Posted on 05/31/2026 2:53:08 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
Once upon a time, inequality in Europe was largely horizontal. The rich western half drove BMWs and holidayed abroad, while the poorer east rewired its own appliances and queued for bread.
But three decades of catch-up growth in erstwhile communist countries has put paid to jokes about Romanian cars whose top speed was “downhill”. These days inequality in Europe has a vertical dimension—one that goes up and down family trees.
Youngsters unable to move out of their parents’ spare room due to sky-high house prices wonder if they will ever enjoy the lifestyle as adults which they knew as kids.
Thirty-somethings in jobs pay hefty taxes to fund the pensions of oldies who retired in their prime. Costs related to ageing are guzzling a quarter of the European Union’s GDP, a figure unlikely to fall as the Old Continent grows older still. To be a young European is to feel oneself an unwitting participant in an intergenerational confidence trick.
(Excerpt) Read more at economist.com ...
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Generation Jones (Trailing-Edge Boomers) Born between 1956 and 1964
Herr Keir Starmer just made it into the tail end of the tail end.
He is happily riding the decline of GB.
Which is intentional.
The people with the power to effect change--political leaders, business leaders, people influential in the media and entertainment--numbered tens of thousands.
The rest of the boomers were just along for the ride.
In academia, the very oldest boomers along with those born in the late 1930s or during WWII had a big advantage--they were in a position to get academic jobs when universities were expanding during the 1960s. By 1970 or so the job market dried up and from then on getting an academic position was much harder than in the 1960s.
Plus boomers born to a rich or upper middle class family had a much different experience than first-generation college students or those who never went to college.
The crazy-high taxation is an institution in Europe. It prevents even the frugal from being able to save and retire.
It’s not as if they have to pay for their defense.
Europe has always had a sort of fiefdom.
>y initial thought was they were blaming A,erica;'s boomers, but since I can't see the whole article, thy might be thinking about their own boomers.
However, I think that claim could be attributed to many differnt nations who installed certain social safety nets that were doomed to burden future generations, usually quite innocently because they refused to look down the road to the future generations.
Who’s gonna live in those houses when the boomers are gone ( a thing which isn’t far off) ? Won’t they be on the market? Won’t the market have to come down if there isn’t a lot of buyers? What about the property or money the boomers leave? My advice to these finger pointing name calling crybabies is to work as hard as you can and bide your time you e got a lock on the future.
When Boomers were buying their first homes, they weren’t scraping off of mom and dad until age 30 ... they were out working ... sometimes 2 or 3 jobs just to SAVE UP (something the whiners don’t seem to know much about) to buy said home.
I’m sorry we’re not dying fast enough for you.
“Boomers are a selfish selfish bunch.”
All the Boomers I know are still financing their adult children.
The majority of Boomer’s parents didn’t leave their kids ‘set up’.
Boomers worked for what they have.
Where is it written that ‘setting kids up’ is a must?
So let me get this straight.
We realize it’s wrong to demonize groups based on sex, race, etc but it’s perfectly correct & logical to pretend that boomers are a homogeneous group and we can freely demonize them based on their birth cohort especially if we can excuse our own failings and gain symopathy by doing so.
Some people like putting other people into boxes because it makes it easier to drive narrative and manipulate the system via grievance rhetoric, e.g. the kind of people without the desire to work hard, or to plan ahead, the people that find it easier to grift.
I am a boomer and I never even thought that idea at any time. I also don’t know anyone else who is a boomer who thinks like that.
It is not generational.
No prior generation of people, in the 250 or so prior generations throughout recorded history, ever got themselves into a position to Exterminate their own people, and went forward to do just that.
The English and French did a pretty good job during the hundred years war in Europe. The English King claimed the provinces were his, and went ahead with killing off enormous numbers of them.
The Cambodians did a pretty good job under Pol Pot.
The French killed off a large portion of their population during the reign of terror after the French revolution.
Jaysus is there anything boomers are not blamed for?
“Always the victim.”
Odd. It is liberals and the young who seek to blame someone else for their failure to perform.
Kids of the Baby Boom
(The Bellamy Brothers)
I’d say the 2 generations before Boomers gave us the blueprint. Also, every other generation that sent their sons off to the meat grinders of war. Plenty of blame to go around.
Nope, kid, communism/socialism has screwed Europe.
I wish we had that option. Both of our daughters are doing better than we ever did, which is a good thing. We’ll be leaving paltry pittances to our grandchildren instead.
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