It's fascinating how many people remember the 15% mortgage rates, despite them being in place for less than a week. And interesting how much this is mentioned (along with 98% top rate tax), yet MIRAS, 10% VAT, final salary pension schemes etc. are conveniently overlooked. There is little point in prentending that the baby boomers had it hard - the evidence isn't there to support the assertion. A few anecdotes about some people struggling does not overcome the overwhelming data that demonstrates how well this generation has done.
The baby boomers are now retiring - many have retired early - and the cost of their pensions is going to cripple us. Pensions, as was mentioned in this thread, form by far the largest share of the benefits spend in the UK. This is paid for out of taxation - it's not in a magic NI pot saved for the purpose. Occupational pensions are similarly afflicted - BA has been referred to as a pension deficit that flies some planes round, and many of the other former nationalised industries are in the same position. Public sector pensions are generally unfunded (although there are a few that aren't).
The people who will pay the pensions of the baby boomers is the working population. Not the baby boomers. They paid the pensions of their parents - a far smaller group, and a group with a lower life expectancy.
I suspect that those below the age of 40 now are unlikely to receive any non-means tested state pension when they retire.
A point has also been made about the current young being in debt and subsidised housing. Perhaps that poster should go and look at the stock of social housing 'then' and 'now', and reflect on where it has gone? I'd suggest that most of it has passed into the ownership of the baby boomers - at below market value.
Similarly for the debt - where has the money actually gone? A lot was borrowed during the baby-boomers lifetime by the government, thus reducing their taxation. However, I suspect you're probably talking about consumer debt. I imagine some has gone on iPods and tellies, but the majority has been spent on housing. And who is selling housing ... ? As I said in an earlier post, there is a massive inter-generational wealth transfer taking place, it's going the wrong way, and this is a problem.
There is an debt attitude problem with today's young, and an over-easy reliance on credit. the figures for unsecured debt and payday loans are frankly frightening. I'd question whether this is a generational thing though - I suspect that previously, people were unable to go overdrawn/take out loans, and so were unable to spend below zero. With the availiability of credit, that perception of zero has just moved. There is an unhealthy normalisation of debt by expecting people to fund a university education on credit - if you've graduated with a net worth of -£30,000, then te concept of not living beyond your means is a bit academic.
Now I may be a hating ageist twat fostering a age-divisive hatred or whatever it was, but I'd suggest that there is a huge problem in the UK (and elsewhere), and pretending that it doesn't exist isn't going to get you anywhere.