I meant to play a bit of Devil’s Advocate in the post. Part of my (convoluted) point is exactly what you said: instead of focusing on blaming Silents, Boomer, X’ers or Millennials we should just get on with solving the problems in the present. By blaming the GI’s, who are mostly dead, perhaps we can move on to action instead of moralizing and blaming. Every person and generations has a particular character and makes particular mistakes. The goal, in my mind, is to figure out how to work with those personalities to create something better.

The idea of the American Dream seems to be that as long as you do those things, you’re bound to be employable. And if you’re employable, you’re bound to be able to afford to buy the things that people think of — the house, the car, and the white picket fence. Which was probably true of previous generations, but not mine.

What I notice is that there’s inflation about what education and experience you’re thought to need to do a job. A person needs a 8 year degree to be even considered for example to work in a library. And that library job is not a well-paying one.

Education inflation’s part of something I like to call “the institutionalization of everything.”

Another part of this phenomenon is working for big companies. Today, most people my age (20s-30s in 2009) graduate, and work for someone else. Nobody teaches basic things like how to start your own business, be independent, take responsibility, how to take calculated risks, etc. What they teach you is to continue being part of an organization.

I think the problem’s not that there’s too much freedom for individuals. In fact, the average joe probably has less freedom than he would have 50 years ago. I think the problem’s that these large institutions, like schools, governments and big corporations are crushing our opportunities, and we go work for someone else. It’s the “institutionalization of everything.”

Example: If your grandpa wanted to start a coffee shop after getting out of WWII, he’d just go start it. Now there are big rules about that, and you also have the Starbucks’ of the world to contend with. People don’t think about this when they go work for Starbucks. Starbucks has lobbyists. How am I supposed to compete with that?

Example: Especially way back in my great-grandparents’ generation, local small business ruled the roost. They owned a bakery and were self-sufficient. People grew cabbages in their front lawn. I get mine from Mexico, shipped all the way to Ohio.

All I’m saying is corporations and institutions do things they think are good. The price of good coffee goes down because Starbucks has millions of stores. But there are unintended consequences of everything. People are creatures of habit and they like consistency, so they love Starbucks and not having to grow cabbage.

My generation is paying the price for this institution-big-business way of thinking. And I’m afraid there’s no going back. Big companies are efficient at what they do – but it sucks the life out of you. Your actions appear to have no consequences.

The current crisis comes not from any generation, but from institutional policies to allow lending to people and other banks without considering risk: http://tinyurl.com/cobtqg

Big companies did clever accounting to make big profits. And now we’re bailing them out. The only way we know how: through another institution: government. Taxes.

I will say that we judge the Millennial Generation too harshly if we really believe they are less educated than previous generations. They may be the “everyone get’s a trophy” generation, but many of them have earned it through hard work. They may also act entitled, but that does not mean they are incompetent. Comparing grades, SAT scores, social responsibility, and many other factors, they come out WAY ahead of Gen X. Not to say that we don’t have our strong points