Reply #15: bingo! hopelessness is the problem [View All]

[kineneb]

I can understand why he killed himself: why go on knowing things will only get worse. It is indeed "The Generation of The Betrayed".

The children born in the 1950s, especially late '50s, arrived just a little too late for "The Dream". The boom days of manufacturing were over by the time we graduated from high school, and if we went to college, we graduated right before or in the middle of the Regan Recession.

If, at any time since then, we lost a job, or had a medical crisis, our savings got eaten up, the pensions had to be cashed out, and we are left with nothing. And now, no one will hire us for anything more than minimum (slave) wage because we are "too old". We are now looking at life of declining living standards.

kineneb: class of 1976, BA in 1981. Flat broke in 2008.

...why am I in this handbasket, and where am I going?