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by mcv 2414 days ago
Yeah, I feel like a lot of the things Boomers and Millennials are blaming on each other, actually apply to Gen X (and I say this as a Gen-Xer myself). We got the best education deal before (admittedly Boomer-) politicians started to undermine education. We were the slacker generation. We're the generation that refused to grow up. We got jobs in the booming 1990s.

But sure, let Boomers and Millennials fight. We're happy to stay out of this (just know that I'm on your side, Millennials!)

2 comments

That's funny, I'm GenX and I have very different memories. I remember high inflation ("stagflation"), high unemployment ("misery index"), multiple recessions during the first half of my career. Sure, college seemed pretty affordable compared to nowadays, but not compared to those before.

Also, a lot of the anger at Boomers is not just because of how they had it (that's mostly the doing of their Silent/Greatest predecessors) but because of how they made it. Boomers have dominated politics since those student-activist hippies got into it, largely because of sheer numbers. Thirty or forty years, depending on exactly which ones you count. GenX is finally making a dent, but mostly at the state level. At the federal level it's still heavily Boomer-dominated, regurgitating the same policies that got us into this mess. Ditto Wall Street etc.

If Boomers had enjoyed good times and then made some effort to prolong or repeat them, #okboomer wouldn't be a thing. It is a thing because so many Boomers are using their political power to keep selling everyone else's future for the sake of their own comfy retirement.

The 1990s were only "booming" (in the US) towards the end of the decade. The early/middle part of the decade was a recession.
I guess I was still in university back then. I'm late Gen X. I imagine early Gen X has a very different story. (I bet the same is true for every generation.)