u/Bomboclaat_Babylon

There seems to be a recent narrative that Boomers had an easy / charmed life. It seems to revolve mainly around the fact that if your reverse time, the total dollar value of a house was less, with almost no other considerations.

If you bought a $300k house in the mid-80's vs an $800k house today, you'd have about the same monthly mortgage payments, and you'd actually pay significantly less today on $800k than if you bought in the early 80's due to the much higher lending rates. Imagine paying over $850,000 in total cash for a $300,000 home (30 year loan at 11% average mortgage rate, 20% down).

Many Boomers got deeply screwed over in that they handed the banks far more money than someone who has bought in the past 10 years.

They also had more kids, and the cost of clothing was much higher than today. Fast-fashion didn't exist. Hand-me-downs were common. Homes soaked up incomes and had little in them because home furnishings and electronics were far more expensive inflation adjusted.

Average inflation was double between 1970 and 1990 compared to 2015 to today. Average unemployment was double in that period and youth unemployment hit 24% in 1982. Lady Boomers faced far lower wages. Taxes were higher, workplace deaths were much higher, auto loans were double, men were drafted and forced to fight and die in Vietnam, and the ones that came back messed up were told to walk it off.

I'm not saying boo-hoo, Boomers had such a hard life, it's just always hard, and older people always have more wealth than younger people as it accumulates over time. It's not really different. Every generation has this same dynamic. I just see so much romanticism or jealousy over Boomers lives because of selective history.

Am I way wrong?

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

I have long thought that this recent protectionism / xenophobia streak is possibly the last major wave of the traditional nation state's influence, and that future generations will be more informed, and more mobile, and combining this with dropping fertility rates globally, nations will have little choice but to stop regarding their citizens as disposable and start to actually having to work to attract people to move to their country with tangible benefits beyond just propaganda about having a superior culture.

Somewhere around 120,000 Canadians left Canada last year to be "digital nomads". Those people aren't counted in the official net migration loss / net population decline of -0.2% for 2025.

While Japan and South Korea still refuse proper immigration, they are now encouraging more expats to live and work in Japan and Korea, but their own citizens are also leaving in increasing numbers to Bali, Vietnam, etc.

At the same time as locals in most countries harden and become more xenophobic due to government rhetoric, there are also record numbers of people moving around the world, and not just typical increases, but by large increases. Between 2020 and 2024, the global migrant population grew by 10.4%, which is roughly triple the increase in the world's total population (3.5%) during that same period. And this is in the midst of a peak in global anti-migrant sentiment and travel restrictions.

No matter what the governments of the world say, no matter how much they try to pit people against each other, more and more people are becoming increasingly independent of their home nation and going where the money and / or cost advantages / lifestyle advantages are. Do you think your grandkids will see nations more like companies and those companies will have to actually compete hard for them to accept moving there? / a 180 from the current "stay out" government narratives? Am I just a whacky hippie?