Baby Boomers: Generation Theft?

robmatic

There's a one-bedroom flat they want but it costs £120,000. You need a salary of more than £25,000 to get a mortgage for that.

But this everyperson has no salary. They're one of the 18.5% of people aged 18-24 in the UK who are out of work. Our 24-year-old has a degree and a £25,000 debt to pay off from university.

Apparently people without jobs can't buy themselves a house? If true, this is outrageous and the boomer generation has a lot to answer for.

Graham_Devon

kabayiri wrote: »

So why should an older generation feel bad about fortune regards purchasing property at an advantageous time?

I don't think anyone, or the article is asking people to feel bad.

Rather the article talks about welfare being aimed at this group (and welfare growing infact towards this group) while being cut for the young.

No one should have to feel bad about what they get given. However, campaigning to keep what they have and take more is something different, and thats what appears to be happening at the moment, with governments scared stiff of the pensioner vote and holding off touching any welfare or taxation policy changes towards a certain group.

What can be done to try and level the playing field a little? Plenty. So why isn't it?

Simply laying into one another doesn't achieve anything. I'd also like to note to everyone that I didn't write it!!!

CLAPTON

Graham_Devon wrote: »

I posted it as it's new, not old. And I enjoy the froth. Plus it keeps you lot active.

But hey, let's look at my final quote. I'll take you to task, instead of stating the same old tired repsonses....

Argue it...All the responses so far ignoring these sorts of issues and just having a pop at the messenger conviniently ignore this truth.

do a bit of research and tell us the level of debts that each generation that left the next


although it does seem irrational and absurd to consider an age band of 20 years as bequeaving anything (as they co-exist with both younger and older people) but just to illustrate your point

tell us e.g.. the debt left to the boomer generation and compare that with that which they are leaving....

GeorgeHowell

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Rather the article talks about welfare being aimed at this group (and welfare growing infact towards this group) while being cut for the young.

No one should have to feel bad about what they get given. However, campaigning to keep what they have and take more is something different, and thats what appears to be happening at the moment, with governments scared stiff of the pensioner vote and holding off touching any welfare or taxation policy changes towards a certain group.

Is that the case though ? A lot of welfare is aimed at people with children. It is certainly the coalition's policy to recognise that basic state pensions were too low and they are putting them up, so they try not to make the lot of pensioners any worse because that would be counter-productive. Nobody could reasonably defend not means testing the extra benefits like WFA unless the cost of means testing outweighs the cost of the benefit -- I wish they would do so because it would largely take this red herring out of the discussion. Away from welfare, per se, other government policies like keeping interest rates low and inflating away debt do hit pensioners harder than the young. who typically are debtors and therefore benefitting.

Graham_Devon

CLAPTON wrote: »

do a bit of research and tell us the level of debts that each generation that left the next


although it does seem irrational and absurd to consider an age band of 20 years as bequeaving anything (as they co-exist with both younger and older people) but just to illustrate your point

tell us e.g.. the debt left to the boomer generation and compare that with that which they are leaving....

You are making a point about World War debt, I assume?

If you simply take figures, you win the argument.

However, if you look at what the debt has been spent on, things are a little different.

What's a better use of debt? Saving millions of people being held in camps and burnt to death after exploitation? Or bolstering the pensions, asset prices and welfare payments for a certain age group of people living in one of the most developed countries in the world?

If debt is going to be left, we have to look at what it was spent on, rather than looking at arbitary figures.

Another point is that debt is one measure that can be paid down. Defecit however, is another.

StevieJ

Graham_Devon wrote: »

I posted it as it's new, not old. And I enjoy the froth. Plus it keeps you lot active.

But hey, let's look at my final quote. I'll take you to task, instead of stating the same old tired repsonses....

Argue it...All the responses so far ignoring these sorts of issues and just having a pop at the messenger conviniently ignore this truth.

You'd struggle to explain why that generation should be able to leave huge debts to the next generation."

Why is it just Baby Boomers that have incurred that govt debt (if that is what you mean)? after all most of it was accrued after 2002.

Graham_Devon

GeorgeHowell wrote: »

Is that the case though ? A lot of welfare is aimed at people with children. It is certainly the coalition's policy to recognise that basic state pensions were too low and they are putting them up, so they try not to make the lot of pensioners any worse because that would be counter-productive. Nobody could reasonably defend not means testing the extra benefits like WFA unless the cost of means testing outweighs the cost of the benefit -- I wish they would do so because it would largely take this red herring out of the discussion. Away from welfare, per se, other government policies like keeping interest rates low and inflating away debt do hit pensioners harder than the young. who typically are debtors and therefore benefitting.

Winter fuel payments, pension changes made to people under a certain age, bus passes, TV licences, pension ages. The list goes on.

It's not just the welfare itself, it's how it's applied. Look how quickly student fee's hit students. There were whole swates of people with years of working left ring fenced from pension changes.

While a collosal mess up, look how quickly they introduced child benefit changes and working tax credit changes, but can't possibly do the same to older people, and again, ring fence certain ages.

Look at other stuff, such as SMI. Get it for 2 years if you are of working age. Over 60, get it for life.

Theres lots of stuff, just little things which effect us all, but effect us differently dependant on when we were born.

As for the debtors benefitting, this is just wrong on all counts. The only what they could benefit would be through wage increases or asset increases. They (in general) have neither.

Graham_Devon

StevieJ wrote: »

Why is it just Baby Boomers that have incurred that govt debt (if that is what you mean)? after all most of it was accrued after 2002.

Again, I didn't write the article. I don't mean anything.

What the article is saying is that baby boomers have increased that debt at a pace far larger than other generations.

I think a brick wall has quickly been built, and I'm on one side of it, while everyone else is on the other. If it's just slurs people want to throw, that's fine, but this is a serious article, it's not like it's just some random moan put together by someone in their bedroom.

StevieJ

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Winter fuel payments, pension changes made to people under a certain age, bus passes, TV licences, pension ages. The list goes on.
.

That's fine but hardly any Baby Boomers have retired yet and most will have their pension ages increased especially women.

Graham_Devon

StevieJ wrote: »

That's fine but hardly any Baby Boomers have retired yet and most will have their pension ages increased especially women.

Agreed, but not half as much as the increase others will face. Plenty of studies have stated and laid bare the simple fact that the pension ages needs to rise for ALL today, otherwise we are just fiddling with a massive crisis, not averting it in any way.