Defending Millennials — Part 2
To that point, our generation popularized greed on Wall Street. Remember the S&L debacle and the Merger and Acquisition Craze in the 80's, with all the insider trading? That was mostly us when we were in our 30's and 40's, with a little help from the the Great Generation.
Not to beat a dead horse, but think about the financial crisis in 2008, certainly greed at its most extreme. That was probably a cross-generational event — some Millennials were old enough to work as bond and mortgage brokers, but Boomers were in the position of authority at the time and so have to bear much of the responsibility.
Which generation is behind the split between the left and right that began in the late 1990's and still runs through today, dividing our country to the point of embarrassment? That would be us in our 50's and 60's — the younger generations are not the driving force here.
We started two wars that are still going on today at a cost of trillions of dollars, and it will be the Millennials who will have to bail out the country. And speaking of bail-outs, let's add the fact that we Boomers plan to live forever. The younger generation will have to pay more taxes to cover their own retirement and maintain social security because of the longevity of Boomers.
As we said at the beginning of this rant, there's always a tendency for every generation to think the upcoming one is a disaster. The Great Generation had their negative opinions of Boomers when they were young, as their parents had about them almost 100 years ago. But such perceptions are inaccurate and wrong-headed, as the world tends to progress from one generation to the next.
And that's certainly the case with Millenials, who are regarded by some as heaped with potential. As researchers Howe and Strauss argue, "they are … on track to become a powerhouse generation, full of technology planners, community shapers, institution builders, and world leaders. Indeed, Millennials have a solid chance to become America's next great generation."
Of course, it's too early to tell whether or not Millennials will end up as one of the great ones, but if they do, well, that's something Boomers can take credit for — we raised them.
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