Remember, boomers voted against their own interests for decades. Now the chickens are coming home to roost.
The boomers aren’t a monolith. It’s millions of people with different experiences and actions throughout their lives.
Did a large number vote/legislate themselves into this problem? Yes. Are millions of others also along for the ride despite not supporting this system? Also, yes.
The issues in this article aren’t even applicable to boomers exclusively. Gen-X is a big portion of the population mentioned in the article. This isn’t a generational problem, it’s a class problem.
And don’t forget the fact that if these systemic issues aren’t addressed, we’ll all face the consequences.
Actions have consequences.
Those who were taken along for the ride and actively voted against these are a small minority. I can see some benefit of helping them but would need to see what percentage of them actually need it.
The rest of them fucked around and need to find out or we’re just going to keep doing this shit generation after generation. Those on the lower end of the socioeconomic scale have happily voted for regressive policies. Fuck’em.
They already fucked our planet, I owe them nothing. We owe them nothing. They owe us.
Let them eat cat food.
It’s not a small minority. Look at the results of every presidential election since the 1980s, they’re not representative of an overwhelming majority of the population. Nor are the republican/democratic splits in Congress.
But that’s all besides the point. These generational lines are all arbitrary anyways. We agree there are problems with the status quo–do you think the fixes just shouldn’t apply to anyone over 55? Would you be okay with that logic being applied to yourself in 30+ years?
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For as long as you continue to think the problem is age and not class (which you are a fool to think that every boomer is upper class or vice-versa), you will contribute nothing to real change. You’re playing directly into petty division politics like a good little prolie.
Boomers are the ones voting against working class. Take a look at the 2020 DNC primaries. They elected Joe fucking Biden.
Nope. The problem is not class. They could have implemented a better world and choose not to.
They choose to support policies that did this to them. Fuck them and fuck you for falling for it.
They’ve had decades to tax the billionaires into millionaires but they chose not to and they continue to choose not.
Nope. The problem is not class. They could have implemented a better world and choose not to.
I hear you bud. I would suggest what you actually mean is that the problem is class and it’s the Boomers who are siding with capitalist class against the working class. People try to gaslight us into thinking our criticism of Boomer means that we’re creating this division. We are not. They are intentionally fucking us over.
The problem is not class.
This tells me everything I need to know about you.
Eh I would give that comment some grace. They’ve been misled to believe attacking Boomers is being a class traitor. Rather than the reality which is that Boomers are generally either capitalists themselves or working class traitors.
It’s always they’re not a monolith and true enough but if a literal vote doesn’t represent the overall will of the group then that’s implying thay democracy doesn’t work. If most of them voted for this then thats what most of them wanted. We have exit polls and data on this, it’s not as if anyone’s attributing to a group characteristics that only a few of them have, it’s the clear majority, year over year.
The will of the majority shouldn’t infringe on the liberty of the minority. Might shouldn’t make right.
Are you saying the actions of a portion of an arbitrarily defined group should condemn the group as a whole? I’ll ask the same question I asked another commenter; are you okay with that same principle being applied to you in the future?
It’s being applied to me now. Every thread talking about millennials political preferences top comment is always ‘then they should actually vote’ despite the fact that I havent missed an election. The least we can do is keep the same consistency here. Im not here to coddle boomers and treat them in higher regard than how we get treated. You get what you give and the majority of boomers are also getting exactly what they voted for. Must be nice, that’s not a luxury my generation has.
Also whos being condemed? Are you suggesting honoring the democratic outcome of a vote of a group is condeming them? If so then who exactly did the condeming? No one says I’m being condemed when I have to live with shit I didn’t vote for, the comparison is ridiculous.
We agree the current “boomer” policies are inadequate and should be changed, yes? Then is your position that improvements to the status quo should exclude people of a certain age because of how a portion of that population has voted?
If that’s your position, then that’s condemnation. The entire group is being excluded from the solution, despite only a portion having created the problem in the first place.
Apply that logic to any minority/disadvantaged/disenfranchised group, and see where it takes you. Should all Palestinians be punished because they didn’t do enough to stop Hamas? Should black Americans born in the 1910s not have enjoyed the benefits of the Civil Rights movement because they didn’t affect enough change in their youth?
By that logic if you are an adult over 22 years old , you are defacto a MAGA member.
The boomers aren’t a monolith. It’s millions of people with different experiences and actions throughout their live
Millions of them voted for Biden in the primaries. They insist on perpetuating these problems because they’re selfish uncompromising pieces of shit.
So did millions of any other group of people you can think of; white, black, rich, poor, young, and old. Are they all uncompromising pieces of shit too? Is voting for Biden the mark of the beast, and once marked you’re never entitled to government reforms?
Or is there some other purity test one must pass before being eligible for support?
Other groups are welcome to vote for whomever they like. Boomers are not. They have caused so much damage and fucked over so many people. They have no business continuing to do so.
And because of the ponzi scheme that is social security, future generations will be fucked out of their own retirements.
No dude if we can just get rid of the
JudenBoomers, all of our problems will be solved because theJudenBoomers are all responsible for every problem inThe ReichAmerica.If you replace a word with another word it sounds shitty, who would’ve guessed?
It’s all the same rhetoric. The Jews, the Blacks, the Boomers, the Zoomers, the Christians, the Muslims, etc.
Any comment that blames anything but class as being the only reason for why things are so bad is contributing nothing and hurting actual progress. A 1%er Zoomer does more harm in a single day than a 99th-percentile Boomer does in their lifetime.
Boomers are not an oppressed minority, literally the fucking opposite, what in the hell are you on about and wtf is wrong with you comparing reasonable hatred for the generation that fucked us all over to antisemitism? Not at all comparable, you’re just going to bat for a generation that wants you to pay their social security while trying to get it abolished before you get any
Holy shit you’re still missing the point.
There are boomers who are not wealthy.
The generation didn’t fuck you over, the bourgeoisie did, as they always have. The fact that some of the bourgeoisie is made up of baby boomers is purely incidental. You are not being oppressed by Thomas James, 76 year-old local caterer who marched for Civil Rights before you were even born.
Thomas James is dead. He had to work his entire life and died because he couldn’t afford the meds he needed, or got run over at a civil rights march, or just broke his body with labor and broke half his bones falling down the stairs. Almost all the good boomers are dead, and there were very few to start with. They’re the most conservative voting block out there afaik, maybe older people are worse on average but I doubt it. Boomers and the bourgeoisie are both to blame for the shit situation we’re in. Less so with boomers, but you sure as fuck shouldn’t be letting them off the hook or defending them when they’ve never done the same for you
There are poor boomers. They didn’t all vote for greed. , jfc
True, but the vast majority did, and even the “good” ones are usually the kind of democrat that wants Hillary Clinton as president and wants to bomb more middle eastern countries. Obviously there’s exceptions, but most boomers have voted to fuck over themselves and everyone else, and now want others to pay them so they don’t have to experience the consequences
Their gray new deal was killing off pensions and having people rely on 401ks.
And they voted for it in droves.
Honestly pensions shouldn’t be tied to private accounts, whether they’re owned personally or by corporations. There’s too much fuckery for profit.
You could say the same about the whole financial “industry”.
The entire idea of bundling debt is testament to that.
Yeah, bundling risks together doesn’t change the overall risk. It just makes you more likely to see the average case. The math behind this isn’t new since 2008.
But the people who were supposed to watch for that were instead watching for their chance to get a sweet job at one of the companies they were supposed to be regulating and Bush and Obama worked very hard together to make sure none of the banks suffered for their fraud or not doing their due diligence other than a couple of sacrifices (that might have been more of a consolidation than a sacrifice). The whole thing is rigged and it’s not so much that those in power don’t care as they are in on it.
If old people wanted to Retire they wouldn’t be the Largest Republican Voting Block in America.
And the ones who voted Democrat should have chose someone better than Joe fucking Biden in the primaries. But no they’re a bunch of selfish uncompromising assholes.
How about make it so young people can afford to live and they might be more excited about working.
We could have better jobs if old people weren’t squatting in them for eternity.
That doesn’t help people currently approaching 65 that this article is focusing on.
“Elections have consequences” moment
It doesn’t mean that this is not a social problem we need to face a solve today. Like if we could establish a UBI, would we just not give it to people over 65? I don’t understand how folks here are so retributive to a whole generation, when probably 40 to 45 percent of that generation didn’t vote for Reagan.
A social problem “we” didn’t create. The Boomers did.
You mean the cohort that we’re going to have to bury in four feet of concrete to keep the lead in their bodies out of the soil?
It’s the young that are fucked not the old
It’s not really young or old that are fucked. It’s still the poor and rich, and guess which one is fucked. Over time the wealth gap is widening which sucks for younger people. But it’s still a rich and poor problem, and I think we should have sympathy for those with financial insecurity regardless of age.
Ok yes I agree good point. Just like the left vs right instead of rich vs poor… I can’t get through to my parents or uncles on this so it’s pent up. I just don’t want there to be some we have it the same when I just haven’t experienced that
The numbers aren’t great. Turns out the boomers fucked their own too.
Good.
No. Needless suffering for the greed of others is never good.
You say “needless” I say “completely self inflicted”. I say “good” because they’re actually experiencing consequences of their shitty behavior. Will it make them decide to do something else? Probably not but it’s nice to see someone getting their just desserts.
In an era of rampant voter disenfranchisement I don’t think we can blame the victims for their predicament. Post World War 2 leaders got the electorate they wanted by making leftists and minorities criminals.
Imagine thinking “leftists” and “minorities” when people are talking about “Boomers”.
I’m sorry are you of the opinion that there are no retirement age BIPOC people?
It’s both
Boomers got cheap houses, well paying jobs without higher education, and will be getting out largely without dealing with the consequences of severe climate change. It’s not equal in the slightest
I didnt say it was equivalent
Well it ain’t both either. Ones fucked. The young ones. The other had it good.
There are more rich boomers than anyone else. They’re are also poor boomers who didn’t vote for this shit. You can’t damn whole generations. Nō generation ia a monolith just like no race, nation, gender or religion is
I’m not damning but I’m not giving sympathy either. The young get my sympathy. The old had plenty
Did I claim it was equal?
We both are.
fuck. here we go.
you think this money to help them retire is coming from the government? no. lol.
It’s coming from us. filial responsibility laws are already on the books. if you can’t fund your own retirement, get it from your kids before you’re allowed to get anything from the state.
your boomer parents will reverse mortgage their house, liquidate everything, then come for your paychecks like child support, until you’re tapped out permanently. they won’t do it maliciously, not directly, they’ll do it because it’s a “requirement” of properly retiring. sorry hun, it’s the law, I wouldn’t if I didn’t have to!
they’ll drain you and keep you drained until they die. if we’re lucky, the state then won’t turn around and suck the state-paid care debts out of you as unfurnished filial debts.
Lucky for me my mom died before she could reverse mortgage her house! Free house y’all.
This is capitalism in action folks. Siphon all the money up to the top. Whoops, no one can afford to live now. Oh well.
Super sustainable!
Oh I know! We could get together as a society, through our government and socially pay for a security fund. For those that retire. We could call it social security! No one would ever be against that. Taking care of our elders and those who’ve worked their whole life. /S
It’s extremely sad that we are going to have to learn this lesson, again.
an economist did a video the other day on how solvable it is. The gist, the shortfall is on a 75 year projection, and there are multiple ways of solving it, but working longer only gets 40% of the way there. So given the trade off on quality of life for people vs solving it in the many other ways, that seems like a shitty strategy. Also you need the politicians to do their part…
Watch this be top priority for DC because all of them are geriatrics.
They’re all rich. They got theirs, why would they give a fuck about anyone else?
Old people are gullible and vote. Both parties want them taken care of.
They aren’t all rich
Oh gosh, one ain’t rich, that changes everything
Yeah, no you’re right, there’s NO poor old people. FFS
We’re talking about politicians, buddy.
OK fair point I missed that in the OP. Carry on =)
Social security? That they paid for?
Still don’t trust economists
… fucking yes it will. Not 100% “solve” but greatly mitigate. This is very basic making an income helps you live.
We can also revisit the problem that retirement used to be your last 5-10 years in life, now it’s up to 20.
Living longer absolutely fucked a lot or retirement calculations. Making it to about 80 isn’t that crazy anymore, pensions weren’t prepared for that and 401Ks are likely less prepared. Living on 100% passive income from about 60 to death isn’t realistic, and it’s not just stolen value of labor, most financial planning wasn’t focused on a 20+ year retirement.
The ageism in this thread is starting to get appalling. Apparently the working class only deserves sympathy and help if they are under 35 years old currently.
It’s not ageism, it’s specific to the generation in question: boomers. It’s the selfishness and hypocrisy that we’ve been dealing with for our entire lives and we’re over it.
You’re acting as if there’s not a plurality of opinion in that cohort. And it’s also about Gen X who is about to hit that retirement cliff being discussed. It’s also about class and questions of forced retirement because bodies no longer allow folks to work that allegedly claim they would if they could.
And if we are making morale arguments about human dignity and what society should do, that applies to these older generations as well despite their previous political contributions.
There are so many boomers on Lemmy that come out of the woodwork when topics like this come up. It’s honestly surprising to see such a large population online outside of Facebook.
Lol. Not a boomer. Just wait until you have parents late in retirement and have declining health. If you care enough to care for them you’ll realize the amount of stress and work it takes.
