Boomers: The Evil Generation!

[Arwon]

Three things I don't understand:

• Who actually handed us stuff?
• When did it happen?
• What exactly did we get?

I worked pretty hard for 40 years.

Compared to me born in the 1980s, people born in the 50s in Australia had much cheaper housing, steadily rising incomes, free university education, a much easier job market with much greater job security, and were able by beneficial tax policy to parlay those advantages into real estate investments, driving up housing costs for the rest of us. They get or will get defined benefit pensions rather than relying on mandatory superannuation. And a lot of them with investment income actually get paid a tax credit for it even if they don't pay any other tax.

 

[Birdjaguar]

The assumption is that somehow we are going to make them provide for us to the same extent that we provided for our parents' generation, despite the numbers proving that even if we had the power to make them willing they genuinely cannot do it. Boomers, through sheer numbers, could support my parents mind shattering income in their old age...but the smaller subsequent generation cannot do that for us, period.

It's surprising how difficult this reality is to get across despite how simple it is. I was one of three children. I have three kids. Being one of three kids was pretty ordinary when I was a kid, and it was pretty ordinary when my kids were kids. The difference being that among my contemporaries being one of three kids was the low end of normal. A lot of my friends had three or four brothers and sisters. Nobody really blinked until the kids were in double digits. The only "only child" that I knew was viewed as an outright oddity. When my kids were kids three was still normal enough, but it did get some fisheyes. I had the excuse that twins rushed me right past the two that boomers had pretty widely decided was all we could allow ourselves.

I see your point, but it seems to me that I keep hearing that boomers got stuff for free, they kept/spent it all and then kept millennials from getting jobs that paid well. And of course, we didn't solve the climate problems that appear to be coming.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I see your point, but it seems to me that I keep hearing that boomers got stuff for free, they kept/spent it all and then kept millennials from getting jobs that paid well. And of course, we didn't solve the climate problems that appear to be coming.

Or the health care problems that afflict the elderly. Dastards that we are.

 

[El_Machinae]

Lotsa strawmen from you three. I blame your entire cohort.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Compared to me born in the 1980s, people born in the 50s in Australia had much cheaper housing, steadily rising incomes, free university education, a much easier job market, and were able by beneficial tax policy to parlay those advantages into real estate investments, driving up housing costs for the rest of us. They get or will get defined benefit pensions rather than relying on mandatory superannuation. And a lot of them with investment income actually get paid a tax credit for it even if they don't pay any other tax.

Certainly for early boomers things cost a lot less, but people were paid much less too. I paid $0.25 a gallon for gas in HS. But also find a quarter was more difficult. The post war economy everywhere was pretty good as rebuilding was necessary. 20 years earlier in the 30s the world economy sucked. By the late 70s inflation was out of control. The great recession hit hard, but 10 years later it was much better. Job markets change. I've seen very different ones regularly since I started working in 1970. The great pensions of the pre 1980s were fabulous. They all went away in the 80s in the US as global trade changed the dynamics of trade. I never got one. As boomers demanded houses real estate became a mass market opportunity to make money. The bankers broke the market in 2007. Now to find cheap houses you have to live where you would rather not. When I got my first job after business school, I had an hour commute one way to work.

College costs a huge mess. The transition from 4 year degrees for the upper class to a college for all dynamic was a failure from the cost standpoint.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Lotsa strawmen from you three. I blame your entire cohort.

We grew up watching reruns of the Wizard of Oz and rejoiced when the scarecrow got his brain.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

The Alzheimer's thing is an interesting case study. Boomers knew Alzheimer's would happen. And so, they individually endeavor to place a claim on my labor to take care of them when they're old.

Don't worry. I'd never ask anyone to take care of me who thought the Alberta Conservative party was "benign."

Before I was born, they could have put more effort into creating a viable intervention for Alzheimer's. And so, instead of forcing me to take care of them, the problem would not have existed.

Except people realized how many people could be employed directly or indirectly if these major life-altering diseases are not cured. That's why I don't think there will ever be a cancer cure made available for the types that are Big Business. It would put too many people out of work and stop making certain businesses and corporations rich.

As I've read your posts, I've been mentally adding up all the people who have been paid directly or indirectly as a result of my dad's 11 years in hospitals and nursing homes. It's considerable, including the people I've had to pay in order to fulfill my own duties toward my dad, both during his life and after his death. I'm still not done with that.

If a cure for dementia/Alzheimers had been found, I might still have my dad alive, of sound mind, enjoying his life instead of spending 11 years being confused and frustrated that he couldn't go home (he'd keep asking me where he was and why couldn't he go home - surely he could just leave and go home and I had to keep telling him that no, he had to stay where he was). And I wouldn't be scared every time I forget something, since this runs in my family on my dad's side (cancer on my mom's side, dementia/Alzheimers on my dad's side; both are reasons to get that MAiD legislation fixed while I can still legally decide my own health care options so I don't end up like my parents did).

But if a cure had been found, all that lovely $$$$$$$ wouldn't have gone where it went.

 

[Patine]

We grew up watching reruns of the Wizard of Oz and rejoiced when the scarecrow got his brain.

Except that the Wizard was a schuyster, con-artist, charletton, and snake-oil salesman, and he gave him a placebo, not a brain, effectively.

 

[El_Machinae]

Valka, please put me on ignore. If you're just going to start every conversation such that I have to forgive you being a jerk, it's not fun for me. I'm going to treat you the way I wish you to treat me.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Except that the Wizard was a schuyster, con-artist, charletton, and snake-oil salesman, and he gave him a placebo, not a brain, effectively.

Hey, placebos are the American way!

 

[Arwon]

Now to find cheap houses you have to live where you would rather not.

In Australia it's a lot worse than this. There is nowhere in the Greater Sydney Area where it is possible to buy a house on, say, a teacher or nurse salary, because the prices have doubled or tripled in 15 years (the closest a nurse can get is Cessnock, which is not in Sydney and is about 150km or about 2 hours from the nearest Sydney hospital). All the people who already had property (ie, older people who benefited from lucky conditions at the time and have seen their wealth skyrocket) are encouraged to further speculate by beneficial tax policies that let you deduct all losses on property from other taxable income like wages. That price boom has meant younger people are priced out virtually entirely, and is a nearly directly generational effect.

 

[Birdjaguar]

@Patine Party pooper!

 

[Birdjaguar]

In Australia it's a lot worse than this. There is nowhere in the Greater Sydney Area where it is possible to buy a house on, say, a teacher or nurse salary, because the prices have doubled or tripled in 15 years (the closest a nurse can get is Cessnock, which is not in Sydney and is about 150km or about 2 hours from the nearest Sydney hospital). All the people who already had property (ie, older people who benefited from lucky conditions at the time and have seen their wealth skyrocket) are encouraged to further speculate by beneficial tax policies that let you deduct all losses on property from other taxable income like wages. That price boom has meant younger people are priced out virtually entirely, and is a nearly directly generational effect.

I admit that is terrible. Can they get enough nurses from closer?

 

[Arwon]

Just means they're stuck renting forever like most of us, or maybe scraping something together after like a decade, if they're part of a two income family and don't have major other expenses.

(renting forever wouldn't be so bad if tenant rights weren't so abysmal, but guess who controls the levers to political power and have little interest in strengthening tenant rights while they own all the rental stock as investment properties?)

 

[Bamspeedy]

Started reading this thread way too late, has to skip 10+pages to try and keep up, and not going back to find the quotes I want to respond to. My parents are boomers, born in the 40s.

Millenials can't cook? Men of every generation can't cook. My mom was telling me I should teach my dad how to cut a pie in even pieces, because he can't. My mom wasn't a cook either when they first got married, but becoming a full time stay at home mom turned her into one. That doesn't work as often nowadays as it used to because the mom has to work too.
I had a boomer manager who was so clueless to today's situation, he said stuff that was as stupid as Dilbert's boss. Telling 100 employees they "shouldn't have had kids" if they had to miss work because their kid is sick. "I have kids and never missed a day of work in 25 years" Let me guess, the wife took care of the kids every time they got sick.

My parents have slowly been getting hints that what worked for them doesn't work as well anymore. When they got a grandchild, my sister wasn't warmly welcomed at the hospital by the staff with "congratulations/we are so happy for you" like when they had their own kids, but with "how are you going to pay for this".

They have flat out said they are glad they don't have our schedule, every day of the week (including weekends) one of us is working. Trying to do anything with all of us together is...difficult. That is the life of the 'service economy'.
High deductibles were introduced to them late in my dad's working life, so mom worked part time at the museum for a couple years to get covered under the state's generous health care coverage and pension. No doubt they would vote to deny this to anyone else to cut their tax bill.

30K/year my mom thinks should be a 'comfortable' lifestyle for a family of 5. Maybe it would be... In 1970. Her jaw dropped when I told her how much my kids birthday party at chuckECheese was. Quite a bit more than when they took me 30+ years ago. I should give them an inflation calculator...

Sure, they didn't have everything easy, dad collected unemployment for two weeks (been there, done that) as the company changed ownership. The motel they owned to earn some extra cash was a money pit for most of the year (thanks to construction crews in the summer keeping it afloat). But before retiring, he showed me a payroll report, and it said he was earning the equivalent of someone with a bachelor's degree (with no student debt, because he never had any). He made as much $ himself as both me and my wife earn together. School was so cheap then it didn't take decades to pay it off, if your parents didn't pay for it. My mom went to school for...typing.

We'll give our kids something for college, but it will be a drop in the bucket if costs keep rising. I got nothing, but my parents didn't either, but the costs for them was next to nothing compared to today, so can't really say this is them being greedy, because their parents never paid that kind of money for them, either.

Sorry, your "we were poor too" doesn't work very well with "your sister dropped out of French class because we couldn't afford to send her on the class trip to France" when there are far less expensive things we can't afford to give our kids.

Birthday presents. I would never ask them to give their grandkids an XBox, but please not something you picked up at a rummage sale for 50 cents and is already missing a part and/or breaks on the first day, while you eat at Applebees every other day...

Can't say they haven't helped out, as they have from time to time. Could they have done more? Certainly. Not $ (hopefully that situation won't happen), but too often they were just too busy with their social life to babysit so we could go to work. I look at these other families where the grandparents are basically full time babysitters so the parents can work and wonder why my parents aren't more like that.

Then I remember those other grandparents are boomers too.

 

[Traitorfish]

Marxism is one way to look at the world. It's underpinnings of class struggle and the unsustainability of capitalism are appealing to many. It is an intellectual and philosophical approach most suitable for the classroom. What history has clearly demonstrated is that attempts to carry out a classless society at a meaningful scale haven't worked. Are there any success stories? I actually don't think that people want such a society.

The reigning ideology in the West since at least 1980 is that a classless society has already been achieved through the market; that disparities of wealth do not constitute a genuine class system because a meritocratic competitive system ensures both upwards and downwards social mobility; that socialism has become unnecessary, because it turns out you can have universal prosperity and private enterprise. Something about that vision clearly appeals to people, or our leaders wouldn't spend so much time insisting that they have fulfilled it.

The assumption is that somehow we are going to make them provide for us to the same extent that we provided for our parents' generation, despite the numbers proving that even if we had the power to make them willing they genuinely cannot do it. Boomers, through sheer numbers, could support my parents mind shattering income in their old age...but the smaller subsequent generation cannot do that for us, period.

But mechanically, we must. The labour and resources were not stored up in the 1980s, they will come from the present generation. That some legal trickery has been achieved whereby labour and resources are to be extracted from younger generations, rather than freely given, does not change that.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

But mechanically, we must. The labour and resources were not stored up in the 1980s, they will come from the present generation. That some legal trickery has been achieved whereby labour and resources are to be extracted from younger generations, rather than freely given, does not change that.

Mechanically, you can't. Probably the better word there is mathematically. This is a US centric point, but just on sheer numbers it can't work out. My parents were supported in their retirement by somewhere around nine prime earning years workers. I'll likely be supported by about one and a half. Maybe less. No matter how much 'forced labor' is imposed on them (just like it was imposed on me) there is no way they can provide the six digit annual income my parents enjoyed.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Valka, please put me on ignore. If you're just going to start every conversation such that I have to forgive you being a jerk, it's not fun for me. I'm going to treat you the way I wish you to treat me.

El_Machinae, you got in a huff years ago because I dared to disagree with you about the government of Alberta when Ralph Klein and others of his ilk were premier. It may have been "benign" for someone in your socioeconomic class, but it certainly wasn't for people in mine. You have demonstrated over and over that you just don't get it. So I challenge your pronouncements and assumptions and you seem to have a problem with that. If that constitutes me being a "jerk" that's your problem. Not mine.

You are certainly not required to keep forgiving me, since I never asked you to, and frankly don't care.

I look at these other families where the grandparents are basically full time babysitters so the parents can work and wonder why my parents aren't more like that.

Three-generation families used to be the norm. Now they aren't. I grew up in a household where there were three generations, up until my grandmother died in the late '90s. After that my dad and I continued to live together until he had to go into a succession of hospitals and nursing homes.

When I was in my toddler years, my mother went back to work and my grandmother looked after me. Those were some of the most enjoyable years of my life. My mother opted to stay home when I was 5 (for some reason she got emotional at the thought that I'd be away all day at school in another year... that was the year when the fighting between my parents started).

Having reliable grandparents at hand can literally save a kid's life. To hell with society's judgmental judgments over parents "not growing up" or whatever it is that makes it abnormal for grandparents to be anything other than occasional visitors.

 

[Patine]

Three-generation families used to be the norm. Now they aren't. I grew up in a household where there were three generations, up until my grandmother died in the late '90s. After that my dad and I continued to live together until he had to go into a succession of hospitals and nursing homes.

When I was in my toddler years, my mother went back to work and my grandmother looked after me. Those were some of the most enjoyable years of my life. My mother opted to stay home when I was 5 (for some reason she got emotional at the thought that I'd be away all day at school in another year... that was the year when the fighting between my parents started).

Having reliable grandparents at hand can literally save a kid's life. To hell with society's judgmental judgments over parents "not growing up" or whatever it is that makes it abnormal for grandparents to be anything other than occasional visitors.

My sister and her firstborn son lived with my mother for several years (and my mother did a lot of babysitting of my infant nephew) until my mother fully retired and moved out to Vancouver Island, living with her dog and cat (the first time in her whole life, as she told me, that she lived in a home where she was the only permanent human resident).

 

[Modder_Mode]

"Charity" seems like an insufficient word for what Jesus of Nazareth espoused. It suggests an act of giving, and moreover of giving what from that which you have decided you spare, but what he advocated was sharing, the dissolution of distinctions of "mine" and "yours", the assumption that any surplus was a common surplus. I agree that this bares little resemblance to state socialism- but it bears less resemblance to the noblesse oblige of the employing class.

A better word might be "community... ism"? "Communism"? Is that a word?

If I were to invoke those ideals of Jesus Christ and pigeon-hole it, I would lean more towards anarchism than communism, principally because of its anti-authoritarian views, however ultimately when God reigns on Earth re the second coming I would view this reign in-itself as authoritarian, although I wouldn't necessarily view this as a bad thing.

Can socialism and ultimately communism ever be achieved without some tyrannical dictator at the helm? I know we have examples of "communism" (quotation mark necessary as I am using the term loosely) in some churches, or at least that's what they identify themselves as, but as far as I know its all voluntarily based. But I feel all this discussion is suited to it's own thread or the capitalism/socialism one.