>What is shocking to me is how can so many boomers still have a mortgage? They could buy a house when you could easily get one for <10 years of salary almost anywhere. You basically had to try not to pay off your mortgage, then constantly borrow against it.

These are the same people who sold the industrial economy to east asia because pollution, as if we don't all share the same space rock. Inability to think long term or several steps ahead is kind of their thing.