I’m a Boomer – a few months older than former President Barack Obama. But say that online today and it’s like admitting to a war crime.
The news is full of socialists calling for more taxes, wealth taxes, etc., that would let big government keep taking from successful people for being… successful. The New York Times just ran “The Case for California’s Billionaire Wealth Tax,” which officials are learning is also the case for millionaires to move to saner states. Going Galt apparently is a real thing.
For months, social media has witnessed a generation gap the size of the Grand Canyon. Many in Gen Z are venomously angry at the Boomer generation over financial issues. But nothing set them off more than “Shark Tank” star Kevin O’Leary, who blamed young people for foolish spending. “I can’t stand it when I see kids that are making 70 grand a year spending $28 for lunch. I mean, that’s just stupid,” he said. It was the comment that launched a billion replies. And counting.
It landed after criticism of excess Starbucks and DoorDash spending among young people. This was the last straw. Gen Z responded that Boomers had it easy in post-WWII America: low housing costs, cheap college, infinite jobs. Boomers knew that was wrong. Because we lived it.
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But the thing is, the young people aren’t entirely wrong about their own situation either. Because they are living it. Both sides need to listen to one another.
So let’s start with a history lesson, in slightly more orderly fashion than a Billy Joel song, for my fellow Boomers.
Boomers grew up after World War II, but we were the first to live under the constant threat of nuclear war. My generation dove under desks to practice hiding from nuclear attack. (Good luck with that. But we did it.) We lived through the constant riots and unrest of the 1960s – Vietnam War protests, assassinations of leaders from John F. Kennedy to Martin Luther King Jr.
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We sat in gas lines during the Arab Oil Embargo or watched others do it, when you had to buy gas on alternate days. We lived through Watergate and endured the Jimmy Carter presidency of sweaters and malaise. We had 10% unemployment and 18% mortgage rates. Throw in the Cold War, the dot-com crash, 9/11, the Great Recession, COVID-19 and who knows what else.
Most of us don’t have pensions. We got 401(k)s in 1981. Pensions stopped working because workers either switched jobs and lost their retirements or the companies went under. 401(k)s were designed to be portable so you could have a retirement even after you left. Except the responsibility got dumped on us to fund them.
We didn’t have air conditioning; we had fans. We had a couple of TV channels, not hundreds. Hand-me-down clothes were a fact of life. There were few meals out, day trips, no long vacations, store brands, black-and-white TV and more. We didn’t grow up with cellphones, streaming services, the internet and home computers. All that hit during our careers, and we had to adapt.
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Doesn’t sound easy, does it?
But it was easier than our parents had it. Our parents were from the Great Depression. They knew true hardship. They lived through 25% unemployment, and a stock market crash so enormous it scarred people for generations. There was no safety net. They endured because they had no other choice. When things got better, they saved.
Boomer adults tried to do better for themselves and their kids. But now, Gen Z blames them for the ills of the world – especially the prices of housing, healthcare and inflation.
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They are right that all of those things are insane right now. Let’s point a few fingers, though.
● Housing gets a lot worse when you let in 20 million illegal immigrants. They might not be buying those houses, but they are living somewhere, and that creates pressure on prices. Thank Team Biden for much of that.
● Healthcare is an epic problem, but Obamacare made it massively worse. Even if we liked our doctor, we didn’t get to keep him. And the price of a basic policy now costs the arm and the leg you want the doctor to treat.
● Education has snowballed in cost. Government loans made it easy for leftist-run schools to keep raising the cost of education because it seemed like young people would keep paying. And they did.
Big government, socialist policies hurt in the long run, and the long run takes us to current events. Instead of fighting, we should all want to make things easier on Gen Z, just as our parents wanted things to be better for us.
First, everyone should stop wasteful spending. Not just Gen Z. We did. I packed a lunch most days for my entire career. Most people I know did. Being frugal is smart.
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But no amount of saving is going to fix this.
So, let’s start with the No. 1 problem young people have – student debt.
We should let every American with a college loan refinance it at 0.0% interest as long as they keep paying reliably. You agreed to the cost, so you have to pay it. (That should satisfy Boomers.) But we don’t want to cripple you. Pay for the refinancing by taxing college and university endowments over $100 million at 50%. Harvard University’s endowment was $56.9 billion at the end of 2025. It isn’t a university; it’s a stock portfolio with students. They’ll survive with $28.4 billion.
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While we are at it, we should get government out of student loans entirely. Make colleges responsible for future loans. And make them eligible for discharge in bankruptcy.
That’s a start, but it barely scratches the surface. That’s because young people are worried in ways that you might have seen before a huge war. They are operating under a dark cloud and fear not just for their jobs, but their survival. Will AI make every career choice a bad one? Will anyone hire them? Or will they get stuck begging Uncle Sam for a handout?
They are right to be worried about an AI future. I lived through the collapse of journalism and watched several places I had worked go out of business and friends lose their jobs. That was just one sector of the economy. AI could reset every sector, and young people don’t know what that will mean. No one does.
That’s why we need to address all these things… together. Generational warfare doesn’t help anyone.
