Reference: Root canal politics, Bangkok Post, May 12, 2010

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman writes that the root of the economic problems of the world today lies with us, the Baby Boomer generation, because instead of creating new wealth we simply ate like hungry locusts through the old wealth accumulated and left to us by the Greatest Generation (Root canal politics, Bangkok Post, May 12, 2010). The numbers don’t bear out this harsh comparison. If you look at American GDP data in constant dollars from 1946 to 2009 you find that the Baby Boomer generation added twice as much wealth per year on average during their productive years than the Greatest Generation did. Of course we are grateful to the Greatest Generation for winning the war and for conceiving us and putting us through college but there is no question that we matched and exceeded them in artistic, technological, and economic achievement. It is unkind and unfair to both generations to say that the Greatest Generation raised a bunch of hungry locusts.

Cha-am Jamal, Thailand