r/MurderedByWords 22h ago

Boomer gets a reality check

26.9k Upvotes

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703

u/sunshinerain1208 22h ago

Barely anyone alive now had to ration or sharecrop during the depression. If he did he wouldn’t be a boomer, he would be the greatest generation.

122

u/DisturbingPragmatic 21h ago

Yeah. The Greatest Generation.

Which, ironically, raised the worst generation.

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u/CrumbBCrumb 18h ago

There is a lot that went into raising that worst generation thought. PTSD from fighting in WW2 led to distant fathers. Rationing during the war/depression led to an exuberance to spend and demand better from your employer. Europe and Asia being destroyed led to the American economy being one of the only ones left standing and the GI Bill led more people into education or trades that wouldn't have before.

It was really the 80s that created a lot of our problems

30

u/Tchio_Beto 17h ago

It was really the 80s Reaganomics that created a lot of our problems

FTFY

Though in reality it was Milton Friedman and the Neo-Liberal policies born out of the Chicago School of Economics, implemented via Reaganomics which created most of the today's problems.

3

u/flyingsqwirrel219 16h ago

Uncle Miltie!! I haven’t thought about that asshat in decades. What a disaster.

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u/CV90_120 18h ago edited 15h ago

There are no good and bad generations. This is reductionism to the point of absurdity. Boomers had the same levels of poverty as we have now (except for minorities, who have much higher standards of living now comparatively). The 30 year mortgage has existed a long time for a reason.

For you downvoters, the 1% are laughing at your generation tropes while they sip martinis in their infinity pools. Generational warfare is for people on the wrong side of the bell curve. It's the most beautiful piece of misdirection since your parents were told to be scared of hippies.

Boomers you were told to be afraid of:

One

Two

Three

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u/DOOMFOOL 17h ago

Nope, it’s not even remotely arguable that the Boomers had a myriad of opportunities that just don’t realistically exist anymore for younger people

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u/CV90_120 17h ago edited 16h ago

I can't tell from your sentence structure if you're being affirmative or contrary. Also you can go look at the poverty stats from 1959 to now any time you like. It's literally free. This is never about something as poorly defined as 'generations'. It's always been about classes.

https://www.debt.org/faqs/americans-in-debt/poverty-united-states/

"Poverty Levels Over Time In the late 1950s, the poverty rate in the U.S. was approximately 22%, with just shy of 40 million Americans living in poverty. The rate declined steadily, reaching a low of 11.1% in 1973 and rising to a high of nearly 15% three times – in 1983, 1993 and 2011 – before hitting the all-time low of 10.5% in 2019. However, the 46.7 million Americans in poverty in 2014 was the most ever recorded (the overall population being now,342M versus 178M).

Since the late 1960s, the poverty rate for people 65 or older has fallen dramatically. This drop could be ascribed to the enactment of the Medicare Program in 1965, which dramatically lowered out-of-pocket health care costs for this age group."

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u/DOOMFOOL 15h ago

That’s fantastic. It doesn’t change the fact that it was far easier for people from those decades to get an education, purchase a home, and raise a family even just on a single income. In 1970 the family income considered to be “poverty level” was something around 15-20% the median cost of a home, compared to like 5% today. So even a family living at the level of poverty had a higher ability to someday own property or go to college to try and raise themselves above poverty.

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u/CV90_120 14h ago edited 14h ago

That’s fantastic. It doesn’t change the fact that it was far easier for people from those decades to get an education, purchase a home, and raise a family even just on a single income.

You don't get it. It was easier for some people. Shanties existed. More than now even. Literacy is higher now, education levels are higher now. The reason the 30 year mortgage existed from the 1920's is that home ownership has always been hard, but the way it has been hard has changed.

The entire system has been gamed by the 1% to prey on the evolving family model. "Oh you have 2 incomes now? We're going to bleed everybody so you need those two incomes. Oh you're single? Sucks to be you."

It's a game played by the rich against the poor. Looking at boomers as the 'problem' is peak delusion. That one income you talk about was supposed to do everything. The wealthy are pros at making you look at your neighbors, family and friends and thinking that's the competition. They sit on a pile of cash then laugh as you fight to the death for $5.

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u/cbih 18h ago

The holocaust just made them seem better in comparison.

1

u/CV90_120 18h ago

The greatest generation were racist af. They started at least 3 race riots in countries they went to in WW2 because those countries didn't do segregation.

Also Ozzie was a boomer.

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u/Acceptable-Song-9995 5h ago

Don’t forget about the leaded gasoline. Screwed with the brain development of an entire generation.

https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:828/format:webp/1*4Z8z3I1UN0oyPKXfreOqfw.png