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It's All Their Fault

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Johannes Jakob

Apr 16, 2010

Over at Viceland is the first of five extracts from Neil Boorman’s It’s All Their Fault, as well as an interview with said truth slinger. He drops some brutal statistics about how, financially, past generations have screwed younger generations in a major way.

Every baby in the UK is now born owing £22,500 – his or her share of the £1.4 trillion credit crunch bailout. Added to which the average student graduates owing more than £20,000. Add all this together, and you’re left with a generation owing more than £40,000 before they’ve earned their first pay packet. That’s if you can get a job; there are 2.5 million people unemployed in the UK. One million of them are under 25.

This is a huge issue that doesn’t seem to get the attention it needs, in the same way we did, and still do, repress climate change on both a policy and personal level. For baby boomers it’s not a problem (except ethically, I mean), and for everyone else it’s already a fixed reality. The whole things feels so inevitable that the inequalities and injustices don’t really jump out as such, they just seem like the way the world works now. If you think about, say, feminism, that way of thinking is always the first mental block that needs to be overcome with these things. Here’s hoping the next four extracts of Neil’s book, at some point, deal with how to achieve that, because facts alone don’t really seem to hold much sway anymore. Still, hopefully the whole thing gets plenty of coverage and gets through to the right people.