The Blame Game

We blog here about the experience of being a boomer.

One of those experiences is to function as whipping boy for the ills of the generations behind. A national columnist called Gary Mason leads the local newspaper blame brigade. His latest tirade starts: “When is an economic recovery not an economic recovery? When you’re among the hundreds of thousands of young people being left out of any revival in the jobs market.”  Follow along and once again one quickly finds it's all our fault as selfish and uncaring boomers.

The comment thread on this particular rant is huge and much of it is about just who's to blame.  I especially enjoyed this riposte by a fellow calling himself  'Cosmic Wheels': -

The World according to Grey

I belong to a cool tech association out of Kitchener-Waterloo, the beating heart of Ontario’s Technology Triangle. As is usual, they send out e-newsletters, and these link to a blog. There I came across a recent posting from a lady with Grey Advertising.

As I like people in advertising, indeed I was one for a short time myself, I check the writer out - ‘accrediting’ you might call it. I need first to decide whether to take her seriously. For me LinkedIn is the best quick fix on the professional in a ‘person of interest’ (as they say in law enforcement circles). Sure enough, there she is. She has a financial and IT marketing background and is a mid-lifer in her Forties. She is definitely to be taken seriously.

Boomer Angst

Members of a tribe can often be its biggest critics. On its Editorial & Comment page, today's Globe & Mail newspaper has a piece rather oddly categorized as 'Boomer Economics'. It's penned by a journalist, Gary Mason, who has a 24-year-old son and, for that reason and from his head shot, he looks to be a shoe-in for a boomer. Mr. Mason is outraged at his son's terrible job prospects and he blames boomers for it: "Our kids could be a lost generation, but boomers don't seem too worried about it." Instead, we are racking up debt and hanging onto our jobs after 65. And we should be deeply ashamed.