Boomers Pension Gravy Train Finally To Be Derailed

POPPYOSCAR

steampowered wrote: »

I think this is why:

While the average 65-year-old has enjoyed a net £223,183 state subsidy above the tax paid, a new-born child will have to contribute a net £159,668 over their lifetime. Source.

I suppose the other point is house prices - when the older generation channels so much of their wealth into houses and buy-to-lets, there is little chance for people on average incomes to have a hope in hell of buying a house (certainly much less chance than their parents had).

Our son is 25 he and his girlfriend are just in the process of buying their second home.

His girlfriend's parents commented to them that they cannot believe the property they will own at such a young age.

We also did not get such a property until we were much older.

Neither of them have had a university education but have learned trades and work hard.

Sapphire

ukcarper wrote: »

That's rubbish the vast majority of older people do not have but to lets, all they have done is live in houses that have increased in price.

I'd like to see a detailed breakdown of those figures as apposed to a telegraph article.

Yes, it is rubbish. Of the older people I know, only one has an extra property, which she lets in winter. She managed to buy this as the result of an inheritance, both from her family and her husband (who died after half-killing himself through overworking to better the planet environmentally, not as a means of 'earning riches', which happened incidentally in his case, because he was so good and unique in his profession).

The majority of pensioners I know are not well off, and do not have 'gold-plated pensions' that are often talked about in relation to pensioners, as a way of encouraging divisions in society. Those 'gold-plated pensions' are confined largely to people like Frank Field and others in government, the civil service and the public service sector, courtesy of taxpayers. Some people in business, e.g. finance, also probably have them, but I don't know anyone who has.

My parents are certainly not well off and live very modest lives – and that's after living a very hard existence, and working extremely hard for decades. When they were young, none of today's pensioners had half of what today's youth have, which would have been considered luxuries in the past. Try living in the conditions that prevailed for the majority of 'ordinary' people well into the Seventies – then they'd really have something to complain about.

Even within my family, there are two young men who insist on living with their parents even though they are over 30. They both have university degrees and have not the slightest inclination to be productive, to better themselves or to buy a home for themselves. One (who is very clever and good with computers) does odd computing jobs and at other times is on a permanent gap year travelling the world. The other has recently made an inventory of what he will inherit once his parent has died (how ugly). The same is the case in a friend's family…

Nick_C

Sapphire wrote: »

Yes, it is rubbish. Of the older people I know, only one has an extra property, which she lets in winter. She managed to buy this as the result of an inheritance, both from her family and her husband (who died after half-killing himself through overworking to better the planet environmentally, not as a means of 'earning riches', which happened incidentally in his case, because he was so good and unique in his profession).

The majority of pensioners I know are not well off

Lots of big private companies used to offer final salary pension schemes. They largely stopped when Gordon Brown raided the pension funds by scrapping tax relief on dividends.

The public sector has also scrapped final salary pensions, increased the retirement age, and increased contributions.

The majority of pensioners I know are well off.

Even people living on the most basic level can live comfortably. Pension Credit means that even the poorest pensioner has £155.60 a week to live on after paying rent; more than twice as much as an unemployed person under pensionable age (£73.10 a week JSA).

TrickyTree83

Sapphire wrote: »

Yes, it is rubbish. Of the older people I know, only one has an extra property, which she lets in winter. She managed to buy this as the result of an inheritance, both from her family and her husband (who died after half-killing himself through overworking to better the planet environmentally, not as a means of 'earning riches', which happened incidentally in his case, because he was so good and unique in his profession).

The majority of pensioners I know are not well off, and do not have 'gold-plated pensions' that are often talked about in relation to pensioners, as a way of encouraging divisions in society. Those 'gold-plated pensions' are confined largely to people like Frank Field and others in government, the civil service and the public service sector, courtesy of taxpayers. Some people in business, e.g. finance, also probably have them, but I don't know anyone who has.

My parents are certainly not well off and live very modest lives – and that's after living a very hard existence, and working extremely hard for decades. When they were young, none of today's pensioners had half of what today's youth have, which would have been considered luxuries in the past. Try living in the conditions that prevailed for the majority of 'ordinary' people well into the Seventies – then they'd really have something to complain about.

Even within my family, there are two young men who insist on living with their parents even though they are over 30. They both have university degrees and have not the slightest inclination to be productive, to better themselves or to buy a home for themselves. One (who is very clever and good with computers) does odd computing jobs and at other times is on a permanent gap year travelling the world. The other has recently made an inventory of what he will inherit once his parent has died (how ugly). The same is the case in a friend's family…

Makes me ashamed be to in the same age bracket.

It's easy to get on the housing ladder, it's all down to personal choice.

I could have moved to London and earned a London wage and lived in a house paying London prices. I chose not to. As Sapphire says, work hard and have ambition/determination and it happens. I'm 33 and in a 4 bed new build detached, the 2nd most expensive type on the estate.

I have crap clothes, a crap car, no xbox/ps4, never owned an iPhone, never owned an iPad, couldn't give a toss about fashion, why pay £40 for a shirt with a small crocodile on when you can get the same thing without the crocodile for £10?

Personal choices, that's what it all comes down to. I'll be laughing at everyone my age who had BMW/Audi/Type R/etc.. and the Raybans, 10 different pairs of Nike trainers, North Face jackets, NutriBullets, FitBits, etc... (like you need this stuff?) in about 20 years when I've paid my mortgage off and I'm increasing my personal pension contributions above what they are now.

Generation snowflake, on the whole, make poor personal choices. Like not voting.

Nick_C

TrickyTree83 wrote: »

It's easy to get on the housing ladder, it's all down to personal choice.

Not sure I would agree it's easy to get on the housing ladder any more. High rents make it difficult to save for a deposit. Many young people are burdened with debt after being encouraged to go to Uni to get a worthless degree, and can only buy a home with family help.

But congratulations on your achievements. I admire your attitude. When I was in my 20s, I was doing three jobs and working seven days a week. I was also frugal, and didn't have a holiday for years. As well as getting on the housing ladder at 25 I started investing for retirement at 21 as even then - nearly 40 years ago - some people were predicting a pensions crisis. I'm reaping the benefits now and wish you well.

westernpromise

steampowered wrote: »

Your reference to Labour "destroying pensions" was a reference to Labour withdrawing some of the tax benefits associated with private pensions. It has nothing to do with the state pension. If you don't have a private pension you weren't affected.

The state pension is currently being increased year-on-year under the triple lock. I accept that may not continue increasing in value for all of the next 10-15 years, but the chance of it being abolished completely is surely absolutely tiny. You can at least make a reasonable guesstimate of what you will get by working out what you would be entitled to at today's figures.

Rather than referring to your "experience" of other benefits, why don't you actually check the eligibility criteria yourself at https://www.gov.uk/state-pension.

With state pensions, the reality is exactly the opposite of what you are complaining about. It isn't a case of people who don't work getting it. To get the full state pension - which by the way is by far the biggest benefit in the welfare budget - you need to have made national insurance contributions for 30 years - i.e. you need to have had a job for nearly all your adult working life. Presumably you meet this criteria if you are complaining about people not working hard enough?

I think you need to reread what I wrote and you also need to get real. The idea that a 45% taxpayer like me will get anything in the way of a state pension in 10 to 15 years' time is fanciful. I am denied pretty well all other benefits; why won't this one be withdrawn?

westernpromise

steampowered wrote: »

the older generation channels so much of their wealth into houses and buy-to-lets

My parents channelled £19,000 into buying their house. It's today's buyers who want to pay £1.6 million for it who are the ones channelling wealth into property. It's the buyers you should be angry with, not the sellers.

westernpromise

TrickyTree83 wrote: »

I'll be laughing at everyone my age who had BMW/Audi/Type R/etc.. and the Raybans, 10 different pairs of Nike trainers, North Face jackets, NutriBullets, FitBits, etc... (like you need this stuff?) in about 20 years when I've paid my mortgage off and I'm increasing my personal pension contributions above what they are now.

In 20 years' time those people will be voting for Labour and for wealth taxes to expropriate you so they can be given your money. They're not going to shrug and say "Tricky deserves it more than I do because I made poor choices". They're going to be saying "Greedy ba stard stole it and I wannit all." The BMWs and the Raybans will be forgotten. All they'll see is your house, which will be declared a mansion to justify the state robbing you of it.

You have only to look at the hatred in this thread for those who were so evil as to buy a house 20 years ago and then live in it. In 20 years' time it will be your fault they're poor.

Sapphire

Nick_C wrote: »

Not sure I would agree it's easy to get on the housing ladder any more. High rents make it difficult to save for a deposit. Many young people are burdened with debt after being encouraged to go to Uni to get a worthless degree, and can only buy a home with family help.

But congratulations on your achievements. I admire your attitude. When I was in my 20s, I was doing three jobs and working seven days a week. I was also frugal, and didn't have a holiday for years. As well as getting on the housing ladder at 25 I started investing for retirement at 21 as even then - nearly 40 years ago - some people were predicting a pensions crisis. I'm reaping the benefits now and wish you well.

Yes – well done, TrickyTreat. He's done it the way it used to be done! Houses have never dropped out of the sky for the taking – unless you came from a wealthy background, it was generally the case that you had to be very frugal at the beginning, living with handout furniture, certainly no new kitchens and bathrooms of the like that are pedalled today as 'absolute must-haves' (even if you have to get into huge debt to get them), no exotic (or even any) holidays, no 'uni', etc. Interest rates were very much higher than they are today, and you often couldn't get a mortgage, etc.

I think all these divisions and the 'blame game' that are arising in societies in the Western (still, at the moment) democracies are the result of globalisation (and over-population). Governments worldwide (and here both Labour and Tory) have massively over-borrowed, and also encouraged people to borrow huge amounts of money with no thought for the future. They now need scapegoats to take attention away from the mess of their own making. Only a few years ago, interest rates were at around 6–7 per cent and they've always gone up and down, yet people seem to have collective amnesia about this, pursuing 'wealth' on tick in the form of 'must-have' items and property (sold to them by advertisers). All political parties have also encouraged the creation of a 'housing market' manipulated by the global elites. Yet in future there will be ever-fewer jobs to go around, with local people pushed out due to jobs they could be doing being done by those who will accept lower wages. The chickens will inevitably come home to roost, though. It's already starting to happen here and in other countries, where populations have begun expressing their discontent in various ways…

TrickyTree83

Sapphire wrote: »

Yes – well done, TrickyTreat. He's done it the way it used to be done! Houses have never dropped out of the sky for the taking – unless you came from a wealthy background, it was generally the case that you had to be very frugal at the beginning, living with handout furniture, certainly no new kitchens and bathrooms of the like that are pedalled today as 'absolute must-haves' (even if you have to get into huge debt to get them), no exotic (or even any) holidays, no 'uni', etc. Interest rates were very much higher than they are today, and you often couldn't get a mortgage, etc.

Precisely, got my first house in 2008 (not long ago and just before the crash YAY!), everything in it was hand-me-downs / freecycle and I was living in grandma-chic decor. One of those beautiful avocado green bath suites and a kitchen from the 80's, a black leather recliner sofa with white paint splashed on it, a 4 seat glass top table with only 3 chairs. It all worked, sort of... woodchip wallpaper and built-in wardrobes that made the walls sweat and get mouldy too, certainly had to learn some DIY skills living in a place like that. Mend and make-do, happy times.