You could start taxing them. Especially the rich ones.
You know that’s an option, right?
The boomer generation hit the economic jackpot. Young people will inherit their massive debts.
Submitted 2 months ago by 101@feddit.org to unitedkingdom@feddit.uk
Comments
psvrh@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
Zip2@feddit.uk 2 months ago
Or make them pay for their own winter heating.
Wanderer@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Or we can give them lots of money for being old.
They didn’t fight in two world wars to not be given free money.
psvrh@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
The Boomers fought in world wars?
In utero, maybe.
southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Yeah, except it’s the rich assholes in power that would have to pass that kind of reform.
DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 2 months ago
I mean, yeah. That kind of reform.
Good thing there’s other options.
Fiivemacs@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
Sad thing with doing that, is they will be screwed over. Cool beans, but it won’t go away and you’ll be double screwed over. It won’t fix anything for the next generations. These billion dollar companies need not exist anymore. They do nothing but harm anything they infect
Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
It’s not an option… Look at the average age of our “representatives”.
flamingos@feddit.uk 2 months ago
One thing these kinds of articles that are designed to stoke generational conflicts never mention is that rich people live longer. Like, obviously older people would be proportionally richer, the poorer people from that generation are dead. Also, friendly reminder, all this stoking of generational conflicts does is distract us from the real divide in society.
Kellamity@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Regardless of the electoral politics, as Chris notes, the important challenge in social policy is helping people who won’t benefit from wealth transfers from wealthy relatives, rather than engaging in fantasies about “generational warfare”. What matters is not generations, but class.
chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Older people tend to be richer because they’ve had more time to earn and save money. Compare a 20-year-old to a 40-year-old. Both spent about 20 years being a kid, growing up and going to school, but the 40-year-old had an extra 20 years after that to earn and save money. You can do the same comparison between a 40-year-old and a 60-year-old, but take all the money the 60-year-old earned in the first 20 years of working and invest it in the stock market for the next 20 years, while also continuing to work.
Wealth can build like crazy. If you invest at 7% average annual return, you’ll double your money in just over 10 years. At 10% the doubling period is just over 7 years. Now consider that the S&P 500 had an average annualized return over 10% between 1957 and 2023, and that 60-year-old’s 20 year investment would multiply by 6.7x.
wingsfortheirsmiles@feddit.uk 2 months ago
Couldn’t agree more, though I would say it also distracts from the need to highly regulate capitalism at large, i.e. encourage reinvestment in employees (pay at least in line with inflation, training, etc) over shareholder dividends or CEO bonuses
homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Digging a hole of debt deep enough to contain an ocean isn’t “hitting the jackpot”.
TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 2 months ago
It basically is when you’re not the one who has to deal with that debt.
homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I’d liken it more to a bank robbery.
Cruxifux@feddit.nl 2 months ago
Rich vs working class, not boomers vs millennials or whatever garbage you’re trying to push.
Dkarma@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Boomers are the rich, that’s the whole point.
They lived through the largest economic boon in history and kept it all for themselves.
Yeah fuck their kids too but let’s not forget who is perpetuating this system and it ain’t old people.
Hell the “young” candidate this election is 60!!!
stoly@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Millennials are children of boomers. Boomers were having children up to the late 90s. You cast a very wide net.
Cruxifux@feddit.nl 2 months ago
lol seriously though. They should enforce a retirement age of 65 in politics. These geriatric pieces of shit need to go.
stoly@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Actually there is some truth to this SPECIFICALLY with Boomers. After the War, Western countries rebuilt economic powerhouses up to a certain point, after which the ladder was pulled up. Boomers had more opportunities than any generation before or after them.
Cruxifux@feddit.nl 2 months ago
I just have a hard time blaming the boomers who protested shit like that for the sins the ones who supported imperialist capitalist interests of the time.