The Boomer Supremacy
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Wokko
Come and take it.
Joined: 04 Oct 2005
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Post subject: The Boomer Supremacy | |
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https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2016/march/1456750800/richard-cooke/boomer-supremacy
Great article that hits on the issue of the Baby Boomer generation and their dominance in matters of wealth, policy, housing, employment and pretty much everything. They're going to be the first generation in history to leave their kids with less than they had, a shocking indictment on a generation that was handed everything on a platter by the 'Greatest Generation'; those who won WW2, took it and then continued taking from the next generation too. |
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HAL
Please don't shout at me - I can't help it.
Joined: 17 Mar 2003
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What happened to it? |
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think positive
Side By Side
Joined: 30 Jun 2005 Location: somewhere
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Well that's a depressing read! _________________ You cant fix stupid, turns out you cant quarantine it either! |
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Morrigu
Joined: 11 Aug 2001
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Post subject: Re: The Boomer Supremacy | |
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Edited cause silly me forgot PTID is always right - waste of time - shan't bother again _________________ “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”
Last edited by Morrigu on Wed Mar 02, 2016 11:33 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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^You're confusing your personal self with the data and attitude of a large group (Very few live the more radical lives of some of us!).
Excellent article, Wokko; one of the best Australian essays for a while, too.
A few quotes from it:
The political power that can be leveraged by property owners and the well employed is significant, and right now it is being used to compound their every advantage. When I see the way the Abbott government like its Labor predecessor happily presides over a system stacked against the younger generation, it makes me wonder why theyre not rioting in the streets, the Sydney Morning Herald economics editor Ross Gittins wrote in June last year.
There is a stunning generational unfairness in our [budget] settings and all those disengaged younger Australians need to wake up to the fact theyre being massively screwed by what the baby boomers are leaving for them, said Chris Richardson of Deloitte Access Economics. Right now, were eating their future.
the under 30s [are] taking approximately 1% of the benefit of [capital gains discount and negative gearing] tax breaks worth $7.7 billion a year.
Walk through Sydney on a night out, and that characterisation of a cemetery is only right at first glance. The security guards, and the enforced sense of family-friendly fun ending at 7.30 pm, and the notion that everything is taken care of by the rules: these things arent terminal. Sydney isnt dead its moribund. Instead, the silence is that of a long sunset in a very expensive and well-furnished retirement village. A thin-lipped quiet, that still speaks an unambiguous message: get off my lawn. _________________ In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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Wokko
Come and take it.
Joined: 04 Oct 2005
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In this case Morrigu he is. Not to devalue your lived experiences at all but when talking in broad brush statistics and meta analysis of history and generational trends the anecdotal evidence of one or even a thousand lives isn't important. Broadly speaking the generation born from the late 40s to the late 60s has been a selfish, entitled bunch who go rabid when their children's and grandchildren's generations ask for the same things they had, OR heaven forbid just ask to be left with something once the Boomer's are done. Of course there are individuals who worked hard, didn't take 'entitlements' and are going to leave their children with generous inheritances in order to build their family wealth. Unfortunately there are many more who took everything on offer, took the freebies away once they were done and are now spending up their children's inheritances as grey nomads, leaving nothing but bitter, angry children drowning in debt and rental payments and unwilling to hand over the mantle of power.
The first generation IN MODERN HISTORY to leave the next one poorer.
http://www.theguardian.com/business/grogonomics/2014/dec/11/generation-y-have-every-right-to-be-angry-at-baby-boomers-share-of-wealth
Meanwhile they say "I earned it, it's mine, my kids can just earn theirs" while forgetting the pile of wealth left to them by their parents |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003 Location: Andromeda
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How much can you really blame the individuals, though? Economies wax and wane; it would seem pretty inevitable that some generations will fare worse than others. Governments certainly play a large role in deciding what to spend and what to save, but the average voter doesn't really get a great amount of say in what those policies are. If the problem is poor management, blame the managers, not the people trying to make the best of their circumstances (as we all do). _________________ All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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HAL
Please don't shout at me - I can't help it.
Joined: 17 Mar 2003
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Oh. As much as I need to? |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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David wrote: | How much can you really blame the individuals, though? Economies wax and wane; it would seem pretty inevitable that some generations will fare worse than others. Governments certainly play a large role in deciding what to spend and what to save, but the average voter doesn't really get a great amount of say in what those policies are. If the problem is poor management, blame the managers, not the people trying to make the best of their circumstances (as we all do). |
I agree with that conditionally. But, like all behaviour, once we assume free will (given you and I forced to!), then culpability rests with people when damaging selfish decisions are taken in knowledge of their effects.
E.g., refusing to support a serious NBN; politicking to hold onto super and gearing concessions even as university fees rise; supporting crap industries such as mining at the expense of industries that create more and better employment because you want to prop up your portfolio; crapping all over the environment; forcing urban sprawl due to NIMBY politicking, and so on.
Once you know this stuff and the effects of your choices, short of brainwashing yourself you are culpable of being a generational pric%$k if you don't reposition for mutual benefit. No one wants people to lose; they want them to adjust for the mutual win.
Not to mention if kids and young people can't rely on their parents to give a shite about them, and can't generally trust adults to bring them through, then eff me dead. I don't have kids and I'd never consciously do that other people's kidsand certainly not to you and Ingmar! _________________ In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005 Location: In flagrante delicto
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I'm not sure I agree with the bagging of the boomers here, but I'm going to need to do some reading and be in a state to focus my thoughts before I try to post anything intelligent.
First thing that strikes me though is we're bagging the boomers for Gen Y's issues, and gen X gets a free pass?
Generation theory says it's all cyclical in which case Gen Y are destined to screw up and their kids will be the ones to straighten things up again. _________________ Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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Wokko
Come and take it.
Joined: 04 Oct 2005
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Hard times make hard people
hard people make good times
good times make soft people
soft people make hard times. |
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stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005 Location: In flagrante delicto
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Wokko wrote: | Hard times make hard people- Silent Generation
hard people make good times - Baby boomers
good times make soft people - Gen X
soft people make hard times.Gen Y |
And the millennials/Gen Z are the next Silent generation _________________ Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005 Location: In flagrante delicto
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OK, I got half way through the main article in the OP and gave up trying to analyse it.
it's a bag of mixed lollies containing some good points, some crap points and some utterly missed points all over laying a clear agenda.
The starting premise is the Sydney lock out laws which rightfully are causing serious angst, and even though the article points out that the origins of those laws were a concerted media campaign , it then leaves that point there on the shelf and moves on to the preferred target.
Overall, in MKR parlance, all the ingredients are there but the execution is overcomplicated and poor, the dish is hard to swallow, overall 2/10. _________________ Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003 Location: Andromeda
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stui magpie wrote: | Wokko wrote: | Hard times make hard people- Silent Generation
hard people make good times - Baby boomers
good times make soft people - Gen X
soft people make hard times.Gen Y |
And the millennials/Gen Z are the next Silent generation |
Actually, Wokko's aphorism (which, despite being a gross oversimplification hard times may make hard people, but they can also break people has some truth to it) would more likely be referring to baby boomers and Gen X as the soft people emerging from good times, and Gen Y as the beginning of the next cycle who are going to have to experience hard times.
But at this stage, isn't it worth pointing out that these generational categories are mostly imaginary? Any statement like "baby boomers are selfish" is not only an enormous generalisation, it's also at core a nonsensical statement. There's no such thing as a baby boomer; it's essentially an arbitrary circle that we've drawn around people born over an arbitrary time period regardless of class, wealth, gender, politics, ethnicity, cultural background or, really anything. But, y'know, I guess it gives something for journos to write about in slow news weeks...
pietillidie wrote: | I agree with that conditionally. But, like all behaviour, once we assume free will (given you and I forced to!), then culpability rests with people when damagingselfish decisions are taken in knowledge of their effects. |
Once we assume what now?! |
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stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005 Location: In flagrante delicto
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The silent gen endured the depression and the war and learned how to do without and how to be seriously thrifty.
The Boomers were raised by them so got the indoctrination but they got the opportunities and created the cultural revolution in the 60's and 70's
They then largely forgot the lessons taught to them and instead went with the new culture and raised their kids in the first generations to have access to serious tech and left wing ideals . So enter Gen X and the early Gen Y.
Gen Y in particular, used to having everything handed to them on a plate as kids, have a variable reaction to finding life isn't actually that easy as they were led to believe, so you get some polar opposites
Gen Z, god help them.
My biggest issue with the boomers and the older Gen X's are their control fetishes (generalisation I know) for a generation that went off the hook in their late teens those in the right wing media and the politicians seem determined to forget their own childhood and assume everyone under 30 is a moron and frame laws in that light.
Disclaimer, I'm technically a boomer but much more Gen X and even some gen Y in traits. _________________ Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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