Is this sarcasm? It's truly laughable if you don't think boomers had a clear advantage in comparison to Millennials, Gen X, etc;
I'm sorry you didn't reap the benefits of the most benevolent time in America's history but plenty of your Boomer counter-parts sure as hell did. I've met enough Boomers that there is nothing wrong with generalizing Boomers as a whole. Just like a huge percentage of my generation totally gave up and resort to 'UNFAIR MEH WON'T TRY NOW'. Am in that camp? No. I don't get upset when people generalize because it doesn't pertain to me as an individual. There is some truth to prejudice
Boomers had an era of prosperity that we will never see again. My in-laws purchased their first home in 1971 for 60,000. That same home is worth 800,000+
The only reason I can even own a home or compete in my late 20's is because I wasn't naïve enough to think that any degree would pay the bills.
You might not like it, but Boomers took their hoard and pulled the ladder up behind them. It is what it is.
>You might not like it, but Boomers took their hoard and pulled the ladder up behind them. It is what it is.
And what mechanism did they use to do this exactly?
>I've met enough Boomers that there is nothing wrong with generalizing Boomers as a whole. Just like a huge percentage of my generation totally gave up and resort to 'UNFAIR MEH WON'T TRY NOW'. Am in that camp? No. I don't get upset when people generalize because it doesn't pertain to me as an individual. There is some truth to prejudice
Its an unwillingness to understand the predicament or situation and just blaming it on a group of people. It's pretty common throughout history; a weapon wielded by the powerful.
>I'm sorry you didn't reap the benefits of the most benevolent time in America's history but plenty of your Boomer counter-parts sure as hell did.
Housing in almost all the west is a huge rent extraction scheme made possible by politicians catering to boomers and run by boomer savings allocated in real state + NIMBYism from boomers that prevent the market to adjust.
'I've met enough __________ that there is nothing wrong with generalizing about ________ as a whole. Every last __________ are __________.
You have no perspective, self awareness, nor understanding of economics and history so you blame it on boomers.
The prosperity you talk of included smaller homes, built to different code, with a population of 205 million not 330, at a time with huge unemployment and high interest rates. There are so many factors, but yeah distill it down to BOOMER hate because it works for your simplistic thinking and you have met a representative portion to be able to judge them all.
I grew up in the 80s. EVERYTHING is nicer today, everything. But let's look at your example. Housing. Job stress was super bad in the recession of the 80s. You don't understand what it is like to live in the gloom that was the 80s. Let's talk about the economic part of that gloom. Continuing on the inflation/high interest of the 70s. Every night on the news they talked about how no one would ever have the American dream of owning a home again, what with the combination of high interest rates and no one having jobs because of the recession (unemployment 1980 7.2%, 1981 8.5%, 1982 10.8% 1983 8.3%, 1984 7.3%, 1985 7%).
Man if you could only live in those glorious times when house prices were cheap because nobody had jobs, and those that did have jobs were poorly paid (because of competition for jobs) and their money was quickly worthless because of interest rates/inflation (Inflation of 1979 13.3%, 1980 13.50%, 1981 10.3%). You leave out that homes were cheaper because interest was so high people couldn't afford the price they can with lower interest. 1980 15%, 1985 9.93%.
I remember my boomer parents and the stress in their eyes every day. But yeah, when they were young everything was easy not like your generation's struggle. FU dude. How dare you judge my parents? You don't know them. You don't know their struggles to keep food on the table for me. Just straight up F U dude. You are garbage, thinking you can judge them because you 'met enough Boomers that there is nothing wrong with generalizing Boomers'and because you are to ignorant to understand the factors that created the spread of home prices in the past and today but want to feel like you do.
Stop being a tool, get some perspective on what you are talking about if you are going to judge people. You don't understand what it is like to live with a horrible economy for basically a decade, but because it depressed housing prices want to act like it was some sort of blessing.
Don't forget the Vietnam draft (that's a big one) and the closing of factories and farms, computerization and automation went from 0-100 in the 80s, and the OPEC oil crisis where you had to wait in line for hours to get enough gas (if you were lucky) to even get to work. Speaking of, you know how soul sucking working in a factory is, day in, day out? I don't but I can only imagine. Big union busting under Reagan, pension stealing by corporate raiders, and social safety nets were cut pretty hard in the 80s as well. Oh yea and the whole looming Cold War, nuclear winter, getting your skin burnt off at any time. People are beginning to get a taste of that again. That's no fun either.
Average income in 1960 (as an example year since it wasn't listed) $6000 or 10% of that house.
Average income in 2021 $65,000, well short of the $80,000 to equal 10% of the house. Also, there has been a large increase in other expenses. Most households had a single earner, leaving another adult to generally raise children. That's much rarer today. Two car households, higher utility bills, etc... The evidence is pretty clear that money doesn't go as far today.
$10K in 1971, so 1/6th of the house. I suspect the people in this example made well more than that because buying a home at 6x income is not very responsible. That kinda skews the results because if you buy a home in an already well off neighborhood, I suspect the chances of it increasing in value are much better because the neighborhood has already proven to be valuable.
The boom in housing prices is also a temporary anomaly. That's only half the reason young people can't afford them. The other half is NAFTA and globalization and trade agreements, etc. Those were all done by politicians for corporations. It's easy to blame Boomers because you read an article that did that very thing (it's common in news to stir cross generational resentment). It also lets the politicians off the hook. Remember that next time they say the presidential candidate of whatever party you prefer will actually help you. Unless you are a corporation, that's unlikely.
>> It's truly laughable if you don't think boomers had a clear advantage in comparison to Millennials, Gen X, etc;
Baby boom generation started in what, 1946?
In 1946 almost half the houses in the US didn't have full indoor plumbing. That's some era of prosperity to be born into.
I'm not of that generation, but my parents were. My mom and her brother were driving tractors and operating other heavy machinery on a farm when they were still in elementary school. That was how a large part of the baby boomers grew up.
I'm sorry you didn't reap the benefits of the most benevolent time in America's history but plenty of your Boomer counter-parts sure as hell did. I've met enough Boomers that there is nothing wrong with generalizing Boomers as a whole. Just like a huge percentage of my generation totally gave up and resort to 'UNFAIR MEH WON'T TRY NOW'. Am in that camp? No. I don't get upset when people generalize because it doesn't pertain to me as an individual. There is some truth to prejudice
Boomers had an era of prosperity that we will never see again. My in-laws purchased their first home in 1971 for 60,000. That same home is worth 800,000+
The only reason I can even own a home or compete in my late 20's is because I wasn't naïve enough to think that any degree would pay the bills.
You might not like it, but Boomers took their hoard and pulled the ladder up behind them. It is what it is.