What did the Boomers ever do for me?

[Nomama]

In the interests if balance, you understand!

I shall start with the Ford machinists:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_sewing_machinists_strike_of_1968

Equal Pay Act 1970

My thanks to you, Baby Boomers. Without you I couldn't have earned the same honest day's pay as the man working next to me. Hell, I couldn't even have got the job in the first place.

Now this generation needs to thoroughly break the Glass Ceiling!

The boomer generation paved the way for divorce not to be a financial and social impossibility. They made single mothers and partners living together without getting married socially acceptable along with openly gay men and women. They basically liberated women! Before this women were often trapped in violent marriages.

They also opened the eyes of men to the fact they weren't bloody gods and had to pull their weight with babies and housework because women were actually working outside the home. They dragged men kicking and screaming into the delivery suite to meet their newborns instead of sitting outside with a box of cigars.

They made working hard without the backing of a university education (which was way out of most people's grasp because of the lack of spaces despite grants) worthwhile because you could progress on merit rather than qualifications.

Older retired people often do endless charity work and many are caring for elderly parents and well as grandchildren. We don't feel we are entitled in the same way many of the detractors are on this thread and not particularly lucky either. We have a house but we have worked hard and gone without to get it.

Today they provide free child care without which many parents wouldn't be able to work at all. They are (me at least) endlessly generous with their support of their adult children. Yes I get a winter fuel allowance but I give it to my son for his electricity bill. I worked until 63 before I retired because I had to. My pension is tiny. I've worked 45 years of my adult life and brought up my children and quite frankly anyone who resents me for having a small amount of financial security after years of scrimping can frankly piss off. Oh and we were also a generation of women who allowed ourselves to express themselves -swearing included- honestly

Chandler, you are really not getting the meaning of entire towns, cities and regions being focused on a specialised industry. You are failing to grasp the utter and ongoing destruction of those economies by their industrial closure. You are further, apparently, ignorant of the differences at national & global level between manufacturing "making" economies and financial "service" based ones. I am sorry to hear the education I paid for has let you down tragically in areas of social, economic & political intelligence. There's little I can do about that now - but the remedy's in your hands, should you choose to take it.

No we don't know about entire areas being dedicated to certain trades - unless you count pound land and 99p stores? Sadly we just get left with the hangover and the after party clean up

Garlic you do realise what I have written above could pretty well have been a direct transcript of my Irish immigrant grandfather, who grew up in Glasgow then moved to a Lanarkshire mining town where he worked as a miner for some years before getting another job?

I would love for you to explain to him where you think my education has failed in permitting me to think for myself, as opposed to repeating some trendy mid-70s style liberal agenda word for word. Once you have done that and updated your knowledge, you might want to have a little think about the aspirations of some of the real ex-miners.

Perhaps you might also want to look beyond 20th Century history and educate yourself a little about where your ancestors were likely to come from. You would entirely unusual if a proportion of your ancestors had not emigrated from elsewhere in the world, whether that be Europe or further afield, for work. We live in a country with many immigrants, who have had to similar - no protected jobs for life for them and uprooting their entire families. Its reality for the majority.

timeshighereducation.co.uk/participation-rates-now-we-are-50

I reckon it was 12 to 15% (and this includes Poly's) when I went to University. If your PiLs are mid 60s the rate would be nearer 10% when they went. This hardly suggests they were Joe average who got lucky, rather that they were working class academic trailblazers.

I know where my ancestors came from, Chandler, where my grandparents ere in service and the conditions they suffered through two world wars.

I don't know why the bloody hell you're on about immigration

Some posters here could do with watching a bunch of Ken Loach films. And Boys From The Blackstuff, for rueful comedy.

Your link cannot be found Tinkly but I think you are confusing participation rates with intelligence levels.

If you described the figure in statistics alone rather than using emotive terms such as "working class" and "the 5/10% most intelligent" it wouldn't be so inaccurate.

There is no way on earth that 85% of the population of the UK are more stupid than my PIL.

What I have written above could pretty well have been a direct transcript of my grandfather ... you think my education has failed in permitting me to think for myself

Actually - if your "independent thoughts" are quotes from a family member - I think the education I bought you has failed very badly.

Chandler were I grew up, 90% of men were employed in the colliery, the majority of them from 14 or 15 to 65. When the mining industry closed down there simply were no other jobs. The vast majority of men made redundant had no other skills.

Easy to say, "Well move for a job". This was the eighties, a time of record unemployment. And what about your house, who is going to buy it from you in a depressed community with massive unemployment?

And this wasn't just one area, one industry. Many, many communities were utterly condemned to rot in the Thatcher era. Why not do a little reading up about it? I don't need to. I was there, my Dad was a miner.

Garlic. If you actually said something interesting, as opposed to this nit picking that you think masquerades for intelligent comment, you might actually have a worthwhile discussion.

Have you ever learned to cope with people that don't think exactly the same as your schoolteachers?

What is the point that you are actually trying to make? Its quite hard to work out what it is, aside all the picking over quotations to interpret words and phrases you have taken an obsessive dislike to.

If you think you are doing a good job in putting forward your viewpoint by insulting people, then you are mistaken.

Tinkly I would suggest that you have a gripe about Margaret Thatcher and free market economics, rather than an interest in discussing demographics.

I do remember my grandfather, who was a miner in several of the communities you refer to, and some of his friends, criticising their workmates who would "never go beyond the pit". It was seen as a last resort, not something you would want to do for life, for those with no ambition or ability. Of course miners could have ambition. It was always recognised that it was one of the worst jobs out.

The steel industry is a different matter, but has there ever been in the history of makind a job for life? Did my grandmother have a job for life or when the big house was closed and the family moved to London, did she contact her union and have them go on strike because it was unfair? Or did she move to another part of the country and get another job?

Did Garlic's entirely English agriculturally employed ancestors move to towns to get jobs when farming became more mechanised?

It's hard to offer coherent replies to rambling, irrelevant posts Chandler. What have immigration and my schoolteachers to with anything under discussion? I pointed out that you seem remarkably ignorant of recent history. Your response was to quote your grandfather (grandad's tales do not = education) and to ask about my ancestry (why?). You told me that borrowing ideas wholesale from your grandfather shows your independence of thought.

It's pointless to try & communicate with anyone whose thinking is so garbled.

Garlic - try again. What is it that you are actually trying to say?

Did Garlic's entirely English agriculturally employed ancestors move to towns to get jobs when farming became more mechanised?

Wow, you found the Garlic family tree??!!

Joking aside, we know what effects the Enclosures, agricultural revolution and industrialisation had on our populace. Those who survived to spawn today's generations were lucky. Market economics alone is a vicious system. Needs modulation/regulation.

What I last tried to say to you was this, Chandler: You are really not getting the meaning of entire towns, cities and regions being focused on a specialised industry. You are failing to grasp the utter and ongoing destruction of those economies by their industrial closure.

Others have also posted about this, plus there's not exactly a shortage of government, academic and cultural information on the era.

Joking aside, we know what effects the Enclosures, agricultural revolution and industrialisation had on our populace. Those who survived to spawn today's generations were lucky. Market economics alone is a vicious system. Needs modulation/regulation.

I thought you said that I was the one rambling? So you dismiss the entire ordo-liberal school of economics that underpins the internal market which we currently enjoy the benefits of?

In favour of what exactly?

I'm only up to 2pm today but thoroughly enjoying this thread.

What my tuppence worth? (No, didn't think so, no one ever listens to me).

1- Whilst in the naice baby room in Boots with the comfortable armchairs and free nappies, my gran, DS's great gran, told me strollers used to be banned from shops. As in signs outside with a line through a picture, NOT ALLOWED. Somewhere along the line someone took our ideals and sold them back to us. That's on all of us, every generation, every watch. We're still doing it. They've cconvinced us it's equality, we're free, we're global...

2- There is a new rampant ageism in Scotland. Some swine tweeted on 19th Sept that every time he looked at a pensioner he'd think it was their fault (whatever 'it' is is yet to transpire). I'm sad if this ageism is present elsewhere. Again, they'll say it's civic engagement, they'll chant 45, nobody thinks it's divide and conquer given back to us as freedom.

I think it's fair of the boomers to suggest we've been Starbucked into submission.

Plus Garlic please stay on thread, obv.

Chandler - Too liberal. I believe history repeatedly proves that unfettered capitalism harms people, costs lives, and injures societies. I believe this is very pronounced when monetarist theories hold sway. I am in favour of compassionate capitalism ('conscience' capitalism) and that ethics must be forced upon markets. The fiscal benefits of compassionate ethics are real & quantifiable, but easy for market makers to dismiss.

Thanks, ASAS, and your points are strong. It's depressing.

Heart beats over spreadsheets sister.

OK, tin foil hat off now :)

Well Chandler my great grandfather and grandfather had jobs for life in the colliery, so I suppose my father's generation thought the same. Yes being a collier was a terrible job, no one in their right mind would want to do it. But for a working class boy in our community there was genuinely no alternative. If you were bright you might end up with something like an electrician's apprenticeship, in the colliery, if you were really bright you might end up working in the colliery office. My Dad had lots of mates who went to the grammar. A couple ended up as teachers, a lot ended up in the colliery, one way or another.

Your grandmother in service presumably had transferable skills, didn't own her own unsellable home and possibly wasn't in the middle of a massive recession. All of which would have contributed to her economic mobility.

Yes I do have a gripe with Thatcherite economic policy because I believe it is directly responsible for the mess we are in now. However, it suits the politicians to have us all believe the fault is with the greedy boomers. As ever they seek to divide and conquer.

Garlic and others Chandler - Too liberal. I believe history repeatedly proves that unfettered capitalism harms people, costs lives, and injures societies. I believe this is very pronounced when monetarist theories hold sway. I am in favour of compassionate capitalism ('conscience' capitalism) and that ethics must be forced upon markets. The fiscal benefits of compassionate ethics are real & quantifiable, but easy for market makers to dismiss.

Ignoring the criticisms against me that I ought to go and educate myself (about what? the Russian Revolution? Again?) Ordliberalism (and neo-liberalism) are economic theories, not political theories.

As I pointed out upthread, the OP is wrong, because it attributes the Equal Pay Act 1970 to the baby boomers, when in fact anti-discrimination laws, including sex discrimination, were a pre-requisite to our joining the then EEC (and therefore catching up with the rest of Europe). Nothing to do with the baby boomers or Thatcher, more to do with Jean Monnet, Robert Schumann, etc. who were the inter-war generation and wanted to avoid the mistakes of the past.

Whether you would like to go back to capital controls and state aid for nationalised industries or not, it would currently be illegal under EU law. Our current economy is based on competition - even public sector outsourcing is subject to strict rules on public procurement.

Many of these rules did not exist in the time of the baby boomers, or at least their full effect hadn't yet been felt. We live in a far more competitive world that comes with benefits and detriments. I prefer it. I don't want to live in a world that is based around my taxes supporting jobs for life in a nationalised industry for men, to be followed by early retirement in a final salary pension scheme.

What we don't tend to allow now is one or two massive oligarchies to dominate one industry, because it damages competition, innovation (and therefore more ethical considerations as well), good governance, transparency and competition on prices and quality. That's entirely different from using "capitalism" or "monetarism" as an excuse for taxpayers money to fund nationalised industries. Its very old fashioned and generally disproven thinking that nationalised industries benefit the majority, as opposed to a select few.

Fascinating thread. There seem to be suggestions that nothing good that came from the baby boomer time was to their credit because they just happened to be alive then and that anything bad that happened when they were alive was their fault.

Still not seen what they/we were supposed to do differently.

I don't own a house, but if I had when the prices started to soar should I have applied to some government dept to have it frozen somehow? Anyone know where you get an application form for that?

And has anyone who inherited a house from a baby boomer and sold it given the extra money back to the tax payers?

To be honest most of us boomers will end up passing on our ill gotten house price gains to our offspring anyway, and that will just further fuel house price inflation. We can't win.

Ah well there's something we can do. Don't let the little buggers inherit. Donate it to the local council.

:)