Our Wealth

It has been a while since I have been posted and I've been getting some flack about it. I appreciate that.

I have been thinking lately about what wealth means to my generation and the generations to follow. I am a generation X-er, a term I tend to disdain. It is only useful in so far as it classifies a group of people born between 1965 and 1981, more or less. The classification isn't useful for much else, particularly if you try to attribute a set of values, work ethic, or anything else to a group this large and diverse. What Gen X-ers do have in common is a forced paradigm shift when it comes to the accumulation and utilization of money.

My Dad gets pissed off when my brother and I say we want to take our money out of Social Security and invest it ourselves. My Dad thinks the whole system will tank and that he'll stop getting his SS. Well, Pops, our generation has already been told there won't be anything left for us. So every two weeks I am pissing away money for what? To keep pay those who already paid. I'm working on my class action suit. I figure at the rate SS is going, I will file my suit within twenty years. Thanks, Uncle Sam.

But wait, there is more. My generation is not poised for home ownership. Many of those who got a house through declared income at the height of the housing stupidity, have now lost their homes. Not only are they worse off financially then they were before, with that little mark on their credit, they won't own for at least another 15 years. For the rest of us who didn't buy, we're still looking at the market saying, "Who the hell can afford these homes?" My generation has been set up for failure.

After 9/11, Bush said, "Spend!" That was his solution. Well, Mr. President, Gen X has been spending their whole lives and not saving a whole lot because there isn't a whole lot to save for. We are forced to look at wealth differently. Wealth to us is time. Wealth to us is freedom. I recently read Tim Ferris' book The 4-Hour Workweek. It is a quick read, but profound. Ferris essentially says that time is the new wealth and traveling is the capitalization of that wealth.

The idea of Gen X isn't to cash out now by traveling around the world and coming home broke. Instead it is to make the most out of every day, get friends and family you love around you, get a job you truly enjoy, and go to bed each night in eager expectation of tomorrow. Not a bad plan. I think that is a wealth paradigm shift I can live with.