At the barricades - Boomers vs Gen Y

Those who sow intergenerational disharmony point to how good the Boomers had it from the mid 1960s to 1973 when the first OPEC oil embargo hit with the force of a sledgehammer and stagflation set in. Ian McAuley's article in New Matilda is prime intergenerational hate material.

"On graduation baby boomers could pick and choose their employment; these were the days when an unemployment rate above one per cent was regarded as a policy failure. If they bought a house in the rapidly growing suburbs they paid only for the house and bare land. The cost of local infrastructure (drainage, sewerage, street lighting, street and sidewalk pavements) was met by public expenditure. Now those expenses are paid for by developers, who pass them on to house buyers," McAuley wrote.

How can one defend as an individual member of a generation, the rise of mass society, the rise of America as a world power and the boom and bust of Australia's economic cycles? One doesn't own their role in history, individuals are carried along by the tide of events .And now McAuley wants the Boomers to ante-up. The average superannuation balance for the post war generation is about $80,000. Hardly a king's ransom.

The language is reminiscent of China's Cultural Revolution, including a doctrinaire return to the lowest common denominator – ignorance.

Actually, my concern is that contrary to McAuley's prognostications, the Boomers decide to form a powerful political lobby group such as the AARP, (formerly the American Association of Retired Persons) or create a political party dedicated solely to aged care, superannuation, healthcare and the eradication of age prejudice (of all kinds). A bloc of six million voters is not pluralism at work.

Before you start sharpening the knives, an University of Adelaide study in July last year found that people over 50 supported their ageing parents and adult children to the tune of about $23 billion each year. For many, Mum and Dad still pay.

In Australia the post war generation will spend big over the next 20 years. Productivity will slow but spending will rise. Many of the Boomers will work on part time and the demand for young skilled labour will increase and so will their wages.

Gen Y and their brethren probably shouldn't let expectations run away with capabilities. When it comes to inherited largesse, a 2010 Melbourne Institute's Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey found that the average inheritance peaked at $109,285 in 2006, up from $50,861 in 2002. Still, it's better than civil war.

Even so, what is happening in Europe is no laughing matter. Young people in Portugal, Ireland, Spain and Greece will spend the rest of their lives paying off debt, because their governments kept borrowing to fund a life style that was not sustainable. They will pay for the sins of their parent's generation.

So where did all of this global doom and gloom, 'knock off the folks', stuff come from? Over the last 20 years there has been a shift in radical thinking. The hardliners in the environment movement decided the era of revolutions was over and the era of catastrophes had begun.

They dumped the rules of evidence in favour of fearful fantasies. You don't need to prove anything, you just need to think it. The illogical extension of all this 'thinking' is that intergenerational war looms on the horizon – and it's all Mum and Dad's fault. As usual.