Am not known for socialist leanings but something I have been observing everyday has been getting to me.

I work in software and there is a spread of employee ages here.
I feel so sorry for the 1970's "generation".
So many of them are f*cked.

One guy brilliant engineer, hard worker, late 30s unfortunately bought tiny place 2004 in tallaght.
2 kids now cant sell, NE.
Basically all he has to show for 15 years of hard work is debt.

Another guy early 30s bought apt citiwest 2006. 32 year mortgage, huge NE, engaged.
Believes they have a bleak future.

You can pretty much draw a line around them based on birth year.
The guys over 40 are happy enough, the guys in their twenties are happy as pigs in sh*t.
I even noticed this the past couple of years at the school reunion.
Many guys there mid forties and older - living it up and boasting about how well they are doing (like it was down to their talent and not an accident of birth).
Quite a number there born in the 1980's - almost no-one there from the 1970s.

Maybe they are not in NE on their PPRs but i wouldn't be too surprised if some of them are nursing significant losses on investment properties.

Read Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, he goes into exactly the same thing.

It has been noted before on the 'pin that our leading developers are all much of an age, that is, they all had functioning companies at the start of the tiger, and rode the free money, er, all the way to bust...

Oh absolutely. I've noticed it many times. Because I was a bit out of step with my generation and had a kid young, a lot of his friends' parents are around a decade older than I am (I'm 37) and the contrast between them and my friends my own age couldn't be starker. It isn't just a matter of them being a decade ahead in their careers / earning power; it's the fact that they spent a much smaller multiple of their income on housing when they bought 15-20 years ago and have far less debt - some of them are mortgage-free by their mid-late 40s. Most of the 40-something mothers were able to choose whether or not they went back to work when their kids were small, not an option for most of my 30-something friends. None of them live in crappy apartments or a 2 hour commute away. They have more time for community activities, see more of their kids, friends and extended family, and just generally have a far nicer, more relaxed life than they would had they been born a decade later. Hard not to be jealous.

The more interesting question is just how many people are in this boat. Have we any numbers?

I was born in late 70s myself and know tonnes of people stuck in NE or otherwise caught in an unfortunate situation. I don't know that my situation is that much better since I rent a room and my living situation is far from comfortable.

The boom seems mainly to have benefited older people with the younger generation and immigrants paying for it all. These are the same young people that will have to work longer and live on less when they retire so Ireland seems to have a fairly consistent policy going from the past right into the future of screwing these people over.

Well there is nothing new in all this. Try being born as a male in France in 1890 and see how that turned out for you.

As Padraig Flynn might say - You should try it some time!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2007/ma ... s.business

Good piece by Carol Cadwalladr on who benefited from the housing boom in Britain (i.e. older people, as in Ireland).

I don't know if this is fair, the dividing line is not related to when you were born. Its down to whether you hopped on the property ladder or not. I'm mid 70's and all my mates are basically divided between the skint ones who bought and the rest who are all comfortable provided they have kept their jobs.


I actually think we are going to see the real divide between the rest of us and those graduating now. In my generation we all got good experience, generally interesting roles, promotions, managment experience. All of which means if we need to we can travel with nice plump CVs. There are no opportunities for the kids today.

What are you all carping about? I'd give every brick and roof slate i own to be still in my 30s.

Here's a article which sits in this discussion

http://www.tompeters.com/blogs/main/leadership/

The leadership of today's organization is largely in the hands of baby boomers, my generation. It is a small leap of reason to say that we shaped, if not created, today's turbulent economy. The greatest generation gave us an economy that provided a solid foundation to build on. They moved beyond the war, overcame the great depression, and left us an opportunity—with the promise that "You can be anything you want to be." Being kind, I would say we haven't seized that opportunity. Being honest, I would say we flat-out failed to build a similar solid foundation for those who will follow us. We have made a mess. We are not the victims of changing economic conditions, we created them. We have maybe ten years to do something about it.

I have been researching the gap between the generations' impact on the economy of the United States and have not found an acceptable metric to quantify my conclusions. There are just too many variables. One thought hits me hard, though; the next generation may be the first in a long time (ever?) that are not be better off than their parents. I think we baby boomers own that.

Because this is a blog entry, not a white paper, let me offer a few bullet points that should start a little discussion:

• We didn't invent greed, but we took it to a new level. The pursuit of individual wealth has too often trumped the collective national good. And not just at the executive level; some labor rates grew beyond the ability of companies to pay them and remain competitive. The gap between haves and have nots has grown. We are beginning to pay a price for that greed, and many are finding their golden goose has cancer.

• We confused profit with value. Maximizing profit led us to cut costs so dramatically that we may have sacrificed the very survival of our enterprises. Our miserly investment in talent development, research and development, and our relentless push to lower supplier costs have weakened historically strong brands.

• Too many MBAs were in charge. Sorry about the toes I just stepped on. But running a business is a lot different from building a company. We became managers; we have to become leaders. Of course we must be fiscally disciplined and focused on metrics. A quick (albeit unscientific) look at some of our more troubled companies shows a career path to the executive suite that runs through finance. It is not working.

• We have been reluctant to accept responsibility. I hear often that we are just unlucky to be leading in a very tough economic time and are doing as well as can be expected. Baloney. We made this economy. I hear (and observe) a lot about operational excellence. Look back at your metrics; if they have improved continuously, it isn't a failure in operations ... I suggest it is a strategic failure. We own that.

• And one more that will probably incite the masses! I believe that our parents unwittingly made us soft. We had our needs and wants indulged by parents driven to make sure we had more than they had had as children. We can't leave a great legacy without honest-to-goodness hard work.

I'll let the blog discussion take this further. I have many more observations, but how about yours? I have high hopes for my generation, but there's not much time to get about it.

Interesting. And what would you do?

This is the mobility trap that I use to talk post about in the days before the pin.

The ramifications of this are what makes me believe a recovery in Ireland of any great merit and I'm only talking about stability is difficult. Where is the life force that will spring forth? The very citizens the economy needs whom have are the only one with the years left to put in to get us out of this mess are the ones most burdened. Also soon to be super burdened with NAMA and more penal tax levies.

For what gain? The baby squarely was thrown out with the bath water a long long time ago.

Maybe this: