3 ms·

Right, and look I completely get that line of thinking; but pretending that it's solely down to not "saving" enough when the price-to-income ratio is so skewed

by girvo 9y ago

Right, and look I completely get that line of thinking; but pretending that it's solely down to not "saving" enough when the price-to-income ratio is so skewed in this country, with basically zero wage growth for most industries especially those that young people go into seems a little disingenuous. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-03/house-price-to-income-ratio/8586524 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-03/house-price-to-income-... Look, I'm a senior software engineer earning an excellent salary, and at the end of the day I can afford property if I wanted to, but the sheer amount of debt required for it in 2017, coupled with the ratio above, and the honest-to-god feeling that the young are being plundered in service of the older (I'm not saying that's actually the case, but that is certain how it can feel. See the last two budgets for why), and then being told to "buck up and save more"... you can understand why it feels kind of bullshit, right?

vacri 9y ago
Conversely, the young have always been plundered for the old. The old have always held the political reins. This is the bit that millenials are missing. The Xers before them were plundered and misunderstood by the old. The boomers before them were plundered and misunderstood by the old. It's not new, and the millenials aren't experiencing something that hasn't happened before. As a very simple, short example: when have post-boomers in Australia ever experience conscription? We've been involved in a few wars, but the last conscription was of the boomers, in the Vietnam war. Yes, housing affordability is terrible in this country at the moment. But if you could choose between being a young boomer (with no foreknowledge) and being a young millenial, you'd be insane to choose the former. Especially if you're a woman or a minority. My mother was born in mid-1946 (a literal post-war boomer) and was a teacher in the 1970s, and was legally paid 2/3rds of what male teachers earned, simple because of her extra X chromosome. This is the kind of thing that never gets mentioned when millenials are bitching about how much worse they have it now; they never mention all the advances that have happened in the interim. However boomers have been through that. They know what it was like before. And that's why they grumble about millenials. Is it fair? Probably not, but neither is the millenial picture of boomers. (disclosure: Xer myself)

by girvo 9y ago

vacri 9y ago

Conversely, the young have always been plundered for the old. The old have always held the political reins. This is the bit that millenials are missing. The Xers before them were plundered and misunderstood by the old. The boomers before them were plundered and misunderstood by the old. It's not new, and the millenials aren't experiencing something that hasn't happened before. As a very simple, short example: when have post-boomers in Australia ever experience conscription? We've been involved in a few wars, but the last conscription was of the boomers, in the Vietnam war. Yes, housing affordability is terrible in this country at the moment. But if you could choose between being a young boomer (with no foreknowledge) and being a young millenial, you'd be insane to choose the former. Especially if you're a woman or a minority. My mother was born in mid-1946 (a literal post-war boomer) and was a teacher in the 1970s, and was legally paid 2/3rds of what male teachers earned, simple because of her extra X chromosome. This is the kind of thing that never gets mentioned when millenials are bitching about how much worse they have it now; they never mention all the advances that have happened in the interim. However boomers have been through that. They know what it was like before. And that's why they grumble about millenials. Is it fair? Probably not, but neither is the millenial picture of boomers. (disclosure: Xer myself)