Once again, cloudy and drizzling rain this Tuesday morning up here along California’s northern coast — quiet and easy.
Life all over ain’t so as scouring the news reveals it’s the Same Old Shit causing much of the problems, but in this particular age, there’s really no alternative.

As a so-called baby boomer, my age is significant as we’re supposed to be the best and the brightest — who said that?
We’re the ones nearly hand-picked to create more scenes within the Great American Dream — a nightmare fostered by the Cold War and its freezing inferno.
(Illustration found here).

Baby boomers ain’t done so well, so far.
Bill Clinton was the first of our ilk to top the ladder, then came George Jr. So as one can see we’re way-not the best and the brightest, but maybe the most arrogant and dumb ass. As we get older, shit just gets harder.

We Boomers are losing the American Dream.
From USAToday on Monday:

We have not saved enough money.
And worse, many of us will still be up to our eyeballs in debt when we do retire.
We’re just one medical emergency away from bankruptcy.
According to Boomers and Retirement, a new survey by TD Ameritrade, the average Baby Boomer is about a half-million dollars short on retirement savings.
And 74 percent of Boomers in the survey say they will have to rely heavily on Social Security in retirement.
(The average Social Security check, by the way, is $1,230 a month.)
…
USA TODAY reported just last week that more people are delaying retirement and continuing to work past 65 mostly because they need the money.
According to 2010 Census data, the share of workers 65 and older in the labor force rose to 16 percent, up from 12 percent in 1990.
“We will have to work a lot longer and get by with less,” says Olivia Mitchell, professor of economics and executive director of Pension Research Council at Wharton School of Business.
“It’s just getting a lot more expensive to be old than it used to be,” she says.
The National Foundation for Credit Counseling (NFCC), which helps people who are having trouble paying their bills, says one-third of its 3 million clients nationwide last year were 55 or older, up 7 percentage points in two years. Nearly 15 percent are over 65.
That’s scary.
“That is a point in life when most folks thought debt would be the last thing on their minds,” says Gail Cunningham, NFCC vice president.
…
“You would expect more people to incur more debt early in life, rather than later,” Mitchell says. “That’s when you might not have a lot of money, you have student loans, a family and a mortgage payment,” she says. “The idea was that you would pay off your house as you grow older. You would pay off credit cards when you hit peak earnings years, and when you moved into retirement you would do it mortgage-free and debt-free.”
But that changed in a dramatic fashion, partly because of the financial meltdown and housing crisis.
Many people thought they had savings in the equity in their homes.
People refinanced, took out home-equity loans and spent.
“The deflating of the housing bubble meant Boomers were hitting retirement age with less in assets than they expected,” Mitchell says.
“That was a cold bath of water.”

Cold showers sparkle the youth and keep crazy-talk to a minimum.

Boomers got the kids back, too — the “boomerang” effect, if you will.
From the Christian Science Monitor last March:

In 1980, some 11 percent of young adults lived in multigenerational households, suggesting that a strong economy helped youngsters gain independence more quickly.
Today, some 29 percent of 25- to 34-year olds either never moved out of their parents’ home or say they returned home in recent years because of the economy, according to the Pew report.
Among 18- to 24-year olds, that figure is even higher – 53 percent of young adults in that age group live at home.
…
“My parents love it and if they could keep me here forever they would,” says Erika Brunner, who moved back home to Lafayette, N.Y., in 2010 after completing her bachelor’s degree, working, and traveling in Europe for five months.

In that, I would agree. I’d love having my kids back at home — a daughter who turns 33 today is back living with me and I’m loving it. All my kids, at one time or another, have spent some down time back with me.
Kids will also be babies even at 33.

And in all this economic bullshit, there might be some tax relief or the greatest and most-self-centered generation — modern life for the Beatle-bunch:

“There’s a changing family dynamic because of the economy,” said Bob Meighan, vice president of TurboTax, an online tax preparation service.
More people are living longer.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of older Americans increased by 9.7 percent from 2000 to 2010, when there were about 40 million people age 65 or older.
A longer lifespan puts added strain on retirement accounts, which already have taken a hit in the roller-coaster economy.
As a result, many baby boomers find themselves supporting their elderly parents, in some cases footing the bill for assisted living or nursing home care, working in centers as the Alzheimer’s Care Home Care Assistance 9050 W Olympic Blvd, Beverly Hills, CA 90211 (310) 857-4724 from sites as https://homecareassistance.com/alzheimers-dementia-care.

Meanwhile, the unemployment rate for young adults age 20 to 24 was 13.7 percent in December, considerably higher than the overall rate of 7.8 percent.

Boom, boom goes the trolley and with the starship to the stars grounded, the American Dream is in reality a daydream of such simple complexity it boggles the boomer brain.
Getting old is just half the the fun — laughter is the best social security.