
The Boomer Blockade: How One Generation Reshaped Work and Left Everyone Behind - joker3
https://think-boundless.com/the-boomer-blockade/
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mc32
This will be true of economies that go through quick growth. It’s already hit
Japan and led to the “lost decades”, it will hit China in 20 years or so...

But the issue is more complex. Today there is global competition and your jobs
(never mind promotions) get shipped off.

So they don’t even have a chance at a working stiff’s job at all. That’s where
desperation comes from.

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topkai22
Great article. I'm very suspicious of attempts to "blame it on the boomers",
but this has some very good analysis that should be built upon.

There are some confounding factors - the baby boom's sheer relative to the
preceding and succeeding generations means that at least some of the noted
effects would occur even if the "age you got promoted" probability
distribution remained the same.

The specific complaints about the consulting and legal industries expansion of
the career path have the issue that the size of those firms have grown
massively over the time period indicated- McKinsey had 88 staff in 1951, 7700
in the early 2000s and 27000+ by 2018. That’s simply not the same
company/industry and not really due to demographic trends.

Overall though, it makes raises some good points (particularly the implication
that there is/was positive ageism toward boomers in the selection of executive
roles) that are worth reflecting on.

BTW- it’s really Gen X (and the younger boomers) that got hosed here. The
boomers really are retiring now and millennials will have plenty of career
ahead after that.

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pmillerd
thanks for the feedback - definitely agree on the consulting point and I think
when I dove in that was what most surprised me - its probably Gen X that will
be screwed, not the millennials.

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pmillerd
Thanks for all the feedback. If people are interested in following along, I'm
sharing some selected feedback in my newsletter this week =>
[http://boundless.substack.com](http://boundless.substack.com)

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johnebgd
Hacker News hug of death took it down.

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okareaman
I'm a boomer and I can think of a few things off the top of my head that made
the 80's and 90' a great time for a young person to be alive. 1) The previous
generation was small because of the depression and ww2 - not a lot of older
workers. 2) Paul Volcker came in with Ronald Reagan and tamed the crippling
inflation that was hurting everyone. 3) No one at work or at home had a
personal computer on their desk - the computer revolution took off 4) The
Soviet Union collapsed leaving the US once again the sole super power. 5)
People became health conscious and quit smoking. Medical technology advanced
and prolonged our working life. There are probably things I am forgetting, but
indeed, it wasn't hard to make money, buy a house and start a family.

Edit: I don't see how anyone can blame boomers because it's harder now. I gave
my millennial kids a good start.

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olliej
No you didn’t - you supported massive reductions in social services,
reductions in tax rates that benefited primarily businesses and the already
wealthy.

Boomers voted to decrease how much they paid for everything once they were
earning money. The way they did that was purely by increasing how much the
following generations had to pay for every service, while also reducing their
employment protection and actively preventing their wages from increasing at
the same rate living costs were being made to increase.

Your generation did nothing but make it harder for the following generation
after benefit from all the work you parents generation did to improve your
opportunities.

Things your parents produced for you: cheaper/free high level, a functional
Medicare system that covered the majority of the people who needed it,
employment protection, retirement benefits, ...

Things your generation did: killed free higher education, actively defunding
it so you paid less taxes having already got your free education, vigorously
worked to remove layout protections, defunded Medicare, defunded
infrastructure investment, blamed “millennials” for all the problems your
selfish choices caused.

The fact that you can’t understand basic cause and effect of your actions
warrants it:

Ok, boomer.

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joeblow9999
please. you are way overstating the situation. if anything its boomers who
massively increased the scope and reach of govt social programs and spending.

~~~
olliej
No. The majority of the large scale social support systems were made during
and immediately after WW2. Those systems paid for universities and education
for boomers. They paid for the retirement of boomers (or at least their
parents, we’ll see how things turn out). They increased wages for boomers.

Once they got all their support and started paying taxes boomers started
reducing social services so that they could pay less taxes. The retirement age
is being increased, but always with a decade or so delay so that it doesn’t
affect boomers, just every subsequent generation.

You say you have your kids a great start? Cool. That was possible because of
the support and government systems you voted to destroy. Your kids may have
got a “great start” but they’re already far behind you the moment they leave
home.

Good job.

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OedipusRex
Website's currently down:

[https://web.archive.org/web/20200131200026/https://think-
bou...](https://web.archive.org/web/20200131200026/https://think-
boundless.com/the-boomer-blockade/)

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foogazi
> For the first time in the last 60 years, the 55+ cohort is bigger than any
> other ten year age cohort.

How much of this is due to the boomer gen being larger in size and more of
them having to stick around working

Doesn’t sound like all of them got to retire

> If boomers are increasing their share of wealth, it is clearly at the
> expense of the following generations.

how is this clear? Wealth can’t be created only taken ?

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geogra4
Interesting article - but it's even worse than that. I had a friend of mine
who is a lawyer at a large hospital system. When the boomer head of the legal
department retired they gave him the same job she had with half of the salary.
Even when the boomer blockade stands down, what's left isn't what it used to
be.

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
I don't know if it's lucky that the job didn't just cease to exist or not in
that case. I know when my father retired his job disappeared. One could ask if
the job was that important if they could remove it, but in this case it was
deemed non-vital, so no effort was made to replace him.

Ironically, it was focused on evaluating ways to transfer knowledge to new
hires to account for the brain drain incurred due to retiring boomer
population.

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jhayward
Think about the rhetoric being used whenever someone refers to "boomers"
today.

First, identify a sub-group. Begin referring to the group as "they", as
"other" than "us". Make sure they are not seen as heterogenous individuals -
"they" are a single, malevolent entity.

Next, ascribe to them great power, unearned, over "us".

Then, ascribe to them ill-gotten wealth, power, control. All nefarious and
self-aggrandizing.

Now describe them as "the problem", as "intractable", implying that something
must be done - about them - to them.

Begin to use the language of violence, attributing it to "them". A _blockade_
is an act of war, committed by an aggressor.

What do you think the outcome of this kind of rhetoric will be?

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plussed_reader
A conflict in pursuit of the demise/revisioning of atrophied systems?

~~~
jhayward
> _pursuit of the demise /revisioning of atrophied systems?_

So, you see the outcome as killing off the olds?

