Stereotypes catch a bad rap. But when you get to the heart of the matter, all they are is hyper-efficient ways of transmitting common understandings.
For example, we all know the trope of the clueless Boomer clicking his tongue at younger generations who haven’t made out as well as he did.
It makes sense, in a way.
To someone who grew up during the post-WW II boom, seeing whole generations floundering economically must be confounding.
A silver lining of the rampant chaos ravaging society is that the economic pain first inflicted on the young is now visiting Boomers.
Parents of struggling Millennials once told their impoverished offspring to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. But now, Boomers are sweating bullets as their empty McMansions go unsold for years, and the uniparty openly discusses gutting Social Security.
Having the lion’s share of America’s wealth future-proofed the Boomers’ 1980s lifestyles for a few decades. But time is catching up with them–in earnest.
Because while they lounged around complaining about globalists, those same elites were further consolidating their power.
And our rulers’ near-total power comes courtesy of vast generational wealth which their ancestors accumulated decades; even centuries, ago.
Related: The Generational Wealth Gap
That inheritance gives the ruling class an unbeatable head start where socioeconomic influence is concerned.
Here’s a metaphor I’m fond of using …
Imagine time as a 500 k marathon track where each kilometer represents one year. It’s a relay race where each runner passes the baton to his kid, who gets to start at the point where his dad finished.
For the sake of argument, let’s say that all our ancestors started on the same line 500 km/years back from us. Due to differences in natural ability, training, and dumb luck, some of the racers pulled ahead. But the others still had a chance to catch up if they pushed themselves. But the math says that at least some of front runners’ kids would maintain their fathers’ lead, and in some cases expand it.
Eventually, some of the 3rd and 4th generation runners way out front would run over the horizon from those trailing behind. A number of them would realize that no one would know if they cheated. So, some of them would indulge the temptation to stop running on foot and hop in golf carts. Their already wide lead, which a runner farther back might have been able to overcome with supreme effort, would double. And when no chance existed of anyone discovering their cheating, the golf cart drivers would switch to sports cars, then bullet trains, then supersonic jets.
What are the odds that the succeeding generations who never had to train, but got to ride out the race on the Concord, are as fit as their ancestors who started running?
This is why we see such gross mismanagement in every sector of commerce. Our rulers have inherited an almost omnipotent machine, but they no longer remember how it works. They have degenerated into a cargo cult that tries to appease the machine with blood rituals and sacrifices.
The machine is incredibly resilient–it was built to be–but one day it will stop.
Prepare yourself for chaos.
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“But now, Boomers are sweating bullets as their empty McMansions go unsold for years. . .”
There’s a house a block away from where I work. I’d consider it a dream home. Nice design inside and out, has a pool with outdoor kitchen, good neighborhood, multi story, etc. It’s been on the market for at least all of 2024. It’s priced out at $800k.
Not even ten years ago, it was bought for $120k. In charity, I don’t know how much of what I’ve seen have been addons in the past 10 years, but all the same, none of that objectively is worth $700k in appreciation. If I were to buy that home, a generous offer would be about $250k.
Then there’s a home up the street from where I live. Big 6 bed, 4 bath home on even bigger land. It’s been trying to go for at least $900k the past two years. Been on and off the market multiple times during that time frame.
I can’t help but laugh my butt off. Boomers are gonna have to suck it up and take a hit if they want their houses sold. No one who is in the market for a house needs nor can afford their McMansions.
You’ve got the sellers’ number, all right. They bought in thinking that:
a) The market only ever goes up, and
b) Millennials owe them half a million dollars for doing a Home Depot cabinet and countertop job.
Only in the Boomers’ deluded mental universe could that math work. And as we’re seeing, the Boomerverse is crashing headlong into reality.
I just wish the housing market would hurry up and crash so the rest of us could afford them.
Assuming we don’t end up in a mutant wasteland from the crash.
Word on the street is to expect a correction sometime from January-April of next year.
I’m there with you, and we are blessed to own a house. I hate these prices for everyone. As was pointed out, I’m not taking my house equity with me. People and families need places to live.
Heck yeah!
Been trying to get out of rental market for 2+ years now, and so far… can’t get around the delusional pricing. Literally looking at houses that were sold 3 months ago, and then re-listed $30k higher even though they’ve stood empty all that time, and not had any work done on them. They’re expecting house values that appreciate at $10k/month now, even while they are standing empty, with the power turned off, mildewing and risking squatters??
I have been keeping a close eye on the listings, and am starting to see things in our price range now, that six months ago would have been snapped up by investors in a week, but are now… sitting on the market for months, going through multiple price-cuts, before finally selling. I think it’s starting to crumble, and we are in one of those places that everybody and their aunt have been relocating *to* since covid. Make of that what you will. I’m not sure it has a huge effect at our (very median) income level, since the people relocating are by and large wealthy and are not buying the same houses we are looking at. If the market in our range is faltering, it is because slumlord investors are becoming more cautious. Perhaps they are not making quite the return on investment they expected?
It’s all “Market forces don’t care about your feelings” until that gets flipped on them and they have to lower their price bc the main demographic can’t afford it. The invisible hand demands it.
It really is astonishing that people can keep believing that “real estate goes up forever” and completely fail to see all of the readily-available charts out there showing that real estate has been going up much, much more steeply than income. As though people could just keep paying a larger and larger portion of their income for housing, forever. Magically. Future homebuyers will not need food, I guess.
Maybe “your home is an investment” was part of the problem. If it’s a durable good which will lose value instead of capital – which can only gain real value if wealth is actually expanding – then home ownership as an investment is a lie.
Yes, “home as investment” is only possible in strange worlds like the last several decades. The building itself depreciates. Only the land underneath it is the asset and that’s what controls the overall value. Real Estate is just as much a bubble as stocks, etc.
I used to wonder how it was that rich people would have such a hard time entering the Kingdom of Heaven, as someone who has never been materially well off and never wanted for that much, until the last 15 years or so of watching Baby Boomers melting down and essentially regressing to spoiled kids who won’t share their candy because Mom and Dad aren’t around to make them do it. There is an ugliness that was always there that was nowhere near as obvious to see as it is today.
We might make light of every generation under the sun, but the Boomers are so attached to material goods that they cannot fathom an existence without having plenty of it. Perhaps it’s a blessing in disguise for those of us in Gen Y who were headed down that path–this is how you will end up unless you steer away now.
I’m not going to proclaim any sort of judgement on that generation, but that is one serious handicap they have that has damaged them tremendously. It has certainly made me reassess the way I deal with others in my life and how I plan to act as I grow older.
The fatal flaw in Mammon worship, which its disciples bend over backwards to cover up, is that having more means having more to lose, and everybody loses it all in the end.
Hear, hear. There are two sorts of people who think about money constantly, the very poor and the very rich. I want to have enough that I can be comfortable, but I don’t want to have to constantly manage and stress about my money. On top of that, if you’re REALLY rich, then it suddenly becomes economically viable to make you the target of either kidnapping, or a targeted scam/phishing campaign tailor made specifically to fool you.