Baby Boomer Journalistic Hampster Spin On The Economy

We all know about humanities amazing ability to rationalize poor behavior, negative situations and bad outcomes into model behavior, positive situations and good outcomes. For the most part the 'sphere focus on the sociosexual aspect of rationalization and how to use that inherent trait, which resides in both men and women but more strongly in women, to one's own advantage.  Well in this particular instance, we have a baby boomer journalist, who doesn't specialize in economics and finance, espousing how having a greying workforce is actually a great boon for the British economy; due to cultural similarity between America and Great Britain I will assume America as well.

This is a pretty good example of the hamster spinning at Scottian levels of Warp Speed.  Everyone understands, even if only at an primal level, that a greying workforce is not a good thing. But given this very short opinion piece let us go over some bullet points.  Even five years after the beginning of recession the job market out there is pretty dismal, especially for millennial. There are two:

• Official unemployment for those 20 to 24 is more than double than that for those over 55.

The information from the chart doesn't do justice to the situation we are seeing. Even though unemployment for those over 24 are relatively similar across age segments, the chart doesn't reflect the number of those 55 years and older, who are not counted towards the unemployment rate, who are working versus retired. The situation we are facing is that individuals who should be retiring or not retiring which is leading to an employment back log.

I have argued that the notion that individuals should retire after 40 years of work is somewhat flawed.  Retirement as we understand, work forty years and then do whatever you want afterwards, has only been around since early last century. Prior to that the way things worked was that a person worked until they were no longer able to work anymore and had to depend on their progeny for support. The system we have now is ahistorical, however, given the advancements in the last century or so, you could make a case that this system is feasible, provided that certain ideals of fiscal prudence are upheld.  One of those items would be proper planning and saving for retirement. The baby boomers have failed spectacularly in this regard which has forced many of them to continue working long after they should have retired.  The next point illustrates this fact.

• A third of all Americans between the ages of 18 to 29 are underemployed, which is twice the rate for older Americans.

There is a conception that many baby boomers are now working fast food/grocery type jobs to make ends meet.  This isn't untrue to an extent but as we can see from the data you are more likely to encounter a twenty something cashing you checks, stocking the shelves or working any other low level job than fifty or sixty something baby boomer.  This will have severe ramifications. Ramifications that will also affect the baby boomers as well. Journalists like Cristina shouldn't forget that the following programs, or in the case of home ownership sources of funding for programs, depend on the ability of  the millennial generation to pay back, or fund, these items in the future.

• Education loans
• Health care funding
• Social Security funding
• Medicaid funding
• Home ownership (A primary source of revenue for many state and municipality governments)

The future of economic growth, of social stability, of the well beings of not only the baby boomers but generations of future Americans all depend on my generations ability to pay for the following items.  Even if we didn't face very dour employment prospects covering all of the debts that have been accrued for would be nearly impossible, given the above, there is no way.

I leave you with the final words from Cristina, marvel in it's ignorance and narcissism.

An older workforce is a brilliant investment. George Osborne should order every office to include a couple of grey heads – then sit back and watch the economy turn around.