The following may a bit off our beat, but:
The CDC is reporting an alarming rise in suicides among middle aged Americans. We know life sucks, but why suicide and why now many wonder. In the old days, when the weight of the world came crashing down people were simply driven to drink for some temporary relief. These days folks are looking for something a little more permanent.
Unfortunately, most of what is going on has been predicted and documented. If one were to examine global results, one would find the rise in suicide is not a uniquely American crisis. We're reposting "The Boomer's Golden Years Are Gong to Be Bronze" to help understand the full depth and breadth of the problem.
After reading the piece, we recommend getting outside, grabbing some sun rays, enjoy a fresh spring breeze, while taking a walk. Make sure you turn off all media and just appreciate the sights and sounds of real life around you. If your lucky, you might even meet a new friend. Bet you'll feel better!
BTW, the best things in life are free
Boomers Go Bust
In an effort to remain consistent yet still be flexible enough to modify our positions on the economy, we would like to offer the following for your opinion. We have stated for nine or months that the US economy was headed for a near total collapse. We stand by that statement no matter how much we support President Obama and all of the efforts he is making to ease the downward spiral.
On the other hand, upon a careful review of the President’s plans and projections, it appears there is a ray of hope. There is a possibility that the country has a strong chance of a full recovery. However, the big and unfortunately unavoidable problem is that the largest group that will be most negatively impacted is the baby boomers. Yes my friends, the golden years of the sixties radicals and their children and going to be bronze.
While the stimulus package is being sold to the public as a means to fix/address the critical ills of the economy; and it will it time, the big question is, how much time will it take? The way we see things, this economy will need at the very least, a decade or more before we realize the dividends of this administration. If you are 58-63 years old or older and planning for a comfortable, worry free retirement anytime soon you are going to be in for a real shocker.
The Baby boomers is the group, that for years have been told that social security was going broke and Medicare was going to a lousy choice to rely upon for your healthcare. Yet we did nothing to change our course. We all saw the crash of the American economy coming, but we just assumed some really smart person or persons would have an answer before things got really bad; after all this is America.
Unfortunately, this over self-indulgent, materialistic, fat, lazy, shortsighted, and consumer oriented generation might have simply lived long enough to see their bills come due. We are going to have to pay the health bill for not eating right, not exercising regularly, drinking too much, doing too many drugs for too long and living too stressful a lifestyle. We are going to pay big-time for backing into retirement age flat broke. As a result, we are going to be forced to rely on a less than adequately trained generation x and y to assist us because we paid more attention to ourselves and not enough to those following behind us. Let’s face it, our kids are stupid and we are responsible for that too.
This is pay back time folks and the bill is huge. There is no getting around it, we are going to suffer the consequences of everything we should have done, but didn’t. We are going to pay dearly for not developing alternative sources of energy when oil prices inevitable hit record highs again. Many are already losing their homes because they wanted to live large at the expense of saving for a rainy day. Sure, an argument can be made for those that got snookered, but the broader picture is rooted in a cultural dynamic that was allowed to fester far too long.
Now that we finally have a President willing to open the books, layout the truth and begin to reset the country’s mindset, the ugly fact remains, that the Boomers are going to be forced accept responsibility for their decades of greed and apathy. These Boomers are going to have to realize that they are the ones that are going to be left behind. It was the Boomers and their kids that let this happen and it is fitting that they pay the price.
All of what Barack Obama is trying to accomplish is workable and necessary, but can not be counted on to yield measurable results for the very near future. His proposals for investment in education reform, healthcare reform and energy innovation are things that will come to fruition in 10-15 years if we start now. There is no way to snap a finger and have a healthy productive economy and workforce when things were allowed to get this bad.
We are a generation and a half behind in education, we are a full two generations away from having a reasonably fit society and maybe two generations away from reliance on foreign energy sources. And perhaps the worst of it is we're a generation (maybe less if we’re lucky) before the markets recover the trillions of personal wealth that was lost over the last 18 months. The bottom-line is here, the Boomers have gone bust. We say, lets get a few cold ones and chill. It'll all look better in the morning.
ORIGINALLY POSTED TO LBINES ON MON MAR 09, 2009 AT 09:36 AM PDT.
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