Greenspan: Gen Xers pretty much suck at working

That goes quintuple for Europeans, to whom our Greatest Generation only ranks as Pretty Good compared to what they lived (and died) through.

 

Your comments about folks coming over from Europe reminds me of one of my fave places to visit: Ellis Island.

I could stand and stare at those haunting B/W photos of the immigrants, their meager belongings/dwellings for hours.

I can't imagine handling that environment.

 

Dear Alan Greenspan,
It's not that we're lazy, we're just pacing ourselves since your generation screwed things up so badly we will never, ever be able to retire.

 

That's a good post.

 

No it's not. Bitching and moaning won't solve anything. Even younger people have two arms and legs (well, except for that cheerleader). Use them. Don't like your circumstances? Try and change them. Otherwise, STFU.

 

As opposed to someone born when?

Everyone inherits a hot mess.

 

I think the case has been made that the latest generation of twentysomethings have inherited a particularly steaming pile:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2011/07/youth-unemployment

http://www.cnbc.com/id/38930658/Can_Business_Save_the_Lost_Generation

http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2011/01/03/the-lost-generation-is-over-educated-and-outfoxed-by-baby-boom/

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_42/b4151032038302.htm

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/commencement_day_for_a_lost_generation_20110622/

This is a worldwide problem, by the way.

 

Let's all curl up into the fetal position!

 

Unemployment was 10.1 percent the month I graduated college.

Mortgage rate was 12.36 percent. Inflation was 10.76 percent.

Morning in America was still a year away.

Get off my lawn and go to work!

 

Alan Greenspan, ironically, is himself part of the truly Greatest Generation of Americans -- the group born 1910-30 which first had to endure and fight through the Depression in their childhood and early-adult years, then go and win a world war against the most malicious forces in history.

Not that he had anything to do with it himself -- a pampered silver-spoon elitist fratboy who sat in the ivory towers figuring out how to make the ultra-rich even ultra-richer. While others swung shovels and toted rifles, Alan snacked on caviar.

 

There are hot messes, and then there are flaming bitches, i. e.:

1929, through the commencement of WWII

and

2008 -- now


All other post-Gilded Age domestic crises pale in comparison.

 

And the first era ended in a war.

Will this one?