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The Forum > Article Comments > What is it with Gen X? > Comments

What is it with Gen X? : Comments

By Sandra Kanck, published 22/10/2010

Gen X is missing in action leaving the greying to mind society.

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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.
Posted by Cornflower, Friday, 22 October 2010 9:53:20 AM
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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.
Posted by Clownfish, Friday, 22 October 2010 9:59:28 AM
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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”
Posted by Billy C, Friday, 22 October 2010 10:31:49 AM
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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.
Posted by mikk, Friday, 22 October 2010 1:51:02 PM
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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.
Posted by gobsmacked, Friday, 22 October 2010 2:52:03 PM
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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.
Posted by sunshine-eddy, Friday, 22 October 2010 3:42:37 PM
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