Quote:
Originally Posted by Sephiroth
Please don't take this rebuke from me as personal to you.
But the term "boomers" is offensive. It's a category, emphasised by people such as David Willetts as being a valid target for wealth taxes. (https://www.politicshome.com/news/ar...minister-warns). Also that loser Javid took a pop at people born in the 40s and 50s. Disgraceful - we elect those idiots.
Here are the facts (on matters of fairness) that these idiots choose to ignore:
1. That generation rebuilt the population following WW2;
2. That generation worked hard, paid their taxes and bought their houses;
3. At the end of their working lives, it was obvious and reasonable that they'd have gained wealth;
4. To be essentially blamed by politicians for being alive is disgraceful;
5. It is the policies of successive governments that have brought us to the position of ridiculous house prices.
People of my generation should not be labelled otherwise we might have to add a "B" to BAME and that would be the final insult.
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Wind your neck in.
'Boomer' is a contraction of 'Baby Boomer' and is a perfectly reasonable and legitimate category used in population studies.
To answer you point by point:
1. No they didn't. The British population has been skyrocketing since the industrial revolution. In comparison to the rate of growth since 1800, deaths in both world wars barely register on the overall total. Yes, they contributed to a post-war baby boom, but 'rebuilt' is hyperbole.
2. They worked no harder and paid no more tax than anyone since. If you're trying to paint the baby boomer generation as somehow more virtuous than those that followed, then no, sorry, it won't wash. As for 'bought their houses'; well that's the exact point, isn't it. Economic conditions allowed them to do so in a way that is no longer possible in the UK. The pattern of property ownership amongst the postwar generation is a function of economics influenced by politics, not the protestant work ethic.
3. Not at issue.
4. A straw man.
5. Governments enact policies they put to voters at elections. It is well known that even today, policies are aimed squarely at boomers in retirement because they're the ones that vote in greatest numbers. Throughout their lives, the baby boomer generation (and, to be fair, some of the previous one, born in the 1930s and early 40s and too young to fight) have voted for policies that have preferred their interests.
Even implying that this issue is in any way equivalent to the prejudices faced by BAME citizens of the UK is very silly. The vast majority of these people came to the UK from the 1950s onwards to do the jobs boomers and their parents refused to, and have not shared in the wealth created in the UK in the second half of the 20th century in anything like the same way.