Why the baby boomers shouldn't feel guilty

Rinoa

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ianmcowie/100013939/baby-boomers-with-80pc-of-uk-wealth-shouldn%E2%80%99t-feel-guilty-about-younger-generations-problems/

Baby boomers shouldn’t feel guilty about being better-off than younger generations, because people aged over 50 today saved harder and spent less when they were young than is the case today.

That’s the conclusion of analysis of more than 2,000 people by the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII). The study acknowledges that baby boomers – or those born within 20 years of the end of World War II – were fortunate to enjoy easy mortgage availability and decades of house price inflation plus final salary or defined benefit pensions denied to most young adults today.

As a result, about 80pc of the Britain's net personal wealth of £6.7trn or £6,700bn is owned by people aged over 50 while younger folk often have no savings, substantial debts and little hope of becoming homeowners any time soon. The average age of first-time buyers is now 37 or about 10 years later than two decades ago.
But the CII claims that ‘generation rent’ are partly to blame for their own misfortune because many fail to follow their elders’ example by starting to save early. They have come to expect regular foreign holidays, among other treats once regarded as luxuries, often funded by credit cards taken out earlier than their parents did.

A third of the people surveyed who are now in their thirties spent more than half their net income on leisure and entertainment when they were in their twenties, compared to a fifth of those who are now in their fifties and sixties. Most of the younger generation now expect to holiday abroad an average of 2.5 times a year, whereas a quarter of baby boomers never travelled overseas in their twenties.

David Thomson, a director of the CII, said: “Despite the current financial climate, the younger generation is more likely to spend money on a meal out rather than put it in their pension pot, as their older counterparts might have done.

Well, I guess most of us suspected this was the case. Although it's good to have the younger generations spendthrift ways confirmed.

Buy_It_Now

Spot-on. I bought aged 27 with a substantial deposit of £55k on a property bought for £113k in 1993. My younger brother (16yrs younger) is just as reported.

MrRee_2

It's true .... the young today will think nothing of spending £30 a month for a phone ... £360 for an iPad ... whereas us oldies wouldn't have dreamed of wasting money like that.

the_flying_pig

Er, nice article guys.



Meaningless rubbish, though. If [some of] the youth of today wastes £30 a month on an expensive phone tarriff then surely they 'deserve' to have, er, £30 per month less to spend, right? How could it somehow make a lack of decent pensions or housing somehow count as 'just deserts'??

It's beyond obvious that holidays have got cheaper and that technology has improved. But it's risible to characterise this as some kind of divine tit for tat that fully balances out lost opportunities elsewhere. In particular when we're talking about not-so-young adults, say born in 1980 or thereabouts, the real essentials such as housing & pensions, which the 'article' doesn't even attempt to claim haven't become less accessible, are far more important than these other baubles.

meg72

Rinoa wrote: »

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ianmcowie/100013939/baby-boomers-with-80pc-of-uk-wealth-shouldn%E2%80%99t-feel-guilty-about-younger-generations-problems/

Well, I guess most of us suspected this was the case. Although it's good to have the younger generations spendthrift ways confirmed.

I am a baby boomer (1945) and who the hell said we should feel guilty anyway.

ruggedtoast

Boomers cheeks should burn with shame. They have plundered the wealth of the entire world, filled countless landfills with their rubbish, polluted oceans with their unsustainable manufacturing, and now cripple the country with their demands for healthcare and pensions.

Few school leavers now can look at their future with anything other than glum despondency. Chances are whatever they need is being c0ck blocked by a boomer.

Edit. Merry Christmas.

ILW

You really should buy yourself a house Rugged. It would do wonders for your blood pressure.

MrRee_2

ruggedtoast wrote: »

Boomers cheeks should burn with shame. They have plundered the wealth of the entire world, filled countless landfills with their rubbish, polluted oceans with their unsustainable manufacturing, and built the world us youngsters enjoy now ...........

Edited for accuracy ....

McKneff

ruggedtoast wrote: »

Boomers cheeks should burn with shame. They have plundered the wealth of the entire world, filled countless landfills with their rubbish, polluted oceans with their unsustainable manufacturing, and now cripple the country with their demands for healthcare and pensions.

Few school leavers now can look at their future with anything other than glum despondency. Chances are whatever they need is being c0ck blocked by a boomer.

Edit. Merry Christmas.

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

nearlynew

the_flying_pig wrote: »

Er, nice article guys.



Meaningless rubbish, though. If [some of] the youth of today wastes £30 a month on an expensive phone tarriff then surely they 'deserve' to have, er, £30 per month less to spend, right? How could it somehow make a lack of decent pensions or housing somehow count as 'just deserts'??

It's beyond obvious that holidays have got cheaper and that technology has improved. But it's risible to characterise this as some kind of divine tit for tat that fully balances out lost opportunities elsewhere. In particular when we're talking about not-so-young adults, say born in 1980 or thereabouts, the real essentials such as housing & pensions, which the 'article' doesn't even attempt to claim haven't become less accessible, are far more important than these other baubles.

Spot on.
(If I wasn't so p1ssed I would have said the same myself)


AND I AM A BOOMER

jay213

MrRee wrote: »

It's true .... the young today will think nothing of spending £30 a month for a phone ... £360 for an iPad ... whereas us oldies wouldn't have dreamed of wasting money like that.

You didnt have the option though did you? In this day and age, have you yourself bought any of the things that you mentioned. I also sure that you bought things in your time that were not invented in the generations before you.

Over time also technology has become cheaper and mass produced, marketed better and comsumed by most. with HPI somebody had to be at the bottom and others had to buy or not buy at the top of the tide.

If the person saved that £200-300 on a TV would it really make that much of a difference if they could afford the £200,000 mortgage on their salary of 20k per year? or who wants to buy a 1 bed studio for 100k when you are likely to be paying for that for the rest of your life, with no chance of moving up as was the case in the "old days" with the housing bubble you was lucky enough to be born into. And you get to keep your lovely pensions that we wont either.... Double whammy...yeah, I know you had it so hard Ipad didnt exist and banks made sure you borrowed around 3 times your salary unlike in this last decade where 6 times is more the case.