As the Boomers Head for the Barn
When the April figures on unemployment were released May 4, they were more than disappointing. They were deeply disturbing.
While the unemployment rate had fallen from 8.2 percent to 8.1 percent, 342,000 workers had stopped looking for work. They had just dropped out of the labor market.
Only 63.6 percent of the U.S. working age population is now in the labor force, the lowest level since December 1981.
During the Reagan, Bush I and Clinton years, participation in the labor force rose steadily to a record 67 percent. The plunge since has been almost uninterrupted.
Here is a major cause of the economic malaise of the 21st century, a condition over which a president has little control. A shrinking share of our population is carrying an ever-expanding army of dependents.
If this were a result of American women going home to have kids, that would be, as it was after World War II, a manifestation of national vigor and health.
But that is not the case here.
The number of Americans of working age not in the labor force grew in April from 87,897,000 to 88,419,000—by an astonishing 522,000. This is an immense army for the rest of society to carry.
Why are Americans dropping out?
Some have given up looking for jobs in towns they grew up in, because the jobs are gone and not coming back, and they don't want to leave. Some are rejecting the low-wage unskilled work being offered, because the alternative—unemployment checks and federal and state welfare—is not all that torturous.
With some, the work incentive was never implanted. With others, the option of moving back in with the parents is not all that terrible.
America, it seems, is becoming less like the country we grew up in, in its attitudes about work and idleness, and more like Europe.
Whatever its causes, this social and economic torpor that seems beyond the capacity of presidents to correct or cure is a dark cloud over the hopes of Barack Obama for a second term.
And yet another ominous cloud, no longer on the far horizon, is now directly above: the impending departure from the labor force of 70 million baby boomers in the next two decades.
According to the Statistical Abstract of the United States, from Jan. 1, 1930, to Dec. 31, 1935, there were 13 million births in the U.S. From January 1940 through December 1945, there were 16 million.
This was the Silent Generation, born in Depression and war. It never produced a president, and never will, unless Ron Paul catches fire pretty quickly. The Greatest Generation gave us six presidents, starting with JFK and ending with Bush I. Our three most recent presidents—Bill Clinton, Bush II, Barack Obama—are all baby boomers
And here we come to the heart of our next economic crisis.
If one adds up all the children born between Jan. 1, 1946 and Jan. 1, 1965, the era of the great American baby boom, the total comes to 77 million babies born in the United States.
Why is this so significant now?
Because this year, 2012, the first wave of baby boomers, all those born in 1946, like Clinton and George W. Bush, will reach 66, and eligibility for full Social Security and Medicare benefits. The boomers, en masse, will start moving off payrolls onto pension rolls.
Let us assume the 77 million boomers are down to 72 million. This means that over the next 20 years, boomers will be retiring and reaching eligibility for Social Security and Medicare at a rate of 3.6 million a year, or 300,000 a month, or 10,000 every day.
Three hundred thousand a month leaving the labor force may help to explain its shrinkage. And as the boomers are the best-paid, best-educated generation we produced, the loss of their collective skills, abilities and tax contributions will be as heavy a blow to the nation as the funding of their Medicare and Social Security will be a burden to the taxpayers they leave behind in the labor force.
Since Roe v. Wade, abortions have carried off 53 million of the generations that were to replace the boomers. While those 53 million lost have been partially replaced by 40 million immigrants, legal and illegal, our recent immigrants have not exhibited the same income- or tax-producing capacity as boomers.
In 1965, LBJ announced his plan to convert our ordinary society into a Great Society. Since then, trillions have been spent.
The fruits of that immense investment? The illegitimacy rate, dropout rate, crime rate and incarceration rate have set new records, as the test scores of high school students have plummeted to new lows.
Our labor force is shrinking, the number of dependent U.S. adults is growing, our social programs are failing, and our best educated and most productive generation is retiring.
To borrow from Merle Haggard, "Are the good times really over for good?"
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Entries(RSS)
As usual Mr. Buchanan, you are ever the pessimist. Let's not forget that with less people in the workforce, total employment numbers will improve. And that must be a good thing, since Obama will say so. By the way, your comments about the few workers supporting many dependents is misleading. While it is true that entitlement spending is growing while the workforce shrinks, we just need to collect on all that debt out there to make ends meet. Student loans, credit cards, mortgages, alimony, child support and all that money Canada owes us for letting them live. As a matter of national security, we should empower collections at the point of a bayonet. If the debtor has no money, which is usually a lie, we can either kill them or put them to work collecting firewood from our forests. We can also hook up lots of bicycles to generators and use the debtors to pedal our way to energy independence. OK, we won't really get much money that way but at least our dependents will have heat, hot water and light as they nibble on crackers, soil their diapers and watch reruns of General Hospital. See? It's not so bad.
I enjoy Pat's columns. He is a realist and a patriot. This recent essay reminds me of an older one by a now deceased traditionalist that was entitled " Empty Altar, Empty Womb." If I were a young libertarain or anarchist today wanting to make a fortune, I would get in on the ground floor of same sex family law; if I were a young protestant I would move to South Dakota or Mississippi and make a vow to read the scriptures every day for at least seven minutes before going to work or before the family woke up for the new day. If I were a young Catholic, I would head to the worst part of the city with a friend or two and start a school or else flee to the fields near some monestary, abandoned or ocuupied.
If I were middle aged or older, having taken the advice of John McCain and his party to the Buchanan followers to "get out on the next greyhound bus" or having suffered the character assasinations and calumny of National Review types of being unpatriotic americans, I would befriend one of the old codgers like Clyde Wilson, Tom Fleming, Pat Buchanan from the Chronicles crowd who are already sitting on the back benches and listen to their stories along with a prolonged meditation on the meaning of those lines in the Tempest --" Hell is empty and the devils are all here."
"America, it seems, is becoming less like the country we grew up in, in its attitudes about work and idleness, and more like Europe."
I believe Mr. Buchanan is quite unfair in his indictment of Europeans as people who shirk work. Indeed, it's a stereotype held by some Americans that looks quite unwarranted once we look at the statistics. Norway, Austria, Netherlands, Germany, Iceland, Finland, Sweden, Czech Republic, Denmark, Switzerland, and all the small European city-states have lower unemployment rates than America.
Disregard statistics too, and we still have to ask how anyone can think these regions have a work-shirking culture. Many of these regions have some of the highest productivity levels in the world, along with a culture of innovation and excellence in certain fields.
I believe Mr. Buchanan is quite unfair in his indictment of Europeans as people who shirk work. Indeed, it's a stereotype held by some Americans that looks quite unwarranted once we look at the statistics. Norway, Austria, Netherlands, Germany, Iceland, Finland, Sweden, Czech Republic, Denmark, Switzerland, and all the small European city-states have lower unemployment rates than America.
Conspicuously, France was left out. I remember a couple years ago, shortly after the professors had all gone on a three-plus-month strike and left their students cramming at the end of the 2008-09 school year, a Russian student came over to my apartment to share some vodka and salmon roe with my roommate (a Frenchman) and me. She remarked to him that "France is the most communist country in Europe!" He was taken aback.
"No!" he exclaimed.
"Yeah huh!" she insisted. "In Russia, we had communism, but we had to WORK! You don't even work here!"
That said, in terms of welfare dependency culture, even France is not *really*, in my view, too terribly much worse off than the U.S.. (Yes, the unemployment apparatus is more developed here, but unemployment insurance is mandatory in our social charges, so we'd better be getting SOMEthing back.) I do agree that it is a mistake to suppose that a smaller percentage of Europeans work or are willing to work; what IS true - and what has been for a number of decades - is that working Americans tend to work more hours than working Europeans. I am not, for my part, certain whether that is necessarily a point of pride.
"Indeed, it's a stereotype held by some Americans "
Yes, it is but it makes some of them feel better about the "broken cherry bows" they must soon say farewell to in their own orchard. Besides, humanity on both sides of the atlantic will continue amidst all the current problems, it is only their civilization that is beleaugured and all cobbed up in their throat making it hard to breath --- like the death rattle one hears in the sick room before repose and the sound of birds outside the window.
Mr. Moses
The French enjoy a high enough household income and a high enough standard of living even with their relatively fewer working hours. So their productivity compensates.
Either way, we have hosted French backpackers at our home regularly, and this is what they say of their experiences. In a postal office in France, the employees might leave the counter and spend 2 minutes on a colleague's birthday party. Then they come back, do everything on the double, and leave no work pending for the day. So it's not that they don't shirk work; they just see something more to life than their work life. One can hardly fault them.
Hard work probably is not the highest ideal of men. The poorest in all of the Third World, from Sudan to Bangladesh, work harder than anyone else for little reward. That merely reflects miserable circumstances, nothing more. The benefit of living in an advanced industrial civilization is to get more for less work, and be free to pursue more meaningful things in life.
Mr. Reavis,
I enjoyed your post, but you left one scenario out:
And "If I were a rich man" (yubby dibby dibby dibby dibby dibby dibby dum) I would run for President and enjoy 10 to 12 international vacations a year with ample time for working on my golf swing!
Mr. Cornell,
"Yibby, dibby, dibby, dibby, etc...." Yes, you are quite correct. But, with one qualification. Wealthy people by and large are sometimes smart even when they are not wise. Most of those I know who hold significant wealth would, if their opponent was willing to spend a billion dollars to defeat them, offer themselves at 1/2 a billion in exchange for not running at all. The age old question raised by timocrats, knights and cowboys: " Sir, what are you going to do when I try to kill you?" was historically met with the reply, " Sir, what are you going to do when I fight back?" We are way past that type of public honor today. It really is all about "the economy stupid" and the smart money knows it.
Here's an opportunity to try an opinion I've always wanted to float about the effects of the French Revolution. Sadly, I missed last year's Summer School on the FR, the one I wanted to attend more than all the others, which probably would have provided the answer to this.
Europeans are not alone in seeing something more to life than work. Millions of Americans have this knowledge, too, have had it since colonial times, when many opted to live the life of the trapper, hunter, and prospector, taking wealth and sustenance where and when it could be found, and leaving the daily grind of farming and other occupations to others, whom they looked down upon. Well into the 20th century, my grandfather, who could have made a living hiring out in any number of trades he'd mastered as a woodsman/small farmer, chose to live independently on his hill, taking the hardships and blessings of the natural life as they came. The baby boom generation famously was heir to this vision of working to live as opposed to living to work.
But, and here's my opinion, the French did something we Americans never did. By virtue of their revolution's largely rising up from below, rather than being led from the top, they put those who would be their masters on notice, for all time, that there was a limit to how far they could be exploited. I think all French leaders since have known that they can push Pierre only so far, and then he might get to hacking and burning. American leaders have never been so afraid of their people. They have viewed our occasional rioting only as challenges in crowd control, never as serious threats to the regime. For me, only this can explain how the Roosevelts, Wilson, the Kennedys, Moynihan, Johnson, etc., got away with their utter contempt for the American people. None of their leading us into unnecessary wars and betraying of the interests of ordinary Americans in so many other ways has ever been punished. Their sense of personal security has never been shattered, while we the people have been so shattered, unlike the French, that we can do nothing. The coming of the NATO summit to Chicago will give me a chance to see for myself what today's protesters look like, and if they may have what it takes to change things for the better. Stay tuned...
Mr. Jacobi,
I, too, wished I could have attended the summer school on the French Revolution, but, like this year's session on Constantine it's just not in the cards. While I'm no expert on the French Revolution, what limited reading I have done leads me to believe that it wasn't so much a rising from the bottom up but a manipulation of the bottom by the upper middle-class. The old story about the oppressed French worker rising up to stick it to the "Royal Man" was, more or less, just a story.
My own opinion, right or wrong, about how the American public has been so passively manipulated by the Roosevelts, LBJ . . .etc. is that 1) American's have a horrible appetite for sentimentality, and 2) Americans have always had a strong leaning toward something akin to Utilitarianism. So basically we like feeling sorry for some poor sap (even if they're fictional ala Mr. Obama's "Julia") and think that whatever is done to make that poor sap feel happy is worth it (further on consequences not worth considering). This plays on both sides of the fence, too, "Conservatives" being just as willing to waste outrageous sums of money so that some poor schlub of a kid out there somewhere can pretend to get an education.
Surely there are a hundred, thousand other factors to consider in what makes up the American character, modern man in general, and such that have lead us to where we are today, but those ideas have stuck in my head as two of the more significant factors.
Mr. Jacobi,
It's probably my fault but I don't quite see the point of your comment. Pat Buchanan shows us that demographic reality means our modern system of entitlements cannot be sustained. I suppose we can argue about if, how and when the system is adjusted to this reality or if, how and when it suffers a violent collapse. But, as Mr. Buchanan has shown, it will change and that change will be rather dramatic. As for people liking entitlements, it's not even worth debating, everyone likes free stuff and nobody likes to pay for them. That includes French people, American people and even the Canadians. Since politicians like to get re-elected, they will always stuff more goodies in our stockings. Paying for them is an incidental, inconvenient detail that will sort itself out later. Now, here we are, near the end of that process.
For some reason, you seem to be saying that because of the French revolution, French politicians have been put on permanent notice that 'pierre' can only be pushed so far before he gets to hacking and burning. The French peasants will rise up in revolt if they are exploited too much. I guess most folks know what the French Revolution is famous for, but I'm not sure why you seem to be proud of that or why you seem to imply that the quality of French hackers and burners is better than America's. It's a curious argument. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but do you consider the bloated social entitlements in America and France to be exploitative? Or, are you saying the imminent reduction of those benefits is exploitation? Or, perhaps you have a long list of past offenses in mind? Let me just assume all of the above for a minute and ask you my next question. What is it about hacking and burning that you imagine will benefit Americans or Frenchman? Whether the benefits or their elimination or past sins of politicians are opposed, how and why do you think mass violence will improve matters? You say you are going to the NATO summit in Chicago to see if the American protesters have what it takes to change things for the better. I will be eagerly waiting for your report. Please also explain why a bloodbath like the French Revolution will improve America. I can hardly wait.
I will make this modest prediction. French hackers and burners will win the competition hands down. Sadly, American protesters will not be permitted to burn down Chicago, not even for the common good or for bragging rights. On the plus side for you, Paris needs another good fire, all that old stuff is cluttering up the place.
Just so I'm clear, I do sympathize with your violent tendencies since I know a few politicians we can burn just for fun. However, these things tend to spread and have many bad unintended consequences. Instead, I refer you to the Tea Party method of social correction. Yes, they are too mild by half but when they start refusing to pay taxes and voting the thugs out, they can potentially get things fixed for real. I hope. Cheers.
"Forgive me if I'm wrong, but do you consider the bloated social entitlements in America and France to be exploitative? Or, are you saying the imminent reduction of those benefits is exploitation? "
Taking a man's property from him when he is young so his government can give it to his neighbors who are old, along with a promise to give it back to the youngster when he grows old, is rather complicated as we all know.
But those were good problems compared to
Taking a man's property from him when he is young, so government can spend it, lie about how it was spent, use it to abort his grandchildren, pay for schools that hate everything he stands for, force his children to attend such schools or pay more for another just like it, allow strangers and aliens to camp out in his community until they find a job, qualify for relief or can move some dope, all this while outsourcing his job overseas, before breaking the bad news there is nothing social or secure about what they took from him, that he needs to cut back or work longer, .... please no religious medallions in the nursing home, the priest only comes on the first monday of every third month, try to hang on another three weeks if you can, we are required to tell you he has prior convictions. The other minister can come sooner but we are required to tell you he believes necrophilia is biblical ..... worked with poor people in Chicago for years etc..
You really can't make this stuff up.
Mr. Cornell,
Agreed there were manipulators from other classes in the FR. But the lower classes were a force to be reckoned with and could not always be controlled. They had to be taken seriously and it's that power that I sometimes envy, as in my love/hate relationship to America's anti-war movement. I agree with your point on American sentimentality; I think this goes a long way toward explaining why many otherwise sensible Americans could vote Obama. The French revos had one thing right though, they knew how to get at the actual wielders of power and holders of wealth (along with many innocent victims); not merely street dancing around government offices and store window breaking, while the actual villains laugh from within their walled compounds.
Mr. Taqiyya,
What bloated social benefits? Workers in America get the dregs. I have harped many times on this site about how Americans' great productivity gains since WW II have not been commensurably rewarded, compared to executive pay, stockholder return, and quality of life gains in some European countries. I'm not talking about those on welfare; I have even disagreed with PJB on occasion, holding that his concentration on the number of those not paying taxes, for instance, misses the more important issue of why Americans' wages are so low, after we workers have sweat blood for our owners, oops, employers, as shown in the productivity spurt. You can't pay taxes on income you don't have.
Here, I was picking up on Mr. Moses' point that Americans work more hours than Europeans and on Mr. Sanjay's observation that "their [French] productivity compensates"; i.e., the French worker gets a better quality of life – not just money – for his toil. I then tried to relate this superior French condition – superior to that of the American worker – to a vestigial respect tinged perhaps with fear on the part of French leaders towards their citizens. A respect and fear that is lacking over here. It would seem logical that their revolution, being so much more violent, unpredictable and radical than ours, would leave this kind of vestige or legacy. The greater homogeneity (for now, anyway) of their people must also come into play, as sentiment can more readily communicate and spread among like than unlike, allowing for more concerted, effective counteraction to unpopular government moves. I'm not "proud" of their hackers and burners, I'm disgusted with how conformist and fearful Americans are. If we can't make our rulers wary of our rage, we are doomed to be slaves.
As for your cheeky remarks about wanting a "bloodbath" and burning down Chicago: been there, done that. I was on the street as a teenager for the '65 riot, in '68 I saw my own street (Madison) in flames on the front page of the Stars And Stripes armed forces newspaper while I was in 'Nam, and was home in time to get close to the Weather Underground's "Days of Rage" rampage. My house was also under threat twice during the Chicago Bulls' victory riots.
I wanted to get a look at the NATO protest (but it looks like work, sleep and my kids' games this weekend will preclude that) to take the pulse of the American spirit. These are new kids out there, and I wanted to talk to some to see what they've got. Also, I wanted to see what the security state has cooked up. There has been a new command center set up, at a secret suburban location, no less, with every agency in the alphabet of acronyms in attendance. They will know everything, see everything. I want to go downtown with camera and watch the watchers. Perhaps I can get way for an hour Sunday afternoon.
What I've seen so far: A protest in an outlying park with signs reading "NATO SUPPORT HEALTH NOT DEATH" put on by an Illinois group against healthcare budget cuts. There's nothing like seeing signs saying "CUT DEFENSE NOT MENTAL HEALTH" held by people wearing orange dreadlocks and green tutus to boost your faith in government healthcare.
By Lincoln Park I saw two armed men in black jumpsuits blazoned with blue arm patches I've never seen before. NATO security is my guess. Sure and it's a fine world where foreign-born guards for six-figure Eurocrats can strut around peaceful streets all strapped up while if I try same in my alive with threat nabe I'd be face down on the concrete if not shot.
Most interesting thing so far, apart from the occasional military chopper thumping overhead, is the story on a local cop blog that last night's South Side apartment raid, called by the local media a "bust of home brewers", in fact turned up people filling bottles with gasoline and an array of "bizarre" weaponry, including crossbows and throwing stars. Seems the local fuzz is incensed that they are being made to work the NATO area in "soft" clothes and duty sidearms when they apparently feel the need for heavy weaponry and armor.
Mr. Jacobi,
If I was not new to this site, and unfamiliar with your opinions, It may have been easier for me to make the connections you very considerately provided. Thank you for clarifying. I also appreciate Mr. Reavis's comment. Granted, I focused on the hacking and burning part in my rant, but when it's suggested that the French have some sort of advantage deriving from said violence, I wonder. I wonder if an 'energetic' protest in Chicago and/or elsewhere is a positive move. Past violent and semi-violent protests have had mixed results at best. I offer the 'civil rights', 'anti-war' movements as examples. I offer the burning cities of the sixties. It seems to me those 'movements' mainly spurred an increase in governmental meddling at every level. Exactly the kind of meddling you and Mr. Reavis rightly decry. More police state and more governmental taking. To my mind, more violence, leaving aside the motivation, will give the rulers just what they want. The excuse to close the deal on tyranny. It seems to me, witness Chuck Shumer's hysterical reaction to the Facebook guy, that money, or the lack thereof, will hold their attention and steer their behavior more effectively. Perhaps a more vociferous Tea Party? It's not news that the Tea Party frightens the rulers, it makes them foam at the mouth. I say hit them where we know it hurts. When their thugs can't be paid, their protection evaporates.
I don't know what to say about the homogeneity of the French. Beyond this short lived burst of socialist enthusiasm, I see a French nation loaded with a very large and antagonistic immigrant population itching for a fight. As for homogeneous populations being more inclined to demand change from their rulers, I offer the truly homogeneous Japanese. A more docile population is hard to find. But, I'm no expert.
Pardon me again, but I'm still not convinced that the French Revolution effected a vestige of respect for the people. By your criteria, would not the American Revolution, a contemporary conflict filled with violence, also leave a similar mark? Surely, the leaders must have been aware that one third of the population threw off the shackles of a tyrant who was guilty of only a few relatively minor offenses? And, for added effect, they evicted thousands of loyalists, none too gently. But, this issue is minor.
Finally, my apologies for being rude. I will try to control my 'cheeky' impulses in future. But I still hope you get a peek at the demonstrators and tell us about it. You, and the others on this site, have interesting things to say. TY
Just to clarify: I believe I mentioned I had a "love/hate" relationship with mobs and mass movements. I'd love for people to be able to effect change for the good through mass movement and I admit to a certain thrill in making the authorities afraid. However, I'm all too aware that the wrong people usually get control of the masses and bad things happen. Sometimes, though, almost anything seems preferable to our current spinelessness.
As for the Japanese and their homogeneity; yes they are very conformist, but you notice their government doesn't try to force foreigners down their throats. It's possible for conformity to be bsed on mutual respect for an agreed on culture.