In their defence, it is a difficult concept to grasp. My dad started his career shovelling gravel for a few dollars an hour. Now he's a vice president making very good money. In his mind, anyone can replicate what he did by working hard instead of being lazy and asking for handouts.
I eventually got through to him one day when he was talking about hiring for a senior management position. He was interviewing all these people with fancy degrees and credentials. I asked why not promote one of his hard workers? He laughed and said the person needs to be more than a hard worker to manage multi-million dollar projects. But where would he be now if his old boss had thought the same thing? My dad has none of the credentials of the people he was interviewing. He'd still be shovelling gravel 60 hours a week for minimum wage if nobody gave him the opportunity to advance. How could he think hard work will be rewarded when he doesn't even reward it himself? That's when he admitted the world works differently now.
226I read one story the young adult finally convinced his dad when he showed him a job posting for his old job. It payed less than when he had it, not even accounting for inflation.
103I remember that story and can relate. It took showing my parents the cost of my tuition at a university now and comparing it to when they were 18, then doing the same for the yearly wage of a fast food worker, before they realized that cost inflation has out-paced wage inflation by a crazy amount and no, people can't just sustain themselves through college to get a leg up in society.
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46Admitting that there's a problem usually also means that you admit that changes should happen. People like feeling comfy, and people like dealing with what they know. Change is uncomfortable, and it takes effort. It's the "fuck you I got mine" mindset. I hate it, and I strongly believe it's hindering the entire planet's progress in almost every form.
"All young people are bad" until they need life saving surgery. "Disability payments are bad" until dear ol' dad has an unexpected stroke that leaves him completely paralyzed. "Minimum wage is bad" until their personal lifelong industry dies. "Young people are stupid" until they need young people to take care of them in hospice. (Even then lmao) It's selfish and it's short-sighted.
When I get old, I aspire to be that old person who plants trees that I'll never see bloom. I want to help people in ways that I'll never see. That shouldn't even be a "good person" thing. That should just be "being part of a society that doesn't want to cease existing after a few generations".
I would feel like I had miserably failed at life if I ever ended up vying for the failure of future generations in the name of my own personal success. It's also a pretty weak goal to limit yourself to just "doing better" at life than complete strangers. I take pride in what I've done, personally. I don't need to "do better" than the next set of people to feel that pride. It's sad that so many need to treat others poorly to feel good about themselves. I would be embarrassed to act the way that I've seen many people act, personally.
What a state of things.
34What's stopping the average boomer? It's not their age, it's Fox "News".
Lead poisoning may be a factor
15S/news/noose
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Even still, weren't their dozens of people shoveling gravel and only a couple of vice presidents? The pyramid structure of corporations imply that not everyone can go from the entry level work to the c suite. It's an attrition and numbers game.
Plus, most companies now outsource their grunt work. The janitor cannot become the CEO anymore, because the janitor is a contracted worker, making minimum wage, not invited to the Christmas party, and prevented from speaking to anybody in a position of authority.
30Oh, yes, the contractors, not-exactly-people existing only when convenient. And the conditions for them are usually bad even when their manager tries to improve those, because tops see no additional value in improving conditions for someone that doesn't
existwork in the main corp9
Hank doesn't look like a boomer anymore. Cotton does. Boomers are 70+ year olds now. Weird.
59Hank is also mostly a product of his environment, yet a caring father that accepts his family for who they are. If all boomers were like Hank Hill, we'd all be happy.
35King of the Hill started in 1997, Hank is 41, that means he would have been born in 1956 of the series is taking place at the same time it started (there's a millennium episode so that pretty much confirms it), it's just an issue of characters not aging in animated series.
9I think that's what the person above was saying... it's just funny that boomers now are actually Cotton's age.
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How about the fact that as the overall population becomes top heavy with the elderly and fewer young people ... the economy won't be able to sustain paying for older people because there will be too few young people driving the economy.
This isn't meant to divide ... this is an honest worry of mine because I'm middle aged and by the time I get old and feeble, the economy probably won't be able to afford to care for people my age.
Unless you're a billionaire, millionaire or the child of one, we're all screwed.
48you aren't wrong and it's a fair worry
21A video that gives a simplified view of the problem
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I don't disagree. Yet people on the top heavy side continue to disproportionately support the individuals who collectively make it more difficult to live comfortably at any age. Those at or around retirement age are in this situation almost purely as a result of their choices, and/or a colorful, almost deceitful, blindness.
I can't blame any of them though. Many of us below 40 have had access to a million points of data via the internet over the years. So identifying these issues has been much easier for your average person. Of course on the other hand...
I think the big issue is we can't seem to truly agree on a course of action long enough to make anything happen. So...I don't know. Apart from us all pushing ourselves and people we trust into lower offices, I do not feel I am wise enough to suggest any solution.
11It gets even better: the high cost of essentials - especially housing - in relation to salaries makes said young people refrain from having as many kids as they would otherwise have (basically 1 or none instead of 2 or 3) meaning the problem is going to get worse.
7what we can automate we do really well making the rest paying less than before.
3We have never been able to afford the elderly because the elderly are extremely resource intensive. Getting old is extremely expensive and has been. Do not get old.
And the best way to avoid this in the future is to continue to lower the population so eventually we won't have so many elderly people. Stop making people, they will likely get old and be unsustainable.
2
I love telling boomers how easy their lives were and how they didn't need to work half as hard as today's youth.
42That is such a funny image of Hank - pissed off look and posture, beer in front of him, tie loosened. He's got something to say to somebody
31I'll tell ya hwhat
19
Looks like the face of someone who doesn't know what a jpeg is.
23You surely mean jfeg
7yif'g
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I just want a picture of a gatdang hot dog!
2
Where I'm from, they know. The news have done a good job of reporting on it, and they see the cost of houses, and whatnot be worse than before. It's kind of new from the last 5 or so years, before that they didn't get it. But now it's pretty obvious so long as they watch the news or pay attention to their kids and grandkid's lives.
21It really depends though. In a lot of places, life for gay young people for example is a lot less shitty than it was for gay people 40 years ago
18The funny thing is, that many boomers dislike exactly that fact about generations younger than them. They think because esp. Millenials and Genz learned to name and voice their feelings, they are weak.
It is incredible mental gymnastics, however a lot of boomers tend to blame this "weakness" for economical struggle of younger generations.
11That all depends on where you live. That's gone backwards in certain areas/states in the US the last few years.
8Bloody gays, causing the rent to go up! 😠
5It’s Rainbownomics!
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My partner literally had to send her mother our budget and attached bank statements to illustrate how we could struggle to pay the bills even with 3 jobs between the 2 of us.
I will say she finally got it - that you can work hard and scrimp and save, and still come up short.
16It sucks that it took all that for her to understand, but it shows great character that she came around to understand things from your perspective.
8Thank you and well said. She's by no means a bad person. I like her a lot. it's just the last job she had was as a nurse in the 80s in London; meanwhile, her husband had the same job for 40 years, so her perspective is way out-of-date with reality.
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11Every generation has shitty and awesome people
Right, but different generations have experienced different levels of economic and cultural turmoil that have shaped their political and ethical ideologies.
People who embraced Reaganomics and the general back slide of civility have destroyed their ability to empathize with anyone outside of their small community.
Younger generations still display this type of learned behavior, but it's a small minority when compared to the majority of boomers. I'm probably in the same generation as you, but I don't really share your confusion about the schism.
I feel like GenX were the last gen to believe that everything would be fine if you just get a degree and do your time. We're the last generation that had the privilege of not having to pay attention to politics.
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They fucked around and are mad that we are the ones that are finding out before they died.
10Just watched this episode yesterday 😂
3Yoooo 😂 that is spot on!!!
3I swear it's their permanent face!
2My mother trips over what's left of her addled mind to performatively dismiss how the world was all exactly the same, as hard or harder, for her in the 70s. She hasn't even entertained the idea that it might be exponentially worse for my generation on many different, measurable levels.
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0Charles Sumner knows that to well but, there are times when it is worth it. In his case it was abolishing slavery.
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