The other week Ms Twigg ran a very persuasive, very in-depth account of the Boomer-vs-civilization fight going on in Britain, too (#1521908).
The boomers struck backThe boomers struck back
Noooeeeeh, they said in their uppity, privileged, delightful voices, we deeesseeeerve what we haaaaave. Woe is us! (Yes, they're exactly that despicable.)
When I wrote an article last week about bitter millennials resenting the lavish lifestyles of their boomer parents, more than one commenter predicted that my own mother and father would never speak to me again after reading it. Naturally, I was a little concerned (was it really that inflammatory?), but after an anxious call home, I was relieved to hear that they did, in fact, intend to keep me in their lives.
"Now, quite reasonably, she feels it is her turn to live a little and see the world.""Now, quite reasonably, she feels it is her turn to live a little and see the world."
Boomers, however, were not happy with my assessment, and thousands of readers railed against the notion that they were unusually entitled, arguing that their post-war lives were tougher than anything today’s youth could imagine.
Yes... ish. But it was also very straightforward, where working hard and showing up (quantity, not quality) dutifully paid off in an optimistic, prosperous future kind of way, whereas the decision-tree has sprawled out considerably since then and the prosperity is all but consumed (...by boomers, themselves, let's be honest: NHS spending, anybody? Gov pension liabilities??)
what I was trying to capture in the piece was the idea that the luckiest generation of all continues to
win the financial, social and cultural lottery – and that perhaps they owe their children a little more of their retirement than they think they do.
And it's not primarily wealth (though they certainly owe that...), but time: be around. Clean the house now and again; take over child duty; organize get-togethers and dinner parties.
“I started working at 12 [helping the milkman] and continued early shifts in all weathers until I was 17, pumping petrol every weekend until I was 19,[and] then into full-time work without a break in employment until I was 62,” said Stephen Tye, in the comments section of my article.
Yes, amazing. That option and career path is thoroughly closed for today's youth, their parents going to jail if 12-year-olds were found doing paid labor. Also, no milk delivery; Amazon or Uber Eats delivery ain't putting food on the table (except for the customer...)
Then same dude complains about "14% mortgage rate" which is laughable and economically illiterate: it was all inflated away, you idiot, while you got to keep the collateral (equity in an ever-appreciating house).
Still, most boomers understand that the housing market has spiralled out of control in the years since they were young – and that this has made everything harder. Equally, many would also argue that they are already acting as a private welfare state for their millennial children, with statistics showing that relatives contributed nearly £11bn towards deposits for first-time buyers in 2025.
That's good, but it's the minimally acceptable repentance. You don't get brownie points or virtue rewards for first robbing a man and then offering to help him with his grocery bill.
...and THEN the boomers started making sense! I can't believe it!
a number of boomers seem to believe that young people are partly to blame for this situation, not least because of their voting habits, which skew Left in the UK for every demographic under the age of 45.
"“Millennials. You wanted woke... you end up with a crap economy as a result. Thatcher created us boomers. You vote Labour. Work it out,”""“Millennials. You wanted woke... you end up with a crap economy as a result. Thatcher created us boomers. You vote Labour. Work it out,”"
150-fucking-percent right. Good on yah, boomers, for at least amassing a viable argument for your depravity.
Finally, a boring middle-of-the-road conclusion:
To me the most damning piece of evidence is the common attitude of “Time to get mine” when the alternative is something like “I can do so much more for my family than my parents and grandparents were able to.”
I deeply hope that I am never consumed by such a mindset.
I once posted here on SNs a question related to claiming state provided welfare.
A person I know has reached the age of entitlement to universal state funded pension (65) here in New Zealand- but they have chosen not to claim it, feeling that they have sufficient savings and no need for taking other peoples taxes/money to support themselves.
I asked Stackers how would they act in such a situation.
ALL BAR NONE said they would take the money.
Libertarians are evidently a bunch of 'Time to get mine' hypocrite bludgers.
It’s truly remarkable how little a person can learn when they commit themselves to being oblivious.
Libertarians don’t fault the welfare recipient for accepting welfare. That’s not who committed the expropriation.
'Time to get mine' is clearly an attitude shared by many Boomers and Libertarians though as demonstrated by my informal survey conducted here on Stacker news.
Here we have Libertarians like @denlillaapan criticising the 'Time to get mine' attitude when they have demonstrated exactly the same attitude.
Saying the welfare recipient is not responsible for the expropriation is not true - in the case of Boomers choosing to receive gold plated pensions paid for by todays tax payers for example.
If you chose to claim a welfare payment you are part of the expropriation process and culture of entitlement fueling it.
When presented with a hypothetical scenario where they could claim a benefit all SN respondents said they would.
They choose to be recipients of expropriated funds taken by force from others.
And my example above was a Boomer who has chosen not to take welfare he could claim, because he does not need it.
There are few people of true principles but many who claim them but do not demonstrate them.
People are more often selfish hypocrites, especially @denlillaapan who bleats about Boomers but himself bludges welfare payments from the Iceland state.
Very committed indeed
Sometimes Libertarians call for all welfare to be cancelled.
Yet when presented with a scenario where they could claim payments for themselves they unanimously agreed they would accept it.
Selfish Hypocrisy.
Zero commitment to stated principles.
What is needed is for these entitled Libertarian hypocrite parasites to experience true poverty and insecurity and the significance of good government - send them all to Gaza for further education.
I understand your point because I listen to what other people say to me. Keep harping away on it as long as you like though. It won't magically become relevant.
Characterizing reasoned dialogue with a little rhetorical license thrown in as harping away is fine but the issues remain unresolved.
The inability of most Libertarians to even engage in reasoned dialogue and debate if it challenges their core beliefs is enough incentive for me to keep harping on.
It is worthwhile imo because not challenging blatant hypocrisy is inviting it to flourish.
We are all subject to the beliefs that arise and predominate in our cultures and we all have reasonable cause and motive to question outright hypocrisy and fundamentally flawed assertions...as they threaten us all ultimately.
Certainly one individual can only make a small impact, but believing that change and the contest of ideas are worthwhile and possible is all that needs to be assumed.
ironically I think that's part of the problem... people who grew up with boomer parents that cared about them and helped them out have this enormous leg up over people who grew up with poor boomer parents or boomer parents who didn't care to help them
that's riiiiiight. Be better, biatchez
I agree that the conclusion is lame. But, I don't think there is much to be gained by determining who is to blame. The reality I see is that there is no way -- absolutely zero chance -- that obligations like social security, medicare, or pension plans are reduced.
As Lyn Alden says, nothing stops this train. I know that she is usually referring to the amassed debt, but I think it can as well be said of the amassed expectations of voters: they expect social security, they are used to it. It would take nothing short of a revolution to remove it.
Is there a way to reform it? I suspect even something like means testing is politically unpalatable. All the more so when politicians can solve the problem by increasing debt. The conversation around the ever increasing debt is obscure and not mainstream. A conversation around removing/reducing SS benefits would be on the front page of every newspaper.
Sure there is. It's Keynesians and Marxists. Remove them and the problems stop.
most problems stop, yes.
The puzzle of how to move value, and how to redistribute the spoils from between your earning years to your elderly years... not so simple
It is simple. I wish it weren't. I wish there were more to be gained from these fascinating macroeconomic analyses, but we've already fixed 97% of economic problems just by putting a supply cap on the currency, so now it's mostly a matter of dealing with thieves and looters who can't cope with the fact that they have less money than other people who worked hardet than them.
You just cant cope with the reality that China with its state capitalist- free enterprise hybrid vigour economic model has built the most productive innovative and rapidly growing economy on the planet and that your financialised neoliberal crony capitalism is not able to compete.
@denlillaapan does not seem to understand that it was us Boomers (his and your parents) who introduced the neoliberal economic model that his Libertarian nonsense is a derivative of...that has decimated and destroyed economic opportunity for your generation.
History and logic show that a government that fosters development and investment in education, engineering and productive infrastructure delivers superior economic growth and wealth.
China won the trade war so you Libertarian ingrate morons now have to live with a future of ever declining wealth and freedoms because your ideology is fundamentally flawed.
@denlillaapan is a hypocrite claiming social welfare payments from the Iceland government.
All the bleating spoilt brat Libertarian Gen Xer bludgers and hypocrites need to be deported to Gaza and given a chance to know true hardship.
a couple of surprise inflation shocks every now and again to reduce the real value of the benefits (don't COLA properly) and voila, done!
uhhhmm....
I feel the same way but it’s worth noting that some western countries have scaled back once things became untenable.
Entitlements won’t go away entirely without a revolution. What might happen are changes like switching to defined contribution plans from defined benefit or limited means testing or even opt-out programs.
every generation inherits problems and creates a few new ones too
Wise enough a summary!!
There's no earning anything in a mixed economy. We're all fighting over the monopoly on violence to benefit our gang, and all other economic activity is downstream from that.
Boomer leftists wanted a nanny state for themselves. Millennial leftists wanted to expand the nanny state to all four corners of the universe. Zoomer leftists want to raid your house to finance an even worse nanny state now that the old one is bankrupt.
Enough is enough. Literally every problem in the world is their fault. We have to put our foot down as a society with Nuremberg-style trials for these traitors to 1776.
When they starve and lash out because inflation is 500% for some reason, Tiananmen them all and the remaining good people will rebuild on a Bitcoin standard. Sorry but not sorry at all. Cancerous roaches and rats the lot of them.
I agree with that!
You just cant cope with the reality that China with its state capitalist- free enterprise hybrid vigour economic model has built the most productive innovative and rapidly growing economy on the planet and that your financialised neoliberal crony capitalism is not able to compete.
@denlillaapan does not seem to understand that it was us Boomers (his and your parents) who introduced the neoliberal economic model that his Libertarian nonsense is a derivative of...that has decimated and destroyed economic opportunity for your generation.
History and logic show that a government that fosters development and investment in education, engineering and productive infrastructure delivers superior economic growth and wealth.
China won the trade war so you Libertarian ingrate morons now have to live with a future of ever declining wealth and freedoms because your ideology is fundamentally flawed.
@denlillaapan is a hypocrite claiming social welfare payments from the Iceland government.
All the bleating spoilt brat Libertarian Gen Xer bludgers and hypocrites need to be deported to Gaza and given a chance to know true hardship.
You young ones are so fucking lazy you cannot even make the effort to attach LN wallets to your SNs account- hard to see how there is any hope for such a self sabotaging bone idle bunch of bleating ingrates.
At least you now have a friend in @coffeebadger with whom you can share your delusional poor me loser anecdotes.
True capitalism hasn't yet been implemented. The US and the PRC are both mixed economies. Meaning, sometimes you point guns at people and force them into things, and sometimes you let them work in peace. That's the model. The PRC didn't innovate a new economic system. They slaughtered and exiled their best people, then copied FDR with a heavy dose of extra tyranny. The wealth comes from the fact that you have a billion people trading on the same network, not because the communists are good at central planning. They aren't.
Your regime is shit, and it will soon be proven definitively to be shit, and then we'll have eternal peace because there won't be any more communists to disturb it.
Systems are won through war. We have to completely crush the tyrannical communist model militarily in order to progress to the next level of civilization, total world domination under the banner of Laissez Faire. I will not witness it because I'll be dead in the strait like a man. Hopefully you get to see it. Oh wait, you already chose BTC over RMB. That should tell you that it's over, when even you have voluntarily bent the knee to our paradigm of rational self interest.
As a SoV and MoE yes I prefer Bitcoin as it was intended, although since Zionist bankers have largely captured and controlled BTC custody thats now debateable.
As for trade payments well most of NZs trade is with China so why not use Yuan, we need them for the imports we buy with the surplus we make from trade we export.
NZs trade with China is a lot more profitable and rewarding that that with USA.
With China we face zero tariffs both ways and great prices for our exports...with USA there are multiple trade barriers put up by the US and terrible terms of trade overall. We don't want or need trade with USA anymore- they make almost nothing we want and refuse to buy most of our major export commodities. Far from free trade USA is the biggest manipulator and barrier to trade we face.
Fact is Chinas mixed model is nothing new- it is what all great empires have used- state power backing private enterprise.
You clearly dont understand history or economics because you keep calling the CCP communists when they are not that since 1990 - Deng saw reason and adopted a mixed model for hybrid vigour.
China has won the trade war and USA is in sad, tragic and terminal Trumpian decline.
The USA and USD are owned by Zionist war criminals who desperately seek to build their Greater Israel because they know China will not be their patsy proxy military bully boy like USA has been.
USA should wake up and stop being Patsy Proxies for the Zionist war criminals but they are so deeply captured, doubtful they can.
I don't care about Marx's definition of communism. My definition is that you worship the state. The PRC and the EU are state-worshipping societies that are inherently threatening to the free world.
The PRC dominates the global economy because they are not controlled by parasitic Zionist bankers and their US imperialist proxies.
The CCP manages and develops Chinas resources for the betterment of China.
They are free of the US yoke and burden of imperialism.
That's what annoys you and that's your tough pill to swallow.
Until you see reality enjoy your cascading decline and loss of power, wealth and position as China rises and USA declines into ever deeper penury and ignominy.
The missed a spot. We'll see what happens. We'll strike first if you don't. It's better for tradition's sake that red goes first.
Literally, this is some generational blame shifting
But no one is even looking at the true culprit
you want to start a war against boomers? where did they hurt you? no respect for elders eh? ;)
zero respect
You came from the loins of Boomers you fool.
"Generation Zero" by Steve Bannon
i just hope we dont repeat the same mistakes when it's our turn...