Why Private Equity Wants You to Hate Baby Boomers

Take a look at these videos about boomers.

Why did the richest generation in history sell out the nation's future?

Lazy, entitled, stupid, selfish, dumb, crazy, lost, and on and on and on.

The baby boomers. Whiny, narcissistic,

self-indulgent people with a simple philosophy. Give me it. It's mine. Give

philosophy. Give me it. It's mine. Give

me that. It's mine.

If you agree with that message, congratulations. You did exactly what a

congratulations. You did exactly what a private equity billionaire paid for you to do. But even with all that said, did

to do. But even with all that said, did the boomers breach this social contract between generations?

I can explain. In that video, I showed how billionaires hold half the wealth in this country and how our generation seems worse off by almost every measure.

And that's true, right? Well, I later found out that this hate that we all feel was carefully manufactured because in 1983, two people figured out a three-step playbook for how to make

money from your anger. And one

billionaire private equity founder spent the next 40 years in $458 million running that playbook, building one fake organization after another, each one

targeting whichever generation was youngest. But why? Why would he spend

youngest. But why? Why would he spend all this time and money? Well, it's

because your anger is the only thing standing between private equity and a $940 billion payday. And now the crisis that they've been patiently waiting for

to execute their plan is only 6 years away. So I follow the money over the

away. So I follow the money over the last 40 years and mapped out every organization, campaign, and dollar that went into making you hate your grandma.

And what I found is the real cost that everyone else has missed. Because as

long as this generational war keeps you distracted, private equity walks away with the biggest payday in American history.

So, to understand why they want you to hate boomers, I need to show you the problem they were trying to solve in the first place, and I'll do it by playing the strategist that was hired to pull all of this off. Because once you see

how this playbook works step by step, you'll understand why every okay boomer meme, every viral rant, every headline pitting young against old is doing exactly what someone paid for it to do.

So, like I said, the guy who hires me is this big billionaire. A billionaire who runs one of the biggest private equity firms in America, and he has a big problem. He wants social security gone.

problem. He wants social security gone.

Wait, what? Why social security? Well,

if you don't know, social security is that small cut that gets taken out of your paycheck every week. And that cut gets sent to a big pool to send a monthly check to every retiree in America. And obviously, all this is

America. And obviously, all this is governmentrun. But if that money went to

governmentrun. But if that money went to someone like my client in Wall Street, the management fees alone would be worth 940 billion over 75 years. And he's

blowing me up about it because one economist told him it was going to be the largest windfall gain in American financial history. So I told him, "No

financial history. So I told him, "No problem. Sounds simple enough. I'll

problem. Sounds simple enough. I'll

start making the calls now and I'll get our usual lobbyists on retainer and then they will take it from there." But

before I could finish, he tells me the even bigger problem. 80% of Americans actually love this program, whether they're Republicans or Democrats. In

fact, they love it so much that almost every lobby group that has tried to get rid of it has failed. And so much so that even bribing politicians with campaign funding wasn't also going to work either because every single one

that has tried has been destroyed in the next election. So clearly, this was a

next election. So clearly, this was a big problem. How the hell was I going to

big problem. How the hell was I going to turn the public against the most popular prairium in the country? I didn't know the answers yet, but I knew it wasn't going to be easy. And so the first thing that I do on any job is to study what's

been tried before. And the first thing I find is this creative attempt all the way back in 1961. Back then, the American Medical Association wanted to kill what would eventually become Medicare. But like my problem that I'm

Medicare. But like my problem that I'm facing now, the public supported it, so they couldn't really just attack it directly. So the AMA came up with

directly. So the AMA came up with something called Operation Coffee Cup.

And step one was hiring this Hollywood actor named Ronald. And anyways, they hired Ronald to record a Vinnal LP called Socialized Medicine. And on the

record, Ronald warned that if Medicare passed, you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and your children's children what it once was like in America when men were free.

Pretty bold claim, but step two was distributing that propaganda. The AMA

then shipped copies of this records to doctors wives all across America. Wait. Okay. Did I

Did I read this wrong? Oh, wait. Wait.

No. I was right. Not the doctors, the wives. Because that's what step three of

wives. Because that's what step three of the plan was, which is having the doctor's wives invite their friends over for coffee, play the record, and then get out their paper, pens, envelopes,

and stamps so their guests could now start writing letters to Congress right there on the kitchen table. And the key rule was that the letters had to look like they actually came from concerned citizens. And of course, under no

citizens. And of course, under no circumstance was Congress supposed to know that the AMA was behind all of this. Crazy about this. I think this

this. Crazy about this. I think this like the first instance of viral marketing. But turns out that

marketing. But turns out that worked. The letter started flooding

worked. The letter started flooding Congress. And the bill to give boomers

Congress. And the bill to give boomers government funded healthcare was defeated in Senate that year in 1961. So

hell yeah, I have the playbook now. I

can use this. I'll just do the same. But

wait, hold on. God damn it. Well, turns

out that after JFK was un alive shortly after, LBJ, who replaced him, ended up just pushing Medicare through in 1965.

And by 1968, 95% of old boomer Americans had Medicare coverage. So, so much for these coffee parties. And so, that wasn't going to work. So, I needed to

find something bigger and better. So, I

moved on to what happened next. And hold

on, remember that actor Ronald? Well,

yeah, that Ronald Ronald Reagan ended up becoming president of the United States.

And as president, he also tried to end social security in the early 80s, but it completely failed. The Senate voted it

completely failed. The Senate voted it down 96 to zero in a spectacular failure. And so, if a sitting president

failure. And so, if a sitting president couldn't even push this through, what the hell will? So, I was about to take the L and call my boss. But then, I

found the paper that changed everything.

And this was exactly what I was looking for. In 1983, these two guys, Stuart

for. In 1983, these two guys, Stuart Butler and Peter Geranus, looked at why every other attempt kept failing. And

after careful analysis, what they found was the ultimate playbook. They

published it all and called it a Leninist strategy to privatize Social Security. And they outlined three key

Security. And they outlined three key steps. Step one, rally the money. Get

steps. Step one, rally the money. Get

the banks, insurance companies, and every institution that stands to profit on our side. Easy enough. That's my

client's friend. Step two, rally the right people. Find the right audience

right people. Find the right audience and turn them into your army. Okay.

Okay. And step three, rally the moment.

Wait for the next crisis. And when it comes, have everything ready. I read it all in one weekend and voila. This was

exactly what I needed. So, I wrote out my plan and I called my client back. But

first, I had to be honest. This was

going to cost more than any lobby group, coffee party, or bribe. And it was sure as hell going to take a lot longer than an election cycle or even a decade. In

fact, it was going to take a generation.

Because if what those two dead said and outlined was true, the only way to get social security and private equity's hands was to convince the next generation to not want it. And to do

that, we couldn't just force feed policy down their throats. We had to give them someone to blame. Someone who already has what the younger generations will never get. And so, not to draw this all

never get. And so, not to draw this all out, Mr. Client, but the plan was simple. We needed everyone to hate

simple. We needed everyone to hate boomers.

I held my breath, but my client didn't say a word. But then I see a notification for half a billion dollar.

And as you're about to see, with enough money, you can make any narrative real, which is exactly why knowing where your information comes from actually matters.

That's why I've been using our sponsor, Straight Hero News, even in this new apartment that I moved to here in Brazil. And it's a platform built around

Brazil. And it's a platform built around one simple idea, giving you the facts, the context, and multiple perspectives without the spin. So instead of reacting to headlines, you can actually understand what's going on. And what I

like is how easy it is to stay informed without all the drama. You can build your own personalized news cube, follow the topics you care about, and watch updates on your own time. The best part is that it's available on both the app

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back to trustworthy journalism. So step

one was done, but that was the easy part. We still had the other two steps

part. We still had the other two steps that were going to be a lot more complicated because step two is rallying the people which meant making young people feel robbed by the old and that wasn't going to happen with one campaign

or even one generation. So that's

exactly why my client and I spent the next four decades doing it over and over. So before I tell you about that,

over. So before I tell you about that, you might be thinking, who the hell is this mysterious client I keep talking about? Well, I did want to hold off

about? Well, I did want to hold off telling you, but between you and I, his name was Peter G. Peterson, co-founder

of the Blackstone Group and one of the biggest private equity firms on the planet.

And the first organization we built was just a few years after 1983. True to

step one, Peterson along with his friends at Exxon and General Motors rally the money to build an organization chaired even by a sitting US senator.

The organization was called Americans for Generational Equity or A. And the

name should tell you everything because the whole point was to spread the message of old people are taking away from young people. And it worked. Before

A, the phrase generational conflict barely existed in American media. But

after a there were over a thousand references in major publications, but that success only worked for so long. A

eventually collapsed after the sitting senator Durhamburgger got investigated for using the organization to fund his own re-election campaign. But what

didn't collapse was the old versus young framing. And Peterson and I now had

framing. And Peterson and I now had something to work with. And all we needed now was just a new vehicle to run and build on the same message. So in

1992, with backing from both Peterson and Ross Perau, money now went to a group called Lead or Leave. And the goal this time was to influence the youth at this time, which was Gen X. And we're

going to achieve this by creating the largest grassroots college organization in the country, and to tell these young college kids that their parents, boomers, are running up a tab and leaving you with the bill. And after

press runs on everywhere from Night Line to CNN, the message was getting out there. But again, the success didn't

there. But again, the success didn't really last that long. After failed

campaigns for a Rock the Debt concert in an attempt to get people to burn their social security cards, the organization ended up folding. But what didn't fold was again the message. Because what this

now established in the social zeitgeist was the thought that your parents stuck you with the bill. So do you see how this all builds up? Because now that message was all we needed for the next

organization to do its thing. Because

now by 1993, Peterson is now partnering up with Meil Lynch. And we were ready to get even more aggressive because now this new group was called third millennium. And instead of just lightly

millennium. And instead of just lightly saying that social security is a problem, now the framing that we were pushing is that it's a generational scam and your grandparents are literally running a con on you. But with bold

claims, we need to back it up with some bold evidence. And we went about looking

bold evidence. And we went about looking to prove that. So we hired this guy, Frank Lunt, one of the most influential political pollsters in America, to start surveying young people. But we can't

just make this survey normal. We also

had to slip some unrelated questions like, I don't know, about UFOs in the survey. Because then what we could do is

survey. Because then what we could do is use two completely separate answers and mash them together into a big talking point. Because what's a more sellable

point. Because what's a more sellable and bolder claim than young people believe in UFOs more than social security? Guess what? That worked.

security? Guess what? That worked.

That line appeared in 500 news stories.

President Clinton quoted in a speech.

perhaps an alien deep underground. I

actually I had so many people in my own administration were convinced.

But when someone actually asked young people that comparison directly, yeah, turns out they chose to believe social security over UFOs like 2 to1 and the entire thing was made up, but who cares?

The message was out there and we weren't anywhere near finished cuz then we launched something called the call your grandma campaign. And I wish I was

grandma campaign. And I wish I was joking with you, but we literally asked young people to pick up their phone and pressure their own grandmothers to oppose prescription drug coverage in

Medicare. And then we also bought ads on

Medicare. And then we also bought ads on MTV, which was the popular platform at the time, with a young woman saying, "I'll be spending my whole life paying off the bills run up by our parents and

our grandparents." And I want you to pay

our grandparents." And I want you to pay attention to something here. Like notice

the language. The focus across all these campaigns is never like the government or Congress, but the focus is always something personal like your grandparents. And making it so personal

grandparents. And making it so personal works because we understand how media works because media eats that up. And

just with a snap of a finger, major publications are now starting to call social security a Ponzi scheme and referring to seniors as these greedy geysers. And now that this message was

geysers. And now that this message was continuing to build, this is also when Peterson himself started getting more involved. Because now that the problem

involved. Because now that the problem was out there, he got cover space in the Atlantic to now start telling America that the only solution to all this was replacing social security with private

savings accounts. And now by 2012, the

savings accounts. And now by 2012, the target shifted to millennials. By this

time, we now had like what 30 years of practice. And with all this experience

practice. And with all this experience out there, we now started an organization called the can kicks back.

And we literally brought over the Avengers of this Boomer suck campaigns.

For example, we brought in Maya Mciny as the leader who served on Third Millennium's board. And for the advisory

Millennium's board. And for the advisory board, we brought in the ex-founder of Leader Leave. So now we have this

Leader Leave. So now we have this all-star cast of the same people, but this time we tried some different framing. This time we didn't even

framing. This time we didn't even mention Social Security in the pitch.

Instead, the focus of this campaign became fixing the national debt. And it

was smart because who's going to argue against fixing debt? And when we can talk about that problem and now start offering solutions like cutting social security and Medicare, it just becomes a lot more attractive. And with this debt

now becoming this, you know, Trojan horse, we can really start getting even more aggressive with the messaging. This

is our exact words, by the way. The

defining inequality of our time is not the gap between the rich and the poor, but the one between the young and the old. So pretty much a Wall Street funded

old. So pretty much a Wall Street funded organization telling millennials that their real enemy isn't the rich that are running this, but old boomer geysers.

And now that technology has caught up since the operation coffee cup, we really started leaning into virality to reach the young. We went on college campuses with a mascot called Maran,

literally a giant walking can, and asked students to collect aluminum cans to symbolize kicking the debt back. And we

even had King Boomer, this 81year-old named Allan Simpson to dance gangdom style in a video where he told young people to stop Instagramming your breakfast and start supporting cuts to

social security. So step by step,

social security. So step by step, organization by organization, we made this all happen. But by 2014, yeah, I'm sure you can guess what happened next. Well, turns out the can

happened next. Well, turns out the can kicks back's fiscal sponsor got its tax exemption status revoked for not filling out the proper paperwork. And then we got exposed sharing office space with

the very same Peterson funded groups that we claim to be independent from.

And so just like every other organization, we ended up folding. But

clearly that didn't matter because remember the whole mastermind point of the $458 million that we spent and I came up with was to buy a feeling. That

feeling you get when you see a boomer complaining about work ethic from a house that they bought for $40,000. Or

that feeling you get when you share a video called why boomers ruined everything with a million views and nobody in the comments asks who truly benefits from you agreeing with that

message. And the reason why I know it

message. And the reason why I know it was successful is because even though Peterson died in 2018, if you're watching this and nodding your head, clearly the message outlived him. Which

now leads me to the final step. Rally

the moment. And ever since Peterson's death, it's something that I've been waiting for patiently. And that moment, or more specifically, that crisis may

finally be here because the Social Security trust fund is projected to run out in 2032. And

when it runs out, it's not going to look pretty. Right now, that social security

pretty. Right now, that social security check that boomers are getting is about $2,000 a month. And when that trust fund runs out, it will be a 20% cut that drops down to $1,600. In fact, some

proposals are being pushed right now that will take it as low as $1,025.

And if you're in your late 20s or 30s, you probably know all this that your retirement isn't going to look anything like your parents. And what makes it worse is the reality. The medium

millennial right now has about $40,000 saved. And almost one in four have

saved. And almost one in four have already rated that just to cover rent or some emergency. And now with this moment

some emergency. And now with this moment only a few years away, best believe the campaign is already underway to make sure that this all goes away. Because

now in 2025, a different guy named Russ Green has started pushing a phrase called total boomer luxury communism.

And as the name suggests, the goal was to paint boomers as living in this Marxist paradise at your expense. But

where this really gets interesting is the strategy that he published and how similar it sounds to something I'm familiar with. Step one is raise

familiar with. Step one is raise awareness of generational injustice.

Step two is align Wall Street, corporate America, and the media. And step three is to form a counter AARP. And if you don't know, AARP is basically the biggest lobbying group that has been

protecting Social Security with 38 million members. But most importantly

million members. But most importantly beneath those three steps is what he wrote in the parentheses which is the alternative is tax hikes. And those five words says a lot here. Green is

literally saying that if we don't cut social security the only other option is raising taxes on the rich. So now I think you can connect the dots. That's

what the $458 million and 40 years of campaigning was built to prevent. But

preventing these tax hikes is only half of it. Because remember, if private

of it. Because remember, if private equity gets what they want, Social Security gets privatized and now they start collecting management fees, which is again that $940 billion payday. But

remember, this whole campaign to replace something that people love was to break it first and offer the replacement. But

if you actually look closer into every single proposal to break it, you'll find that in all of it, it has one thing in common. It doesn't touch boomers. So the

common. It doesn't touch boomers. So the

people these campaigns were built to start demonizing, none other social security checks will be touched. So

remember McInness, the the same person from third millennium in the can kicks back, she literally testified in the Senate this year to say it out loud that current seniors do not need to worry about cuts.

And I know that with changes that we're going to make, we're going to protect seniors. Current seniors do not need to

seniors. Current seniors do not need to worry about it.

So what I'm trying to tell you here is this whole 40-year campaign to make you hate boomers doesn't actually punish boomers. It punishes you. But what makes

boomers. It punishes you. But what makes this worse is when you take the whole generational labels out of it. The thing

is there is a fix. It's It's not as simple as it seems, but people agree with it. Right now, the law says is that

with it. Right now, the law says is that you stop paying social security taxes on any income above $184,500, which only 6% of America makes more than

that. But if you eliminate that cap, so

that. But if you eliminate that cap, so the richest 6% pay the same rate as you would, would actually close 2third of this shortfall. And before you say this

this shortfall. And before you say this is just some communist which is fair, what's crazy is that 68 to 80% of Americans support it across boomers

and the young generations and even across rich and poor. And turns out that the same organization that published the 1983 playbook ran a survey that found

2:1 support. But as you can imagine,

2:1 support. But as you can imagine, they left that out of the published report. So what I'm trying to say here

report. So what I'm trying to say here is that in many ways, boomers and younger generations want the same thing.

In fact, they agree on almost everything from housing, taxes, and social security. And so, what I'm trying to say

security. And so, what I'm trying to say here is that on policy, there is no generational war. But the people running

generational war. But the people running this campaign buried it. And that's

really what the exact real cost is.

Because as long as you've been taught to see each other as the enemy, Blackstone is now 6 years away from collecting a $94 billion payday managing America's retirement. And so the next time you

retirement. And so the next time you feel that anger, which will come because the problems are real, just ask yourself one question. Who benefits from me being

one question. Who benefits from me being angry at this person instead of someone else? Because I'm going to tell you, the

else? Because I'm going to tell you, the answer is never your grandma collecting $2,000 a month. So, if you want to join the special 3,500 of you, I'll be diving even deeper on this topic in my free

weekly newsletter next week in the video description. But if you want to see what

description. But if you want to see what private equity is now doing with YouTube channels, go and watch this video next.

and like this video.