Baby Boomers making out like bandits as usual

Pimperne1

Jimmy_31 wrote: »

If you was in the construction industry you would know that the banks wouldnt lend you a penny because you are self employed and constantly in and out of work.

I wouldnt pay current land prices either.

That's not what I see on Grand Design.

suki1001

I'm not quite sure what to make of this arguement. However, I know some my family boomers who are retiring comfortable and some who not going to be living off very much and have no assets - each with jobs ranging from blue collar to teaching. My Grandmother died recently (90) and had four pensions. All my grandparents benefitted from good careers because of the war. My Grandfather left the poverty of Hartlepool (during the depression) to join the Navy and did well afterwards. They were the most comfortable of the three generations. They had lively social lives and all the mod cons of the 50's. There is no doubt that boomers did work hard and my in laws first rented their house sounded quite horrible. Yet as with this generation people did things because they did.
They worked hard, but I work hard and have always worked.
I am slightly unsure why the older generations use phrases like: We never had Sky. We didn't have mobile phones etc, when they never existed. Did people really not eat out because they were being really frugal. I seriously doubt that, my mother said "it was just something people never did". I am certain had all these things been available at the time, people would have had them or done them. How many of the older generations have sky now, or mobile phones, or credit cards. Most retirees have them. You can't expect a sainthood because you didn't have something that didn't exist.
As for the have it now generation, it's certainly not the young generation of today who are guilty of that. I've spoken to many an older person who's far more impatient than anyone younger because they can't have it now.

Oldernotwiser

suki1001 wrote: »

I am slightly unsure why the older generations use phrases like: We never had Sky. We didn't have mobile phones etc, when they never existed. Did people really not eat out because they were being really frugal. I seriously doubt that, my mother said "it was just something people never did". I am certain had all these things been available at the time, people would have had them or done them.

The Sky/mobile phones thing's really shorthand for saying that earlier generations tended not to spend money on non essentials and that, if you do, there'll be less money to pay for things like housing. From the Boomer side of the bridge, that seems to be what younger people do these days, which is why the comment is made so often.

suki1001

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

The Sky/mobile phones thing's really shorthand for saying that earlier generations tended not to spend money on non essentials and that, if you do, there'll be less money to pay for things like housing. From the Boomer side of the bridge, that seems to be what younger people do these days, which is why the comment is made so often.

Possibly that's what they think, but I really don't believe it's true. When were non essential electrical goods ever cheap enough for most people to buy back then? We've already established women couldn't get mortgages on their own. If you put the price of electrical goods to the proportion that things like tvs were back in the boomers day, a tv was the equivilent £980 (1960s). Ok some tv's still cost that today but you can be guaranteed that far fewer people would buy a tv if the lowest price was around that and they would pay for less or no gadgets if that was the case. i still maintain, if those non essential items had been made available back then and credit cards existed for the masses, you all would have been the same as us. Not all us us younsters live beyond our means. Have I been guilty of buying things I didn't need - certainly, but I am not silly.
Do I expect things now this instant? No there is plenty of debt I could rack up if I was inclined to do so. I could march down to DFS in the morning and get a new sofa, but I will stick to the free one I was given. My point is it's all very well for people to be holier than thou if they were in the same position as us back then, but they truely weren't.

PS Judging by all the Bingo halls , pubs and cinemas that have been around my town since the dawn of time, I'd say people did spend money on non essentials.

grizzly1911

suki1001 wrote: »

i still maintain, if those non essential items had been made available back then and credit cards existed for the masses, you all would have been the same as us.

PS Judging by all the Bingo halls , pubs and cinemas that have been around my town since the dawn of time, I'd say people did spend money on non essentials.

Suki you are right there have always been people that have spent money and yes people have always over commited themselves.

It is human nature.

Those people still exist, they are still boomers and now being wholly provided for by the state as they didn't /couldn't provide for their future. Are they attacked in the same way as those who chose to do otherwise?

The boomers on here are still paying taxes out of there "savings" either directly or through huge council tax on properties they choose to stay in. They have already paid tax too just like the disgruntled younger trolls here.

Don't forget that we have moved from an Income Tax society to A "Consumer tax society" so they (the boomers who are being attacked) aren't "getting away with it". We could nullify their gains but what then.

I am not yet there but we have all been lied to and deceived over the years. It is a case of making the best of what you have. The goal posts are being moved for every one. Change is the only certainty.

Oldernotwiser

suki1001 wrote: »

Possibly that's what they think, but I really don't believe it's true. When were non essential electrical goods ever cheap enough for most people to buy back then? We've already established women couldn't get mortgages on their own. If you put the price of electrical goods to the proportion that things like tvs were back in the boomers day, a tv was the equivilent £980 (1960s). Ok some tv's still cost that today but you can be guaranteed that far fewer people would buy a tv if the lowest price was around that and they would pay for less or no gadgets if that was the case. .

But are "non essential electrical goods" that cheap now"? Perhaps this is also a generational thing to think that mobile phones/Sky/ipads etc are cheap but they honestly don't seem so to me and to many others. As for TVs, you may not know this but it used to be far more common to rent these than to buy so you can't really take TV "ownership" as a comparison.

And, of course, I didn't mean to say that people used to spend nothing on non essentials; that would be silly. However, a few pints down the pub once a week cost nothing like what many young people see as essential spending on a night out these days and gong to the cinema used to be so cheap that I could afford to go a couple of times a week when I was still at school and paying for it myself - not something you could say now.

I think that a major difference is that what many people see now as essentials would have been seen by my generation as luxuries.

oldvicar

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

But are "non essential electrical goods" that cheap now"? Perhaps this is also a generational thing to think that mobile phones/Sky/ipads etc are cheap but they honestly don't seem so to me and to many others. As for TVs, you may not know this but it used to be far more common to rent these than to buy so you can't really take TV "ownership" as a comparison.

And, of course, I didn't mean to say that people used to spend nothing on non essentials; that would be silly. However, a few pints down the pub once a week cost nothing like what many young people see as essential spending on a night out these days and gong to the cinema used to be so cheap that I could afford to go a couple of times a week when I was still at school and paying for it myself - not something you could say now.

I think that a major difference is that what many people see now as essentials would have been seen by my generation as luxuries.

It stuns me that youngsters think a nite out costs perhaps £100, what with the price of entry to a variety of clubs (in one night!), weird alcoholic drinks (what's wrong with a pint of mild?), taxi home etc. And that's not big city prices.

Of course it costs me next to nothing to buy theatre tickets, have a meal out, with decent wine, etc. And if its not a taxi (because of all the wine), have you seen the price of filling up the Range Rover? :rotfl:

Oldernotwiser

oldvicar wrote: »

Of course it costs me next to nothing to buy theatre tickets, have a meal out, with decent wine, etc. And if its not a taxi (because of all the wine), have you seen the price of filling up the Range Rover? :rotfl:

In your twenties - think on!

ukcarper

Just to clarify one thing we know babyboomers are between 47 and 65 what are the ages of people we are calling young.

ukcarper

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Well it's a shame to have seen this thread go this way.

Babyboomer generation now calling other morons? Same people telling others to grow up and they too may then be classed as an adult?

Not going to add my own thoughts, there is no point, as it's pretty clear this particular forum is mostly made up of those babyboomer generations.

But if I hear "We had 15% interest rates" and then pop onto another thread and see "debt is great, in the 70's, inflation paid of our mortgages" one more time....I'll. Well, I dunno what I'll do. No point in hightlighting it, as I'm likely to be told to grow up, get back to work and stop whinging. So I spose it's best to say nothing at all.

No one can blame the babyboomers...apart from those who really took the pee. Many were just in the right place at the right time. As the article says, an amazing run of luck falling into place. But honestly, with this thread, you'd think the boomers were the teenagers whinging and throwing insults, and the younger generation the boomers.

The problem is Graham people are blaming the boomers and seem to have this misguided impression that it was much easier in the 70s when in reality it wasn’t much if any easier than it is now. Every one seems site house prices as the main problem but I don’t see that as the major problem facing young people and by young I mean people leaving school or university in the last few years. It really is the lack of opportunities for them and the cause of that is mainly recession and shift of mass manufacturing to the Far East. I was fortunate enough to leave school at a time of high employment with skilled jobs available, but this is not only time there has been high unemployment.

Going back to house prices who has benefited the most from hpi someone who bought in 1973 or some who bought in 1996?