Boomer Bust; A Generation Learns That the World Doesn't Revolve Around It After All
PUBLISHED CORRECTIONS: A June 10 Style article incorrectly reported when the Nasdaq composite index reached its record high. It was 2000. (Published 6/13/03)</br></br>We'd follow our dreams right into the luxury midlife we once renounced. With the Dow Jones average at 36,000, we'd slow down and live it up, trading our K Street law practice for a bed-and- breakfast in Vermont, our Dodge Caravan for a Lexus SC 430. We, the magnificent Dr. Spock babies, would send our even more magnificent progeny to Princeton and Stanford.</br></br>We were born from 1943 to 1964, depending on who's talking. We were going to live forever, watched over by angels of infinite possibility.</br></br>What happened? How did it all go so wrong so fast in an era of unprecedented progress, prosperity and peace?</br></br>Earlier generations have suffered more -- think of the damage done in the Depression or World War II -- but typically, boomers act as if they've cornered the market on turmoil. Maybe it's not economics or war, though. Maybe it's just the sense of the earth moving under our feet, the way it used to feel on the observation deck of the World Trade Center.