MovieChat Forums > Wall Street (1987) Discussion > The Boomers - A generation that have tak...

The Boomers - A generation that have taken everything from the young...

posted 9 years ago by cshak4
12 replies | jump to latest

I don't like to be the bringer of bad news, but it's true: the boomer generation, more accurately those in the 1% of the boomers have quite literally stolen everything from their children's future. I live in the UK which has become a cesspit of boomers' vested interests. Our housing market is ruined and is getting worse every year. Unique to the UK, is buy-to-let, a venomous way for the boomers to further squeeze every penny from the young and bleed them wholly dry. The film 'Wall Street' depicts everything wrong about the boomers.

[–] sbaker777 9 years ago

I think you're about 20 years off. The OLDEST boomer would have only been 40 years old in 1985, when this movie was to have taken place.

Most 40 year olds aren't "powerful" enough to have "stolen" much then.

I would think that the boomers were just picking up what the "greatest generation started after the war.

Just my opinion. I'm a late boomer, born in '61, same month as Obama. We ARE trying to take things away from future generations, NOW... but I believe it had already started after Roosevelt did what he did, then Johnson going WAY overboard with "The Great Society" *beep*

Shoot him, cut out his tongue, then shoot his tongue.

[–] sonofbeach-sheet 9 years ago

Isn't it amazing the youngest Generation X'ers are in their mid-30's and the oldest ones in their early 50's, yet Boomers are still the ones running the show?

[–] cabal24 9 years ago

Isn't it amazing the youngest Generation X'ers are in their mid-30's and the oldest ones in their early 50's, yet Boomers are still the ones running the show?

The Boomers are running everything now and have been throughout most of their existence once they came of voting age because there are so damn many of them. They have been able to influence policymakers because of sheer numbers. Also, when they became of earning age, they were around (at least here in the US) in the most prosperous economic era in our nations history. As a result, they had numbers and resources.

The question is, what happens once they start dying off? Will voting power be more widely distributed or will it concentrate in another demographic category?

[–] manofsteel4455 9 years ago

is 1982 part of generation X?

[–] slidell333 8 years ago

Hard to say....right on the border as far as I know...I'm '77 and I'm at the tail end of Gen-X...they used to call a generation 20 years but now 25. And I thought Gen X started around mid '60's or so

[–] Naughty-God 9 years ago

Every generation dies out eventually, so it's not possible for one particular age group to own everything perpetually.

You say you're from England, but I never hear anyone from there today in the lower class whining about the descendants of Aristocrats whose centuries dominance in British society shaped the economic reality you have come to know now. Most of their descendants no longer have any wealth and the various estates sprinkled throughout the UK are either public property or condemned due to disregard.

[–] MrBlondee 9 years ago

I absolutely agree. There have been many many books written on the subject. They are greedy, and only care about their own. And STILL, after all these years they are still running the show.

[–] Noir-It-All 9 years ago

LBJ's escalation of the war in Vietnam had to have cost more than his Great Society programs. In 1964, the poverty level in the U.S. was pretty high. Urban and rural poor. No Medicare. The elderly were in a bind. No Civil Rights Act or Voting Rights Act.

[–] estcst-3 9 years ago

20-somethings shop at Walmart too. The rich didn't wish themselves rich, they had a fertile market of middle class beer bellies who were willing to sell out their neighborhood businesses to save a quarter on a bag of Doritos. Now that these old middle class guys are watching their kids struggling to get a job they're all screaming about Big Industry. Just like how most people dig their own graves, these guys sold their own children down river and now that it's come time to own up for cheap product they're pissed but still too proud to admit where the 1%'s money came from.

[–] nutsberryfarm 8 years ago

very true. just a bunch of fatsos.

🌴"I'm not making art, I'm making sushi." Masaharu Morimoto🌴

[–] slidell333 8 years ago

I'll second that, too. Friggin Wal-Mart has destroyed much of the middle class and I still can't get people to understand why shopping there is bad in the long run. Sure, you'll save a quarter on your Doritos but you're not buying from a small business that lives and spends that money in the community. I just can't people to understand this simple concept. So yes, i have in the past gotten frustrated at my parents and their boomer ideologies that left us up the creek...then complain and say we're lazy..smh..

[–] slidell333 8 years ago

I agree with the OP and I've said the exact same thing many times. They raped our futures by tearing apart the things that made the middle class BOOM post-war....like decent, good paying Union jobs. And they sold us a lie about getting a college education or you'll be nothing. Funny, as most people I know that have NO education but work offshore jobs and so forth make WAY more money than all my friends that went to college. It's getting late but I can expand more...as a Gen Xer I just feel like they had all the opportunities to thrive, and got greedy and burned us in the process (by taking most of the manufacturing jobs out of the country to China because they'll make goods for nickels and dimes). And then they complain that we are lazy...smh...they graduated from HIGH SCHOOL and worked at the SAME job till they retired (many of them anyways...many I know from personal experience). Yes life isn't fair..but I sure echo the OP's sentiment.