I’m at least relieved to not have lead poisoning, for my gay brother to be safely out, and for my interracial marriage to not be scorned by the community.
Stating the raw value of the house will only make naysayers throw inflation into your face.
The better way of saying that would be,
buy a detached SFH for only 4× annual minimum wage
Like, really drive it home how absolutely unaffordable homes are these days. In my corner of Canada, the median detached SFH is going for 28× minimum wage, and it’s 32× if it’s new construction. My own 1972 split level sold brand-new for only 4× the 1972 minimum wage.
Jesus in today money that’s 60k for a house. For a nice hours our parents bought
Just shows you how low minimum wage is.
“single family home” means more than “detached sfh”
What I like about this is that it doesn’t pretend boomers are uniquely evil, just the generation that got lucky.
I would still take my life over my mom’s. Things were not good for women back then.
Did she starve to death? Because that’s our current timeline
It’s getting comparable… women are being charged with murder for totally natural miscarriages. Imagine ending up in prison for decades for something you had absolutely no control over.
And women are also dying from preventable issues with pregnancy, because it is illegal for doctors to remove fetuses even when they are a direct threat to the mother’s life (ectopic) or even totally dead in the first place.
America is becoming exceedingly hostile to anyone not white, cis, and male.
If it makes you feel any better it still feels pretty hostile to me as well.
I agree that things were bad back then but my point is things are about to become much much worse. We will all be looking back wishing we could go back in time. Our future is bleak and you’ll be lucky to not starve to death in the coming years.
Well she was around before birth control was legal or widely available, and before abortion was legal. Yeah I agree the US is getting more hostile but nobody at my work is asking me to get the coffee, or saying women can’t do the job. And raised 4 kids while doing a dissertation, widowed when the youngest was not even a teen yet.
I don’t think now is great but it’s better in a lot of ways.
There’s a lot of people who resent that things ever changed for women, and have spent every moment since trying to put things back to the way they were. I’ve worked for a lot of them. I’ve definitely been expected to get coffee, been told not to speak to male coworkers unless absolutely necessary, been told that I dressed too well and it was tempting male coworkers to sin, been told there was something mentally wrong with me because I didn’t “take care of myself” by wearing more makeup, been blamed for work conflicts I wasn’t involved in because I should’ve been the peacemaker. All in the last 10 years. But, yeah, I’m glad I can use birth control legally.
Holy crap! That is dreadful. I have not worked anywhere that backwards. “Not to speak to male coworkers?”. Did you work for the Mike Pence campaign or something? What did the other women in the workplace think?
I did get paid less than the guys I worked with in the early 1990s, literally because they were men. But not since. We have female VP of Finance, female Financial Controller, I’d say it’s 75/25 still in the top so not equal, but about half our operational managers are women, and I work in sports, that doesn’t seem a wildly progressive industry.
And then bitch and moan when anything doesn’t go absolutely perfectly in their favor.
The future looks less bleak if the goal is not to live the life of that generation. There is AI, there are mobile phones, there is solar power and many more things.
When things are expensive, it means that few resources are used. This is good for the environment.
The big difference is that communication is free. We can talk to almost anybody in the world. This is still a huge untapped potential. That generation had a good life, but ours can be better.
Fuck LLMs and mainstream phones OSes
https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/voting-and-registration/p20-370.html
https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/how-groups-voted-1980
Boomers weren’t the ones who elected Reagan, they were at most 35 at the time.
That’s the president that started to fuck things up and it was just the same as usual, older people being more conservative, younger people not showing up to vote.
I will not stand for this Nixon erasure
Both your links gave me 404 errors
They were almost all able to vote in 1980 at 16- 34, and made up a large portion of the population then in 84 they were all able to vote and saw what actions he took the previous election and voted for him more…
Copypaste for you:
How Groups Voted in 1980
1980 Group Carter Reagan Anderson TOTAL All Voters Pct. 41% 51% 8% SEX Men 51 38 55 7 Women 49 46 47 7 RACE White 88 36 56 8 African-American 10 83 14 3 Hispanic 2 56 37 7 AGE 18-21 6 45 44 11 22-29 17 44 44 11 30-44 31 38 55 7 45-59 23 39 55 6 60 & over 18 41 55 4 INCOME <$10,000 13 52 42 6 $10 -14,999 14 48 43 8 $15-24,999 30 39 54 7 $25-50,000 24 33 59 8 >$50,000 5 26 66 8 UNION HOUSEHOLD Yes 26 48 45 7 No 62 36 56 8 REGION East 32 44 48 8 Midwest 20 42 52 6 South 27 45 52 3 West 11 36 54 10 PARTY Democrat 43 67 27 6 Republican 28 11 85 4 Independent 23 31 56 13 POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY Liberal 17 60 28 1 Moderate 46 43 49 8 Conservative 28 23 73 4 Notes: Survey by CBS News and the New York Times. Sample of 15,201 voters as they left voting booths on Election Day, November 4, 1980. “Don’t know” and “other” responses not included.
And then in 1984 they voted for Reagan even more
Don’t know why the links don’t work 🤷
If you look at the actual numbers you realize that it’s the people that were older that voted in majority for Reagan and the % of registered electors and voters was higher for older populations.
Voting and Registration in the Election of November 1980
Within Data April 1982
Report Number: P20-370
- Table 1. Reported Voting and Registration, by Single Years of Age and Sex [<1.0 MB]
- !Table 2. Reported Voting and Registration, by Race, Spanish Origin, Sex, and Age, for the United States and Regions [<1.0 MB]
- Table 3. Reported Voting and Registration, by Race, Spanish Origin, and Metropolitan-Nonmetropolitan Residence, for the United States and Regions [<1.0 MB]
- Table 4. Reported Voting and Registration, by Race, Spanish Origin, and Age, for Divisions [<1.0 MB]
- Table 5. Reported Voting and Registration, by Race and Spanish Origin, for States [<1.0 MB]
- Table 6. Reported Voting and Registration, by Race and Spanish Origin, for 30 Selected Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas [<1.0 MB]
- Table 7. Reported Voting and Registration of Primary Family Householders, by Race, Spanish Origin, Age, Tenure, and Presence of Own Children Under 18 Years [<1.0 MB]
- Table 8. Reported Voting and Registration, by Race, Spanish Origin, Age, Sex, and Marital Status [<1.0 MB]
- Table 9. Reported Voting of Husbands and Wives in Primary Married-Couple Families, by Selected Characteristics [<1.0 MB]
- Table 10. Reported Voting and Registration, by Race, Spanish Origin, Age, Sex, and Years of School Completed [<1.0 MB]
- Table 11. Reported Voting and Registration, by Race, Spanish Origin, Sex, Age, Employment Status, and Class of Worker [<1.0 MB]
- Table 12. Reported Voting and Registration, by Race, Spanish Origin, Sex, and Major Occupation Group [<1.0 MB]
- Table 13. Reported Voting and Registration of Primary Family Members, by Race, Spanish Origin, Age, and Family Income [<1.0 MB]
- Table 14. Reported Voting and Registration of Primary Family Members, by Race, Spanish Origin, Age, Duration of Residence, and Tenure [<1.0 MB]
- Table 15. Reported Voting in 1980 and 1976 of Persons 22 Years Old and Over, by Race, Spanish Origin, Sex, and Age [<1.0 MB]
- Table 16. Reported Voting in 1980 and 1976 of Persons 22 Years Old and Over, by Race, Spanish Origin, Sex, and Years of School Completed [<1.0 MB]
- Table 17. Reported Reason for Not Voting, for Persons Who Reported Registering But Not Voting, by Race, Spanish Origin, Sex, and Age [<1.0 MB]
- Table 18. Reported Reason for Not Voting, for Persons Who Reported Registering But Not Voting, by Race, Spanish Origin, Sex, Employment Status, Class of Worker, and Major Occupation Group [<1.0 MB]
- Table 19. Reported Reason for Not Registering to Vote, by Race, Spanish Origin, Sex, and Age [<1.0 MB]
- Table 20. Reported Reason for Not Registering to Vote, by Race, Spanish Origin, Sex, Employment Status, Class of Worker, and Major Occupation Group [<1.0 MB]
- Table 21. Reported Voting for a Presidential Candidate and Method of Voting, by Race, Spanish Origin, Sex, and Age [<1.0 MB]
- Table 22. Reporting on Voting and Registration, by Race, Spanish Origin, Sex, and Type of Respondent [<1.0 MB]
peace out
Spend their retirement calling the cafeteria staff at Luby’s racial slurs and saying trans kids and drag queens are evil.
And voting for people that will make everyone’s life hell and ensure that no one else will ever get to experience the quality of life that they did.
Not to sound ageist, but I firmly believe voting privileges should be revoked when you retire.
I would think that removing the barriers to voting that affect younger voters is the better option, along with getting rid of the electoral college and allowing felons to vote. Taking away voting rights for certain classes of citizens is a slippery slope, especially when the root problem is some votes count more than others and many potential votes never make it to the polls.
they way leaders emerge from certain personalities, and get so corrupted, i think we’d be better off with random selection.
THIS is the way. Make political service be similar to jury duty.
If you need to wait 18 years to vote you shouldn’t be able to vote once you are 18 years from average life expectancy (as in life expectancy is 80, you can vote until you’re 62, not after).
Imagine how much focus would be put on healthcare if that were the case…
A quick google says the US is 77 years, add 18 to that and you’re already way too high. 77 is geriatric, just like everyone complained about the last and current US presidents.
Or… did you mean ‘from’ as in below? That would make more sense. Early 60s isn’t too old though.
Yes, I meant 18 years after birth = 18 years before average age of death, so politicians would need to either reduce 18 to something lower or would have to work to increase life expectancy.
I’m not sure about voting but probably about being elected
I wonder if you’ll still firmly believe that when you retire.
I don’t trust anyone with one foot in the grave to make long term decisions that benefit young people more than themselves any more than I trust a small child to make sound logical laws about bedtime.
Well we all vote in our own best interests, as I’m sure you do too. The art of good governance is to provide an environment in which everyone can thrive.
The problem here is not old people who don’t vote in your best interest, it’s the government that aren’t ensuring everyone is catered for.
They didn’t just pull up the ladder behind them, they have a ladder propulsion system that will launch it into space
Also flying to Vietnam for a government paid vacation when they were 18 years old.
A lot of boomers missed Vietnam as even in 1975 some boomers were only 11 years old
Those from the actual baby boom right after WW2 weren’t
Those would be gen X.
Baby boomers are 1946-1964 Gen X is 1965-1980 Gen Y is 1981-1996 Gen Z is 1997-2012 Gen alpha is 2013- present
It’s all made up horse shit to draw lines between us. People don’t neatly fit into a line or graph and it’s really lame people keep repeating this crap.
Shhhh, the primary social media population wants to believe life was a breeze until they came along.
Life has always been a struggle, but it truly feels hopeless being 20 something given the current state of the world. There’s some days where I spend 80% of the day consumed by suicidal thoughts.
There was no oil crisis, no cold war, no economic crash in the 80s, no housing shortage in the 80s, no rampant crime!
The 70/80s where glorious!
/Sssss
We didn’t start the fire
It’s also forgetting the Korean war, and several smaller wars in between (Panama, Honduras).
Vietnam was bad, but don’t forget so easily that we only just got out of the longest running war the US was ever been in, and it wasn’t Boomers or Gen X fighting in it. It spanned two generations. Now, because there US just can’t not be involved in a conflict, we’re casting about trying to find a good enemy; I think the next one will be with a developed country. We’ve realized that we don’t do so well with insurgencies, so maybe Russia or China. Or, maybe India and Pakistan will finish everything for us! They both have nukes, and China isn’t just going to sit there while they trade nukes across the border.
Anyway, it’s a little depressing that y’all have already written off the 800,000 veterans who fought in Afghanistan as being unworthy of notice.
The Korean War “ended” in 1953 the oldest boomer would have been 7 year olds, about half of them were the right age for Vietnam but even with that only about 2.7m served in some capacity for the Vietnam war with a lot in non combat roles there were 76m baby boom era so less than 4%
Fair comment about the Korean war; I incorrectly mentally lump it together with the Vietnam war as part of the general “war on communism,” and it wasn’t the boomers.
It was kind of a breeze in comparison to now, no? My dad bought his first house for $37,000 when the average salary was $15,000. I just bought a house and couldn’t find one within an hour for under $420,000… The average salary around here is apparently $55,000
But is it also the average household salary? Most boomers were single income. Then in the late eighties early nineties people realized that you could get higher mortgages in a double income, and as a result houses got a lot more expensive. Also, interest rates have declined a lot since the eighties, which also allowed people to borrow more.
That just adds to my point? It doesn’t matter why it happened, housing is significantly more expensive compared to income. But since you brought it up, let’s do the math.
$15,000 average salary, single income, $37,000 house. That’s about 30 months salary.
$55,000 average salary, dual income ($110,000), $420,000 house. That’s 45 months salary. With both people working.
So…yeah, seems like “the basics” are a lot harder to achieve nowadays than they were in the 80s.
I really wouldn’t know if that last statement is true. We were only discussing housing, so not all of the basics. Also, like I said earlier, interest rates on mortgages were higher in the past. I would also consider this when comparing, because the interest can be more than total debt.
Interest rates peaked in '81 at 18% and yes that brings it closer to today’s % of income…but it plummeted within a few years.
And housing/mortgage stuff isn’t the only part in this equation - the bottom 90% of the country has been getting significantly less for their labor since Reagan. Money is hoarded and wages have not kept up with inflation
We’re a 1950’s 91% top-tier tax rate away from the same.
EXACTLY! I found something so defeated and defeatist about this thread UNTIL I read your comment.
This was once a reality!
Why do we not have it now?
Obviously an extremely nuanced question but clearly part of that is that even the obscenely wealthy were forced to realize that obscene wealth destroys more than it builds.
It’s amazing how often this gets mentioned. In truth almost nobody paid that tax rate because it applied only to salaries. Rich people have always gotten most of their income from capital gains (which were taxed at a low rate in the 1950s, just like today).
It applies to income, not salaries, and it applies to corporate income as well as personal income. Nobody needs to pay it for it to achieve its purpose. Indeed, nobody should be paying it, ever.
You have a choice. I’ll give you $900 for you to do anything you want with. Alternatively, I’ll give you $10,000, but you can only spend it on something that you can convince me is something you need for your business.
You can buy $900 of GOOG, or you can spend $10,000 on a bunch of electronics. You can buy $900 of AAPL, or spend $10,000 “entertaining clients” at a strip club.
You can buy $900 worth of stocks, or purchase goods and services produced by workers.
Nobody is taking the $900 here. Everyone is taking the $10,000. Nobody is paying 91% on $10,000 over the line. You can get much more value from your large “business” spending than you can get from your small investment.
Now, if the numbers are $6300 on anything, or $10,000 on business, a lot of people are going to take the $6300. This is a top-tier of 37%.
$7500 on anything, or $10,000 on business, most people are going to take the $7500. This is a top-tier of 25%.
The 91% tax rate isn’t for the government to spend more money. The 91% tax rate is to ensure the richest among us get greater value from hiring workers than they do from buying securities.
You frame it like those are the only two choices. They aren’t. The third choice is capital flight.
People constantly forget that governments don’t have godlike tax enforcement powers. In the real world people avoid taxes via a million different avenues. Absconding with their money for greener pastures is a last resort but it happens constantly.
Take China for example. Taxes are way lower than the US yet capital flight is such a huge problem that the government has enacted Capital controls. Yet capital flight from China continues largely unabated.
So what this means in practice is that if you want to have a 91% top corporate tax rate in the US without a gargantuan capital flight problem you’re going to need a government that is way more powerful and draconian than either the US or China is right now.
Now you might say “what if I just let everyone go and get the money back when they try to sell things to the US?” Well that’s basically what the US under Trump is doing right now, via tariffs. But then you tack on the capital flight beforehand and that means all the big companies, all the great jobs, leave the country before prices skyrocket. This is how you impoverish the US to third world status.
Do you have an alternative suggestion to tackle the issues that such a high tax rate tries to address? I’m just genuinely curious.
You frame it like those are the only two choices. They aren’t.
No, I provided a simplistic, informal explanation, not a conclusive evaluation.
The third choice is capital flight.
Let the parasites leave. That’s the point. They are sucking the working class dry, and we would be better off without them.
Your argument operates under the assumption that a member of the current ownership class needs to be involved for a business to be successful. That is simply untrue. They aren’t the component enabling employment. They are the parasite leeching our productivity.
The reality is that the most prosperous era of American history was made under a 91% tax rate, specifically because such a tax rate drives capital into the control of the working class.
Yeah, my mother was able to earn a bachelor’s degree (iirc? either that or an associates), paying for it by working as a cashier at McDonalds.
The fucking eighties, man.
My anger as I approach my thirties, unable to afford college even when I was working full time (before I lost my job), can not be overstated.
You can still do that if you live in a first world country… Yes, I’m implying what I’m implying.
Lemmy, every 5 seconds:
guys are you aware the united states sucks
guys
guysI don’t think you’re aware
the US sucks
guys
listen
hey
the US sucks
did you know that?
guyssssss
like, yes, I get it, we suck, but also it’s exhausting being unable to emigrate anywhere and being constantly reminded of how much suck I get to endure for the rest of forever.
And dint forget, no matter who you voted for you’re still a dirty American and FUCK YOU for existing at a time when your country sucks more than usual. It doesn’t matter how you voted or what your beliefs are.
And also if you can’t move out of the country it’s your fault for not… Something. I guess.
And also depending on what community you’re in, SUPER FUCK YOU for deciding to leave your country instead of fixing it.
And of course, as we can already see, every single shortcoming of your country is CLEARLY your fault or at the very least you deserve to be punished for your country being shitty in any way, whether it started long before you were born or not.
That’s what happens when your country won’t shut up about how great they are. Or rather, won’t shut up full stop.
“USA! USA! USA! NUMBER ONE!” Is so fucking annoying, of course non-Americans remind you you’re only number one in percentage of the population in prison.
America is a shit country that feeds its population “patriotic” propaganda from the day they are born until the day they die. You literally make a pledge every day at school. That’s cult behaviour.
Lemmy just opens your eyes to the rest of the world, where you’re no longer in the bubble of America. Lemmy isn’t the problem, you’re just finally hearing the voices of those outside the USA, unfiltered.
This is from Scotland, in 1983, the sentiment now hasn’t changed much.
I’m sorry that this comment is so harsh because you’re just tryna live your life and already sound down about being told how shit your country is. But Americans need reminded that we don’t “hate ya cuz we ain’t ya” or jealous or whatever, as a nation you’re just insufferably obnoxious and commit heinous crimes whilst making out you’re the saviour of the world, the good guys, the world police. When you’re institutionally arseholes. You won’t even submit to international criminal courts or uphold most human rights. America is a bully nation that is finally reaping what it’s sown.
If you’re an American reading this and you’re fucking fuming at what I’ve said and want to throw hands, good. Use that anger to create positive change in this world. Organise unions, strike in solidarity, stand up for others, become politically active, change your country for the better. Stop enabling greedy consumerist behaviour and excusing rapists, racists, and murderers. You may just be one person, what can you do? But I’m just some dude on the other side of the planet having a bored rant whilst taking a shit and I’ve managed to get you to read all this. Do something to improve your community, encourage others to do the same, many many incremental changes combined can make a large difference. Finally fucking live up to the tagline “land of the brave”, because you sure as shit don’t deserve it so far.
Tl;Dr you’re just defending the act of kicking people when they’re down
Woah. You take very long shits.
Spend all of their own parents inheritance, leave nothing for their own kids, talk about how they had to work their way up from nothing.
deleted by creator
I wouldn’t call it peacing out, there’s quite a lot of not-peace for that
Some people are taller, smarter or better looking than me. It’s not fair!!!
Is it wrong to highlight that society in the west has gotten worse.
Sure you can’t blame boomers for just being born at the right time, but you can certainly blame them from pulling up the ladder and voting against anything that will affect them.
Take near me in the UK, plenty of home owners protesting against adding more houses along the green belt as it might devalue their properties. Utterly selfish behaviour, yet there are some home owners in these areas that support more houses because they care about more people than just themselves.
If you think giving more people a better chance at life is a threat to your existence then you’re a shitty person.
Yes. He’s really saying that about the generation who was factually proven to have been mentally affected by leaded gasoline.
That’s it. You’re so smart. Go take your statins and nap.
Some people are taller, smarter or better looking than me.
Yep. Quite a bit of people are all of these.
Ok, boomer
