Baby boomers must do their bit for Britain's economy

This is a personal gripe so if you are not in the mood for me venting my ire then use your time constructively and make yourself a coffee.

The Guardian newspaper is best known for the poor quality of its spelling and for its leftish political stance. That said, the quality of the journalism is normally good, even if I disagree with a lot of what it publishes.

Today the paper contains yet another “Boomer Bashing” article that is poorly written and plainly wrong.

Because of the dire mess that the UK is in – primarily due to 13 years of incompetent Labour government – consumers are worried about the future. Not an unreasonable thing.

One reaction has been for many of them to reduce their debt levels and start to pay down their property mortgages – again not a unreasonable thing to do.

The clown who wrote today’s article comes to the bizarre conclusion that “Property owners and savers are behaving in a way that undermines the UK's recovery” and that “Baby boomers are at it again, making decision after decision to protect their wealth at the expense of the country's economic well being.”

This is clearly belly-aching on the part of the writer, but to make matters worse the fool hasn’t even bothered to get his facts correct.

There are totally unsubstantiated claims like:

“After a decade to 2007 when homeowners, the vast bulk of them baby boomers, had withdrawn equity from their homes to add a kitchen or conservatory, or simply underwrite living standards.” Really?

The economist Howard Archer of IHS Global Insight has calculated that the net injection of housing equity accounted for 2.4% of post-tax income in the third quarter of last year. In contrast, net housing equity withdrawal had been 6.0% of post-tax income in the fourth quarter of 2006. I am sure this is correct but where is the data that tells us the age profile of those involved?

Towards the end of the article there is perhaps the daftest of all the statements.

 “Not only is the vast majority of housing equity in the hands of boomers, they also own most of the pensions – another area of economic activity where the selfish desire to maximise returns has a profound effect on the younger generation.” There you are – you greedy Boomer b****tads, trying to maximize the value of your pension. How dare you take the crusts from the mouths of your grandchildren!

Come on you guys at the Guardian, at least get yourself a journalist with a faint grip on reality and who is not so bitter and twisted as to produce such twaddle. You can do better than this. Dick Stroud