Friday, March 23, 2012

Need to raise taxes or cut services? Hit boomers...

I was born in 1966, and by some warped definition I am somehow included in the post-war baby boom.  The baby boom is said to be the result of servicemen coming home after WWII and making up for lost time with their wives in an era that pre-dated birth control.  My father however was born in 1938, and at the conclusion of the war he was about 9 years of age, so obviously he wasn't returning home to father children.

Those on the front end of the boom, (they like to be called zoomers now I hear) are about twenty years older than I am.  I wonder how many twenty year olds consider themselves as being from the same generation as a forty year old?  Obviously I don't identify with the generation of which I am nominally a part. 

The baby boom has been like a cloud of locusts, moving through various stages of their lives and gobbling up everything in their path.  They continually elected the likes of Pierre Trudeau and Brian Mulroney, whose governments racked up a mountain of debt to pay for the services and programs boomers wanted and valued. 

Now?  The till is empty and all that's left behind is a huge bill.  But rather than hitting up those entering retirement, boomers are happy to see their children and grandchildren being smacked with what's owing.

Take the student protests in Quebec recently.  Sure, education was free or damn near when the boomers went through.  But all that lovely spending can't be sustained, and boomers aren't going to school anymore, so its time to jack tuition costs. 

So we need to raise the eligibility age for public pensions?  Tut tut, don't worry grandma and grandpa, you won't be affected, just your children.  I mean let's face it, your governments have being provided services to you guys for years on borrowed money, and it wouldn't be fair to expect you to be the ones to pay it back.

Yes, I might be a boomer, but I know by the time I reach 65 I'm going to be looking at Freedom 75, 85 or maybe even 95 and state funded health care will be a distant memory.  Fortunately by the time I'm 95 just about all the boomers will have zoomed to their graves. 



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