It is a class war but boomers provide political cover the the ruling class to destroy the country

It's a class war, but many boomers are scabs.

Remember when there was a worker shortage and retired boomers went and volunteered at chain restaurants so they wouldn't have to raise wages to attract workers? Remember all the "millennials are so entitled, they want to be PAID FOR WORK" style posts by boomers, back when some non-boomers still used Facebook so we had access to their posts?

It's not their fault they've been brainwashed by right-wing propaganda, but they for sure are fighting against anything resembling economic justice.

And obviously much like any generation, you can't make sweeping statements about them. There are right-wing nutters in their 20s and even their teens out there right now and there are obviously boomers who aren't selfish assholes.

Worth repeating:

Remember, there’s not an age war, there is a class war.

Don't forget that if we can't paint everyone in a group they were born into with a broad brush, we'll never be able to beat prejudices like racism, sexism, and ableism.

You guys are getting a good luck?

Posting this as infuriating seems grossly entitled. Many of us in these younger generations won't have excess to give to the next generation, why should we feel that is owed to us?

My grandpa wants to go to space in his lifetime, but doesn't want to spend everything he's been saving for my us. I'm like...dude. You worked your ass off all this time. Go to fucking space. I think it'd be badass.

Sure and that's fine, but then we need to stop as a society assuming that generational wealth is a thing, and that parents will help their children. Parents do not help with down payments like they used to, or with other major life events, and so we need to assume everyone is starting from zero

The big caveat to this is if it is a lot of money. If it more than a few million it should be passed down and someone can live off of interest and some good investments.

I know a guy who technically doesn't have to work at all because his family has been passing down a huge amount of money though the generations. I guess his great great grandfather struck it rich and now everyone is set. How the fortune is maintained is though legal stuff tied to the money in the form of wills. Basically it prohibits crazy spending and sets rules.

Edit: This comment was intended as a sarcastic way to say "Your father's awful parenting failed to turn you into an awful person", but it was both phrased poorly and in the event based on false assumptions. Read the replies. I'm leaving it up for context.

Well, at least he fathered a decent kid, it seems. I don't think it was his intention for you to turn out so decent, so I wouldn't give him credit for that, but I guess he did something right despite all his efforts.

Congratulations on being a decent person even though your role model was not. It's hard to break that cycle.

*without

Congrats I guess? You sound hateful and bitter as fuck

"Generation Me."

First of all, my parents have never had much if ever at all in the way of savings. Tbh not sure what's going to happen when they aren't going to be able to work anymore.

But I'm with you. I absolutely never understood why people ever feel like they are entitled to their parents money. Your parents earned that, not you. If my parents were never able to leave me a dime, I wouldn't give a shit. Even if they had a million dollars. I didn't earn that. I have no right to someone else's money.

I would feel different in scenarios where we are talking about a minor. If a 12 year old becomes orphaned, then yes, they should 100% be entitled to their parents' funds.

But why in the everliving fuck do people as adults feel entitled to money that is not theirs and they didn't earn? Incredibly bizarre concept to me.

You're a good kid.

Who the fuck downvotes this?

I’ll still let her win at Wheel of Fortune, as long as she can remember my name.

And then, after that, it's Zeff's turn to get the free spins.

I grew up in the boat of not ever expecting any type of inheritance. Then my dad remarried and it is a thing, and that discussion that makes me really uncomfortable. I am in the first camp. I don't feel any sense of ownership or entitlement to that money.

She wants to go on a fancy trip to Bali? Good for her.

New car? Awesome.

He raised me, that was his responsibility. He did a great job and that's all I needed.

I am sure there will be something left but I'm not hedging all of my bets on it. Work bonus stays with me, though.

I'm sorry if this is worded weirdly; my dad passed away two years ago and I am still getting used to the past tense.

I'm setting up my kids for their own success. 529 plan, lessons in work ethic and social skills. I donate often, and might leave some funds behind but real support shouldn’t have to be monetary.

I don't think rejecting Christmas gifts is on par with telling your parents not to enjoy themselves because you want their money when they die.

I'm going to spend my money and wealth as I see fit. I will not raise my children to bank on me dying before they turn 60 (realistically they're gonna have to deal with me for a long time) so they can inherit some sum of cash.

For context, I never expected any inheritance from either parent when they died. Neither did I get anything except for a pair of gloves.

Yeah I find it a little funny that people complain about generational wealth and then complain about not getting an inheritance.

You're entitled to something. The world is cruel but it brought you in. People can't be like, "fuck these kids to life and let them die in a ditch."

Most money passes through generations that's why it is real money.

But people do as they please

My family tells me "write a book then I will read it" and I just keep thinking:
Assholes, maybe instead just listen to me when I tell my stories you want to ignore so badly.
They couldn't even be bothered to spend thousands on me though and more than once in my life I have just been dropped off at street corners with hopes that I would disappear from their lives.

It sucks. While I may not know you, I know similar pain and know it's never easy. I hope you find comforts in the little things around you.

Ouch. I'm sorry to hear that. Wish I could offer you better help than, condolences and understanding from the other side of the internet.

Well that's the question now isn't it! But I'm sure I'll be a failure if I'm unable to take care of (pay for) them

Minor suggestion. Try dying poor at your boss's desk. You have nutrients and minerals that can be extracted for our use, don't be a hog.

I don't see that. To me it reads as guilt tripping the parents for wanting to spend the money they themselves earned.

How? "Missing out" means you're the one who is negatively impacted. It also says and Gen Z. Not sure how that could be interpreted otherwise.

I think pretty much everyone agrees with your take here. People are just saying that if kids are struggling and parents can afford it, it's weird for the parents not to help out financially.

Obviously the circumstances matter and if the kid is struggling because they're lazy or a drug addict you don't want to enable that but if they have their own kids and are working full time I would always support my kids financially if they needed that and I was able to.

To be fair, the silent generation is not guilt free on that

please don’t buy so much junk food…why? because you have diabetes

This one hit too close to home. My mum has diabetes, dad is close to it, I can't get them to stop eating sweets

Especially since it's the billionaires ending SS

It would be the billionaires stealing the inheritance in this case. Just another trick to siphon money upwards.

Sir, this is a Wendy's.

Those are the sort of parents I left in the past, I feel you with a lot of that.

As for the grandkids, feel free to use my excuse. "I can't afford them". (Partially because I have to support one of them, but also kids are freaking expensive). So they can whine about not having grandchildren all they want. Kids are now 800k+, who can do that?

They also voted for Bush II's wars with money borrowed from a generation that couldn't vote yet.

Probably the rest of us won’t last much longer than them now anyway.

That is their money.

In 2022, 65% of people ages 65 to 74 had debt, up from 50% in 1989. In 2022, 53% of households headed by someone 75 or older had debt, compared to 32% in 1992.

In fairness, this article is pure bait. It neglected the rising cost of living for people on fixed incomes and treats these draw downs on savings as a frivolity, rather than a consequence of inflation on senior care and medical needs.

But liquidating household assets via instruments like reverse mortgages and loans against large savings accounts and pensions can mean saddling your children and grandchildren with big debts even after you're gone.

It's not their money. It's rent money they stole from the next generations by being parasites hoarding property as an investment.

I wouldn't go that far, but I see little evidence that young people deserve it more.

Lemmy seems to be pretty mad about their allowance, basically. It's weird, usually the vibe is more that everyone else works at a FAANG.

It comes from a time where your whole family lived in the same house and the kids eventually take care of their parents. In todays system where people usually dont live with their parents for very long, it doesnt really make sense anymore. People need money long before they get to the age where their parents die. Getting a bunch of money at 30, to establish a life/family, is much more useful and long term impactful than getting it at 50-60. So inheritance is a flawed idea from the start.

Inheritance is a stepping stone to get out of poverty over generations. If the next generation can build upon it.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to pass the product of your entire life to your offspring, surely. We can't be so atomised. Where do you think it should go? Inheriting an empire is one thing, but why shouldn't you be able to give your own house to your child? I say this as somebody disowned by their father.

Exactly my thoughts too. Life’s meant to be lived. Hoarding assets to save for an uncertain future is counterproductive even in terms of economy at large, if one’s inclined to think that way.

It creates expectations that don’t seem natural, and then leads to disappointments and bitterness when life does not go as planned, as it never will.

But then again, I get wanting to make things better for your children. But at least for me, it seems less prone to pure chance and circumstance if the efforts went into building a more sustainable, inclusive and supportive country to live in. And enjoy the ride while it lasts, since your pain and suffering will reflect on your children, want it or not. If things are tight and you get stressed from that, it’s always going to affect everyone around you, often negatively. If, instead, you could relieve that stress by not saving more than you need as a buffer here and now, or for something like a house (I.e not for some abstract future that might never come, for your children who might not live that far, but are here now, with you), that’s probably going to be much better for everyone. Smiles generate smiles and it’s not a zero-sum game. Life well lived is one with smiles, not one with fragile, ephemeral value of some sort stored away with sweat and blood.

But of course if there’s already too much to use realistically, why not do that then. But that’s an entirely different discussion altogether, if we ever should have something like that.

Edit: there’s a distinction I failed to emphasis enough, between a realistic and very worthwhile buffer of saved value for unexpected situations, which everyone should of course have, and saving for no reason at all, other than just having excess that isn’t needed for anything, to maybe if one’s very lucky pass on down the line.

Saving assets and value isn’t bad. But saving it for no practical reason other than inheritance, takes that value out of circulation and makes everyone in your economy worse off. If that’s important to you. But more importantly, it often means a life less well lived, and often one full of stress, tiredness and one with less time actually spend with your family and close ones in general. Which is enormously more negative in impact than any amount of money in excess, or lack thereof, could ever have when you finally die.

This apparently is a hard pill to swallow for some. They can't wrap there head around having to work hard to eventually relax and enjoy life.

no one is coming to save you.

Fact

medical bills from failing health

Not everyone is in the USA.

"This memorable reminds me of the cash I inherited from my grandpa"

Yeah, I know of plenty of boomers that have had to delay retirement because they simply didn't have enough money. I've known several that finally retired, late, then passed away a few months later. Never got the chance to enjoy retirement at all.

My parents were working part time jobs, instead of relaxing and enjoying retirement, until a few years ago. Those jobs were having obvious effects on their health and well-being, too; I was convinced at least one of them was going to pass away before long. Fortunately, they're now in a position now where at least they don't have to work - but my brothers and I sent them money to replace their HVAC system when it died a few months ago, so it's not like they're rolling in dough or will leave us some huge inheritance.

How much would it suck to get to 70 and realize you still have to keep working? I mean, if you enjoy it and want to keep working, great, go for it. But to be forced to do it? That would suck. It doesn't matter what generation you are.

Honestly, that and retirement homes sort of exist to extract the last wealth from the dying.

The attitude you describe is, I believe, the result of capitalist and religious propaganda that reinforces individualism rather than collectivist and non-religious yet spiritual philosophies. Those like Hinduism, Confucianism, Zen and Toaism.

Not to sell any one in particular but the common thread in the East is a different perspective than a boss in the sky eternally judging each individual.

Even if you aren't religious, advertising will tell you you're a special, unique and seperate individual. Desiring to stand out as famous, beautiful, smart, funny, strong etc is just a trap but one desired by many. Unfortunately, to be above others, then others must be below you. To be rich, there must be poor.

An understanding of this force of balance shows that to minimise the extremes of poverty you must minimise the extremes of wealth.

The East sees our true self is the larger whole of which we as Humanity are a small part of. While your name may seperate you conceptually, none of us are separate from the air we breath or the stars we see. Nothing is seperate even though the mind feels and believes it is so. Are you really in control? Do you beat your heart? When you make a decision, do you first decide to decide?

I only say all this because, when one genuinely switches thinking this way, then naturally you want to be generous and caring towards all others because you see everything as yourself includeing all that is non human.

These philosophies are not the complete answer to our problems because many of these philosophies were born in China and, even though it's embedded in their culture, they are still struggling like everyone else. But a more modern widespread common understanding of the true nature of the situation may be beneficial.

Holy shit that's a lot of chicken

Edit: if he's getting a 10 dollar meal that's 200 orders of chicken. A 31 day month with 3 meals has 93 meals meaning over double what a person typically eats. If you get a 18 piece bucket looks like the price might be between 62 and 100 bucks. Let's say 62 for fun that's approximately 32.25 buckets or 516 pieces of chicken a month. I mean I like chicken but damn not that much

Late edit: if we can assume a chicken yields 7 pieces of meat 2 leg 2 wing 2 thigh 1 breast we can extrapolate that man was eating about 78 chickens a month. If you count the breast as 2 which it is commknly butchered as it would be 64.5 whole ass chickens a month

Many people inherit a house or a flat

People used to buy land and build a house on it and that was the inheritance. It could then be cut into smaller parcels and new homes built for the kids if they stayed close.
And of course if you were wealthy it was businesses and trust funds which still occurs a lot these days.

The middle class was partially stripped of its wealth by each generation giving less to the next

I am with you I never considered that an option and I don't want to think about it either. But I do think our parents gets/got a lot (depending on how our grandparents lived) more than we will. My grandparents left house and money and even a vacation house so my parents could put the sould houses and furnitures money into building their own house. My mom even gave me and my sister a bit to use to buy our first apartments. It is still money even tho it is pretty sad way to "earn" money... I assume your friends parents lived in rented apartments if there was not much left.

Yea the picture is not related at all. Elder care is bleeding their money dry, they're not choosing to spend it on lavish vacations.

Once you get to a point where you run out of insurance and health savings, you have to go to Medicaid, which will take your house and the rest of your savings after you die. (And if you try to give your house to your child before you die, unless you do it 5 years before enrolling in medicaid you will get a huge delay in services)

Middle class families passing down inheritance is not a driver of inequality.

A dozen individuals controlling 60% of the wealth in America is.

My mother told my wife that if my father passes away first, she wants to go live in a home, not with us or my brothers (great, because I do not think her living with us would go very well). But of course the unspoken question was, "Is there money for that?" Given we just gave them money to fix their HVAC, I doubt it. So is the plan that my siblings and I are going to pay for it? It'd be nice to know so that we could plan...

My aunt talked her mom out of kitchen remodel because it's going to cost so much (that she'll get smaller ineritance then) while my grandmom, who already spends most of her time alone at home then can't even spend her savings to make her surroundings a bit nicer.

Lewis Carroll has an interesting piece about that. Brings up the point that if someone works hard to benefit the community, and their wealth represents the response of the community to repay that person's work, perhaps it's not unreasonable that that person's request is, "repay it to my children," i.e. inheritance.

And that bothers you? Do you only care about money?

Related Twilight Zone clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMGJLZDLpUg

I'm suing my sister right now because her low life boyfriend talked her into short changing us. Then my mom died so I'm getting double. Yeah. Family troubles indeed.

Same!

Read the body of my post

In my family the house was sold so that we could pay for the funeral. (Funerals are super expensive and the house was rotting)

However, if you do get some money later in life you could always invest and grow it so that it can be passed down. By the time you die hopefully your kids will be responsible enough to manage it (I am assuming you have kids)

This money you use to pay for your children or grandchildren's college, house, whatever. Same as the last hundred years

I'm sure there is more to it but telling you she had kids so you can take care of her sounds pretty bad - even though I know it's not uncommon.

I have had to have this talk with my parents as well since I moved to a different country at 19. I've told them to prepare for me not to be able to be around all the time, and luckily they have done that. It still feels selfish after so many years and they have been great about it, so I can understand this conversation being extremely difficult when the parents expect to be taken care of.

Change the entire system top to bottom to make sure everyone can thrive

Spin it.

Die wage slaves mostly?

sfafsadfasdfasfd

I get the anti Boomer sentiment, but the reality is many of them are very decent people.

My dad passed this year and now it's just my mom left. She has a net with of about 2M. I'm doing just fine myself, And she gets by on about 70k a year (half of that goes to rent). I keep telling her she should spend more money on things that make her happy, but she's good with what she has and doesn't feel she needs more. She doesn't want to travel and she has everything she needs.

Just because the boomer generation has left us with a dumpster fire, doesn't mean that there isn't a wide distribution of people within that age group. The truth is only a handful of us have the power to change anything and the rest of us are just trying to get by and get the most out of life that we can.

Picture from your dad's funeral

Exactly. Family should help family regardless, otherwise, can it even be called a family?

That gives me hope, it's kind of like reparations

We're talking about what happens to our parents stuff when they die. What are they going to do, burn down the house when they die? Oh wait, that's exactly what they're doing, climate change is a hoax to a large portion of boomers, housing costs have risen well past cost of living, university costs have ballooned to unsustainable levels saddling an entire generation of people with debt they can't pay off, we have some of the most ineffective, expensive health care in the world, and oh, to top it off, we just elected a far right government that wants to wipe their ass with the constitution, and usher in the U.S. version of the third Reich. Some inheritance..

I will get stuff because that's what my parents own. They don't have large amounts of liquid cash but my dad owns his house and my mom owns lots of antique furniture (passed down from her family) and jewelry (she has a problem with buying shiny gold and silver pieces). But there's also 8 of us kids so the likelihood is that we each won't get much in the way of any real inheritance even from what they do have.

It's easier for most everyone involved to just let them live out their lives using what they have earned along the way. So I told my parents pretty much the same thing. Take care of yourselves. We'll be alright.

The people with millions and billions of dollars aren't spending all of it before they die. It's the old people with tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands.

Oh yes, all that money spent on cruise liners will definitely distribute over society

I would argue that the stereotype is that most Boomer parents did not actually do much "raising." They had kids out of some sense of obligation and then kept on focusing on themselves.

Boomers, as a cohort, are incredibly narcissistic and obstinate.

That said, I don't particularly care about an inheritance; I want my Dad to live as long as he can and be happy and healthy.

Good for her

No offense my guy but a quarter mill and a house will probably be easily eaten up but your end of life care. Regardless I hope you have that set up in a trust for your daughter so she doesn't have to pay taxes on it if there is something left.

I'm sure that the younger generations were complaining right before the fall of Rome too, they needed to get over it, what a bunch of losers.

You should probably take a look at how many hours the average young person had to work a week to pay for their education or to pay rent back then,compared to now.. The numbers I can find suggest the average college aged person had to work around 18 hours a week to pay for their own education back in 1970. Today they have to work 61 hours a week.

Saying the younger generation doesn't have it harder in most western countries is objectively wrong.

Which generation and memes do you refer to?

Its actually a good thing if these people are spending their money and not hoarding it and putting it in savings accounts to pass down. It liquidates money in the economy and should boost it. That said... If where you are taxes are shite and aren't redistributing the wealth properly it will all just end up in someone far richer's bank account.

Do you NEED your parents money to get by?

For most people the answer is... Yes, to live the the same standard. This generation barely affording one car while the previous generation had multiple...

I don't know what you think 50$ a month compounds to, but I've done the math and I'll need to put away 7-800 per month to save enough to cover rent/food for a reasonable amount of time 40 years from now.

Sounds pretty selfish to have your kids in debt instead of using the wealth you've accrued to avoid your family paying interest to the bank. Pretty dumb way to hamstring your family's ability to accrue generational wealth. Like damn I guess you actively dislike your kids and grandkids.

Obviously parents are entitled to spend their own money but generally if kids are struggling parents want to help.

Your post makes it sound like the current young working generation has the same lived experience as people who are retired. That's just not the case at all. It's much harder for the average person to save up money and buy a house now than it was in the past.