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Original poster

to feel pissed off with selfish 'baby boomer' generation

298 replies

hermionepotter · 30/12/2013 14:00

this was in response to a newspaper article where people surveyed wanted interest rates to go up. I could be BU I know. But it won't be those paying massive mortgages and debts who'll be wanting rates to go up, will be older people wanting interest on their savings and sod everyone else. So am I BU?

OP posts:
Chunderella · 30/12/2013 18:19

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Joysmum · 30/12/2013 18:20

What's wrong with those with savings not wanting the value of those savings to be diminished through inflation?

Those if us who got into debt mostly did so because we spent what we couldn't afford. Those who saved did so because they saved when they could.

Imagine this, 2 people with the same income, 1 lives within their means and even managed to save a little by being frugal, whilst the other sees no reason why they shouldn't have holidays and a better car etc. hardly fair that the sensible one who planned for the future should have to bail out the spendthrift yet that's how this country works.

wetaugust · 30/12/2013 18:22

Hideous - both of them Pax.

But they'll probably be bought by a BTL investor who'll give them a cheap makeover and charge £400pcm or whatever the LHA 'going rate' is for the area.

paxtecum · 30/12/2013 18:26

A few months ago there was a thread asking how people had managed to save a deposit for a house.

It was very enlightening.
Many had saved by wearing clothes until they were threadbare, never ever ate out, made packed lunches, never went to a hairdresser, ie by living very frugally and for many it had taken several years.

paxtecum · 30/12/2013 18:28

wetaugust: yes, I agree, but that was the sort of property that was my first buy 40 years ago.

nomorecrumbs · 30/12/2013 18:28

Many had saved by wearing clothes until they were threadbare, never ever ate out, made packed lunches, never went to a hairdresser, ie by living very frugally and for many it had taken several years.

Shock Blush
IfNotNowThenWhen · 30/12/2013 18:30

Yup wetaugust.
On my almost FT salary, I could buy...a squalid concrete rabbit hutch on the worst council estate in town. The kind of place I used to walk by, and think "Thank God I don't have to live there".
And I have lived on estates, so I am not snobby about that, but I couldn't afford any of the ones where I wouldn't get ram raided.
All I want is a small 2 bed flat/house somewhere where ds might not get knifed, but I would need to earn another 12 k a year for that, and given that I just had a 1% payrise (first in 3 years) and that there is no better paid work ANYWHERE where I live, I am stuck paying my baby boomer landlord thousands a year for a house they paid off in the mid 90's (he told me, also owns a couple of other houses on my street, which he bought for peanuts way back when) and are letting fall to bits around my ears.
But hey, I chose a dilapidated house that I have to spend money on myself in an area where I probably won't get savaged by a pit bull. Swings and roundabouts.
I'm not bitter. Oh no, not me.

IfNotNowThenWhen · 30/12/2013 18:32

I haven't bought new clothes for myself or been to a hairdresser in five years!
Oh fuck.

LoveSewingBee · 30/12/2013 18:34

It may be unpalatable, but the only way to get out of this crisis, to encourage investment in the real economy, is for the banking system to start working again and that requires positive real interest rates (eg interest rate minus inflation must be positive).

The longer this is postponed, the greater the collapse on the housing market is ultimately going to be, not just in the UK by the way.

wetaugust · 30/12/2013 18:34

I don't know that area Pax but I do know the Bristol offering and I drive through there with my central locking switched ON.

The difference is that 30 years ago a single wage earner outside the SE could save a deposit and enter the property market at 2 (if not 3) bedroom house level. That's virtually impossible these days.

If you had a half decent job in those days it was expected that you would buy. But there were fewer distractions from saving in those days.

IfNotNowThenWhen · 30/12/2013 18:36

Agree LovesewingBee.

noddyholder · 30/12/2013 18:38

Also agree with lovesewing

AskBasil · 30/12/2013 18:39

"elderly people in hospital are dying from lack of food and dehydration."

Yes but it's not actually policy is it?

It will become policy to leave them to die if we all hate them enough.

Also, baby-boomers will be the elderly in 10 years time.

These hate campaigns are long term, it takes years to persuade the population that people they previously thought of as noble, brave, unfortunate or vulnerable as lazy shiftless feckless bastards.

It's not the baby-boomer's fault that housing is a crisis. The people who are in government and who are running the markets, aren't baby-boomers, they're a generation younger. Blame them, they're in charge now.(I'm not a baby-boomer btw, no personal axe to grind.)

wetaugust · 30/12/2013 18:40

The Govt could do a lot to take the heat out of the housing situation. It could introduce rent controls or it could remove tax relief on BTL mortgage interest to make it less attractive.

Some of the LHA rates are riidiculous - many hundreds of £ per month in areas where wages do not match that expectation.

Instead the Govt go out of their way to fuel the situation.

Because the Govt is terrified that interest rates rise before the next election and their natural constituents - those who own homes - will be impoversished by the mortgage rate increases.

indyandlara · 30/12/2013 18:41

I'm a child of the 70s and I'd love interest rates to go up. We have a mortgage but at no point did we borrow even close to the full amount we have been offered. Yes we have been tempted but always chose to be able to afford to pay our mortgage if interest rates went up to 15% again. We have always had some amount of debt (car loans, etc) but again did not borrow all we could and saved for big items. We have never taken on huge debts. We have a holiday abroad each year plus uk breaks so we don't really live an austere life. However, we have saved since leaving uni, even when we both started on salaries of £12k with student debt. It has always mattered to us to have savings behind us and it would be really nice if we could actually earn some interest on them.

You aren't just a saver or a borrower. You can be both.

Badvocatyuletide · 30/12/2013 18:43

I agree Indy.

MoreThanChristmasCrackers · 30/12/2013 18:59

You can buy houses from as little as 25k if you are prepared to do the work. me and dh moved into a house that was at the back of the EA book, covered in dust. There was no rightmove or internet then Grin
We learned how to renovate, and guess what that's what my dc are doing now.
Its a case of common sense really.
When there is no affordable houses or work in your area, you get on your bikes as we had to Grin
I am not a tory but unfortunately started out under their government.

BerniceBroadside · 30/12/2013 19:04

I would be nice though if some baby boomers could at least acknowledge that not all younger people are feckless and work shy, and that many baby boomers only own expensive property and have decent pensions because of sheer good fortune.

You didn't retire on a good pension at 55 because you worked harder than people today. You were just bloody lucky.

ernesttheBavarian · 30/12/2013 19:04

My mum is a baby boomer. She was a single mum. She received no welfare and no maintenance. She had to hand wash nap pies ffs. we grew up in a home without a bathroom until I was 12. (I was born in 1970). Her life was tough. The people claiming poverty now don't have a clue largely what she (we ) experienced. That was poverty. We were really hard up. She worked her arse off. Without the current modern luxuries "necessities". No mobiles, no computer or internet, no washing machine. She worked and studies and frankly everything she has she has definitely earned.

I resent anyone assuming baby boomers have sat on their arses and now enjoy ill gotten gains at young people's expense. Many have endured harsh situations without the welfare and spoon feeding that is available now.

AskBasil · 30/12/2013 19:07

Bernice what makes you think babyboomers have those attitudes?

Most of them have children in their 20s and 30s and are concerned for their children's futures.

Why are you attributing shitty attitudes to a whole group of people? Confused

Looks like the hate campaign is off to a flying start eh?

Joysmum · 30/12/2013 19:08

IfNotNowWhen

That's precisely what I'm talking about. We did start out in that prefab 1960's nightmare estate you don't want to be on.

It's the difference in costs that allowed us to invest and we are now landlords thanks to having made that choice and being able to save and invest. Oh and we've still had very few holidays and are around 40 years old.

You made your choices, we made ours. I certainly don't read your post and think you have been hard done by. We have been lucky in that our frugalness and investing has paid off and I don't believe it's fair that we should be penalised or seen as lucky after the shit we went through to get to where we are.

MoreThanChristmasCrackers · 30/12/2013 19:10

Bernice

I am not a baby boomer, but know plenty.
I never hear them complain about work shy youngsters as when they were growing up they made do and mended whilst usually managing on the dh salary.
I don't think this is particularly lucky, scrimping and saving to buy relatively expensive white goods, when credit was something to be ashamed of, not sought after.

nomorecrumbs · 30/12/2013 19:13

Sorry BerniceBroadside, I broadly disagree. The baby boomers had it much rougher in their 20s/30s than we do now. And compared to them, this generation is much more feckless. That isn't an ingrained thing or even necessarily our fault - a lot of our spending habits are influenced by the media/economic doom and gloom. And of course, it's harder to simply graft and work your way up now.

It's basically a lack of confidence in the whole economy. I think two generations ago, people were a lot more content with their lot - or if they weren't, they had more ways and more drive to change it.

BerniceBroadside · 30/12/2013 19:17

I didn't say all bb have that attitude. I know quite a few who do, it would be nice if some of them could acknowledge that their house didn't get to be worth 20 times what they paid for it through their own hard work etc.

All their children are in their late thirties upwards which may account for why they are less concerned about the prospects of younger people.