Dear @agmoore,
thank you for your interesting comment.
Blaming a generation is wrong in most cases, as it is a big generalization.
Actually, my generation was about generosity. We rebelled against the materialist culture of the 50s, the post war boom generation. We didn't want more for ourselves; we wanted more for a greater number of people.
Yes, your generation didn't want more for themselves, but they didn't want (or have) to pay for it either. So it was not altruistic, and I wouldn't call it generosity.
We wanted less pain for everyone, and we were willing to work for that goal.
Isn't that an aim of every generation? Mine (I am an older Millennial) want(ed) that, too.
I think mine may have been the last idealistic generation.
I am less sure about Generation X, but the Millennials were idealistic, too. Having come of age during the dotcom bubble, 911, the Afghan and Iraq Wars and the Great Financial Crisis, many were idealistic, anti-War, anti-Capitalist, etc.
Gordon Gecko was a creature of the 80s.
That is one way to put it. I'd put it this way: Gordon Gecko (or yuppies in general) are the consequence of having come of age in the highly inflationary 1970s and realizing that their Generation X was much smaller than the Babyboomers. Politically they had insignificant influence, and thus everybody fought for him- or herself, moving into cities and trying to make big money and pay little to government or society. (no taxation without representation)