Posts by Joe Wylie
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Hard News: A few (more) words on The Hobbit, in reply to Danielle,
Danielle, this is the bit that really got me:
Baby boomers were at the most 40 years old when the 4th Labour government hacked taxes. During the following 25+ years - their peak earning years when people pay the most in income tax, they did not fund the care of their elders as per the social contract that had built up for several decades. Within a few years their parents and grandparents were having to sell their homes to fund their hospital care.
A sweeping generalisation: "baby boomers" - not just some, but all, no qualification - habitually drive their elders to penury, and deny them life-saving medical care to fund their own selfish lifestyles.
BTW we also bite the heads off babies, but we're sufficiently discreet about it that Kyle hasn't picked up on it yet.
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Hard News: A few (more) words on The Hobbit, in reply to Danielle,
I don’t understand how this is ‘scapegoating’ on Kyle’s part, unless I missed a post of his where he said ‘it’s all your fault, you dirty boomers!’ I think he’s discussing it as just… something that happened.
If Kyle had made it plain that his beef was with the selfishly affluent, rather than an entire generation, I'd have no problem. It's disingenuous to claim that you're simply discussing ideas and talking in generalisations when the supposed "facts" that you present unfairly caricature entire generations as possessing certain shortcomings or qualities. Forgive my raising the obvious, but it's about real people. When the blame game net's cast that wide then I for one feel unfairly maligned.
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Hard News: A few (more) words on The Hobbit, in reply to andin,
There are many economist’s and journalist’s getting ready to blame a generation for being born . . .
They keep hinting at a soylent green-style solution, but none have yet displayed the cojones to actually propose it. Far easier to scold the unwashed for such moral slackness as their low level of savings, while writing fawning pieces about bank CEOs who profit from encouraging personal debt.
"Phosphorus recovery," explained Henry telegraphically. "On their way up the chimney the gases go through four separate treatments. P2O5 used to go right out of circulation every time they cremated some one. Now they recover over ninety-eight per cent of it. More than a kilo and a half per adult corpse. Which makes the best part of four hundred tons of phosphorus every year from England alone." Henry spoke with a happy pride, rejoicing whole-heartedly in the achievement, as though it had been his own. "Fine to think we can go on being socially useful even after we're dead. Making plants grow."
Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
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Hard News: A few (more) words on The Hobbit, in reply to Kyle Matthews,
My parents are baby boomers . . .
And every misogynist just happens to have a woman for a mother.
If you could focus on what I’m saying rather that continually attacking me personally that would be good.
You seem to assume that the sort of parental help you claim to have received is somehow the norm in this country. It's not. You're part of a privileged minority. Then you attempt to score cheap feel-good points by attacking an entire generation, the majority of whom are far less affluent than yourself. And on top of that you expect to be taken seriously. I'll pass thanks Kyle, that's your job.
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Bush was never at risk of prosecution for the same reason that Reagan escaped any censure for Iran-Contra. As do-nothing figureheads, nothing that important ever crossed their desks. Palin's enablers are pursuing the same model.
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Hard News: Holiday Open Thread 2:…, in reply to Alex Coleman,
Out there somewhere is someone who would love to kill Governor Palin. God forbid they do it.
Deja vu all over again.
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Hard News: A few (more) words on The Hobbit, in reply to Rob Stowell,
Dad would be chuffed :)
Ah. Mystery solved.
There was a hand-operated printing press in the room at the bottom of the tower with the observatory dome on top, in what's now the Arts Centre. Your Dad had a key, and was very helpful and trusting in letting us fool about with it.I'm grateful for that.
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Hard News: A few (more) words on The Hobbit, in reply to Rob Stowell,
There was a ‘universal student allowance’, back in the day. Getting an A or B bursary added a little to it, but not much.
I don't recall anything prior to 1970, must have come along later. That B bursary certainly didn't go far.
BTW, do you have any connection with a Bob Stowell? American, in Chch in the late 60s. While I never had the privilege of being one of his students I remember him as a thoroughly nice guy & a poet of no small ability.
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Hard News: A few (more) words on The Hobbit, in reply to BenWilson,
Thanks Ben, interesting stuff.
My parents could not understand any of this because it did not tally with their memory of how things had been in their day
Your parents are obviously educated and intelligent people. Bursaries, especially the kind that gave you a livable income, were far from universal, and were generally granted for academic achievement. But you do have to wonder about the quality of a tertiary education that fails to provide the means to understand a changing world.
BTW, while I'm probably old enough to be your dad, I don't know a single property millionaire. Not personally.
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Hard News: A few (more) words on The Hobbit, in reply to Kyle Matthews,
Quite a few received a well funded education
Sure they did. By their parents, or by scholaships. But not by the state. None of that has changed.
graduated from university without student loans
Is that right? The lucky ducks. What you’re ignorant of, willfully or otherwise, is that there was no student allowance prior to Goff’s introduction of user pays in the late 80s. Those without private means had to work part time and holidays to support themselves. The dropout rate was rather higher than today.
Please point out anywhere where I scapegoated baby boomers.
Are you being cute? Everything you’ve posted on this topic has been selectively presented as an intergenerational blame game. Until this:
The social contract was broken, and baby boomers benefitted tremendously as a generation from it. Some of them undoubtably were the pivotal in causing this, but many were opposed.
So maybe there are elements of a left-right issue, rather than selfish “boomers” versus the rest. Things do tend to focus that way once you step back from convenient self-serving generalisations.
As a generation they benefitted however, there’s effectively been an accumulation of wealth gathered together from both ends of the age spectrum towards the middle.
Accumulating wealth takes time, and the “boomers” have certainly had that. Given the obscene increases in top-end salaries and bonuses there’s every indication that those currently at their earning peak will eclipse the excesses of your “boomer” bogeymen.