There’s an analogy I like to use about topics like this, which are such a “hindsight” issue.
It’s like giving a child an ice cream, encouraging them to enjoy it, then when they’ve finished, slapping them upside the head and punishing them for doing so. It has a flavour of gas-lighting and breeds defensiveness and resentment, especially in those who haven’t been offered the same ice cream.
The “elderly” did what they were encouraged to do by the system as it was at the time they bought their properties - I really fail to see how they can be blamed for a market that has been allowed and rigged to spiral out of control and price out future generations.
Also as someone else pointed out, while prices crept up for a long time, it was the 2008 crash that really saw the market fall apart.
It’s human nature for those who grew up with one set of circumstances that seemed to work for them to wonder why the next generation isn’t just doing what they did to “get ahead”. If you’re not living a particular situation and haven’t had to deal with the external factors such as the market etc it’s difficult to get your head round the speed of progress, which has been exponential in the last few decades.
For every elderly person apparently living it up in their stately piles (lol) there will be a fair few who never got on the property ladder or who got onto the bottom rung and was then kicked off forever due to a fluctuation in the market. There will be people who sensibly paid into pension schemes diligently, responsibly, and then got shafted when said companies made poor investments and lost if not the lot, a good chunk of what they were promised, to avoid being a “burden on the state” and ended up in that boat anyway.
Hard working now elderly people have health conditions brought about by the work they did - because industries put profits before safety of the people generating them. “Oh we didn’t know” the industries will opine but often they did, and didn’t give a shit because the minions are replaceable.
I could go on and on (as older people do) but the bottom line is that one day, future generations will be looking at us and those younger and saying “our shit lives are your fault because you “took advantage” of x, y , z and now we can’t have nice things” when we were working with what was available, which often isn’t ideal by either ignorance or design.
The thing I remind my self of most often is that (touch wood) we’ll all be elderly at some point. It’s inevitable.
The generational divide exists, but it’s manipulated by TPTB and to suit agenda’s because a fractured and divided society is easier to control and deflects away from corruption by those in power.
Attacking the elderly as a homogeneous group is easy - lump in those with inherited wealth and advantage and the power to feather their own nests with our “average” parents and grandparents who will be claiming pension credits because redundancy, ill health and a myriad of circumstances engineered by modern life has left them in poverty is lazy and reductive.
This somewhat ranty post has been inspired by my Dad, coming up 84, a nuclear test veteran with splenic lymphoma who will never probably see an acknowledgement of how the government and the MOD treated him, a proud serving naval officer, as a Guinea pig, for an alleged “greater good”.
So please remember that for all their faults (ahem) elderly people are human beings with feelings and problems just like the rest of us. And a huge majority are just as worried about their children’s and grandchildren’s futures as everyone else.