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United States
Post-baby boomers in a new economic world

Mis en ligne le 28/01/2008

Regardless of the outcome of the U.S. presidential primaries, it's clear that a post-boomer politics is beginning to take shape. By the same token, it's clear that a post-boomer economy - and economics - may be doing so as well. Post-baby boomers operate with a set of baseline assumptions about how the world works, about work, trade, globalization and economic relations, that differs sharply from the operating manual of our boomer forebears.

Economic history ended in 1990. The long-raging battle of the 20th century between the forces of market capitalism and government control essentially ended in those exhilarating days in the fall of 1989 when everything we learned in college about political economy crumbled along with the Berlin wall. Since those peaceful revolutions, the global economy has been in the throes of a continuous revolution that has turned what used to be a collection of largely independent systems into a single, massive, integrated one. The falling of trade barriers and the integration of billions of humans into a single system has created enormous economic benefits. For post-boomers, recessions are like bell-bottom jeans - a relic of the 1970s. Since 1992, the United States has suffered a single, shallow recession. The flip side, and the fundamental dichotomy, has been microeconomic turbulence amid macroeconomic stability. It's common to hear boomer politicians marvel at the fact that the typical worker will change jobs seven times before the age of 35. For post-boomers, the response is : duh ! "For a lot of the boomers, the sense of having a job for life was a default bedrock assumption about the kind of world they'd have, and when it didn't pan out, they felt affronted and cheated", says Walter Russell Mead, senior fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations. "The new generation starts out with that as a baseline." Along with that goes assumptions about benefits - 401(k)s, not pensions; health insurance, maybe. Technology - among other forces - has fundamentally reordered the way people approach the most basic economic function : work. And it goes beyond job security, says Daniel Pink, 43, author of "Free Agent Nation."
"For post-boomers, work isn't a loyalty-for-security bargain, it's an opportunity-for-talent bargain", he said. "You recognize that your employer is giving you opportunities - to earn money, to do something new - but you don't go in looking for any sort of lifetime security or enduring loyalty." Job insecurity, concern over benefits and the fear of falling afflict post-boomers, especially as they begin to form families. But bubble-surfing post-boomers have proved adept at riding the waves. The typical post-boomer career path - at virtually every level of the income ladder - is more like a maze than a straight line. Forecasting, difficult in ordinary times, is a near impossibility today. Find me the economist, who, six years ago, would have projected the following set of events for 2008 : oil near $100 per barrel, the United States approaching recession but the globe booming, Persian Gulf countries importing Western universities and museums. But post-boomer economists have forged a consensus around issues like deregulation and the primacy of monetary policy. Debate over demand control is over. The markets rule. "Even liberal economists are interested in studying the ways government policies are affecting behavior in a way that wasn't done in 1980", says Liebman. We're all supply-siders now.

(Newsweek International, 21/01/2008 : "Supply-Side Nation ; The post-boomer career path - at nearly every level of the income ladder - is more like a maze than a straight line")

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