Mahbubani diagnosis of Europe’s disease is in my view correct. But what might be the best therapy to correct this situation?

 
The best therapy to correct the situation is to shrink the welfare state to the bare minimum. That way grumpy old voters will contribute to the election of intelligent political leaders instead of blocking them in fear of seeing their pensions shrink.
 
And that is exactly what will happen, mechanically, predictably, inevitably.
 
Dynamical systems have implicit or explicit self-correcting mechanisms, though it may take some time to trigger those self-correcting mechanisms and to eventuate the needed corrections.

Posted by: Johan Kaspar | Oct 13 2025 14:13 utc | 3

 > who is a very thoughtful intelligent guy by the way, for him to call Trump daddy
 
Emphasizing this quote that the author of the article seems to have not yet figured out to separate the “impression of a person” from “reality of a person”.  Most Hollywood actors are very intelligent and thoughtful too.  But they use it to manipulate your world view, not necessarily to reflect or talk about real world consequences of their actions.
I.e. they could have boiled an egg one day and the next explain to you that egg is still very much in their refrigerator.  And you would believe it. 

Posted by: Happy Cat | Oct 13 2025 14:19 utc | 5

@ john brewster | Oct 13 2025 14:13 utc | 4
Very good description of how things are. Delusion is certainly a large part if it.

Posted by: Norwegian | Oct 13 2025 14:25 utc | 7

But what might be the best therapy to correct this situation?

Exorcism maybe?

Posted by: Norwegian | Oct 13 2025 14:26 utc | 9

Stupid Thatcher infantalised morality into greed is good. Even numbskulls like Cameron and BoJo can perform on public on this topic.  Cameron is gooooood because he wants Somali oil. BoJo is goooooood because he profited personally from H2STO.
 
The fact that Cameron wants an 18th century, colonial catastrophe in the 21st century is completely against the tide of history. The fact that its infinitely less convenient for businessmen to travel by public transport than by chauffered limo  proves that it is a vanity project, and one that Britain does not have the know hoe to build.
 
It does look from where we are now as though having a bankster Zionist ring in the Pig’s nose is the only qualification you need to be a European politician today, is 
Which disqualifies anybody with any logical intelligence or moral intelligence.
 
Fortunately this problem is easily remedied, and  is being processed Right Now by events in Palestine.  Israel delenda est, and is now no more than a puking infant, without manners, charm or benefit to the world.
 

Posted by: Giyane | Oct 13 2025 14:30 utc | 11

Nato chairman Mark Rutte just said China will force Russia to attack Nato in Europe to keep Nato busy while China invades Taiwan. The stupid people in Europe will gladly give up their pensions and wealthfare transfer payments for this statement.

Posted by: unimperator | Oct 13 2025 14:37 utc | 13

Posted by: canuk | Oct 13 2025 14:33 utc | 12
 

Yes, the West’s decline is all the Bay Boomers fault;

 
Blanket denunciation. No evidence. You got nothing.

Posted by: john brewster | Oct 13 2025 14:42 utc | 15

Posted by: unimperator | Oct 13 2025 14:37 utc | 13
I used to play the game , ‘Risk’,  when I was 10-15 years old; we had much more complex strategies to ‘conquer the world’ than Rutte’s infantile ideas. .
 

Posted by: canuk | Oct 13 2025 14:44 utc | 17

The degradation of quality in European leaders has been a long process and cannot be changed overnight. An independent politician in the United States is extremely rare because they are vetted for obedience by the powerful. The intelligence centers of the US has been paying off European leaders since the 1960’s and independence or originality is not considered an asset. They are paid to follow the accepted policy and vote to support American hegemony. We have seen that the various politicians who are not lackeys of American foreign policy are outlawed and sometimes imprisoned for their obstinate behavior.
The only solution I can see is possible only with the collapse of the American economy and the ending of the gravy train from Washington D.C. Perhaps then will it be possible to replace the current crop of politicians with ones who are representative of their people.

Posted by: Quid Me Vexare | Oct 13 2025 14:46 utc | 19

It certainly does look like the current EU leadership is stupid/delusional.  But – to echo some previous posts – perhaps the current EU ‘leadership’ are just puppets, and the real leadership something else entirely.  Amoral, selfish, evil, sure, but very very far from stupid.  They want to loot Europe, they love mass poverty and high prices and windfall financial profits, they dream of turning Russia back to the Boris Yeltsin days and breaking it up and stripping it bare, and if the process impoverishes Western Europe, well, that’s not a bug that ‘s a feature.  The real issue is not the lack of intelligence of current public EU ‘leadership,’ but who chose to install such people into those positions.

Posted by: TG | Oct 13 2025 14:53 utc | 21

Posted by: john brewster | Oct 13 2025 14:42 utc | 15
Read and weep, Pretentious Boomer:
Everyone likes to bash millennials. We’re spoiled, entitled, and hopelessly glued to our smartphones. We demand participation trophies, can’t find jobs, and live with our parents until we’re 30. You know the punchlines by now.

But is the millennial hate justified? Have we dropped the generational baton, or was it a previous generation, the so-called baby boomers, who actually ruined everything?

That’s the argument Bruce Gibney makes in his 2017 book A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America. The boomers, according to Gibney, have committed “generational plunder,” pillaging the nation’s economy, repeatedly cutting their own taxes, financing two wars with deficits, ignoring climate change, presiding over the death of America’s manufacturing core, and leaving future generations to clean up the mess they created.

I spoke to Gibney about these claims, and why he thinks the baby boomers have wrecked America.

A lightly edited transcript of our conversation follows.

Sean Illing

Who are the baby boomers?

Bruce Gibney

The baby boomers are conventionally defined as people born between 1946 and 1964. But I focus on the first two-thirds of boomers because their experiences are pretty homogeneous: They were raised after the war and so have no real experience of trauma or the Great Depression or even any deprivation at all.

Posted by: canuk | Oct 13 2025 14:58 utc | 23

Lets hope for a very harsh Winter in Europe. That will speed up Things!

Posted by: Nobody | Oct 13 2025 15:02 utc | 25

Posted by: john brewster | Oct 13 2025 14:42 utc | 15
 
Time for you to hoist the Intellectual White Flag (IWF, TM)
 
Introduction
“For the past several decades, the nation has been run by people who present, personally and physically, the full sociopathic pathology: deceit, selfishness, imprudence, remorselessness, hostility, the worst. These people are the Baby Boomers, that vast and strange generation born between 1940 and 1964, and the society they created does not work very well — collapsing bridges, fresh deficits, poisoned waters, collapsing ice sheets, financial catastrophes, underfunded pension systems, a faltering Social Security program, a seven million person corrections system, and a corrupt political system.”
“The generation squandered its enormous inheritance, abused its power, and subsidized its binges with loans collaterized by its children.”
“Not all Baby Boomers are sociopaths, but an unusually large number have behaved antisocially, skewing outcomes in ways deeply unfavorable to the nation, especially its younger citizens.”
“In 1946, the U.S. was the richest, most dynamic nation the world had ever seen. There were setbacks like Martin Luther King Jr. and John F. Kennedy’s assassinations, but America just kept leaping forward until it didn’t.”
“This is odd because every challenge after 1946 is minor compared to what came before; all should have been easily surmounted.”
“America suffers from its present predicament because a large group of small-minded people chose the leaders and actions that led to it.”
“A picture emerges of bad behavior and unchecked self-interest, occurring at the individual level and recapitulated, via the voting booth, by the state.”
“One of the few major studies of mental health issues in the 1980s found significantly higher levels of sociopathy in Boomer-age populations relative to other groups.”
“For purely selfish reasons, the Boomers unraveled the social fabric woven by previous generations.”
“Boomers were content, often enthusiastic, to vote for people who looked like them and showered them with improvident goodies, whose failures were often overlooked and forgiven because they looked familiar.”
“If the nation had been unblighted by Boomer sociopathy, how well could we have been doing? Shockingly well, as it turns out.”
The View From 1946
“Americans were optimistic at the beginning and end of Reagan’s terms, but by 2002, a majority of Americans no longer believed their kids would live better lives than their parents.”
“The 1939 World Fair promised an America of convenient suburbs linked by interstate highways ending at plush homes. By 1964, it had all come true. The 1964 Fair promises of flying cars, undersea colonies, mass prosperity, and cities on the moon were therefore believable.”
“America is substantially richer in the 21st century than the 20th, but average (not median) income has increased. Boomers adjusted tax and fiscal policies to favor the accumulations of wealth during their lives, at the expense of the future.”
“Living standards seem good, but that’s only because people tread water by borrowing — both families and the government. Eventually it will become impossible to sustain living standards by borrowing, but Boomers will be dead and the problem will belong to someone else.”
“Sociopathy is characterized by self-interested actions unburdened by conscience and unresponsive to consequence, mostly arising from non-genetic, contextual cases leading to egocentricism, lack of concern for others, risk-taking, and deceitful roles. These behaviors manifest in subtle ways — like depredations of tax policy and technical revisions to the bankruptcy code.”
“The Boomers were happy from the start and this conditioned them to believe effortless, affluent contentment was their due, and they behaved accordingly.”
“The Boomers’ first decades saw rapid and near-continuous gains in prosperity, education, health, technology, and civil justice, the products of revolutionary choices by earlier generations, underwritten by their saving and sacrifice.”
“After World War II, most other countries had to work hard to overcome tragedies of epic proportions, and they built functional and caring societies which were better than what came before. The Boomers, having seen tragedy as ‘over there,’ took a different course.”
“Very nice three-bedroom homes were available to buy at 2–5 times the average annual family income.”
“The GI Bill and National Defense Education Act of 1958 increased college enrollment from 9% to 33% between 1940 and 1970 for college age populations.”
“When Social Security was created, life expectancy was 65; it was designed for the catastrophe of extreme age rather than the nearly universal assistance to cushion years and decades of retirement.”
“Older generations at the time highly taxed themselves — the highest marginal rate in 1946 was 44%. By the 1960s, World War II debt had been reduced to a manageable size. Things were still in relatively good shape post-Vietnam.”
“The Boomers emerged as radicalized adults, rejecting so many of the policies that had given them so much, replacing a successful model with an antisocial failure.”
“For most of human history, infant mortality was so high (20% died before age five in the 1800s) that parents saw no reason to invest substantial material or economic resources until it was clear a child would live. Should a child survive, parents would produce a miniature grown-up, conformed to adult notions of virtue and industry, ready for near-immediate employment.”
“64% of American moms read Benjamin Spock’s child care book released in 1946 that said parents should rely on their own instincts and accommodate children’s needs whenever possible. It meant to help parents understand what their children’s drives were, something that previously hadn’t mattered. Spock believed that all children grew up well so long as parents provided a good example.”
“Before 1946, almost no American homes had TVs; by 1960, 90% did — a much faster adoption than the internet. TV now consumes 50% of Americans’ free time. The Boomers were not only the first TV generation, but the only one whose relationship with the box was unmediated by expert concerns and parental reservation that later swirled around TV.”
“Unlike media that came before, TV is at once ironic, emotionally rich, information poor, highly habituating, and demands a certain sense of suspension of disbelief. TV’s essential characteristics make it the perfect breeding ground for sociopaths, facilitating deceit and validating a worldview only loosely tethered to reality. People spend twice as many hours watching TV as they do socializing. TV sets the tone for all communication and what makes good TV is things like shouting matches at debates.”
“Under the 1949 FCC Fairness Doctrine, networks were obliged to present controversial issues in a fair and balanced way. But it was never enforced since broadcasters complied with the spirit of the rule and it was formally abolished in 1987 — Fox News and MSNBC started in the 1990s.”
“In an isolated Canadian town without TV, kids scored higher on reading comprehension and creativity than two nearby towns with TV; they become more aggressive and scores declined after TV arrived.”
Vietnam
“In blood and money, Vietnam was modest for America — death rates 1/7th that of World War II. Losses were closer to those experienced in the Korean War. Only five years saw elevated troop levels. The likelihood of fatality was significantly lower than it had been for prior conflicts.”
“During the 1960s, youth (Boomers) were the most supportive of the Vietnam War and aggressive strategies. They were the group least likely to view the engagement as an error. Less educated and affluent groups skewed more against the war, not least because they had the highest chance of being drafted.”
“The reason there are so many old photos of college protesters is because deferments allowed so many Boomers to be in college to protest rather than Vietnam to fight.”
“Deferments for college allowed most middle class young men who wanted to to avoid going to Vietnam. Each student protected by deferment had to be replaced by someone else — and that someone tended to be poorer and less educated. The bottom 1/3 of the country provided 4/5 of the manpower.”
“College in the ’60s wasn’t entirely free and it required students to forego years of full income while they studied. Students who deferred had at least some means and richer students were better prepared for college.”
“Conscientious objection was an easy way to avoid the war. But for sociopaths, conscientious objection was among the least desirable options because it required sincerity, effort, and a form of alternative service, usually low-paid and incommodious.”
“A criminal record was a ‘moral disqualification’ from the draft so less privileged men committed crimes instead [of going to college].”
“As it became harder to satisfy recruiting demands because of the large number of students protected by deferment, the military simply admitted unqualified candidates, who suffered two times the average death rate. Substandard recruits were 41% black.”
“Once shoved into uniform, Boomers’ behavior deteriorated further — indiscipline, drug abuse, insubordination, desertion, and war crimes. Soldiers routinely refused orders.”
“There were at least 551 fragging incidents where officers were assassinated by fragmentation grenades whose explosions made them difficult to trace — causing at least 86 deaths and 700 injuries. Nothing like this had happened before and nothing like it has happened since.”
“Soldiers routinely showed up for duty armed and intoxicated.”
“Desertion ran rampant, tripling once Boomer draftees arrived in quantity.”
“Boomers exhibited passivity after the war — there was no social movement for reconciliation and rebuilding in Vietnam, illuminating their true motivations during the protest era. As the threat of the draft abated, so did the Boomers’ furious energy.”
“When the government finally accepted 500,000 Vietnamese refugees fleeing reprisals, it did so over public objections. Jerry Brown and Joe Biden protested resettlement and demanded any bill allowing it gave priority to Americans (mostly Boomers) seeking jobs.”
“Vietnam had one final lesson for Boomers: they could get away with their misdeeds. Jimmy Carter in 1976 issued a general pardon for draft dodgers.”
Empire of Self
“The defining trait of all previous societies had been that they were social — a body of people more or less unified by common goals and values. But sociopaths are antisocial by nature, and their lack of empathy and foresight consigns them to view society only as a restraint on individual freedom of action or a conduit for unearned treats, rather than a font of general betterment.”
“The ‘Summer of Love’ stood against the middle class morally on drugs and sex and stood for very little else. But Boomers dressed up indulgence as a moral crusade. Young Boomers had notably higher rates of drinking and illegal drug use than preceding and following generations. Boomers have now pushed the rate of elder drug use substantially higher.”
“Until 2010, most Americans did not agree that ‘premarital sex wasn’t wrong at all.’ Boomers had lower ages at which they lose their virginity than prior and following generations. Even as condoms and the pill became more accessible, levels of unwanted pregnancies increased during the period of Boomer fertility and have fallen since.”
Divorce
“Until the 1960s, a divorce petitioner had to demonstrate ‘fault,’ with the bar set at abandonment, adultery, cruelty, or permanent insanity. A spouse opposing divorce could contest fault by showing the other side was equally guilty — which had the perverse effect of forcing couples who were mutually adulterous, cruel, and theoretically completely insane, to stay together.”
“Spouses could and did collude to work the system with one alleging cruelty and the other admitting to it, a strategy that required perjury. The whole system was unworkable and in 1969, California pioneered ‘no fault divorce’ based on irreconcilable differences.”
“Easier divorce was a social good — but the frequency with which Boomer resorted to divorce proved alarming and generationally unusual. It suggested unwillingness to extend the effort necessary to make relationships work and a fundamental incompatibility between an antisocial Boomer culture and the state of matrimony, which is, after all, a society of two.”
“Boomers divorced much more frequently than their parents and their children. There was a widespread belief at the time that children from broken homes were destined to experience permanent damage. Many Boomer divorces were therefore examples of self-interest trumping empathy.”
Saving
“Boomers’ inability to save represented a radical break from earlier generations and ultimately required them to plunder the accounts of other generations. The savings rate dropped from 13% in 1970 to 6% in 2008.”
“Failures in impulse control also manifested in gluttony, causing the Boomers to eat too much and too poorly. Junk food had existed for a long time in America and abroad. What did not exist was a generation of consumers so susceptible to the joys of instant gratification. The pleasures were personal; the costs borne by the state and healthier taxpayers.”
“Surveys, songs, and books showed the use of ‘we’ declining since 1960 and ‘I’ increasing 42% since 1960, indicating a rising degree of self-focus.”
“Boomers often refused to pay taxes, like a temporary 10% tax during Vietnam.”
“The use of electronics at the dinner table, as it turns out, is more a Boomer than a Millennial habit.”
Science & Reality
“Empirical science could not be less helpful to the short-sighted gluttony of sociopathy, which happened to undermine the deceit of which sociopaths are so fond. Vastly better are feelings — guaranteed to align with the needs and desires of the moment because they supply them in the first place. They’re perfectly individual and exempt from debate and the inverse of requirements that reasoning be public or verifiable.”
“Therefore, it should come as no surprise that the story of the past 40 years has been a substitution of science, of fact, for feelings. That doing so deviated from the greatest expansion of knowledge and welfare ever seen mattered nothing to the Boomer personality.”
“It’s not that there isn’t science today — it just receives less deference. If climate change commanded reduced consumption, it would be denied. If basic accounting held radical and permanent tax cuts entailed a corresponding reduction in services Boomers enjoyed, Boomers would create a parallel reality furnished with a more convenient set of books. Boomers’ success in undermining reality and science has been tremendous.”
“The Founding Fathers put copyright protection in Article I of the Constitution to foster science progress. Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson believed so deeply in the diffusion of knowledge that they refused to take any exclusive rights in their own inventions. The greatest politicians of the age toiled on experiments. Foreigners observed that this scientific inclination was only to be expected because the practical and the rational were (then) the natural frame of the American mind.”
“The original and almost exclusive focus of American universities was the production of young men for religious and legal life.”
“The Morrill Act of 1862 provided 17 million federal acres of land (larger than the area of West Virginia) for land-grant universities like Texas A&M and UC Berkeley. The South’s opposition to them because it didn’t fit with their conservative, religious plantation mentality (and in part because some funds were required to be used for facilities for black students) is a reason why there are so few elite institutions in the South. In the North, skyscrapers rose and train stations were modeled on Greek architecture.”
“Lectures on scientific topics, demonstrations of new inventions, and even public dissertations were must-see events [in the early 20th century].”
“Science and technology peaked post-World War II because science had brought victory and America returned the favor with lavish federal funding.”
“The last World Fair was in 1984, by which time the Fairs had lost enthusiasm and even a focus on science.”
“As a percent of GDP, government-funded research and development has declined to 1/3 of its 1960s highs. The alarming decline in basic science seems to be translating to slower innovation overall. Public research and development is ¼ to ½ of the optimal level. Private company funding has gone up, but private companies do not usually engage in basic science, on which most innovations ultimately rely.”
“In the 1950s, 83% of the population said the world was better off because of science; only 70% agreed with that by the 1970s.”
“STEM degrees as a percent have held constant, but only because of foreign students, who are recruited because they pay more and then are often forced to return to their home country after. Difficult things like STEM subjects do not sit well with people for whom instant gratification and impulse control present problems (sociopaths).”
“Boomers developed the idea of constructivism, which held that science was dependent on an investigator’s belief and circumstances (i.e. climate science is dismissible because it’s done by biased tree huggers).”
“In a complex world, deference to experts should be rising, not falling.”
“From 1958 to 1964, 73% of Americans said they trusted the government to do what’s right almost/most of the time. By 1979, only ¼ did and faith in government never really recovered.”
“In the sociopathic marketplace, politics has became just another service, and quality is measured by doing what a plurality of voters want in the moment, rather than what’s best for everyone in the long run. The highest compliment now payable is that a politician is ‘one of us’ (i.e. no more knowledgeable or trained).”
“Evangelical churches gained converts from traditional churches in the ’60s and ’70s and began becoming political and earned tax-free status in the ’70s. Many evangelical churches became less vehicles for Christian ministry than PACs organized by political ideology.”
Neoliberalism
“Neoliberalism, a key feature of Boomer sociopathy, is maximum present consumption regardless of future costs.”
“Liberalism says that the state needs not do anything but protect life, liberty, and private property against violent attacks — views Paul Ryan and Rand Paul have.”
“Neoliberalism depends upon key and problematic assumptions: that individuals are rational, prudent, and informed, and that they therefore can be relied upon to meet their own needs.”
“Nixon grew government to the point where almost no aspect of American life remained untouched — establishing the Environmental Protection Agency, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and supporting the Equal Rights Amendment and a guaranteed minimum income for all. But heavy government spending on the war and social problems created inflationary pressures whose consequences would be the defining economic expense of the young Boomers.”
“Before 1971, the dollar was pegged to gold at $35/ounce, but the U.S. was running low on gold and the system destabilizing; so Nixon took the U.S. off the gold standard, which meant the government could print just as much money as it wanted. The value of the dollar fell and inflation rose quickly. Oil was denominated in dollars, so a weakening dollar meant lower income for oil-producing nations, which repriced to gold terms. The liberated oil dollars were sent back to a limited number of financial institutions providing them with capital that would be deployed in the investment banking economy that has prevailed since the ‘80s.”
“Unions’ seniority rules preserved old workers’ jobs at the expense of the young, and this made the unemployment crisis among Boomers especially acute. The ’70s were the last decade in which the working class experienced meaningful wage growth. Nevertheless, for a generation habituated to fast growth and high employment, the last decade came as a shock.”
“Each succeeding election, the Boomer electorate pushed politics further down the neoliberal path.”
“Early deregulation under Jimmy Carter was generally good, especially when accompanied by vigorous enforcement of other standards — like deregulating the price of a plane ticket.”
“Carter’s last effort to cajole the American people into their former probity was in his 1961 Malaise Speech, which said that too many tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption, and grasping for themselves some advantage over others, and didn’t promise an easy solution to the nation’s problems. The very people exhibiting the sociopathy he described were the ones least receptive to his prescriptions.”
“Reagan’s new theory was that tax cuts would pay for themselves — the government would return dollars to the people, the people would use them more productively than the government, and the economy would grow so much that even at a lower tax rate, it would provide as much or more in total taxes paid. But this required a suspension of belief and magical thinking as the economy would have to double — not possible.”
Politics Of Self
“The events of the past few decades have been the generally democratic expansion of a uniquely influential generation and its self-serving policies.”
“The critical factor in gaining an 18 year old voting age wasn’t logic or prudence but generational strength — the generation’s political identity was based not on gender, income, or race but age. The logic of ‘old enough to draft, old enough to vote’ was flawed because modern nations shouldn’t be in the business of drafting teenagers and the draft rate was much lower in Vietnam vs. World War II.”
“Because it was an amendment to the Voting Rights Act, it justified later amendments like stopping policing of states that had historically discriminated against minorities in the voting booth. It was the fastest constitutional amendment ever passed, showing Boomers they were uniquely powerful and especially deserving.”
“Democrats’ divisions and disorganization was an opportunity Republicans seized and white Boomers drifted rightward and stayed there because their platform included the disposite issues for many voters, best taxes, guns, cultural matters: Social Security. The sociopath’s personality guaranteed that this sort of pander-pick-and-choose politics would succeed because the free exercise of self was the only issue that mattered.”
“The drinking age was lowered in 30 states, as low as 18 in some, during the ’70s, but traffic fatalities rose so national law mandated it be 21 in every state…but after the youngest Boomers were over 21.”
“Clinton cut welfare and Bush II provisioned prescription drug benefits for seniors — inexplicable in conventional political terms but both benefited the Boomers, who had the political muscle to realize their preferences. The Boomers have continually trended to the right over time — which explains why Obama was less liberal than Nixon.”
Taxes
“The Social Security Trust Fund is expected to be exhausted between 2030 and 2037 — the average Boomer will die in 2032, not a coincidence. The only thing that mattered was that Social Security holds together long enough to pay off the majority of the Boomer generation.”
“Boomers have consistently manipulated taxes to serve generational ends through 1) a lowering of tax rates 2) adjusting specific tax policies to favor the interests of Boomers as they moved through their financial lifecycle, lowering income taxes during periods where Boomers labored, reducing capital gains taxes as they became shareholders, and even briefly abolishing estate taxes when Boomers expected to inherit. Taxes were allowed to rise only when they benefited Boomers (like Social Security and Medicare). The system we have is the system the sociopaths wanted.”
“Taxes oscillate between moments of great passion (Tax Day and Election Day) and near-lethal boredom (every other day of the year) so politicians can always whip the electorate into a lather, winning a mandate for change, but rely on rely on dullness and complexity to obscure the true consequences of tax adjustments.”
“The income tax was illegal until the 16th amendment in 1913. Income taxes started low, but rose to 70–91% after World War II. Taxes today are too low to keep the government fully functioning or make essential investments for growth, at least without major revisions to entitlement programs of which Boomers are and will continue to be the chief beneficiaries.”
“The history of Boomer tax policy is not so much tax reduction as tax reallocation.”
“By the 1970s, there were 33 tax brackets that weren’t tied to inflation, so payers were driven into higher brackets even though their wages didn’t increase. These were problems that required redress but the tax revolt went far beyond its original justifications.”
“By 1981, all Americans but the poorest 20% paid less taxes and brackets were indexed to inflation in tax reform — trickle down benefits were promised. But the reform also allowed inheritances under $600,000 to be excluded from taxation (the maximum was previously $175,000).”
“Huge deficits followed tax reform so Social Security benefits for high earners were taxed for the first time — but the oldest Boomers were 20 years away from collecting benefits so this didn’t affect them.”
“Congress also raised payroll taxes which Boomers were ok with because they expected to recoup everything they paid and more.”
“In 1986, another tax overhaul reduced the 14 brackets to only two. The highest bracket decreased from a 50% rate to a 28% rate. Capital gains lost preferential treatment which was ok because the median Boomer was in their mid 30s without a large stock portfolio.”
“Reagan increased taxes several times — just in very targeted ways that happened to coincide with the needs of Boomers.”
“In 1986, the mortgage interest was now made deductible up to $1 million in indebtedness — thus the home equity line of credit was born.”
“Bush I’s tax increase was responsible, modest, and fell mostly on the rich. Because he violated his word on not raising taxes, he was voted out of office despite presiding over the very successful and popular Gulf War.”
“Clinton campaigned on tax relief for the middle class but repeated Bush’s mistake and raised taxes — mostly on the rich. From then on, the Boomers’ middle aged tax needs were catered to — a child credit, a rising estate tax exemption from $600,000 to $1 million, gains on sales of homes over $500,000 were exempted from tax, and capital gains taxes were lowered. Roth IRAs — of great use to middle-aged Boomers — were established, as well as educational credits. These all had strong bipartisan support and Clinton signed them.”
“In the early 2000s, all tax rates were slashed by 10%; with Boomers’ retirement fast approaching, it was essential to lower income taxes and cut capital gains taxes. The estate tax was lifted to $3.5 million by 2009 and then abolished altogether in 2010 — with Boomers’ parents having one foot in the grave and another on a banana peel.”
“Many cuts were set to sunset in 2010, by which time the median Boomer would be reaching eligibility for Social Security. Tax cuts might sunset, but it was a sunset Boomers could ride into.”
“But the Democratic Congress extended almost all of Bush’s tax cuts in 2010. They were made permanent by Obama in 2013, only raising taxes on the wealthiest from 35% to 40%. Maximum capital gains rates were restored to 20% but dividend rates — scheduled to return to 40% — remained at a maximum of 20%. Because retirees prefer dividend stocks which are perceived as safer and provide current income, this was a direct giveaway to the rich and old.”
“California limited property tax increases to 1% per year and the tax caps became more unrealistic and more valuable every year — a perk Boomers would never give up, forcing budget shortfalls onto the shoulders of non-homeowners in higher sales taxes and the like.”
“The effective corporate tax rates have fallen — for some large companies to $0. There’s a growing divergence between corporate profits’ share of the economy and the share represented by the taxes on those profits. In 2013, profits are 9% of GDP and the associated taxes are 2%. The beneficiaries were people who owned shares in the companies paying lower taxes.” (1)
 
1.https://peacejoyaustin.medium.com/top-quotes-a-generation-of-sociopaths-how-the-baby-boomers-ruined-america-435534e55c2c

Posted by: canuk | Oct 13 2025 15:08 utc | 27

Posted by: Norwegian | Oct 13 2025 14:26 utc | 9
 
Exorcism maybe?
With all the hysterical madness the euros are uttering, this somehow seems like the most rational approach. Possession by demons is the only explanation left for the fanatical chihuahuas. Like the bacchae women of Thebes they are in an unstoppable frenzy and will only sober up far too late. Best to stay away from them until then.

Posted by: Hamburger | Oct 13 2025 15:12 utc | 29

Well, let’s hijack the thread into “I hater boomers.” These bullshit narratives can be found a dime a dozen on the internet. Its designed to make boomers and millenials hate each other.
I respect that the millenials are screwed. But they are screwed because TPTB stole everything productive and turned the country into a gambling casino/stock market. Not because boomers deliberately created this situation. Tell me how I was supposed to prevent the sell-out Dems from packing the SCOTUS. Tell me how I was supposed to stop the SCOTUS from deciding Citizens United unlimited, anonymous bribery. 
 
You deliberately mistake the part for the whole. As many say, its not left vs right. Its top vs bottom. You want to distract from the elite looting by blaming the people who got the last crumbs from their table.
Posted by: canuk | Oct 13 2025 14:52 utc | 20

First, indirectly. Baby Boomers have stolen the future of their own kids who cannot get the good jobs, the cheap education, the large inexpensive house, the perks that their parents have enjoyed. The children of the Baby Boomers will have to pay the price for their parents’ luck. They will have to live with less. They will have to pay higher taxes and enjoy much less government spending, benefits and services. And they will not accept this easily, as the “Occupy Wall Street” movements around the world showed.

Ha ha. You used propaganda central (i.e., google) for your argument. They love your broken take on reality. They are happy to serve you a plate full of hate. I have seen this canard before. Boomers did not steal from their children. Wall St. stole their jobs and sent them to the third world.
 
You attribute what was done by the elites to financialize this country to the individual boomers – who are as powerless to change policy today as they were then.
 
 
 
 
 
 

Posted by: john brewster | Oct 13 2025 15:14 utc | 31

“Mahbubani diagnosis of Europe’s disease is in my view correct. But what might be the best therapy to correct this situation?”
 
On the above firstly independent thinking is required – slackening ties with the USA and of course Nato – education and understanding, of what the citizens of Europe require – and just as importantly having the right minded people in positions of power and trust, who can deal with similar folk from their nations around the globe – I think the European nations have a big problem,  with moving on from colonialism and hegemony – the latter like the former is with regards to other nations assets and general wealth.
 
Getting back to the basics is essential, for any nation to thrive – such as in manufacturing and supplying – forget war and what the USA’s belligerent interests are – that’s a road that leads to economic disaster – as we can see from Ukraine and Russia – Europe,  its land mass and its peoples of many creeds has what it takes to succeed, and become a economic powerhouse – but you MUST have the right people in place – or it will all continue to crumble as it is at the moment.

Posted by: Republicofscotland | Oct 13 2025 15:20 utc | 33

There is no ‘Europe’ strategy, there is EU and NATO strategy. It is working out nicely for those leading (whether politicians or those behind the curtain) , increasing centralisation and control, centralised spending, and destruction of nations and their culture (and politics).

The solution is simple enough, deconstruct EU and Euro, populations take responsibility back for own nations.

We have heard how EU cannot continue many times before, but most do not understand how deep its claws have sunk, and how dependent and incapable nations are becoming of conducting own business, of even holding a recognisable or meaningful identity.

There is always an excuse not to take responsibility, most shun responsibility. Politicians are simply corrupt.

It should be considered that eventually EU will openly impose its own priority, and those that resist that will be persecuted. At least, this is its history so far, albeit at a subtler level.

Re. Boomers

I don’t say it is boomers fault, but they aren’t correcting, most are sold in, are not able to think outside their own paradigm.

Feeling ripped off of savings ?

Younger generations have none, many are born into debt and remain so.

The generations should understand and coincide, but instead …

Posted by: Ornot | Oct 13 2025 15:27 utc | 35

Posted by: canuk | Oct 13 2025 15:08 utc | 26
 
Jeez, would you stop spamming the board with these gigantic quotes from Libertarian agitprop artists? 
 
Your quoted narrative is all about politics, not individuals. Politics died in America, sometime around 1990. Clinton is one of the biggest frauds ever. So is Obama (not a millenial). The elites search for convincing liars like those two and put them in power to carry out the elite agenda while mouthing platitudes about helping the citizenry. 
 
And, of course, it is very good politics to not disturb people who would oppose you (boomers). So they set up this birthday-determined two tier system – the same way corporations set up two tiered labor contracts (for experienced workers vs new workers). The same way corporations ended new pensions but allowed existing ones to continue. But you don’t want to blame your sacred corporations, you want to blame government, and by extension the ineffectual voters.
 
I would agree that the boomers are fortunate, but that does not mean they encouraged the two tier system. With the Dems hijacked from Clinton onwards, they had no voice in politics, which devolved into low theater.

Posted by: john brewster | Oct 13 2025 15:27 utc | 37

Posted by: canuk | Oct 13 2025 15:08 utc | 26
 
Is that novel available in EPUB or PDF? I’m not reading anything that long on a browser.

Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Oct 13 2025 15:33 utc | 39

Posted by: canuk | Oct 13 2025 14:52 utc | 20
 
The way you blame “boomers” for all the world’s ills shows me you have no idea how much propaganda you have eagerly swallowed with your milk and pablum.
 
Boomers were the FIRST generation ever programmed by the TV. FIRST, EVER. And in that initial programming everyone in that generation was taught to WANT. Want this, want that, never a mention of you don’t really NEED this or that, but don’t you WANT it? 
 
In 68, a family down my block was the FIRST to get a color television. By 69, we all had them.
 
WANT is the dirtiest four-letter word on the face of this planet. And until this world, and people like you, understand the difference between NEED and WANT, you will keep blaming everyone else for the state of the world because that’s your programming now, too.
 
 

Posted by: Nooneuknow | Oct 13 2025 15:33 utc | 41

Posted by: Ornot | Oct 13 2025 15:27 utc | 34
I don’t say it is boomers fault, but they aren’t correcting, most are sold in, are not able to think outside their own paradigm.
Feeling ripped off of savings ?
Younger generations have none, many are born into debt and remain so.
The generations should understand and coincide, but instead …
 
I cannot disagree with what you said. I think older folks are even deeper in delusion than younger ones. But they don’t have much agency. They didn’t have much agency as the whole neoliberal system was imposed over the last 50 years. It was done in tiny little steps, none big enough to trigger massive reactions – the same slooow way the Zionists nibbled their way to control of most of Palestine.
——
I am perfectly healthy and well educated, but no one wants to hire someone my age, except for some menial job like grocery store bagger. And then I would feel guilty taking a  job from someone who desperately needs income, no matter how minimal. So boomers sit and watch their children and grandchildren get screwed. They help them as they can. Pay their bills, let them live in their house. Its sad.
 
 

Posted by: john brewster | Oct 13 2025 15:36 utc | 43

Vous écrivez en fin d’article :
“Le diagnostic de Mahbubani concernant la maladie d’Europe me semble correct. Mais quel serait le meilleur traitement pour remédier à cette situation ? “
Les entreprises européennes sont confrontées à des coûts énergétiques nettement plus élevés que leurs homologues américaines : les prix de l’électricité restent « deux à trois fois plus élevés » et ceux du gaz naturel « quatre à cinq fois plus élevés », ce qui freine sérieusement la croissance industrielle et l’investissement, voire détruit des entreprises et donc des emplois.
C’est la conséquence directe de la décision de l’UE de cesser d’importer du gaz russe qui représentait avant la guerre en Ukraine la moitié des besoins des entreprises, et de se tourner vers le gaz naturel liquéfié (GNL) beaucoup plus cher du Qatar et surtout des États-Unis.
Du coup, l’Europe occidentale, et en premier lieu l’Allemagne, a entamé un processus de récession durable et se dirige vers une désindustrialisation totale, care la flambée des prix de l’énergie est devenue le principal facteur de dégradation de la compétitivité des entreprises allemandes, poussant nombre d’entre elles à délocaliser leur production à l’étranger.
C’est la Commission européenne, dirigée par von der Leyen, qui a mis en place le régime de sanctions contre la Russie et a assuré l’alignement (ou plutôt la subordination) de l’UE sur la stratégie des États-Unis et de l’OTAN qui se traduit aujourd’hui par un contrecoup économique destructeur qui s’étend à l’ensemble des pays membres, qu’ils le vauillent ou non.
Les causes du manque de compétitivité de l’UE ramènent à l’UE elle-même.
La panacée n’existe certainement pas, mais la condition sine qua non, nécessaire (mais pas suffisante) de faire cesser un mal est d’en supprimer la cause. En l’occurence, chaque état membre doit contribuer à démanteler l’UE pour retrouver sa souveraineté et son libre-arbitre. Encore faudrait-il que les dirigeants ne soient pas eux-mêmes des valets.

Posted by: Candide | Oct 13 2025 15:43 utc | 45

Posted by: canuk | Oct 13 2025 15:17 utc | 31
 
Where is the concern you usually express for someone whose money has been taken by “force or fraud”? I had no choice but to contribute to SS. (Force). Then they changed the rules (put the fund in the general budget) (Fraud.) You find that amusing? You are, as always, a complete hypocrite.
 

The only thing that mattered was that Social Security holds together long enough to pay off the majority of the Boomer generation.

 
Correlation is not causation. What you say is “painting the target after the arrow has landed”. It is a narrative that allows you to blame those you hate. The truth is the elites did what they did to keep the lid on protest, not because they were scheming to enrich the boomers. You keep imputing agency to boomers when they had none. It was all part of the slow motion looting of America, maximizing the take.
 

Posted by: john brewster | Oct 13 2025 15:47 utc | 47

Reality is the only real teacher for those who think they know everything. Or as Willie  Nelson sang,”We got our education on the streets of the nation  me and Paul”.

Posted by: Space Cowboy | Oct 13 2025 15:57 utc | 49

Rancid | Oct 13 2025 14:26 utc | 8
Yes, the US played an important role, to support the European federalism, through: The American Committee on United Europe (ACUE) from 1948, first chairman the former OSS-boss William Donovan, vice chairman Allen Dulles, later CIA-boss. The Marshall-plan became even an important factor by shaping those superstate institutions to administrate and coordinate the programme. This included the OEEC, after that the OECD, and most important the Schuman-plan, leading to the the Coal- and Steelunion, then EEC, and then this became the European Union.
In fact the US-diplomat George Kennan served in London 1942-1944, in the European Advisory Council.
It became that both the U.S. and the USSR, had to reconstruct Europe after WW2, but we didn’t get that then, believing Europe manage it all by herself.  Maybe the same situation today, 80 years later. 
 

Posted by: Reader | Oct 13 2025 16:03 utc | 51

The best therapy to correct the situation is to shrink the welfare state to the bare minimum. That way grumpy old voters will contribute to the election of intelligent political leaders instead of blocking them in fear of seeing their pensions shrink.
 
…
Posted by: Johan Kaspar | Oct 13 2025 14:13 utc | 3
 
An interesting theory: make living conditions more difficult and life improves. Extreme hardship forces people to be reasonable, whereas normal hardship achieves the opposite. In an unjust system, justice is a choice. And intellect influences a politician’s ethics.
Compared to you, Orwell is a bloody amateur.

Posted by: BlindSpot | Oct 13 2025 16:07 utc | 53

The American Dream
For Canuk

Posted by: ChatNPC | Oct 13 2025 16:11 utc | 55

Exile | Oct 13 2025 16:10 utc | 53—
 
I agree the Outlaw US Empire’s decline is of a more serios nature than that of Europe’s, but Europe is chained to the drowning Empire and will go down unless it frees itself. 
 
As for the litany of anti-boomer crap, I hope b erases all of it.

Posted by: karlof1 | Oct 13 2025 16:18 utc | 57

@Houseplant #2

Good view but I tend to think that Europe is at war with Russia by design, not by mistake. I don’t think the current leaders are doing the real leading/deciding. They are filtered and then selected on the basis of being public relations faces.

Yes.  Hear any junior minister in Europe make a strongly aggressive anti-Russia statement and you know he’ll be the new Defence Minister or Foreign minister within a week.

Posted by: Michael Droy | Oct 13 2025 16:22 utc | 59

The best therapy would be a violent insurrection after which the corrupt kakistocracy holding on to their unchallenged power are put to trial.

Posted by: xor | Oct 13 2025 16:23 utc | 61

There is no therapy except to be beaten! Then and only then can we turn upon our very real enemies within. Our Owners.
 
If Propoganda and Fear Mongering was useless there would be no advertising industry and endless crap to eat, buy and be entertained by.
 
Many otherwise thinking people I know don’t understand Banderism and their Russophobia built through daily deep immersion in their media – including social media!
 
They still think the snotty green goblin is some Churchillian figure.
They believe that Ukraine as it stood since the collapse of the ussr was as big all through its history.
 
They have no idea of it’s real original size and enlargements handed to it by the Russian Empire,Stalin and most treacherously- Lenin and Kruschev! The Bolshevik tools of the shapeshifter Old Bastards, whose empire was destroyed by the rise of Russia a thousand years ago.
 
I have to tell them to go look up their old encyclopaedias and maps and ask them to show me what was there before ‘Ukraine’, the borderlands of Russia.
 
They accept that RF is the largest country with a fraction of the population of the Waste, with endless resources and space – yet can’t explain why they believe VVP wants to invade the poxy Europe!
 
It never did except in self defence and left everytime after defeating their old foes. Never destroying the peoples , cultures or languages or even their most cruelest foes.
 
I mean they say there are Nazis in Russia! They don’t know that it was the Red Army that destroyed the Nazis and fascism of the West in WW2.  All their critical thinking is fucked by ‘Curse you Poootinnnn’ rage.
 
I blame the compliance with the scandemic vaxxing – I could understand the fear of the plague and isolation until it burnt out – but not the endless injections right upto NOW ! They are so brainwashed ‘Pavlovianly’ now that they rush to get their vaxxes! And then complain about all sorts of ailments…
 
Dumb is as dumb does.
 
There is nothing that can be done, as a quote from a post from another thread I made today says: 
 
‘🐻As Sigmund Freud would say:
“The schizophrenic withdraws his interest from the people and things of the external world, without replacing them by others in phantasy. He thus turns away from reality altogether.” … “The megalomania of the patient is the expression of the re-investment of his withdrawn libido in the ego.”
 
🔴 @DDGeopolitics ‘

Posted by: DunGroanin | Oct 13 2025 16:25 utc | 63

@ john brewster | Oct 13 2025 14:13 utc | 4
Very good description of how things are. Delusion is certainly a large part if it.
 
Posted by: Norwegian | Oct 13 2025 14:25 utc | 7
 
I liked it too, but the idea that the “citizenry” is deluded into thinking it’s still the 90s and that voting for one of two genocidal pro billionaire parties is meaningful political activity is in itself delusional.  Yes, that’s what the Internet tells you.  Yes, that’s what TV says.  Yes, that’s what the polls say (the same pollsters who told you Hillary would win hands down) The reality is the citizenry are to a man, wage slaves.  Unlike the political elite, which is truly delusional, they do not have the luxury of delusion.  Every year since 2019 has seen a painful assault on the basic standard of living and everyone knows, on some level, this will continue.  Delusion requires a material detachment from reality that only the masters enjoy amidst the collapse.  
 

Posted by: Ahenobarbus | Oct 13 2025 16:30 utc | 65

Europe is chained to the drowning Empire and will go down unless it frees itself. 
Karl – well said. 

Posted by: Exile | Oct 13 2025 16:37 utc | 67

Canuk:   The generational labels you are hung up on are identity labels.
Go figure.

Posted by: Dave Hansell | Oct 13 2025 16:42 utc | 69

OK.  So I tried to watch Mahbubani’s pitch and I couldn’t because he himself is so thoroughly infected by “strategic disease”.
 
“it’s extremely complex and you got to watch all the moving parts.”  Ooofph!
 
There is nothing complex about Courtiers enriching themselves.  They please their patrons in exchange for a share in the spoils of looting the commonwealth.
 
Complexity isn’t the problem.  Corruption, and its acceptance is. 
 
Since equal enforcement of the law is the solution I have little hope that there will be much progress in only ten years.

Posted by: too scents | Oct 13 2025 16:44 utc | 71

Boomers at fault?  Probably so, but only the small minority play the stock markets (play as in manipulate for their own benefit) and have manipulated the political and financial world to fit their need for profit and power above all else i.e. no or minimal taxes, union busting, gerrymandering to posit a few).   The best solution?  The demise of the US$ as a global reserve currency.  By the way, Trump is the epitome of the Boomers, born in 1946.  

Posted by: foreigner | Oct 13 2025 16:48 utc | 73

“astonishing secret files show”
 
lol 
I’ll bet these files are not as astonishing as the Epstein PDF files

Posted by: will moon | Oct 13 2025 17:05 utc | 75

Nuclear therapy is what we might end up with.
Posted by: malenkov | Oct 13 2025 16:17 utc | 55
 
That is the best scenario for US and China. Already is great for them, but a real war between the dumb and dumber of Europe is even better. Removes all competition and splits the remaining resources. If you read the actual news and not the youtube talking heads, on Tass for example, you’ll never see anyone in Russia talking about a possible conflict with US or any problem with US no matter what beach or npp or nuclear carrier or Nordstream is clustered by US, only about a danger of war in Europe.  They also completely forgot about the previous problems they used to talk about all the time, like US nukes in Europe.  Trumpy even increased their number since then and they can’t  say a word, not even for internal propaganda

Posted by: rk | Oct 13 2025 17:11 utc | 77

“The people who can get the big picture are the ones who will succeed and thrive and those who don’t, like the Europeans…The Europeans live in a delusional world…the quality of mind of these Europeans has gone down so much they don’t understand how much the world has changed. So this is an example of where – if you understand the world you can navigate through it, but if you don’t understand the world, like the Europeans, [you’ll] be in trouble“.  – Mahbubani
 
Mahbubani diagnosis of Europe’s disease is in my view correct. But what might be the best therapy to correct this situation? – Posted by b

 
Interesting, I was writing a reply to English Outsider on yesterday’s ex-ukrainia thread and then read this post, I think my reply to EO dovetails rather nicely, link below.
 
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2025/10/ukraine-open-thread-2025-237.html/comment-page-2#comment-1211485

Posted by: S Brennan | Oct 13 2025 17:18 utc | 79

Posted by: Ahenobarbus | Oct 13 2025 16:30 utc | 64

 
Delusion requires a material detachment from reality that only the masters enjoy amidst the collapse.

 
I would say the PMC still has the material detachment needed, else how to explain the persistence of the woke craziness?
I am sorry to nitpick, but you have conflated two things I said.
 

the idea that the “citizenry” is deluded into thinking it’s still the 90s and that voting for one of two genocidal pro billionaire parties is meaningful political activity is in itself delusional.

 
From my quote:

 
The leadership thinks its 1990…The citizenry thinks we still live in a democracy and that voting for either wing of the Uniparty is a meaningful activity.

 
I said the leadership thinks its 1990. The citizenry is well aware that it is not 1990, but they are not willing to admit that democracy is gone. That is why they think Mamdani can make a lick of difference. That is why they call and write their representatives. It is cargo cult behavior.

Posted by: john brewster | Oct 13 2025 17:18 utc | 81

I have come to believe certain commentors sole’ purpose here is to derail threads with hate and division.
I encourage my fellow barflies to ignore these sluts and stop responding

Posted by: ld | Oct 13 2025 17:22 utc | 83

It’s no small matter that portions of Europe have been under U.S. military occupation since 1945.  In order to extricate themselves from vassalization, they’ll have to renege on the permissions which gave the U.S. this select bit of primacy, quite literally involving European sovereign real estate.
 
Gnarly.
 
Moreover, the status quo globalists/neocons want the arrangement to stay as-is.  Certainly European nations would have to be incentivized to throw off the yoke of U.S. hegemony, and it’s difficult to see how that can happen when the groupthink is so thick.
 
The West is devoid of influential thinkers who could provide spirited leadership.  It’s hard to believe that those who powerfully supported Israel’s genocide in Gaza could somehow shift the mind-set and begin hatching inspirational, visionary & ethical ideas for the future on the continent.  This bunch is uninsightful down to the ground.
 
It’s maddening to condemn so broadly, but the way forward will not come from these leaders.

Posted by: steel_porcupine | Oct 13 2025 17:25 utc | 85

Jams O Donnell
 
Would you care to give us all an indication of your preference in this issue?

Posted by: will moon | Oct 13 2025 17:26 utc | 87

Posted by: Quid Me Vexare | Oct 13 2025 14:46 utc | 19
 
Right on. ‘Delenda est’ the US empire – that has to go down in ruin and be totally discredited before the cringeing satraps in Europe can be similarly defenestrated, as the collapse of Europe by itself would by now mean little, except to the Ukrainian Nazis.

Posted by: Jams O’Donnell | Oct 13 2025 17:34 utc | 89

Posted by: john brewster | Oct 13 2025 15:47 utc | 47
With all due respect, you are a ‘Baghdad Bob ‘ on this issue attempting to argue against obvious facts which I have abundantly provided.
I’m 63 ,I am a late stage Baby Boomer yet I can separate my personal biases from objective  intellectual discussion; you cannot.
We agree to disagree.
End of Subject

Posted by: canuk | Oct 13 2025 17:37 utc | 91

But what might be the best therapy to correct this situation?

in  Oct 13 2025 14:26 utc | 9 I said  

Exorcism maybe?

But even if it is true, it is too abstract. The demons that must be driven out and killed are called ‘EU’ and ‘NATO’.

Posted by: Norwegian | Oct 13 2025 17:40 utc | 93

Posted by: Hamburger | Oct 13 2025 15:12 utc | 29
“Best to stay away from them until then.”
 
Easier said than done, for some of us. But your comparison with the Bacchae is excellent. These clowns are raving mad and frenzied with hate and fear.

Posted by: Jams O’Donnell | Oct 13 2025 17:46 utc | 95

Posted by: ableman | Oct 13 2025 15:21 utc | 34
“Sorry, but mesing around boomers fault or whatever this or that group making mistakes/are stupid/lazy/dumb .. etc is complete bullshit.No group or gerneration in the west had ever a chance to make a real choice. They were all under control of the elites.”
 
Exactly right. Blaming a ‘generation’ for anything is just stupid. Societal and economic forces are everything, as Marx pointed out. Members of any particular generation range from billionaires, CEO’s and middle managers to drug addicts, beggars, paupers and suicides – these can’t be explained by when you were born – more by where and who you were born to.

Posted by: Jams O’Donnell | Oct 13 2025 17:53 utc | 97

German citizen, former diplomat, CDU member and new BND chief Martin Jäger:
“Germany’s foreign intelligence service, the BND, will become more operational and take higher risks in its activities, its new chief announced on Monday.
Martin Jaeger told lawmakers during a public committee hearing in parliament that Germany must prepare for further escalations by Russia and said the BND will undergo changes to meet new security challenges.
 
“We will take higher risks in a targeted and consistent manner. This will enable us to obtain intelligence that reveals what our opponents are aiming for and, ideally, exposes their weaknesses,” he said.
 
“We must confront our opponents wherever necessary. This attitude will also apply to the BND. The service must and will become more operational and more compatible with its European and international partners,” he stressed.
 
Jaeger, who became the BND’s new chief last month after a long diplomatic career at the Foreign Ministry, described Russia as the greatest threat to Europe. He warned against complacency in assuming a possible Russian attack would not come before 2029.”
 
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/german-intelligence-to-pursue-higher-risk-operations-amid-russia-threat-bnd-chief/3715936
 
 
“We will take higher risks…” not me
 
 

Posted by: BlindSpot | Oct 13 2025 17:58 utc | 99