This short article from the Slate (courtesy of David Kaiser) asks whether Unions are on their way out. The two-tiering of wages in union shops, old versus young, started in the mid-1980s just as Generation X (born 1961-1981) were entering the workforce. The young Xers were the first to get lower wages/benefits for doing the same job just because they weren’t “grandfathered” into the contract. It makes sense for the older people because, by letting the employer pay the young less, they let the employer remain competitive (say with a Japanese auto maker) while still protecting their own windfall (an economist would say “rent”). Better still, with each passing year the deal improves because the cost of your grandfathered cohorts diminish with time relative to the total wage bill. By the time you retire, you can even ask for “Cadillac” health benefits that are totally off the radar screen of what younger workers could ever imagine. Boomer (born 1943-1960)motto: Apres moi le deluge.

I’m not surprised talk of two-tiering is still going on. But now it doesn’t matter as much because the unionized share of the private workforce has shrunk so much. Last month, in fact, the number of private-sector union workers fell below the number of public-sector union workers for the first time ever.

Interesting article on the youngest ever leader of the NAACP, 44 year-old Roslyn Brock (making her Generation X (born 1961-1981)).  But what does this mean: “That worked well for many of us, but all of us realize that we are a part of a generation that is both the most murdered in the country and the most incarcerated on the planet.”  Cites please?  In almost every state, the 50+ prison population is the most rapidly rising, and the under 30 population is the most rapidly shrinking.  As for murders, that number for the under-30 age group is down by over two-thirds over the last 15 years.  Less cant, more data.

Interesting article in The Atlantic about the effect of joblessness on generational attitudes (courtesy of Pete Markiewicz) http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/201003/jobless-america-future

In tone, this is a very Fourth Turning (Crisis)  kind of piece. I especially like his figure of the “L-shaped” recession. Yet he really doesn’t present any coherent analytical point of view. He simply puts a negative spin on every observation or study he can cite, making everything consistently downbeat.

In fact, many of the cited studies on the effects of unemployment are now known to have false correlation problems. When a young man has drinking and other personal problems and also sporadic employment behavior, we cannot assume the latter caused the former. It may be the other way around. As for the negative impact of high unemployment on cohorts who come of age in those years, well, Millennial (born 1982-200?) are trying to avoid that negative impact by *not* just taking the first lousy job that becomes available. But the author gives Millennials no credit for that, but bashes them for the softness and risk-aversion etc.

This brings us to what he says about generations and Twenge, which is pretty much all garbage. He says that “Gen Y” got jobs in the high-tech boom of the late 1990s and that that’s why they’re optimistic and rule abiding (as opposed to “real” Generation X (born 1961-1981) who got jobs in the early 1990s)? What? Where does he get his dates?

I’ve been on several radio shows where the host asks me about the impact of recession on youth generations. They often cite the famous Glen Elder book. My response, which seems to make sense to most people, is that how a generation responds to a recession depends upon the underlying peer personality of the youth generation in question, which in turn depends on how they were raised. For the young Silent (born 1925-1942) in the 1930s depression, economic hardship accentuated their other-directedness, their trust in big institutions, and their long time horizons. For the young Xers in the early ’80s, it accentuated the opposite traits. There is no mechanical one-to-one link between an economic shock and the youth response.

It’s the author’s failure to acknowledge generational and era (“turning”) differences that explains how he comes to the conclusion that the emerging ’10s will resemble the ’70s. He has no inkling of seasonality. E.g., youth crime rose strongly throughout the ’70s. But today youth crime is still falling. Incredibly, cities like NYC and DC had fewer murders in 2009 than any year going all the way back to the early 1960s. No mention of this in this article!

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OK, this story does have a generations-and-turning connection. Haggling spread with the growth of the Third Turning (Unraveling) free-agent economy in the ‘80s and esp ‘90s (the reference to e-Bay here is appropriate). And I’ve found that, on average, Generation X (born 1961-1981) are better at it than older generations. A few hip Silent (born 1925-1942), like William Shatner, really do get it—and the guys he tutors in the tv commercials are always Xers. Just try saying “namby-pamby” to a Boomer (born 1943-1960) and see what happens.

But the main reason I’m posting this is simply that you might find it interesting and possibly useful. Note btw the digital phone app that can scan the barcode while you’re in the store and give you an instant price comp to negotiate with! That is dynamite.

Three great—and gorgeous—actresses of the Silent (born 1925-1942), all born in 1929: Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly, and Jean Simmons. Now the last of them has passed away. (Grace Kelly, while certainly as gorgeous, OK, maybe wasn’t as great an actress as the other two, but come on: Her career pretty much ended upon her enthronement at age 26.)

Interesting how the serial parade of marriages and divorces of this cohort of actresses (typically starting, as with these three women, with older G.I. (born 1901-1924) manly men) presaged the later divorce revolution of their entire generation. What was OK only in Hollywood in the 1950s became OK in Peoria by the 1970s. Ditto for the alcoholism and drug abuse. And cigarettes, though this addiction spread through the generation a lot earlier. Note that Simmons died of lung cancer.

Not surprisingly, many of their films dealt thematically with people trying to break out of repressive social, religious, and (especially) family environments. Some of these were comedies, like “Roman Holiday.” Many were a lot darker, like “Two for the Road” or “A Nun’s Story” (Hepburn) or “The Happy Ending” or “Home After Dark” (Simmons). There are probably others. I’m not the film critic.

They all knew how to play (as this article notes) “the demure helpmates” of strong leading men. They were outstanding for their decency, humanity, and attention to emotional subtlety and nuance of manners. Here they really outshone their Lost and G.I. elders. Wonderful quote here by one reviewer of “Home After Dark”: “Jean Simmons gives a reserved, beautifully modulated performance that is so much better than the material that at times her exquisite reading of the rather mediocre lines seems a more tragic waste than her character’s wrecked life.” Not often we hear that about Generation X (born 1961-1981) actresses coping with Boomer (born 1943-1960) and Silent Generation scripts!

And of course they came of age at a time when the veil of modesty wrapped over anything erotic was considerably more opaque than it is today. Though who is to say that this did not actually intensify the longing and the desire? There is a great line in a People story on Simmons in 1987: “For men of a certain age, the memory of seeing Simmons naked from the back in the 1960’s ‘Spartacus’ ranks high among their early carnal thrills.”

This article in the Washington Post from last month is an interesting read. It seems fairly certain that, among the many reforms a [4T] reconstruction of government will require, elimination of the filibuster in its current form will be one of them.  Several years ago, when the GOP was in power, Trent Lott called overruling the filibuster “the nuclear option.”  I guess that pretty much suggests the crisis imagery that surrounds the idea of its abolition.  Sometime soon, though, one party or the other will just go ahead and do it.  A bare majority of the Senate has *always* had the constitutional power to overrule the filibuster on a moment’s notice.  The Senate has simply never exercised it.  Wait until more Silent (born 1925-1942) are gone and more Generation X (born 1961-1981) have arrived.  Pow!  It will disappear overnight.

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Interesting story in the Washington Post a while back. I spent a day last summer with a group of National Guard officer corps. After my talk to the whole group, I was approached by VA Asst Sec Tammy Duckworth, who wanted me to speak about generations to her department’s public affairs executives. I didn’t think anything more of it, until I came across this story in the Washington Post.

Tammy Duckworth lost both of her legs in Iraq. (I had no idea when I talked with her.) Obama visited her in the hospital while she was recovering, and so she later joined his campaign and still later signed on to his team at the VA. She was given a slot to speak at the Democratic 2008 Convention. And she is trying to very hard—as a bona fide Generation X (born 1961-1981)—to re-educate the veterans community (which still has a very G.I. (born 1901-1924)/Silent (born 1925-1942) tilt) to the outlook of today’s younger generations.

Note the incredible story about Joe Dan (who is Millennial (born 1982-200?)).

This article on “The Greenest Generation” makes some interesting points. But you have to understand that this whole idea of changing the world by  changing people’s consciousness and thence changing their individual consumer habits is inherently Boomer (born 1943-1960)/Generation X (born 1961-1981) are of the opinion that if you really want to  change overall social behavior, impose a universal constraint or incentive—otherwise, leave it alone.  Require it of everyone and allow no gaming… otherwise, leave everyone alone.

I guess what I’m saying is that I’m not surprised at the incoherence of the Millennial response to this particular line of questioning.  Millennial approach: Try to be absolutely certain about the link between individual behavioral cause and negative social effect; quantify that link; assess universal incentives needed to  change behavior and balance losses against gains; finally, enact the solution and police for violators.  Boomer/Xer approach: Suggest some personal activity that carries high symbolic resonance (like re-using bags at a supermarket), and then using hortatory language to get many on board.  I’m not saying the second approach is bad; it’s sets the table, so to speak.  But the Millennials are looking for something different.

Implementing the Millennial solution, you will get maximum results with relatively little individual sacrifice (since everyone will be sacrificing).  Implementing the Boom-X solution, you will get disappointing results even with constant haranguing that makes everyone feel miserable.

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Very nice piece in the NYTimes by an officer who is almost certainly a Generation X (born 1961-1981) (he started serving too early to be a Millennial (born 1982-200?), and he is not high enough ranking to be a Boomer (born 1943-1960)). Any survey of generational divisions in today’s the armed forces uncovers Xer officers who feel bollixed by their Boomer superiors. The Xers want to decentralize decision making, reduce the bureaucracy, give more initiative to leaders on the ground, make decisive choices, and embrace risk rather than shun it.

Why all the smothering oversight? To reduce American casualties, of course, say Boomer and Silent (born 1925-1942)elders. To create an idiot-proof (Boomer-speak for Xer-proof) safeguard against bad headlines for political leaders back at home. But, counter the Xers, what if this approach simply ensures that America’s effort is ineffectual and that we are still there ten years from now, still slogging around and suffering casualties?

Speaking of the Nomadarchetype at war, I am reminded of the memorable scene in the movie “Patton.”  Omar Bradley (who was given all the best lines because he advised the director) got owned in one exchange after castigating George for being too aggressive in a particular attack in the Sicilian campaign and suffering needless casualties. Patton’s response—and I loosely paraphrase from memory: “Sure, Brad, some died. But we broke through, didn’t we? We brought this war closer to an end, didn’t we? If we did it your way, we might still be pinned down there, dying as we speak.” It is an interesting question whether the war would have been over in Europe in 1944, instead of 1945, if Patton had remained Bradley’s superior during and after D-Day. Germany might never have been divided, and the Soviet postwar domination of Central Europe would have been much weaker.

Ulysses Grant was another famous Nomad warrior who understood better than his elders (except for a few, like Lincoln and his friend Sherman) that sometimes you have to take risks, including the risk of losing lives, to get the job done. This is how the midlife Xer-in-charge pushes the mood toward the Fourth Turning (Crisis).

The final remarks in this article explicitly and eloquently point to the tethering of Generation X leaders:

“The culture of risk mitigation could be countered with a culture of initiative. Mid-level leaders win or lose conflicts. Our forces are better than the Taliban’s, but we have leashed them so tightly that they are unable to compete.”

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A friend sent a link of this video of Drake’s new hit “Money to Blow” recently:

It’s the typical Millennial (born 1982-200?)translation of the original Generation X (born 1961-1981) hip hop: Dial up the money and pleasure—but dial down (to practically zero) to desperation and survivalism, which once upon a time was such a essential theme of Xer hip hop.

IMO, this stuff is just dream fluff.  Genuine Xers, claim you don’t know this guy.

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