Baby Boomers

[edgray]

I read a really interesting article on the Baby Boomers this morning and the world they're leaving to future generations. Much of the debt we have in society these days could be argued is a direct result of their laziness (apologies to any Baby Boomers on the forum here, but it's true) and in spite of them growing up in the freedom loving sixties, have created a harsh reality for the generations that have followed.

Some interesting quotes:

Most capital expenditure for education and health no longer comes from the present-day taxpayer, but from the next generation, because the baby boomers have been too stingy to pay for it. This trick is done by means of the private finance initiative (PFI), a scam for getting the cost of public buildings such as schools and hospitals off the present government's books, and placing them on the books of governments 10 or 20 years hence.

Harold Wilson saved the baby boomers from having to fight alongside young Americans in Vietnam. When the baby boomer generation formed a government, its prime minister, Tony Blair, told lies to the young so that he could send them to fight alongside the Americans in Iraq.

Life is a lot tougher these days, and the Baby Boomers, who now hold huge political sway, are voting to make things worse:

Opinion polls show that the now elderly baby boomers will use their increasing voting power to ensure that when the bad times come, the young are hit first, even though it is by a chancellor of the exchequer who was not even born until the 60s were over.

Speaking to my father, a baby boomer himself, he's noticed this amongst his contemporaries: a massive double standards. Baby boomers relished in the permissiveness of the sixties but vote to punish those same ideals for future generations.

Read the piece here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jul/05/baby-boomers-voting-muscle

 

[Peter Parka]

Harold Wilson got so much unfair stick from the anti war brigade over Vietnam, I bet most Americans would be puzzled at what exactly their problem was. He refused to get us into the war which took balls to stand up to the USA but obviously he couldn't go denouncing the war thanks to the massive debt we still owed the Americans for World War II. Cue a load of angry protesters rioting and fighting police outside the USA embassy.
When compared to what we've had to put up with our government doing in a similar situation with regards to Iraq, you think they should have been praising Wilson, not protesting.