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The Prison of Financial Mediocrity

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Re: The Prison of Financial Mediocrity

#11

Post by fuzzfactor »

cco wrote: post #8
wakawaka28 wrote: post #4

Articles like this are unfair to boomers. Yes they have 50% of the wealth or whatever despite being 20% of the population, but they also have had time to earn that wealth fair and square and are not quite elderly enough to have spent it all on average. I'm sick and tired of articles blaming normal people who worked for what they have for issues that amount to geopolitical struggles.

I'm also always curious to know what happens if you remove wealthy boomers from this pool. I forget the exact numbers, but let's say ten billionaires own 50% of all the wealth in the US; how many of those folks are boomers? That'd remarkably change this ratio if it were the case that much of this wealth is held by only a few very wealthy boomers.

IIRC a current statistic is that the top 10% overall own 60% of the wealth.

Also I believe that actual surviving boomers are underrepresented in that 10% compared to the general population now. And that trend can be expected to continue predictably.

Re: The Prison of Financial Mediocrity

#12

Post by dghlsakjg »

wakawaka28 wrote: post #4

Articles like this are unfair to boomers. Yes they have 50% of the wealth or whatever despite being 20% of the population, but they also have had time to earn that wealth fair and square and are not quite elderly enough to have spent it all on average. I'm sick and tired of articles blaming normal people who worked for what they have for issues that amount to geopolitical struggles.

The article barely mentions boomers, and in the one place it does, it cites a stat, and then immediately abdicates them of any responsibility for that stat.

The rest of the article is about a different generation of folks and the current conditions/perceptions of those conditions.

Why make this about boomers? The article is not about them, nor is a brief factual mention of them unfair. Nor is the follow up sentence absolving them of responsibility for the one thing time are mentioned.

Re: The Prison of Financial Mediocrity

#13

Post by skybrian »

> Companies offered pensions. … Staying at one company for 20 years is now a career liability, not an asset.

This was already old news during the dot com era. The question is whether 401k plans and job-hopping still works out in the end.

To do that, though, you need to be able to switch jobs enough times, which isn’t easy when jobs are hard to find.

Re: The Prison of Financial Mediocrity

#14

Post by coldtea »

wakawaka28 wrote: post #4

Articles like this are unfair to boomers. Yes they have 50% of the wealth or whatever despite being 20% of the population, but they also have had time to earn that wealth fair and square and are not quite elderly enough to have spent it all on average. I'm sick and tired of articles blaming normal people who worked for what they have for issues that amount to geopolitical struggles.

>but they also have had time to earn that wealth fair and square

By pawning the future of their country and its economy: printing money, making the economy a casino and getting trillion dollar bailouts, outsourcing industry, basing the web on ad revenue, making a God out of the stock market and enshittifying everything in the process...

Re: The Prison of Financial Mediocrity

#15

Post by fuzzfactor »

kubb wrote: post #10
wakawaka28 wrote: post #4

Articles like this are unfair to boomers. Yes they have 50% of the wealth or whatever despite being 20% of the population, but they also have had time to earn that wealth fair and square and are not quite elderly enough to have spent it all on average. I'm sick and tired of articles blaming normal people who worked for what they have for issues that amount to geopolitical struggles.

I agree with you, except the "fair and square" part. Can we please stop pretending there's any fairness to any of it? That the reward is proportional to merit, effort, strength of character, utility, or any respectable and desirable quality? That everyone was on equal footing when trying to succeed? That would be great, thanks.

You really do put it in perspective when you look at it closer like that.

It never was fair.

Tens of millions of boomers, if they could even get paying work during rampant inflation & recession, still had to work minimum-wage jobs for many years at rates like $2 per hour. With constant overtime or they wouldn't be able to make ends meet or have any kind of home equity now. Many for more than a decade before anything resembling recovery was on the horizon.

Most are still not homeowners and those that are, very few have it paid off completely even if they have been there more than 30 years.

The cool thing is that millions of others were in better positions, avoided the massive layoffs, and actually weren't dragged down as far by the predatory financial policies of the time. And there are whole neighborhoods of them today where it's still a free enough country where you often get to witness their eventual stately homes and selection bias where this kind of good fortune finally arrived after all this time.

In case not everyone remembers, the "great recession" of the 21st century was a nothingburger by comparison.

Re: The Prison of Financial Mediocrity

#16

Post by blactuary »

wakawaka28 wrote: post #4

Articles like this are unfair to boomers. Yes they have 50% of the wealth or whatever despite being 20% of the population, but they also have had time to earn that wealth fair and square and are not quite elderly enough to have spent it all on average. I'm sick and tired of articles blaming normal people who worked for what they have for issues that amount to geopolitical struggles.

"fair and square" = building wealth by owning homes while fighting tooth and nail to prevent enough new housing to be built. A house was never supposed to be an investment vehicle, it's a place to live and as we grew in population we needed more of it to keep up.

Re: The Prison of Financial Mediocrity

#17

Post by fuzzfactor »

coldtea wrote: post #14
wakawaka28 wrote: post #4

Articles like this are unfair to boomers. Yes they have 50% of the wealth or whatever despite being 20% of the population, but they also have had time to earn that wealth fair and square and are not quite elderly enough to have spent it all on average. I'm sick and tired of articles blaming normal people who worked for what they have for issues that amount to geopolitical struggles.

> but they also have had time to earn that wealth fair and square By pawning the future of their country and its economy: printing money, making the economy a casino and getting trillion dollar bailouts, outsourcing industry, basing the web on ad revenue, making a God out of the stock market and enshittifying everything in the process...

All this 21st century activity you're pointing out was mainly carried out by those about 20 years younger than the youngest baby boomers.

All we had were multi-million-dollar bailouts to go with that.

You know, the value of the dollar and all.

There was major presidential malfeasance and this thing called "inflation" back then too. It was devastating with no actual recovery since. Or young people wouldn't be complaining now.

Re: The Prison of Financial Mediocrity

#18

Post by coldtea »

fuzzfactor wrote: post #17
coldtea wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but they also have had time to earn that wealth fair and square By pawning the future of their country and its economy: printing money, making the economy a casino and getting trillion dollar bailouts, outsourcing industry, basing the web on ad revenue, making a God out of the stock market and enshittifying everything in the process...

All this 21st century activity you're pointing out was mainly carried out by those about 20 years younger than the youngest baby boomers. All we had were multi-million-dollar bailouts to go with that. You know, the value of the dollar and all. There was major presidential malfeasance and this thing called "inflation" back then too. It was devastating with no actual recovery since . Or young people wouldn't be complai…

The activity I describe started well before the 21st century.

Remember "yuppies" - the boomer ideology that dialed up consumerism and financialization of all aspects of life. Reaganomics? The 1989, 2000, and 2008 crashes? The Great Outsourcing? Also in the eve of 21st century, boomers were merely from 40 to 54, so well represented in all positions of power and business. Clinton and Bush J were boomers. And Boomers got more entrenched as time went by and as they reached their 50s and 60+ for the later ones.

Same in Europe too, were e.g. people like the French 68'rs (the youth of the late 60s student revolts, roughly similar to the same era youth in the US later turned yuppies), have been running things since the early 80s in the most selfish, destructive, and narcissistic ways.

Re: The Prison of Financial Mediocrity

#19

Post by RickJWagner »

So much to disagree with here.

The path to gathering wealth is simple, and anyone has a good chance of success. See Bogleheads.org for details. ( Once the path is clearly understood, discipline is the primary factor. You have to live below your means, there is no exception. Also, a long compounding timeframe is useful. )

You can live YOLO like the rabbit or you can live like Warren Buffet the tortoise. You don’t get rich quickly, you get rich slowly with large gains at the end, after compounding has done its magic.

Financial literacy is easy to obtain, but watch your sources. Trust the Bogleheads!

Re: The Prison of Financial Mediocrity

#20

Post by wakawaka28 »

blactuary wrote: post #16
wakawaka28 wrote: post #4

Articles like this are unfair to boomers. Yes they have 50% of the wealth or whatever despite being 20% of the population, but they also have had time to earn that wealth fair and square and are not quite elderly enough to have spent it all on average. I'm sick and tired of articles blaming normal people who worked for what they have for issues that amount to geopolitical struggles.

"fair and square" = building wealth by owning homes while fighting tooth and nail to prevent enough new housing to be built. A house was never supposed to be an investment vehicle, it's a place to live and as we grew in population we needed more of it to keep up.

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