Do the elders laugh at the yoof

Norman_Castle

floridaman wrote: »

I post from my iphone - it sometimes auto selects words - the oldies wouldn't understand.

Does your phone also suggest daft threads for you to start. The oldies, or adults, as they're commonly known, would generally reject the incorrectly suggested words.

BobQ

floridaman wrote: »

We here that there is some sympathy and some rumblings of disagreement but do you think some elders laugh at the young?

They probably do, particularly when they see the yoof make toxic comments that pretend to be witty. Its not unusual for people to react against those who are continually moaning and criticising their generation.

Each generation does its best to change the world and most want to achieve positive changes. The fact is they have never done this before and will make the mistakes that their children and grandchildren's generation will deem to be wrong.

What irritates many elders is that the yoof appear to be so critical of what they have done and seem to believe they have deliberately set out to damage the yoof.

The fact is it is not my fault that your generation with university fees. For example, I benefited from a free university education at a time when the selection process was rigorous and only 5% went. It was not my fault that Governments chose to allow 40% of the yoof to go to university, making free funding unsustainable and devaluing the qualifications awarded. Similarly, I never set out to profit from the housing market. I bought a house to live in, because it was cheaper in the long term I thought, because I feared that if I did not I might not be able to afford one in the future. I never thought it was part of my pension provision. Later I did buy a BTL as an investment, not to exploit yoof but because I had money that I had saved which I wanted to use to best effect.

Why should I apologise for the life choices I have made?

So its not a question of laughing at you. You are making different choices and will have to live with them. Were I a yoof again I would make many different choices to the ones I made then. When I started work, "success" for most people was a good education, secure job, a solid pension and a family. Today "success" is measured by starting and running a business, being able to afford many material things, and building personal wealth.

What is also different is that your generation seems to me to a compliant one, one that wants to better themselves rather than society, one that lacks the will to protest about things. Given the choice of marching through the streets protesting you send twitter messages from your iphone.

grizzly1911

GeorgeHowell wrote: »

The older generation has no right to laugh. It is far too many of them who brought up their children without an adequate sense of reward for effort. It is they who tolerated governments who screwed up the state education so badly, on ideological grounds. It is they who tolerated governments that perpetrated out of control state welfare, placing such a tax and debt burden on the working population. It is they who tolerated governments responsible for encouraging increasing the population so that land and property has become so expensive.

The older generation has nothing to laugh about.

As the older generation voted "democratically" ( if that is possible in a plutocracy) for decades which particular governments screwed up as you suggested. No party repeals, substantively, previous changes just nudges the ship in the prevailing current. Each government delivers its own short term policies largely dictated by large business enterprise,the markets and the media in an effort to keep the plates spinning long enough for reelection.

floridaman

Of course the boomers are responsible for this mess. Boomers helped boomers end of. The only silver lining is that the boomers will leave their wealth to the young.

grizzly1911

BobQ wrote: »

Given the choice of marching through the streets protesting you send twitter messages from your iphone.

In fairness it does save you getting cold and wet. Bombing your target can make a difference or at least as much as a march would do in isolation.

Jason74

BobQ wrote: »

They probably do, particularly when they see the yoof make toxic comments that pretend to be witty. Its not unusual for people to react against those who are continually moaning and criticising their generation.

Each generation does its best to change the world and most want to achieve positive changes. The fact is they have never done this before and will make the mistakes that their children and grandchildren's generation will deem to be wrong.

What irritates many elders is that the yoof appear to be so critical of what they have done and seem to believe they have deliberately set out to damage the yoof.

The fact is it is not my fault that your generation with university fees. For example, I benefited from a free university education at a time when the selection process was rigorous and only 5% went. It was not my fault that Governments chose to allow 40% of the yoof to go to university, making free funding unsustainable and devaluing the qualifications awarded. Similarly, I never set out to profit from the housing market. I bought a house to live in, because it was cheaper in the long term I thought, because I feared that if I did not I might not be able to afford one in the future. I never thought it was part of my pension provision. Later I did buy a BTL as an investment, not to exploit yoof but because I had money that I had saved which I wanted to use to best effect.

Why should I apologise for the life choices I have made?

So its not a question of laughing at you. You are making different choices and will have to live with them. Were I a yoof again I would make many different choices to the ones I made then. When I started work, "success" for most people was a good education, secure job, a solid pension and a family. Today "success" is measured by starting and running a business, being able to afford many material things, and building personal wealth.

What is also different is that your generation seems to me to a compliant one, one that wants to better themselves rather than society, one that lacks the will to protest about things. Given the choice of marching through the streets protesting you send twitter messages from your iphone.

Up until "I did buy a BTL as an ivestment", I would have completely agreed with your post. However, in going down the BTL route, you become part of the problem. Whether you choose to acknowledge it or not, a significant side effect of BTL investment is that it pulls up the ladder from young people, and in doing so, adds to the problems facing young people.

This is particularly the case given that the boomer generation enjoyed the most helpful environment for building wealth of any generation. As you say, you didn't create those circumstances, and good luck to you for making the most of them. But it does leave you as a generation with some responsibility towards futuire generations in terms of at least not making things more difficult to those who do (whether you acknowledge it or not) face a far less favourable environment than you did. Investing in BTL certainly does make life harder for younger people to get on the property ladder, even though I acknowledge that this is not the intention of most people who invest in this way, and it is in practice something of a side effect.

You, and probably the majority to be fair, would probably argue that you have no responsibility to future generations (beyond your own family), such side effects are not your concern. I respectfully disagree with you.

wotsthat

Jason74 wrote: »

Up until "I did buy a BTL as an ivestment", I would have completely agreed with your post. However, in going down the BTL route, you become part of the problem. Whether you choose to acknowledge it or not, a significant side effect of BTL investment is that it pulls up the ladder from young people, and in doing so, adds to the problems facing young people.

I know you have an issue with BTL but we should be looking at treating the disease rather than the symptom.

The disease is a lack of housing.

Tromking

BobQ wrote: »

Today "success" is measured by starting and running a business, being able to afford many material things, and building personal wealth.

Is it though?

It obviously suits the boomers argument to paint the younger generations as shallow flibbertigibbets, but the motivations and aspirations of all generations are pretty much the same as they've always been. So, if we agree that most of us just want a decent chance to get on in life and purchase a house, the evidence that those who were doing that in the 60's,70's and 80's have had an easier ride is undeniable in my opinion.

wotsthat

Tromking wrote: »

So, if we agree that most of us just want a decent chance to get on in life and purchase a house, the evidence that those who were doing that in the 60's,70's and 80's have had an easier ride is undeniable in my opinion.

There were significantly lower levels of owner occupation in the 60's, 70's and 80's than today so maybe it wasn't such an easy ride after all.

I know all's well in the UK when buying a house is seen as a human right. You, me and the boomers will be feather bedded from cradle to grave - as soon as you see it (and start understanding compound interest) the bitterness will subside.

ruggedtoast

BobQ wrote: »

They probably do, particularly when they see the yoof make toxic comments that pretend to be witty. Its not unusual for people to react against those who are continually moaning and criticising their generation.

Each generation does its best to change the world and most want to achieve positive changes. The fact is they have never done this before and will make the mistakes that their children and grandchildren's generation will deem to be wrong.

What irritates many elders is that the yoof appear to be so critical of what they have done and seem to believe they have deliberately set out to damage the yoof.

The fact is it is not my fault that your generation with university fees. For example, I benefited from a free university education at a time when the selection process was rigorous and only 5% went. It was not my fault that Governments chose to allow 40% of the yoof to go to university, making free funding unsustainable and devaluing the qualifications awarded. Similarly, I never set out to profit from the housing market. I bought a house to live in, because it was cheaper in the long term I thought, because I feared that if I did not I might not be able to afford one in the future. I never thought it was part of my pension provision. Later I did buy a BTL as an investment, not to exploit yoof but because I had money that I had saved which I wanted to use to best effect.

Why should I apologise for the life choices I have made?

So its not a question of laughing at you. You are making different choices and will have to live with them. Were I a yoof again I would make many different choices to the ones I made then. When I started work, "success" for most people was a good education, secure job, a solid pension and a family. Today "success" is measured by starting and running a business, being able to afford many material things, and building personal wealth.

What is also different is that your generation seems to me to a compliant one, one that wants to better themselves rather than society, one that lacks the will to protest about things. Given the choice of marching through the streets protesting you send twitter messages from your iphone.

In your day 'O' levels were considered a mark of distinction and the ticket to a decent job, which could be achieved from school.

Young people now have to have a university degree to be barely qualified for a job filing.

You lot all laugh at the ex poly Media and Pop Music degrees - do you really believe that actually academically oriented students are doing them because they can't be bothered to do that PhD in Chemistry at Imperial?

They're doing them because they are non academic students who are trying for a qualification that they can actually get, that will at least allow their CV not to be binned when they apply for the 'Filing clerk needed, £10,000 per annum with no benefits, must be a graduate.' adverts on Reed.

I know plenty of young people who have wasted precious months and years following plumbing qualifications at FE colleges that peter out the moment they have to do an apprenticeship and there aren't any. In the boomers time if you wanted to be a plumber you went to a plumber and said - 'can i be your apprentice' and he either said yes or no and if he said yes, then you had a career, and if he said no you went and found something else to do.