Message to Baby Boom: Let Me Go!

Let’s just say I’m old enough to teeter on the cusp of the Baby Boom. I came along a decade after my dad saw Paris on VE-Day, though I’d like to think I was a gleam in his eye even then. As a callow youth I followed the Boomers’ lead when it came to sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll. Now the buzz has faded. I sound like a grumpy old white guy most of the time, so I’m qualified to say this: the future does not belong to grumpy old white guys.

So I’m not exactly one of the “early boomers” Robert Reich talked about this morning on Marketplace, but I decided to immolate my Grateful Dead/AARP Visa card anyway. Listen up, Baby Boom: I’m talking about our gen-eration. It’s a bummer, man. I want out. I don’t have the experience. Fire me.

Robert Reich: We early boomers — and note I said “we,” because, sadly, I’m one of you — once had all the advantages. We entered the housing market in the 1970’s and 80’s, when houses were still cheap, and reaped the gains when late boomers came into the market and pushed prices up. We also got the plumb jobs because we were the first into the post-industrial economy, before the boomers who followed us. And many of us got into the stock market early on, and rode that great wave. So maybe now we’re paying the price for our good fortune then. But that doesn’t make this any less painful. Listen/read more