To Every Old Fart who Talks About Gen Y Brats

Take a look around you. The world is not the same juicy red apple ripe for the picking that it was when you graduated college. College is more expensive, and to add insult to injury, we need higher degrees to get the same kinds of jobs your generation could get with a bachelor's. Speaking of jobs, they're pretty darn scarce, especially for young people. People with BA's in business management can barely get a job waiting tables. And any kind of art of science degree? You can forget having a future on those. 

And it's just jobs for us now. I can't wait until you all start to retire and collect social security and Medicare. We, the spoiled brat generation, are the ones who are paying out for your precious social security checks, by the way. Oh, and I really can't wait until you're old and you start flooding our hospitals just when I need to start getting mammograms. I wonder if my co-pays will be less than $200. Doubt it. 

Whiny kids who don't seem to want to work? Ha! I wish that was the only problem I had to worry about in my old age. Have you read the news lately?

Oh, and this is a fun little gobbet I hear come out of your mouths: "I did it all by myself, and you can too." Let me tell you something. Statistically speaking, you probably grew up in a two-parent home. That's two parents to supervise you. Two parents to tutor you. Two parents to make sure you toed the line, and two parents who generally supported you. Statistically speaking, our generation is most likely to grow up in a split or single-parent household. That means dysfunction. That means less money to go around. That means custody games and child support games and a whole gamut of nonsense that takes emphasis away from the children of that union(and we wonder why so many children have behavioral problems). And, if logic isn't enough for you, there have been plenty of studies proving that children who grow up with divorced parents tend to experience lower levels of success than children who grow up with their household intact. You were raised in a culture that placed emphasis on family and security. You had help.

 But wait, there's more! You also came into the job market just when the computer age was dawning. A bright new era of American manufacturing, the likes of which our generation has never seen. We came into the job market on a service-based economy in the middle of the greatest depression since the 1930's. You came into the job market when livable wages were the norm. We came in during the era of 25 hours a week at the rate of $7.55 an hour with no benefits. The average American mortgage payment is more than I make in a month, and God help me if I turn 26 and can't find a job that gives me health insurance. Tell me again why we're not better-off?

And now I want to talk about the financial crisis. Yeah, we all blame the banks, and really there's plenty of blame to go around for the bubble bursting, but the financial crisis runs much deeper than that. This country has spent the last 40 years cutting taxes, while this whole time a humongous Baby Boomer generation has been coming down the pipes toward retirement, ready and raring to collect on Social Security and Medicare. Older means sicker, and the first wave has already struck our health care system. Your generation is also occupying a large margin of the good jobs right now. I've heard a lot of Baby Boomers talk about how we're all going to the big-name schools and that's why student debt and really we don't have to but we're just being spoiled brats again. The thing of it is, big-name schools are better. They have better teachers, better programs, and they look better on a resume. Truly, we do need to go to those schools because we need to have an education that can compete with your work experience. It's not your fault that your parents all decided to procreate at the same time and I'm not blaming you for it, but please, recognize that you occupy a place of privilege and we don't.

Speaking of taxes, I realize that it was incredibly stupid of our government to put two wars on the credit card, but I also have a strong hunch that it would have been a lot harder for them to pull that off with a voting base who understood why we have taxes in the first place. But no, taxes would have gotten in the way of your skiing trips and Audis.

Really?

Which generation voted for so many unsustainable tax cuts? It's the same generation that's kicking and screaming for social security and medicare checks the government can't afford. It's the same generation that will soon be flooding our health care system and driving up health care costs for the rest of us. It's the same generation that is lobbying for vital cuts in public education and welfare but, did I say? Kicking and screaming for their own government checks.  

You can call us the spoiled brat generation, but what we're really going to be is the generation that cleans up your mess and fronts all the money your generation pissed away in tax cuts so that you could buy bigger houses, more lavish vacations, and fancier cars. I'm not one to despair others' success, really, I'm glad for you. Few of us are economists and none of us can see the future, but recognize that you are a part of this. Also recognize that you had help, and don't pretend that we could have the same things if we just work a little harder. That is pure delusion.

The long and short of it is this: you have no right to talk down to Generation Y, not while your generation carries the responsibility for creating this whole mess. 

Oh, that's right, I'm just a Gen Y Brat and I don't know anything about anything. Get off my lawn, you hoodlums!