Slackonomics “is full of interesting mini-arguments, including an entertaining takedown of Ethan Watters’s Urban Tribes …” Publishers Weekly, May 26, 2008
I have to admit rather enjoying the fact that the Publisher’s Weekly reviewer noted my dissection of Urban Tribes, a pseudo-sociology trend book that tries to argue that Generation X is not settling down and getting married because “friends are the new family.” One of the more unsubstantiated reasons he attributes to Generation X never “growing up” is because we have a lot of disposable income and, what’s more, “In the long run, most of us knew we had an ace in the hole. Many of us were in line to be the beneficiaries of the largest transfer of wealth that had ever taken place from one generation to the next.”
There was plenty of evidence this wasn’t true when he wrote it and more evidence keeps coming. An article in today’s Times is titled, “8 Reasons You Should Not Expect an Inheritance.” You can read it and weep for yourself, but here is one point worth highlighting: A 2004 survey “noted that 21 percent of people born after 1964 thought they would inherit some money someday. After all, most of them [meaning us Gen Xers] still have living parents or grandparents. But with each passing year, the pressures on the nest eggs of those older people will only grow. The truly rich will be fine, as they usually are. But a lot of other people, even retirees with net worths well into the seven figures, could end up spending every dime before they die.”
I don’t know what the answer is, but I do know that the new economy and the old safety net system are seriously out of whack. Pensions, Medicare and Social Security? Please. As the article points out, those are reasons two and three not to expect an inheritance in the first place.
All over the news today is a story about two Bear Stearns hedge fund managers who were indicted on charges that they defrauded investors. According to the Times, prosecutors are building their case on e-mails between the two men who were arrested today. “I think we should close the funds now,” wrote Matthew Tannin to Ralph Cioffi (they plead not guilty) before telling investors it was a good time to put money in their funds that were heavily invested in the subprime mortgage market. One allegedly withdrew his own money while investors lost about $1.6 billion, “setting off a financial chain reaction that has rattled global markets, led to more than $350 billion in write-downs, cost a number of executives their jobs and culminated in the demise of Bear Stearns itself,” the Times reports.
I argue in Slackonomics that it could very well be up to Generation X to bring the economy back from the brink. First, do we kill all the Hedge Fund managers? Not necessarily. In this week’s New York magazine is a profile of 39-year-old Hedge Fund manager David Einhorn, a very successful AND highly principled manager of Greenlight Capital. I almost wrote “but” instead of “and” as if successful and principled are mutually exclusive, but that is in fact my point — they aren’t! Putting these two ideas back together is one of the challenges facing Generation X as we move into positions of leadership.
The NYT Sunday Magazine has a cover story titled, “When Mom and Dad Share it All.” Sadly, the term “Generation X” isn’t used, but that is clearly who this article is about. Author Lisa Belkin cites research showing that the majority of housework and parental care is still done by women, yet the story focuses on Generation X parents who are changing the rules by sharing things equally. Seems to be a contradiction, yeah? Not necessarily.
As I point out in my forthcoming book Slackonomics, Generation X does share parenting more equally than previous generations, but it doesn’t show up in the stats. Why? There is a big difference between the entire demographic of parents, and the subset of middle class, educated couples in their 30′s and mid-40s. This is the cultural definition of Generation X and the people Lisa Belkin focuses on. Because they are a small portion of the overall parenting population, the extent of the change is diminished. But not only is this subset of the population embracing shared parenting, they’re having more children than the average because of it.