Yet another smug load of Baby Boomer tripe.

Where are Generation X? We're too busy working to try and raise our families, saving up to put our children through the Universities that Baby Boomers didn't have to pay a cent for, paying exorbitant mortgages on spiralling house prices, thanks to Baby Boomer speculators, and trying to leave a pittance aside for our own retirement. A retirement which may never come, as we can look forward to a future in which we're going to have to work well past the current retirement age, just to coddle the whingeing Baby Boomer oldies who'll be clogging up the nursing homes like so much unprocessed Soylent Green.

Baby Boomers growing up in the economic halcyon days of the 50s and 60s had the luxury of 'protesting', Generation X, growing up in the recessions of the 70s and 80s, had no such luxury.

Oh, and Generation X are *not* the children of the Baby Boomers; we're their long-suffering younger siblings. The true children of the Baby Boomers are the feckless and spoilt Generation Y.

Hmmm, I wonder why fewer GenX folks "make the effort" to meet the exacting standards of the tirelessly selfless Baby Boomers? Could it be the need to maintain paid employment for longer than most boomers ever dreamt would be necessary in their life times in order to pay off an extraordinarily huge mortgage? A mortgage driven by house prices driven by ... oh, yes ... the demographic tsunami of baby boomers? I was reading your piece in rye amusement then I suddenly noticed you were described as "former parliamentary leader of the South Australian Democrats" - then it all made sense.

"Baby Boomers growing up in the economic halcyon days of the 50s and 60s"

Coalition Governments

"Generation X, growing up in the recessions of the 70s and 80s, had no such luxury."

ALP governments

Boom years of the late 90s up to 2006

Coalition government

All falling apart, huge debts since 2007

ALP in power

Simplistic I know - but if you were to look back at the period of say 1945 to 2010 in another 50 or so years, you'd see the current time as simplistically as clownfish sees the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s.

To clownfish those times just require a few words to describe the times .. so will this time no one will care about media spin on GFCs or NBNs or any BS.

no disrespect clownfish .. I'm a boomer, who almost lost everything in the recession of the 80s, that's when I was in my 20s, with a mortgage and interest rates of 18% (ALP in charge!) We couldn't afford kids at that time .. has there ever been anther period like that, well apart from the one approaching at mach 1 right now?

Perhaps the author should look at the amount of spin and BS that is public life now.

There is no real nation building stuff going on any more, it's all petty point scoring and fear, panic and hysteria about the future instead of a genuine desire to make a better world and looking forward to it.

The author reminds of this dark future .. "With the upcoming triple-whammy of climate change, peak oil and population growth, and the social dislocation likely to result"

After WWII, people were looking to a better future, that's just declined year by year till we now are bombarded regularly with the doomsaying of the pollies, their lackies and MSM.

No wonder GenX and Y lack interest .. who can blame them?

Amicus, if you were in your twenties during the 80s recession, I'd almost suspect you were an X-er.

GenX are roughly demarcated as those born after the early 60s - hence my statement that we are the long-suffering younger siblings of the Boomers.

Think of it terms of the Brady Bunch: Boomers were Marcia, Xers were Jan.

'It's always, Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!'

As someone born in 1964 I have lived through countless recessions. I grew up fearing unemployment, started working and then was hit by the 'recession we had to have' when interest rates went to 20% and we were forced to sell our house and rent. My husband was retrenched when our child was born. The impression that I get is that many of the baby boomers had secure careers by the time these recessions hit so just sailed through

We bought a house again but then we moved to Sydney - great for career, terrible for finances.

I have done heaps of volunteering over the years while the children grew up and I was working part-time. But there was an economic sacrifice to all this. I have put my foot down and am not going to volunteer any more. It is my social responsibilty to provide for my retirement and retirement is looking financially grim right now.

I have observed first-hand the problems of organisations struggling for volunteers. Our generation have a choice - volunteer and compromise your already limited time with your family or volunteer and sacrifice your earning capability. You cannot have both. I am not being greedy in wanting to own the roof over my head when I retire. I don't aspire to a MacMansion. We drive old cars, I don't have flash clothes and don't go on overseas holidays.

It is all very well for those people who have had work all their life and have benefited from the horrendous house inflation over the last 20 years. Yes, we care about social issues, we recognise the need for advocacy and getting out into the community. But it would be irresponsible of us to set ourselves up to be one of the many that need this social help in the future because of our failure to plan for our future and take responsibility for our financial security.

clownfish, late 20s but I take your point, it's all Marcia to me.

Boomers to me are 1945 to 1965

I always look back on the earlier boomers with a sense of them having had it all as well, by the time I was allowed out of the house, it was pretty well over .. the Vietnam war was over, Gough had been rolled long ago, some of the "good" things were illegal by then, all the other things had been developed into industries and locked up by earlier boomers who were buying all the "good houses"

it's a generational thing.

One thing I do so envy that my children have is PC games, Xbox, LaserTag all that tech stuff, that just doesn't sit well with older types all that well, I mean I have some of that .. but regret not having had it as a kid .. to me these are the halcyon days of technical advancement.

It disappoints me that so much science today is negative and driven by government "grant" money and not development R&D money by industry. So we end up with group think instead of innovation.