They used to say: “Don’t trust anyone over 30.” Then they got older… What really happened to the baby boomers, and can we blame them for the world we live in today?
Blamed for the housing market, climate change, meetings that could have been emails, and refusing to retire so the rest of us can have jobs. Valid. But these are the same people who were in the streets in their twenties screaming “FIGHT THE POWER.” They felt exactly like we do now. And then they just… stopped. So what happened?
These systems were in place way before the baby boom began. Alive to witness the murder of Dr. King, baby boomers were the most anti-government, the most radical — they grew up amongst the Black Panthers. They were young, angry, had energy with nowhere to go, and suddenly: they were heavily recruited into the military. Given structure, responsibilities, a paycheck. It changed them. But it also taught them how to organize, how to move strategically, the art of war, and how to fight.
The Great Wealth Transfer
This isn’t a recession. It’s the largest wealth shift in American history. Baby Boomers hold an estimated $78 trillion in U.S. wealth: homes, land, retirement accounts, and equity accumulated over the last 5 decades. As they age, the question isn’t IF the wealth moves, but where it goes.
The Plan That Didn’t Work
Private equity firms and rental corporations spent the pandemic buying single-family homes at rates we haven’t seen since the 2008 foreclosure crisis. In some areas, they purchased 1/4th of all homes listed for sale. They weren’t hiding the strategy. The goal was to purchase all the affordable starter homes before supply could recover. They wanted to convert a generation of potential homeowners into lifetime renters with no equity, no generational wealth, no way to exit the workforce.
They thought Covid would practically eliminate the Baby Boomers’ drastic numbers. Death at the scale they expected meant even more homes would hit the market. Grieving families experiencing an unexpected loss, faced with rising funeral costs, scattered across cities, emotional, and unfamiliar with probate and property taxes, would sell properties fast and cheap.
Baby Boomers hate being told what to do. So instead, they became the generation with the longest life expectancy. Research showing they can easily live another 20-40 years, well into their late 80s and 90s.
Which means, they still have time to deliver one final middle finger to “The Man.”
