The Selfish Generation

Cornucopia

This is all way more complicated than the inter-generational simpletons would pretend.

Boomers and Gen-X (talking 'bout my generation) were presented with huge new opportunities, and some of us took those opportunities and did stuff with them. Many of us were the first people in our families to go to University, and many went on to earn significantly more than our parents, in better jobs.

For me, that's all good. The shame is that for various reasons, it did not continue.

The Blair-Brown Government has much to answer for - in particular the policy whereby 50% of young people would go to University, but they would pay for themselves through loans. We are now being told that maybe 75% of those loans will never be repaid - which makes it a disaster for the individual and the taxpayer.

ukcarper

ruggedtoast wrote: »

The shafting is in the article, I already posted the article.

• Housing
• Pensions
• Privatisations
• Council house sell offs
• University tuition fees
• The NHS
• Mass inter-generational wealth transfer
• Outsourcing
• Collapse of the trade unions

90% of lovely villages have no developments near them are occupied by boomers.

FACT.

This is just a list and you are blaming boomers for all of them.

Let's take one collapse of trade unions who do you think were those trade unions fighting against the attack on them yes boomers I remained in my union until I retired.

Cornucopia

ruggedtoast wrote: »

90% of lovely villages have no developments near them are occupied by boomers.

FACT.

And what proportion of those villages don't have a shop or a regular bus service? There is a reason why retired people live there - it's because no one else wants to.

lisyloo

Clearly there is a housing crisis, no argument there, although people are living in smaller households than ever before.

• Pensions

Read - the highest longevity ever and best healthcare ever but still wanting early retirement?

• University tuition fees

Higher numbers than ever in full time education.
My mother (born 1945) never went to university because she was female.
Younger generations take a huge amount for granted.

• The NHS

It in crisis, but on the positive side, treatment and cancer survival rates are the best ever.

• Mass inter-generational wealth transfer

Funnily enough, if you save then this means the older you get the richer you get. Simply a side effect of longevity.

• Outsourcing

Nothing to do with a generational split here. My company outsources to India so obviously I'm affected, but age doesn't come into it.


I think some people are looking through rose coloured glasses.
We've got parents who never had enough food to eat when they were growing up (I'm talking 1930's). They lived in high occupancy housing because the state didn't look after their parents for them. They only got 1 days paid holiday a year. Not many got a university education and zero chance to travel.
You're living in a different world.
Some things are better some are worst, but young people definitely have increased longevity, better chances of education, more equality and freedom and better healthcare.

Linton

ruggedtoast wrote: »

The shafting is in the article, I already posted the article.

• Housing
• Pensions
• Privatisations
• Council house sell offs
• University tuition fees
• The NHS
• Mass inter-generational wealth transfer
• Outsourcing
• Collapse of the trade unions

90% of lovely villages have no developments near them are occupied by boomers.

FACT.

Housing is a problem. Insufficient has been built for decades.

Pensions
Yes as a member of the boomer generation I have failed you by providing you with a much longer life expectancy than we had at your age. Someone born when I was had about an 8% chance of living to 100. Someone born 20 years ago is predicted to have a 25% chance. Apologies.

Furthermore my generation (and the one before) is responsible for stopping you starting work at 16 with little chance of higher education. Apologies.

So you start work later and live much longer - what do you think that does to pensions?

Privatisations & council house sell-offs - these mostly happened before boomers had any real influence.

University tuition fees - yes in my time about 7% of children went to University. So 93% didnt have any chance at all.

NHS - the NHS is far better now than it was for most of my lifetime.

Intergenerational wealth transfer - err it happens with every generation. Babies are born with nothing.

Outsourcing - again mostly pre-boomer. Is it a bad thing if it increases productivity enabling money to be spent on other things?

Collapse of trade unions - mostly pre-boomer and largely due to change of technology. We no longer have the mass labour jobs where unionism was entrenched. Far more people are given jobs and paid on individual merit these days so large scale organisations of labour are less relevant.

Perhaps lovely villages cease to be lovely when they get nearby housing development. Very few people live in lovely villages, and those who do have often lived there for very many years. But they will die off and in due course the next generation will move in, and stay for a long time continuing to fight off new development.

the_flying_pig

Malcnascar wrote: »

I have earlier declared that I am from the Boomer generation. Started with next to nothing, which seems to be the issue.
I have a 25 year old son. Very much against my advice he chose not to take up his place on a maths degree course.
He argued that I had done relatively well without a degree and he felt that ammassing debt was perhaps not in his best interest. He left school at 18 ith more GCSE's than my O'Levels and 3 good A Levels. He started an apprenticeship in Engineering ans studied, with the support of his employer. He now has an HND and skills much in demand. He has started long term pension saving and earns considerably more than I did, in real terms, at the same age. He has no debt, he has a finance free three year old car and recently bought his first property, based on only his income, we needed two incomes for our first property. He saved 10% deposit and we, from the selfish generation, gave him an addition 10% towards his purchase. This is the first instalment in what we hope will be a continuation of redistribution of our selfishly gotten gains.
It's time for the current generation to accept that hard work and determination does produce the goods.
Your attitude not your appitude will determine your eventual altitude.
Ruggedtoast work hard and you will achieve what you want. Forgive my ignorance but is the bloke that owns facebook a boomer or current generation hard worker?
At a similar age he he much better off than we were

forgive me if this is a silly question, but did your c. 300 word contribution to a debate on intergenerational whatshits really do so by means of a 'case study' based entirely on, well, two [or possibly three if your spouse is part of the story too] people? i mean, seriously?

lisyloo

The planet is filling up and there is finite space.
Why is that one generations fault?

Wait until we start running out of water.
It's very likely many people will turn vegetarian in future as meat production is water intensive and will therefore become expensive.

I actually blame anyone that brings more than 2 children into the world !! (playing devils advocate).

quantic

Malcnascar wrote: »

I have earlier declared that I am from the Boomer generation. Started with next to nothing, which seems to be the issue.
I have a 25 year old son. Very much against my advice he chose not to take up his place on a maths degree course.
He argued that I had done relatively well without a degree and he felt that ammassing debt was perhaps not in his best interest. He left school at 18 ith more GCSE's than my O'Levels and 3 good A Levels. He started an apprenticeship in Engineering ans studied, with the support of his employer. He now has an HND and skills much in demand. He has started long term pension saving and earns considerably more than I did, in real terms, at the same age. He has no debt, he has a finance free three year old car and recently bought his first property, based on only his income, we needed two incomes for our first property. He saved 10% deposit and we, from the selfish generation, gave him an addition 10% towards his purchase. This is the first instalment in what we hope will be a continuation of redistribution of our selfishly gotten gains.
It's time for the current generation to accept that hard work and determination does produce the goods.
Your attitude not your appitude will determine your eventual altitude.
Ruggedtoast work hard and you will achieve what you want. Forgive my ignorance but is the bloke that owns facebook a boomer or current generation hard worker?
At a similar age he he much better off than we were

I think that the mass media are equally guilty of making boomers seem lucky while at the same time making generation X seem like slackers.

I think people are missing the point really, in my opinion the problem is not the difficulty in which a particular generation experiences the rat race. It is that the rat race in itself is just currently largely a churn of material positions and consumerism.

I think people need to focus less on how easy they have it relatively to other generations or who got lucky and look at the fact that a lot of these so called struggles are self inflicted.

Once someone has their basic essentials their levels of happiness increase minimally after that and yet they give up more and more of their quality time to chase income or careers.

I think perhaps the reason the current generation (myself included, I am 29) feels cheated or unfulfilled is not because they have to pay their student loan back or because it took a year to save up a house deposit, its because they are chasing fulfillment through gaining more excess and working longer and longer for things like fancy cars which sit in a car park 23 hours a day.

A country or company declines one 1/4 from its all time sales record by 0.7% and it is treated like a natural disaster has happened...

Cyberman60

ringo_24601 wrote: »

How about 10 years ago, or 20 years go?

Something must be happening for such a constant deluge of articles about how hard it is for people now

Many youngsters feel that they are entitled as they have been spoilt by their parents all of their lives. When I was 12 I was doing a paper round, and at 16 I was sweeping/mopping floors and cleaning in a restaurant. I studied at college for six years with day release and evening school for my degree equivalent qualification in business.
I did not move out from my parents until I was nearly 30 because I simply could not afford to. Yes, I am a 'boomer' but I've worked in many countries, running my own business, and saved all of my life.

Work hard, study, qualify and you will do well, just don't expect it all to be given to you on a plate. :mad:

[Deleted User]

Linton wrote: »

To answer your question, 10 years perhaps a slight decline, 20 years rather higher standard of living now.

Ten years is still long enough that house prices could increase by 50%, yet salaries would barely budge...

I wonder if we are in a phase similar to the Japanese 'lost decade' (now in its 2nd decade)

From - http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/oct/18/economy-bleak-british-workers-technology


Low wages hurt everyone; but the young can't find a start in life with enough to live on

Things might be tolerable to those able to enter education, get enough qualifications to get a decent job and an ok salary - but there are big numbers of young people not in that position.

Edit: I do agree there are plenty of middle-class kids that have been spoon-fed an easy life by their parents. My wife's cousins are 18 and 21.. only one of them has had a job (18 y.o.). That only lasted 3 weeks as he's decided he 'wants to spend more time with his friends'. The other is at university and wants to be a politician...