Comments on: Darts and Dolts

By: The Mahablog » The Port Thing, Continued

The Mahablog » The Port Thing, Continued — Wed, 22 Feb 2006 14:07:22 +0000

[...] But outsourcing and other business practices may be compromising us. I have argued that much of our middle-class standard of living is being floated on the economy and politices of the past. … a lot of us are still benefiting from The Way America Used to Be Before Reagan. Boomers like me are still benefiting from the fact that our fathers got free educations on the GI Bill and our newlywed parents got cheap housing and cut-rate mortgages from other government programs, for example. Our parents’ prosperity got us off to a good start and put us on the road to security, equity, and stock portfolios. In a very real sense, many of us today are living better lives because government in the 1940s and 1950s effectively responded to the needs of citizens. [...]

By: janinsanfran

janinsanfran — Fri, 03 Feb 2006 22:48:32 +0000

Pink Feminist Hellcat, who I suspect of being a young person, wrote quite a piece lately on how hard it is in the current economy for the young. I think you’ve said it: whatever prosperity and standard of living we have left is coasting on past accomplishments.

By: maha

maha — Fri, 03 Feb 2006 17:52:23 +0000

There are news stories all over the place about “boomerang kids” who leave home after high school only to come back 4 or 5 years later,

That’s why I always told you and your brother that, once you were grown up, I would change the locks.

By: erinyes

erinyes — Fri, 03 Feb 2006 17:40:58 +0000

London Times, Feb. 3, 2026….
Today, president for life George W. Bush decided to take a two month vacation after unveiling his new retirement package to congress. The main feature of the much touted Bush retirement doctrine consists of a plane ticket to Alaska’s north slope where the newly retired person is custom fitted with his/ her very own ice floe……

By: Erin

Erin — Fri, 03 Feb 2006 16:43:34 +0000

I think the impacts of the “government is the enemy” thinking are on display right now. There are news stories all over the place about “boomerang kids” who leave home after high school only to come back 4 or 5 years later, and it comes across in news stories as my generation acting lazy, when the reality is that it’s nearly impossible to get a steady job and support oneself immediately after college, particularly when so many students graduate with thousands of dollars in debt… and that’s the result of progressive reform being dismantled.

See also the Village Voice series on Generation Debt and the new book of the same name. (There was an interview on Gothamist yesterday with the book’s author, and she says some interesting things.)

And voter apathy is pretty prevalent among people under 30. It’s like What’s the Matter with Kansas, except that rather than voting against their own self interest, young people just don’t vote, but the only way to change things at the government level is to vote progressive candidates into office.