Since then, real incomes have barely budged.īonds did well beginning in the early 1980s, as a sharp drop in inflation allowed yields to fall and fixed-income prices to rise. The resulting prosperity underwrote a powerful long-term bull market in stocks at a time when the GIs were financially well-positioned to benefit from it.īetween 19, when the average GI member would have reached age 65, the inflation-adjusted median income grew by 125%. Marching onĪfter adjusting to peacetime conditions in the late 1940s, the United States economy boomed in the absence of foreign competition for the next 20 years.Īlthough policy errors and geopolitical instability made the 1970s generally miserable, the United States subsequently regained its economic swagger. Sixteen million of them served in World War II.īut if the GI cohort-group initially was dealt a cruel hand, fate grew friendlier over the remainder of their lives.
Sandwiched between the "Lost" generation of the late 19th century and the succeeding "Silent" generation, the GIs endured the 25% unemployment and economic deprivation of the Great Depression. Given the 1918 influenza pandemic, just making it through childhood was far from assured. Only about one-half of 1% of Americans now can be counted among the so-called GI generation, born from about the beginning of the 20th century through the mid-1920s. George Marshall called "the best damned kids in the world" and journalist Tom Brokaw dubbed "the greatest generation" is passing one-by-lonely-one into the pages of history. His death also was a reminder that the once 50 million strong group of American go-getters that Gen. That mournful reality hit home last month when my father, Bernard, passed away at age 95.
You can argue with time, but you will never win.
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