David Carr (@Carr2n) - Always lament the present, Ctd

David Carr of the New York Times said (20m):

"This lament about a generation incapable of significant or long thoughts is a hardy perennial that comes up every ten years. Now we're worried about the Millennials. Before that we were worried about the Gen X'ers. Before that it was the punk rockers or the hippies, I forget which, that somehow had lost their ability to think critically about what's going on. I've been both. The problem and the old grampy-pants Pointing a finger at each and I think that we cycle through this." 

Video in full here. He also said here:

"Back in the day, for one thing… you know what, it wasn’t all that great."

Previous post in the series here.

Young versus old - "The real split in Ukraine" [and Northern Ireland]

I've previously wrote a post, 'The young people will bring change to Iran' where I cited Alec Ross, Senior advisor to Hilary Clinton 2009-2013 who said of young people in Iran and China:

"What is ultimately going to change China, what is ultimately going to change Iran are young people in these countries. There are half a billion people in china who us microblogging sites, 400 million of whom are under 25. That's what's going to change China. That's what's going to change Iran."

Christopher Hitchens spoke of "Iran's baby boomerang" whereby:

"Within the carapace of a theocratic state, an almost completely secular society is being created." Muslim mullahs sowed a baby boom whose children will reap their overthrow.

Christina Lamb explained this phenomenon in the Sunday Times also where trendy restaurants "are packed with young people drinking lattes and smoothies, smoking and texting on their iPhones as they plan their night out."

 

In Ukraine the recent clash has been a generational one. Julia Ioffe (juliaioffe) wrote an article in The New Republic, 'Eastern Ukraine Is Still Fighting Its Past - Life under Stalin's long shadow'.

"The younger a citizen of Donetsk, the more likely she is to view herself as Ukrainian. The older she is, the more likely she is to identify as Russian. And this is the crux of it all: What we are seeing today is the reverberation of what happened more than 20 years ago. This is still the long post-Soviet transition. And this is what it’s like to wander in the desert, waiting for the old generation to die off."

Sacrificing the Young to Save the Old

A commenter wrote in response to an article in the Financial Times and in response to central banks hosing us down with cheap money and creating growth based on monetary steroids here:

"Being 24 years old with two years of experience in finance in America, I cant help but really depise the current amount of monetary easing going on at all the major central banks. 

I cant for the life of me justify the current levels of home, energy and food prices given the state of the global economy. However it seems that the major central banks are all so desperate to keep OLDER people rich, that they will never let prices of anything drop so that they actually make sense to new entrants to the work force. 

Simply put, I wasnt working during the 80s and 90s, Older people have a massive advantage in the sense that they worked in more stable economies, with higher wages, interest rates and steadier real estate and stock market performance. However now I feel like central banks are so dedicated to keeping these older folks wealthy, that young new entrants to the labor market only get stuck with paying inflated taxes to cover boomers retirement, AND rock bottom savings rates so that BOOMERS dont lose value on their homes. 

When is anything going to be done for US? The young generation."