AARP exec accidentally gave an honest answer about why "OK Boomer" is a thing

Looks like the coach is putting you in the game?

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heathers-wrong-time-human-being

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Thatā€™s such a Karen thing to say? :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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Thatā€™s a Veronica thing to say!

heathers-psychowinnona

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Elvis C. Veronica or Archie Veronica?

The real question is - am I more Ginger or Mary anne?

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Just Veronica instead of Heatherā€¦ certainly not a Karenā€¦

Hmā€¦ Iā€™d say a health mix of bothā€¦ the beauty and the brains, obvs! :wink:
Now, onto more important mattersā€¦

heathers-slushie

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Some of what we are seeing now is just this. Typical generational fighting.

But from what I understand, the boomers lived at a unique time that gave them an advantage that is hard to imagine now and their collective choices have had an negative impact on the following generations. others here can speak with more detail than I on the specifics.

As an example, my boomer dad, bought his first home when he was making $5 a week. he sold that home for a profit and bought ever bigger more valued properties over the decades. Over his career he was given various pensions and retirement opportunity that I donā€™t think are possible to get any more. He was never a financial wiz and actually had a pretty serious issue with gambling and alcohol in the 80ā€™s. I should add that my dad dropped out of high school when he was 16 to join the Navy. He never finished high school or went to college. He came from a poor farming family from Nebraska (no family money). And yet he now has millions in savings and investments from just being alive at a prosperous time. He has no debt and his income streams just keep accruing. When he broke his hip a few months ago, he bought a new (stair-free) house with cash before he was out of physical therapy. No big deal for a pretty average guy.

If someone born in the 90ā€™s made all the same life choices my dad did, they would be living in a tent city by now. His ā€œsuccessā€ wasnā€™t due directly to much of anything he ever did. He was a hard worker. But there are plenty of kids working hard now that will never see a fraction of what he has accrued.

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That was not usual.

edit:
Median income per year. $5 a week is $260 a year.

earliest data in that chart:
Dec 31, 1967 $7,142.97 yearly

I think dear old dad was pulling your leg.

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Exactly. He wasnā€™t rich, or educated, or all that smart. He did show up to work everyday and worked hard into his mid 70ā€™s.

Iā€™ve watched my own adult kids struggle to make their way in this modern world.

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Sticking with that 1967 working date -

$1.40

In the year 1967 , the United States minimum wage was $1.40.

Dad was working less than 4 hours a week?

edit:

what year was he born anyway? maybe weā€™re talking different time periods here.

edit - the min wage was:
When President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Americaā€™s first federal minimum wage into law in 1938, it was 25 cents per hour. So the earliest min wage was $16 a week - and thatā€™s way before a boomer would be working - maybe starting work in 1967 at the earliest -

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Heā€™s a pretty truthful guy even when it makes him look bad. Itā€™s possible I have confused the details. I am putting things together from multiple stories I have heard over the years. So some of my timelines may be way off.

He was born in 1941. And dropped out of HS to join the Navy when he was a junior so I assume at 16 so 1957. Heā€™s said multiple times he started out making $5 a week. Iā€™m not sure how that combined with living in the provided barracks initially and while at sea(he worked on aircraft carriers in the SE Asia region). My impression is that he spent very little his first couple years and saved all he could.

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Ah - Heā€™s not a boomer. Thatā€™s Silent Generation.

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Oh. I didnā€™t realize.

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But - you might be a boomer. if heā€™s Silent G.

I was born in 1970.

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This is true for literally every generation ever, since the beginning of time. Itā€™s not certain generations having more advantageous circumstances, itā€™s 1. certain countries/areas lucking out on economic/financial/etc. circumstances (I mean, while your boomer dad was doing all that stuff, my boomer mom was busy building communism-- er, trying to survive while navigating a byzantine, oppressive one-party system with an economy crippled by the infinitely flawed behemoth that was the COMECON), and 2. just the fact that certain people are either privileged enough or just talented enough to navigate their times and find the best opportunities with or without trying.

Itā€™s not like there arenā€™t people right now who got insanely rich in the '90s and the '00s. Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, Larry Page, etc. are not boomers, hell, Jeff Bezos is one only on a technicality in definition. And how did Mark Zuckerberg get insanely rich anyway - he made a website that people signed up for. Thatā€™s literally it.

Itā€™s not ā€œthe boomers had unfair advantage!ā€ or whatever, itā€™s just that the world changes, and certain areas of the world are lucky as fuck. You say your dad is rich just because he lived through a prosperous time. My mom lived through the same time, she comes from a middle-class family, worked hard all her life, and has literally no savings and no investments - what little she had melted away in the latest recession. (Sheā€™s lucky that her pension is decent and her husband has well-paying projectsā€¦ for now.)

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Yes every generation has break out individuals that do something (for better or worse) that makes them wildly rich. But more interesting is how well the average person did that wasnā€™t exceptional.

Yes, exactly. Some people in a certain time and place will reap rewards of a prosperous economy. While people at the same time but different location will not. And some people in the same location but different time will also not. The people that made like bandits during a prosperous time should not assume the success they experienced was due to any inherent superiority.

Iā€™m glad to hear that. As I near turning 50 and wonder how much longer tech jobs will be welcoming, it gives me endless anxiety about what I will do in the coming decades to survive. I am better off than many. But in regards to my later years I am woefully under prepared.

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