This millennial reckons baby boomers have had it 'too easy"

Nope she's 35

 

I came from a family without a "gift" culture. I think because we were underprivileged although in those days it was normal, among my neighbourhood and peers anyway.

Christmas we went to church and reminded who died on the cross and why, biblical stuff. Of course I enjoy the puddings and everything foodwise. But no gift in santa's sock. However, I enjoyed the dinner and family together.

Birthday gifts rarely happened. But there was always a birthday dinner and Mom would say this was the toughest day for her to deliver me all the pains and stuffs. But she enjoyed having me in the family and how blessed we were.

 

As a kid (50 to 55 years ago), I use to think that one could only buy ham at Christmas because Mum would only buy it then, as a treat.

When I was in my 20’s and started grocery shopping for myself, I was shocked to find out that one could buy it EVERY day .

 

You know what? I've been alive since the late 1970's. I've never had any really tough time.
For me, 1980's and 1990's were smooth sailing. I was too young to really be affected by the stock market crash of 1987. Or by the period of really high interest rates, I had no mortgage back then. Princess Diana's death 1997 was something that was felt widely. The whole of the English speaking world felt that I reckon, because she was such a shining light. That's maybe all up until that point?

The Twin Towers 2001 had some effects globally but it was not directly a major problem in Aus. I do remember Lleyton Hewitt won the US open and only a couple of days later, the Twin Towers event occurred. Watched it all on TV.

The GFC (felt in late 2008) had some impact to me and I was made redundant because of it but I got another job immediately, not to mention a nice redundancy payout.

Everything has pretty much been smooth sailing since. No big wars or disasters, catastrophic shootings, bomb blasts in my own experience..... Sure, there are some other incidents like bushfires, (January of my HSC year, right when my parents and younger siblings had a holiday down in Tas and it snowed down there and I was stuck at my aunty's to study.....) but I can't say I was in the line of fire and these world events haven't been life defining for me.

I've had it really good, so it's only now in my early 40's that I encounter something that is really a problem? And I'm still blessed, I can work from home, still have my job. It's just a change in a way of working and being a bit less "social".

 

No no no. The good old days were the wooden rackets era. Margaret Court for the style and John Newcombe for the moustache.

 

I'm a few years older than @Gockie, but I had a different streak of luck.

I started working in the late nineties, and a couple of years in I got caught in the Dot.com downturn, which was exacerbated by 9/11.

As an illustration of how bad it got in the British IT industry, a friend went to the job centre (the local equivalent of Centrelink), and the woman who handled his case had been an Oracle DBA at one of the major banks in the City until very recently...

Things picked up again in 2003, and I had a pretty solid run of work until 2008, when the GFC hit. After that, things started picking up in 2010, but it took a few years to get to where I had been.

And now it's the Covid pandemic...

I worked with someone in London some years ago. He was a Boomer and reckoned that every decade there would be a recession, and if you were a freelancer, that would wipe you out.

I think that Australia has dodged downturns for the last decade, so anyone born from the late seventies on won't have experienced a recession. The rest of the world hasn't been so lucky.

 

Few areas of Australia require you to spend $1.2m to get a decent house.
Even Sydney has cheaper areas.

 

It would be interesting to see the price distribution plotted on a graph. I half expect it to be a bell curve whereby you might find that you capture the vast majority of houses around the median. If that were the case then your options drop off quickly as you move away from the median (up or down).

Just a thought and not a prediction.

 

I still have a phobia of unemployment due to the early 90s recession. Average marks at school meant no chance of uni. Courses were under supplied and seemed limited to accounting & hairdressing. Badly underemployed for several years. Got into commission only property selling in Surfers Paradise. Had Jag, mobile phone and tailor-made suits but could not afford lunch. I was far from alone though.

This time psychologically it's a bit different. I hope anyone unemployed knows how arbitrary and simply unlucky they are.

 

Millennials will be the future debt mules to solve the current problem, and they’ve been cornered into providing the solution.

The ones I work with have a debt appetite out of this world, and , know how to save as well.

 

If this home had tracked inflation, it would be worth $37,000. It just sold for $2.7 million. Here's why

Just happen to read this article with a copy of a 1963 newspaper... Wasn't easy then and the suggested solutions weren't that different from today's.

 

It’s rarely easy for FHBs.

 

@Paul@PAS posted the best mic drop post about this:

33 per cent of Millenials believe their parents have an obligation to help them buy a property

Seriously, read through his bullet points and tell me you'd prefer to return to that.

 

but i would add, before the laws change, and to some extend, you can still do it.

in the 1980's only australians (working aus) wanted to buy a house in australia,

now you have 2billion people in your door step, if just 1% want to buy the house in australia,

thats 20m people, and that 20m people are richer than 90% of australia,


my point is, competition is different, while the "lending" law makes it easier,

but the goal post have moved

 

Well that was in the 4 corners program. One question was asked why aren't young ppl really angry?

Truth is they care less about Real things ( real estate) more about virtual. And climate.

They are just waiting to bury boomers and take over the world.

Patience, balance, care for others. U gotta admire them

 

LOL that’s what you get out of that?

 

The young shall inherit the earth!

Nothing surer!!

May as well love 'em

 

I don't know about that, anyone leaving school in the early 90's would have found it tough finding a job in Australia at that time. I remember going for jobs where over 3000 people had applied for about 5 positions.