Jeremiah

1.

Top comments I especially want to highlight.

Soko writes, There's a link to a Wikipedia article about the United Kingdom's pension system.

There is a lot of similar things in France that I could dig up, such as all attempts to tax benefits being defeated, end quote.

Scott writes, many Europeans chimed in to say this, including people whose opinions I trust.

I find this pretty interesting.

We all know stories of American opinions infecting Europeans, like how they're obsessed about anti-black racism, but rarely worry about anti-Roma racism, which is much more prevalent there.

I'd never heard anyone argue the opposite, that the European discourse is infecting Americans with ideas that don't apply to our context.

But it makes sense that this should happen.

I might write a post on this.

Kevin Munger, who blogs at Never Met a Science, linked here, writes, quote,

But it is emphatically false that boomers were a perfectly normal American generation.

They have served far more terms in Congress than any generation before or since.

And we currently have the oldest average age of elected officials in a legislative body in the world, other than apparently Cambodia.

They have dominated the presidency, look up the birth date of every major party candidate since the 2000 presidential election.

They controlled the commanding heights of major companies, cultural institutions, especially academia.

They are a historically unique generation for three intersecting reasons.

One, they are a uniquely large generation.

Two, they came of age as the country and its institutions were maturing.

And three, they are sticking around because of increased longevity.