Mastodawn

Juggling With Eggs

I remember reading John Lanchester’s Whoops! in 2010 and thinking this guy actually gets what the financial crash was really about.

Reading his piece today about inter generational conflict, I find him a slightly defensive boomer (mostly around gender) but otherwise he’s spot on again.

He skewers:

- house prices
- pensions
- quantitative easing
- Brexit

https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2026/mar/08/did-baby-boomers-eat-all-pies-john-lanchester-truth-generation-gap

Did baby boomers eat all the pies? John Lanchester on the truth about the generation gap

It’s a grim time to be in your 20s, no doubt, but don’t blame it all on older people: being chopped up into ever smaller rivalries only serves the market

The Guardian

Juggling With Eggs Mar 8

“Yes, there is intergenerational inequality in property ownership. But one day the boomers will die, and then their children will inherit their wealth, much of it property-based. It’s already begun to happen, and it’s being called “the largest intergenerational transfer of wealth ever…and will amount to something in the region of £4 trillion”

This he rightly acknowledges will create a “gap between people who inherit property wealth from their parents and people who don’t”.

Juggling With Eggs Mar 8

I’ve raised this concern here before, because the distortions that already exist among Boomers are only going to get magnified in the generations that inherit their wealth (or don’t).

Those who don’t own their own home won’t be passing it on. So those living in social housing - many of whom are or were single mothers or disabled.

Those who require extensive care towards the end of their lives, may have already sold their homes to pay for it.

The existing #wealthgap will be given steroids.

Juggling With Eggs Mar 8

But what I don’t think Lanchester quite has space to tackle is within the Boomers whose wealth will be passed on there are a sizeable chunk of the nation’s private landlords.

It’s not just one property in a desirable postcode being handed on, it’s mini property empires on which I’m sure their financial advisors will have already advised them on how to get through the loopholes of inheritance tax.

Juggling With Eggs Mar 8

Lanchester does mention his gay male peers and those slightly older who should all things being equal be here…but they are not because of AIDs in 1980’s.

What he doesn’t acknowledge is lesbians of that era generally couldn’t get mortgages.

In the UK, women gained right to independently secure a mortgage without a male guarantor or husband's permission following the Sex Discrimination Act 1975…but low pay for women continued to make this tricky, so many did and still live in social housing.

kim_harding ✅Mar 8

@JugglingWithEggs Wait until you hear about the bunch that seized land in 1066 and the years thereafter, they still own a seizable chunk of England...

Piers Cawley Mar 8

@JugglingWithEggs They've probably already passed them on – you need to survive (I think) seven years for a gift not to get taxed.

Juggling With Eggs Mar 8

Yup, I suspected as much…this great wealth transfer is already under way as Lanchester says. It’s not that successive governments haven’t noticed or known it would happen, they’ve actively enabled it.

Mike Prior-Jones Mar 8

@JugglingWithEggs falling birth rates also mean that inheritance will concentrate onto fewer individuals: at present my niece and nephew are likely to inherit both their parents’ wealth and mine, as I don’t have children.

David Njoku Mar 8

@JugglingWithEggs Yes, boomers will die and leave their wealth to their children. But the secret of our system's success is that every decade or so, the wealth is put back in the pot and everyone is motivated to work, invent, and produce to earn it. If all that happens is that last generation's winners pass their wealth to their children, then there's no motivation left for the young.

Juggling With Eggs Mar 8

When I was at uni in the 90’s, there were already the ‘trustafarians’. People who swanned from one degree to another, not finishing one before they started the next, with the bank of mum and dad paying for everything and ‘writing off’ existing student loans…while the rest of us ate Tesco Value 9p bread and worked in pubs/fast food chains both during term time and holidays.

It’s got worse. I just don’t see the wealth being put back in the pot by the rich.

David Njoku Mar 8

@JugglingWithEggs You're right. My description is of how the system *should* work, not of how it has ever worked.

Dr Alice Violett Mar 8

@JugglingWithEggs on the flipside (wrt people with property-owning parents), a) a lot of people quite like their parents as people and would prefer for them not to die, and b) they'll likely be in their 60s/70s themselves by the time they get that life-changing windfall 😕

Juggling With Eggs Mar 8

@alicemcalicepants

I think you’re right and Lanchester is right that what generations have in common is still stronger than the ‘culture wars’ that are being stirred to try and tear them apart.

Dr Alice Violett Mar 8

@JugglingWithEggs yup! While my parents do fit the stereotype in a few ways, I also have boomer friends from writing group who are some of the coolest people I know

David Njoku Mar 8

@JugglingWithEggs Is he the guy who wrote Capital? I remember really liking that book.

Juggling With Eggs Mar 8

Yup, I read it too and liked it. He’s good at both novels and economics…a rare combination!

Jonathan Schofield Mar 8

@JugglingWithEggs thanks for sharing this

Jennifer Moore 😷Mar 8

@JugglingWithEggs

I don't like this bit: "And then we had Covid, which saw the young, who were not significantly at risk, making sacrifices of their own needs for socialisation and education to protect the old."

"Not significantly at risk"? Tell that to the kids derailed by Long Covid.

Yeah it's obviously true that older people died at much higher rates, and "protect your gran" was a compelling argument in favour of taking some precautions. But the idea that only old people were at risk was (and is) a form of denial. It was a roll of the dice for young people too, and some lost in a big way.

Cumulative effects also remain to be seen, and nobody knows the price the young generation will be paying in 30, 40, 50 years for their (likely many by then) covid infections.

#covid #stats #LongCovid

@unchartedworlds @JugglingWithEggs It's a phrasing designed to build complicity, guilt, and rationalisation.

"I don't need to take protections because I'm young and strong."

Followed by "Fuck I have covid, but I don't need to worry *cough*"

Followed by "Fuck i gave covid to my parents/grandparents."

Followed by "Fuck my parent(s) just died."

Followed by "Well it wasn't MY fault they were WEAK, NOTHING could be done!"

Followed by "You'll never make me admit I killed 'em!, and no I'll never take precautions because I'm NOT WEAK."