to feel pissed off with selfish 'baby boomer' generation

[hermionepotter]

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?

timidviper you are not typical in helping your parents and children because you have benefitted.

My parents are more of the 'fuck you' variety.

Good on you, though

I am not so sure I think repossessions will be rife.

noddy yes, agreed. But they're still having to have state help; and that is a problem too. However, that's another thread

I do think that the banks repossessing assets which are of a lower value than they provided the loan for, is a bit of a time bomb though. What's to stop the market being inundated with lots of repossessed houses, all fetching significantly lower prices than they were marketed at 10 years previously? That is a serious problem.

I agree with noddy that repossessions will be rife also.

I just think that this would drive house prices down; which is long overdue, but would surely lead to another banking crisis with sub prime assets?

Renting is only expensive because so many people got a buy to let on mortgage. it isn't greedy landlords, many are only breaking even.
When house prices fall and rents also many of these will be repossessed too.
Unless you own your house outright you will be affected to some degree.

There is also the issue that houses are supposed to be sold to pay for care for the elderly so it's anticipated that the market will be flooded with those properties in the next 10 to 20 years.

chunderella sorry, cross post there!

Yes, for people like me; amazing. Exactly what I want to see. On the flip side, you've got to wonder what it'll do to the economy. A lot of people will be in negative equity if house prices tumble very far, banks will be loaded with assets worth less than they predicted... Not great.

YN(necessarily)BU to be pissed off with people who want interest rates to rise; YABU to label this group baby boomers and say only baby boomers care about interest rates and they are selfish. (I'm not a baby boomer by the way, I'm a few years too young for that.)

They have been a lucky generation in lots of ways (but not 100%, because clearly advances in medicine alone will help some of us far more than them), but the thing with saying they were lucky so they can't take the credit for some of their current circumstances (it's not all down to hard graft), is that that works both ways. Because there was an element of luck in it, it also means that they shouldn't be blamed for their current circumstances, either.

Talking bitterly about them as 'selfish' is just going along with the divide and rule agenda of various powerful interests, as people have said above. It's also overlooking the fact that the different generations aren't separate strata of society with no contact with each other - baby boomers have children and grandchildren, nieces and nephews and so on, and do care what happens to thm.

You'd get more sympathy from baby boomers, I think, if you didn't sound bitter and as though you were actually blaming them for things that are big and complex and (except for a minority in actual power) not any more in their control than in yours.

You can probably succeed in persuading other generations that they're at least partly lucky to be where they are, and things are significantly harder in one way or another for your own generation - you're not likely to get them even to listen though if you take the attitude that it's each and every mean nasty baby boomer's fault, and if you come across as all bitter and sulky about it.

ziggie We are not wealthy but are comfortable, as are most of our friends as we have mostly finished our mortgages. Almost all of us are helping our children in some way with buying homes, setting up businesses, etc.
I'm sorry your parents aren't doing that for you. Having said that, we have never had any help from our parents and have managed. Your independence will stand you in good stead.

bernice yes, good point. DH and I were discussing that a few months back. It's starting already. Even now, right move is flooded (in certain areas) with homes that are clearly homes of elderly people, in need if quite a bit of updating and modernising. In our area, they are £400k+ and no one is buying them.

ioughttobecosier I'm not 'bitter' in fact (although I accept the use of the word 'selfish' is emotive language and have already apologised, twice) and I don't want sympathy from babyboomers

It's all very well that some people of that generation are kindly helping their younger relatives but that just creates even further inequality - it's much harder for people to make their own way in the world imo than it was 30 years ago. I'm not saying this makes life 'harder' per se and we do have improved standards of living, medicines and so on. I do think though that there is a generational divide and some people born in 40s and 50s have been fortunate in a way that won't happen again in terms of huge house price inflation, pensions and so on and can appear unable to see the extent to which things have changed for younger people

Actually baby boomers have done a lot for the country, women's rights etc so YABU. And if they are in a position to benefit financially now that they have raised their own families etc, then good on them.

You say you don't want sympathy from baby boomers, but at the same time you imply that you are annoyed by them possibly making decisions that conflict with your interests (wanting higher interest rates and so on), which to me implies you at least want them to feel in some way sympathetic to your needs. I didn't mean sympathy in the handholding sense, perhaps that wasn't clear.

I also didn't mean, when I talked about baby boomers having younger relatives, that everything is OK because they help their younger relatives directly (helping them buy houses or whatever - I agree that perpetuates inequalities). What I meant, again, was groups of people having relatively sympathetic perspectives towards other particular groups in society, whether it's another generation or any other group that's different from one's own - if you've got relatives in that group you're more likely to know more about it, be sympathetic towards their needs, and want to vote or argue for things that take their needs into account as well as your own.

The baby boomers are my parents generation and they have been very very lucky, and as individuals I think some do sometimes need pulling up on assumptions they make about some things being just as easy for a young person now as fifty years ago. But as a generation they haven't behaved in any particularly evil way, they are just normal people who've lived day to day in a whole variety of circumstances. I'm sorry for missing your apology for saying selfish - you're right, it is emotive language and that was a large part of what I was responding to.

I don't think it is as clear cut as you think OP though you are right to say SOME people in their 50s have been fortunate. It was easier for some, it was harder for others just as it is now. It was all dependent on circumstances, location, chance, many things. I'm a tail end Baby Boomer and lived in South Wales during the eighties where unemployment was high and has always been high and is still high. House prices WERE low then, true, but they are still comparatively low and although we do have some equity, it is certainly not a fortune. Yes we have paid off our mortgage but only because I was made redundant and we used some of the redundancy payment. I still have to work and commute 100 miles a day

I think standards of living have improved massively even since I was in my twenties in so many ways, in terms of equal opportunities, health, education not to mention quality of life - so many things, Mobiles, broadband, the internet just didn't even exist. So many more cars everywhere. Our neighbours have 5 cars between them in a house of 4 adults. Things that we now take for granted which have added to the cost of living.

I have DCs in their late teens and early twenties and I do worry about them and their prospects, of course I do. But it most certainly was not easy for us.

AskBasil the rights you mention were won by earlier generations than the boomers - in fact the boomers voted overwhelmingly for Thatcher during her time in govt, who removed a lot of those rights.

Those complaining about people generalising about one group miss the point - obv we are aware that not all boomers are rich/entitled/uncaring about the plight of the young/unaffected themselves, but there aren't many of us under-40s who haven't come across the "young people today with their lifestyles who won't be as frugal as we were iPhone iPhone 15% interest rates" chuntering and it's always from those of a certain age.

You can sit down with them and the historical interest rate data and the historical inflation rates and point out (as VWorp has above) that wage and general inflation meant that even when interest rates were in double figures in the 70s and 80s wage inflation rates were higher so the real interest rate was effectively reducing debt, and they will not see it.

You can sit down with the data on house price inflation versus general inflation and actually show them real house prices are more than 3x when they were young and they will not see it.

You can show them the ONS figures showing that income and wealth capture during the 1995-2008 boom was overwhelmingly by the pensioner and boomer age groups and the real incomes of those in their 20s during that period actually dropped compared to previous decades. You can show them inflation-adjusted data showing that in the US and the UK real median income has started to decline (its high point in the US was in the 1970s). You can show them historical inflation data on how consumer goods dropped massively in price in real terms as the West took advantage of globalisation and far eastern labour, so that what were "luxuries" in that generation suddenly became very cheap, comparatively speaking (clothes, electronics, etc.). You can point out that most young people need a phone and Internet and computer just to access the job market these days, that it's the norm for young people to be expected by their employers to work 60+ hours/week and to be constantly available on email and phone, so a smartphone is a necessity not a luxury. Until you drop you can show them nasty studio flats priced at 225k in areas where the local median wage is less than a tenth of that. You can explain that the age of the average first time buyer has risen ftok early 20s in their generation to around 37-8 now. But they will not see it. The stuff about how we could all afford it if we bought cheap properties in bad areas by giving up the iPhones, cutting our hair ourselves, making home brew and making do with auntie Mabel's secondhand sofa (because we didn't have anything new when we moved in to our house).

I have never found a boomer-age person to really get it, not even my own parents, not even if they have kids they worry about, not even if they are actually economists and historians (and I know a fair few boomer economists and historians). They eventually concede a few points (oh yes now you point out, we did buy our first house aged 22 for two times one salary....), but are soon straight back to this stuff afterwards about it being just the same/they had it worse/it's never been easy to buy a house (even when you have charts in front of them showing the exact date ranges in the last 60 years when it has, yes, been easy, even very easy, stupidly easy, to buy a house).

However, as someone mentioned up thread, as soon as you realise that the boomers will be trying to realise their assets by selling them all into the market at the same time in about 10-20 years' time, but that smaller younger generations with falling wages, weighed down by living costs and student debt, can't possibly afford to pay current prices so the market will collapse, then you realise it will (sadly) end up rebounding on the boomers in the end. (My generation will be tired and rather stuffed by then, but our children will be able to afford cheap housing!)

I am with noddyholder

Why should people who have over extended themselves on mortgages continue to benefit from low interest rates whilst those who have saved money watch their money drop in value year on year

I have talked to friends who are enjoying the extra money these rates gives them in their pocket and they wouldn't even consider overpaying. They now consider this to be the norm and will doubtless be bleating if rates ever do start to normalise

Even if babyboomers would want rates to go up, so what? Them wanting it does not make it happen?

My mum is pre-babyboomers, born in the 30s, and cannot believe how rich people are these days, eating out, new cars, holidays.

They are the generation that goes for walks (free) and always brings a packed lunch. (M&S sandwiches ? Extravagant!), go on holiday once a year, if that, to a cheap seaside hotel, and buy a new car every....20 years ( my parents are on their 3rd car ).

Also, not everyone just cares about their own interests.

As a homeowner I would love for house prices to go down! House prices in the SE are obscene.

I was born in 1966, so I am not a baby boomer, but a Generation Xer. In the mid to late eighties, I couldn't quite afford to buy a house, so I bought a run down flat in 1992 on a 100% mortgage. I sold it in 1996 or 1997, can't quite remember, but I made precisely 300 pounds in profit after paying solicitors fees etc. I lived through the 15% interest rates thing too. Then I lived with a boyfriend until 2000, during the period that prices plateaued and then suddenly went up again, when we broke up. I met someone new, who is, and was, a care assistant, and we managed to save and got a bit of a deposit together and bought a small house in 2002 when prices had already risen of course. It hasn't really gone up much in value since then in comparison with larger houses in the area even though we are in the south east. And that is where we remain even though we now have children and are literally tripping over each other each time we stand up. We cannot afford to move to a bigger house because his salary has not gone up much and mine has in fact decreased because we have children and I want to be there for them and so I only work part-time, and we cannot afford a bigger mortgage even if we did qualify for one.

We are considering moving north, taking the small equity out of the house and buying something small outright.

But as train points out, in 10 or 20 years, when the market is flooded with baby boomers' houses being sold for care home fees, the housing market will fall again, and we will have lost money yet again.

Maybe the best thing we can do is sell up, put the money under the mattress (or buy gold bulliion and bury it in the garden?), and rent a caravan?

Or move abroad?

My mother often says things like "Oh but darling we didn't even have a washing machine when you were small". No but when she was 22 they bought a 4 bed detached on just my father's salary. And the £200 or £300 I save if I don't buy a washing machine will surely make up the shortfall between our tiny 2 bedroom terrace and the 3 bed house we really need will it?

It's not that the baby boomers were lucky, it's that they really don't understand the position we're all in now. That's what's annoying.

Fair enough.

Until the 60s and 70s, teachers ( like my dad) could buy a midest family home on one salary.

Now it is normal for both parents to work, and virtually nobody can buy a house on one salary. But then again, most people buying a house are buying it with a partner.

No one is going to completely 'get' what it feels like to live through a different generation, so it's a bit of a red herring to repeat that baby boomers don't 'get it' or 'see it'- as if they are some distinct sector of the population who lack insight, while everyone else is totally empathetic to everyone else's life experience!

Look: there are pros and cons to whatever era one lives in (and of course as has been repeatedly pointed out, there are so many life variables that it becomes meaningless to lump people of a certain age group together anyway)

I can quite see that my teenage children probably look at my life and think 'blimey, how did mum and dad ever afford a house... Can't see how I'll ever buy one'. But like many others have said, we lived through the era of 15% interest rates, no tax credits, no childcare subsidies etc. I could equally well look at my daughter and be 'envious' of the fact that if she decides to have children she'll be entitled to a year off with each one, plus subsidised nursery care, whereas I got 12 weeks off with her. And I could be 'envious' that if my son becomes a father he'll be entitled to transferable parental leave, whereas my DH had one day off. But then again, my mothers generation could feel envious of me because in her day, becoming a mother effectively meant your career was over. No maternity rights back then and no regulated childcare anyway... That's if a woman had a career in the first place, because certain professions weren't accessible to women, and besides, women were regarded for tax purposes as an appendage to their husband...

What I'm saying here is that if we're talking about quality of life, which it seems is the OPs stance, you can't cherry pick one particular things such as house prices and ignore all the other factors which contribute to life. And once you look at the bigger picture, you see that it's swings and roundabout. For every one thing which you could envy baby boomers for, there will be something they'd envy other generations for.

Let go of the bitterness and accept that while previous generations may have had it good in some ways, they'd no doubt bite their arm off for some of the things we take for granted.

And finally, interest rates are ridiculously low and they will go up; not simply to satisfy baby boomers and their savings but for the sake of the economy!

Agree, Janey

Bang on traininthedistance