And Generation Y will save us.
Holding his own generation at fault, Dallas Federal Reserve President Richard Fisher told a gathering of Texas Christian University alumni this morning at Northwood Country Club in Dallas that the Baby Boomers are “one of the most selfish generations. We wasted our children’s future.” He said it is disgraceful that the Boomers allowed Medicare and Social Security’s unfunded future obligations to reach their present level — about $104 trillion.
But he has confidence that his children’s generation has learned that it will have to save more, that it will have to find a better balance between consumption and savings, than did the Boomers. The Facebook-addicted, self-absorbed, ‘shower-me-with-praise,’ texting-obsessed Millennials? Really? (He may be right.)
As for our current economic state, Fisher reiterated that he is cautiously optimistic, with “stress on the word ‘caution,'” especially considering that “consumption and credit [are] on a slow crawl out of Purgatory.”
Fisher urged the business people in the room to read the Economist‘s July article “California v. Texas” and get its pro-Texas points into the hands of every corporate executive and academic in the country. Texas has low taxes, small government, and the banks didn’t over-expand. Fisher says that has a lot to do with why Texas has been less hit by the recession than elsewhere, and why he expects the state to come out of recession sooner, and stronger, than other places.
And let’s downplay some of the Economist’s backhanded compliments:
(flat, ugly countryside makes it easier for Dallas-Fort Worth to expand than mountain-and-sea-locked LA)
