The Cranky Version
Back again – with lots to come on Shanghai, including some new Price Tags in the original pdf format. Meanwhile, here’s my latest Business in Vancouver column:
I’m 62.
My horizons are limited by my mortality. And as one gets older, I’ve found, you accommodate yourself to that inevitability. As will, collectively, an entire generation.
So what do the Boomers want for the next few decades they have left?
Good health, for one. And economic security. And for this fortunate generation, certainly in Canada, that’s not an unreasonable expectation.
Regardless of what is or will be happening around us, aging Boomers would prefer things to continue pretty much the way they do now. They’d like to continue using the last, best resources while they’re still cheap – oil, water, land, air – with a sense that there’s no real limit to our consumption save what we can afford. In the face of limits, we expect that technology – as it has all our lives – will save the day. Smart people will figure something out.
Because we happened to be born at the right time, in the right place, accumulating wealth has been as easy as breathing. The great post-war boom has benefitted us more than any other in human history. Why wouldn’t we want that to continue, until we ship out?
In short, we don’t wish to be inconvenienced in any dramatic way. And as we get older, we do get crankier in the face of unexpected unpleasantries.
So here’s the cranky version of the generational bargain that underpins the world view of the self-regarding Boomer:
We want to live out the closing years of our lives with as much stability as possible. Don’t ask us to change our lifestyles before illness and disability do it for us, and certainly don’t ask for more in taxes.
We intend to spend our wealth, to which we feel entitled, largely on ourselves. We don’t know the consequences, yet, of all the carbon we have emitted into the atmosphere but would prefer not to be reminded while we’re travelling.
We will pass along whatever’s left and also the debts - whether measured in credit or carbon – to whomever has to make the tough decisions. However, because we vote in large numbers, we assume we’ll be exempted without being asked to alter our lifestyles for the sake of another generation.
We do expect the young ‘uns to work hard and creatively address the challenges heading their way. And we expect them to pay taxes sufficient to fund our health care, or accept that less will be spent on things like education. But we’re hoping they won’t make a big fuss as they realize they’re not going to get the opportunity to acquire what we took for granted. Because we really don’t want to make room for them if it means changing the character of our community or negatively affecting our property values. So, please, don’t think about rezoning our neighbourhoods or taking road space for bike routes.
As I say, that’s the cranky view. But if it was seen to be the mainstream opinion among the aging, I’d say we’re in for a pre-revolutionary period – not necessarily a violent one, but a time when the assumptions of a generation can be suddenly and decisively overturned. After all, why would those in their twenties put up with financing the Boomers end-life at the cost of their own beginnings? Why would they remain passive if they felt Boomers were taking them down even as they stood in the way of change.
Put that combination together – inequity in the present, disregard for the future and refusal to change – and you have the conditions that disrupted North American society in the late 60s and North Africa practically yesterday: young people with resentments, not much to lose and a lot of new ways to communicate.
The more hopeful view is that, unlike tribal warfare, generations are resilient because we’re all rooted in families – and society is in the end a big family. Older people do see the need to share, and there is a lot of wealth to be passed on. Technology and creativity do make a difference. Smart people can come up with solutions. Democracies do absorb disruptive change. And the generational bargain is capable of being rewritten so that no one need suffer unjustly.
But we’d still be in a potentially revolutionary state if our political leadership cannot find a way, without being penalized, to convince the Boomer generation that some significant change to their neighbourhoods, their taxes and their lifestyles are in order.
The Boomers rebelled against their parents. The question is: Would they rebel against their kids?
Thank you for writing this. A frank discussion on urban development, generational equity, and radical reallocation of wealth and capital (social, political and economic) has never been more necessary, and any twenty-something such as myself that dare question the hard work and sacrifice of the boomer generation is seen as ungrateful.
The challenge in Canada is that there wasn’t an “echo boom,” so fewer people to challenge the boomers.
To keep up the workforce, Canada brings in immigrants in their 20s and 30s to make up for the lack of boomer children. The question may be whether immigrant millennials join such a revolutionary movement.
Maybe the intriguing side of of this generational divide will play out in the US. There are more echo-boomers to challenge their parents, and their parents may be forced to make some lifestyle changes because of the structural collapse of the automobile-housing industrial complex.
Not convinced that baby boomers can be broadbrushed as all car addicts, suburban loving, consumptive work drones. For certain our generation did spearhead the start of dropping birth rates due to a number of factors…in many Western countries and in several Asian countries.
Most likely there is a huge divide between those who don’t have children/not exposed daily to demands of younger generation and those who do, which tend to colour certain opinions and attitudes in social program planning, transportation infrastructure spending, design of communities, safety and envirnomental protection.
As a car-free Canadian for the past quarter century (sounds radically modern yet anarchronistic), a cyclist for transportation and boomer daughter of working class, aging immigrant, non-English speaking parents who require support, I only caution that in fact, for some boomers we are living the revolution right now in their personal lives, in their jobs and in community volunteer work, to challenge complacency of anyone of any generation who choose live and consume just for themslves without regard to wise use of resources for generations ahead.
This 40-something has been pretty sure since I was in my 20′s that there would be a revolution (in post-retirement benefits if not actual manning of the barricades) when the limited-future younger generations get tired of supporting their better-off elders.
My parents and most of their friends reject as nonsense any notions of global warming, peak oil or an end to unlimited ever-increasing growth, decry any government expenditure as socialism (except of course their retirement benefits — even though many of them could live very comfortably without them), and view any suggestion of an urban design other than car-oriented suburbia as an assault on their human rights. While they are slightly pre-boomer, I fear their outlook is fairly endemic, and certainly seems to be shared by many of my boomer cousins.
I have a post-graduate professional degree yet between student loans and ever increasing real estate costs was unable to even purchase a home until I was 40. I have no expectation of ever being able to afford a comfortable retirement, certainly nothing like that enjoyed by my parents who were just high-school-educated working stiffs. Sorry for the lack of optimism.
I’m glad you wrote about this. You’re right that there’s a fair amount of frustration among youth, who every year fork out more and more money for their tuition, who graduate with tens of thousands in debt and who work jobs that 40 years ago paid much, much more. Even if we do get a decent job, boomers have bought up all the real estate and getting a decent place for an affordable price is almost impossible, pushing young families out to the suburbs or to resource towns in Alberta or the north (I myself left the city for three years immediately after graduation). Densification on a neighbourhood scale, not in the downtown, still gets waves of nimbyism, as does any affordable housing or rental infill (even downtown – think STIR), and yet the same people doing the NIMBY have “No trucking freeway” signs on their lawns. On top of it, most people my parent’s age seem to still have two cars in the garage, which they drive all over, at least when they’re not hoping their cruises.
Now, a lot of people changed their behaviours majorly based on the recession, but I don’t think we’ve seen that sea change of attitudes yet. I’m also aware not every boomer is so selfish as to believe this is a good thing, but many participate by choosing not to support an alternative. I don’t even think many of the bourguoise boomers realize just how privileged they are. I expect there’s going to be a lot more generational conflict in the next few years. The goal should be to leave the place better than when you found it, and previous generations worked hard to allow their kids to have a better life. Seems that’s no longer in style.
I hope you all feel better now that you vented your anger on boomers.
Tha fact is, the younge generation has too high of an expectation. Would prefer high level of education for low fee (or for free). After graduation have an easy office job. No phisical labour please! And no commitment either! No marriage, no children. I ask, who is selfish? On the other hand the boomers were not affraid to work hard, raised a family (you) and all along saved for their retirement. The benefits that they receive, such as healtcare and pension, is rightfully theirs. Some of them contributed to the plan for more than 40-45 years.
It sounds to me as though your comment says the following: you are aghast that younger generations want even a slice of the privilege their parents received when they were young. Yes, boomers all had easy, labour-free office jobs upon graduations from (relatively) less expensive post-secondary institutions, but we should be happy to graduate with a virtually useless BA with tens of thousands in debt only to find there are no well-paying jobs, because median income has been stagnant or declining for 40 years. Yes, boomers bought cheap houses on cheap land in the middle of the city and the first-ring suburbs, which then doubled and tripled in value, but the younger generation should be content with living in your basement suites to help pay for your retirement. Don’t even think about building new dense homes, either – it might lower housing values and destroy the “neighbourhood character.” Yes, the parents of Boomers paid high taxes in their highest-income earning years to help pay for benefits like a federal housing agency that actually built stuff, but boomers believe they are entitled to lower the income taxes, in particular in the highest income brackets, in a matter of a few decades just as they approach their highest income-earning years, so that they pay significantly less, and then cut all the programs except for health care, because they don’t really need those programs anymore. And finally, yes, boomers drove everywhere in their two cars and built highways to help them get wherever they wanted in air-conditioned bliss, but any bike lanes that interfere with car traffic are evil and should never be built. Oh, and that’s not even mentioning climate change – a loan from future generations if I ever saw one.
Again, yes, I know there are many boomers who are just as dismayed t at this particular attitude, and so I don’t intend to paint an entire generation with the same brushg. But that above paragraph shows the sentiment that a lot of younger people are receiving these days and the sentiment I felt when I read this comment.
Thank you for writing on this. Before the recession hit, I remember hearing a lot of “if you don’t fly first class, your kids will”. These comments often came from some (otherwise) very likable people.
Here in BC, I could have shown many upper middle-class parents what they saved in income tax over the past ten years vs what their children had to put up in tuition increases. At the time, I heard the arrangement would teach them character. The kids have to have skin in the game or else, heaven forbid, they might go and study in one of those unemployable fields that teach critical thought.
There are many ways individuals and institutions in one generation may take from the next, some of them unknowingly or with the best of intentions. As an example, CMHC can stretch out amortization periods and lower down payment requirements. These changes helped cause a bid-up in prices. The organization pushed out press releases claiming increased affordability.
In pension plans, return assumptions can remain in the overoptimistic 7-9% range because well, we just don’t know what the market will do in the future and by the way, these assumptions allow us to keep monthly contributions low.
There are also the macro issues: Non-renewable resources consumed at ever-increasing rates. Non-sustainable agricultural practices can decrease food yields very gradually before they drop off a cliff. Air pollution, demographic challenges and overpopulation, global warming. You can probably think of more.
The majority of these problems were known and have been known for many years. It was convenient not to act. The unsustainable lifestyle junkies need an intervention.
There’s a Mark Twain quote,
“… man is what he is – loving toward his own, lovable to his own – his family, his friends -
and otherwise the buzzing, busy, trivial enemy of his race – who tarries his little day,
does his little dirt, commends himself to God, and then goes out into the darkness to return
no more, and send no messages back – selfish even in death.”
The most frustrating part is that I have found some in this age group who have become depressed, incredibly vulnerable, unprepared mentally and financially for their later years. In spite of all the prosperity, they need support.