Del Webb has painted an overly optimistic image of the soon-to-be-retiring
baby boom generation. Quite the contrary and according to Ken Dychtwald,
author of "Age Power," "...tens of millions of boomers are heading toward a
poverty stricken old age." Half of all boomer households have a total net
worth of less than $10,000.00. (US Bureau of the Census study, "Asset
Ownership of Houses")
Will these less fortunate members of the generation find salvation in
entitlements? Dychtwald, a demographer and gerontologist, further reveals
that today about half of the federal budget goes to pay for programs for the
elderly. According to one pundit, if basic changes in entitlement programs
are not undertaken now, by 2013 the entire federal budget will be going to
pay for the elderly and for interest on the federal debt.
So, do these chilling demographic citations constitute a threat to the more
affluent segment of the generation, those who may be filling Del Webb
communities by the end of the decade? In my opinion, yes.
A coming caregiving crunch, and escalating financial burden on younger,
smaller generations, may lead to "age wars" that will, again according to
Dychtwald, cause "young Americans to rebel and older boomers to be the target
of their frustrations." Even those who can afford an affluent lifestyle may
also become the objects of random violence, media vilification, and
ostracism.
As Ted Morgan consistently reveals in his posts, the social revolution of the
sixties has been widely recast by the media and other generations (including
a few of our own turncoats such as Horowitz) as a discredited era, and the
generation that fostered the sixties' rebellion is now consistently
denigrated and reviled via contemporary media. (This includes cynicism. Just
last summer I posted here my editorial letter answering TIME Magazine's
caustic, one-sided denunciation of the baby boom.)
Add to this bubbling stew of resentment a vast elder wasteland, a large
contingent of which will be totally dependent on entitlements, and you have
all the ingredients of a coming social and economic crisis, the implications
of which may reverberate well into the next century.
Wake up, folks.
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