Lost Dream: The Boomer “American Dream” Trap

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

After writing this blog I realize that it's actually a good thing that younger generations have very little access to the "American Dream" in comparison to the Boomers.  This will cause us to think more deeply about the meaning of life and how Jesus said that we cannot serve God and money (Matthew 6), and that by serving God our provision (from Him) would be secured, that if we would seek Him and His righteousness, all these things would be added to us. In losing access to easy money, perhaps we would give up the idol of seeking money and instead gain a loving relationship with the Father as well as salvation and an eternal inheritance in the world to come.  May such happen with all generations still living, that they would learn to put the pursuit of money aside and rather seek after the Father and His Son Jesus Christ through the keeping of His commandments, in the mighty name of Jesus I pray.  A-men.

TO BEGIN

What I’ve heard (in my anecdotal experience) from the more conservative side of the Boomer generation regarding their view of work ethic and attainment of financial wealth is the hard and fast belief that worldly education is paramount and leads to respectable jobs with established institutions that will help you net the best economic outcome for you and your family as well as secure your future/retirement.

It seems that any path that departs from this "tried and true" approach is risky, unwarranted, and, except for a few outlying circumstances, futile.  Any divergence is to play the lottery with your life and your chances of success, for them, are practically nil. If you try to forge your own path, to do something with your life that you enjoy and brings you fulfillment, that does not meet their pre-approved worn path requirements, then you must be a lazy, loser type who doesn't have his eyes on the prize.  

For these types of Boomers work is doing a job you don't necessarily like and suffering it (often for decades) for the greater good, so that wealth may be acquired and stored away for the future when you won't have to work anymore.  So they preclude themselves from pursuing the real marrow of life in their younger years with the idolatry of work ethic and wealth acquisition, even though at any moment, that wealth could be lost and their lives would have been lived in vain.  And even those who don't lose their wealth by some unforeseen economic downturn can often find themselves feeling their lives were wasted after having given the best years of their lives to occupations which made them miserable and empty inside.

Perhaps this is why so many Boomers suffer from mid-life crises and “is this all there is?” retirements.  They get to the stage where they finally don't have to work and find their minds and bodies no longer have the energy to pursue the activities they once would have during their more virile years.  Disappointment sets in and that lingering question in the back of their minds, "Did I really live the life I wanted or did I rather live the one the world programmed me to lead?"

The disappointment could be further sealed by the realization that the Boomer pursuit of wealth is entirely against Jesus’ teaching not to lay up treasures on earth (Matthew 6).  Focusing only on wealth acquisition amounts to avoiding following the leading of the Father which has caused many of them to never find their real purpose. Purpose can only be found by serving the Father rather than mammon (money).  Doing so would have led to a life with no regrets, but regrets can abound with Boomers, even though many refuse to look directly into the matter to discover just why they have them.  If a Boomer would address why he would have to admit choosing the wrong path and also a lifetime of foisting that ideology on his children and grandchildren.

This "achieve wealth" mentality would have been hard for Boomers to avoid.  They’ve been trained from the womb through education, media, movies, tv shows and literature, to believe in its dogmas.  And the powers that be of those post depression and World War II days allowed there to be a reward for their efforts, but the freedoms under which they operated then no longer exist today, the corporate and governmental take over of America being the chief evidence that such is the case.  

Though Boomers experienced some significant disruptions from the Vietnam war, the economic issues of the seventies’ with inflation and the high interest rates during the presidency of Jimmy Carter, the Reagan years (a time in which the Boomers flourished economically) re-established a “roaring twenties” like economic feeding frenzy that has all but been swallowed up since then by multiple stock and housing market crashes and downturns, an incredible amount of inflation, and by corporations evolving from fair economic treatment of their workers to giving little reward to lower tier workers while paying their CEO’s hundreds, and sometimes thousands of times what their average workers make.  

Many base America's prosperity on the stock market (which is little more than legalized gambling), rather than on the economic welfare of Main Street America, and this, too is a type of smoke and mirrors representation of the economic health of the country that is a deception at best.  We are not doing well as a nation economically, especially in the wake of covid, and this will catch up to us.  And the nation deserves it for all its sin.  Perhaps more people will repent and cry out to God when they don't have so much money to consume with?

Not to mention that the bureaucratic and tax related red tape has increased as well, these younger generations face challenges too difficult to climb, and many are plainly opting out. 

Another aspect that I almost overlooked for which a friend reminded me, is the environment of competition among workers has increased, doubly so, due to the entry of women in to the work force. During the early days of women beginning to take on full time work, they did so at lower levels within companies in secretary positions and the like, while middle and upper management largely remaining the realm of men.  Now women occupy a bigger portion of the work force than ever and the equality that has been sought is more prevalent, making the work place twice as competitive. More competition for jobs means LOWER WAGES for all.

The result has been a massive shrinking of the middle class, the "haves" having more, and the number of “have-nots” growing exponentially, or at least those who can get by living paycheck to paycheck, and even those living beyond their means taking on incredible amounts of debt. The average Gen-Xer has nearly $200k in debt through mortgage and consumer debt.

Today's millennial's can't even afford to buy a house.  Corporations and retired relocating boomers have bought them up at inflated prices and driven the prices up beyond the reach of the millennials.  I know an economically conservative couple making $140,000 per year that can't afford to buy a house and are paying exhorbitant rents, over $2k per month, wasting $24k a year that they'll never see again!  Inflation and the resulting high interest rates have made them super low middle class in spite of a decent income.  Boomers did not face this in the sixties and early when they were buying their first houses.  Yes, the seventies had some severe inflation and incredibly high interest rates I'll grant you, but the dollar is worth much less now than then.  Outside of the super high interest rate bubbles, single income earning households could still afford to buy a starter home.  Now dual income earners need side hustle jobs and multiple streams of income to even come close.

So the Boomer American Dream is long over, yet it is a dogma that some Boomers still hold on to, as they watch the younger generations flounder in their attempts to amass the same wealth they were able to accrue during times of more fair business practices in relation to employees share of the profits, yet they still seem to blame the younger generations for this result, as if the problem lays entirely on their lack of work ethic and/or loyalty to their companies.  But in fact, the playing field has changed so dramatically that now only the most aggressively compromising and lacking in morals “sharks” among us can survive the evils of the extremely narcissistic corporate environments of our day.  And even those who are successful in corporations jump from team to team like NFL or NBA free agents just seeking a larger paycheck.  For many, this is the only way to get a significant raise.  If you stay with the same company, chances are, you will never see the same raise you would by defecting.  So these types of people are doing somewhat well, and get the benefits of their lack of scruples, but the percentage of them is quite small in comparison to the larger population.

The result is that many in the younger generations are more willing to go it alone, to check out.  They see the slavery aspect of what corporate life brings and how the harder they work, the more taxes they pay, as disenchanting at best and repugnant at worst.  They figure out ways to leave the perceived shelter of an “established” institution in search of an ever harder to be found freedom.  They search out a path in which they can pursue what motivates them and hopefully figure out a way for that pursuit to bring provision.  And these are the ones with good heads on the shoulders.  Many have made some bad choices as a result, mostly having to do with a little substance called weed (and many other harder core drugs), and have just defaulted to lowest-common-denominator lifestyles of problem and responsibility avoidance that the boomers themselves did in the 60's.

But the laws and social pressures brought to bear by corporations putting mom and pop institutions out of business in a type of economic warfare on our nation, as well as the predominance of manufacturing being sent oversees, leaves these modern generations with far fewer options in terms of making a living as entrepreneurs or self-employed types.  Most have to seek jobs as independent contractors in the computer or service industries.  That's about all they have left.

Any attempt at building a local business comes with the immediate challenge of not being able to buy products to sell at the same wholesale prices these large corporations would pay.  There are no economies of scale for mom and pops, and so the little guy has to pay more for a product to sell in his store, which in turn will require that he charges more for the product than his corporate competition.  This is a hard row to hoe because consumers will naturally try to pay the least amount necessary when purchasing a product.  And they don’t care where it was manufactured or if the place they buy products from is a giant corporation or a local vendor.  In the end, they're watching their own spending in this modern economy as much as the business man, and if they don't they won't be able to afford to live.  It's the catch 22 of all catch 22's.  Probably the only way to turn this around is to create a law where mom and pop's would get the same prices as giant corporations.  I've seen this done in the tennis industry and it allows small shops to still sell racquets and accessories at the same prices as the behemoths.

These phenomena also apply to local restaurant owners.  Every town in America has been swarmed with corporate behemoth eateries.  The local mom and pop restaurants usually provide significantly better food and service, but they must charge more for the same reasons of the lack of economies of scale that a standard retail store would experience.  They have to rely on their hungry clients being willing and able to pay more for a better quality of (often locally grown) food.  Because they can make better food, at least they have that advantage.  But a retail product, like a toothbrush, will be no different if purchased at a local mom and pop than it would from Wal-mart or Amazon.  Would you pay $5 for a toothbrush at the mom and pop, or $2 at the Walmart of Walgreens?

And again, modern mom and pops face loads of regulation and financial and tax related red tape to a lesser degree than the Boomers back in their day.  All of these are barriers to entry lead the younger generations to just throw up their hands and say, “I give up.” Many of these young adults still live in their Boomer parents' basements and their old childhood bedrooms, sleeping on a twin bed with the same athlete or musician poster hanging on their wall as they had in their teens.  No progress, arrested development, but it's not all about work ethic, there are too many other factors in play.  

Still, the Boomers think, "Where’s the drive? Where’s the work ethic?," not recognizing that their own drive and work ethic was most often in service to mammon (and greed, and ultimately to Satan) and while many will allow that the number of impediments to success that exist today are exponentially larger than when they were given freer reign to make a real living, they still think if you follow the pattern, in the end it will work out.  But the wealth the governments of the world allowed them to build up during their day the governments are most certainly taking back now from the following generations.  They let the Boomer generation build up the richest economy the world has ever seen, only to take it back through many forms of taxation, inflation, etc.

Just see the laws related to inheritance tax.  Why should money that has already been taxed during the life of the one leaving the inheritance be taxed yet again?  Also take a look at our over $30 trillion federal debt that's been accrued under their watch (as well as Gen X).  In 2010, that debt was less than $10 trillion so it has increased by over $20 trillion! What???

 

The fact that many Boomers have a hard time leaving their dogmas behind serves to illustrate the success of the post World War II programming and psychological operations that were conducted back then.  It was so successful that even though the playing field and the game itself has been completely changed, they still struggle to see that the old rules no longer apply.  It's like they're playing football on a baseball field or golf on a tennis court, which leads us again to the training and programming aspect of mass media on the unsuspecting people.  They don't even know why they hold so hard and fast to their a+b=c algorithm for success, even in the face of so much evidence against it, but the idea that if you just work harder in a corporate job you'll succeed is surely one that's hard for them to release.  And this causes a lot of division between them and their children, children who see them as blind, misleading leaders who imply their children are less intelligent and hard working than them, and that Boomers are unable to see the landmines placed on the field that make it exponentially harder to actually move the ball (as it were).  

In the end it's fortunate for the younger generations that they have experienced failure when attempting to implement their parents and grandparents plans because this presents an opportunity for the Father to show them another way.

Turns out that the Father always had another path, perhaps today's post Boomer economic bondage can open the eyes of many to see His way as it has always been, the way that is best, in which you don't have to seek money, but ONLY HIM AND HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS.  What a glorious and fulfilling path I pray many who are sick and tired of the rat race will pursue!