The younger generation.

[Billies Bangers]

I don't have any self blame because I haven't done anything wrong. I pay my taxes, and I've never been in default. I have no Apple products either.

I'm also not the one claiming to have more of social conscience than anybody else, unlike the Mac-owning OP.

But yes, if you think that the the current economic problems should be levelled at the people with all the wealth. I agree, and the baby boomers are the people with 80% of the UK's wealth. (Some sources: 1 2)

As far as I can tell, the older folk on this thread are the group that decided to privatise everything, run up huge state debts, NIMBY block all the infrastructure projects, and raise their kids with materialistic values all the while claiming the moral high ground over their children and demanding the pensions be "triple locked" at all costs. (apologies to anybody from that age group that doesn't fit that description)

Baby boomers with all the wealth you say? Wow, I've missed out again. What utter rubbish. 90% of the wealth is owned by approx 10% of the population and that figure has change little for hundreds of years. A small proportion of baby boomers may be having it a bit better than today's workers, but you could argue that generation were more unionised and fought for what they have today. Today's generation think they don't need unions we are all middle class now. How's that working out then?

Don't envy and begrudge those workers what they have, go out and fight for the same.

 

[platypus]

They really are not at all heavily invested in the housing market. It would probably be better if they were, along with infrastructure too.

Direct investment in real estate markets by pension funds and property sovereign wealth funds is set to double over the next decade, according to Jones Lang LaSalle, the property consultancy.

The findings follow a recent JPMorgan Asset Management study which found that 43 per cent of institutional investors were experimenting with real assets. The study, conducted last year, surveyed 2,500 institutional investors with assets of $7.8tn.

....

Many pension funds have historically favoured investing in real estate via unlisted property funds or through pooled funds but this means that trustees do not have full control over their investments.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/75cbbffe-454f-11e2-8ccc-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3OE6JxFWN

Fair enough it won't be all, but they're certainly pumping a lot of resources into it.

 

[platypus]

Baby boomers with all the wealth you say?

Baby boomers and pensioners help concentrate the wealth - whilst removing and denying the younger generation access to the same privileges they had - whether they specifically have it themselves or not is irrelevant.

 

[MikeTheNative]

I think it's about time that this new generation should get off their fat asses and stop scoffing down their benefits paid for kebabs and really help the world like the golden generation before.

 

[Billies Bangers]

Baby boomers and pensioners help concentrate the wealth - whilst removing and denying the younger generation access to the same privileges they had - whether they specifically have it themselves or not is irrelevant.

As I said previously, this generation need to cut the 'self entitlement' rubbish and get out there and fight for the things they want. Our generation had to fight and go without.

How would today's kids react to an apple tangerine and football as their entire Christmas stocking with the odd selection box from grandparents etc.

The more I think about the OP's piece and the more I read posts in this thread the more I agree with the OP's sentiments.

Why do so many think we should have a race to the bottom. Have we got a large number of closet Tories on this forum?

 

[Amp34]

If one word can describe our present youth it's immaturity.

If two words could be used to describe our present older generation it's old fashioned.

Just because times change doesn't mean it's change for the worse. Perhaps we need a more laid back attitude, for starters we'd probably all get along better (he world that is).

Tbh we're still all bitter that the baby boomers had it all, left us with the debt to clean up and left us with a huge pensions liability to deal with. It's ok though as in 10-15 years time we will be in power and we may decide to start chopping those pensions in half in retaliation... Alternatively we will become old, crusty and grumpy and carry on designing the world for our own self interest.

 

[drakioned]

As I said previously, this generation need to cut the 'self entitlement' rubbish and get out there and fight for the things they want. Our generation had to fight and go without.

How would today's kids react to an apple tangerine and football as their entire Christmas stocking with the odd selection box from grandparents etc.

The more I think about the OP's piece and the more I read posts in this thread the more I agree with the OP's sentiments.

Why do so many think we should have a race to the bottom. Have we got a large number of closet Tories on this forum?

Well that's just patently false. The older generation didn't do without and aren't going without. They borrowed, otherwise, how is it we have this large public debt? To fund the pensioners, the NHS, and other services that the boomers are clearly not doing without. You can see our public spending here, where the largest spending item is paying pensions to people not going without. Instead, spending is being cut from things like university grants get abolished and libraries get shut down.

 

[platypus]

As I said previously, this generation need to cut the 'self entitlement' rubbish and get out there and fight for the things they want. Our generation had to fight and go without.

How would today's kids react to an apple tangerine and football as their entire Christmas stocking with the odd selection box from grandparents etc.

The more I think about the OP's piece and the more I read posts in this thread the more I agree with the OP's sentiments.

Why do so many think we should have a race to the bottom. Have we got a large number of closet Tories on this forum?

Self entitlement? The biggest self entitlement I see is from the baby boomer and older generation, and you reek of it.

"We worked hard for this that and the other - of course the young people of today couldn't possible work hard - therefore we're entitled to our unrealistic and overly generous pensions to be paid by an ever increasing tax burden on the younger generations. We're entitled to pay peanuts for our council houses that we then increase the value of ludicrously by voting appropriately, locking the housing market so that only we can afford to profit from it. The younger should pay more tax so that the majority of the people who use the NHS can benefit from it for free. Who gives a damn about our national debt? The younger working generations can pay tax through the eyeballs and lose service after service to service the debt so we can still enjoy our retirement."

Who gives a damn about how today's kids would react to an apple, tangerine and a football?

I give a damn about the fact that the older generation got what they wanted out of the system, and are now continuing to milk it and do their level best to ensure that they protect it and are making sure to damn those following into not having any of it.

 

[ci_newman]

As I said previously, this generation need to cut the 'self entitlement' rubbish and get out there and fight for the things they want. Our generation had to fight and go without.

How would today's kids react to an apple tangerine and football as their entire Christmas stocking with the odd selection box from grandparents etc.

The more I think about the OP's piece and the more I read posts in this thread the more I agree with the OP's sentiments.

Why do so many think we should have a race to the bottom. Have we got a large number of closet Tories on this forum?

30 years ago, a house typically cost the same as a family hatchback

That in itself is reason enough that the younger generation have been shafted by the older one.

I plough almost £800 / month into a mortgage to live in a 3-bed semi and I'll be paying that for another 35years.

 

[drakioned]

Baby boomers with all the wealth you say? Wow, I've missed out again.

Yep. Seems like you did.

Don't envy and begrudge those workers what they have, go out and fight for the same.

I don't envy those workers. Actually I expect to do just fine. I just find them to be hypocrites.

 

[Amp34]

I think there is a difference between peaceful marches/demonstrations and the lawlessness and violence you describe.

You mean like the Poll tax riots and the miners strikes that involved thousands of police...?

 

[drakioned]

You mean like the Poll tax riots and the miners strikes that involved thousands of police...?

It's only lawlessness and violence if young people are doing it. Otherwise it's legitimate peaceful protest

 

[BuffetSlayer]

Perhaps the youf' of today are just smarter?

If you don't like something and you want it to change, do not protest about it, get yourself into a position where you can actually effect real change. Additionally, with modern media and what is available in the public domain a person can arm themselves well with knowledge of a subject and fight their fight in other ways.

But I do feel like we have done them a disservice by raising their expectations and not delivering.

When I was at school it was drummed into us "you need to go to uni and get a degree otherwise you won't ever have a good job" & "If you have a degree you can expect XYZ salary whereas if you don't go you will be stuck doing menail work on low pay" etc etc.

Mostly it is rubbish, but if you raise a generation telling them that they can expect X&Y but then you do not provide the environment for it, it is not entirely surprising they become a bit disenfranchised.

Many younger people have been through years of education, got into a ton of student debt in order to get the 'hallowed' degree and then leave to find out it isn't worth much.

Whilst I am a believer in the sky being the limit, I do not think it helps to instill a sense of entitlement in people which in turn perpetuates the overall feeling that some forms of work are beneath them. We also propegate the "have it now" culture where the entire idea of starting at the bottom and working up is completely alien to many young people. This does not just infect their outlook on work, but everything else too.

 

[krooton]

The degree thing is a weird one, of my close friends, almost all those with degrees (one even a phd) earn less than the 2 of us without degrees, AND still have all that debt to pay back. And whilst our top earner did go to uni, he isn't doing anything related to his degree for work.

Uni was a pretty clever scam it would seem

 

[Deleted member 77746]

Uni was* a pretty clever scam it would seem

* IS

 

[MookJong]

Journalism has also changed. There is far less investigative reporting, understanding the issues around why something is happening and gaining different views - it has changed to more reporting of what is happening, and above all else reporting it first before anyone else. That changes the consumption of the story, where people start to understand less about why something is happening but more that it is happening. But, if it isn't in that top ten of the day, then the majority will not know about it because they'd have to actively seek it out.

A perceived media blackout is not a failure of the event being reported, it is a failure of the potential consumer's changed habits to access it. It also explains why some very minor events, should they get sufficient momentum, get blown out of relative proportion.

This is such an important point and I have been thinking about it a lot recently. Most of the news we are fed is just information, we are given numbers, facts and events but what we don't get is any explanation of what it all means and where it fits into a continuing explanation of the world.

The media are failing to deliver any kind of coherent narrative of the world we are living in at the moment, everything is like an isolated incident. I’m 36 this year and find myself constantly referencing the world I remember in the 80s and 90s to try and make sense of what is happening now. I think If I was younger though I would really struggle.

People have never been so distracted by entertainment and minutia, technology and instant access to information has never been better but at the same time the bigger world we live in is so difficult to understand I don’t think it's on a lot of peoples radar to even try.

Politicians also just react to things in isolation now, where are the big and new ideas? This year’s election will be a big eye opener. Everyone is fighting over the same ground with a few financial tweaks, but the media aren’t asking the right questions or trying to explain what is happening and why.

Maybe the future with climate change, debt, no pension pot, dwindling resources, centralisation of power...if you actually did put it all together and start creating a narrative it would be too doom mongering....maybe people do just want to be distracted by box sets and cat pictures.

 

[StriderX]

There are certain degrees that are well worth the grunt, but a vast majority of the mostly "social" degrees should just be abandoned.

 

[The_Abyss]

Fair enough it won't be all, but they're certainly pumping a lot of resources into it.

Er - that's commercial property, not residential.

 

[porushinobu]

Perhaps the youf' of today are just smarter?

If you don't like something and you want it to change, do not protest about it, get yourself into a position where you can actually effect real change. Additionally, with modern media and what is available in the public domain a person can arm themselves well with knowledge of a subject and fight their fight in other ways.

But I do feel like we have done them a disservice by raising their expectations and not delivering.

When I was at school it was drummed into us "you need to go to uni and get a degree otherwise you won't ever have a good job" & "If you have a degree you can expect XYZ salary whereas if you don't go you will be stuck doing menail work on low pay" etc etc.

Mostly it is rubbish, but if you raise a generation telling them that they can expect X&Y but then you do not provide the environment for it, it is not entirely surprising they become a bit disenfranchised.

Many younger people have been through years of education, got into a ton of student debt in order to get the 'hallowed' degree and then leave to find out it isn't worth much.

Whilst I am a believer in the sky being the limit, I do not think it helps to instill a sense of entitlement in people which in turn perpetuates the overall feeling that some forms of work are beneath them. We also propegate the "have it now" culture where the entire idea of starting at the bottom and working up is completely alien to many young people. This does not just infect their outlook on work, but everything else too.

here here, very well said

 

[V F]

This is such an important point and I have been thinking about it a lot recently. Most of the news we are fed is just information, we are given numbers, facts and events but what we don't get is any explanation of what it all means and where it fits into a continuing explanation of the world.

The media are failing to deliver any kind of coherent narrative of the world we are living in at the moment, everything is like an isolated incident. I’m 36 this year and find myself constantly referencing the world I remember in the 80s and 90s to try and make sense of what is happening now. I think If I was younger though I would really struggle.

People have never been so distracted by entertainment and minutia, technology and instant access to information has never been better but at the same time the bigger world we live in is so difficult to understand I don’t think it's on a lot of peoples radar to even try.

Politicians also just react to things in isolation now, where are the big and new ideas? This year’s election will be a big eye opener. Everyone is fighting over the same ground with a few financial tweaks, but the media aren’t asking the right questions or trying to explain what is happening and why.

Maybe the future with climate change, debt, no pension pot, dwindling resources, centralisation of power...if you actually did put it all together and start creating a narrative it would be too doom mongering....maybe people do just want to be distracted by box sets and cat pictures.

Thats because they are in bed with the establishment. A lot of journalists are on the same plane as Cameron following him for every story. They aren't going to rock the boat.