But, they aren't. The boomers I think are the first generation in historical memory to act this way. Everything is about them, it's always been about them. Look at Social Security funding/timing, look at the ages of our politicians. Look at the response to COVID (and for reference compare it to the response to AIDs). Literally every single thing they've gotten their hands on from infrastructure to politics to the economy and housing to the environment has been transformed into some kind of Ponzi scheme.
I'm in my 40s now, but I still feel in some ways like a kid living in a world run by and for boomers. Politically, economically, culturally I definitely have more in common with a gen-z than boomers.
> The boomers I think are the first generation in historical memory to act this way
No, they aren't.
> Everything is about them, it's always been about them
No, it isn't.
> Look at Social Security funding/timing,
You mean the way that, as Boomers were in early-mid career, the Silent Generation-dominated political class vastly increased taxes on workers for social security while also for the first time adopting taxes on social security benefits for the first time?
> Look at the response to COVID (and for reference compare it to the response to AIDs).
They are remarkably similar at the federal level, actually. In both cases, Republican Administrations deliberately didn't take it seriously for political reasons until media coverage of deaths and other political pressure from below resulted in a partial reversal. Everything about COVID happened faster, but the faster policy shift was mostly a result of it being a faster spreading, more acutely impactful pandemic, killing about as many people in its first year in the US as AIDS has in the US in total to date.
EDIT TO ADD:
> I'm in my 40s now, but I still feel in some ways like a kid living in a world run by and for boomers.
This is relatively normal. Boomers in their own 40s experienced the same thing with regard to Silents. The big difference is because Gen X is a so much of bust generation compared to both Boomers and Millennials, they never became or will become dominant, and because not only are Millenials more liberal than Boomers but Gen X is more conservative than both, Gen X’s influence is basically to slightly extend and reinforce the feeling of Boomer domination for Millenials.
Regarding AIDS/COVID comparison...we just spent many trillions of dollars and basically shut down the global economy for two years. There is zero precedent for this kind of response to a disease in human history and definitely was not done for AIDS. Worldwide ~45 million people have died of AIDS, 6-7 of COVID.
Regarding Social Security, my reading of history is that this was something done by working age folks on behalf of destituite elderly. Boomers have let this ride their entire lives knowing full well it needed adjustments to be sustainable, intentionally dropping the burden on younger generations.
> Regarding AIDS/COVID comparison...we just spent many trillions of dollars and basically shut down the global economy for two years.
if we had shut down the economy for two years, the resulting US recession would have been longer than two months.
Instead, within two years of the pandemic being recognized, the prime issues I the US economy were associated with overheating rather than inactivity: tight labor market and high inflation.
