For instance, the article argues that boomers are NIMBYs:
>Older generations used the levers of government to create this situation. In high-cost cities, the building of new homes and apartment complexes is often derailed in local planning and zoning-board meetings.
However Scott notes:
>It’s not even clear that Boomers are that much more likely to be NIMBYs. From Pew:
>https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!wf8x!,w_1456,c_limit...
The article also talks about social security as benefiting boomers, but Scott notes:
>The Social Security Administration’s own website says that its generosity peaked in 1972, when the program primarily served the Greatest Generation; since then, it’s been one contraction after another.
[1] https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/against-against-boomers
Most Boomers aren't NIMBYs, but most NIMBYs are Boomers.
This is a thing that uniquely threatens them because their home is their primary investment, so anything that can be leveraged to keep prices high, they'll do. Environmentalism is usually the weapon they reach for, and because they have nothing but time, they have the advantage when it comes to a court system that privileges this kind of retireded spam.
>Social security
This is more because everyone under 40 or so doesn't trust social security will even be around for them to collect, so that group sees it, correctly, as an unfair wealth transfer from young to old. Combine that with the above, and combine that with the abject refusal to even entertain basic reforms (which goes double for non-US nations), and that's where the resentment comes from. Throwing good years after bad ones.
We must have an enemy. Both sides of the aisle have chosen particularly stupidly IMO. The left has chosen Boomers and the right have chosen immigrants and refugees.
I wish they chose to point the finger at the billionaires, but that's where their money comes from as well, so they'll keep being rather incoherent.
No, not just Joe. There were a lot of younger people who did not want to confess Joe biden's state because it would reduce their power and a lot of them were under 65.
poor (and even moderately wealthy) old people aren't the enemy.
There are lots of reasons why the young today don't have the same opportunities of old. Hell, even with online advancements, it won't even match the early internet era pre and early after the .com bubble burst.
International free trade often isn't... because the labor and living conditions between nations varies a lot. And you cannot tax your way into a more fair market... you can only encourage more competition and enact some level of domestic protectionism.
Most of the people the article is complaining about simply did the right things... worked, steadily and saved or worked in companies that offered retirement options and pensions. But we want to be consumers first... we wanted cheap DVD players, televisions, appliances and phones. So, that's what we got... all the while markets are colluding, collapsing and expanding to extract every bit of potential value out of every product and market there is.
There's room for improvement, but I vigorously opposed socialism as the answer... I think we just need to adjust incentivization and adapt the limitations of liability offered to non-living entities. At this point, for the US, that will likely require a constitutional amendment.
It’s effectively a decoy to distract people that “know something’s wrong” from looking at the real source of our governance problems: Citizens United. Throw in a little generational resentment for division purposes and now you’re really cooking.
It's a tricky problem. Banning political spending for for-profit organizations is an easy win, but not a particularly big one. The big issue is PACs, and I can't come up with clean line to draw between "me and my friends got together to oppose evil policy XYZ" (which is clear, unambiguous 1st amendment activity) and "me and my billionaire cronies got together to oppose good policy ABC".
I would love to know what % of PACs - weighted by size (or “voice”, as you call it) - are operated as truly grassroots organizations with a normal distribution of contribution size. I’d put my money on <5%.
My solution is pretty simple. Do away with political donations altogether. People can still get together and make signs and go door to door for a candidate. And split the cost of pizza among themselves.
And that's basically impossible to curtail, without seriously violating fundamental 1st amendment protections.
