About half of my generation is now in college or has graduated. The average college student today has $22,000 in student loans (mostly private loans like Sallie Mae) and $7,500 in credit card debt. 80% of us are jobless and 91.8% of us are living at home with our parents. So, with nearly half of us carrying a downpayment for a house in debt, we can be sure that the housing market won’t be seeing a next generation of buyers for a long long while.

I think there is going to be a lot of resentment brewing toward the Baby Boomers who caused all of this massive debt, drove us into multiple wars (that WE–not them–had to fight), drove real estate prices sky high, outsourced all of the entry-level jobs, raped and depleted Social Security /Medicare and wrecked Wall Street with dervatives markets casino-style greed.

I’m thinking, maybe not 20 years but maybe 40 years before things ever get back to the way they were.

An utterly superb article, and the only argument you would get out of me is that the South wasn’t hammered into one nation with the North, it was simply hammered, and is still being treated that way. Occasionally a scalawag will be elected president (Carter and Clinton, for examples), but can you think of a Supreme Court Justice since the “civil” war?

The crisis is indeed upon us, and we will be fortunate if the worst we have to endure is The Greater Depression and the anti-industrial revolution. At my age I am not likely to see the second stage forty or fifty years hence, and the government takeover of natural resources–such as water–and new legislation which will make it virtually impossible to feed ourselves frighten me a great deal.

Thank you for introducing me to the thoughts of Mr. Howe; finding The Fourth Turning will be a top priority, and your article bears repeated reading.

LBT