First I want to clarify some things I consider to be true. The Baby Boomers refers to the generation born between 1946 and the late 1960's. Generation Y or the "Millennials", born between the 1970's and the early 1990's, grew up during the transition from the industrial to the information age, the dawn of the computer, the post war era (because the cold war had finally well and truly ended, the last remains of the two world wars), the first generation to grow up with computers. Generation Z or the "post-millennials" as some like to call them are the first generation to grow up with personal computers computers. I was born in 92 and while that is technically generation Y I would consider myself more generation Z.
That article has one point I will agree with, well, two. One, generation Y did grow up being told they were special snowflakes, but I think most of them figured out it was utter bullocks. Two, for the most part Generation Y is unhappy with the state of the world; not because we are deluded, but because our parents (or rather the previous generation) screwed up, and we know it.
See, the Baby Boomers didn't grow up in the transition to the Information Age, that had it throw at then with unstoppable force in their adult lives. They were unprepared and unequipped to adapt to the changing world. Well perhaps that's a bit harsh, they did adapt, but they did it with the emotional and economic tools and life skills they already had, and those tools while capable had some side effects. Cooperations, the only current entirety capable of fronting the capital necessary for industrial investment on the scale the information age demanded, were already in pace and quickly ceased opportunists to grow. A company does not have emotion, it exists for the sole purpose of making it's investors more money and that what happened. The technology of the information age gave them opportunities and monetary capital seized them.
But I digress form my point. The Baby boomers grow up being told that hard work would pave the way and every bit of success gained was theirs for the taking, that they deserved every bit of the dream they could hold in their hands, if they only worked hard enough. So they worked hard, did the job right even if the hated it, even if they would be stuck with it forever, worked for the financial security their parents told them was waiting. The boomers had and have an impressive and admirable work ethic instilled by their parents. The dawn of a new age brought on by their hard work brought with it golden opportunity. but no one could of foreseen the Dangers.
No one could know the Damage large multinational corporations could do. when your an entity incapable of true emotion, moving forward on mindless paperwork it's easy for hundreds of small inconsequential decisions to be made because they will "improve performance" that lead to massive companies like Walmart and Monsanto that treat employees and customers alike as targets to be fleeced for all they have and do it legally.
With the dawn of the credit card and easy access to money you hadn't earned yet, the Boomers faced yet another challenge, financial responsibility. The boomers had an unquestionable faith that every year they would work hard and their success would grow, that faith was confounded by the ever growing economy that road the dawn of the information age and the boom of the4 stock market.. As such it easy to see how they could justify using credit to buy things they could not afford yet. "That nice house and white picket fence? I'll be able to pay that off 30 years form now, nothing will happen to my security between now and then. My retirement pension I'll invest it in a 401k instead then I'll be even better off." WE all know what happened, The housing bubble that grew because everyone was buying their houses on extended loans with supper low interest? that was compounded by the unshakable faith in the ever improving future that causes home equity to skyrocket? it burst, along with a whole lot of other securities interest and we entered the great recession. The boomers saw their security starting to disappear well before it happened but instead of backing off and living more modestly. they refused to let their lifestyle slacken in their old age and poured mountains of effort into strengthening social security placing the burden, perhaps unintentionally, of their ever increasing health care (a by product of the advances they made in medical tech that increased their lifespans) on the government, forcing deficit spending, and building the national debt to it's current 17.5 trillion, almost 2 trillion more than the US GDP. and it's not JUST the US, Europe the rest of the 1st world had the same problem.
The result is a generation that had more opportunity and intelligence than they had foresight. They had it good, had kids and told then them world was awesome, that they could be anything. Then in an effort to make enough money to ensure that the world would stay awesome, perhaps thinking it would carry over for their kids without doing the math, fucked up. Those kids, Generation Y, saw the world change before their eyes, it went from a magical world of possibilities to an abysmal world that seems to be on the verge of tearing itself apart with extreme excesses. The rich got richer by roughly 30% and the pore got poorer by %50, the middle class is disappearing rapidly. The world is one where the power of information trumps the power of industrial effort. It a "Who and What you know that others don't" world now not the "Work hard, educate yourself, and take the inevitable opportunity" world our parents grew up in. And we know fear, fear for our immediate future, the worst kind.
