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Comment by okareaman | Hacker News Reader

I'm a boomer and I can think of a few things off the top of my head that made the 80's and 90' a great time for a young person to be alive. 1) The previous generation was small because of the depression and ww2 - not a lot of older workers. 2) Paul Volcker came in with Ronald Reagan and tamed the crippling inflation that was hurting everyone. 3) No one at work or at home had a personal computer on their desk - the computer revolution took off 4) The Soviet Union collapsed leaving the US once again the sole super power. 5) People became health conscious and quit smoking. Medical technology advanced and prolonged our working life. There are probably things I am forgetting, but indeed, it wasn't hard to make money, buy a house and start a family.

Edit: I don't see how anyone can blame boomers because it's harder now. I gave my millennial kids a good start.

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No you didn’t - you supported massive reductions in social services, reductions in tax rates that benefited primarily businesses and the already wealthy.

Boomers voted to decrease how much they paid for everything once they were earning money. The way they did that was purely by increasing how much the following generations had to pay for every service, while also reducing their employment protection and actively preventing their wages from increasing at the same rate living costs were being made to increase.

Your generation did nothing but make it harder for the following generation after benefit from all the work you parents generation did to improve your opportunities.

Things your parents produced for you: cheaper/free high level, a functional Medicare system that covered the majority of the people who needed it, employment protection, retirement benefits, ...

Things your generation did: killed free higher education, actively defunding it so you paid less taxes having already got your free education, vigorously worked to remove layout protections, defunded Medicare, defunded infrastructure investment, blamed “millennials” for all the problems your selfish choices caused.

The fact that you can’t understand basic cause and effect of your actions warrants it:

Ok, boomer.

please. you are way overstating the situation. if anything its boomers who massively increased the scope and reach of govt social programs and spending.

No. The majority of the large scale social support systems were made during and immediately after WW2. Those systems paid for universities and education for boomers. They paid for the retirement of boomers (or at least their parents, we’ll see how things turn out). They increased wages for boomers.

Once they got all their support and started paying taxes boomers started reducing social services so that they could pay less taxes. The retirement age is being increased, but always with a decade or so delay so that it doesn’t affect boomers, just every subsequent generation.

You say you have your kids a great start? Cool. That was possible because of the support and government systems you voted to destroy. Your kids may have got a “great start” but they’re already far behind you the moment they leave home.

Good job.

It's all the millenial kids that you didn't give a good start and who are getting those 63% of new jobs that pay below-average who are suffering.

And what would you like for him to do about that?

Stop voting to protect the status quo. Stop being a NIMBY and let more housing be built, even if it hurts yor house price. Confront climate change, even if it means giving up your car, your diet, your annual holidays, the way we plan and build infrastructure and cities.

Vote to give younger people a fighting chance against rampant house price growth, rising tuition costs, weak wage growth, rising health care costs. Take ownership for the state of the world and commit to helping people beyond your family lines.

Vote for progress, not against it like many boomers I know

Ther are twice as many Gen X and millenials as Baby boomers

https://www.kasasa.com/articles/generations/gen-x-gen-y-gen-...

Why are boomer gen votes even needed?

I went back and re-read his post and I'll be damned if I can find anything about how he votes, what his stand on building new housing, climate change, or any of the other things you cite. Do you have some innate skill at knowing an individual's thinking on a wide variety of topics from a few written words?

I am a progressive. Go Bernie!

Is it that hard to accept that, job wise, things have gotten bleaker for the later generations? No, it's not your fault, but the dynamics that helped a generation be successful have changed for the worse. The boomers are as caught up in it as the later generations, they just happen to be the ones with the advantage.

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