Stuff have an article on Millennial’s vs Boomers and it is obscenely stupid.
It attempts to paint each generation out as blaming each other for the failings of each generation.
It is evidence of the utter lack of intellectual curiosity and why corporate media is the problem.
Let’s ask two simple questions, why is there a difference between Boomers and Millennials and why can’t corporate media see it?
The difference between Boomers and Millennials is painfully simple. Government.
Boomers grew up under Governments who saw the horror of World War 2. They saw what happened when unregulated capitalism boomed and busted. They saw that if there wasn’t a safety net then capitalism’s extremes pushed people towards Fascism or Communism. Boomer Governments subsidised their citizens lives from the cradle to the grave and the economy was turned to the developmental advantage of the people.
That’s why Boomers have houses and assets and a standard of living far higher than other generations because the Governments they lived under believed they had an obligation to provide that.
Millennial’s on the other hand lived under neoliberal Government’s who didn’t give a fuck. Who walked away from those obligations, who deregulated and allowed free market myths of individualism to replace social responsibilities. This has culminated in Millennial’s being debt slaves in an economic environment that gives them nothing.
The reason why corporate media like Stuff can’t even comprehend this basic explanation is because they are themselves the product of neoliberal mythology.
We have ideologically blind media answering questions they can’t see.
Brilliant!
You hit the nail on the head, Martyn. Good post.
Articles like this seem to be a devised attempt to divide the generations, distracting readers from the real cause, which you rightly point out.
Classic divide and conquer. Get the peasantry fighting among themselves, and they remain oblivious to their true enemy. And that enemy continues to laugh all the way to the bank.
It is indeed fake news but I have to add a couple of points.
i work with a lot of boomers, mostly the first stream of boomers if you want to use that term. Myself I am a Boomer 2, a bit younger than most of them.
I hate to say it but yes, most of them ARE a privilege-hungry greedy lot. They own expensive 4-wheel drive SUVs, boats and mobile homes not to mention huge houses without any mortgage. They are on National Super but agitate for extra hours and want all the prime jobs that don’t involve extra work. They constantly whinge about how people today should pay their own pay, knuckle down and do what their told etc. etc. when they can’t even remember it was their generation that got so much for free.
They live in mortal fear that their privileges will be eroded sometime in the future and they are rabid right-wingers almost without exception.
Yes, these were the long-haired hippies and alternative types of the 60s and 70s who began to question everything and wanted a better way and fore everyone to be equal.
Yeah right!
They are no longer interested in anything except their own wallets.
I see it all the time, and I laugh whenever some apologist comes up with another bunch of statistics to prove how wrong we all are about boomers.
I don’t care about stats, National have proven to all of us time and time again how stats can be manipulated to prove any point.
I am ashamed at how my generation have lost the plot and become smug self-interested Tory apologists.
“Yes, these were the long-haired hippies and alternative types of the 60s and 70s who began to question everything and wanted a better way and fore everyone to be equal.
Yeah right!”
It’s something that really fascinates me …. that process of mutation, especially when you see the end result of some of those that one grew up with.
Funny thing is, I remember them ranting about their parents (those old fuddy duddies). It’s interesting to see how many of them have become far worse than their parents ever were.
I haven’t visited the Coromandel or the Nelson areas in a long time (where communes and those bloody long haired hippies who were too lazy to get a job used to congregate in droves). I don’t think I really want to.
Spot on Mike. As a Boomer 2 tho I experienced mass unemployment, sexual harassment on a daily basis in the work place, sexism in career advancement,23%interest on mortgages when starting a family,the reforms of the 80’s and 90’s and the constant stress of raising a family while trying to avoid excessive debt. Educating one’s offspring to be debt free members of the Precariat while sacrificing my own career to be a full time Parent and living in substandard housing to afford to do so were the choices I made. I now have a comfortable old age and have retired early. I am still working( for myself)I have choices now and I had choices when I was young. None of them were easily made. The young don’t have those choices. They have zero security even if they have a trade or an education. It sucks . I will support my offspring whenever I can until the day I die because that way they will survive with their own homes all going well. What a ridiculous scenario! It is the price of neo -liberalism aka neo slavery!
I agree the Stuff article seems willfully devisive.
I can also understand the GenX and millenial opinions that the boomers who benefitted from post-war reforms are the same folks who stripped away those very infrastructures to leave us in this current state, which indeed seems quite unfair.
However I gather your main point here is that we need to forget about who’s to blame and concentrate on what it will realistically take to get us back on track to a more equal and inclusive society. All else is strawman propaganda.
appears to me that both the article and the response are equally guilty of stereotyping both groups.
“Millennial’s on the other hand lived under neoliberal Government’s who didn’t give a fuck. Who walked away from those obligations, who deregulated and allowed free market myths of individualism to replace social responsibilities. This has culminated in Millennial’s being debt slaves in an economic environment that gives them nothing.”
The best blogpost ever.
Boomers: unionised, good wages, free education, housing available and affordable.
Millenials: deunionised , low wages, student debt in excess of $15 billion, housing unaffordable and a dream beyond their dream.
Have I left anything out?
Water quality, overseas land and asset sales.
Climate change.
Have you left something out ?
yes I am a boomer I also worked deunionised for low wages, have student debt,am now retired and living in a shed.because thats whats available.I havnt sold out on my social and green ideals
and I am not the only one .
this pop sociology is mindless , diversive and shameful, one would have thought some people would know better.
Sorry to here it J.R. It just that boomers had the all the best bits and keep taking. I know heaps still working, denying the youngins work and they’re really well off. Bet they vote blue, they suck so bad!
Yes the ladder has well and truely been pulled up.
Huge generalisations about age cohorts here. Nicely reflects the MSM.
No wonder we are going backwards.
After nine years of National, yeah I’m not surprised either…
Perfect explaination!
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