[danjarch]

I wouldn't put to much hope in Gen X. I represent the tail end. Born in 73, a year some what infamous for having the lowest live births since pre WW2. Which is why even as we're hitting are thirties and forties, we keep being out voted by the baby boomers. Those fellas aren't known for they're willingness to suffer.

You currently seeing them hit the snooze button on the economic alarm clock, again. To put into perpective, the dot com bubble followed by Enron was the economic equivilent of black hawk down. Much like our foibles in Somolia, before the dust even settled from the bubble burst they were lowering the interest rate trying harder to avoid trouble then to deal with it.

The current crisis is being handled like Iraq. Only a few are being asked to pay now. Most of the money involved is going to be borrowed from our competiters and left for Gens X and Y to pay back, with interest of course. The general public isn't going to have to take in they're family who lost they're homes. We may have to come up with a little more money to put down, at least for a couple years anyway, but we're not going back to the lay-a-way plans are grand parents used.

A good call on our leaders would have been to raise the gas tax after 9-11. This would have paid for the war and cut demand for oil, thus cutting the funding for the terrorists. But you can't expect American to suffer for much of anything these days. From my expeirence after the 04 hurricane season in Florida, most people think going a few days with out electricity is the equivilent of living threw the holocaust.

Add in that Gen X and Y have largly lost touch with reality, and the prospect of things chaging for the better get pretty dim. On the environment, the opinion of most of my peers is that mother nature is a loving and wonderful provider. This comes of course from a generation that thanks to modern engineering has never had to suffer through wide spred multi year crop losses and the resulting meager times. Drouts and flood are largly contained or abated by complex water works.

On finances, maket manipulation and government bailouts have hidden the real cost of buy today-pay next year business models. These days you can run up tens of thousands of dollars worth of debt and not be expected to pay anything for a year or more.

Laws require hospitals to treat every body who walks, stubbles or is dragged through the door so no one has to see what a life of bad habit and poor chooses looks like. Social Security has eliminated the poor house that used to make us aware of the need to bend a little now and then to build and keep a heathy community around us.

It may change but I wouldn't hold your breath