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.

Those who practice wedge politics would be delighted to find that their work has been so successful. As can be seen from the article and responses, intergenerational jealousy rules, well for some anyhow and they take themselves so seriously.

The author should have been aware that casting succession planning problems (wrongly) as a generational problem would have been certain to result in a flurry of intergenerational hate mail.

As for political activism in the Sixties, in Australia that was largely restricted to students and Vietnam. The appalling reason for the protests was that youths who couldn't vote were being sent to a war that Pig Iron Bob Menzies pleaded to be part of - his guts and their lives. Try balloting conscripts for Afghanistan and see what happens. BTW, the protest movement did not result in the withdrawal of troops from Vietnam, that was because the allies were beaten by tactics and superior forces.

Organisations wanting to replenish their volunteers also need to look very carefully at what they are offering too. I have occupied numerous honorary roles over the years and always helped out with labour and money. I still do volunteer, however many charitable organisations no longer want help or donated property, they only want cash.

There has been a lot of change, it was easier to get a quorum for a committee or a task force back in the days of permanent employment and regular, eight hour days.

There are many reasons why some charities and helping organisations have not been able to attract more volunteers and it is worth a serious article to identify those reasons.

Perkinsy, you're right about GenX volunteerism. I should have mentioned that I have served in my local fire brigade, raised money for my children's kindergarten, and volunteered my time to one-on-one reading with kids at the local primary school.

Not for me holding positions on 'executive and planning bodies'; I was too busy getting in the trenches and doing the actual grunt-work.

Another statement I take broad issue with in this article:

'(Boomers) were out there changing the world'.

What a load of rubbish. Stephen King was right on the money when he castigated his own, Baby Boomer generation: 'we had the chance to change the world, and we opted for the Home Shopping Channel instead'.

The 'world-changing' Baby Boomers were the generation who also told us that Greed Is Good, and voted in Reagan and Thatcher to prove it. When it came time to put their money where their mouths were, they took the money and ran.

Baby boomers had free education. Gen X must work for years to pay of their university debt and it estimated that a large proportion of women graduates will never earn enough money to do so.

Baby boomers had cheep houses. They paid them off in twenty years because wages were high and interest rates were low.

Baby boomers saw the greatest transfer of intergenerational wealth to them from above through the savings of what is known as the “great” generation who lived through both depression and war and from below by pocketing the difference in the obscene rise in house prises compared to wages meaning Gen X must work another 20 years to pay for the same house.

Baby boomers had children early. They only required one income to support a family and buy a house. Generation X have children later because they cannot afford a house or for one partner to take time off work until they have been in the work force to have saved enough money.

Baby bombers took all the good jobs and stayed/stay in them. Generation X left education into recession and many were not able to start work let alone a career path into their thirties. The baby bomber still occupy all the good jobs at the top and when they leave they are given to Gen Y’s with their sexy new qualification.

Baby boomers should realise that they had better than any generation before and probably after in history. Gen x are exhausted and sick of Baby bombers arrogance and self importance. Want Gen X to take lead?? THEN GET OUT OF THE WAY.

“Load up on guns and bring your friends
It's fun to lose and to pretend
She's over-bored and self-assured
Oh no, I know a dirty word

Hello, hello, hello, how low?
Hello, hello, hello, how low?
Hello, hello, hello, how low?
Hello, hello, hello”

Baby boomers had a booming economy, high wages, free love, guilt and danger free drug use, great culture and music, easy access to cheap housing, unions who actually made a difference in workers lives, secure and lifelong jobs, with benefits, that were easy to find and easy to land.

Generation X had Aids, family breakdown/divorced parents, wife swapping (or in our eyes parent swapping), latch key childhoods, HECS, casualisation and high unemployment, no protection from unions, economic rationalism, extreme house costs, scarcity of rental accommodation, heroin, the drug war, insecurity and retrenchment.

Generation Y has technology and the internet from birth, the best of everything handed to them on a plate, helicopter parents that let them sponge off them for decades as adults, safer schools and more focus on stamping out bullying and a zero tolerance for violence, no corporal punishment, gap years, schoolies week/s, a lot of stuff(tv, consumer goods etc) made just for them and a serious spoiled brat syndrome.

Is it really so suprising that generation X are cynical, jaded and dont feel like contributing.

Self serving nonsense indulging in the most shallow debate you can embark on.

Sandra, most of us were working to pay taxes for your wages - the best remunerated and perked generation of politicians in history. While you were chasing pixies at the bottom of the garden, many of us were paying back HECS debt that you didn't have.

While your generation on the whole was failing to save for their retirement, a key characteristic of the boomers many X-ers were trying to find work in the downturn of the early 80s and the recession we had to have.

While boomers were bitching about the fact they couldn't retire at 50 because they didn't save (a growing group joining DSP welfare instead), we were were having our superannuation eligibility ages statutorily increased to 60 (our money) so we could pay for the imminent retirement of the boomer generation.

After you had paid off your houses at 2.5 times annual income, we were having families and incurring mortgages at 6 times annual income.

And while some of us were in uniform preparing to deal with the problems of the world that your marching pretended it had fixed, people like you were bagging us (and in many cases still do).

And when you demand a quality of aged care you didn't provide your own parents, i will go back to earn income to pay my mortgage and taxes, do my bit for the couple of community groups I help out and hope to God that I have instilled better values in my children than those of the free sex, pot smoking hypocrites that the Democrats proved to be.

And by the way, my mother who had her first child at 16, didn't get to finish her apprenticeship, continues to work and pay her way and brought up two kids who both own their own businesses and pay taxes; is a Baby Boomer who didn't have the luxury of marching in the streets - and nor did 80% of that generation who didn't go to uni and grow their hair long.

With respect, in my opinion, Gen X probably has the toughest gig in town.

The baby boomers are now retiring or planning to retire. They are starting to enjoy the wealth they have amassed over the last 30 or so years and are in power to politically create a system that suits them, eg, tax-free treatment of superannuation benefits at 60, transitional superannuation contribution caps, etc.

Also, the baby boomers have enjoyed the population growth due to the birth of Gen X, which created continuous demand for housing over the last few decades, therefore driving up house prices, the capital gain from which could now be realised by the baby boomers as they seek to scale down.

Meanwhile, Gen Y, perhaps cleverer than Gen X, simply refuses to step up and play the game. They live life with abandon and seek instant gratification, which sees them floating from one job to the next, never wearing any real responsibilities.

So guess who is the meat in the sandwich?

What's more, by the time Gen X gets to retirement age, the aging population and the decreasing productivity of Gen Y will mean that there will no longer be money left in the kitty to fund Gen X's retirement (unlike what is happening to the baby boomers now).

Contrary to the writer's view, I don't think there is anything "with Gen X" - they are just putting their heads down, trying to ride it out with an uncertain prospect ahead.

I would agree with some of the comments written here, and I think the situation is getting worse.

There are children now starting work at about 15 (part time), and in university, most students are fitting in their studies between their part time or full time job.

After that, they have large mortgages to pay off, and if you are a male, you will probably have to pay child support, plus pay for two or more mortgages by the time they drop.

Who has the time to do volunteer work.

Added to this has been the decimation of families, and the belief that governments should provide everything.

The baby boomers are powerfull because there are so many of them.. they parents had reasonable-sized families.

The problems for Gen X and Gen Y (named as such by Copeland because their numbers are dwarfed by the mass of the baby BOOMers). Since there are so many baby boomers, they have dictated popular culture and to a large extent politics, for the last 50 years.

The beliefs and the needs of Gen X and Gen Y are ignored and insulted by the whinging of the all-powerfull baby boomers.

Well guess what! Good news at last! the baby boomers are about to loose grip on power. as they move from being heads of departments and senior jounalista and influencial business-people, and become just retirees, or even better as they shuffle off this mortal coil and die, the opinions and the politics and the needs of the rest of us will finally be heard.

Feminism will die and the family-hatred of feminism will be rolled back. The social-welfare industries which work terrribly hard to increase problems in our society, to increase the size and power of these same social-welfare industries, will again, be rolled back.

Want to hear a joke? How do you make a problem bigger? Get government to give a bunch of bureaucrats and baby-boomers a big bag of money to make the problem go away. Guess what they will do woth that money? They will make the problem BIGGER!

... continued...

... continued...

From converting drug addicts to methadone users (ensuring a life-long dependance on the system), from giving the welfare-dependant bag-fulls of money to have loads of kids, ensuring that instead of a small underclass, the next generation will be far more numerous. From demanding equal pay and stupidly generous welfare payments to aboriginies, so that they have no option but to be welfare-dependant, ensuring ever larger bureaucrcies to service them.

THe main problem that has allowed baby boomers to become and remain so powerfull is that they failed. They failed to have children. Their hedonism, their belief in feminism and their hatred of marriage, have meant that men no-longer want to become fathers and a whole generation of Gen X women can't get husbands.

And now we are left paying the costs of an aging population. The population is aging because the baby-boomers failed to reproduce themselves, failed to have children.

The aged baby-boomers forgot that to pay for their pensions and escallating medical costs, they would need to have children to pay the taxes that fund these services. So Gen X and Gen Y are sh!t-scarred and working their back-sides off paying stupid real estate prices and taxes for the lazy, self-indulgent, selfish feminist, socialist baby-boomers.

The financial crisis was caused by too many old people. A stock market boom, followed by a bust is classic response to an aging population. Japan suffered it in the 1990's... Have google for "Harry Dent demographics" to get a better explaination.

Baby-boomer = selfish, lazy and spoilt.

PartTimeParent@pobox.com

i cant even be botherd to read the article
let alone the comments..[past the 1 st page]

but will throw this out-there
depite being much abused by this generation..[ne'X'us]

look at what has been layed on them..
little wonder we are confounded by them
they grww up with star=wars were raised by tv..[worse yanki tv]
the simpleton/simpson generation...'says-a-me..street'

govt made sure they got govt gift to learn how to become con-sumers
they have no positive male role models..

[look at the yanki tv..deliberatly showing idiot father figures..[deliberatly so they ignore fathers authority and advice...

[the powers that be have done this deliberatly]

made them over into the perfect litle consuers..[following the latest fad..the latest star...doing that their peers do...its such a perfect rewriting of traditional respect...into social duty

trained to kill by remote control
trained to oput the next cancer cause [mobiles]
directly on to their developing brains ,

this is the generation that will never get retired...

they will be dying according to plan...egsactly at the age science has accorded them...[unless mutilated first in war]...or dying by their own hand..thanks to media induced guilt

lay-off these kids ...who had to raise/educate...
pay their way from birth...right into their early graves

enough is enough
all us oldies arnt going to retire..
just look at the old flatulates..on ya tv still running things

neither will they the x generations lay off em
we put them through enough...they got where they are now/by themselves

so dont be supprised
they can only think of themselves..tomorrow

we made them think....
there shall be no tomorrow

trust the seeds you planted to bear the fruits
we planted in them...you get as you earn

I suspect that Clownfish has, so far, summed the article up most succinctly and accurately: tripe. Generational stereotyping is about as rational and as accurate as racial or gender stereotyping. There are baby boomers who changed the world and there are baby boomers who have been content to play house from an early age. There are Gen Xers who changed the world and, surprise surprise, there are Gen Xers who didn't. The same goes for Gen Y and the future will be the same.

The context in which all of this takes place changes, of course. X and Y have a much bigger burden in paying off their mortgages. Boomers grew up with more primitive technology. X and Y pay substantially more for their education. Boomers are sucked in by those who claim to have their interests at heart (think Storm Financial). If context makes the man, then certainly we see differences. But, if context makes the man, then the generation that makes the context must take responsibility for the man created therein.

Will blow my own horn here Sandra.

I must have been and am 'superwoman'!

Always room for improvement though!

Wow, what rubbish. I wonder if this switched-on, war-stopping, environmental saviour knows that the government decided to diminish and then end Australia's involvement in the Vietnam war long before the fabled boomers got their act together. The moratoriums took place when troops were already leaving. Any decisions on this front had everything to do with what the US was up to and almost nothing to do with the boomers.

Wake up Ms Kanck. The X-ers were out protesting Iraq before the shooting started not nine years after. Took you a while to cotton on to Vietnam Huh? Funny, I hear it was in the news a fair bit. Or maybe you did, maybe were out there with Save Our Sons but based on this article I'm not sure you could have mustered the dignity.

I recall some pretty decent demonstrations against nukes too. My friends and I went to many of them. All of us were born in '65 or after. Were you there too? Perhaps you boomers didn't bother to notice us - can't be looking about when you're preening yourself I guess.

Now, who are running the companies that destroy the environment which you once saved? Oh yeah, they'd be your peers madam, not mine.

I have a job, a few friends, take in a fair bit of news and you know, I haven't heard anyone suggest they don't want to pay taxes to support aging parents. Who are you hanging about with? Would that be with your fellow grey hairs doing such wonders on our boards and committees? Isn't all that middle class welfare enough, parliamentary pension in your case. Not enough? Lucky you're so selfless.

Oh and the Gen X bysanders, These would be the both adults working, a couple of kids, heavy child-care costs, educations to pay for one day (we hope), oh, and likely working to build your retirement pad, to process the govt. payments you get, to manage the funds you invest - all ethical, I'm sure.

I'm not sure where Ms Kanck is coming from, but a true boomer she surely is.

Well, it looks like we've finally found something that everyone on OLO can agree on! EVERYONE hates the Baby Boomers! lol

What a hoot!

Where do I start?
Five years of free university study.
Plenty of unspoilt beaches for surfing, partying and sleeping.
A family home, a block of units and a beach house – all paid for before I was 40.
A shipping container full of super money.
A car for everyone in the family.
Kids’ uni paid for.
A sea change and asset sell off in 2007.
Life just keeps on getting better.
As that famous Boomer Bill Gates said
“Life is not fair -- get used to it!”

The baby boomers were the children of people who had been through a depression, and a world war. They had missed out on many things and wanted better for their children, untold millions had died in the war ans there was encouragement to breed. Prosperity as it came in the 50s and 60s was accompanied by many children, they were adored by their parents who finally had hope for a better future.

So rather than hate the baby boomers, you should be directing your hate at their parents Clownfish, they set this in motion and created the world the baby boomers came into, happily and enthusiastically.

Of course it's always easier to whine that you had a tough time and everyone else did not .. human nature.

Me, I know my parents had a tough time (have you had parenst who lived through the depression, their stories are no fun), they wanted better for us, who were we to disappoint people who had suffered and sacrificed so much?

Should we all wear hairshirts now, because downstream generations feel they didn't get as good a time of it. You do the best you can with what you have, if you live your life complaining and miserable, you end up a complaining miserable person.

As the conservative who is now clearly a "progressive" once famously said "life wasn't mean to be easy" Mal Fraser, who used to be a hard man.

If it makes you feel better to hate this or that generation, fine. At least you've been able to live in a country where you have a right to do that voluntarily. That's probably the only voluntary thing some folks do here these days, whining as an art form.

Then again, we can't blame mum and dad for everything,

http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/article/9435/

http://www.moneyweek.com/news-and-charts/economics/economics-blaming-the-baby-boomers-50318.aspx

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/20/business/economy/20older.html?_r=2&ref=todayspaper

Strange article.
In some ways the tone reminds me of my mother who, in between renovating houses and taking off for exotic holidays, loves to tell me I'm wasting my money by investing in my struggling business and working like a dog.
Unfortunately Sandra, our generation married late. The free love and birth control 'revolution' had wreaked its way through my social circle, and I didn't find true love until I was 32. Now I have three kids. When we finally do marry, we immediately get down to pumping out the bubs - that's 'family planning' for ya.
So I'm too busy to help on your crappy, government-sponsored little 'volunteering' gigs. Sorry,.
I do contribute though. As a small business person, I pay a he** of a lot of tax, and I do an awful lot of work for free, to pay those tax bills.
In fact, I work EVERY SINGLE DAY and have done for SEVEN years!
I'm mad as he** Sandra, and your 'me-me-me' attitude says a lot about the culture surrounding your much-cherished generation.
Thanks for a downer of an article. I feel even more depressed about having to pay for my mother's - and your - future health needs now.

Long live the baby boomers.

We had Elvis in the 50s and the Beatles in the 60s... (doesn't get better than that). In the 70s we bought up all the cheap houses. In the 80s we worked our 32 -38 hour weeks. The 90s were a disaster because we had to learn how to use those new fangled computeee thingys and how to operate an ATM ..... oh the stress stress stress! Up to 2010 we sat back, got fat and watched our wealth grow grow grow. Now we're starting to retire and taking our long slow caravan trips right around Australia . . . and even the non-wealthy baby boomers (people like ex wannabe guitar gods and failed hippies) can easily get a govt. old age pension and live off the slavery of the ungrateful gen X and gen Y (who cares about them anyway).

Life is good. Long live the baby boomers!

What is it with the growth of wedge politics as regards generational differences?

As a late baby boomer/early Gen Xer (depending on what definition you read) I have done my share of political involvement. But real life does get in the way - job, mortgage, family and then whatever time you have left.

There are different hardships and positives in all decades if we look hard enough and try not to get too bogged down in self congratulation aor self pity.

The nature of political activism has changed. You cannot compare the outpourings motivated by Vietnam compared to the 'silence is deafening' protests about Iraq and Afghanistan. One influential factor here is the improvements in communication - now activism and ideas are spread via the Internet on sites such as OLO rather than street demonstrations which was the only tool available and one way to get noticed.

The street demonstrations are more colourful and make the news but in our modern 24 hour news cycle more in depth analysis is becoming rare, being largely overshadowed by sensationalist celebrity gossip and piffle politics.

I am a babyboomer and am wondering what I have been missing - apparantly I am supposed to be well off now looking to a future of glorious retirement...... I wish.

My parents were not well off, but managed to send me to day secretarial school.

I was from the generation that still believed that you married young and your husband supported you - thus, my working life didnt start till late and then only part time - so now my super is albut nothing.

Life wasnt easy. My husband was a carpenter, caught in a downturn...our only way out was to move to keep employeed. So after 8 moves in 12 years covering 3 states and territories and a stint on an Aboriginal Community, we finally settled. By then we had three children to educate and no hope of saving on our wages.

Yes....this baby boomer had it easy....NOT.

Every generation has its problems.

Every generation will find its solutions.

Each generation will find its own level.

Stop whining and look at the positives in life - there are many - for each generation.

Why on earth do they call them Generation X ? Wouldn't Generation Z as zzzzzzz....?? be more appropriate ?

Personally I find these generational disputes painted with rather too wide a brush.
I would describe myself as a late boomer (circa 55) and I recall early adulthood as being pretty darn good. Wages were high, costs and unemployment were low, and the gap between the richest and poorest has never been lower. We truly believed a 'classless' society was possible.
It's been going downhill ever since. I have suffered several recessions, a few 'downturns' and a fair bit of unemployment. I can't see myself retiring until I'm 70 the way things are going.
I truly do not envy my children.
I recall my mother was a great one for volunteering; but then, she didn't have to work.

Gen X has just one problem.

ME...ME...MEEEEEE MEEEEEEEEEE and more

MEEEEEEEEE

Oh Al you're so right, and they're just like those horrid, selfish Christian fundamentalists; you know the type.... ME ME MEEEE MEEEEEEEEE MEEEEEEEEEEEE and god.

Run Logan Run.

Ha ha - that's two science fiction references in the thread so far: Soylent Green and Logan's Run.

Plus I remember someone in a previous thread, invoking a vision of Sandra Kanck in a Wellsian Martian tripod, wiping out excess population.

Sandra Kanck

exhibits in her article a void lacking the realism of general truth but a logic of unreality generated by an ageless academic disease with consequential ECT amnesia.

It would be nice if OLO encouraged articles based upon analysis rather than stream of consciousness rantings.

This article makes a whole lot of self-serving assertions based on nothing more than personal opinion whereas a solid argument would be founded on evidence. Spot the difference?

Whilst everyone seems to be whining about their poor old lot in life and passing the blame onto everyone but themselves, perhaps we all might do a bit better in life if we applied the following:

"The world is very very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life."

and
"...ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country."

[From the Inaugural Address by President John F. Kennedy - January 20th 1961]
http://www.famousquotes.me.uk/speeches/John_F_Kennedy/5.htm

Not much has changed (or improved!) in 50 years, eh?

The comments here are typical of a narcissism that pervades this generation. In a documentary years ago a sex worker confided her clients were either older blokes or Gen Y's. After bad experiences she refused to have anything to do with Gen Xers. They were too obnoxious.

This nonsense about mortgages, long hours of work, child care costs, etc as an excuse for no volunteer-ism is pathetic. The older generation experienced privations this mob can't imagine, especially given their propensity to want the big house, flash car and consumer goodies (all on credit) as soon as they got out of their training wheels, yet it is the older generation that are the volunteers in this country.

The boomers have picked up the baton but their efforts pale when you measure them against the older crew. Perhaps the boomers will do more as they leave the workplace in droves, given their experience in the latter part of their careers dealing with aggressive, super-competitive Xers who expect high salaries and senior positions on the basis of....what exactly? They are invariably worse educated, impatient with those who have more experience and skills, and more inclined to bully those around them. So, get out of their way because they are coming through.

Boomers can't get away from them fast enough, and the Y's are pushed around & bullied by them. Many Xers make it 'interesting' for politicians as they have this tendency to sell their vote to the highest bidder, to distrust all governments, and to think public policy should be all about raising their disposable incomes, which they erode by greedy & dumb consumer decisions. Sorry to be so harsh kiddies - I'm not sure where the Mums & Dads went wrong. Perhaps not enough emphasis on the simple fact that little Johnnie or Jillie is not the centre of the universe? Who knows, but the damage has been done and now we can but mitigate the worst effects of their oh so important personal travails. The boomers meanwhile are OUT OF THERE, and the Y's are arming themselves and honing survival strategies.

Nice one Sandra,
Seems you touched a raw point with some of the replies.
QUESTION. Those complaining about high mortgages,why didn't you DO someting political about it. It was caused by high immigration policies you might have been able to reverse.

There will be a new opportunity to stand up when the decline in world oil supply grips before 2015.

Join a group. :)
Cheers

Generation X leads the way for generation y and below that’s what!

This is a generation that’s not about staying at home popping out one and rushing into marriage.

This is a generation that absorbs technology and understanding allot faster than the past gens.

People that you may or may not know do have conversations about the country and world in relation to politics that have a good understanding of what they are after when their time comes to take their place.

Gen Y and below are more in touch with life and earth embracing natural things and technological things as one.

This generation isn't going to wait as long as older generations to take hold and direct news directions for better outcomes.

It would be an interesting exercise to 'manufacture' human groups as if they are distinct from each other as has been done to differentiate BBs, Gen X and Gen Y: left-handers from right-handers, short versus tall people, thin versus fat, blondes versus brunettes versus redheads - if one could keep up a constant propaganda spin, I wonder how long before the irrelevant differences between these manufactured groups came to be generally considered to be 'fundamental differences'.

You can attribute all manner of correlation (and 'therefore' causality) to these fake differences: for example, left-handers make up about 12 % of the population, so left-handed women make up 6 % of the population. Notice that the REAL unemployment rate is much more likely to be 6 % than 5 % - so clearly left-handed women are pushing others out of employment, in some obscure way, and taking their jobs.

And of course, the real UNemployment and UNDERemployment rate combined is around 12 % - which is just about the same as the proportion of left-handers in the population - so clearly, there is some unspoken agreement amongst left-handers generally to ensure that their members are employed, even at the cost of employment for right-handers.

Another way to understand the machinations of category members to look after each other is shown by a break-down by hair-colour - around 15 % of Australians are blonde or fair-haired, and not coincidentally, 15 % of Australians earn over $ 200 grand p.a. Pure chance ? I think not.

And if you go to as restaurant and see a blonde person ordering a boiled egg, notice that they ALWAYS balance it on its pointy end. Now what does that tell you ? Yes, exactly, we don't have to go into details here. B@stards.

thank you Loudmouth, some sanity has prevailed in this debate!