Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Boomers Did It

So there was this interesting article I just read on how businesses were dreading 2012. "Sure" I thought, "so do the Mayans and anybody with HBO because we know that will be a movie shown 200 times in the next six months."

Surprisingly, the article didn't deal with either of those past/future tragedies. The article instead focused on the massive amount of people that are now employed and facing retirement. Baby Boomers are the generation that was born when Papa came home from War back in 1945. When the Country got so involved in the follow up to the war to end all wars that it swept the nation clean of able bodied men to the point traditional housewives were recruited to work on assembly lines. Rosey the Riveter was a character created to describe the type of woman worker needed to help keep the war machine rolling. The level of feminine empowerment lasted until the end of the follow up to the war to end all wars and Rosey was sent packing so real PTSD enabled war veterans could return to MAN the assembly line.

What happened to all those empowered working women, you ask? They were sent packing to be retrained to care for the returning hero by making the perfect home. These talented superwomen did such a fine job of creating a warm and welcoming island of domestic bliss that our returning veterans did what they do best, they knocked up the gal back home. The problem here was there were millions of returning veterans getting welcomed by million of superwomen and nine months later the big welcome home party began producing results! Millions and millions of them! But hey Rosey wasn't riveting just because she looked hot in overalls, nope she was a can do gal with a wanna do it attitude to the point that these post war families now had 2.5 children born between the years 1946 and 1964. And those little tykes in the class of '46 will be eligible for full retirement in 2012. We are talking MILLIONS of them hitting the over strained social security system at the same time followed by wave after wave of aged out baby boomers.

Sure we have all heard about how this will wreak havoc in the Social Security system but now area businesses are thinking about what it will mean to the bottom line of production. See, while these post war tykes grew up and became hippies and smoked pot, burned bras and draft cards while putting flowers in their hair in San Francisco, they also advanced through the ranks to management and became the man they once so vehemently protested against. And the man is about to step down. Only it isn't just A man, it is millions and millions of men and women that have clawed their way to the top of lower and middle management.

See the big concern isn't the top 5% of the wage earners... nooooo... what we are concern about here is the Alpha personality that devotes his/her life to a job to make the trains run on time. They get the produce to the stores and the mail sorted and the bank accounts balanced. We are talking the top mean ass grunts that run our businesses by keeping their thumbs down on the irresponsible twerps that followed the class of '64. The people our society depends upon to thrive and feed us and support us and provide us the lifestyle we have grown accustomed to over the past 50 years. Those guys are about to age out and who... WHO do we have to replace them?

Sure we could deal with the loss of one or two or nationwide maybe even a hundred or possibly a thousand... but we are talking millions of them. Possibly ALL of them and it all starts in 2012. So maybe the ancient Mayans aint so dumb and superstitious after all huh? Maybe... just maybe they were watching a baby boom in the stars and saw the tragedy that would follow teaching a nation of women a solid work ethic and then sending them home to please a man. We are all doomed. DOOMED!!

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