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Comment by jgon | Hacker News Reader

We usually have checks and balances in democracy so that a majority can't vote to say, take all the money from some minority group that has less voting power than them. What is happening now is that a "loophole" has been discovered wherein instead of just directly taking all of the money from some minority class the property owning class just instead condemns them to a lifetime of renting whereby just enough rent is charged to ensure that they are by and large never able to move out of renting, but not so much as to sow the seeds of a violent revolution (yet). Its democracy in the same way that voting to end all medical benefits for people over 65 would also be "democracy", which is to say it would be naked inter-generational and inter-class warfare.

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I get what you're saying and I'm against inter-generational hate.

There is no plot against young people. Remember that most old people have children. If today's young people would time travel to some decades back, they'd too make the most of the conditions then. I would not imagine any young person that owns a home to sell it at a discount out of solidarity, they too would self-optimize without any consideration for anybody else.

Young people today aren't especially targeted, they are at the end of what was a demographic/economic/infra/building boom. Those conditions cannot be recreated.

I don't think that the older generation "hates" youth, I don't think they think about them at all really. In the conversations I've had with Boomers and older people, although there is the standard derision for youth that is stereotypically expected of older generations, I would say there is more an immense blindspot and unwillingness to consider even a slight sacrifice of any type, even for their own children. The expectation is that the youth will just have to work hard like they did in there day and a complete unwillingness to confront any sort of conversation about what hard work could buy in their day vs the present one. I've watched boomers talk to each other about their kids or grandkids being unable to buy a home amongst each and other and I would describe the overall vibe as being one of detached "oh well, sucks for them" type acceptance, and trying to console each other that their kids are doing fine in other ways (they buy a new iphone every other year!!!). Your comment actually mirrors a lot of their attitude, especially the part about how the youth of today would definitely do the same things, so why feel guilty about doing it, a hypothesis that has no way of being disproved and which exists largely as a balm to soothe their conscience as they try to deal with the cognitive dissonance of watching their children suffer, and then voting for parties and policies that will prolong that suffering.

You wouldn't imagine any young person doing something to help another person out in some sort of solidarity and yet I generally see this exact mindset in terms of voting for left wing parties that will raise taxes, including theirs, voting and campaigning for increased density which will affect the character of their neighborhoods and possibly decrease their property values. Hell I have never voted for a party that would decrease my taxes and I am pretty up front about needing to be taxed more as I am very fortunate with my employment and income situation. I've had conversations at length with boomers advocating for tax cuts which would cut funding to education, arguing that it is pretty convenient that they want these cuts right around the time that they have no children in public school and asked if we should also cut medical funding, funding that they disproportionately draw on and the response has been universally "No", that funding is good and necessary.

So I don't think that they young are "especially targeted" and more that anyone who is not a boomer and up is targeted and that happens to include the youth. We can tell ourselves a bunch of stories but stats around home ownership, lifespan, healthspan, median income, etc, etc, etc, a laundry list tells the actual story of what the current relationship is like between generations. You don't have to hate someone to harm them greatly...

Step on a bus sometime. The hate towards younger children (below, give or take 10 years) is easily noticeable. Oh and the hate towards male youngsters starts again at 17 or so, especially if there's somewhat more color on the skin, but of course nobody really dares to treat them like they treat a 6 year old.

This pretty much sums it up. I doubt it's some special boomer mentality as much as a "people" mentality. People are fairly selfish and don't want to reduce their quality of life.

What's shifted over the last few decades is that people live longer. Boomers basically just got lucky - they didn't have a huge older generation above them, so the cost of social security was fairly low when they were young. They managed to buy houses at a time of massive urban expansion, meaning their total lifetime cost of housing was pretty low.

And now they're heading towards retirement, with vast unearned housing wealth and having spent decades with housing as an almost insignificant cost, they've got no incentive to change things.

You forgot to mention that boomers had high mortgage rates. According to https://themortgagereports.com/61853/30-year-mortgage-rates-... my parents, boomers, would likely have had 16%+ and 12%+ rates when they bought their first homes. Contrast this to myself, a borderline Millennial/Gen X, who bought houses after the 2008 crash and currently have a 3% mortgage. Makes me wonder why Boomers are the always the primary target of younger generation's ire.

The interest rate at the time of buying is actually fairly irrelevant. What matters is the total lifetime cost of housing. Even though interest rates were high, purchase costs were much lower in terms of multiples of income. It's pretty clear that many boomers have benefited from a very low total lifetime cost of housing.

The low interest rates/high house prices is now turning into a double blow - at least here in the UK (and for anyone that needs to move house in the US) - as low interest rates meant low monthly payments, which has inflated house prices further. Now people are having to refinance massive mortgages at higher rates, the cost is becoming even greater.

Ultimately you just have to look at statistics of home ownership rates by age to see that things are getting worse for younger people. https://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/economic-research/resbull/2022...

young people are absolutely targeted - education was fre for older generation, and young people get a lofetine of debt.

In boomer time government probided free milk for babies, now baby formula is the most stolen items and is kept under lock and key in super market

Todays politicians talk about growijg up ina. councill home as a market of being through hard times. They dont even get thay councill homes are gone, and if they were growing up today, they would be on the street

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