Generation Theft

Captain Capitalism's blog has focused on a variety of subject over the years, but recently his YouTube videos have focused on Baby Boomers and the whole sale screwing over of the younger generations.  Many, who are not fans of him or disagree with his politics, would simply dismiss his comments as those of a bitter ex-analyst that is mad because he couldn't hack it. Well, once again the Captain has the last laugh as even the New York Times is now acknowledging what the Captain has been pointing out for years now. The Times simply focuses on the stagnant wealth of the younger generations but the chart shows you the truth; that Millennial and Xers are being bent over the collective barrel.

Since 1983 the wealth of every demographic group has increased save for those in the 20-40 range.  Now an astute individual will point out that there were many boomers who were in this range back in the early 1980s, my old man was my age back in 1983, and they will point out that the young boomers had lower incomes than the generations above them.  This is true, but the gap, both relative and absolute, between the two has only grown greater over the years during the same time that the boomers began to occupy those demographic groups.

Ultimately the issue isn't that their wealth increased by as much as it did. Acquiring wealth is no vice and increasing wealth is a good thing. But this graph clearly shows that the younger generations have received no benefit whatsoever from the Reagan Boom, New Economy or the Real Estate Bubble.  All the benefits of whatever economic growth we've had over the past thirty some odd years have gone to the generations that have manned the helm. By all rights, in a society that is economically stable the relative wealth gaps should remain fairly flat and in an economically booming society the average net worth of all groups should rise; rising tide and all that. But after thirty years of economic growth Millennial have seen almost no change in their wealth, and younger Xers actually have seen a decline! Yet Boomers twice as much absolute wealth relative to the generations that occupied the 56 to 64 year old demographic thirty years ago.

Now the Boomers alone didn't do this. The Silent Generation also has taken part of this action. But this really underlies what is wrong with America right now. I am no fan of OWS, but I am more sympathetic to their cries against the 1% when, statistically, older generations benefiting from economic revolutions and the younger generations aren't.