Livin’ the US Economy Benjamin Button style

Based on a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” was made into a feature length film that was nominated for 13 Academy Awards.  Benjamin lives his life in reverse – born as an 84-year-old man, dying as an infant – as the calendar advances.  A recent report on our economic prospects over the next 30 years has me wishing I could live out my years like Benjamin Button.  Only, I would wish that the calendar would go in reverse as I got older.  Sort of a double reverse. 

The report from Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC) projects the US in third place as measured in Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) by mid-21^st Century.  Six of the seven fastest-growing emerging economies today would be among the seven largest in the world by this measure.  Vietnam, Bangladesh and India would be the fastest growing during the intervening timeframe.  PWC, of course, is among the Big-4 global accounting firms.  Being business oriented, they recommend global companies invest in creating supply chains to serve those markets.  Since WWII, the US has relied on positive Foreign Direct Investment to maintain dollar strength and offset our negative trade balance.  If that flow were to reverse, we slip down the slope to less prosperous lifestyles.  

Moreover, Americans would have to adjust their world view.  Our economic power enables our military power.  The combination of the two enables us to influence world events and create a buffer between us and foreign adversaries.  We are protected not only by the two oceans but also by military alliances with NATO, Israel, Japan, Australia and the Philippines.  

It would be better to go back in time. 

If I were born today and could live my life as time went backwards, I would be oblivious to the slow growth economy of the 2010’s.  My parents might be awash in credit card, mortgage and auto loan debt.  But I’d be a kid.  What the heck would I know about it?  We would go through the reverse bursting of the Internet bubble, cashing in our tech stocks just in time to pay my college tuition which would be about half what one might pay today.  

I would get my first job during the booming 90’s benefiting from the Reagan and Clinton tax cuts and the peace dividend from the end of the Cold War.  In the 80’s I would buy my first house – a huge house supported by the two incomes my wife and I would earn.  I would go to Vegas and bet the longshot L.A. Dodgers to win the ’88 World Series behind Kirk Gibson’s walk-off home run in Game 1. Our middle-class lifestyle would include two new vehicles every three or four years, one of which would be a minivan to cart the kids around with all our stuff.  And, there would be plenty of stuff because I would be entering my peak earning years and spending money like I planned to die tomorrow.  

I would enter middle-age during the sluggish, high inflation 70’s and would buy a townhouse when the kids went off to college.  I would trade in my VW Beetle for a Buick LeSabre as gas dropped below a half a buck per gallon.  I would bet on Secretariat to win the Triple Crown while trying to remember whether the Steelers beat the spread when they won four Super Bowls in six years.  I would invest in big oil companies knowing they would get richer as a result of the oil crisis.

In the 60’s, I would grumble about all those hippies protesting on campus while I adjusted the rabbit ears on my TV so I could watch Neal Armstrong plant the first human footprints on the moon.  My Vegas bet would be on Broadway Joe to take the Jets to Super Bowl victory over my hero Johnny Unitas. My car would be lower, longer and wider with a massive V8 engine under the hood, all the better to get a quick start at red lights.  I would buy skinny ties and pocket protectors to prevent my ball point pen from ruining my dress shirts. I would know that the JFK tax cuts would be reversed and worry about the impact of higher taxes on my lifestyle.  I would invest in blue chip stocks as insurance against my smaller net salary – GM, AT&T, GE and IBM.

I would be secure in retirement and maintain my middle-class status while living in a 1,000 sq. ft. home and sharing one car with my wife because that’s what middle-class meant in the 1950’s.  There would be no smartphones or flat screens to distract me and no credit card debt to undermine my financial security. 

Benjamin Button lived to the age of 84.  Were I to live that long in reverse time, I would witness the devastation of WWII and the holocaust and pass on to my reward during the Great Depression.  But I would have lived during the American Century, the most prosperous time in our history… a time when children of immigrants could transcend their socio-economic status… a time when our leaders enacted bold legislation… a time during which the United States set a standard by which other countries were measured.

WHO WILL LEAD? 

A Boomer who’s OK with #OKBoomer

I just returned from a European vacation -- blissfully unaware of current events – in time to head to the polls.  Of course, one can easily follow current events from Europe.  All one needs is an Internet connection.  I simply chose not to read the news or follow the latest social media nonsense. 

My first clue of the latest potboiler was a tongue-in-cheek Tweet by WXXI’s Evan Dawson lamenting that a Rochester radio host had gained national attention and it wasn’t him.  He faux-whined “Am I doing this wrong?”  Later, I learned about Bob Lonsberry’s comparison of the hashtag #OKBoomer to the N-word.  To say Lonsberry’s analogy was overreach is stating the obvious; but I understand the emotion from which it springs.  Just as I wrote a few months ago that being a white male is considered an original sin, Boomers are now being dismissed as an irrelevant generation.  As an older Boomer, I should be insulted. 

However, I have to say I agree with many of the complaints of Millennials who will inherit from us a mass of structural impediments to our progress as a society.  We once lectured our elders about environmental pollution and bought Volkswagens and Toyotas instead of huge sedans.  Now, we buy SUV’s.  We protested the war in Vietnam and take credit for bringing it to a close.  Now, we have led the nation into the longest wars in our history.  We advocated political reform to rid society of “smoke-filled rooms.”  The reformed process has yielded Donald J. Trump.  The failure of four Boomer presidents is monumental, leaving us with unresolvable deficits, unviable social safety net programs, and government that is captive to industry.  

Historian and demographer Neil Howe has researched generational transitions back to the War of the Roses. He posits that every fourth generation – those who come of age during crisis – brings forth a heroic new paradigm for governance.  The last generation to do so, was the WWII generation.  Their post-war world order has given us 70 years of unprecedented prosperity  and is now, like Boomers,  getting a little long in the tooth.  So, dramatic change is perhaps due.

Like many of my contemporaries, I shake my head at Millennial ideas that seem crazy, from Green New Deal to free tuition to socialism (Socialism? Really??).  But Millennials are unlikely to tolerate an unsustainable model that has its roots in the experience of their great grandparents.  A generation of Americans that grew up with the Internet isn’t going to tolerate public institutions that operate on a 19th Century bureaucratic model. Nor will they tolerate a healthcare system that absorbs more and more of our national income without improving outcomes, a social safety net that will collapse of its own weight or an education system that doesn’t match graduates with jobs and careers.

Going forward, the national debate won’t be about spendthrift compassion vs. cold-hearted austerity.  It will be about developing a healthcare system that can care for our poor and elderly without bankrupting the country, restructuring education to deliver globally competitive graduates and ordered liberty that provides equal opportunity to all.

Just don’t mess with my Medicare, okay?

WHO WILL LEAD?