Over the weekend, "social demographer" Bernard Salt opened a new chapter in the never ending war between baby boomers and the ~youth of today~.
How do young #hipsters keep baby #boomers out of their cafes? Milk crate seating doesn't work with tight hamstring… https://t.co/nb9Oc9FFfK
Most of it was pretty standard ranting (milk crate furniture, hipster cafes, etc) but then he came for young people's brunch.
I have seen young people order smashed avocado with crumbled feta on five-grain toasted bread at $22 a pop and more. I can afford to eat this for lunch because I am middle-aged and have raised my family. But how can young people afford to eat like this? Shouldn't they be economising by eating at home? How often are they eating out? Twenty-two dollars several times a week could go towards a deposit on a house.
NOT THE SMASHED AVOCADO AND FETTA ON TOAST!
People were pretty quick to remind Salt that house prices in Australia right now are beyond absurd.
@BernardSalt is right of course, just give up $22 a week and you'll have a deposit on a median priced house in Sydney in... 175 years.
Saving up for a house meant a lot of smashed avos.
Forgoing a $20 smashed avocado meal a week will save $1040 a year. A 20% deposit for a home in Sydney is ~$200,000 (@ median house price)
Like, if you lived only on $22 smashed avo meals (which, by the way, is too expensive and you shouldn't order it from the menu) you could have a deposit in nine more years.
so if I stop eating smashed avocado three times a day I save.... $22,000 or so!! Only nine more years of this 😎😎😎 https://t.co/jO2gcFyj3g
There were some who wanted to remind people that it might be a good idea to live in another state.
Smashed avo on fancy bread only around $15 in #Hobart plus buy an affordable house #tasmania… https://t.co/e7Ei8cIpfA
But brunch culture is important.
I go out for breakfast because *even if I didn't* I couldn't come close to a house deposit. so just shut up & take my rent money
There were people who were resolute in their brunch plans.
Bernard salt can pry my smashed avocado from my cold dead hands
I am a dad with a mortgage, therefore I deserve this smashed avo with feta on toast.
Even the argument doesn't really fly: young people are saving more.
@samanthamaiden @GrogsGamut @MattCowgill your experience is not representative
Salt had made a powerful enemy of the avocado-eating millennials of Australia who can't afford property.
Skipped smashed avocado for breakfast this morning. Excited to buy a house next week.
I hope the state forcefully expropriates bernard salt's house and then beats him to death with avocado
Political discourse in Australia: Right sledges left for lattes Boomers sledge Ys for coffee/avocado Marxists sledge everyone for craft beer
Look, @BernardSalt has raised legitimate issues about breakfast equity that no one else has had the courage to raise.
Remember, sure, the gap between incomes and house prices is the largest it has EVER been.
Given I'm allergic to avocado and cannot enjoy smashed avo lunches it is particularly galling that I'm not a property mogul already
But it's definitely young people wasting their brunch money that is the problem.
1956...... (HT @donattroppo)