The Boomer Supremacy
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think positive 
Side By Side
Joined: 30 Jun 2005
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| David wrote: | My response to those two questions would be:
1) If you look at policies in areas such as housing, educational funding and the minimum wage, I think it's fair to say that younger people don't get the best deal in our society. And in case you think that governments basically mean well, let's not forget that our current federal government wanted to make unemployed people under 30 wait six months for the dole. As I said, callous indifference at best.
2) I'm of course motivated by self-interest as much as anyone else, but when it comes to economic policy I feel a bit more like a neutral observer – basically, because I don't care about money all that much and tend to think I'll do my best to get by in any situation. But I am concerned about other people in my age group, and I care about what's good for society as a whole (which, of course, affects my own quality of life in the end regardless). |
how so?
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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Housing: policies like negative gearing that have led to skyrocketing house prices, essentially pricing young people out of the market while benefiting older investors.
Education: increasing university fees that leave young people with huge debts, while baby boomer politicians who got their qualifications for free lecture us about 'entitlement'.
Minimum wage: not going up as much as it should be, which contributes to a widening wage gap while (generally older) people on large incomes get tax breaks.
That's just off the top of my head. I'm sure there are plenty of other examples.
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think positive
Side By Side
Joined: 30 Jun 2005
Location: somewhere
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| David wrote: | Housing: policies like negative gearing that have led to skyrocketing house prices, essentially pricing young people out of the market while benefiting older investors.
Education: increasing university fees that leave young people with huge debts, while baby boomer politicians who got their qualifications for free lecture us about 'entitlement'.
Minimum wage: not going up as much as it should be, which contributes to a widening wage gap while (generally older) people on large incomes get tax breaks.
That's just off the top of my head. I'm sure there are plenty of other examples. |
housing- how about foreign policy? how do you think investments for rent should be governed? what should be claimable?
education: i have no idea if it was ever free, i didnt go, i went to trade school, however, having a degree means you can walk into a 50K plus job straight out of school, whats the average HECS loan? my eldest will be around 20,000 when she finishes, its an interest free loan, that is payable at a pretty low rate IMO, and doesnt become payable til you earn 50K per annum. its about $3000 payable for a $75,000k income, interest free, i dont think thats a big dept considering the benefit. the teachers, admin etc have to get paid, should the tax of low income earners straight out of high school pay to educate the lucky that get to go to uni? you cant just print money for it.
Minimum wage, i certainly agree here, but its not just young people effected, its people in blue collar jobs, those with out enough education to climb of the shop floor, checkout chicks and trolley pushers, they are hurting even at retirement age. thats not a youth thing IMO
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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^ I think you'll find there are a greater proportion of younger people in those professions you list at the end.
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Wokko 
Come and take it.
Joined: 04 Oct 2005
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The point on free university is there was one generation that got it, then it was removed 20 years later (20 years is considered 1 generation). 1974 to 1996 (with a tightening in 1989).
All through the 80s and early 90s there was an easily accessed and quite generous dole in place too. I remember people living in Torquay just collecting the dole, smoking weed and surfing. The mid 90s ended all that too (tightening of indexation and much stricter requirements, also privatisation)
Then in the 90s it was all about middle class welfare for families, now that the boomers are sliding out of that demographic and into retirement (what do you know, 20 years after they were instituted) those benefits are being eroded.
So I guess aged pensions have a few years left before the government brings in using the family home as part of assets tests for the pension and then inheritance taxes a few years after that.
The point of the article is there is a thread of policy decisions made to benefit one group of people at the expense of all others, these decisions are understandable as the Boomers are a large population bubble and significant voting block that had to be wooed, this is a problem of democracy; people vote in their own self interest rather than that of society. Doesn't make it right.
As for minimum wage, all that does is kill off any job that doesn't create that amount of revenue for an employer.
That's in issue for a different thread though.  |
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HAL
Please don't shout at me - I can't help it.
Joined: 17 Mar 2003
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| I am not sure I see your point. |
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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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Poor young people. 
If you want a tertiary education that provides a quick pathway to a higher paying job, paying back some of the cost with an interest free loan should be met with a "thank you" rather than a sulk.
The majority of people in those blue collar jobs, once you take out the high school and uni students, are migrants and older people. Depending on the time of day you'll find plenty of middle aged women being check out chicks at the supermarkets. Women who didn't get a uni education, married young and had kids and now the kids are grown up their option on entering the workforce are quite limited.
Cleaners, factory workers, trolley jockeys, taxi drivers, not a lot of young people among them.
Just being over 50 doesn't mean you have heaps of disposable income, plenty of blue collar couples though have got to the point where they can buy investment properties because they worked hard for 30 years and were frugal, going without a new TV or car or eating out to save money.
Young people these days are too used to being able to have everything, having to work for it over years doesn't come natural to them.
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Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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think positive
Side By Side
Joined: 30 Jun 2005
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| stui magpie wrote: | Poor young people.
If you want a tertiary education that provides a quick pathway to a higher paying job, paying back some of the cost with an interest free loan should be met with a "thank you" rather than a sulk.
The majority of people in those blue collar jobs, once you take out the high school and uni students, are migrants and older people. Depending on the time of day you'll find plenty of middle aged women being check out chicks at the supermarkets. Women who didn't get a uni education, married young and had kids and now the kids are grown up their option on entering the workforce are quite limited.
Cleaners, factory workers, trolley jockeys, taxi drivers, not a lot of young people among them.
Just being over 50 doesn't mean you have heaps of disposable income, plenty of blue collar couples though have got to the point where they can buy investment properties because they worked hard for 30 years and were frugal, going without a new TV or car or eating out to save money.
Young people these days are too used to being able to have everything, having to work for it over years doesn't come natural to them. |
THANKYOU
Perfect post
I couldn't be bothered!
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You cant fix stupid, turns out you cant quarantine it either! |
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Morrigu 
Joined: 11 Aug 2001
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| pietillidie wrote: | | Morrigu is just being an angry ant and reckons I think she uses blue rinse, meanwhile feeling embarrassed about her pink fluffy slippers, lavender talcum powder and mothball-smelling cardigans |
Now see you have just proven that you have NFI - as if I would be seen dead in anything pink you eejit!
Mind you fairly planted in your derrière the difference between fluffy and my very favourite Dainese boots may enlighten you toute suite !
All talk, little action mostly soft and sooky - gobby but usually at a distance - I have social media hear me roar - maybe you identify with them eh 
Is that a mid life crisis thing? - have heard little red convertible sports cars can help (well not really but give the illusion and affirm the self of relevance and importance)
There is more welfare for the poor young uns now than ever before - the problem is they expect it and genuinely feel they are entitled to it
How's the book coming along - maybe rather than a cat or dog Fred and Mavis should have a rabbit - Peter???
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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| stui magpie wrote: | Poor young people.
If you want a tertiary education that provides a quick pathway to a higher paying job, paying back some of the cost with an interest free loan should be met with a "thank you" rather than a sulk. |
That's not actually at issue here.
The argument is about increasing burden even as housing becomes less affordable, and wages remain flat or decline.
Society and social quality are built heavily on forward expectations; positive expectations are a social glue which drive the whole forward.
However, we've now got the cost of normal social participation, including education and housing, going way up, but income for certain groups not going way up with it. The rising gap between the two is the topic of conversation here.
There is a really dumb sense no one "deserves" anything, including you or me or anyone. Ignoring that, these are always and only relative arguments about the balance of whole. The balance since Howard has worked aggressively against younger people, or at least certain groups of younger people, as well as the lower-income segment generally.
You're also referring to 1980s H-K education reforms as if they happened last week. It was those in and around my time at uni who benefited from the best of the system so far. This particular disagreement starts with Howard's "reforms".
Even during a boom, the ar$ewipe started to shift payments to line his own electoral chances. Fine for five minutes, but someone else has to pick up the tab of exclusion and power gap blowouts.
It's the handouts targeting the middle-upper, middle-aged segment which matter most in the Australian context. Their misallocation is starting to impact younger people indirectly through their families, and through those monies being invested against the interests of young people, such as in housing speculation, even ignoring direct effects such as rising education costs.
The generational aspect, though, as I say, is just populist sauce. Morrigu rightly pointed out that the elderly, as we know, are a sadly neglected group. 3.142 rightly pointed out many boomers are struggling. Many young people are also doing fine. These points are not at issue here, either.
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Wokko
Come and take it.
Joined: 04 Oct 2005
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think positive
Side By Side
Joined: 30 Jun 2005
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| Wokko wrote: | |
Makes no sense, they don't start paying those loans until they are earning $50,000k a year, and these kids don't have jobs?
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You cant fix stupid, turns out you cant quarantine it either! |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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^Yes, Australia is much better off than the US, partly because people like you and I don't fall for this sort of shite and work to head it off at the pass.
People don't realise these things are games of momentum; once a power gap gains even modest momentum it needs to be whacked on the head before it takes hold and becomes entrenched.
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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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HAL
Please don't shout at me - I can't help it.
Joined: 17 Mar 2003
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| Humans are not always infallible. |
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