Watch out the propaganda of government and ruling class trying to divide the public and turn people against each others. Boomers are idiots but owning a house is peanuts compared to billionares expenses or the money being spent on military weapons.
Please stop falling for efforts to divide the working class.
Amy such efforts should immediately be viewed as suspicious. The divide is not old vs young, or white vs black, or even rich vs poor. It is the capital class versus the labor class.
Boomers grew up in a very tiny slice of global history where the working class actually got improvements in their material conditions, so it is hard for them to understand the struggles of people before or after… but they are being ground down by capitalism the same as the rest of us.
Your comrades at work may not understand the importance of unions or collective action, but they are still your comrades. Your grandmother may not realize that all of her extra productivity went to make billionaires richer, but she is still your comrade.
or even rich vs poor. It is the capital class versus the labor class
Just another fancy way of saying rich vs poor. The difference is the poors don’t realize they are in a war.
There are plenty of people that don’t consider themselves poor or who most people would not consider poor who are still in the labor class. If you produce value more than extract value from ownership then you are labor class.
There are plenty of people that don’t consider themselves poor
That doesn’t make them right. That just makes them less poor than those that are dirt poor.
If you’re not floating around on a yacht then you’re comparatively poor. They can afford things these so called rich people you talk about could never afford.
My grandparents aren’t comrades. They’re dead.
I despise most of the boomers
I bought a lawnmower from someone online and went to pick it up. The lady was a turbo hoarder in her late 60’s she was smoking and smelled like a brewery. Her home was DISGUSTING. And i mean rat shit on the countertop. The only reason i was in her house was because there was so much shit around her house that the only way into her backyard was through the house. If you haven’t seen it, you can not understand how bizzare it was to carry a lawnmower through a hoarder house, when she had technically a big yard around.
I just wanted to get the fuck out of here when she said: a lot of people wanted the lawnmower, but she doesn’t sell it to anyone (she mant she didn’t sell it to immigrants). And: “no offence to you, but your generation is absolutely useless.” It was like some weird snl sketch
I probably would have just not bought that specific lawnmower and kept using my shitty one.
I’m going to guess that person’s TV has a Fox News logo burned into the bottom corner.
Among all my friends, there are two clear common denominators between those who rent and those who own houses. The ones renting have office jobs and live in the capital, while the ones who own houses live in smaller cities or the countryside and work in manual labor.
I’m not saying correlation is causation, but it’s an interesting observation - and so far, it applies to 100% of my friends.
Or have office jobs and commute a bit longer.
People say I’m crazy for commuting 1,5 hours (one way). But I get to go home to my own property. Especially now with hybrid working still being a thing, I only go to the office once or twice a week.
I must agree with the people saying you’re crazy for having that long commute. That’s over a month spent getting to and from work every year. Time is the most valuable asset in the entire world. By working we’re trading time for money but for the time spent commuting you’re not even getting paid. I would seriously consider trying to find an alternative solution to this.
I’m located in The Netherlands, the housing market here is fucked. An alternative solution would be to find something to rent closer to work, but I would pay 1,5 times as much in rent, for a small apartment in a neighborhood where I don’t want to live. Yes, I’m spending more time on my commute, but I also have more disposable income each month that I can save and invest. If all goes to plan, I can retire earlier and live mortgage free within 20 years. In essence, I’m trading a bit of time now, to have more spare time and a better financial position in the near future. I’m taking it.
ted to get the fuck out of here when she said: a lot of people wanted the lawnmower, but she doesn’t sell it to anyone (she mant she didn’t sell it to immigrants). And: “no offence to you, but your generation
do you drive, or take public transport? Americans will assume you drive, and then it is a pure waste of time. On the other hand, spending 3 hours on a train, one can sleep, work, watch a movie, read, whatever.
If they go to the office twice a week with an hour and a half commute each way that’s six hours a week driving. So 52 weeks a year that’s 312 hours or 13 days. Still not great but my commute is about 30min one way. I work five days a week so five hours a week, which would still be about 10 2/3 days a year. They also said they only have to commute once OR twice a week so they still probably drive less then the 13 days a year.
I’m just saying, sounds like a good deal
Well that should be easy to fix. Just have a world war with a general draft and all for about 5 years. Then another one soon after in an arbitrary place. That sort of thing really brings people together, and also kills many of them, all contributing to a healthy housing market!
Um, life was maybe easy-ish for some boomers. Plenty of them got reamed by the many boom/bust cycles. Boomers lived through stagflation, two oil embargoes, Vietnam, the 80s fad of downsizing/rightsizing, many losing farms in the 80s, the 90s rush to offshore and outsource everything, the deskilling of Americans and the export of most manufacturing, NAFTA reordering things, the rise of big box retailers and further deskilling, the disintegration of unions, the Wall Street crash of 1987, the dot-com bubble burst in early 00s, the real-estate crash in 2008, etc. Gen X and millennials suffered some of these later ones, too, or dealt with the fallout from their parents having these struggles.
The ageist shit is just a distraction. Generations are not really a thing; it’s more of a marketing strategy and also a way for the elites to further atomize Americans. Don’t fall for it.
It is more about how policies were set at the national level. Those policies have benefited them throughout their lifetimes. Boomers going to college. College is affordable. Boomers buying house make family. House good and affordable on one wage. Boomers working hard providing for wife and 2.5 kiddos. Jobs pay good and has pension. Family affordable one wage. Boomers retiring???
Yeah anyone is capable of taking their situation for granted.
Hey throw millenials in this too please.
And GenX. I bet a lot of them feel it too unless dementia has already set in.
nah yall are cringe and unfunny, pick up some humor first and we’ll include yall.
Maybe gen x could like, do something, for once. Maybe then people would care about them.
alright that’s enough of my generational slander quota for the day. Have a good day random internet people :)
Fuck off and die.
What exactly do you think we aren’t doing? I’ve worked for years except when I was a stay-at-home parent. I even owned my own company and employed others for a while. I try to spend at least two hours of my time a week on political action. What else do I have to do for you to think people should care that I exist? Come up with more fresh memes?
Okay Gen Skibidi toilet, peak humor…
Thats Alpha tho…
Skibidi represents every generation raised in the brain rot of the algorithm so Gen Z onwards.
Watch out, they might “prank” you by tormenting a homeless person or something
eat my bum worms
Are people under the impression everyone who had a 40 hour a week job had their own house?
Everyone? No. Far, far more people than now? Absolutely.
In 1990 my mom stayed home and raised us. My dad worked a measly construction job and we lived in a two story, 5 bedroom house (which they lost after the 2008 collapse, I took it over and lost in 2012).
My mom was also able to borrow against that house over and over again for cars.
Around 1996 my dad got his CDLs and drove a coal truck.
We bought that house for 30k.
My aunt bought a huge colonial house with 8 bedrooms for roughly 60k in 1979-80. She never worked. Her husband was a coal miner.
When it burned down in 1996, she bought a beautiful brick home in a wonderful neighborhood for 100k. She sold that same house recently for 600k.
The difference is absurd.
A “measly construction job” is a good paying one. A person working at a McDonald’s for 40 hours a week at that time would not be able to afford an apartment let alone a house. When your aunt bought her house interest rates were in the teens, today they are 7% and that’s a record high. My parents bought a house in 1976 for $28,000 dad worked full time at a city job plus always had a second job or side hustle. Our family would strip copper to make ends meet. Mom cooked every meal, eating out was a rare treat. Never once did we even order pizza, Mom make it with powder dough. We didn’t have cable. Got by on two junker cars sometimes one.
Every generation has it’s challenges. This is the first to have a public circle jerk/pity party
Every generation has it’s challenges
And the younger ones have an objective, mathematically proven worse version of the challenges than the earlier ones did
Nobody claimed it was ever perfect, only that it’s worse now, which it is
Haha I love it when kids tell me what my life was like.
Back to my original point. No, not everyone who worked 40 hours a week could afford a house.
You can wrap yourself in self pity or you can be resourceful, your choice.
Mate, a smaller percentage of our generation has houses. Wrap ya head around that. No one’s arguing every other generation had a house, that would be idiotic.
So self pity it is
Yours.
Okay but… where’s the news?
Many in GenX does, though.
https://www.redfin.com/news/homeownership-rate-by-generation-2023/
I mean not really that far of from boomers.
78.8% vs 26%?
GenX is 72% according to that site.
My parents holding fast with “well, it’s always been like that” made me realize how big this generational divide is.
There are good boomers who get it, yes. There are also some really dumb ones who have literally no clue what kind of world they helped create. Full stop.
And there are some Nazi gen z. We have to pull together the good ones from every generation and become helpers together. We can’t bitch about the ones that are shit, there are shit people in every generation, so it’s a waste of time and a distraction.
Yes, 100% this. There are plenty of boomers that got reamed by various elitist schemes, too. People right on the cusp of retirement only to have everything wiped out by something like an Enron or the real-estate bubble and they get to keep working another 10+ years…I think people have rose-colored glasses when it comes to the things boomers faced, too. It was not all sunshine and roses for everyone in that age bracket. It is lunacy to suggest that it was/is.
There may be some boomers doing nefarious things like Blackstone, driving up the cost of living for everyone, but I bet there are some very, very young people in schemes like that, too, making lots of money. Or individuals like fElon’s boyz - I don’t think the Dogebags are boomers. And fElon himself is Gen X…
Then there are headlines that I see like this that run counter to virtually everything you’d hear about Gen Y in recent years:
https://www.newsnationnow.com/business/your-money/millennials-financially-baby-boomers/
Lastly when the bullshit inter-generational warfare is whipped up, I remember this…
fElon
You call him like that every time. Please stop. It feels like Russian propaganda bot is talking. It’s bad and not funny to distort people’s names/surnames
lol imagine getting triggered by this. Just say it. You’re an Elon fan boy.
Fuck that. This “high road” shit is what led us here in the first place. He dead names constantly. He’s a “big, stwong alpha,” he can take it.
If Elon can’t respect people’s names and allows deadnaming on Twitter, I think it’s only fair to not respect his name.
This is some whataboutism. If he did this, it doesn’t mean that it should be acceptable.
Respect is earned. And generally mutual. You don’t respect people, I won’t respect you. I see no reason to respect anything about that Nazi.
In this case you can just call them by their surname, as they do with strangers
Lighten up, Francis.
I hate this idea that people need to work themselves to death to survive. We have such a surplus of resources today that people should barely have to work. I don’t know what it was that pulled the mask off this farce of a system we have, but it sure as shit isn’t worth it to bust my ass for 45 years so the CEO or FuCKYou Incorporated can get another bigger yacht.
I don’t know what it was that pulled the mask off this farce of a system we have
Greed
Sociopathic greed is the root; Covid 19 pulled the mask off when people collectively had a few months to exit the rat race and discover life apart from being constantly ground to dust for some shareholders’ profits.
Probably this, but it had been bubbling under the surface for a while.
Of course. American prosperity fell off a cliff around 1980, so the last 40 years or so have just been inertia and grinding the middle class into dust.
Which is roughly where we are now.
We have tons of excess. The problem is it’s hoarded by a small tyrannical group of psychopaths bent on increasing their wealth at the cost of everyone else.
I feel like these two comments really should be at the top.
I worked 40 hours a week and could not afford a house so I got a second job, worked my ass off for 5 years, saved a down payment and bought a 3 bedroom with a 2 stall garage on a half acre at an auction for $38k cash. I didn’t cry about having to work more, I called it an opportunity to be able to. I put another 30k into the house and used it as a stepping stone to get into a nicer place. Then I went back to one job. I did all this while being a single parent of a teen daughter.
What year did you buy the house for 38k?
At a USDA property auction held by the county annually. Ya’ll trolls make me not want to post here either. Its already as bad as reddit and sometimes worse.
And you can’t even answer the question.
Could you be any more disingenuous?
and bought a 3 bedroom with a 2 stall garage on a half acre at an auction for $38k cash.
aha hahahahahhahahahahhahahahahhahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahha
The whole scenario you described is the problem. You shouldn’t need to do that to yourself. The whole argument is the boomer generation was able to mostly have one parent working, supporting a family of 4, and owning a home COMFORTABLY. That is virtually nonexistent for current generations. Rising housing costs have far exceeded wage growth for decades now.
$38K LMAOOOOOOOO
Yeah try that again but this time for $300k, asshole
Maybe try not being such a whiny bitch and pay attention to what they are trying to tell you.
What are they trying to tell us? That housing used to be more affordable years ago and now everyone looking for one today has missed the boat? Because that is the reality.
Wages have not meaningfully increased for the American middle class, while unchecked inflation and scarcity has caused the cost of housing to skyrocket.
If OP worked two jobs to buy a house in 1980, they’d need to work three jobs in 1990. Or five jobs in 2010. Or nine jobs in 2020. And the market has not gotten any better since then.
Around here you wouldn’t even be getting a 3-bed house with 2-bay garage for that price, unless it’s a real fixer-upper. Maybe for $500-600k.
$38K?? For half an acre, 3 bedrooms and a 2 stall garage?
At an auction. Meaning it was a house that was foreclosed on. Oftentimes, they go for very cheap, sight unseen, and you need cash in hand. Granted the laws for that differ per state.
Oftentimes, they go for very cheap, sight unseen
What could possibly go wrong? That’s definitely worth a massive financial risk.
Right, that’s the point I was making. I did know a guy that would buy them and flip them. It’s a numbers game at that point. Some will be sinkers, but most will make money. If you’re buying one to live in, that’s a heck of a risk.
Then your point sure as hell wasn’t clear because I think many people thought you were saying buying a house isn’t a big deal or a risk if you get it at an auction. Hence all the downvotes.
How’s your relationship with your daughter now?
How did she feel about you choosing to work instead of spending that time with her?
Right? I have put my child first in everything I do since the day I was born and I know for a fact that she would be much less happy if we were richer but I was gone all the time.
As it is, she has a dad who stayed at home to raise her for the first two years of her life and a dad who also was able to stay at home and put her through online school because she was severely bullied for being queer and autistic to the point that the whole school was against her- but I have always been available to her and always had her back and I know she appreciates it even as a surly teenager.
And right now, we’re living in a crappy and small apartment and she is fine with it because I picked it in a location I knew she would enjoy and she gets to go out and have adventures on her own and will always have a dad she can come back to if there are any problems.
Fuck these “I worked 80 hours a week for my family and that’s why they’re in a 5-bedroom McMansion today” people. You are working for yourself. Spend less time working and more time with your kids.
Congrats?
The point being if you want something, you work for it, not condemn the economy and give up.
Ah, I see H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine was based in fact.
Welcome to the 21st century, traveler!
The issues today don’t stem from less work effort, then stem from opportunity lost. You can say you worked hard and that’s great but that same amount of work then doesn’t equal the same amount of output now for the worker.
Yes, the economy for the majority sucks because of the taxes being so low on the upper percentiles. Generations have voted people in who supported wealth gap growth and didn’t support the middle class. Stop blaming it on the youth, the youth werent the ones voting for what they got. Responsibility lies with those who came before them
Think about all that time you could have had with your daughter instead.
the real point is to be a good worker and let the billionaires reap the benefits
That’s a terrible way to look at the situation, did you ever wonder why it was even necessary in the first place to do that to yourself?
Most boomers don’t know what it’s like to work 40+ hours a week. Their parents made the system better, and they assume they didn’t fuck it up.
I’d say that they don’t remember. They probably did when they first started out. Their first starting out phase was much shorter though.
I used to work in a consulting firm for import/export driven businesses. Almost every single client was a Boomer who inherited the business from their parents, knew fuckall about business, and spent their time mainlining Fox News and lamenting the laziness of their workers and their general dissatisfaction with trends in America.
The uniform dearth of awareness and irony of their entire existence was astounding. Most, if not all, would be otherwise unemployable personalities, in any other scenario.
Maybe the boomers need to stop working and die, so the better paying jobs and wealth can come to the younger generations.
I think you’re going to get your wish. They’re not paying for all kind of social funding (low income housing for the elderly, for example). Yay?
It’s a shame that my sarcastic comment might have to be taken seriously in 2025, depending on what ORAGNE does.
