The Baby Boomer Financial Crisis: A Generation X Perspective
As I follow the plight of baby boomers in the news, I must admit to feeling smug. As a Generation X-er who grew up without the financial advantages many baby boomers enjoyed in their younger years, I can't help but snort every time I hear of a baby boomer losing his or her financial cushion just as retirement approaches. 
Not because I don't have sympathy for them. Au contraire, I have a deep empathy for baby boomers who've lost their nest eggs despite having every reason to think they were safe and secure. Nobody knows better than a card-carrying member of Generation X--except I guess a similarly accredited representative of Generation Y--what it feels like to be plunged into an economic crisis that's utterly beyond one's control. 
After all, haven't we of Gen X been dealing with an economic downturn in the job market that's been going on since the late '80's, when baby boomers basically had all the jobs we wanted, causing us to drift back home to live and earn the unwanted attributes lazy, unmotivated, loser, failure, leech...? 
Generation X knows intimately what it's like to start out our careers without a penny of seed money...to bang our heads against the wall in a job market that requires experience as soon as we enter it...to apply for jobs for which there are hundreds of better-qualified applicants...to have fancy degrees tacked onto our names yet still end up working the cash register. 
We know we have a work ethic; it was the rest of the world that didn't know it, probably because we're this small a part of the population.
The smugness comes, once again, not because I don't care or don't like baby boomers (would you believe me if I said that some of my best friends are boomers?) I'm feeling smug because I'm reading that some members of the Baby Boomer Generation are feeling thunderstruck by the "new" crisis. They're suddenly and acutely feeling the financial pinch, and they're looking around wondering what to do now. These are the people who were advising their children how to succeed and unsympathetic when they failed. Now, at last, we're in the position to advise them on financial survival with the weight of all our experience of swimming against the tides of economic opportunity. 
Although to be honest, I don't feel it will help. After all, we Gen Xers got plenty of advice from our parents and teachers, and it didn't do much for our financial ranking. Advice on how to achieve financial security in a sinking economy (and it's been sinking far longer than most realize) is good for a cup of cappuccino at the gas station, but not much else.
Uh Oh, Toto, We're Not in a Boom Time Anymore
The economic reality of Generation X and the time of the baby boomers is simply different. It's a different world. In the world of the baby boomer, women could choose whether or not they wanted to work; in the world of Generation X, women didn't have a choice. They worked, in an economy as entrapping in its own way as were the old mores about female roles.
The Difference Between the Baby Boomer Generation and the X Generation
A goodly cohort of baby boomers grew up floating on the financial cushion of Depression-era parents who'd made enough money for comfort and thriftily kept healthy sums in the bank. These people's children grew up in an economic boom time, when, even if their parents threw them out cooly into the job market, and admittedly some did, the jobs were there for the taking and their pure masses floated the economy. 
The baby boomers enjoyed the luxury of choosing a self-actualizing career and in fact they made it de rigueur. As parents and as teachers, they taught us, Generation X, that we, too, could choose any career we wanted...in fact, we could even have kids when we wanted, there's no hurry...but most of all, we could succeed if we only tried, as they did. We could have it all.
What they didn't tell us was that yes, we could have it all...as soon as they were done with it. 
Now the baby boomers are ready to exit the job market, they're finding, to their chagrin, that they can't afford it. Many boomers are having to delay retirement and remain in, or re-enter, the workplace, often several pay levels below their former exit. And that wasn't their plan. That this has happened doesn't make me happy, but it doesn't surprise me, either. Welcome to our world.
Not all baby boomers are suffering, by any means. Many thrive--just as you can find a goodly number of Generation X'ers and Generation Y'zers (pun intended) sailing into the failing economy with heedless smiles. In any group, there are individual exceptions to the rule. And sometimes the ones who are suffering now are the ones who have suffered their whole lives - my parents were an example. But as a group, the baby boomer's ethos of work-well-consume-well is failing to carry them into retirement. 
Not because they didn't work hard enough. Not because they didn't have the proper work ethic. Not because of anything they did. (Well, OK, they did show a certain degree of naivete in failing to leave us, their successors, with any notable wealth with which to prop them up in their old age. But I'm over it). This is a massive and inevitable economic downturn. 
It wasn't their fault. They're saying it and I'm saying it, too. 
But when I hear accounts of the "tragic" situation of the hard-hit baby boomers, I hear the undercurrent of the very same "feeling of entitlement" of which the baby boomers have accused members of Gen X and Gen Y. 
I really hope that this means that the baby boomers will now take another look at the generations that followed them and that hindsight will bring wisdom. The world is changing, and we're all of us - all generations - being swept up in the tide.
Baby Boomers Ruined America--Not!
Disclaimer: For the record, I'm not saying baby boomers ruined the country or were responsible for everything wrong in the world. And no sweeping statement about ANY group of people says anything about any one individual member of that group. I know plenty of baby boomers who were not, themselves, smug about their own success, and many members of Generation X who were. In the glorious tradition of statistical analyses, yet using none of those pesky hard numbers, only my own anecdotal experiences, I'm discussing my impression of trends I see, not individuals.
Whether you're a baby boomer or member of one of the younger generations...please say your piece in the Comments section. Just try to keep it decent and play nice. This is a volatile subject, you see. Recently, I saw this book on Amazon called Why Baby Boomers Suck: No Offense Mom and I've been blown away by how angry people are really feeling about this subject. (Disclaimer Within Disclaimer - that is an affiliate link, meaning if you go to Amazon through the link, I might get commissions on stuff you buy - oh, boy!)
I agree with this article and with the assessment of those who have pointed out that the Boomers are, in fact, the greediest generation. They are living up to their 'Generation Me" nickname, even to the end. My parents are a perfect example. They did not help me with college or graduate school; told me my whole life I would be "on my own" and getting suitcases for my 18th birthday. They spent the money on gadgets, nice cars and campers for themselves. And they managed to covet substantial monetary gifts from ancestors on both sides of the families, which they saved for themselves. As it turns out, it is not nearly enough, for their care and their eventual health problems. Now that they have physical and mental health problems, guess what? They have decided to ruin my attempt to support my family by crying to me and guilt-tripping me in to decreasing my hours at my job -- not a good thing to do in this economy -- to help them, after they told me to go out and get a job and never ask them for anything again! And even now, the one parent who is still at home keeps buying crap for himself out of the money he can, and of course, thanks to the Medicare and Medicaid set-up, all the money they spend on their healthcare will eat up anything that's left of the grandparents' estates they enjoyed. They could care less that they are leaving my child not only out of any security for the future, but they are directly harming her by insisting that I reduce my work hours and the time I spend caring for her to do their menial chores that they should pay someone else to do. It's just all about them, all the damn time. Oh yeah, and they have always been too busy to take time away from their tv programs and shopping to help with childcare -- even though they took advantage of my grandmother, having her regular, everyday childcare for free so they could live a better life, which trust me, didn't translate to better stuff for us. They supposedly hated freeloaders but gladly accepted government hand-outs whenever they could. This generation is literally killing its own kids with the weight of its greed.
To claim the baby boomers are not at fault is disingenuous at best, and down right dishonest at worst.
It was the baby boomers (and their parents) who continuously elected in officials who did not serve our national interests. It was the baby boomers who turned neglect and irresponsibility into social norms.
My grandfather worked a blue collar job for 25-26 years retired at age 65 with his house, 1 car, and 2 motorcycles completely paid off. Then again my grandfather didnt buy a new car every five years, he didn't need the latest biggest TV or gadget that was on the market. His life was not based on consuming therefore he had something left when he died not only for his wife but also for his children. The house I was raised in was owned by my great grandparents, and was sold to my parents at 50% below market value. By the time my parents had divorced and lost the house they had refi'd to the point that they owed more than 500% on what they originally paid for the home.
As pointed out above, those same people who only succeeded because they stood on the shoulders of giants then turned around and kicked their kids onto the streets at "legal age" to continue to live beyond their means. And now that their lifetime of consumerism has left them spent and broke they have the audacity to ask those same children they neglected to help them out. Like above my broke mother has been trying to get me to buy a home or get a bigger apartment for us to share. I laugh in her face every time she suggests it and look forward to the day I find cat-food in her refrigerator (my mother owns no cats). Meanwhile my father who insisted I "pull myself up by my bootstraps" is living in his deceased fathers home (siblings won't sell home for profit cause he has no where to go) rent free whilst making payments on a 2009 80k corvette.
Me generation is an understatement, more like spoiled rotted self centered myopic generation. Granted they had some help from their parents generation, but sorry the bulk of the blame lies with the boomers. My grandmother who is 80 years old realizes this and is disgusted with her two children, which is why they have both been left out of her will and everything is to go to the grandchildren.
It was so nice to see in print that I am not alone or insane. I have been saying all this stuff for years and wondering if I was the only one who had a hard time translating gen-X woes to my self-centered wealthy retired dad who claimed disability AFTER he retired, got caught, had to pay it back and then refused to help me file for my husband who had gotten to where he could barely walk from manual labor even with his college degree and is now DEAD because WE WERE BROKE! I still get that look like I'm just sorry and lazy and It just feeds the hate and resentment. Now HE can barely walk and has literally burried $100 bills in the back yard rather than helping me out and he genuinely wonders WHY I won't help him out? MMmmmm Seriuosly, would you drive an hour to go wipe his ass as the final insult to have been the one he shit on? Maybe Buddha or Jesus but I'm only human
I was raised by a greatest generation grandmother, and a Silent Generation Father. I have an inheritance from their hard work and honor their memory: a paid for house and government bonds and annuities. Without them I would be a financial loser. I learned to save for a rainy day from them. My mother is a baby boomer and has nothing to show for it but a lifetime of borrowing and spending. There are clear generational differences. I believe that the legacy of the boomer generation will be a bill. A boomer is a consumer not a saver