Baby Boomers: Generation Theft?

CLAPTON

Graham_Devon wrote: »

If you read the article, you'll find this stuff about passing on wealth is dismissed in lots of cases, as the wealth is used for care etc.

If the wealth is used for care; is that not passing on the wealth to the younger generation?

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Graham_Devon wrote: »

If you read the article, you'll find this stuff about passing on wealth is dismissed in lots of cases, as the wealth is used for care etc.

Really.

So what you're saying is that wealth is spent in the economy and used to employ younger people and provide income for care businesses.

So then all wealth does ultimately pass to younger generations.

BobQ

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Free parking. Why? Parking in the space with the best access, wide bays, sure. But free? Why? 3 disabled people in my own family don't get why they should be able to park for free in a leisure car park, yet a family wanting to undertake the same leisure facilities pay.

Yet it would be a government with big cahonies which took that away. Instantly, they'd be the nasty party against disabled people. It's a nonsense. It just puts the costs up for everyone else.

Maybe because the disabled generally do not engage in the same activities as the able bodied, or at least do not have the option of easily walking to the location. Maybe because the able bodied can walk from the other side of the carpark without difficulty.

Maybe because the disabled (Ie those independently assessed as having difficulty walking) need to park on level ground near a lift whereas the able bodied can park further away in free spaces or on street if they want or cannot use public transport like those fit people you think are so unfairly treated.

ruggedtoast

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Really.

So what you're saying is that wealth is spent in the economy and used to employ younger people and provide income for care businesses.

So then all wealth does ultimately pass to younger generations.

I suspect your first foray into a retirement home will be a surprise. Most of the 'wealth' from your 400 quid a week will be going to eastern European carers on minimum wage and a non dom owner who never sets foot in the country.

seven-day-weekend

MY name is Seven-Day-Weekend and I am a Baby Boomer.

We bought our first house in our mid- 20s. We just had ordinary jobs (he a carpet fitter, me a clerical worker). We borrowed the deposit from a relative and paid it back at the same time as our mortgage. Said deposit had to be 30% as we were buying a house over 100 years old. We just worked and paid our mortgage (having borrowed more on it over the years for home improvements), until it was paid off. At one time the mortgage Interest Rate shot up to 15%, but we still had to keep paying, with no extra help.

Sometimes we hit hard times and then we got a lodger to help with the mortgage.

We had one son and received Child Benefit for him, nothing else, even when there was only my husband working.

My husband went into teaching and took early retirement at 55 due to his health, which meant that although he could draw his teachers' pension, he permanently lost 1/3 of it for taking it five years early. I worked for Local Goverment and have to wait until late 2014 when I will be almost 65 before I draw my pension from there, although it is only small as I only paid into it for ten years (because up until the 1990s I was part-time and not allowed to join, tjhose were the rules until then).

I was however, one of the lucky women who was able to draw my State Pension at 60 (just - had I have been born a few months later I would have not been able to).

When my husband took early retirement in 2004, we used the lump sum from his Teachers' pension, a small inheritance from his mother and our own savings to buy a small house in a village in the mountains of Granada, Spain, for £50000 and lived there until December 2011.

We have since returned to live in the same house we bought in 1976 and are in the process of renovating it again (after nearly forty years of ownership, it is needing another facelift).

With the money we got from our Spanish house, we gave our son the deposit so that he could buy a flat.

Right. Now I get my state Pension, a bus pass, Winter Fuel Allowance, free eye tests and prescriptions and 10% discount in B&Q on Wednesdays. I will get my small LG Pension in summer 2014. My husband gets his Teachers' Pension, a small amount of Incapacity Benefit (reduced because of the Pension), and the other things the same as I do. He will get his State Pension in 2014 but will lose his IB.

We pay full Council tax, full price at the dentist, full TV licence and get no means-tested Benefits.

I don't mind if you want to take away the winter fuel allownace, but please leave my bus pass alone.

And if you want me to downsize from a mid-terraced house, I will have to get a flat as there is nothing really any smaller or cheaper. We will probably do this in the future anyway.

Just my story, hope it helps. Please don't flame me as all we have done is worked all our lives and paid our way like everyone else , and if we have been fortunate, then that was due mainly to an accident of birth.

CLAPTON

ruggedtoast wrote: »

I suspect your first foray into a retirement home will be a surprise. Most of the 'wealth' from your 400 quid a week will be going to eastern European carers on minimum wage and a non dom owner who never sets foot in the country.

I do some (unpaid) work for a local residential home and know many of the 40 odd staff there.
Although many nationalities are represented including one Polish person the majority are native born UK citizens.
All staff are on salaries greater than the minimum wage.

The 'owners' are a registered charity and the trustees give their time for nothing.

Graham_Devon

Just read that it's been confirmed.

Pensioners will NOT have the "bedroom tax" applied to them. Everyone else, will.

From April 2013, if either half of a couple are of pensionable age, they will not suffer reductions to housing benefit.

Again...why?

grizzly1911

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Just read that it's been confirmed.

Pensioners will NOT have the "bedroom tax" applied to them. Everyone else, will.



Again...why?

If every pensioner who requested to rehomed to avoid this "poll tax" there would not be enough properties to put them in.

For many a move at their time of life to an unsuitable property elsewhere would have health and mental impacts on many.

They will be often be part of the community and "supported" in part by other members of that community. Moving them may well increase "care" costs.

If there is a chance to move someone fair enough but on the cut off date for benefit changes the elderly can't all be shuffled into the ideal property. It doesn't work like that.

I feel more for younger people who are stuck in inappropriate properties, because there isn't something appropriate, who will also get stung through no fault of their own. Single people in 3 bed high rise flats that nobody else will accept.

N1AK

kabayiri wrote: »

I do think the younger generation should mobilise and act as a more unified voting force.

Older people are definitely more successful in this. My pensioner father was one of those who jumped on a coach to campaign in London for basic pension increases etc.

In defence of us youngsters the political situation in this country has become even less viable over the last 20 years. Demo-graphic change now means that even ignoring the % of voters by age group the influence of 18-35 voters (for example) vs 58-75 voters has shifted considerably.

I went to the protests against tuition fees and look what the massive numbers there achieved.

The closest thing to a youth friendly party, the Lib Dems, could well self-destruct at the next election and chances of us getting another chance to implement voting reform are slim. This means we're effectively stuck in a 2-3 party system, especially at the local level with parties continuing to represent traditional voter values (as shown clearly by the majority of Torys voting against gay marriage last night).

I'm seriously considering voting Labour at the next election just because they would extend the vote to 16-17 year olds; however even if I did it's a waste of time because our constituency is so completely dominated by the right that the biggest threat to the conservatives is likely to be UKIP

Graham_Devon

grizzly1911 wrote: »

If every pensioner who requested to rehomed to avoid this "poll tax" there would not be enough properties to put them in.

For many a move at their time of life to an unsuitable property elsewhere would have health and mental impacts on many.

They will be often be part of the community and "supported" in part by other members of that community. Moving them may well increase "care" costs.

If there is a chance to move someone fair enough but on the cut off date for benefit changes the elderly can't all be shuffled into the ideal property. It doesn't work like that.

I feel more for younger people who are stuck in inappropriate properties, because there isn't something appropriate, who will also get stung through no fault of their own. Single people in 3 bed high rise flats that nobody else will accept.

All of this effects those below 65 too though.

I genuinely can not see why pensioners are being ring fenced from every change.