There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there – good for you.

But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of the police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory…

Now look. You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea – God bless! Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward to the next kid who comes along.

This is just another effect of the horribleness of the boomer generation that our generation has to cope with.

The boomers rode to prosperity on the back of the New Deal and then systematically dismantled it. They were offered pensions, benefits, and health insurance by their bosses, used them to carve out an extremely comfortable standard of living, and then as soon as they became the bosses, eliminated them. They made college education a standard for getting a decent job, jacked up the price of tuition, and offered their children predatory student loans to “compensate.” They spent their youth campaigning for social justice and now spend their old age voting to give themselves tax breaks at the expense of the less fortunate. They rose to power as the heads of banks, insurance companies, and other big businesses, and then fucked the economy over while giving themselves gigantic government cash grabs. No generation in American history was given so much, took so much, and left so little for their descendants.

And now, while they’re sitting pretty on their retirement and popping free Medicare pills, we - the twentysomethings of the world - are faced with a 10% unemployment rate, no employment benefits if you can find a job, the constant slashing of social programs intended to help us in the name of “fiscal responsibility”/”small government,” pretty much no prospect of home ownership before we’re 40 due in no small part to the fact that nobody will give us loans, and $80,000 worth of college debt to pay off.

No wonder we’re stuck living with our parents.

A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction…

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every statehouse, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.

The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together.