Austerity policies will lead to generational conflict--as intended
by David Atkins
Kevin Drum at Mother Jones points out how the student debt crisis (encapsulated in the chart below) will inevitably lead to generational resentment:
It's also yet another fault line between young and old that's not likely to turn out well. My generation got a cheap college education when we were young, and we're getting good retirement benefits now that we're old. Pretty nice. But now we're turning around and telling today's 20-somethings that they should pay through the nose for college, keep paying taxes for our retirements, and oh by the way, when it comes time for you to retire your benefits are going to have to be cut. So sorry. And all this despite the fact that the country is richer than it was 50 years ago.
What Drum doesn't mention is that this is a feature, not a bug. There's a very good reason that Paul Ryan's "fix" for Medicare involves screwing everyone under the age of 50 or 55. It's not just because it's easier politically: it's also because it's guaranteed to create another way to divide one part of the 99% from the other.
After all, Republicans are becoming painfully aware that racial resentments won't guarantee them electoral success anymore. In fact, it's becoming a liability for them. They've been pushing the sexism angle for a while now, but in doing so they're throwing away 60% of women right off the bat.
So playing one generation off another through horrible austerity policies seems like another way to keep the peasants angry at one another long enough for the nobles to finish looting what's left.
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