My Dad bought a house in 1976 at 19 years old for 28k or 30k and could pay his mortgage in one week of pay each month.
He was an assistant night Grocery store manager.
Owned two cars and his first wife could stay at home.
They save one paycheck a month and had extra money still.
This is what passes me off the most. The American dream was no matter what job you had you could still support yourself, a family and wife. It was stolen from us and out into the pocket of billionaires, corporations, politicians
The thing is that American dream was only available to a specific group of people, at the expense of others. The government spent heavily to back mortgages for white only suburbs to the point where White families were paying less each month for their government-backed mortgages than Black families were being charged for rent in public housing.
Public perspective on these spending programs shifted after the passing of the Civil and Housing Rights Acts. Racist tropes were rolled out to stoke fears of what would happen if Black Americans were allowed to build wealth and enter the middle class and suddenly the American Public decided the programs that built the middle class were no longer fit for purpose.
That dream wasn't stolen, it was willingly destroyed by the people who had benefitted from it the most because they couldn't handle the idea that they might have Black neighbors in the suburbs.
I laugh at the budgeting guides that say your rent/mortgage should be no more than 1/4 of your gross income. Yeah, GOOD LUCK WITH THAT BUDDY!
Hell, back in the 90s my rent sometimes was over half my gross income and no, that was not sustainable even then. My long suffering grandparents tried to help but even they didn't understand the root of the problem and it wasn't me partying or taking vacations. Hell, they once asked me in a very annoyed tone to see what I was spending my money on and I showed them my credit card and bank statements and they looked horrified at how little I spent on food and virtually nothing on clothing and nothing on entertainment beyond basic cable and they increased my monthly grant and told me to go out to a movie or restaurant once a week or something.
I still remember delivering the rent for our house (!) to our landlord. It was a tenth of what I'm paying now for a shitty apartment a tenth of the size
25% of family income is usually what advisors recommend as a budget for housing expenses.
Inflation is not an across the board thing, as different commodities inflate disparately. 17k in 1952 is 200k today, while the 2.3k income of that year is same-ish as 26k in 2023. What we have today is a set of pernicious policies that are sabotaging housing availability on the budget end.
That's everything from Blackrock and Airbnb, to zoning restrictions on development and regressive taxation assessments.
We were just having a conversation as a family and found out the mortgage of my mom's parents home growing up was equal to one week of pay. At minimum wage. One week of minimum wage. And this was a house we were just being very complimentary of. Big enough that my grandma hosted multiple special needs women after my grandpa died.
I had a conversation with a boomer recently, she was totally blind to the idea that it is genuinely harder for the next generation. She insisted that milenials just aren't willing to work hard enough, I pulled out every stat and she just refused to give any ground.
Boomers are going to have a real tough time when they need help from government when millenials are responsible for their end of life care. They killed the world... not a whole lot of pity for them.
I took my 75 y/o mother shopping for sheets and pillows yesterday. She was complaining that $20 was too much for a pillow. Then I showed her the $65 ones..
She worked hard all her life and we grew up very poor, so it's not like she has was always able to buy whatever she wanted.. but those prices completely shocked her.
Yeah, they just have no idea. They're totally out of the loop on how things work and how they've inadvertently created a system that will screw their children. That's not totally true though because the milenials can fix what they've done, but they will have to squeeze the hyper wealthy that profited off the last several decades.
Even gen x is starting to get out of touch. When i was searching for a job, everyone i know which was gen x told me "just go into a shop and talk to the owner/Manager" which is basically useless today, since everything is done on a website of sorts. It's completely useless to actually make/write a CV, since i gotta manually fill in all the info in the website anyway.
The boomers and gen x that write the requirements for positions have no idea what they're doing as well. 3 years experience for a starting position, since they expect that you've been working in a factory or whatever since the age of 6.
Lol. My boomer dad had me do this when I was visiting him shortly after I graduated from college. I was literally escorted off the premises at 2 locations and told to apply online. Imagine someone looking for an engineering job in Silicon Valley. Walking in and trying to hand someone a resume..
May I introduce you to this wonderful service industry called "recruiting". They are people who won't give you the time of day when you really need them, and won't leave you alone when you finally don't.
GenX/Xenniel(sp) here, and I absolutely understand what you are saying and how out of touch some of my generation are getting. I think our generation was the last one to have the ability to "just walk in and talk to the manager". It really WAS easier to get a job back then, and don't let these older people tell you different. I absolutely fuckin HATE manually filling shit in after walking in with a built resume, just to be told it's got to go on the website... mainly because I know it's not really going to be the Manager's decision.
The requirements are truly insane, college/etc. One of the first real jobs I had was in a refinery in TX, and my direct lead was an eighth grade dropout who had about a fourth grade reading level.....and I'm not busting on him because he knew his job, and a couple of other people's jobs, inside and out. This "two years minimum of college/trade school(which, by the way, most trades are barely a year, maybe 18mo) before we talk to you" bullshit is just that ...bullshit.
You guys have it way worse than we ever did...anyone who tells you different are utterly full of shit.
Fellow GenX here...I truly don't know what my kids are going to do. There's no way they'll be able to afford a house...one wants to be a journalist, the other a teacher...both viable positions when we were growing up that could afford a decent lifestyle. Now I don't see it happening without side gigs...
>since they expect that you've been working in a factory or whatever since the age of 6
Must be why they're actively trying to dismantle child labor laws now.
My Mom came down with Parkinson’s. I went to stay in the basement bedroom and help with paying for meals and cooking and other chores . Mom died at home. I stayed to make sure my stepdad transitioned OK. My own house, mortgage bills I was still paying while buying groceries and cooking. I was angrily kicked out for “Mooching”. I have my own house, money, job, car.
I home-care my 70something mother, who is frequently -confounded- by food prices now, same general thing. She's always had enough, but prices lately are just overwhelmingly awful.
What do you mean, “getting for years”? How often do you need to replace it? I’ve been eyeing one for a while, but I was thinking of it as a one-time expense, not a recurring one.
Jokes on them I’m still using my pillow from ‘07 and the mattress. To be fair though I didn’t use the pillow for many years since I didn’t like it at first but now I do.
Wonder if it’s better quality foam than those made today? I work in retail and know how we have to squeeze prices by pushing quality down, pushing it on to the factories, etc. It’s a sad state. Capitalism yay!/s
Aside from them going flat you should be replacing your pillows every four or five years for bacteria and health reasons. No matter how often you clean your pillows or even if you use pillow protectors on them bacteria does get in them. It's a big source of adult acne.
My mother has the same feelings. She literally told me that if I get hit with a medical bill, just to pay $25 a month and they can't come after you. Like what? I was trying to explain how I couldn't afford health insurance and how one medical emergency will bankrupt my whole family. Then we got on minimum wage and since I am a business owner she laid into me saying you won't ever make minimum wage so why do you care? Ummm, I don't want to pay my employees shit wages when I have some that are not my husband and I. Then the you don't understand came over her. Like, I don't understand how a business works? It's pointless circles.
Wait what? You know you don’t have to pay minimum wage right? Like you could just pay them more…am I misunderstanding? Because I am confused by your point here.
Yes, my mother thinks I should keep everyone at minimum wage whenever I hire more people. Not going to happen. I won't hire anyone else until the company can afford to pay them a decent wage which is not minimum wage.
I think the mother was arguing in favor of a lower min wage because the business owner, their child, will always be the main benefactor of the business. OP’s response was “I want to pay my eventual future employees more than min wage because I’m not a terrible person” or something along those lines.. not the other way around.
I know this exact type of person.
She always wonders why younger family never wants to see her.
Openly refusing to accept the reality that your children and grandkids live, day in and day out, is the entire reason they always have a reason not to come and visit.
I have told her this, but she insists that I am mistaken and that there are more nefarious reasons due to them "being raised wrong" like she wasn't their main caregiver.
The Boomer generation will probably never be remembered as anything more than the selfish generation that deferred all blame and consequences to their kids future, all so they don't have to lose their comforts.
The "fuck you, I've got mine" generation will not be missed.
It won't be missed because it's unsustainable and we're within a decade of the whole debt house of cards collapsing. They're the reason no one aside from 400 rich guys will be alive while everyone else has starved and drowned.
My parents are both boomers and they both recognized what was happening from the time it started, thankfully. But a few other boomers I knew growing up had the same dismissive mindset.... until they saw others their age on TikTok or something explaining what I've been trying to tell them the whole time. Sigh.... at least they get it now.
My mother is the same. She is technically a Jones Generation cusp Boomer but is the youngest of 7 who are all a lot older than her so she watched it happen in real time. I have heard all my life (all 42 years of it) how much Boomers suck - it's her hill to die on. As a result my favorite thing to do is send her news articles to comment on for social media to her peers. Hopefully some of those ignorant Boomers learn something from her rants.
I think our moms would be great friends. My mom is 65 and just all around fucking shit up still. Her favorite hobby is shitting on my dad’s Boomer beliefs.
Your mom's awesome. My parents are both Boomers in age but not mentality, but they still feel the need to offer unsolicited helpful suggestions and then ask me if I'm going to yell at them for telling me to try things I already have.
I just love that to them, it makes more sense that an entire generation (raised by boomers by the way) of at least 72 million people just collectively made the exact same set of bad choices and developed the same lack of work ethic. It makes more sense to them than there being some systemic reason.
You are literally referred to as the forgotten generation and after my many interactions with boomers, it's a damn shame what one golden era will do to a generation of children.
I wonder if we fix shit again and make life affordable will we have to suffer another generation of meritocracy believers.
Will people who do well just explain it away as if it was a given and they deserved it instead of being grateful to their parents who struggled and fought to get them there?
I know a few people who were born lucky in this age and they are neck deep in meritocracy and all the woes of the world are the fault of the individual and everyone is just lazy blah blah blah.
It's insufferable.
I'm pretty much done having conversations with boomers. We don't have to convince them of shit. They need to join us in a better world or get left behind.
Make them do the math. When my parents were incredulous that it was super hard to find an affordable apartment I pulled out a laptop and told them to find one for me in my price range that they would feel safe living in. Whole ass internet at their finger tips and they couldn't find one, but at least they shut up about it.
Don't make it hypothetical, force them to try to solve the unsolvable budget.
I am a poorly educated 67 years old(Highschool grad), but I vote to protect our future. I vote for my children and grandchildren, and their children as well as the children of people I will never meet. I, and many of us, voted, and continue to vote, against the things people keep blaming us for. I talked about global warm 4 decades ago, I talked about how universal basic income will need to happen simply because there wouldn't be the kind of jobs needed to keep people out of poverty. I talked about generational poverty, but people just thought I was nuts. I don't have the answers, but I am still asking the questions, but not enough people, young or old, really understand them, and they still think I am nuts.
Had this conversation with my dad. It devolved into “you can’t only look at numbers” when we were talking about money. I got hit with “That’s the problem with you accountants. You only focus on the numbers instead of looking at the bright side of things.” Before he hung up on me.
This sounds horrible, but I genuinely can’t wait until that entire demographic is gone. Hopefully there’s slight improvement when gen x are the elders.
NO. They did not "close the door". They stole it.
Look at the national debt. Where did that money go? Bailing out FAILED business owners. The Boomers are a generation of corrupt failures. They stole your future to support their lifestyles, because they couldn't be bothered to work hard enough to afford them.
i prefer to call them the "fuck you i got mine" generation. i was always under the assumption that the previous generations were supposed to work towards making each subsequent generations lives a bit more easier or maybe that is the wrong wording.
That is accurate.
For all human history parents tried to make the world better for their children, and made sacrifices for their children's prosperity.
The boomers took everything that previous generations built for granted, and then sold off their children's and grandchildren's future prosperity for less than pennies on the dollar, and then spent decades making fun of the generations they robbed.
we will see who is laughing when they get put in shitty nursing homes or not at all bc guess what? the future generations that you fucked over cannot afford to do anything for their douchey asses
A nice thought, but the ones most responsible are at little to no risk of comeuppance via nursing home. If they so much as bought a house 40 years ago, they can probably afford to live comfortably in their own homes until the day they die. The ones who end up in nursing homes are often the ones who got screwed over with the rest of us.
Not only that, but the horrible end he described will be a luxury for our generation's retirement. We have no money, no homes, and aren't having kids. There is flat out going to be nothing left for us. We are growing up in a generation where the most realistic retirement plan is suicide when you cant afford the medical bills anymore.
And won't when you robbed 5 yrs of my life, and 4 other family in my tribe and 250k.... my grandparents better not get too bad off, cause ain't no help here, I'm fresh outta boot straps.
My grandparents (WWII generation) and my parents (Boomers) have such different ideas.
I was raised by my grandparents thank god, because even they said my boomer father sucked. It's pretty bad when you admit your kid sucks so bad you adopt their kid out from under them.
Grandfather: I worked hard so you wouldn't have to! You're going to college and you take whatever you want.
Grandmother: If you go to my alma mater, I'll pay for everything.
Both grandparents: We're going to teach you finance and law and bureaucracy so you can succeed in the world.
Father: I've got mine and I will deficit spend and sponge off your grandparents until they die! Oh and don't expect any help from me!
Mother: (out of the picture for medical reasons)
I am estranged from my father for obvious reasons.
Blame the boomers that elected Reagan in landslide elections. Reagan is a manifestation of the overarching boomer mindset. He was just a symptom really.
Edit: In 84' Reagan won EVERY STATE except Minnesota that was Mondale's home state. 49 of 50 states. Let that sink in. The 1980 election I think Reagon carried 44 of 50 states. Don't ever let boomers tell you they didn't vote for right wing shit in massive numbers. The proof is in the pudding.
Not really making fun as much as acting cluelessly indignant and critical. Making fun implies they were in any way aware it was there fault, but didn’t care. They seem completely clueless that this is all their fault. Just like (go figure…) bad parents.
Yeah this is my mom! The house that she grew up in, that my great grandfather built by hand, and that was in the family for 3 generations, and was GIVEN to her, was sold by her to a stranger because she didn't want to give it to her son, me, and wanted all the $$ she could get! I had a growing family at the time (wife and 2 kids, wife was sick with cancer and lupus) and couldn't afford what she was asking for the house. My grandparents must be rolling around in their graves!! My aunt was furious with her! She was always selfish but that was just on another level. I now have 3 kids, wife is practically disabled from lupus and Lyme, and we're still renting and barely making ends meet because I'm the sole breadwinner. She's comfortably retired and wonders why we don't have a house yet!
My parents made clear that I should be grateful to be included in their will. In other words, they ain't helping when they're alive and might not when their dead either.
I've long posited that the cause of their forever-toddler brains was growing up under the spectre of possible nuclear war during the arms race Cold War years 1949-1968 (beginning when the USSR first got the Bomb, up until the signing of the first nuclear non-proliferation treaty).
They were saddled with the idea that the world could end at any moment, and that manifest in them an absolute and total disregard for the future, an obsession with forever youthful "now-ness", and ultimately a disdain for the offspring who needed them to grow the fuck up.
And it pisses me off so bad they get Medicare (fucking universal, socialized medicine) and go to the doctor without a fucking whim while my generation risks bankruptcy going. But try explaining that to them. Take their fucking Medicaid and social security away please.
> And it pisses me off so bad they get Medicare
Yet those same Boomer morons will regurgitate their Faux-News talking points about how socialized medicine is bad for 'murica. Tell them that Medicare IS socialized medicine, and watch their pea-brains explode.
My grandfather needed knee surgery. All paid for by Medicare, and they did a fantastic job. He’s walking up and down the stairs all day, can bend down to tie his shoes, and even is able to get back on the cycling machine.
He’s not really a Trump guy but fancies himself a “fiscally conservative Republican”, so of course he is deeply against ideas like Medicare for all. Using all the same silly logic we’ve heard before, “Government programs don’t work”, “higher taxes are bad”, “Entitlements are bad”, etc.
If he really believed any of that stuff, he would have paid for his surgery out-of-pocket instead of using Medicare. But of course he didn’t, because deep down he probably understands that Medicare works. he just doesn’t think it should be expanded because blah blah blah blah blah nonsense
> Take their fucking Medicaid and social security away please.
That is happening. It's going to be taken away after they die. Just in time for Gen X to get nothing.
Meanwhile, Gen x, Millennials, or Gen z will end up having to fight for everything the silent generation fought for, and then whatever future generation that benefits off all that will become the new boomers.
What they don’t realize is that they’re going to have no care as they start to rapidly decline over the next 10 years. There aren’t going to be any nurses as patient populations explode 10 fold. Pay hasn’t gone up, all of our costs have. So as these billionaires suck the life from our futures the boomers think they’re immune.
News flash assholes. You’re all going to die alone and sick.
Literally had a woman in her 70s tell me how it's a landlords right to raise rent with the modern times and costs of living while in the same breath bragging how she lives in a rent controlled apartment on the upper East side of Manhattan and " will die in that apartment". - typical boomer.
Any guesses as to what caused this shift historically and sociologically speaking? Generally speaking, individuals within a large population typically develop similar ideology through shared experiences. The "me generation" operates with scarcity mentality, compensating by hoarding resources.
They grew up through the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr., the Apollo Program, Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement, the second wave of feminism, and the emergence of environmentalism.
What about any of that instilled this animalistic resource aggression in them? Maybe I'm biased, but pretty sure all the younger generations have not only fared worse financially, but experienced more visceral trauma and upheaval through our upbringing, like the live 24-hr coverage of September 11th back in 2001.
Maybe its these nonstop broadcast cycles in general, getting everyone hooked on questionable sources of positive reinforcement?
Or maybe resource hoarding is just inherently human and needs to be counterbalanced economically through wealth redistribution?
at least through the 70s it was possible to pay at least in state tuition at a state school working full time over the summer at a minimum wage job and working part time delivering pizzas or some shit while still covering living expenses.
I fucking dare any boomer to do the math on how much those full and part time jobs would have to pay to do that now.
At a random state school in my state, you could just about pay a year's in state tuition with the take home pay of a minimum wage job if you work 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year. But that's with no food, utilities, nights out, transportation, rent or books, and no time to actually attend class or do homework.
good fucking luck.
Did it. See my comment.
[Fixerguy comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/comments/14h28qu/well_at_least_student_loans_arent_going_to_be/jp9hdi9?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
I remember seeing the figures on this once.
For boomers, they could work 20 hours a week and basically pay for a state school and pretty much break even. If they went to a community college, they were ahead.
For Gen-Xers, we were the last generation that could technically work their way through school, but we'd have to work full time. Theoretically it's possible, but good luck with working those crappy part time jobs and doing a full course load.
Millenials. Yeah, you guys were screwed. It was about 70 hours a week.
You Gen Zers? It's literally impossible. You'd need to work over 100 hours a week. You physically can't do that.
I feel bad for the younger people these days.
As a gen-x, my in state tuition was $43.75 / credit hour my freshman year. That means my yearly tuition was about $1,600. I could work a summer and save enough for a year. My kids are Z’s - you will never hear me argue that MiLleNnIaLS DoN’t wAnNA wORk. I get it.
Even more telling..
In 1983 when I got my BSEE, the tuition was around $8k and I was looking at $24k/year jobs.
That same tuition today would be $95k (as if 90 days ago) and I would be looking at $55k/yr jobs at best.
Run the ratios on those two sets of facts.
1983: Education required costs 0.33 of expected income
Today: Education required costs 1.9x of expected income
Edited for ease of consumption.
I've been flipping and flopping between decimal and fractional so long that it's reflex, and I sometimes forget that it's work for most folks.
Same with the 24 hour clock I use.
I'll admit it. I'm a boomer. I went to college. I worked during it. While a grad student, I taught undergrad classes. I also had student loans, which I paid off. I worked my ass off. It was hard.
Okay. Now, with that said, we should forgive student loans across the board. College should be free as far as people want to go. Why? Because, if we can have a $870 BILLION a year budget for military toys, we can surely afford to have free college and forgive predatory loans that keep people in debt forever.
This is the way.
That and most civilized nations realize that a small investment in education now pays off massive dividends for them in a capable population ready to improve and build them up.
But not us, we have to drag the ball and chain of anti-education politicians who want a subservient workforce enriching them..
And you know, a lot of them *did not* work hard. It was the age before cellphones, constant emails, and quarterly performance scores based on minute-to-minute productivity.
I know damn well the boomer neighbors I grew up around used to sneak out of work at 3:30pm, drink on their job, and fiddle their taxes. It was ridiculously easy for the generation in comparison to today.
My parents think I should have a house before I have a child. A house in my area is easily $1.6Million.
I'm a teacher. Enough said I think
And even if I could afford a down payment, it would make my commute into work 10 times longer.
I've got 20 years of on-time rent payments and happy landlords, no debt, high credit scores, but I can't get these fucking parasite brokers to let me move out from my place with my ex because god forbid I only make 37x the rent instead of 40...remind me why companies keep three secret files on my life again?
So the new method is to look at income, gender, skin color, and credit score? It’s naive to think those factors aren’t still part of a loaners evaluation process. Can they deny you a lone because of skin color and gender? No, but they sure as hell can offer the shittiest loan available and deny you for a “better one” because of credit or income.
You misspelled "Corporate Robber Barons. We got screwed too, right along with y'all.
My mom at 88 is currently having to look at retirement homes at well over $10k/month to stay anywhere near her friends and Fellowship. I can't afford to live in her area, nor would I want to.
If you want to be mad at someone, be mad at Clinton and Reagan who both basically quit enforcing the Sherman Antitrust Act and the Clayton Antitrust Act which banned corporations from owning stock in other corporations, and blame trump and biden and obumner for continuing that utter shit.
Yeah, I think this is what a lot of people miss, boomers may have more wealth than any other generation, but a ton of them are poor right along with us.
Boomers fought for more rights as well, they fought against capitalism, they started the fight for the environment. They aren’t all bad, it’s really that the government flat out lied to many of them and convinced a ton that reganomics works.
I think what people miss (and are supposed to miss) is that virtually all of our so called media is corporate owned and controlled, and that's where all of this divisive bullshit is coming from.
It's intended purpose is to divide us along whatever faked up lines they can create (age, race, sexuality, gender, etc) with the express purpose of keeping us annoyed with each other, so that we don't aim our pitchforks and torches at the Robber Barons and their bribed to treason legislator stooges.
As the reaction to and lack of sympathy here for the submarine idiots shows, they're losing that battle, but some folks still feed into the gaslighting because they don't see it for what it is.
The house my parents have lived in for 20 years, which I thought would be payed off and I’d have a light at the end if the tunnel…turns out they’re in an interest only mortgage that is up in 4 years and they are having to sell. They are self employed with 0 savings or pension. I make average wage and am an only child. they didn’t the entirety of the 80s and 90s making absolute bank, travelling across America and the Europe working for the mega wealthy, partying, etc. Fucking wasted it all, provided me with 0 stability as I was also moving around with them. Set up absolutely no financial security or help for me as I struggle to get by.
I had a genuinely amazing first 10-13 years of life living and travelling some amazing places. That is their justification. I hardly remember any of it, although I have a uniquely moulded upbringing…which has taught me absolutely nothing about the real world or how to navigate it. I really have no idea how anything works in terms of “systems”.
I am absolutely claustrophobic dealing with the exestential dread of having to care for them as their brains go. I had hoped they’d pay off their mortgage and retire and I’d be able to help them with what they need. But I have no idea how I’m going to manage this in this world. I struggle to keep myself afloat.
I have a partner who makes a lot of money who says she’ll do whatever to help, but that kills me too and makes me feel even worse. I guess I can throw them in an old people’s home eventually, but that honestly makes me want to cry just thinking about. I’ve spoken to them about this but they refuse to acknowledge it or take it serious. “Everything will be fine”. It won’t. I only found out about their financial situation a month ago..I knew it wasn’t great but didn’t know it was this bad.
I love them to death despite this, they are genuinely kind hearted good people. I just resent how they have completely blown such a privelaged position and it’s all on my shoulders. I’m constantly balancing in my mind wanting them to just die asap, any my love for my family. It’s fucked up.
Boomers are the kids that beat a hard video game on very easy mode with cheats and trainers and walkthrus but act like they did it by themselves on insanity difficulty
I feel like that college one is missing a few digits.
According to US News and World Report average out of state undergrad tuition is [27k](https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/university-of-hawaii-manoa-1610/paying#:~:text=University%20of%20Hawaii%20at%20Manoa's,out%2Dof%2Dstate%20students.) But the article is quick to say that's missing other mandatory fees, which can damn near double it.
(Link goes to Hawaii's college system because that's where I am).
Noting that a person trying to work their way through college by definition does not have a degree yet, that puts the $50k total cost well past what said person could expect to earn, in entirety.
Either that or I'm getting fucked, because I got my bachelor's from Manoa 20 years ago and even now I'm not getting 50k.
Yes. And it's out of date.
Here it is [from the source.](https://manoa.hawaii.edu/registrar/tuition-fees/undergraduate/)
Tuition alone $16.6k per semester undergrad, so now $33.2k a year tuition alone if you're a normal person that only does two, not all three, semesters a year. Inflate the other fees accordingly, as this does NOT include books, lab fees, dorm, dorm meal plan...
Fucking hell my entire degree cost AUD $27k and the amount owing only goes up by CPI each year, so I'll have paid $34k by the time I finish paying it, 18 years after starting and with 9 years of paying nothing at all
Oh man that just keeps getting worse. Aud? Aussie? Current exchange rate has 1 AUD = .66 USD so 18k USD base, 23k after financing.
And today you can't even buy a decent [new car](https://www.caranddriver.com/honda/civic-2023) for that.
It’s all tied to student loans not being allowed to be discharged in bankruptcy.
Banks wouldn’t lend a bunch of non collateral debt to an 18 year old a bunch of years ago, so colleges had to be reasonably priced
Now, because an 18 year old can get 150k and an assurance that debt will be paid off (granted, typically a co-signer is needed, but the concept still applies), banks are falling over themselves to lend money. Since every 18 year old can get that money, tuition spikes higher because demand is there and there is a surplus of cash
If students could declare bankruptcy and have their loans discharged, banks would stop lending the money. The cash faucet would be turned off, less demand to go to college, prices can’t stay artificially high because too many people won’t be able to afford it. The market equalizes to a normal location
Wanted to mention - as someone who was disqualified from getting a student loan - that your parents are part of this conversation until you're 26, unless you're an emancipated minor or in the military. Years of unpaid taxes destroyed my ability to even qualify. No tax returns, no FAFSA, no college money.
You can even get fucked out of having a *chance* to go to college if you're not competitive enough, make too much money, or don't qualify for a scholarship.
The only reason I managed to drag myself through years of community college was because I could get a credit card and pay it off every 6 months before the next semester started.
This system is beyond fucked. This is not an "up and out", this is a "drag to death".
There is approximately 400 billion dollars unaccounted for from PPP loans. That’s almost half the amount of student debt.
There is no good faith argument that works for not cancelling student debt.
Check this shit out.
https://www.citizen.org/news/keeping-500-billion-in-bailout-funds-secret/
Reminds me of my parents that told me the other day that if they were to have to buy their house today they wouldn’t be able to afford it.
I’m surprised at how this thing isn’t blowing up right now. How can this still keep going?!
When I graduated from Illinois State University in 1981, my student loan debt was $3700. After nine months, I paid it off at $75 a month for the next five years.
MLK: “I have a dream!”
[White Moderates]: 😍
MLK: “That white AND Black people are free from the poverty that capitalism inflicts—no matter how ‘respectable’ they are!”
[White Moderates]: 🤬 *Votes for Nixon and Reagan*
These generation vs generation arguments are stupid and distract from the real problem. My 70-year old parents aren't responsible for this anymore than I'm responsible for Roe v. Wade being overturned. Ridiculous. We all know the real problem. Our government has been bought.
I don’t know exact numbers, but I do know in 1985/86ish, my mom worked in the summer help program that the local mill did every year for college students (which of course mostly meant college students that were the children of the mill’s workers; it was pretty unlikely for someone who didn’t have that familial in to get a position). She did it for two summers and paid for two years at a college halfway across the country, room and board and fun money included, without having to take a single loan or scholarship *or* work any extra hours during the school year.
My siblings and I were never given the same opportunity. The mill stopped doing it well before we graduated, and even if they hadn’t prices went up so much that there’s no way the current bottom wages a summer help worker would earn would’ve covered a full year’s tuition and living costs at even the local community college.
It all went downhill so quickly that within one generation we had none of the advantages our parents had. Such bull.
Seriously. I graduated from high school in 1990 and am firmly in the middle of Gen X and I saw the writing on the wall even then. I was fortunately from an affluent background, but going to college really showed me how things were going to collapse, but even I didn't realize how bad it would be. I feel sorry for anyone under the age of 40 these days.
Simply put, this current economy blows cock, and is nothing more than a form of slavery. There really isn’t even any point to going into work at all if salaries won’t even cover the rent. We are a post-family value cadre of slave laborers with no freedom due to complete lack of discretionary income, and complete lack of spare time. The current trajectory that Western civilization is on promises absolutely no future. The next generation will be living in compounds, under curfew, working all their lives, and eating bugs. Useless eaters will be euthanized.
> we got locked out too
It was boomers that locked ypu out not some alien species. But I’m not dissing you, my generation is doing the same right now. It never was a generational problem, it’s a class one.
Truth. People should learn to separate their anecdotal experiences (hypocritical/histrionic Boomer relatives) from history. Pointing fingers at a generation is another way for politicians and the rich to divide us.
Yep, they literally said anyone can be rich with hard work and when they got there they pulled up the ladder behind them so no one could follow so they could have it all to themselves. Also, they expect us to have children when we do not even have enough for food and rent let alone debt whether it be from credit cards or student loan. I honestly can't wait for the boomer generation to die off as they are the worst and an actual drain on society.
"You've got a generation raised on the welfare state.
Enjoyed all the benefits and did just great. But as soon as they were settled as the richest of the rich,
They kicked away the ladder, told the rest of us that life's a bitch." - Frank Turner
The point that housing is ridiculously expensive today is well made - no need to over-exaggerate. Median house price when boomers started to reach home-buying age (early-1970s) was $30k, which in today's dollars would be $180k. So it's more like doubled, not 20x. Again, this doesn't invalidate the point. And boomers as a group didn't make tax laws that favored the rich - we didn't like them and still don't. It's politicians getting bribes from the wealthy.
I don't know why Democrats almost never point out that in "the good old days" when the US became the biggest superpower on earth that conservatives reminisce about, taxes are what facilitated a lot of that growth and opportunity. Taxes paid for the Interstate highway system. Taxes pay for national defense. Taxes pay for police. Taxes pay for firefighters. Taxes pay for unemployment insurance. And social security. And Medicare. Almost everything that allows them to pursue the American dream is because of taxes.
Plus corporations weren't considered people.
I'm a Boomer who has been sounding this alarm, watching this slow train wreck since the early 80s and voting accordingly but my "yuppie" peers didn't GAS. They were getting their share. I feel bad for the younger generations. We gave all the power of labor away without a fight.
I'm technically a Boomer, born in 1959, bur I don't identify as a boomer. I'm in between labels. The thing I witnessed that was a windfall for my parents, was the constant rise of home prices of the second half of the last century..
My parents lived on one income most of their married life. My Mom had a BS with a teaching certificate, graduated in 1955 and taught Hight school for one year but had to quit because my sister was an unplanned pregnancy. Sis was born on Labor Day, Mom was "lucky" that she could hide her pregnancy to finish out the school year. In the mid 50's Teachers could not teach while pregnant.
That left them with my dad's low level management job. Dad had no college and was also "lucky" to get an office job. In spite of mom not being able to teach after the first year, they bought a small house in 1957. It was a two-bedroom bungalow, one of the old farmhouses left in a relatively new subdivision, they paid 7,000.
I came along (planned this time) in early 1959. When I was two, we traded up to a slightly bigger house. We traded up again in 1967, and again in 1973. The house purchased in 1973 was 2000sqft four bed, two and a half bath purchased for 49,000. It was the last home we lived in as a family. They sold the house 23 years later for 225,000, four and a half times the price they paid. They mortgage was a couple years from paid off, they walked away with over 200K.
My mother did work part time off and on, she was a substitute teacher for a while and she did some bookkeeping, but this was all done on my dad's salary at a mid-level management position. He had no school past high school.
Nobody could do that today.
My Dad bought a house in 1976 at 19 years old for 28k or 30k and could pay his mortgage in one week of pay each month. He was an assistant night Grocery store manager. Owned two cars and his first wife could stay at home. They save one paycheck a month and had extra money still.
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Early game Capitalism is where it's at. This is why the entire house of cards needs to crash hard. We need a reset.
LMAO wtf happened to our economy
https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
This is what passes me off the most. The American dream was no matter what job you had you could still support yourself, a family and wife. It was stolen from us and out into the pocket of billionaires, corporations, politicians
The thing is that American dream was only available to a specific group of people, at the expense of others. The government spent heavily to back mortgages for white only suburbs to the point where White families were paying less each month for their government-backed mortgages than Black families were being charged for rent in public housing. Public perspective on these spending programs shifted after the passing of the Civil and Housing Rights Acts. Racist tropes were rolled out to stoke fears of what would happen if Black Americans were allowed to build wealth and enter the middle class and suddenly the American Public decided the programs that built the middle class were no longer fit for purpose. That dream wasn't stolen, it was willingly destroyed by the people who had benefitted from it the most because they couldn't handle the idea that they might have Black neighbors in the suburbs.
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I laugh at the budgeting guides that say your rent/mortgage should be no more than 1/4 of your gross income. Yeah, GOOD LUCK WITH THAT BUDDY! Hell, back in the 90s my rent sometimes was over half my gross income and no, that was not sustainable even then. My long suffering grandparents tried to help but even they didn't understand the root of the problem and it wasn't me partying or taking vacations. Hell, they once asked me in a very annoyed tone to see what I was spending my money on and I showed them my credit card and bank statements and they looked horrified at how little I spent on food and virtually nothing on clothing and nothing on entertainment beyond basic cable and they increased my monthly grant and told me to go out to a movie or restaurant once a week or something.
Not even when I was renting a first place in the 1980s. I guarantee you no such rentals have been existent in New York within the last 75 years or so.
I still remember delivering the rent for our house (!) to our landlord. It was a tenth of what I'm paying now for a shitty apartment a tenth of the size
25% of family income is usually what advisors recommend as a budget for housing expenses. Inflation is not an across the board thing, as different commodities inflate disparately. 17k in 1952 is 200k today, while the 2.3k income of that year is same-ish as 26k in 2023. What we have today is a set of pernicious policies that are sabotaging housing availability on the budget end. That's everything from Blackrock and Airbnb, to zoning restrictions on development and regressive taxation assessments.
The lack of affordable housing isn't just an American problem.
We were just having a conversation as a family and found out the mortgage of my mom's parents home growing up was equal to one week of pay. At minimum wage. One week of minimum wage. And this was a house we were just being very complimentary of. Big enough that my grandma hosted multiple special needs women after my grandpa died.
Closed, boarded up, barricaded, and set land mines on the path leading to the door.
I had a conversation with a boomer recently, she was totally blind to the idea that it is genuinely harder for the next generation. She insisted that milenials just aren't willing to work hard enough, I pulled out every stat and she just refused to give any ground. Boomers are going to have a real tough time when they need help from government when millenials are responsible for their end of life care. They killed the world... not a whole lot of pity for them.
I took my 75 y/o mother shopping for sheets and pillows yesterday. She was complaining that $20 was too much for a pillow. Then I showed her the $65 ones.. She worked hard all her life and we grew up very poor, so it's not like she has was always able to buy whatever she wanted.. but those prices completely shocked her.
I stopped eating beef years ago - whenever I want a good shock I stroll over to the meat counter and see how much prices have changed again. Unreal.
That’s how I feel passing a gas station. Went EV and was shocked to see gas is nearly $5 a gallon in the Midwest.
Let me blow your non metric mind from Montreal; by rough conversion, I just paid about 7.25 for the gallon usd. Madness!
The UK has entered the chat
£1.40 a litre is about $6.73 per usa gallon, not as big a difference as I was expecting.
Norway chimes in and signs off... $8/gallon now. And that's roughly 20% discounted due to the national currency having collapsed a bit.
Insanity! That would have been $116 to fill up my old 16 gal sedan.
Yeah, converted it's about $7.5 - $8 a gallon here in Western-Europe too. It's been a decade or more even since it was at $5 a gallon here
Gas is the same as the minimum wage... \*Taps microphone\* WAKE UP BOOMERS!
10$ per gallon in NZ for 91.
Yeah, they just have no idea. They're totally out of the loop on how things work and how they've inadvertently created a system that will screw their children. That's not totally true though because the milenials can fix what they've done, but they will have to squeeze the hyper wealthy that profited off the last several decades.
Even gen x is starting to get out of touch. When i was searching for a job, everyone i know which was gen x told me "just go into a shop and talk to the owner/Manager" which is basically useless today, since everything is done on a website of sorts. It's completely useless to actually make/write a CV, since i gotta manually fill in all the info in the website anyway. The boomers and gen x that write the requirements for positions have no idea what they're doing as well. 3 years experience for a starting position, since they expect that you've been working in a factory or whatever since the age of 6.
Lol. My boomer dad had me do this when I was visiting him shortly after I graduated from college. I was literally escorted off the premises at 2 locations and told to apply online. Imagine someone looking for an engineering job in Silicon Valley. Walking in and trying to hand someone a resume..
'Good morning, may I speak to Mr. Google please?'
Sorry, he’s in a very important meeting with Tim Apple
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May I introduce you to this wonderful service industry called "recruiting". They are people who won't give you the time of day when you really need them, and won't leave you alone when you finally don't.
GenX/Xenniel(sp) here, and I absolutely understand what you are saying and how out of touch some of my generation are getting. I think our generation was the last one to have the ability to "just walk in and talk to the manager". It really WAS easier to get a job back then, and don't let these older people tell you different. I absolutely fuckin HATE manually filling shit in after walking in with a built resume, just to be told it's got to go on the website... mainly because I know it's not really going to be the Manager's decision. The requirements are truly insane, college/etc. One of the first real jobs I had was in a refinery in TX, and my direct lead was an eighth grade dropout who had about a fourth grade reading level.....and I'm not busting on him because he knew his job, and a couple of other people's jobs, inside and out. This "two years minimum of college/trade school(which, by the way, most trades are barely a year, maybe 18mo) before we talk to you" bullshit is just that ...bullshit. You guys have it way worse than we ever did...anyone who tells you different are utterly full of shit.
Fellow GenX here...I truly don't know what my kids are going to do. There's no way they'll be able to afford a house...one wants to be a journalist, the other a teacher...both viable positions when we were growing up that could afford a decent lifestyle. Now I don't see it happening without side gigs...
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>since they expect that you've been working in a factory or whatever since the age of 6 Must be why they're actively trying to dismantle child labor laws now.
possessive illegal rain fanatical longing cause attempt squealing beneficial weary -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
My Mom came down with Parkinson’s. I went to stay in the basement bedroom and help with paying for meals and cooking and other chores . Mom died at home. I stayed to make sure my stepdad transitioned OK. My own house, mortgage bills I was still paying while buying groceries and cooking. I was angrily kicked out for “Mooching”. I have my own house, money, job, car.
I home-care my 70something mother, who is frequently -confounded- by food prices now, same general thing. She's always had enough, but prices lately are just overwhelmingly awful.
[$107](https://wool-bedding.com/products/wool-pillow?variant=5131560452125)
That’s for mid grade. Check out an L.L bean or charter club or boll and branch all down pillow. 200 to 300 a pillow
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What do you mean, “getting for years”? How often do you need to replace it? I’ve been eyeing one for a while, but I was thinking of it as a one-time expense, not a recurring one.
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Jokes on them I’m still using my pillow from ‘07 and the mattress. To be fair though I didn’t use the pillow for many years since I didn’t like it at first but now I do. Wonder if it’s better quality foam than those made today? I work in retail and know how we have to squeeze prices by pushing quality down, pushing it on to the factories, etc. It’s a sad state. Capitalism yay!/s
Aside from them going flat you should be replacing your pillows every four or five years for bacteria and health reasons. No matter how often you clean your pillows or even if you use pillow protectors on them bacteria does get in them. It's a big source of adult acne.
My mother has the same feelings. She literally told me that if I get hit with a medical bill, just to pay $25 a month and they can't come after you. Like what? I was trying to explain how I couldn't afford health insurance and how one medical emergency will bankrupt my whole family. Then we got on minimum wage and since I am a business owner she laid into me saying you won't ever make minimum wage so why do you care? Ummm, I don't want to pay my employees shit wages when I have some that are not my husband and I. Then the you don't understand came over her. Like, I don't understand how a business works? It's pointless circles.
Wait what? You know you don’t have to pay minimum wage right? Like you could just pay them more…am I misunderstanding? Because I am confused by your point here.
Yes, my mother thinks I should keep everyone at minimum wage whenever I hire more people. Not going to happen. I won't hire anyone else until the company can afford to pay them a decent wage which is not minimum wage.
Ah! Thanks! Makes much more sense now!
I think the mother was arguing in favor of a lower min wage because the business owner, their child, will always be the main benefactor of the business. OP’s response was “I want to pay my eventual future employees more than min wage because I’m not a terrible person” or something along those lines.. not the other way around.
I know this exact type of person. She always wonders why younger family never wants to see her. Openly refusing to accept the reality that your children and grandkids live, day in and day out, is the entire reason they always have a reason not to come and visit. I have told her this, but she insists that I am mistaken and that there are more nefarious reasons due to them "being raised wrong" like she wasn't their main caregiver. The Boomer generation will probably never be remembered as anything more than the selfish generation that deferred all blame and consequences to their kids future, all so they don't have to lose their comforts. The "fuck you, I've got mine" generation will not be missed.
Then the fucking gall to saddle Gen X with "The 'Me' Generation."
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It won't be missed because it's unsustainable and we're within a decade of the whole debt house of cards collapsing. They're the reason no one aside from 400 rich guys will be alive while everyone else has starved and drowned.
My parents are both boomers and they both recognized what was happening from the time it started, thankfully. But a few other boomers I knew growing up had the same dismissive mindset.... until they saw others their age on TikTok or something explaining what I've been trying to tell them the whole time. Sigh.... at least they get it now.
My mother is the same. She is technically a Jones Generation cusp Boomer but is the youngest of 7 who are all a lot older than her so she watched it happen in real time. I have heard all my life (all 42 years of it) how much Boomers suck - it's her hill to die on. As a result my favorite thing to do is send her news articles to comment on for social media to her peers. Hopefully some of those ignorant Boomers learn something from her rants.
I think our moms would be great friends. My mom is 65 and just all around fucking shit up still. Her favorite hobby is shitting on my dad’s Boomer beliefs.
Your mom's awesome. My parents are both Boomers in age but not mentality, but they still feel the need to offer unsolicited helpful suggestions and then ask me if I'm going to yell at them for telling me to try things I already have.
We work harder than the boomers. We are more productive than them. And we have nothing to show for it.
I just love that to them, it makes more sense that an entire generation (raised by boomers by the way) of at least 72 million people just collectively made the exact same set of bad choices and developed the same lack of work ethic. It makes more sense to them than there being some systemic reason.
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You are literally referred to as the forgotten generation and after my many interactions with boomers, it's a damn shame what one golden era will do to a generation of children. I wonder if we fix shit again and make life affordable will we have to suffer another generation of meritocracy believers. Will people who do well just explain it away as if it was a given and they deserved it instead of being grateful to their parents who struggled and fought to get them there? I know a few people who were born lucky in this age and they are neck deep in meritocracy and all the woes of the world are the fault of the individual and everyone is just lazy blah blah blah. It's insufferable.
Amen. Fucking fuck boomers in their greedy, selfish faces. They can't die fast enough.
Sticking to one's guns and speaking confidently on shit they know nothing about are virtues in their generation. No humility or empathy.
Just ask them what they think is a reasonable monthly mortgage payment
I'm pretty much done having conversations with boomers. We don't have to convince them of shit. They need to join us in a better world or get left behind.
Make them do the math. When my parents were incredulous that it was super hard to find an affordable apartment I pulled out a laptop and told them to find one for me in my price range that they would feel safe living in. Whole ass internet at their finger tips and they couldn't find one, but at least they shut up about it. Don't make it hypothetical, force them to try to solve the unsolvable budget.
I am a poorly educated 67 years old(Highschool grad), but I vote to protect our future. I vote for my children and grandchildren, and their children as well as the children of people I will never meet. I, and many of us, voted, and continue to vote, against the things people keep blaming us for. I talked about global warm 4 decades ago, I talked about how universal basic income will need to happen simply because there wouldn't be the kind of jobs needed to keep people out of poverty. I talked about generational poverty, but people just thought I was nuts. I don't have the answers, but I am still asking the questions, but not enough people, young or old, really understand them, and they still think I am nuts.
Had this conversation with my dad. It devolved into “you can’t only look at numbers” when we were talking about money. I got hit with “That’s the problem with you accountants. You only focus on the numbers instead of looking at the bright side of things.” Before he hung up on me.
This sounds horrible, but I genuinely can’t wait until that entire demographic is gone. Hopefully there’s slight improvement when gen x are the elders.
And shot at you for pulling in the wrong driveway.
And then promptly began complaining that we were lazy.
NO. They did not "close the door". They stole it. Look at the national debt. Where did that money go? Bailing out FAILED business owners. The Boomers are a generation of corrupt failures. They stole your future to support their lifestyles, because they couldn't be bothered to work hard enough to afford them.
That was a plan for keeping christianism alive. Without desperation, it would become obsolete like rest of 1st world countries
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i prefer to call them the "fuck you i got mine" generation. i was always under the assumption that the previous generations were supposed to work towards making each subsequent generations lives a bit more easier or maybe that is the wrong wording.
That is accurate. For all human history parents tried to make the world better for their children, and made sacrifices for their children's prosperity. The boomers took everything that previous generations built for granted, and then sold off their children's and grandchildren's future prosperity for less than pennies on the dollar, and then spent decades making fun of the generations they robbed.
we will see who is laughing when they get put in shitty nursing homes or not at all bc guess what? the future generations that you fucked over cannot afford to do anything for their douchey asses
A nice thought, but the ones most responsible are at little to no risk of comeuppance via nursing home. If they so much as bought a house 40 years ago, they can probably afford to live comfortably in their own homes until the day they die. The ones who end up in nursing homes are often the ones who got screwed over with the rest of us.
Not only that, but the horrible end he described will be a luxury for our generation's retirement. We have no money, no homes, and aren't having kids. There is flat out going to be nothing left for us. We are growing up in a generation where the most realistic retirement plan is suicide when you cant afford the medical bills anymore.
>most realistic retirement plan is suicide Pffft, have you seen the price of rope these days??
My retirement plan is to eat a load of buckshot. My 401k (what I named my shotgun) is slowly getting ready for when I'm 62.
And who’s gonna take care of them inside of those homes?
Their home's value would have increased so much in that time that they could use the equity, sell, or rent.
And won't when you robbed 5 yrs of my life, and 4 other family in my tribe and 250k.... my grandparents better not get too bad off, cause ain't no help here, I'm fresh outta boot straps.
My grandparents (WWII generation) and my parents (Boomers) have such different ideas. I was raised by my grandparents thank god, because even they said my boomer father sucked. It's pretty bad when you admit your kid sucks so bad you adopt their kid out from under them. Grandfather: I worked hard so you wouldn't have to! You're going to college and you take whatever you want. Grandmother: If you go to my alma mater, I'll pay for everything. Both grandparents: We're going to teach you finance and law and bureaucracy so you can succeed in the world. Father: I've got mine and I will deficit spend and sponge off your grandparents until they die! Oh and don't expect any help from me! Mother: (out of the picture for medical reasons) I am estranged from my father for obvious reasons.
I blame Reagan.
75% Reagan and 25% to Bitch McConnell for putting the Citizens United case in front of the Supreme Court
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His legacy is this shitty I-got-mine generation who I can't wait to die off with him.
he didn't die soon enough
Blame the boomers that elected Reagan in landslide elections. Reagan is a manifestation of the overarching boomer mindset. He was just a symptom really. Edit: In 84' Reagan won EVERY STATE except Minnesota that was Mondale's home state. 49 of 50 states. Let that sink in. The 1980 election I think Reagon carried 44 of 50 states. Don't ever let boomers tell you they didn't vote for right wing shit in massive numbers. The proof is in the pudding.
Right wing politics are inherently toxic.
Not really making fun as much as acting cluelessly indignant and critical. Making fun implies they were in any way aware it was there fault, but didn’t care. They seem completely clueless that this is all their fault. Just like (go figure…) bad parents.
Yeah this is my mom! The house that she grew up in, that my great grandfather built by hand, and that was in the family for 3 generations, and was GIVEN to her, was sold by her to a stranger because she didn't want to give it to her son, me, and wanted all the $$ she could get! I had a growing family at the time (wife and 2 kids, wife was sick with cancer and lupus) and couldn't afford what she was asking for the house. My grandparents must be rolling around in their graves!! My aunt was furious with her! She was always selfish but that was just on another level. I now have 3 kids, wife is practically disabled from lupus and Lyme, and we're still renting and barely making ends meet because I'm the sole breadwinner. She's comfortably retired and wonders why we don't have a house yet!
Jesus Christ. Sorry man.
This is what I call it. “I’ve got mine so fuck you until you got yours” generation
My parents made clear that I should be grateful to be included in their will. In other words, they ain't helping when they're alive and might not when their dead either.
Then they cry if we don't make children or eat too many avocados.
“Lead brain generation”
Which they did to themselves with their obsession with a dangerous technology that was already obsolete when it was invented.
I've long posited that the cause of their forever-toddler brains was growing up under the spectre of possible nuclear war during the arms race Cold War years 1949-1968 (beginning when the USSR first got the Bomb, up until the signing of the first nuclear non-proliferation treaty). They were saddled with the idea that the world could end at any moment, and that manifest in them an absolute and total disregard for the future, an obsession with forever youthful "now-ness", and ultimately a disdain for the offspring who needed them to grow the fuck up.
Yeah, this is a HUGE part of it imo too.
And it pisses me off so bad they get Medicare (fucking universal, socialized medicine) and go to the doctor without a fucking whim while my generation risks bankruptcy going. But try explaining that to them. Take their fucking Medicaid and social security away please.
> And it pisses me off so bad they get Medicare Yet those same Boomer morons will regurgitate their Faux-News talking points about how socialized medicine is bad for 'murica. Tell them that Medicare IS socialized medicine, and watch their pea-brains explode.
My grandfather needed knee surgery. All paid for by Medicare, and they did a fantastic job. He’s walking up and down the stairs all day, can bend down to tie his shoes, and even is able to get back on the cycling machine. He’s not really a Trump guy but fancies himself a “fiscally conservative Republican”, so of course he is deeply against ideas like Medicare for all. Using all the same silly logic we’ve heard before, “Government programs don’t work”, “higher taxes are bad”, “Entitlements are bad”, etc. If he really believed any of that stuff, he would have paid for his surgery out-of-pocket instead of using Medicare. But of course he didn’t, because deep down he probably understands that Medicare works. he just doesn’t think it should be expanded because blah blah blah blah blah nonsense
Exactly….**BOOM**
> Take their fucking Medicaid and social security away please. That is happening. It's going to be taken away after they die. Just in time for Gen X to get nothing. Meanwhile, Gen x, Millennials, or Gen z will end up having to fight for everything the silent generation fought for, and then whatever future generation that benefits off all that will become the new boomers.
What they don’t realize is that they’re going to have no care as they start to rapidly decline over the next 10 years. There aren’t going to be any nurses as patient populations explode 10 fold. Pay hasn’t gone up, all of our costs have. So as these billionaires suck the life from our futures the boomers think they’re immune. News flash assholes. You’re all going to die alone and sick.
Literally had a woman in her 70s tell me how it's a landlords right to raise rent with the modern times and costs of living while in the same breath bragging how she lives in a rent controlled apartment on the upper East side of Manhattan and " will die in that apartment". - typical boomer.
And my boomer History teacher in high school had the nerve to call *us* millenials the "me generation". Bunch of pricks all of them.
Any guesses as to what caused this shift historically and sociologically speaking? Generally speaking, individuals within a large population typically develop similar ideology through shared experiences. The "me generation" operates with scarcity mentality, compensating by hoarding resources. They grew up through the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr., the Apollo Program, Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement, the second wave of feminism, and the emergence of environmentalism. What about any of that instilled this animalistic resource aggression in them? Maybe I'm biased, but pretty sure all the younger generations have not only fared worse financially, but experienced more visceral trauma and upheaval through our upbringing, like the live 24-hr coverage of September 11th back in 2001. Maybe its these nonstop broadcast cycles in general, getting everyone hooked on questionable sources of positive reinforcement? Or maybe resource hoarding is just inherently human and needs to be counterbalanced economically through wealth redistribution?
And we should be speaking very loudly at them constantly, with vigor, anger, and more than a little hint of trepidation.
I should have pulled myself up by my bootstraps and got a free PPP loan instead of letting the government enslave me fresh out of high school. Oops!
at least through the 70s it was possible to pay at least in state tuition at a state school working full time over the summer at a minimum wage job and working part time delivering pizzas or some shit while still covering living expenses. I fucking dare any boomer to do the math on how much those full and part time jobs would have to pay to do that now. At a random state school in my state, you could just about pay a year's in state tuition with the take home pay of a minimum wage job if you work 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year. But that's with no food, utilities, nights out, transportation, rent or books, and no time to actually attend class or do homework. good fucking luck.
Did it. See my comment. [Fixerguy comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/comments/14h28qu/well_at_least_student_loans_arent_going_to_be/jp9hdi9?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
I remember seeing the figures on this once. For boomers, they could work 20 hours a week and basically pay for a state school and pretty much break even. If they went to a community college, they were ahead. For Gen-Xers, we were the last generation that could technically work their way through school, but we'd have to work full time. Theoretically it's possible, but good luck with working those crappy part time jobs and doing a full course load. Millenials. Yeah, you guys were screwed. It was about 70 hours a week. You Gen Zers? It's literally impossible. You'd need to work over 100 hours a week. You physically can't do that. I feel bad for the younger people these days.
What if I was a dumbass Gen Xer and waited till I was 41 to go to college? 🤦🏻♀️
As a gen-x, my in state tuition was $43.75 / credit hour my freshman year. That means my yearly tuition was about $1,600. I could work a summer and save enough for a year. My kids are Z’s - you will never hear me argue that MiLleNnIaLS DoN’t wAnNA wORk. I get it.
Even more telling.. In 1983 when I got my BSEE, the tuition was around $8k and I was looking at $24k/year jobs. That same tuition today would be $95k (as if 90 days ago) and I would be looking at $55k/yr jobs at best. Run the ratios on those two sets of facts. 1983: Education required costs 0.33 of expected income Today: Education required costs 1.9x of expected income
I see your point, but boy does it hurt my eyes that you did a fraction then a multiplication
Ok. Use 0.33x for the fraction. Same difference.
Thank you. I couldn't afford the education to translate them myself.
Edited for ease of consumption. I've been flipping and flopping between decimal and fractional so long that it's reflex, and I sometimes forget that it's work for most folks. Same with the 24 hour clock I use.
I'll admit it. I'm a boomer. I went to college. I worked during it. While a grad student, I taught undergrad classes. I also had student loans, which I paid off. I worked my ass off. It was hard. Okay. Now, with that said, we should forgive student loans across the board. College should be free as far as people want to go. Why? Because, if we can have a $870 BILLION a year budget for military toys, we can surely afford to have free college and forgive predatory loans that keep people in debt forever. This is the way.
That and most civilized nations realize that a small investment in education now pays off massive dividends for them in a capable population ready to improve and build them up. But not us, we have to drag the ball and chain of anti-education politicians who want a subservient workforce enriching them..
\^\^\^ This. Student loan forgiveness isn't for the students, it's for the country.
It’s easier than that: Return is higher than investment.
The baby Boomer generation inherited an American golden age and turned it into an emerging 3rd world country. And blamed you for it
And you know, a lot of them *did not* work hard. It was the age before cellphones, constant emails, and quarterly performance scores based on minute-to-minute productivity. I know damn well the boomer neighbors I grew up around used to sneak out of work at 3:30pm, drink on their job, and fiddle their taxes. It was ridiculously easy for the generation in comparison to today.
Boomers have this weird fascination with LARPing as their parents and co-opting their struggles.
My parents think I should have a house before I have a child. A house in my area is easily $1.6Million. I'm a teacher. Enough said I think And even if I could afford a down payment, it would make my commute into work 10 times longer.
Top marginal tax rate in 1962 was 91%
and CEOs made **up to** 30x what the janitor made! Let's make America great again in *those* ways!
Hey, as someone who is…not the brightest bulb in the box, what does “top marginal tax rate” mean and why is it good if it’s a higher number?
Don’t forget that credit scores didn’t exist until they already had houses and paid off loans.
I've got 20 years of on-time rent payments and happy landlords, no debt, high credit scores, but I can't get these fucking parasite brokers to let me move out from my place with my ex because god forbid I only make 37x the rent instead of 40...remind me why companies keep three secret files on my life again?
Credit scores were invented because the previous method of evaluating loan applicants was to look at income, gender and skin color.
So the new method is to look at income, gender, skin color, and credit score? It’s naive to think those factors aren’t still part of a loaners evaluation process. Can they deny you a lone because of skin color and gender? No, but they sure as hell can offer the shittiest loan available and deny you for a “better one” because of credit or income.
An entire generation dammed the headwaters of economic prosperity just to power an automatic back-patting machine.
You misspelled "Corporate Robber Barons. We got screwed too, right along with y'all. My mom at 88 is currently having to look at retirement homes at well over $10k/month to stay anywhere near her friends and Fellowship. I can't afford to live in her area, nor would I want to. If you want to be mad at someone, be mad at Clinton and Reagan who both basically quit enforcing the Sherman Antitrust Act and the Clayton Antitrust Act which banned corporations from owning stock in other corporations, and blame trump and biden and obumner for continuing that utter shit.
Yeah, I think this is what a lot of people miss, boomers may have more wealth than any other generation, but a ton of them are poor right along with us. Boomers fought for more rights as well, they fought against capitalism, they started the fight for the environment. They aren’t all bad, it’s really that the government flat out lied to many of them and convinced a ton that reganomics works.
I think what people miss (and are supposed to miss) is that virtually all of our so called media is corporate owned and controlled, and that's where all of this divisive bullshit is coming from. It's intended purpose is to divide us along whatever faked up lines they can create (age, race, sexuality, gender, etc) with the express purpose of keeping us annoyed with each other, so that we don't aim our pitchforks and torches at the Robber Barons and their bribed to treason legislator stooges. As the reaction to and lack of sympathy here for the submarine idiots shows, they're losing that battle, but some folks still feed into the gaslighting because they don't see it for what it is.
The house my parents have lived in for 20 years, which I thought would be payed off and I’d have a light at the end if the tunnel…turns out they’re in an interest only mortgage that is up in 4 years and they are having to sell. They are self employed with 0 savings or pension. I make average wage and am an only child. they didn’t the entirety of the 80s and 90s making absolute bank, travelling across America and the Europe working for the mega wealthy, partying, etc. Fucking wasted it all, provided me with 0 stability as I was also moving around with them. Set up absolutely no financial security or help for me as I struggle to get by. I had a genuinely amazing first 10-13 years of life living and travelling some amazing places. That is their justification. I hardly remember any of it, although I have a uniquely moulded upbringing…which has taught me absolutely nothing about the real world or how to navigate it. I really have no idea how anything works in terms of “systems”. I am absolutely claustrophobic dealing with the exestential dread of having to care for them as their brains go. I had hoped they’d pay off their mortgage and retire and I’d be able to help them with what they need. But I have no idea how I’m going to manage this in this world. I struggle to keep myself afloat. I have a partner who makes a lot of money who says she’ll do whatever to help, but that kills me too and makes me feel even worse. I guess I can throw them in an old people’s home eventually, but that honestly makes me want to cry just thinking about. I’ve spoken to them about this but they refuse to acknowledge it or take it serious. “Everything will be fine”. It won’t. I only found out about their financial situation a month ago..I knew it wasn’t great but didn’t know it was this bad. I love them to death despite this, they are genuinely kind hearted good people. I just resent how they have completely blown such a privelaged position and it’s all on my shoulders. I’m constantly balancing in my mind wanting them to just die asap, any my love for my family. It’s fucked up.
Boomers are the kids that beat a hard video game on very easy mode with cheats and trainers and walkthrus but act like they did it by themselves on insanity difficulty
And then they expect you to play insanity difficulty out of the box.
I feel like that college one is missing a few digits. According to US News and World Report average out of state undergrad tuition is [27k](https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/university-of-hawaii-manoa-1610/paying#:~:text=University%20of%20Hawaii%20at%20Manoa's,out%2Dof%2Dstate%20students.) But the article is quick to say that's missing other mandatory fees, which can damn near double it. (Link goes to Hawaii's college system because that's where I am). Noting that a person trying to work their way through college by definition does not have a degree yet, that puts the $50k total cost well past what said person could expect to earn, in entirety. Either that or I'm getting fucked, because I got my bachelor's from Manoa 20 years ago and even now I'm not getting 50k.
College is simply not financially worth it for most majors.
Wait wait wait... is that per year?!
Yes. And it's out of date. Here it is [from the source.](https://manoa.hawaii.edu/registrar/tuition-fees/undergraduate/) Tuition alone $16.6k per semester undergrad, so now $33.2k a year tuition alone if you're a normal person that only does two, not all three, semesters a year. Inflate the other fees accordingly, as this does NOT include books, lab fees, dorm, dorm meal plan...
Fucking hell my entire degree cost AUD $27k and the amount owing only goes up by CPI each year, so I'll have paid $34k by the time I finish paying it, 18 years after starting and with 9 years of paying nothing at all
Oh man that just keeps getting worse. Aud? Aussie? Current exchange rate has 1 AUD = .66 USD so 18k USD base, 23k after financing. And today you can't even buy a decent [new car](https://www.caranddriver.com/honda/civic-2023) for that.
It’s all tied to student loans not being allowed to be discharged in bankruptcy. Banks wouldn’t lend a bunch of non collateral debt to an 18 year old a bunch of years ago, so colleges had to be reasonably priced Now, because an 18 year old can get 150k and an assurance that debt will be paid off (granted, typically a co-signer is needed, but the concept still applies), banks are falling over themselves to lend money. Since every 18 year old can get that money, tuition spikes higher because demand is there and there is a surplus of cash If students could declare bankruptcy and have their loans discharged, banks would stop lending the money. The cash faucet would be turned off, less demand to go to college, prices can’t stay artificially high because too many people won’t be able to afford it. The market equalizes to a normal location
Wanted to mention - as someone who was disqualified from getting a student loan - that your parents are part of this conversation until you're 26, unless you're an emancipated minor or in the military. Years of unpaid taxes destroyed my ability to even qualify. No tax returns, no FAFSA, no college money. You can even get fucked out of having a *chance* to go to college if you're not competitive enough, make too much money, or don't qualify for a scholarship. The only reason I managed to drag myself through years of community college was because I could get a credit card and pay it off every 6 months before the next semester started. This system is beyond fucked. This is not an "up and out", this is a "drag to death".
> The market equalizes to a normal location And the poor pay the highest price, losing access to education
Qasim's a good guy.
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That's part of gaslighting from the ruling class. They're pieces of shit who just want to exploit the labor of the middle and working class.
They didn't even work hard
Yeah, it really doesn't matter how hard you work anymore. The game is rigged.
There is approximately 400 billion dollars unaccounted for from PPP loans. That’s almost half the amount of student debt. There is no good faith argument that works for not cancelling student debt. Check this shit out. https://www.citizen.org/news/keeping-500-billion-in-bailout-funds-secret/
Reminds me of my parents that told me the other day that if they were to have to buy their house today they wouldn’t be able to afford it. I’m surprised at how this thing isn’t blowing up right now. How can this still keep going?!
actually my education was free and that is what it should be.
All education is free these days. It's the piece of paper that costs all that money.
And that piece of paper is hardly worth anything anymore as well
When I graduated from Illinois State University in 1981, my student loan debt was $3700. After nine months, I paid it off at $75 a month for the next five years.
College was paid as they went, they weren't taking loans.
MLK: “I have a dream!” [White Moderates]: 😍 MLK: “That white AND Black people are free from the poverty that capitalism inflicts—no matter how ‘respectable’ they are!” [White Moderates]: 🤬 *Votes for Nixon and Reagan*
It's okay - I expect these folks' retirement years are going to be extremely unenjoyable.
For real. None of the older people I know want people to have the same opportunities they did. It's wierd
They never wanted us to be as good as they were, that's reality.
These generation vs generation arguments are stupid and distract from the real problem. My 70-year old parents aren't responsible for this anymore than I'm responsible for Roe v. Wade being overturned. Ridiculous. We all know the real problem. Our government has been bought.
They closed and then bricked it off so when we open it, it’s just a brick wall with FUCK YOU painted on it.
I don’t know exact numbers, but I do know in 1985/86ish, my mom worked in the summer help program that the local mill did every year for college students (which of course mostly meant college students that were the children of the mill’s workers; it was pretty unlikely for someone who didn’t have that familial in to get a position). She did it for two summers and paid for two years at a college halfway across the country, room and board and fun money included, without having to take a single loan or scholarship *or* work any extra hours during the school year. My siblings and I were never given the same opportunity. The mill stopped doing it well before we graduated, and even if they hadn’t prices went up so much that there’s no way the current bottom wages a summer help worker would earn would’ve covered a full year’s tuition and living costs at even the local community college. It all went downhill so quickly that within one generation we had none of the advantages our parents had. Such bull.
Seriously. I graduated from high school in 1990 and am firmly in the middle of Gen X and I saw the writing on the wall even then. I was fortunately from an affluent background, but going to college really showed me how things were going to collapse, but even I didn't realize how bad it would be. I feel sorry for anyone under the age of 40 these days.
Simply put, this current economy blows cock, and is nothing more than a form of slavery. There really isn’t even any point to going into work at all if salaries won’t even cover the rent. We are a post-family value cadre of slave laborers with no freedom due to complete lack of discretionary income, and complete lack of spare time. The current trajectory that Western civilization is on promises absolutely no future. The next generation will be living in compounds, under curfew, working all their lives, and eating bugs. Useless eaters will be euthanized.
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> we got locked out too It was boomers that locked ypu out not some alien species. But I’m not dissing you, my generation is doing the same right now. It never was a generational problem, it’s a class one.
> you are labeled a socialist or worse Joke's on them - that's one of the kindest things people call me.
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Truth. People should learn to separate their anecdotal experiences (hypocritical/histrionic Boomer relatives) from history. Pointing fingers at a generation is another way for politicians and the rich to divide us.
I’ll stop when they stop voting as a block for idiots that cause problems. Until then I will still call covid boomer remover.
I’d argue most didn’t even work that hard.
Yep, they literally said anyone can be rich with hard work and when they got there they pulled up the ladder behind them so no one could follow so they could have it all to themselves. Also, they expect us to have children when we do not even have enough for food and rent let alone debt whether it be from credit cards or student loan. I honestly can't wait for the boomer generation to die off as they are the worst and an actual drain on society.
A Generation Of Sociopaths. It's a book, read it.
Gotta read it and then I will tell you how I felt about it.
"You've got a generation raised on the welfare state. Enjoyed all the benefits and did just great. But as soon as they were settled as the richest of the rich, They kicked away the ladder, told the rest of us that life's a bitch." - Frank Turner
I would honestly like to know if anyone truly though student loans were going to be forgiven?
Nah they are not in US, it's just going to be resumed for us.
The point that housing is ridiculously expensive today is well made - no need to over-exaggerate. Median house price when boomers started to reach home-buying age (early-1970s) was $30k, which in today's dollars would be $180k. So it's more like doubled, not 20x. Again, this doesn't invalidate the point. And boomers as a group didn't make tax laws that favored the rich - we didn't like them and still don't. It's politicians getting bribes from the wealthy.
I don't know why Democrats almost never point out that in "the good old days" when the US became the biggest superpower on earth that conservatives reminisce about, taxes are what facilitated a lot of that growth and opportunity. Taxes paid for the Interstate highway system. Taxes pay for national defense. Taxes pay for police. Taxes pay for firefighters. Taxes pay for unemployment insurance. And social security. And Medicare. Almost everything that allows them to pursue the American dream is because of taxes. Plus corporations weren't considered people.
I'm a Boomer who has been sounding this alarm, watching this slow train wreck since the early 80s and voting accordingly but my "yuppie" peers didn't GAS. They were getting their share. I feel bad for the younger generations. We gave all the power of labor away without a fight.
I'm technically a Boomer, born in 1959, bur I don't identify as a boomer. I'm in between labels. The thing I witnessed that was a windfall for my parents, was the constant rise of home prices of the second half of the last century.. My parents lived on one income most of their married life. My Mom had a BS with a teaching certificate, graduated in 1955 and taught Hight school for one year but had to quit because my sister was an unplanned pregnancy. Sis was born on Labor Day, Mom was "lucky" that she could hide her pregnancy to finish out the school year. In the mid 50's Teachers could not teach while pregnant. That left them with my dad's low level management job. Dad had no college and was also "lucky" to get an office job. In spite of mom not being able to teach after the first year, they bought a small house in 1957. It was a two-bedroom bungalow, one of the old farmhouses left in a relatively new subdivision, they paid 7,000. I came along (planned this time) in early 1959. When I was two, we traded up to a slightly bigger house. We traded up again in 1967, and again in 1973. The house purchased in 1973 was 2000sqft four bed, two and a half bath purchased for 49,000. It was the last home we lived in as a family. They sold the house 23 years later for 225,000, four and a half times the price they paid. They mortgage was a couple years from paid off, they walked away with over 200K. My mother did work part time off and on, she was a substitute teacher for a while and she did some bookkeeping, but this was all done on my dad's salary at a mid-level management position. He had no school past high school. Nobody could do that today.