OPINION
For a generation who spent so much energy railing against everything old and wealthy, the Boomers in their senescence are notably addicted to money.
No wonder George Carlin excoriated the Boomers as whiny, narcissistic, self-indulgent people with a simple philosophy: “GIMME IT, IT’S MINE!” As Carlin said, Boomers were given everything. Everything was handed to them. And they took it all.
And they’re not about to let a single penny trickle down from their wrinkled hands, if they can help it. If younger generations have to impoverish themselves to keep the Boomers in the manner to which they’re accustomed, well, tough titties, kids.
Young people are continuing to bear the brunt of rising interest rates and rental pressures, while older Australians are splashing out on cruises and dining out, new spending data indicates.
Cue the standard outraged whining from Boomers: We worked hard for what we have! No, your parents worked hard for it, even as their entitled, narcissistic children sneered at them. You spent your time getting stoned and rolling in the mud, “finding yourselves”, and channeling Shirley MacLaine’s pet rock from Atlantis.
Now, younger generations are working hard and not getting anywhere, mostly thanks to a double whammy of record-high house prices and skyrocketing inflation. Inflation which is being driven by two factors: mass immigration (a fetish for the Boomer left, as witnessed by the endless parade of tilty-headed nosey-nannas clucking for open borders) and Boomer indulgence.
The report from Commbank iQ — a joint venture between the country’s biggest bank and data firm Quantium — looks at the financial data of 7 million Australians.
Its latest quarterly report has found that, after spending on housing costs are stripped away, people under 30 years old are even cutting back on essentials such as food, fuel and insurance.
Conversely, people aged over 65 are continuing to grow their spending on non-essential goods and services faster than inflation.
The big driver is interest rates. Yeah, yeah, Boomer, interest rates were 16% in the 80s… and house prices were a fraction of what they are now. So the impact of even 16% interest back then was nothing compared to the havoc that just a few percent can wreak on new homebuyers.
As for rents…
Asking rents are also still rising as demand outstrips the supply of homes available for rent. The national vacancy rate just dropped to a new low below 1 per cent, CoreLogic data shows.
Younger Australians are much more likely to either rent or have a larger mortgage debt […]
Mr Tubman notes the 25 to 29-year-old bracket, where essential services spending is actually going backwards, is the demographic when many move out of home […]
Older Australians, on the flip side, are more likely to own their homes outright and they might even have savings buffers, Commbank iQ’s [Wade Tubman] notes […]
This divide between generational spending and cutbacks has been leading to concerns that the Reserve Bank of Australia’s macroeconomic policy is unfairly punishing younger people.
There have been accusations that older Australians are even helping drive up the inflation that the RBA is trying to cool down with rate rises.
ABC Australia
Rate rises that are smashing younger Australians, while the Boomers get off, scot-free.
[A] third of our society have paid off their housing.
They tend to be older and they’re enjoying higher asset prices and bigger returns from their savings.
Data shows they’re spending at a rate far exceeding inflation — working against the goal of lowering the temperature of the economy.
To be fair, at least some Boomers are aware that they’re part of the problem.
Aquaculture expert Greg Jenkins has benefited from interest rates climbing at the steepest rate in the history of our economy […]
But Greg isn’t happy about it.
“We’re not paying the price,” he says.
“I can guarantee that decades ago, when people got together and decided that interest rates were going to be the lever to control inflation, none of those people had mortgages.
“It doesn’t impact them, it doesn’t impact us. It’s not right.”
ABC Australia
As Thomas Sowell so wisely said, “It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong”.