Walk Duration: 50 minutes.
I made the drive last night from my home "where the Sierra meets the Cascades" to where I work: the Napa Valley. 156 miles, or there abouts.
I took my walk right after work. No real goal in mind but to enjoy the warmth. Upper 60's. I've been looking for signs and symptoms of the economic downturn in the Napa Valley. I couldn't find any. The economic downturn hasn't affected the Richest of the Rich. They always land on their feet. Housing prices are still high. Wine prices haven't come down. Luxury cars are everywhere. None of the fancy boutiques have shuttered their doors, here in Trustfunder Central.
For the last thirty years the Rich have done quite well. They are taxed less than I am. If you live on a Trustfund, the money you withdraw is taxed less (much less!) than if you actually did something like (God forbid!) work a JOB for the money. Yes, that is true!
This offends me horribly (because I am not a Trustfunder)!
It's been quite the party for the wealthy since 1980 when everything changed. Why did that happen? I asked myself, as I walked.
Blame the Baby Boomers (of which I am on the tail end)! This is not a generation I am particularly fond of. They puff themselves up like they changed everything. Did they? And was it for the better?
Seems to me things got worse after the Baby Boomers entered the marketplace en mass. This generation has always been about maximizing it's own pleasure. So, of course, the tax laws and rates would change when this generation hit the workforce. They quickly bought into the "free market" and "lower tax rate" ideals.
They gave us Bill Clinton and George Bush. These guys will go down in history as the Baby Boomer Generation's Presidents. These guys certainly were not agents of change.
The Free Love generation, the generation of Woodstock and the Commune, didn't do anything for the poor and powerless in this country while at the height of their political and economic power. Nope, such ideals were left in the mud in New York.
Baby Boomers didn't end Imperial Wars. They didn't pass health care for all. They presided over thirty years of wealth transfer to the Rich. They made College unaffordable. They didn't relax any drug laws. They did nothing about raising CAFE standards; in fact, they bought the SUV's in horde. They didn't go Green. They abandoned Solar Power. They abandoned the ideas of having a Mass Movement to change society. They even raised the drinking age after they became parents!
After the volunteer Army was created, the Vietnam War ended, Nuclear Power was stopped and the Nuclear Freeze movement achieved some success--they just crawled in their Generational Cages and stopped caring. Am I wrong?
That is what I thought about in Trustfunder Central today.
How was your walk?
PS...photos will be added after I return to the Solar Compound next week.
3 comments:
I don't feel any need to defend a generation, but I think 1) there are plenty of people like me who have essentially remained hippies our entire lives and never became yuppies, 2) people's lives are mostly determined by when and where they happened to be born -- there's nothing inherently evil or noble about any particular generation or nationality or religion and all would have acted similarly under identical circumstances, and 3) there was never any chance there was going to be a revolution.
Hi Green,
Glad you spoke up!
Point 1: there are plenty of old Hippies around (true). Thank God!
2. Our birth--oh, I do think some generations are exceptional. My Father's WWII generation, for one. They weren't perfect, but they did get many things right.
3. Revolution? probably not. But evolution and not whole sale back sliding would have been nice. Everything stopped after Nixon left office. That is when we stopped evolving (in my view)-- precisely about the time the BB generation joined the work force and acquired mortgages.
Hi Allan, I think maybe I didn't explain myself very well about generations. Let's say we have WW generation which you like and BB generation which you don't like. Now imagine all the individuals who make up those generations switching birthdates with the other generation and growing up under each other's circumstances. My feeling is that most of the WWs would then act like BBs and vice versa. To me, it's all just the luck of the draw.
I liked Carter a lot; he talked to Americans about reality and sacrifice, Americans said they'd rather be greedy. I think he was the best man in the office during my life, but unfortunately given the power and secrecy and conflict involved, being a good man may disqualify you from being a good president.
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