this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2024
264 points (96.8% liked)

United Kingdom

4091 readers
73 users here now

General community for news/discussion in the UK.

Less serious posts should go in !casualuk@feddit.uk or !andfinally@feddit.uk
More serious politics should go in !uk_politics@feddit.uk.

Try not to spam the same link to multiple feddit.uk communities.
Pick the most appropriate, and put it there.

Posts should be related to UK-centric news, and should be either a link to a reputable source, or a text post on this community.

Opinion pieces are also allowed, provided they are not misleading/misrepresented/drivel, and have proper sources.

If you think "reputable news source" needs some definition, by all means start a meta thread.

Posts should be manually submitted, not by bot. Link titles should not be editorialised.

Disappointing comments will generally be left to fester in ratio, outright horrible comments will be removed.
Message the mods if you feel something really should be removed, or if a user seems to have a pattern of awful comments.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
top 25 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] psvrh@lemmy.ca 67 points 1 month ago (5 children)

You could start taxing them. Especially the rich ones.

You know that's an option, right?

[–] Zip2@feddit.uk 24 points 1 month ago

Or make them pay for their own winter heating.

[–] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Yeah, except it's the rich assholes in power that would have to pass that kind of reform.

[–] DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I mean, yeah. That kind of reform.

Good thing there's other options.

[–] Rivalarrival 1 points 1 month ago
[–] Wanderer@lemm.ee 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Or we can give them lots of money for being old.

They didn't fight in two world wars to not be given free money.

[–] psvrh@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The Boomers fought in world wars?

In utero, maybe.

[–] Wanderer@lemm.ee 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

They didn't fight I just said.

[–] psvrh@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Sorry, the double-negative threw me for a loop.

[–] Wanderer@lemm.ee 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

It was just a joke. It was intentionally misleading, but I should have worded it better.

[–] Fiivemacs@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 month ago

Sad thing with doing that, is they will be screwed over. Cool beans, but it won't go away and you'll be double screwed over. It won't fix anything for the next generations. These billion dollar companies need not exist anymore. They do nothing but harm anything they infect

[–] Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 month ago

It's not an option... Look at the average age of our "representatives".

[–] Cruxifux@feddit.nl 64 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Rich vs working class, not boomers vs millennials or whatever garbage you’re trying to push.

[–] Dkarma@lemmy.world 38 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

Boomers are the rich, that's the whole point.

They lived through the largest economic boon in history and kept it all for themselves.

Yeah fuck their kids too but let's not forget who is perpetuating this system and it ain't young people.

Hell the "young" candidate this election is 60!!!

[–] stoly@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago

Millennials are children of boomers. Boomers were having children up to the late 90s. You cast a very wide net.

[–] Cruxifux@feddit.nl 1 points 1 month ago

lol seriously though. They should enforce a retirement age of 65 in politics. These geriatric pieces of shit need to go.

[–] stoly@lemmy.world 36 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Actually there is some truth to this SPECIFICALLY with Boomers. After the War, Western countries rebuilt economic powerhouses up to a certain point, after which the ladder was pulled up. Boomers had more opportunities than any generation before or after them.

[–] Cruxifux@feddit.nl 1 points 1 month ago

I just have a hard time blaming the boomers who protested shit like that for the sins the ones who supported imperialist capitalist interests of the time.

[–] flamingos@feddit.uk 37 points 1 month ago (3 children)

One thing these kinds of articles that are designed to stoke generational conflicts never mention is that rich people live longer. Like, obviously older people would be proportionally richer, the poorer people from that generation are dead. Also, friendly reminder, all this stoking of generational conflicts does is distract us from the real divide in society.

[–] Kellamity@sh.itjust.works 10 points 1 month ago

Regardless of the electoral politics, as Chris notes, the important challenge in social policy is helping people who won’t benefit from wealth transfers from wealthy relatives, rather than engaging in fantasies about “generational warfare”. What matters is not generations, but class.

[–] wingsfortheirsmiles@feddit.uk 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Couldn't agree more, though I would say it also distracts from the need to highly regulate capitalism at large, i.e. encourage reinvestment in employees (pay at least in line with inflation, training, etc) over shareholder dividends or CEO bonuses

This is relevant so not just those at the very top (irrespective of generation) will benefit from economic growth

[–] chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

Older people tend to be richer because they’ve had more time to earn and save money. Compare a 20-year-old to a 40-year-old. Both spent about 20 years being a kid, growing up and going to school, but the 40-year-old had an extra 20 years after that to earn and save money. You can do the same comparison between a 40-year-old and a 60-year-old, but take all the money the 60-year-old earned in the first 20 years of working and invest it in the stock market for the next 20 years, while also continuing to work.

Wealth can build like crazy. If you invest at 7% average annual return, you’ll double your money in just over 10 years. At 10% the doubling period is just over 7 years. Now consider that the S&P 500 had an average annualized return over 10% between 1957 and 2023, and that 60-year-old’s 20 year investment would multiply by 6.7x.

[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Digging a hole of debt deep enough to contain an ocean isn’t “hitting the jackpot”.

[–] TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It basically is when you're not the one who has to deal with that debt.

[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago

I’d liken it more to a bank robbery.