Generation of Sociopaths

We are living in a time when it has become fashionable to question the American Dream and to proclaim the end of American exceptionalism (though it's not clear what that is or was). It's Reagan's, Bush's, Clinton's, Bush's, Obama's fault that social security is under threat, government spending on healthcare remains unfunded, roads and bridges are cracking, interest hovers at zero, real job and wage growth have disappeared. Both political parties get blamed. But who make up these parties' constituencies, those who have wielded power for over 30 years? Baby boomers.

Styled as a polemic, A GENERATION OF SOCIOPATHS argues for swift action to curtail the benefits that baby boomers have taken from other Americans, serving only their own needs at the expense of both the nation and future generations. Gibney outlines how our country, once at the brink of prosperity and peace, has been hijacked for the self-serving needs of those born of the Greatest Generation. Despite how stark that appears, the world is not zero sum; there is no reason that the improving international standard of living and economy must weigh in at the expense of our own. America currently stands at an intersection and must answer the decide whether to take steps to restore our infrastructure and make actual investments to the future or continue to fund an excessive lifestyle through debt.

Exhaustively researched and passionately argued, A GENERATION OF SOCIOPATHS will become a landmark book about the American economy and policymaking.

“"The core of Gibney's argument, that the boomers are guilty of 'generational plunder,' is spot-on. He accuses them of 'the mass, democratically-sanctioned transfer of wealth away from the young and toward the Boomers,' and he's right."-- Dana Milbank, Washington Post”

"A Generation of Sociopaths is a polemic, but what a polemic: filled with data, rich in anecdote, deadly serious yet wickedly funny."--Alexandra Wolfe, author of Valley of the Gods
"[Gibney] has a wry, amusing style and plenty of well parsed statistics to back him up ... Read A Generation of Sociopaths and hope for the best. Gibney is more optimistic than those who predict an imminent third world war, than the scientists who warn of sudden climate shifts and the end of antibiotics, and even - in one sense - than the evangelicals who believe in the Rapture. He also has a better sense of humor."--Jane Smiley, The Guardian
"[Gibney] maintains that the Boomer Generation, privilege incarnate, exhibit all the traits associated with that clinical pathology: 'deceit, selfishness, imprudence, remorselessness, hostility, the works.' He argues the case well."--Toronto Star
"Gibney lays into the 'Me' generation for cashing out their children's future and leaving the planet looking like a rock star's hotel room.... Timely."--Esquire
"Informative, provocative, and entertaining reading for those interested in political economy and U.S. social and economic history."--Booklist
"Like Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Bruce Cannon Gibney's A Generation of Sociopaths proceeds from a deceptively simple premise: that the gains made by the American middle class in the period after the world wars of the previous century were a fluke.... A damning, searingly relevant indictment."--The Globe and Mail
"Remarkable .... Impressively weighted with hard numbers and specifics, the volume serves as both an indictment of and rebuttal to a Woodstock Generation that has gleefully celebrated themselves for decades while gradually running the country into the ground ... Gibney paints a persuasive and frequently hilarious portrait of the Me Generation."--Men's Journal
"Sure to be controversial."--Fortune
"The core of Gibney's argument, that the boomers are guilty of 'generational plunder, ' is spot-on. He accuses them of 'the mass, democratically-sanctioned transfer of wealth away from the young and toward the Boomers, ' and he's right."--Dana Milbank, Washington Post
"Uproariously funny but rigorously argued and researched.... Intellectually invaluable..... Re-fram[es] the dysfunction in our politics as less a consequence of partisan factionalism and more as a grand agreement between privileged Boomers across the political divide to enrich their present rather than vouchsafing the future."--Lawyers, Guns, and Money

Bruce Cannon Gibney is a venture capitalist and writer. An early investor in PayPal, he later joined Founders Fund, where he and his colleagues funded Facebook, Spotify, Palantir Technologies, Elon Musk's SpaceX, Airbnb, Lyft, and other start-ups.

We are living in a time when it has become fashionable to question the American Dream and to proclaim the end of American exceptionalism (though it's not clear what that is or was). It's Reagan's, Bush's, Clinton's, Bush's, Obama's fault that social security is under threat, government spending on healthcare remains unfunded, roads and bridges are cracking, interest hovers at zero, real job and wage growth have disappeared. Both political parties get blamed. But who make up these parties' constituencies, those who have wielded power for over 30 years? Baby boomers.Styled as a polemic, A GENERATION OF SOCIOPATHS argues for swift action to curtail the benefits that baby boomers have taken from other Americans, serving only their own needs at the expense of both the nation and future generations. Gibney outlines how our country, once at the brink of prosperity and peace, has been hijacked for the self-serving needs of those born of the Greatest Generation. Despite how stark that appears, the world is not zero sum; there is no reason that the improving international standard of living and economy must weigh in at the expense of our own. America currently stands at an intersection and must answer the decide whether to take steps to restore our infrastructure and make actual investments to the future or continue to fund an excessive lifestyle through debt.Exhaustively researched and passionately argued, A GENERATION OF SOCIOPATHS will become a landmark book about the American economy and policymaking.

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