So, just curious Prawn. What caused the other bubbles to pop? You've used a nice little subset of data to try and support your argument but lets take a somewhat wider view. What causes all those bubbles in the market prior to the BB's coming in and stuffing everything up? /sarcasm.
What about 1974?
How about 1929?
How about 1891?
In fact just go back for me and tell us about each of the events that occurred on average about 8 years apart since 1875 and relate them to the baby boomers for me will you? If you can't do that - then perhaps market bubbles shouldn't be laid at the feet of just one generation.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Thank heaven for a balanced comment.
What worries me Prawn is not what BB's have done in the past, or how easy they have had it compared to any other generation or anything like that.
Certainly bb's have had definite advantages. But haven't they simply made the most of the opportunities offered? The significant asset increases in the 70's and 80's were there for the taking. It was a great time to buy property. Are Gen Y suggesting that the bb's should have just stood aside and not taken advantage of these opportunities to create wealth?
There is another thread today on Luck and most contributors are correctly suggesting 'luck' involves largely being aware of opportunities and acting on them.
So it does seem that rather than logic driving some of the derogatory comments about bb's, it's envy. I doubt that human nature essentially changes much from generation to generation.
What worries me is that currently 5 people are employed for every 1 retired. Give it 20 -30 years and that number will drop to 2.7 people employed for every 1 retired.
Yep, and I'd agree that many of the bb's have put personal spending ahead of providing for their own retirement.
Scary eh? But what are we going to do? Line them up against a wall when the revolution comes?
Well, that's perhaps a little bloody and extreme, but what Gen Y could actively promote in their own interests is a changing of the law on voluntary euthanasia.
Very, very few people want to be old and useless, neither do they want to feel like a burden on younger people imo, so we need to deal with the whole nonsense of keeping old people alive in nursing homes.
Seriously though, this is part of my thoughts/ramblings. The boomers were supposed to change the world for the better,
Were they/we? I was never aware of this. Who charged the b b's with this responsibility?
And, although you omitted consideration of technological/medical etc advances in your OP, I don't think you can ignore the huge progress here. Nioka has mentioned his own experience here with health.
This is a double-edged sword, however, as we are mistakenly (imo) keeping people alive too long.
yet they have spent a lot of money on themselves and a big majority will not be self funded in retirement, meaning that the younger generations have to support them.
Very fair point, but maybe also consider that they will be working longer. Perhaps the great burden you so worry about will turn out to be less than currently considered as the shortage of workers forces employers to retain/employ older people.
Another aspect you might consider is that lots of older people would like to be working. They don't want to be unemployed and short of money. But until they absolutely have to use older people, employers are going to resist hiring anyone over 40.
The strange thing is that now they are in power they still have very little vision/foresight to make things as easy as possible for the next generations... Again i guess this is just a human trait
Prawn, this post from you is a lot more reasoned and less inflammatory than was your OP and that's appreciated.
I agree with you absolutely about the lack of vision of our woeful leaders everywhere.
It just seems a bit unreasonable to blame a whole generation of individuals, many of whom have had to overcome quite a lot of difficulty, and who have worked extremely hard to be in a position at retirement where they have achieved their goal of
not being a burden to the succeeding generations.