Herbert Herbert Herbert

So Bob Herbert ends his 18-year run at The New York Times with the same sort of column that's made him the most predictable writer on their pages.

For instance, he believes we need to spend more on education.  That we already spend more than almost any other country doesn't mean anything to him. (Or that we're already in deep debt.) He believes if the government intervened more in our economy, we'd do better, even though the government seems to be intervening quite a bit with little or no positive effect. And so on and so forth.  But here's the line I found most fascinating:

Young people today are staring at a future in which they will be less well off than their elders, a reversal of fortune that should send a shudder through everyone.

When I was at the University of Michigan, former Wolverine Tom Hayden came to speak, with wife Jane Fonda in tow.  As she looked on admiringly, he condemned the foolish economic policies of the government, and thundered that we would be the first generation in America to do worse than our parents.  And I thought to myself  "well, that's a reversal of fortune I'd certainly shudder at." I wonder how many years this threat has been around? Thirty, forty, fifty or is it just an empty threat Jeremiahs are always making?  If I had the time, I might check Herbert's earliest columns and see if he made the same claim himself a generation ago.