> > Besides the point that there are fewer consumers following the boomers,
> > the boomers themselves are using and buying less in retirement, and as
> > they pass on they will leave a plethora or homes, buildings and other hard
> > assets like cars, furniture, property and such to their heirs. Which may
> > reduce the consumption of the inheriting generation.
>
> > I am curious if anyone else has noticed or considered this? Will the
> > passing of the boomers cause our economy to contract, and if so how long
> > until we see it get back to where it was?
>
> > I know that none of know the answer to these questions. I'm just curious
> > if anyone else has contemplated this.
>
> I just heard someone talking about this the other day. That makes sense.
> Unless we keep our immigration unchecked. Too bad the boomers didn't
> control their wasteful spending and instead paid to get our infrastructure
> in order. What happened is the equivalent of people getting old without
> paying down the mortgage, then wondering why they have no place to live in
> their old age.
>
> ======================================= MODERATOR'S COMMENT:
> Please trim the post to which you respond. "Trim" means that except for some
brief material to provide context for your remarks, the previous post is
deleted. Thank you.
I guess I am one of those baby boomers you are talking about and I
have a whole different view from yours.
I really think the problem about not spending enough on infrastructure
comes from funding for our foreign wars, starting with Vietnam. What
a horrible waste of human and financial resources and ditto for both
Gulf wars. When we retreated from Vietnam we left billions and
billions of dollars (in 1970 dollars) of hardware in our panic retreat
not too mention the decimation of their environment with Agent Orange,
a serious problem that we may be asked to fix. Fourty years later and
we are still paying for that war. Also our veterans who fought in VN
and were exposed to Agent Orange are asking to be treated for ailments
that were connected to exposure to Agent Orange. And that is just one
example of the medical costs of war. Wars, not baby boomers, is
something that continues to drain funding from infrastructure.
I thought it was ironic that Robert McNamara, the architect of the
Vietnam War, said a couple of years ago in his film "The Fog of
War"..."Oops, I made a mistake!" Back in the 60s many of us were
trying to tell him that, but no one would listen.
So blame the lack of infrastructure support on our politicians who
seem to find the devil and evil lurking behind every tree.
The infrastructure problem is so bad in this country that in the four
states I have lived in, the drinking water could not pass minimum
federal standards for safety, necessitating the use of bottled
drinking water. I continue to use bottled water for drinking purpose
because of a recent salmonella outbreak in the city water supply.
So lets start supporting infrastructure funding and get out of the
world policing business! I do not baby boomers, like myself, are the
problem here!
Larry
| 
Yahoo! 
Google 
Windows Live 
del.icio.us 
digg 
Netscape 
XML Sitemap