Baby Boomers - The Most Selfish Generation

“The Greatest Generation” is a term coined by journalist Tom Brokaw to describe the men and women who served or supported the United States during World War II. Their willingness to personally sacrifice for the greater societal good was highlighted in Brokaw’s 1998 book of that same name.

Unfortunately, the baby boom generation – my generation – may not be remembered so fondly. An appropriate description for those of us born between 1946 and 1964 might be “The Most Selfish Generation.” I say this because of the wreckless fiscal irresponsibility we have demonstrated over the past 31 years.

Take a look at the red graph below.

At the end of 1980, the U.S. public debt was less than 1 trillion dollars. That means from the creation of this nation through 1980, the entire net accumulated amount of money borrowed by the U.S. federal government was less that 1 trillion dollars.

In 1981, about the time that baby boomers became leaders in both the public and private sectors, public policies were implemented that have led to a current public debt that exceeds 15 trillion dollars. So in the past 31 years, while baby boomers have been running things, the U.S. public debt has increased by more than 14 trillion dollars. In other words, over the past three decades, the United States has consumed 14 trillion dollars of government services we have not paid for and that we will pass to future generations.

For those of you who were born after 1964, I have two words for you …. You’re welcome. …. 15 trillion dollars of debt (and still counting) … that’s our gift to future generations.

To be fair, money borrowed today does not have the same purchasing power as the dollars of the past. So let’s take a look at the purple illustration below.

When the public debt is adjusted for inflation, the diagram illustrates my case even better. In the first 200 years of U.S. history, the federal government paid its bills (for the most part). In some years we ran modest deficits (you can see the big bump to pay for World War II), but we usually paid our bills. This changed in 1981 when taxes were cut under the leadership of President Ronald Reagan, but there was NOT a corresponding decrease in government services. The ultimate irony is that in his 1981 inaugural address, President Reagan warned of the dangers of public debt, saying:

For decades, we have piled deficit upon deficit, mortgaging our future and our children's future for the temporary convenience of the present. To continue this long trend is to guarantee tremendous social, cultural, political, and economic upheavals.

Yet, Reagan helped create a culture of hypocrisy in which we complain about public debt, but seem to continually demand further tax cuts while steadfastly refusing to sacrifice any of the government benefits we expect.

The military conflicts of the past decade in Iraq and Afghanistan are the first time in U.S. history that we have cut taxes in a time of war. When men and women of mostly younger generations are sacrificing their lives for our country, we – the baby boomers – refuse even to pay the financial costs of supporting them – choosing instead to pass the costs to our children, grandchildren, and future generations. And let’s not forget that while reducing federal government revenues through the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, we also greatly expanded the size and scope of the U.S. federal government through the implementation of Medicare Part D which subsidizes the costs of prescription medications.

The diagram above illustrates the U.S. public debt as a percentage of gross domestic product. It shows our debt in relation to our income. Richer countries and richer people can afford more debt than poorer ones. But even by this measure, the wrecklessness of baby boomer public policies is evident.

You may notice in this graph, as in the previous two illustrations, that there is a decrease in the U.S. public debt in the late 1990s. It is natural and normal for there to be ups and downs in economic activity over time. Economists call this the business cycle. And the surpluses of the late 1990s correspond to being in a properous part of the business cycle. But these budget surpluses were primarily the result of the short-term willingness of Congress to impose on itself pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) rules that require any new spending to be funded by increased revenues or offset by reductions in other expenditures. But as yet another example of baby-boomer selfishness, these rules were abandoned in 2001 (fiscal year 2002) to allow for the popular tax cuts and the subsequent increases in government expenditures.

A June 10, 2009 New York Times article, "America's Sea of Red Ink was Years in the Making," and an accompanying diagram explain and illustrate how U.S. budget surpluses became deficits. The major components and their relative magnitudes are illustrated by the downward arrows. The contributing factors were:

(1) The early 2000s recession caused reduced tax revenues and increased government assistance (- $291 billion a year)

(2) The Bush policies (tax cuts, Iraq war, Medicare prescription drugs) (- $673 billion)

(3) The late 2000s recession (Dec. 2007-2009) also reduced tax revenues and increased government assistance (- $479 billion)

(4) Wall Street Bailouts (begun under Bush & continued under Obama) (-$185 billion)

(5) Other programs supported by both the Bush & Obama administrations, such as the Iraq war and a patch for the alternative minimum tax (- $232 billion)

(6) Stimulus spending (- $145 billion), and

(7) Other Obama programs (- $56 billion).

A July 2011 diagram (above) from The New York Times series, "Charting the American Debt Crisis," shows (on the right) how much of the $14.3 trillion debt (at the time) was accumulated under each U.S. President and (on the left) who holds the debt.

This should NOT be a partisan issue. At a fiscal forum at Jacksonville University on January 26, 2012, former Republican Senator Mel Martinez joined JU alumnus David Walker, the former Comptroller General of the United States and the founder and CEO of the Comeback America Initiative; and Robert Bixby, the executive director of the Concord Coalition; to convey a similar message: federal revenues [as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP)] are the lowest they have been and expenditures (as a percentage of GDP) are the highest since 1950. (See the diagram below.) Collectively, U.S. citizens need to pay more in taxes and receive fewer government benefits. But that is NOT a message that we want to hear.

And it is worth noting that most of those who are raising the alarm about this debt issue, are not proposing solutions that involve sacrifice by baby boomers. Indeed the refrain is that those of us at or near retirement will not receive any reduced benefits from Social Security or Medicare. The proposed reforms will reduce benefits for younger people.

Once again, I say to people born after 1964 … You’re welcome!

There is one notable exception among the voices for fiscal reform who offers a chance at redemption for baby boomers, if you want to call it that.

David Stockman, President Ronald Reagan’s budget director, advocates a one-time surcharge on the wealthy. He explains the idea in an interview he did for 60 Minutes in October 2010. Click the link above to find the interview or simply search for “David Stockman 60 Minutes.”

Meltdown jolts consumers from financial fairyland

In the September 20, 2009 article "Meltdown jolts consumers from financial fairyland," Associated Press personal finance writer Dave Carpenter reports:

CHICAGO – The stock market bounced back, just as it has for nearly three decades. It just doesn't feel that way.

Last year's financial meltdown knocked the swagger out of Americans' views toward investing. The baby boomers who forged the Reagan bull market; survived the 1987 crash; bought Amazon.com at $2 a share and sold at $100; brushed off the collapse of the dot-com bubble and kept plowing money into their 401(k)s are reassessing what they once believed.

It's hard, after all, to keep the faith in buy-and-hold after the market crashed harder than at any time since the Great Depression. It's hard to trust your financial adviser after Bernard Madoff stole billions from his clients. Most of all, it's hard for a generation that equated personal finance with investing in stocks to accept that the rules have changed.

People are still investing. The Standard & Poor's 500 index is up 58 percent since hitting a 12-year low on March 9. 401(k) participation rates have held steady.

But financial planners around the country say there is a sense that people are returning to basic principles that were shunted aside: Maximize your savings; limit your use of credit cards; keep a substantial emergency fund; know how much risk you can tolerate; diversify your investments; don't try to short-cut your way to wealth.

"Before the market chaos, there was a very low savings rate, inappropriate use of credit cards, too much risk in investments, excessive spending on residences," says Tom Warschauer, a finance professor at San Diego State University. "Virtually every type of financial decision was being made in a kind of fairyland atmosphere, thinking 'This will lead me to be better off' when in fact that was never the case."

Warschauer, who also sees clients as a certified financial planner, predicts the new behavior could last for a decade. Others financial planners say people still believe in the market; they're just more realistic.

"People were in shock for a while. Now they're reassessing their situation and being very pragmatic, especially about their retirement," says Mark Jamison, a vice president at financial services firm Charles Schwab Corp. "They are learning that if you're willing to work a little more, spend a little less, take Social Security later, things can still work out all right."
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The jolt to investors hurt so much because it hurt so many.

A generation ago, most people had no direct stake in the daily dealings on Wall Street. Fewer than 6 percent of households owned mutual funds in 1980. Four years later that number had more than doubled, thanks to the birth of the modern-day 401(k) and an economic boom that followed the severe recession of 1981-82. It nearly doubled again, to more than 24 percent, in 1988. By the turn of the century about half of all households owned them.

Wall Street can thank the baby boomers for that. They bought the idea that stocks would always go up — or if they fell, that they would rebound quickly. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 23 percent on Black Monday in October 1987 — its largest one-day percentage drop. But it took just 15 months to make that up. And a decade later the Dow had nearly quadrupled from there.

Boomers piled their money into the latest market fad — whether it was biotechnology stocks, the Internet or exchange-traded funds. They put the money for their children's college education in 529 plans and saved for retirement by investing in 401(k)s and IRAs.

Then came the crash. The Standard & Poor's 500 lost 55 percent of its value from October 2007 to last March. Even with the recent bounce back, it remains 32 percent below its peak.

And with three-plus months to go, it has been a lost decade. The S&P began 2000 at 1,469 and is now 27 percent lower at 1,068. This decade trails only the 1930s as the worst in the modern investing era, and not by that much. Losses this decade have averaged 3.2 percent annually, compared with 5.3 percent a year in the '30s.

The market turmoil has lengthened careers and delayed retirements.

David Sinclair, 62, of Rio Rancho, N.M., retired in 2007 from his job as budget officer for a federal agency. He was confident his savings of more than $500,000, bolstered by a government pension, would be enough to support him and wife, Debra. He had spent 20 years playing by the rules and carefully planning for retirement.

But then the value of his portfolio fell 33 percent, and he ended up back at work at his old desk.

"One of my goals when I retired was to do a lot of traveling," he says. "With the way things were going, it became pretty apparent that I'd be lucky to take a trip every three years."
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It might seem we've been here before — in this decade.

The collapse of the dot-com bubble, the terror attacks on Sept. 11 and a recession sent the stock market reeling to three years of double-digit losses from 2000-02.

Then it was over. As in the past, the consumer helped the economy roar out of recession with a surge in spending. Stocks rebounded 26 percent in 2003 to start a five-year run that lasted through 2007.

Why can't it happen like that again?

Consider:

• The tech crash was different. The stability of the entire financial system was never in jeopardy, as it was with the collapse of Lehman Brothers, and the tech crash didn't affect all investors.

"It was sobering, but if you held (mostly) non-tech stocks you did well," says Austin Frye, a certified financial planner in Aventura, Fla. "The lesson from that was you need to spread your money around a little."

• The first baby boomers turn 65 in just two years. When that happens, the 78-million-strong group will begin the long process of removing its wealth from the market.

There is evidence that the nation's love affair with stocks is already ebbing. Just 45 percent of U.S. households owned stocks or mutual funds by 2008, down from 53 percent in 2001, according to the Investment Company Institute, a mutual fund industry trade group. That number is unlikely to increase as the biggest, richest and most invested generation starts to cash out.

• The consumer is tapped out. Even as their stock portfolios begin to recover, consumers are left with deflated home values and debts piled up during the boom years. If they spend less and save more for years, as many predict, corporate profits may be sluggish and stock gains muted.

• The U.S. economy will be wrestling for years with the effects of the Great Recession and the record amount of government debt it spawned. That could lead to higher taxes. At the same time, a share of global wealth is gradually shifting to markets in developing countries, especially China and India.

• For many, cash and bonds have become the new stocks, reflecting investors' desire for safety and security.

About two-thirds of the money flowing into the $11 trillion U.S. mutual fund industry in the second quarter went into bond funds and one-third went into stock funds, according to the research firm Strategic Insight. That's roughly the reverse of the pre-crash ratio.

Bonds have far outperformed stocks this decade. While the S&P has been taking a beating, a benchmark bond index has posted 6 percent annualized returns and an 83 percent cumulative return since the start of 2000, according to Morningstar, an investment research firm.

Typical of many financial advisers, Joy Slabaugh of EST Financial Group in Delmar, Del., says liquidity is a priority of her clients.

"People are leaving tons of their money in cash and not wanting to move it," she says. "They want it to be cash, they want it to be FDIC-insured, and that's that."

And it's not just the little guy who is cooling on stocks. Some financial professionals have questioned the buy-and-hold approach to stocks, along with the strategy of putting 60 percent of a portfolio in stocks and 40 percent in bonds.

Money manager Rob Arnott says the past year has challenged some basic premises behind what he calls the "cult of equities."

"There's nothing wrong with stocks if you buy them at sensible prices," says Arnott, chairman of Research Affiliates in Newport Beach, Calif. "There's something very wrong with buying stocks when they're terribly expensive, and assuming that time will heal all.

"The notion that stocks will always help us if we're patient — well, how patient do you have to be?"