Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, I'm welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
Speaker 1: There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's guest producer Noel
Speaker 1: over there. So this is stuff you should know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Noel likely to sit in on this one and not
Speaker 1: just hit record and run screaming. Yeah, we were kind
Speaker 1: of surprised. Yeah, it's weird though. It's been so long
Speaker 1: since we had someone in here with it's been at
Speaker 1: the Ghosts the studio that time forgot. But we have
Speaker 1: to suck in our guts again. Sit up right, I
Speaker 1: have to lick my fingers in the straight my hair
Speaker 1: with them. Sure. So, Chuck, Yes, you are a gen
Speaker 1: x or did you know that? Yeah? Are you? Yeah?
Speaker 1: That was my next point? Sorry, I am too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: uh no, I think it's a millennial. Know what you were?
Speaker 1: You born? Knows a millennial? God knows what Jerry is
Speaker 1: no idea. Yeah, she's of her own time. Um so boy,
Speaker 1: none of us are. Jerry might be. I don't know
Speaker 1: our baby boomers now, Jerry, you know Jerry's a gen xer. Yeah.
Speaker 1: One thing that this inspired me to do was to
Speaker 1: do a show on generations period. I find it fascinating
Speaker 1: how people are grouped and also a little frustrated when. Um,
Speaker 1: once I got into the sub groups, it helped me,
Speaker 1: But when I looked at like, especially the Baby Boom generation,
Speaker 1: there's such a clear difference in the which we'll get
Speaker 1: to the early and the later part of that, it
Speaker 1: was just like, well, why why don't you just call
Speaker 1: them to different generations? Some people do well, some people do,
Speaker 1: but for the most part they don't. For the most part,
Speaker 1: people say, the baby boomers are people who are born
Speaker 1: from ninety nineteen exty four is the general definition of them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just weird, Like my mom missed out on it
Speaker 1: just by a couple of years. But then my sister
Speaker 1: just missed out on it by a couple of years.
Speaker 1: So it just doesn't seem like, I know, they're not
Speaker 1: the same generation, but they it is not even close.
Speaker 1: It shouldn't be. No, it's not. And and again like
Speaker 1: so we'll we'll get into it a little bit more.
Speaker 1: But um, some people say that's just too wide of
Speaker 1: a swath. And more to the point, which this is
Speaker 1: the basis of generations, the life experience of those of
Speaker 1: the people on either end of that that twenty year
Speaker 1: or so spectrum are so we're so wildly different that, yeah,
Speaker 1: they don't. They can't be in the same generation. It
Speaker 1: just doesn't make sense because the point of a generation,
Speaker 1: um is that it is a group of people born
Speaker 1: around the same time who all shared some sort of
Speaker 1: major life experience, a collective life experience. Yeah, whether it's
Speaker 1: culture or ideologies. Yeah, usually an event though, like the
Speaker 1: assassination JFK's would go to for baby boomers that in
Speaker 1: the event was so enormous that it shaped their worldview
Speaker 1: for the rest of their lives, Like ours would be
Speaker 1: the where's the beef commercials? Right exactly? Uh, well, we
Speaker 1: do share that though, Oh no, I'm I was dead serious,
Speaker 1: You're not. Well, I don't know if that's the identifying
Speaker 1: for well, for millennials, um, especially older millennials, it would
Speaker 1: be like nine eleven would be for ours. Maybe Challenger,
Speaker 1: the Challenger explosion is the one I always go to.
Speaker 1: Does it always have to be a disaster, No, it's
Speaker 1: just gotta be an enormous event that enough people are
Speaker 1: aware of and impacted by that it shapes who they are.
Speaker 1: So it's almost like a group of people, all about
Speaker 1: the same age, all being touched in relatively the same
Speaker 1: way at the same time, so that their world view
Speaker 1: is changed forever by that event. So where's the beef. Yeah, Okay,
Speaker 1: that we agree. Uh So the reason, um, there were
Speaker 1: a lot of Well, the deal with the baby boomers is,
Speaker 1: as you'll see, is that there are a lot of them,
Speaker 1: and birth rates rose quite a bit in n and
Speaker 1: stayed that way for about twenty years. And it's interesting
Speaker 1: when you look at the reasons. Um, the most obvious
Speaker 1: thing you can point to is just say, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: dudes came home after the war and had a lot
Speaker 1: of sex. Pretty much that has something to do with it.
Speaker 1: But this article points out something I never considered, which
Speaker 1: was sort of a convergence of of that and then
Speaker 1: not just wanting to have a lot of sex after
Speaker 1: the war, but the promise of like prosperity to come
Speaker 1: after the war and like things are gonna be great,
Speaker 1: so let's like go all in on the family. But
Speaker 1: that converging with the uh a bit of an older
Speaker 1: generation of parents post depression that may have waited to
Speaker 1: have kids for very race reasons, and that kind of
Speaker 1: all happening at the same time. Yeah, younger families having kids,
Speaker 1: not postponing the older generation that had postponed having the kids,
Speaker 1: all at the same time. Huge, huge population increases. From
Speaker 1: nineteen uh, nineteen fifty to nineteen eighty, the American population
Speaker 1: increased by fifty that's not From nineteen forty six to
Speaker 1: nineteen forty five, the number of babies born year over
Speaker 1: year increased by that's that's a lot. Yeah. So in
Speaker 1: nineteen six millions, I think about an average of four
Speaker 1: four million and change babies started being born every year,
Speaker 1: and it kept going and going until I think nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty seven, when it plateaued and stayed high for a while,
Speaker 1: and then it dipped again starting in nineteen sixty four
Speaker 1: sixty five, which coincided with the widespread availability of the pill. Uh.
Speaker 1: One reason I think the baby boom generation is so
Speaker 1: interesting and endlessly talked about and studied is because it
Speaker 1: just there. The the shift, the ideological shift that they
Speaker 1: were presiding over is it was was just massive. This
Speaker 1: article kind of sums it up nicely, like they created
Speaker 1: the youth movement of the sixties when they're in their twenties.
Speaker 1: It was that culture excess of the seventies, and then
Speaker 1: in the eighties they became the yuppies. And now they're
Speaker 1: entering retirement or in retirement and running the world. And
Speaker 1: then and and and then, as you'll see, a lot
Speaker 1: of them are rebuffing the excess of hey, let's make
Speaker 1: and spend tons of money, and like concentrating on giving back,
Speaker 1: which was originally inspired by like the Kennedy administration volunteerism.
Speaker 1: Yeah that that asked not what your country can do
Speaker 1: for you? Yeah, that whole thing, right, But it's interesting
Speaker 1: this one lady, the first moment, I'm sorry, the first
Speaker 1: boomer born just after midnight in New Jersey. Uh, Kathleen
Speaker 1: Casey Kirschling is widely regarded as the first baby boomer. Yes,
Speaker 1: she's born in January first nine. Yeah, and as you'll
Speaker 1: see if you look at her life, she really is
Speaker 1: like a symbol. And of course, you know that's kind
Speaker 1: of the problem with generations, as you lumped them all
Speaker 1: in as this, and of course it varies from person
Speaker 1: to person. Well that's one criticism of even studying generations
Speaker 1: in the first place. Yeah. Yeah, but she was married
Speaker 1: for a time, got divorced, um has a self made pension,
Speaker 1: that she accrued over the years, like I'm gonna take
Speaker 1: care of my own, you know, retirement, doing appearances as
Speaker 1: the world's first baby boomer. She missed out if she
Speaker 1: didn't last be uh, and then like had a career,
Speaker 1: it's successful careers, I think, like a corporate trainer. Then
Speaker 1: in the early nineties left corporate America and became a
Speaker 1: high school teacher for like fifteen or twenty years. She Yeah,
Speaker 1: she basically read a book on how to be a
Speaker 1: typical baby boom It's interesting. And now like splits time
Speaker 1: between Maryland and Florida and his concentrated on volunteerism in
Speaker 1: her retirement. That's really neat. Yeah, it's like she's kind
Speaker 1: of the prototypical boomer of if you want to buy
Speaker 1: into that thing. Yeah, traditional into non traditional family structure,
Speaker 1: family life, right, career, took care of her her own retirement,
Speaker 1: and then during retirement chose not to actually just retire,
Speaker 1: but to stay active and engaged. That is it's pretty
Speaker 1: typical boomerism. Yeah. Uh. Should we hit people over the
Speaker 1: head with some of these stats? Yeah, I mean they
Speaker 1: were pretty interesting, like I guess just because they came
Speaker 1: at a really interesting time in America's history, Like the
Speaker 1: Boomers started to be born at the same time as
Speaker 1: the suburbs. The consumerism, American consumerism all really started with
Speaker 1: the Baby Booms generation. They felt really good about spending
Speaker 1: money on themselves. They were the first children targeted by advertisers.
Speaker 1: When we're the advertising of kids that started with the boomers. Um.
Speaker 1: Everything changed around that time. Um and and in part
Speaker 1: because of the Baby Boomers. So they're probably the most
Speaker 1: studied generation in American history. Yeah. So there are more
Speaker 1: California Boomers than any other state. I think Utah has
Speaker 1: the fewest amount of boomers, but they still had like
Speaker 1: twenty three percent of their their population was Baby boomers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but they're the only one that was under right. Uh
Speaker 1: what else? Twelve point six percent the Boomers never got married,
Speaker 1: which is uh from their parents generation only three point
Speaker 1: nine percent never got married. So that's a pretty big
Speaker 1: increase shunning nuptials. I wonder what it is now. I
Speaker 1: couldn't find it. I don't know, it's just increasing. I'm
Speaker 1: sure what people getting, oh, choosing not to get married
Speaker 1: right or or living a non traditional or maybe it's
Speaker 1: traditional now even like we're just together, we're just not
Speaker 1: married partnerships. Um what else? I mean we could read
Speaker 1: out stats all day, but that's boring. I thought you'd
Speaker 1: love doing that. Okay, well, there were there were two
Speaker 1: things that really stood out to me, though they go
Speaker 1: hand in hand. Baby boomers expected their adult children to
Speaker 1: move back in with them, and then thirty percent expect
Speaker 1: their parents to move in with them, and for some
Speaker 1: of those people that overlaps. One of the curious positions
Speaker 1: that some boomers find themselves in is caring for adult
Speaker 1: children and um aged parents at the same time, under
Speaker 1: the same roof. Yeah, and I posted something a while
Speaker 1: ago on stuff you Should Knows Facebook page and um,
Speaker 1: something about kids moving back in and people like, what
Speaker 1: a bunch of losers, And then so many people from
Speaker 1: all over the world. We're like, you know, America's like
Speaker 1: the only country that feels that way, like that family
Speaker 1: should leave at a certain age and not come back.
Speaker 1: And they're like, all over the world people are like,
Speaker 1: you know, we think it's a great thing. Family is huge,
Speaker 1: and we welcome family to live with each other and
Speaker 1: you know, into their twenties or thirties if they want to. Bizarre,
Speaker 1: we help each other, rely on each other, Yeah, weird
Speaker 1: because I mean, I guess the rest of the world
Speaker 1: doesn't know we In America, when you turn eighteen, they
Speaker 1: have a c U in hell party where you leave
Speaker 1: and um, you're not allowed to come back into the
Speaker 1: house until you well, until your parents are dead. What
Speaker 1: we call it a hit the bricks party. All you
Speaker 1: were Baptist family. That's right. Now that we're making stuff up,
Speaker 1: do you think we should take a break. Yeah, let's uh,
Speaker 1: let's do some real research and come back into this again.
Speaker 1: All right, chuck. So the baby boomers were until very
Speaker 1: very recently the biggest generation that population wise to ever,
Speaker 1: um ever hit America. And they hit America bite, they
Speaker 1: hit a like brick of bricks. Yeah. But millennials are
Speaker 1: they're taking over now, right, Yeah, Millennials just surpassed um
Speaker 1: the boomers in number from what I understand, Yes, millennials
Speaker 1: as of two thousand and fifteen. Of course that number
Speaker 1: has grown now U seventy four million, just edging out
Speaker 1: seventy four point nine million Baby Boomers. But here's the thing.
Speaker 1: Millennials are still being born. Boomers are dying. Yeah, the boomers. Actually,
Speaker 1: here's here's something that I just thought was amazingly interesting.
Speaker 1: The Baby Boomers peaked fairly recently as far as their
Speaker 1: numbers go. They peaked in at seventy eight point eight million, right,
Speaker 1: and our generation is going to peak next year. So
Speaker 1: if all the signs and symptoms that you personally are dying,
Speaker 1: and I'm dying more and enough, our whole generation is
Speaker 1: now dying. We're going to decline after next year. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think more and more about that. But our generation
Speaker 1: peaking in two thous No about me dying, I know
Speaker 1: what you like, I never thought I would be that
Speaker 1: guy that um you know that just sort of like
Speaker 1: that whole Woody Allen obsessed with your own death things?
Speaker 1: Are you obsessed? No, but it's healthy to think about
Speaker 1: the fact that you're gonna die. Some some people believe,
Speaker 1: including me, that accepting, genuinely accepting your own death is
Speaker 1: the key to living fully. Yeah, I agree. I think
Speaker 1: that's the struggle. Yeah, you know, yeah, I mean you
Speaker 1: can throw that on a T shirt. But no, I
Speaker 1: know sometimes I'm like, I wonder if if it just
Speaker 1: hasn't fully sunk in yet and one day down the
Speaker 1: road and be like, I'm gonna die. I think, uh,
Speaker 1: this has come more and more for me in the
Speaker 1: past five years. So I'll check back in with you
Speaker 1: in five years. If I'm alive, I'd be bad. I'd
Speaker 1: be really sad. Um. Yeah, it'd be sad for at
Speaker 1: least three people that I know, and you're one of them. Um.
Speaker 1: So I was talking earlier about the Boomers that age
Speaker 1: range is too big and it needs to be split up,
Speaker 1: and turns out it has been. Uh generally, if you
Speaker 1: look at nine to fifty four, people refer to that
Speaker 1: as the leading edge of the Boomers, and fifty five
Speaker 1: and sixty four as shadow Boomers or Generation Jones. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Did you look into that? Yeah, I mean did. The
Speaker 1: name was the first thing I was like, well, where
Speaker 1: did that come from? And apparently there's a few different
Speaker 1: things either, like, uh, they were Jones ng for prosperity
Speaker 1: of like days to come, more so than the leading edge. Yeah.
Speaker 1: They had just as high expectations, if if not higher
Speaker 1: than the first the first batch, but fewer resources available
Speaker 1: to them. Yeah, it's a weird name. So they apparently
Speaker 1: were considered to be more cynical, more bitter, yeah than
Speaker 1: the first batch of baby boomers. And then um, also
Speaker 1: their life experiences again like we're we're talking about earlier
Speaker 1: so different that um that there, it's just a different generation.
Speaker 1: Everybody's just being stubborn and wants Baby Boomers to be
Speaker 1: this twenty year generation rather than ten. Well, yeah, but
Speaker 1: you were talking about the the life events or whatever,
Speaker 1: the binding life events. Uh. These two writers, Howard Schumann
Speaker 1: and Jacqueline Scott in the mid eighties kind of did
Speaker 1: a little bit of research on what they feel like.
Speaker 1: Is that what people feel like is they're defining thing
Speaker 1: from their generation, and it is sharply divided. When you
Speaker 1: have the leading edge, you've got obviously uh JFK, Robert Kennedy,
Speaker 1: Martin Luther King, a lot of assassinations, the moonwalk, uh,
Speaker 1: Vietnam War, civil rights movement, and then the more cynical
Speaker 1: um shadow Boomers or or Jones is uh, you're talking
Speaker 1: Nixon and Watergate, the Cold War, the oil and bargo.
Speaker 1: It sort of makes sense. It's definitely too like those
Speaker 1: are two pretty starkly different sets of events. They yeah,
Speaker 1: they are. It's like almost a different world that happened,
Speaker 1: that took places along that change along that divide America
Speaker 1: switch gears in large party. And you asked earlier, if
Speaker 1: it always has to be a disaster. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: all of these basically are pretty glom and gloomy. I
Speaker 1: think the disaster unites though. That's probably a big thing
Speaker 1: that But also I think it leads to a loss
Speaker 1: of innocence, which happens in a personal level as well. Right,
Speaker 1: And that's kind of when you grow up, is when
Speaker 1: you realize, oh my god, everything isn't totally stable and
Speaker 1: my parents can't solve every problem in the world, and
Speaker 1: there's like real strife and hardship and injustice and and
Speaker 1: and bleakness. And when you realize that, suddenly say something
Speaker 1: like that this president you idolize being assassinated. It can
Speaker 1: it can have a real solidifying effect on your your life,
Speaker 1: your outlook. Yeah. First you mentioned the challenger for us,
Speaker 1: and I'm in no way like downgrading that, but for
Speaker 1: me personally, and it might have just been the way
Speaker 1: I received the news even it wasn't like, uh, I
Speaker 1: don't feel like it like was the big defining thing. Okay,
Speaker 1: it was obviously a big deal, But did you see
Speaker 1: it happen? No, I don't think I saw it happen live,
Speaker 1: which probably is a big factor. Um, but like Reagan
Speaker 1: being assassinated is rings more in my head, at least
Speaker 1: as a memory. I'm not saying it affected me as
Speaker 1: much personally, but like when I think back, like what
Speaker 1: big thing in the childhood happened on an international stage,
Speaker 1: Like I like remember where I was when Reagan was
Speaker 1: shot And I don't remember the Challenger as much, which
Speaker 1: is weird because it was later. Yeah, I was only
Speaker 1: like five when Reagan was shot. I don't have any
Speaker 1: memory of it whatsoever. Right, you didn't care. I didn't know.
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, I didn't know it was going.
Speaker 1: Five year old didn't care. I guess not. You're playing
Speaker 1: with your g I Joe's that's right. But as the
Speaker 1: article points out, one thing that united all boomers was TV. Yeah. Okay,
Speaker 1: so if we're talking about how and we shouldn't we
Speaker 1: should give credence or um props. I guess to the
Speaker 1: guy who came up with the concept of generations. It
Speaker 1: was a sociologist named Carl Mannheim, and he wrote The
Speaker 1: Problem of Generations UM back in and basically said this
Speaker 1: is a thing. Now I'm called my Mannheim good night,
Speaker 1: And in it he says like I was saying before
Speaker 1: that the generation is is held together by the shared
Speaker 1: experience that they all go through together. Um, and up
Speaker 1: until television, I mean, you had radio, you had newspaper,
Speaker 1: you had a guy on horseback running around from town
Speaker 1: to town shouting news or whatever. But when with the
Speaker 1: invention of television, like now you have this really powerful
Speaker 1: way for people to share the same thing at the
Speaker 1: same time because they were getting the news in exactly
Speaker 1: the same way through television, where a generation really could
Speaker 1: be solidified and defined into an actual group that had
Speaker 1: a lot in common because of this event. Well yeah,
Speaker 1: not just news, but just culturally, like the first generation
Speaker 1: that sat around and watched TV shows, yeah, yeah, uh
Speaker 1: together like that. In music were like the two biggest
Speaker 1: things culturally. I mean you can I mean obviously you
Speaker 1: can talk about the Frisbees and hula hoops and Barbie
Speaker 1: dolls and stuff like that, but um, TV and music,
Speaker 1: like the birth of rock and roll in the birth
Speaker 1: of television are like the two hugest things for sure. Elvis,
Speaker 1: the Beatles, those were very much in the wheelhouse of
Speaker 1: the boomers. Yeah, so you've got those things, You've got
Speaker 1: the what they were, Like you were saying, you've got
Speaker 1: the fact that they can be shared easily by a
Speaker 1: number of far flung people all over the country of
Speaker 1: the same age. You got yourself a generation, buddy. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then the final little piece there is the skepticism
Speaker 1: of that generation I think was a really big um
Speaker 1: uniting factor. Like Boomers were the people who said, don't
Speaker 1: trust anyone over thirty and the whole Nixon Watergate, the
Speaker 1: Vietnam War being played out every night on TV. It
Speaker 1: was like that led to like political revolution in this country.
Speaker 1: I think because of that skepticism. Yeah, but it's interesting.
Speaker 1: Rather than saying, like their generations of parents before them, well,
Speaker 1: this is just the way they things are, I can't
Speaker 1: do much about that. Um, this generation was among the
Speaker 1: first to say, no, we re reject this way of
Speaker 1: looking at things, and we seek to rebuild these institutions
Speaker 1: in a way that more reflect how we think the
Speaker 1: world should work. That's hug. That was a huge hallmark
Speaker 1: of the baby boomer generation. Yeah, it's weird though when
Speaker 1: you look at all this stuff, like they were the
Speaker 1: most selfless in a lot of ways, but also the
Speaker 1: most selfish generation in a lot of ways. Oh yeah.
Speaker 1: At the whole time, the whole eighties yuppy thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the me generation and the consumerism like was hand in
Speaker 1: hand with the birth of feminism, or maybe not birth,
Speaker 1: but at least rebirth of feminism and uh, the civil
Speaker 1: rights movement. Like it's really interesting that all those things
Speaker 1: like we're wrapped up in this one generation. Well similarly though, too,
Speaker 1: they were also very political and then a political depending
Speaker 1: on the decade. You know, like they were members of
Speaker 1: organized student groups in the late sixties, and then by
Speaker 1: you know, a decade later, they were all like doing
Speaker 1: coke and turning their back on politics while they were
Speaker 1: like disco dancing. You know, you're like, hey, money, that's
Speaker 1: actually kind of cool if you have it right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's it was like it was. They've gone through
Speaker 1: huge ships and and sociologists have run after them, studying
Speaker 1: them the whole time. Yeah, politically, it's sort of hard
Speaker 1: to lump the baby boomer generation politically because and I
Speaker 1: think this could probably said of most generations, but they're
Speaker 1: really hard to pin down. So this is an old survey,
Speaker 1: but in two thousand four, a RP didn't one that
Speaker 1: um found out that baby boomers supported abortion rights and
Speaker 1: gun control stem cell research, but they also uh supported
Speaker 1: the death penalty and being more conservative, uh fiscally and
Speaker 1: like sort of all over like all over the map politically.
Speaker 1: What's what's funny is I saw like there's a sexual
Speaker 1: sentence in this article. It's very difficult to pin boomers
Speaker 1: down as being either liberal or conservative. I went huh
Speaker 1: and tights into Google found immediately two fourteen gallop poll
Speaker 1: has said no percent conservative liberally of of baby boomers.
Speaker 1: Interesting self reported on a pole. So that's uh total. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so the other don't learn't The other rest were like
Speaker 1: if if you can remember the sixties, you weren't there.
Speaker 1: And the the polster was like a sero, I didn't
Speaker 1: ask you about the sixties. That's funny. Um. And we
Speaker 1: talked a little bit about consumerism. But that was also
Speaker 1: a really big uniting factor was this was the first
Speaker 1: generation that really went all in on saying it's okay
Speaker 1: to spend money on yourself. You don't have to feel
Speaker 1: bad about it. Uh. You know those previous generations were
Speaker 1: of the depression era, right, you know, you don't just
Speaker 1: do things like that. Don't throw that safety pin away.
Speaker 1: You can fix that. It's not And he saved as
Speaker 1: a penny earned, whereas the boomers were like a penny
Speaker 1: saved is when you could be spending on something cool.
Speaker 1: What's interesting is that it's it's come back again, like
Speaker 1: that level of thrifty nous. We're in the we're in
Speaker 1: the midst of right now. You think I didn't live
Speaker 1: through the depression, true, but I yeah, compared to even
Speaker 1: ten fifteen years ago, pre prerecession mentality, Uh, what we're
Speaker 1: in right now is definitely thrifty or interesting. Um yeah,
Speaker 1: and um yeah, same thing though great depression, great recession
Speaker 1: has a tendency to bring out the thrifty nous and people. Um.
Speaker 1: We were talking about politics though too. So the first
Speaker 1: baby boomer president was Bill Clinton, and then George W.
Speaker 1: Was the second baby boomer president. Huh uh. And then
Speaker 1: it went to generation Jones with Obama, right, he was
Speaker 1: the first Jones or but baby boomer. Yeah, but really
Speaker 1: generation Jones really, so Billy and George were in the
Speaker 1: leading edge. Yeah, they're both born in nine. Obama's generation Jones.
Speaker 1: And then the next guy is uh, he was born
Speaker 1: in nineteen as well, So it went back to baby
Speaker 1: boom after Obama. Interesting, and this well, I don't know
Speaker 1: you never know what's gonna happen in twenty but you
Speaker 1: would think that not even just the presidency, but in
Speaker 1: in all of politics, that they will Obviously they will
Speaker 1: be phased out with time. But I wonder if there
Speaker 1: will be another president from that generation. I don't know,
Speaker 1: although Joe Biden just said, don't count him out, and
Speaker 1: he's he'll be eighty then. Really he's got a lot
Speaker 1: of vim and vigor though he does. But boy, I
Speaker 1: mean not to knock any eight year old listeners out there. Well,
Speaker 1: Bernie was eight one, I think he would have been
Speaker 1: just fine. Yeah, that's true. Eighties the new sixty. Well,
Speaker 1: I hope. So all right, let's take a break and
Speaker 1: um and maybe continue with this afterward. Huh, I think
Speaker 1: we should. All right, we gotta finish. Let's do it.
Speaker 1: So check. One of the things about a baby boom
Speaker 1: is that, um, they're significant, and that it's a sudden
Speaker 1: influx of a lot of kids being born at the
Speaker 1: same time. And the reason it's significant is because previous
Speaker 1: to that and then usually after that, there's fewer kids
Speaker 1: being born. So it's a bulge in your population. Right,
Speaker 1: So that means that that population is eventually going to
Speaker 1: grow old, and as they grow old, they are going
Speaker 1: to need more social services that you have reserved for
Speaker 1: the elderly for the aged in your population, right yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean not only that. The other side is is
Speaker 1: the health care sector period, whether or not it's we're
Speaker 1: talking like Medicare and social Security and stuff, but just
Speaker 1: health care period in the private sector is like licking
Speaker 1: their chops. Oh yeah, it's gonna be money to be made,
Speaker 1: and as being made, it's going to be a big
Speaker 1: boom for the health care sector. And it has been
Speaker 1: booms for all these for several other sectors along the
Speaker 1: way as they've aged and matured, and then now they're
Speaker 1: looking to healthcare more and more. Um, it's it's not
Speaker 1: gonna be just like a a sickness bonanza for the
Speaker 1: health care industry because the one of the hallmarks of
Speaker 1: the baby boomer generation is they were one of the
Speaker 1: first like really take care of themselves. Like I remember
Speaker 1: when we were younger, Like a sixty five year old
Speaker 1: was like an old person, like they might be on oxygen.
Speaker 1: They were they were not in good shape by their
Speaker 1: mid sixties, like like they're doing one handed push ups
Speaker 1: in the street and stuff. Like that that was the
Speaker 1: result of the baby boomers doing things like taking up jogging, um,
Speaker 1: like eating vegetarian, like just generally taking better care of themselves,
Speaker 1: having an emphasis on that. So they're not going to
Speaker 1: just all start getting sick on mass or not. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: Previously the boomers they were like, well, what kind of
Speaker 1: steak do you want tonight? It's like what cut of beef?
Speaker 1: I want steak? Stuff with steak? Oh? Man, I just
Speaker 1: listened to uh a Mark Mayren episode with David Spade
Speaker 1: and he's talking about Farley. Uh. And he said that
Speaker 1: Chris Farley would put a new full pat of butter
Speaker 1: on every bite of steak that he ate. Oh, that
Speaker 1: doesn't sound very tasty. Butter on steak is delicious. You
Speaker 1: can but that much butter on each bite? That's too much? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's you might even say that's excessive. And Spade would
Speaker 1: get on and be like, dude, you can't do that,
Speaker 1: and he said Farley would look at him and go,
Speaker 1: He's like, but each one needs its own hat. He's like.
Speaker 1: You couldn't help but laugh because he was just so adorable.
Speaker 1: What a loss. Oh, I'm just so sad. Man. He
Speaker 1: talked a lot about it was really interesting. Yeah, to
Speaker 1: check that one out. I love those two together. Yeah,
Speaker 1: very sad um not to bring everything down, but you did.
Speaker 1: But we were talking about them aging and and being healthier. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they are aging in a much healthier manner than previous generations.
Speaker 1: But it still will need healthcare and these social services
Speaker 1: they are available specifically, like Medicare for healthcare and Social
Speaker 1: Security for retirement pensions. So what's the are scared? They're
Speaker 1: they're like no, no. I started to look into it,
Speaker 1: but I got depressed. And but then I also saw
Speaker 1: that like, no, we saw this coming. So that have
Speaker 1: taken measures. Yeah, I saw in a couple of places
Speaker 1: that it's the most predictable train wreck in American history. Okay,
Speaker 1: well that's good and bad. So here's the thing. When
Speaker 1: you're working, you're contributing to Social Security. It comes out
Speaker 1: of your paycheck, right, that goes into a poorly managed
Speaker 1: fund um that loses money very quickly. Right, So, um,
Speaker 1: it was in grave danger of really running out. UH
Speaker 1: in the not too distant future decade it's pass and
Speaker 1: in UH there was a payroll tax increase that created
Speaker 1: a reserve fund and means that it was a Ronald
Speaker 1: Reagan tax increase. Right, So this reserve fund is still around.
Speaker 1: I think there's like two point six trillion dollars in it,
Speaker 1: but we're depleting it each year, and it's it makes
Speaker 1: up the shortfall that that Social Security is lacking. Right,
Speaker 1: So as we deplete it more and more, um, well,
Speaker 1: we have less and less money to provide for people
Speaker 1: down the road. And they think by four we'll just
Speaker 1: be back to just social Security. The reserve fund will
Speaker 1: be depleted and we'll be able to offer something like
Speaker 1: seventy eight percent of the benefits that's coming to each person.
Speaker 1: That's a big shortfall. In other words, Hey, what you
Speaker 1: thought you were gonna get, You're gonna be short yes, exactly.
Speaker 1: So people are like, what do we do? It turns
Speaker 1: out there's a lot of very not painless but not
Speaker 1: painful at all measures that you can pick from and
Speaker 1: put together. I saw this great Forbes article on it.
Speaker 1: They had like an infographic, so it really drove it home.
Speaker 1: But it was like pick pick three of these, pick
Speaker 1: two of these, pick five of these, pick ten of these,
Speaker 1: and like they were just um increasingly smaller and smaller,
Speaker 1: less noticeable measures that you could take and make up
Speaker 1: a hundred a hundred and twenty hut of the shortfall
Speaker 1: and social security just by moving money around. Yeah, or
Speaker 1: just slightly increasing these taxes, slightly slashing benefits, slightly making
Speaker 1: the age of retirement a little longer, a little older. Yeah.
Speaker 1: That that altogether the average person wouldn't even notice, really, right. Um.
Speaker 1: So I'm I'm sure that we're going to be able
Speaker 1: to figure it out in a way that's not going
Speaker 1: to just ruin everything. The The thing that's keeping it
Speaker 1: from really going downhill, though, is that the baby boomers
Speaker 1: seem to have said, I can't retire. Right. So in
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight, that great recession that happened, there
Speaker 1: was a massive transfer of wealth out of the real
Speaker 1: estate holdings and the stock portfolios of Americans. A lot
Speaker 1: of them were baby boomers who are poised to retire.
Speaker 1: They lost a lot of money. It went elsewhere, right, um.
Speaker 1: And as a result, the baby boomers just said, well,
Speaker 1: I have to go back to work, or well I
Speaker 1: was going to retire, but I'm gonna have to keep
Speaker 1: working for five more years. Um. And that mentality seems
Speaker 1: to be keeping uh, social Security from being further strange.
Speaker 1: They're just not They're not. They're working longer than they
Speaker 1: normally would be expected to under Social Security. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: says here the Concressional Budget Office, so that boomer households
Speaker 1: don't have enough savings put away to retain their standard
Speaker 1: of living upon retirement. So there's that. Uh. There are
Speaker 1: also a large set of boomers that uh want to
Speaker 1: stay active and keep working. Like I think it said
Speaker 1: something like seventeen only seventeen percent are expected to fully
Speaker 1: retire and be done working, and not all of them
Speaker 1: are because they need the money. Um, it sort of
Speaker 1: depends some. I mean, it's kind of sad. Some people
Speaker 1: have been forced out of their jobs and at a
Speaker 1: late stage in life or later stage in life have
Speaker 1: to go back to like these hourly jobs, and other
Speaker 1: people are choosing to They're like, you know what, I
Speaker 1: want to go work in a wine shop and like,
Speaker 1: you know, twelve bucks an hour. It's and or like, um,
Speaker 1: the first baby boomer chose to go teach high school
Speaker 1: as her second career. Yeah, and it is now full
Speaker 1: and on volunteerism. So um, yeah, there are there's it's it.
Speaker 1: There's definitely both going on again. You can't paint that
Speaker 1: generation with just one brush, right, Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm
Speaker 1: so sorry for using that metaphor, Well, but you don't
Speaker 1: like that, no pinting with the brush and no, why
Speaker 1: do you hate art? We're that one guy? Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: But there are plenty of people who just simply can't
Speaker 1: afford to and that to me is just really really sad,
Speaker 1: especially if the reason is that they're they're four one case,
Speaker 1: just lost value or their house isn't worth what they
Speaker 1: were planning on and that was their nusta. That is
Speaker 1: really sad to me. It is. Um. We don't give
Speaker 1: advice much, but I think millennials have are much better
Speaker 1: about trying to think about their long term financial future
Speaker 1: than our generation. Um because I didn't think about that
Speaker 1: stuff till just far too late. But um taking it
Speaker 1: very seriously now. But my advice to younger people is
Speaker 1: just like just start early, dudes and do debts with
Speaker 1: with small contributions even uh, talk to someone who knows
Speaker 1: what they're doing, uh, like who knows what's gonna happen, Like,
Speaker 1: don't depend on social security, like take care of yourself
Speaker 1: yeah oh yeah, with safe investments. And you know, i'd
Speaker 1: be like, yeah, dude, I gotta covered. You know, my
Speaker 1: brother's gonna open up some uh some pay lots. I'm
Speaker 1: going all in on his parking lots. I think that
Speaker 1: might work out. But try try some nice safe investments,
Speaker 1: long term stuff. We'll diversify. Yeah, don't don't put all
Speaker 1: your egs in one basket or in that pay lot
Speaker 1: right exactly, which now just occurred to me. That was
Speaker 1: the fargo. Uh that's what you want of them? Oh?
Speaker 1: Is that what it was? Yeah, he wanted to buy
Speaker 1: some parking lots. Yeah, real rich deal stand yeah, hand
Speaker 1: like a good movie. So I have. I know you're
Speaker 1: office stats these days, but I have some that I
Speaker 1: feel are worth sharing. I'm just gonna go sit outside.
Speaker 1: I got least from the Miley fool and they're depressing
Speaker 1: soft of baby boomers expect to rely heavily on Social Security.
Speaker 1: That's up from in two thousand fourteen. So more are
Speaker 1: counting on that now. Yeah, I thought that would go down.
Speaker 1: You know, things are not going well right now. Have
Speaker 1: no retirement savings, wow, none anymore. They may have had
Speaker 1: it before, they don't have it now. They never saved
Speaker 1: whatever that's up from. Who said that in two thousand four.
Speaker 1: So things are tanking for the baby boomers right now.
Speaker 1: Expect to wait until seventy to retire. Stopped adding to
Speaker 1: the retirement assets. In two thousand and sixteen, sixteen percent
Speaker 1: had had taken premature withdrawals, were in debt with a
Speaker 1: median dead of man. Yeah, this is not how we
Speaker 1: should care for aged population. You know it's not. And
Speaker 1: then do you couple the facts with like, that's great,
Speaker 1: you're gonna expect to rely heavily on Social Security. You're
Speaker 1: going to be disappointed. But do you just go ahead
Speaker 1: and report that to any guy who asks you with
Speaker 1: the poll? Yeah? Yeah. The other big misconception is um
Speaker 1: that the boomers work harder than uh millennials or gen xers.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, they're Protestant work ethic. That yeah, And you
Speaker 1: found this cool thing. This guy at Wayne State, Keith
Speaker 1: zbl Uh. He examined seventy seven studies comprising a hundred
Speaker 1: and five distinct measurements of work ethic and he basically said,
Speaker 1: that's all just a bunch of junk that you read
Speaker 1: in uh Salon or slate. He's like, if you look
Speaker 1: at the numbers in the stats, there is no difference
Speaker 1: in work ethic between the generations, which is interesting and
Speaker 1: interesting feels right, you know, like it just feels like
Speaker 1: just something that some editor wants to write about and
Speaker 1: assigns it like that's a hot topic. Well, apparently that's
Speaker 1: a big like human resource thing too. Is figuring out
Speaker 1: how to structure a corporation two squeeze the most out
Speaker 1: of each of the generations of working there. And this
Speaker 1: guy's saying, like, don't even bother. They're they're all they
Speaker 1: all work the same. Yeah, although they did say that,
Speaker 1: um that baby boomers tend to thrive more in um well,
Speaker 1: they subscribe to organizational structure more so hierarchies, whereas like
Speaker 1: millennials in Generation X are more like, yeah, let's do
Speaker 1: some more work from home. How about that? Or how
Speaker 1: about a big, huge, cavernous office with no walls. We're
Speaker 1: all the same. Can we get some butter first steak
Speaker 1: around here? How about a standing desk? You know, I
Speaker 1: because sitting is for chumps and Gen xers, you remember
Speaker 1: that whole period. What do you mean here in our
Speaker 1: own office? Yeah? Yeah, they're oh yeah, some people still
Speaker 1: do that the weird Yeah, but I've also seen more
Speaker 1: stools in here than oh, sitting stools. What else? Apparently
Speaker 1: the Boomers are really the first big generation to um
Speaker 1: robust le ops for cremation upon death and not have
Speaker 1: this morose, open casket, traditional sad funeral and be more
Speaker 1: like I want to die as I lived, with verve
Speaker 1: and vigor, and let's have them. Let's have a party. Man,
Speaker 1: scatter my ashes on the White House lawn. How much
Speaker 1: does it cost to hire Gallagher? I wonder these days.
Speaker 1: I'll bet he's still tours too. I'm sure he does.
Speaker 1: I bet he's. I bet he's got his own place
Speaker 1: in Branson. Uh, he's a little too hip for Branson,
Speaker 1: right between Yakov and Ingelberg. Humper dink. Do you got
Speaker 1: anything else? Um? I don't think so. Oh well, I
Speaker 1: did think it was interesting them the big suburban boom
Speaker 1: that came with the Millennials or with the I keep
Speaker 1: saying that, I don't know why, like skipping Jenne altogether. Well,
Speaker 1: that's the curse of our generation, the big suburban boom. Uh,
Speaker 1: with the Boomers, they in the nineteen fifties, you know
Speaker 1: all these it became cheaper basically to move outside the
Speaker 1: city and in the tiny apartment and like buy an
Speaker 1: actual home in the backyard. And that's when the suburbs
Speaker 1: really boomed. And apparently it had a had quite a
Speaker 1: deleterious effect on women. The women who moved to the suburbs.
Speaker 1: It was they were sort of, in a weird way,
Speaker 1: taught like, hey, go back to that thing where you
Speaker 1: you don't want to work, you want to just be
Speaker 1: a mom out in the suburbs and raise your kids,
Speaker 1: Like that's the thing to do. Relutionary road. I know
Speaker 1: you were talking about depressing movie, um, but apparently it
Speaker 1: generated that dissatisfaction is what led to um, the women's
Speaker 1: rights movement, Like that statisfaction turned it into feminism of
Speaker 1: the sixties, right, because I mean there were plenty of
Speaker 1: women's rights movements before, like with the suffrage and um,
Speaker 1: well with suffrage. This this revived it big time just
Speaker 1: living in the suburbs did it had? It had such
Speaker 1: a crushing effect on women living in the suburbs, isolated
Speaker 1: from the city, from other people, from social networks, and
Speaker 1: living in this place where they were expected to just
Speaker 1: basically raise kids and keep the houses clean. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: pretty neat how things like produce like opposite equal and
Speaker 1: opposite reactions. You know. Yeah, This lady Betty fried In in
Speaker 1: in the nine book The Feminine Mystique said that the
Speaker 1: suburbs were burying women alive. And it's a very harsh
Speaker 1: way to put it, but it certainly drives it home.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, I find that interesting. We need to
Speaker 1: do a feminism when sometime. I do. Have one more
Speaker 1: on baby boomers smoking um grass. Apparently they like it.
Speaker 1: It was one of the three things you could give
Speaker 1: for a ride, yeah, gas and one other one that's
Speaker 1: still to me one of the all time great bumpers.
Speaker 1: It's just so good. Uh. This man Benjamin Han, he's
Speaker 1: a doctor uh Jerry, attrition and health services researcher at
Speaker 1: the Center for Drug Use and Uh. He let a
Speaker 1: study called the Demographic Trends among Older Cannabis Users in
Speaker 1: the United States two thousand and six and two thousand thirteen.
Speaker 1: It's kind of worthy, but um. He evaluated close to
Speaker 1: fifty tho adults fifty and older and found that seventy
Speaker 1: one increase and marijuana used among adults age fifty and
Speaker 1: older between twenty two thousand and six and two thousand thirteen,
Speaker 1: Which makes sense. These hippies getting older, the and and
Speaker 1: it says here that they didn't start like they just
Speaker 1: kept smoking grass right the aged into another age group. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're not new users, but that fell off a lot
Speaker 1: after sixty five, significantly lower prevalence of use um, but
Speaker 1: still two and a half times higher or that eight
Speaker 1: year period. So um, yeah, it's pretty interesting there. I've
Speaker 1: seen the same thing with STDs as well. There's higher
Speaker 1: rates of STDs among older populations than before. And again
Speaker 1: it's because the baby boomers are aging into these new
Speaker 1: age brackets. Yeah, bringing all of their vices with them. Yeah.
Speaker 1: My friend, um, well I won't say any names, but
Speaker 1: I have a friend and his wife has her family
Speaker 1: in South Carolina has an island, just one of these
Speaker 1: old coastal You know, it's not like an island like
Speaker 1: you would think it is an island, but it's not
Speaker 1: a big, huge thing, just a small area of land
Speaker 1: on the in the on the waterways that get in
Speaker 1: on the outer banks. Yeah. But I mean you got
Speaker 1: to see the place like it's a it's land, but
Speaker 1: it's surrounded by water and all. But when you think
Speaker 1: like someone owns an island, you think of this big
Speaker 1: thing with like houses everywhere, and like banks is like
Speaker 1: just tons of the little island. So they own one
Speaker 1: of them. And they have a little retreat there which
Speaker 1: is basically, uh a cabin with like eight bunk beds
Speaker 1: and then this huge just picnic area, like a covered
Speaker 1: picnic area, And they have this retreat every year, a
Speaker 1: couple of times a year. And I've been on it
Speaker 1: and all these old South Carolina hippies are all these
Speaker 1: kids parents, and they put us to shame. They all
Speaker 1: get naked. They like getting naked. They it was too
Speaker 1: cold to get naked, but they they like we were
Speaker 1: in bed before they were. They were up again the
Speaker 1: next morning before we were. And I remember like literally
Speaker 1: waking up hungover and like walking out to the fire
Speaker 1: and there was like seven sixty year olds with like
Speaker 1: three joints being passed around between them. You know. Nine
Speaker 1: in the morning. Did you leave? And everybody else was asleep,
Speaker 1: And I was just like, what world have I stepped
Speaker 1: into here? And these are the boomers? He said, he
Speaker 1: was just like these cool old hippies. Yeah, Martin Mall,
Speaker 1: still fighting the power, you know, Martin Mall. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was interesting. They're they're a fun group I gotta say,
Speaker 1: still fighting the power on a private island in South
Speaker 1: Carolina pretty much. Uh, well, we could probably sit here
Speaker 1: and talk smack about baby boomers for a year or more.
Speaker 1: I love them, Yeah, they're great. Um, but we're going
Speaker 1: to stop right okay, So if you want to know
Speaker 1: more about baby boomers, well stop baby boomer in a
Speaker 1: grocery store and ask him about what it's like to
Speaker 1: be a baby boomer. And since I said that, it's
Speaker 1: time for listener mail, I'm gonna call this uh English
Speaker 1: sayings of sorts. Hey, guys, love the show. Uh enjoy
Speaker 1: the way you have a go at pronouncing things, and
Speaker 1: you seem to be enjoyed being corrected on these, So
Speaker 1: hold on tight. I was listening to the podcast on
Speaker 1: police circuses and you mentioned mentioned Hertfordshire, England. A couple
Speaker 1: of pointers. Hertfordshire is pronounced Hertfordshire. I admit it. It
Speaker 1: isn't spelled hr t. But then that is just the
Speaker 1: English language for you, the legendary oh that has many
Speaker 1: sounds like tough cough. Though through it can be a
Speaker 1: royal pain in the butt for everyone learning English. But
Speaker 1: it must be a nightmare to learn English at a
Speaker 1: later age. My free tip for you is that if
Speaker 1: you ever have to discuss a place called Lochborough in Leicestershire, Leicestershire,
Speaker 1: it's pronounced Luffborough in Leicestershire. Okay, got it. Cambridge is
Speaker 1: not on hertford Shire, It's in Cambridgeshire. That's a bit
Speaker 1: like saying Boston, New Hampshire close, but no cigar. So
Speaker 1: I guess we messed that one up to No. No,
Speaker 1: that guy got it wrong. I was saying it's spelled
Speaker 1: like Hertfordshire, so I'm sure it's pronounced Cambridge. Oh he
Speaker 1: wasn't listening. He didn't get the joke, gotcha. It was
Speaker 1: a esoteric It was a little American. Anyway, Guys love
Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm currently going through your back catalog, which
Speaker 1: he spelled with a g u e uh. And it
Speaker 1: wiles away the boring drive to work each day across
Speaker 1: Cambridge Shure. Our differences are so vast, How will we
Speaker 1: all ever get along? That's Ian Rose, Thanks Ian or
Speaker 1: Ian Rose Rose. Uh. If you want to get in
Speaker 1: touch of this, like Ian or Iron did, you can
Speaker 1: tweet to us at s Y s K podcast. You
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