This guy gets a raise. Correct framework, right vision, epic headline. 10/10

Fuck. The. Boomers.Fuck. The. Boomers.

The more I think about their generational, civilizational betrayal (because for whatever reason it keeps coming up??), the worse the verdict is. The only sane, sensible thing a self-respecting Boomer (oxymoron, I know) can do is basically:

• refuse to draw public pensions/social security.
• sell their house, preferably at below-market rates.
• live out the rest of their miserable existence in a dumpster trailer (alternatively, a monastery with plenty of praying).

Third is optional. jkjk,

Nurseries into Nursing HomesNurseries into Nursing Homes

Once upon a time, inequality in Europe was largely horizontal. The rich western half drove BMWs and holidayed abroad, while the poorer east rewired its own appliances and queued for bread. [...] These days inequality in Europe has a vertical dimension—one that goes up and down family trees. Youngsters unable to move out of their parents’ spare room due to sky-high house prices wonder if they will ever enjoy the lifestyle as adults which they knew as kids.
Thirty-somethings in jobs pay hefty taxes to fund the pensions of oldies who retired in their prime. Costs related to ageing are guzzling a quarter of the European Union’s GDP, a figure unlikely to fall as the Old Continent grows older still. To be a young European is to feel oneself an unwitting participant in an intergenerational confidence trick.

100%. (And it's not different in America; social security is an illegal, immoral, despicable siphoning of value from relatively poor young people to relatively luxury-commie boomers. #1497403, #1468968

oh, look at this paragraph <3

Sociologists will surely celebrate the 1960s, when boomers sought to replace chauvinism with rock ’n’ roll. But economists will judge them less kindly. Boomers granted themselves generous pensions, relying on demographic trends that have since lapsed. The costs turned Europe lethargic. Today’s grandparents inherited a continent rebuilding itself after war; they will pass on one in need of repair after the damage they helped wreak.

Housing yes, but definitely not only: pension schemes, welfare state bloat, the epic betrayal that was the plandemic ("when the young endured years of social restrictions largely to protect the old").

The most obvious goodies in the intergenerational heist are houses, which boomers bought for a song and which are now worth millions. Yes, they did so by borrowing money at eye-watering interest rates—but they then profited when property prices kept climbing after the mortgages had been repaid.

and:

Europeans quit their jobs early, live long and expect the state—ie, current taxpayers—to pick up the tab for their retirement plans. In America the trillions of dollars stashed away in private pensions provided the cash for venture-capital and private-equity funds, which in turn allowed American firms to grow into behemoths. In most European countries today’s pensions are paid by today’s workers, in the expectation that tomorrow’s as-yet-unborn workers will pick up the baton and fund their own parents as they age. (Some of it is financed by government deficits, which the yet-to-be-born will also have to repay one day.) That means less capital for European firms, one reason why there are so few big ones in areas like tech. Instead there is a huge unmet cost that weighs down the public purse.

No continent for young menNo continent for young men

Nobody will begrudge boomers their elongated lifespans. (Again: an awkward hello to your columnist’s parents here.) But an older society is one that caters to the immediate present, not the future

True, but then go where? #835393

When budgets are tight, money can always be found to protect pensions and old-age homes; it is far easier to push through cuts to education and innovation instead.

“The future of democracy is increasingly decided by voters who don’t have one,” laments Maxime Sbaihi, an economist at Club Landoy, a demography think-tank in France.“The future of democracy is increasingly decided by voters who don’t have one,” laments Maxime Sbaihi, an economist at Club Landoy, a demography think-tank in France.

Raymond Aron, a French thinker, once warned that an ageing society is one that will “be stalked by the spirit of abdication”. That weary mood feels all too real for today’s Europeans, as they trudge past yet another nursery being converted into a nursing home

If you're a boomer, you should be ashamed of yourself.If you're a boomer, you should be ashamed of yourself.

Repent, bitches.

Altogether just an EXCELLENT The Economist piece. How often does Den say that??

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