Review by Booklist Review
In his first book, Gibney, a venture capitalist and writer, shares harrowing accounts of how the baby-boomer generation (those born from 1946 to 1964) took advantage of the U.S. economic system and public policies, at the expense of future generations. Divided in several parts, this covers the boomers' identity; their ascendency and descent; their decisions, from child rearing to investments; and their views on social and political issues, from the Vietnam War to climate change. Gibney traces what he calls the personality defects of the boomer generation by examining how they have managed to abuse the system, such as taking out more loans and ignoring the economic consequences. The book is filled with dense examples and can be a slow read. Using a variety of data and statistics from state, federal, and political agencies, Gibney attempts to persuade readers that future generations should hold the boomer generation accountable for the damages they've wrought. Informative, provocative, and entertaining reading for those interested in political economy and U.S. social and economic history.--Pun, Raymond Copyright 2017 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A cri de coeur against baby boomers, who "unraveled the social fabric woven by previous generations in the interests of sheer selfishness."Having made a fortune in social media (PayPal, Facebook) and leveraging other people's property (Airbnb, Lyft), venture capitalist Gibney is now ticked at having to shoulder the debt of that vast population75 million, at last countborn between 1946 and 1964, "a swaddled youth [that] fostered sociopathic entitlement." So what did these now-old flower children do to provoke the author's barrage of epithets? For one thing, they took all the benefits of the New Deal welfare state and added on to them, piling on generational debt in the trillions of dollars. (Boomers, of course, complain that the Greatest Generation did the same to them, especially with respect to health care.) Moreover, they "dominated political and corporate Americasquandered its inheritance, abused its power, and subsidized its binges." A little Thomas Paine goes a long way, and the endless, broadest-possible-brush harangue gets uglier when one substitutes, say "Jew" or "African-American" for "baby boomer." That said, Gibney does have some points, all of which would have been better made without assigning damning agency to them: of course health care has to be restructured, and of course taxes have to be raised if the nation is to escape insolvency. His prescriptions on those fronts are sound, though some are surely controversial; he has already decided that boomers would fight his suggestion that the retirement age "be raised for anyone reasonably able to work, including the younger Boomers, by at least three years." Gibney also suggests that the IRS be funded to go after the evaders and the newly dead, advocating a stiff estate tax that the Republican establishmentwho are, of course, all baby boomerswould never go for. "This is a deeply negative portrayal, but a certain negativity may be what's required." Maybe so, but if this polemic makes wounded millennials feel better, it likely won't reach older ears, who may be more sympathetic than Gibney imagines. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
