Barack Obama was born in 1961 and depending on how you count that, he is either not a baby boomer or not quite a baby boomer.
Either way, in his campaign -- in its reach among young people and its techniques -- and in his speech today, he declared boomer-ism over.
Obama's speech was austere, if not stern. He spoke not only of Wall Street's failures, but of our "collective failure to make hard choices."
Obama called us away from self-expression and self-gratification to collective action.
The torch has indeed been passed. The man who holds it heralds a "new era of responsibility."
Implicit in that statement is that we have been irresponsible. This has important economic implications. I hear Obama preparing us for the days when we can't borrow all we want. We can't afford to retire as early as we want. We can't buy all the house we want.
We know that, of course, but now we have heard it from the mountain top. It is official.
Comments
Interesting. How many generations are there?
Well-written and to the point. Relevantly, as many nationally influential voices have repeatedly noted, Obama is part of Generation Jones, born 1954-1965, between the Boomers and Generation X. Google Generation Jones, and you'll see it’s gotten a lot of media attention, and many top commentators from many top publications and networks (New York Times, Time magazine, NBC, Newsweek, ABC, etc.) are specifically referring to Obama, born in 1961, as part of Generation Jones.