Help back me up with your reasons if you believe it’s not fair to blame an entire generation for problems today (difficulty for young people to buy a home, climate change). My argument is that it’s too broad. I’d rather blame unfettered capitalism, corporate greed, moving jobs overseas by corporations, pollical policy.
Occupy Wall Street had it right.
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Feeling guilty?
haha, no. I"m actually Gen X
I’m addressing someone in town who was bashing “older generations” for the problems we see today. It was not nice. And I feel compelled to respond on our Front Porch Forum which is where it started. I know several 80 year olds who have done plenty good for the world.
I’m supposed to be out on a big gravel bike ride today but it’s pouring rain. And I’m not that much into mud, cold and rain anymore…
Blame? Credit? Both? Capitalism working hard to find a way to improve the lot that is humankind without resorting to communism.
Boomer here with parents from the generation that lived the Great Depression, fought the World War and have been recognized as the Greatest. Today’s world happened on our watch.
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^this guy gets it.
just because its your generations fault, does not mean it’s your fault.
911 happened during my generation, so did trump (x2) doesn’t mean it’s my fault. acknowledging certain things is not that big of a deal.
We should not argue that any generation exists in isolation. The things that might be attributed by someone to boomers were generally begun by prior generations and perpetuated by post-boomer generations.
As you say, rather than talk about generations and stereotypes about the people in those generations, it’s far better to talk about the forces that led to a particular problem. Those forces usually exist across generations.
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Here’s my short and simple response for today’s local Front Porch Forum:
I was a bit saddened by the blaming of “older generations” for today’s problems. I feel that is a bit oversimplified. Especially when I know of plenty of people decades older than myself who were marching in the 60s and 70s and standing up to unfettered capitalism and corporate greed. I am thankful for the many freedoms and rights that were fought for by our parents, grandparents and great grandparents. I was four years old in 1974. Did you know that in 1974, women were not allowed to run in the Boston marathon or get their own credit cards without a male co-signer at that time? And I remember long gas lines and inflation of the 1970s. Every generation has faced its struggles. I would be happy continuing this discussion as it’s very relevant. Every generation has both good and bad people.
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except a majority of certain generations prefer we go back to 1970
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Agree, but trump won a big majority of young men in 2024 too. But yeah I get your point. Lots of certain generations want to take us back maybe even further
the people that want to take us back to 1970 and further, are the ones who had the most kids, apple’s generally fall close to the tree.
Edited to be gender neutral…
“Hard times create strong people, strong people create good times, good times create weak people, and weak people create hard times.”
G. Michael Hopf
Kinda like the training stress response on a massive scale. Unfortunately, (or fortunately) attempts to cheat, such as strict communism or authoritarianism don’t work.
At least in a loose sense, we ARE destined to have history repeat itself.
And yes I’m a boomer, and NO, I don’t feel any guilt, whatsoever
I’m gen x. Not a boomer but pretty close.
I do blame ourselves and boomers for not looking out enough for the younger generations and being too much about ourselves.
We older folks have had a 20 year stock boom, giant real estate appreciation, and all govt policies aimed at helping older folks even if I wasn’t one of them until recently.
Younger folks under 40 get almost nothing. And now they shoulder crazy education and home fees etc and still almost all the policies help the older generations.
We should be more proactive in helping them with real policies even if we have to sacrifice some. We have been exceedingly lucky in the stock and real estate market and that should be shared.
Do you think corporations have contributed to hard times as well for younger people? Salaries have not increased in the same pace as housing and general expenses necessary for modern-day life. Corporations outsourcing factories and labor overseas have meant less jobs. I realize this is part of the problem. And we keep voting for law makers who enable corporations to be so powerful. I think it’s complex. And if millennials and gen z were all born in the 1950s, would they have behaved any differently than Boomers?
I do think there could be some truth to this
I don’t believe for a second the younger generations would act differently than boomers or gen x. Still doesn’t mean it’s right or just.
Corporations play a major part but it’s not just their fault if any one groups fault. The world is just a more competitive place with a lot more people competing for fewer resources.
But it does still make me sad that a good percent of older folks feel that they deserve every penny they got and neglect all the good luck and timing that went their way. As someone who’s been on both sides of the wealth and age gap it really bothers me.
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i think a lot of people blame “boomers” but lets be real, we’re talking about reaganomics. those boomers.
i’m 40, graduated with 153k student debt, had a decent job, but lived near the outskirts of boston, because that’s where my social life was, and well single life is better in the city.
i remember a boomer once talking about how millenials are lazy, and eat too much avocado toast… i really opened his eyes when we compared college debt, salaries vs home price ratio and he realized i graduated with debt that was double my salary, whereas his was 2% of his salary. his home 2 years after i graduated was 4x my salary, meanwhile his home 2 years after he graduated was 2x his salary.
fast forward to that time, his home was 8x my salary (because i had to first pay off student debt).
yeah, bet he never talked about avocado toast again (which is fucking delicious by the way).
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We were talking about this very thing in my house. A lot of the things blamed on Boomers actually were done by the Silent Generation.
The Boomers built rock and roll, protested the Vietnam War, and accepted expanded civil rights.
The Silent Generation acts like they solved the depression and WW II, but were too young to do anything with either. They threw rocks at kindergarteners trying to go to school andfought against environmental regulation.
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It’s too oversimplified to blame any particular generation. There is just a problem when older generations start blocking any policies that will help younger ones and then they unfairly judge the younger ones through the lens of their prejudices and shortsightedness. Particularly when it comes to long term appreciating assets that they only have due to being born when they were.
Older folks including me, need to remind themselves that their view of younger generations is more often than not biased skewed and unfair. This has been par for the course throughout human history and is worse when you can now legislate all the advantages to the older classes.
I’m particularly horrified with how seniors gladly take their free health care but continue to deny it to younger folks in the us. Everyone starts screaming how it will bankrupt the system, which might be true, however, let’s be real, it’s the high cost of senior healthcare that are the bulk of the costs, and young people‘s healthcare is much less because they generally are not in the age bracket of Major illness. We never hear older people bemoaning how much they cost the system, but always complaining about how much it would cost to give healthcare to the young, poor, and the needy.
100%
i had co-workers (gen x and millenials) talk about how the kids these days are so lazy with patients… i always called them out. we had about 30 people part time on staff that ranged from graduate students, to high school students. they were all incredibly hard working.
i’m not worried about our future, i look at my little cousins, nieces and nephews and their friends. sure their life was a bit easier than mine, sure some of them don’t have the same exact work ethic as me, but they’re solid people, and are great in their own way.
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