> a generation that pulls up the ladder as soon as they have something
This is a generally dangerous catalyst for stagnation. It has happened in technology much more than in the broader economy.
The successful don't want to play by the same rules as the upcoming, even though they were once in the same position. They do this by changing the rules as soon as they have power, to lock out any contenders.
Sure, homeowners have hacked the system to keep their "assets" rising. But tech is a better example. It was very fluid and disruptive in the early days. The victors, the Big-5, got there by quickly realising, as Lessig noted, that code could be used to modify the playing field. Sure, they bought regulatory laws like the DCMA, but even without that, non-interoperability, embrace-extend-extinguish, standards breaking, patent trolling and knowledge destruction, acquisition and mothballing of competition... all part of the same play-book to stop _you_ from doing what _they_ were able to.
I don't think the problem of the pulled-up ladder, of self-modifying code, is given enough attention in dynamic macro-economics.
Nevertheless, if we look at how the Boomers acted, they:
- Presided over a bunch of aggressive and needless wars.
- Led the slow decay of the US economy, weighed down with regulation, struggling to build things and stuck in a money printing spiral.
- Have done a terrible job of letting up the political reins to new blood, and generally allowed liberty to backslide in some stunning and catastrophic ways (pointing particularly at the monetary system that has been consistently getting more repressive and the surveillance state).
In some sense it is impressive that they only got a few things wrong, as a generation there was some amazing technological work done. But it is hard to recover from political and economic mistakes that profound. There isn't enough real wealth generation, retirement savings have been blown up in a lot of exotic foreign countries like Iraq and someone is going to have to do without. It'd be fairest if the blow fell on the Boomers, they set this up. The next generation can pay for their own mistakes.
Sorry, help me out. What "bunch" of wars did they "Preside" over? Boomers were born 1946-1964 (per Wikipedia).
You don't have to like it.
Similarly, age-based discrimination is illegal in the workplace, but only against older people. It is perfectly legal to discriminate based on age against younger people! This, despite younger people having less power and getting paid less on a group level.
Very odd how all this concern only flows one way...
My reply already states this in other terms. It's impossible to be for equitable treatment without seeing individuals instead of groups.
What happens online doesn't matter for these things. What matters is who shows up and shakes down city council members by being angry and claiming to represent concerted voting blocs.
Well, that and those who are changing the state level regulation of local municipalities to force them to build more housing. But that is a strategy pursued by younger groups advocating for housing (which also includes Boomers!).
But the opposition is nearly uniform in their age, largely due to who has the free time to set city level policy.
Also, if you look at local democracy, it's mainly boomers voting.
The combination of a generation that pulls up the ladder as soon as they have something, plus a government that caters to local homeowners has created a catastrophe for all but the wealthiest. Housing austerity benefits the wealthy (by which I include all homeowners) by extracting economic rent from everyone less wealthy.