The Beeb indulges in a blame it on the baby boomers piece, which gets really, really silly.
Baby boomers don’t dominate the country in size alone; living through various employment and house price booms, they are the richest and most powerful generation that ever lived.
They account for 70% of MPs in Parliament, they populate the chairs of company boardrooms, and they head up the majority of the country’s civil and cultural institutions. Boomers, to put it simply, run the country.
Sigh… Thirty years ago, it was the previous generation that made up the majority of MPs, headed the boards of industry and ran the country’s civil and cultural institutions; and in thirty years time, it will be our sons and daughters.
And, despite the recession and massive public debt, the next generation will, likely as not, do better still, with ever more personal wealth.
It’s not surprising then, that fingers are starting to point at boomers in the aftermath of the Credit Crunch, Copenhagen and the MP expenses scandal. After all, it all happened on their watch.
Ah, here we go… It’s the fault of a generation. Not the fault of specific politicians who were in a position to take effective action – like not selling off the gold reserves at an all time low or simply putting money aside in the good times to cushion against the bad ones. No, let’s be simplistic and blame a whole generation.
As the first wave of baby boomers approach retirement age – it’s 65 years since the first were born, in 1945 – the bill for clearing up these disasters will be paid by their children.
The bill for Gordon Brown’s disasters will be paid for by the next generation.
The charge from an increasing number of commentators, politicians and pressure groups, not to mention young people themselves, is that baby boomers mortgaged their children’s future for their own short-term benefit. Comparing the lifestyles of these generations, it’s hard to disagree.
No it isn’t hard to disagree. It’s very easy to disagree. It’s simplistic nonsense. If there is a charge to be laid, it is that the electorate – all of those who did so (myself included) – fell for the New labour con trick. It has nothing to do with generations.
Baby boomers collectively own close to £500bn of the UK’s assets, which is four-fifths of the entire nation’s wealth.
Yes. And where will that wealth go when my generation pops its clogs? Oh, yeah, that’s right; the next generation. So what our parents worked for and we worked for, they will inherit. That’s how it works.
They’ve turned into micro banks, loaning sometimes huge sums to their children each year.
And? So? My parents couldn’t do this to help me. This means that the current generation are fortunate to have this facility. Go back a couple of generations and it will be unheard of.
The majority of boomer wealth comes from the sale of houses. As first time buyers in the early 70s, they would have borrowed three times their annual income to purchase a two-up-two-down for £60,000 in today’s money. They’re selling them on for £160,000 in 2010. Young adults need to borrow 6.5 times their salary to afford those prices.
Now this one is an issue. Longrider Towers in Bristol cost £34k back in the late eighties. Nowadays even after the recent drop in prices, it’s probably worth around £140k. The average salary is about £20k or a bit less. I was on £8k in 1987 and Mrs L was on a similar income. Although our situation is not as dramatic as some, the sheer rise in house prices is making it difficult for first time buyers. However, to merely blame it on a generation is simplistic.
As young adults, baby boomers had a fantastic start in life, with free education, paid apprenticeships and work contracts that lasted an average of 10.4 years. Today’s youngsters become adults with an average of £20,000 in student debt and struggle to find jobs that last an average of 15 months.
Okay, let’s knock this “free education” malarky on the head. I did not have free education. It had to be paid for – out of taxes. That means ultimately I paid for it. Indeed, I have paid vastly more in taxes than I have ever drawn out in education or health for example. I don’t think that the student loan idea is a good way of funding it, but please, do not insult my intelligence by telling me that this stuff is free; it ain’t. It’s bloody expensive and someone has to pay – why not the person who directly benefits?
And, of course, we are responsible for ruining the planet:
But the greatest consequence, according to the environmental movement at least, is a legacy that cannot easily be quantified.
“The same generation which let the economic system collapse, is now knowingly setting us on another disastrous course towards ecological collapse” says 24-year-old Greenpeace campaigner Joss Garman. “The baby-boomers have failed to take action to cut carbon pollution. Our parents’ generation will be remembered for having left it up to us to deal with the climate crisis.”
Despite the wheel falling off the AGW bandwagon, we are still hearing the screeching alarmists. I really can’t be bothered to deconstruct the sheer idiocy of Joss Garman, except to say that when he is my age and the apocalypse is similar to the great global freezing scam of the nineteen seventies, he will look a little foolish – more than he does now. Every generation has its end of the world cult. AGW is ours, for our sins.
“It might not be free any more,” says Mr MacKenzie, “but education is much less a middle-class pursuit. Thirty-five per cent go to university now as opposed to 5% in my day.”
Ah, yes, more of that free education stuff. In his day, the majority coughed up to pay for the 5% through their taxes. These days we have more and more people coming out of universities with degrees in media studies and humanities that are of no use in the workplace and the degree has been devalued as a consequence. And, why is it that so many of these graduates seem to end up in call centres?
As an aside here, I was talking to a student last year who is studying philosophy. On being asked what he was planning to do when he left university, he said, in all seriousness, “go into management”.
“Baby boomers didn’t set out to make the next generation foot the bill,” says Mr Andrews. “but I don’t see a willingness from boomers to do anything about it either.”
Damn right, I’m not. What a stupid and whiny article.
“Although our situation is not as dramatic as some, the sheer rise in house prices is making it difficult for first time buyers. However, to merely blame it on a generation is simplistic.”
I’d say your position is pretty normal for most people. The blame can be laid fair and square at the door of the NIMBYs and people who vote for politicians who promise that taxes on consumption of housing will go down and down relative to taxes on income and production.
And all the VIs who for some bizarre reason think it’s a good idea to hike taxes on income and production a bit further to bail out the banks to try and keep the bubble inflated.
.-= My last blog ..George Osborne talks sense, shock. =-.
If you go back another generation, my parents bought a house in the late fifties on one income. It took us two incomes to buy a similar home, so it’s not exactly a new phenomenon.
The problem with voting – whoever you vote for – is that it changes nothing. If it did, I suspect they would find a way to stop it.
The one real issue you had was the housing.
I bet if planning permissions were relaxed so that you could build on your own land without a £100K planning application and appeal process that took years then housing wouldn’t be in so short supply. Supply and demand is well known.
Government screws it up again. Why is the answer to ‘Who screwed it up?’ always government.
Because it always is.