Samwise is kind of avoiding me today because I am stalking around muttering under my breath about how the fucking Baby Boomer generation needs to grow the fuck up, after reading an article that exemplifies everything about the stereotype of the ivory-tower policy wonk you can imagine.
Frank Micciche writes about how the recession is hitting over-50s, and he’s right; it’s hard to compete for jobs against people half your age who are willing to work for peanuts, it’s difficult to face retirement when your nest egg got flushed to pay for executive ‘retention bonuses’ at AIG. His solution to this? Screw the next generation, of course. That’s what we’re for.
. . . .Restoring Medicare as the primary payer for all seniors would reverse this calculus.
. . .Elimination of all payroll taxes for those over 60 would not only leave more money in their weekly paychecks but also make them cheaper to employ for businesses, which would be spared their share of the payroll tax on these workers.
…On the savings side, policymakers could temporarily quadruple the amount of savings that households headed by individuals 50 or older are allowed to put into retirement savings tax-free.
Huh. And what are we going to do to cover that extra Medicare and those payroll and retirement-savings taxes? It’s as if Micciche thinks that we can just have the Summer of Finance, where if we all hold hands and think love of money at the world, the recession will go away, like, by the power of our minds alone!
Because the alternative is that he knows, but isn’t saying, that the lost tax income and the increased Medicare expenditures have to come from cutting services to and/or raising taxes on existing taxpayers. Apparently Micciche doesn’t think or care about how that will affect Generation X and own down, since those are the people largely starting, raising and supporting families of their own – and often, their aging parents.
Hey, that’s what everybody else is for, right? Keeping the Boomers happy?
Fuckers.
{ 3 } Comments
>Keeping the Boomers happy?
Me and MY boomers? Sure. Him and HIS boomers, not so.
Power to the people (mine)!
Roy Kay, Chief Propaganda Officer
Social Coalition for Refurbished Euphemistic Wonky Uprising Panaceas (SCREWUP)
Nobody listens to working-class women over 50 anyway… your title is really quite unnecessary.
And the article you linked, describing “individuals 50 and older who placed supreme faith in the financial markets and now find their long-held dreams of a comfortable retirement eviscerated”–are you KIDDING? Whoever dreamed of a comfortable retirement? Whoever placed supreme faith in financial markets? I don’t know anyone who does; you speak of a particular CLASS of baby boomer; not mine. I work in retail.
Not all people over 50 are affluent and rich, and you would do well to remember that.
Daisy, if by “you would do well” you mean me, rather than the assjack who wrote the linked article; thanks, but I’m well aware that not all people over 50 are affluent (much less rich).