Why the baby boomers shouldn't feel guilty

homelessskilledworker

suburbanwifey wrote: »

You are forgetting that those 70 year old's worked hard to pay mortgages (at higher rates most of the time than we all pay nowadays) on those houses, they worked for those houses! They owe the young today nothing, they lived their lives, most of them working their butts off to own what they do. You all seem to think they had it much better than we do, they didn't, most of them are only now enjoying what they have and have the time to enjoy it. They earned it, they deserve it!

As I said in an earlier post of mine. Me and my OH are not boomers but we have done well in life, with NO HELP from no one! NO parent handouts (we both don't have any) no state handouts (never claimed a benefit our whole married life) no nothing! we have both worked our butts off to get what we have and we do have (or I have, he's a technophobe lol) the iMac, iPad, iPhone, I have it all! but you know what? we worked hard for all of it. Our 2nd year of marriage we had porridge for our Christmas dinner, we had NO MONEY and we managed, we didn't have a decent Christmas for the first 6 years we were married as we were so skint.

We earned our beautiful house, all the nice stuff we have, the life we now have and worked damn hard for it. No one gave us a bean and that is just what a lot of the boomers did, worked their butts off for everything they have and they earned the right to pensions (paid in all their lives just as we have, whilst others cream the system with benefit after benefit, tax credits, child benefit, nursery fees etc. etc. etc. its paying out all this crap to millions that has crippled our country! the work-shy, the claimers, the parasites of the UK!

The boomers are the generation I got my standards from and having an iPhone or a Blackberry is no excuse to not be able to afford a house or a good living, I have had those for a decade now, I was one of the first to get a Blackberry I think and I have been a Mac user from Day one. I'm not boasting but I am trying to point out that we earned it all by working hard as the boomers did in their day. We didn't have foreign holidays for years, we didn't live the *rich* life 20 somethings seem to think they deserve nowadays and no Government gave us anything we didn't earn. I want to cry when I see what gets taken off our earning in tax and NIC contributions, we support lots of unemployed out there when no one ever supported us.

I'm glad the boomers have it good now as they didn't have it good in their day! They earned it all.

None of what you say is based on fact and I must say it is generalising at it's worse.
You seem to forget the days when trade unions run the country, when a small dispute such as one man being disciplined for being late for work could result in a factory being shut down and it's 1000 workers walking out. A UK where postman used to work 2 hours of there sorting shift then all go down the pub or cafe for the remaining 6 hours. Where at British Leyand they even used to make themselves bedrooms in the work place with proper beds and bedside lights, the press of the time had a field day.
There were 3 day weeks, and most families lived in good family homes where the motgage was based on one working wage of usually 2.5 times salary.

Uni was free,workers rights have never been better than then, and mothers often stayed at home to nurture their children. House building during the 50's and 60's was at record levels, and the population was more well controlled.

The one thing the 70 year olds worked hard at is building up huge debt that their offspring will now have to deal with.

Oh, and they lived war free, so please do not tell me about the hard working baby boomers, in so many ways they have acted like parasites.

ukcarper

homelessskilledworker wrote: »

None of what you say is based on fact and I must say it is generalising at it's worse.
You seem to forget the days when trade unions run the country, when a small dispute such as one man being disciplined for being late for work could result in a factory being shut down and it's 1000 workers walking out. A UK where postman used to work 2 hours of there sorting shift then all go down the pub or cafe for the remaining 6 hours. Where at British Leyand they even used to make themselves bedrooms in the work place with proper beds and bedside lights, the press of the time had a field day.
There were 3 day weeks, and most families lived in good family homes where the motgage was based on one working wage of usually 2.5 times salary.

Uni was free,workers rights have never been better than then, and mothers often stayed at home to nurture their children. House building during the 50's and 60's was at record levels, and the population was more well controlled.

The one thing the 70 year olds worked hard at is building up huge debt that their offspring will now have to deal with.

Oh, and they lived war free, so please do not tell me about the hard working baby boomers, in so many ways they have acted like parasites.

I think you better get a good history book and read it because you have no idea what life was like in the 60s and 70s.

homelessskilledworker

ukcarper wrote: »

I think you better get a good history book and read it because you have no idea what life was like in the 60s and 70s.

Lol

please tell me what bit is not accurate, then we will take it from there.

kabayiri

homelessskilledworker wrote: »

...
Uni was free,workers rights have never been better than then, and mothers often stayed at home to nurture their children. House building during the 50's and 60's was at record levels, and the population was more well controlled.
...

This is a political point I believe, not so much a generational thing.

For the last couple of decades no political party has dared to entertain the idea of raising taxation. Taxation levels seen during the 70s are considered a bad thing.

Well, this comes at a cost. The 'tax' is still there - it's just hidden. We pay more VAT, more NI, we pay for things like Uni which were once free.

Population increase is also a direct result of UK and European political policy. It's not a generation thing.

Perhaps the 'boomers' had governments more likely to listen to them; nowadays we are voting fodder.

ukcarper

ukcarper wrote: »

I think you better get a good history book and read it because you have no idea what life was like in the 60s and 70s.

Lets start on 3 day weeks a short period where some people were forced to work 3 day weeks due to industrial action and only got paid for those 3 days.

ukcarper

There seem to have been this rosy picture created of the 70s where everybody lived in a nice big 3-bed houses the farther worked a 40-hour week and mother stayed at home looking after the kids. I wish that was the case for me we had a small 3 bed terrace I worked all the overtime I could get and my wife had various part time jobs ranging from office cleaning to bar work.

homelessskilledworker

ukcarper wrote: »

There seem to have been this rosy picture created of the 70s where everybody lived in a nice big 3-bed houses the farther worked a 40-hour week and mother stayed at home looking after the kids. I wish that was the case for me we had a small 3 bed terrace I worked all the overtime I could get and my wife had various part time jobs ranging from office cleaning to bar work.

I am probably closer to you in age, and in my opinion anyone in work these days has never worked harder and for so little back.

ukcarper

homelessskilledworker wrote: »

I am probably closer to you in age, and in my opinion anyone in work these days has never worked harder and for so little back.

I’ll admit some people work harder now than before especially those in the old nationalised industries but I think it’s you who is generalising. If you think people going down coal minds or standing on production lines didn’t work hard.

ash28

homelessskilledworker wrote: »

None of what you say is based on fact and I must say it is generalising at it's worse.
You seem to forget the days when trade unions run the country, when a small dispute such as one man being disciplined for being late for work could result in a factory being shut down and it's 1000 workers walking out. A UK where postman used to work 2 hours of there sorting shift then all go down the pub or cafe for the remaining 6 hours. Where at British Leyand they even used to make themselves bedrooms in the work place with proper beds and bedside lights, the press of the time had a field day.
There were 3 day weeks, and most families lived in good family homes where the motgage was based on one working wage of usually 2.5 times salary.

Uni was free,workers rights have never been better than then, and mothers often stayed at home to nurture their children. House building during the 50's and 60's was at record levels, and the population was more well controlled.

The one thing the 70 year olds worked hard at is building up huge debt that their offspring will now have to deal with.

Oh, and they lived war free, so please do not tell me about the hard working baby boomers, in so many ways they have acted like parasites.

Your quote is also a huge generalisation.

A lot of people in the 1970s did not live in nice family homes - a lot of housing in this country was diabolical compared to today. There were huge lists for council housing (I knew plenty on them) and a lot of people were dirt poor and had absolutely no chance of ever buying a home. I can remember people (friends - just married) living in houses with no inside toilets during the 1970s.

Mothers often stayed at home to "nuture" their children because there was no childcare - no maternity benefits as we know them and companies could and did sack you if you got pregnant. Some companies expected you to leave if you got married let alone got pregnant. If you got married it was often the end of the road for a woman's career, and little or nothing in the way of state help for families. Yes unions did become too powerful.

Uni was free - but only 5% of the population could attend - that level was increased by successive governments until we have the situation we have today - where over 40% of people go to university - has the increase in numbers attending been an improvment - probably not.

Workers had very little in the way of rights during the 1970s compared to today - companies didn't even have to give you paid holidays (they were a privilege not a right) - let alone anything else. No maternity provision - no paternity leave - no holidays - no sick pay - lots with no pensions - no minimum wage - no equal pay - things could actually be pretty crap. Why you think workers rights had never been better I don't know.

I worked for a blue chip company in the 1980s and 1990s and the years I worked part time I wasn't entitled to a pension or sick pay - until the company were dragged kicking and screaming into equalising conditions between full and part time workers.

People who are 70 aren't babyboomers - however I am and I make no apologies for being one. I didn't choose to be born in the mid 1950s - I just was - the same as a lot of other people. I didn't attend university - it wasn't an option. We were able to buy a small house when we were in our late 20s - funnily enough around the same age as 2 of my children were when they bought their first homes. They are 32 and 31 now.

And yes we have a lot more money than our children do, we have a much bigger and nicer house than they do - we have nicer cars - we have better holidays too. I expect by the time they are in their mid 50 they will have similar to what we have now - they have similar to what we had at their age.

I don't know if they feel we've diddled them out of homes and careers and saddled them with a lifetime of debt - one of them will be visiting for a few days on Friday and I'll ask him.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

ruggedtoast wrote: »

Boomers outnumbered their elders and funded them comparatively cheaply, they now want us, a smaller poorer generation who they outnumber, to fund them lavishly..

That's not right.

The boomer generation is usually regarded as those born between 1945 and 1968, or a 23 year period.

The number of people born in the following 23 year period between 1968 and 1991 (so generation X and Y) exceeds the boomer generation quite considerably.

And of course 100% of boomer wealth will be passed on to the following generations anyway.