When Two Demographics Conflict: Boomers and the Bust of Generation X

Re “Generation Hexed” (July 2): I enjoyed the description of the “X Generation” as parodied in Ted Rall’s cartoons.

I thought that any Generation X person who majored in computer science or engineering had it made and could start at $40,000 a year. Apparently most of the children of the baby boomers don’t have it that easy, being saddled with student loan debt and temporary office jobs that pay no benefits.

The baby boomers may gloat, but in a few years their children will be ill-prepared to try to finance the retirements of their parents, and it won’t be pretty for either generation.

MATTHEW OKADA, Pasadena

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Reading Ted Rall’s comments has me perplexed.

I’m 46, and supposedly a part of the boomer generation, yet somehow I missed out on all the benefits we were supposed to have gotten. And most of my friends from the lower-class neighborhood I grew up in didn’t get those perks either. In fact, our experience seems a lot more like Rall’s description of Gen X.

The only difference seems to be we don’t whine like spoiled bitter brats and blame it all on the generation that came right before us.

DENNIS WORDEN, San Juan Capistrano

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