Any interesting observations? See many in your age group get promoted early? Promoted late? High rate of alcoholism?
The reason I mention Gladwell is because in Outliers he wrote about how a segment of the population who (I may be slightly incorrect on this, going on memory) happened to be poor, Jewish and born in 1930. Many of them went on to incredible success due to a confluence of events. It's a very neat theory.
Well, we're behind the boomers and IMO that's had a very tangible effect. Basically, the big surge in population was in front of us and this was to our detriment. In jobs/careers the path ahead was very much clogged, and not much coming in behind to 'push' us forward.
E.g. I'm a CPA and out of college began work with one the Big Four Accounting firms (it was actually the Big Eight when I started but they have merged etc.). When I began it was a 4 yr path to become a partner. But every year I was there they created an additional 1 yr step in that path. I.e., new titles were created such as 'Senior Manager' etc. After 4 yrs of working there none of us were any closer to becoming a partner than the day we started. (I quit and moved to Europe, worked out fantastic for me.)
The housing market: With all that demand in front of us housing prices skyrocketed. Of course the older Baby Boomers made out like bandits because the later boomers and the rest of us drove prices higher for them. In my course of providing tax assistance I've met older boomers who paid less than $100K and sold their home years later for near a million $'s. I've had a number of my friends (Jones) who bought a house only to have it be underwater a few years later. (I'm talking back in the early 90's, nothing to do with the 2008 recession).
Things have worked out much differently for my generation.
I can honestly say it's had a very real impact on my life. E.g., I was back again in the USA (NYC) in the early 90's working for one of the Big Four accounting firms. As I mentioned above, my group's homes were underwater. Seemed to me largely a result of the early boomers etc beginning to downsize or take early retirement and selling their houses. I felt this was only get to get worse as more boomers hit retirement age.
So, I decided to try and get ahead of them for once. I identified an area I estimated would be highly desirable for them to retire to. Then, I quit my job in NYC and moved down here before they started retiring en masse and bought as much real estate as I could. I figured I'd get ahead of them and let them pay me top price for a change. Was working great until 2008, my R/E had more than doubled in value. 2008 fixed that, will now have to wait and see how long before the market comes back.
I could go on. E.g., how the boomers have awarded themselves generous SS benefit increases largely funded by pushing back retirement age for my group and others.
I think this description of my generation sums it up nicely:
Key characteristics assigned to members are less optimism, distrust of government, and general cynicism.
Fern
Facebook
Twitter