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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be raging at Dispatches "rich and on benefits"

475 replies

crashdoll · 18/03/2013 20:10

It's talking about pensioners and all they get from the welfare state regardless of income or savings. Cue clip of David Scameron saying he won't touch their benefits.

OP posts:
Darkesteyes · 18/03/2013 23:36

Thats brilliant that you do that Clouds but your ability to be able to afford to work part time does help.

OTTMummA · 18/03/2013 23:38

Actually I am more enraged by some of the attitudes some of these pensioners have.
Why can they not accept that they don't deserve a god dam thing?
They lucked out and they can not accept it, it. Must of been down to jus good old fashioned hard work, they must of earned it all!
Then they have bare faced cheek to tell us we could all have that and more if we just went without x,y,z for a few years and save up like they did.
THERE IS NOTHING TO SAVE!!!

ukatlast · 18/03/2013 23:38

'Can anyone else see the glaring contradiction?

Haveing a mysogynistic go at single mums on benefit because they arent working and then saying that SAHMS contribute massively

Well Which is it????!!!!!!! '

Happy to answer. I believe pre-schoolers benefit from hands on care from people with a vested emotional interest in them. For this reason I don't support forcing single parents with young kids into the workforce (as even last Labour Government tried to) but I do think everyone has a responsibility to not procreate until they think it likely on balance that they will be able to afford to support their kids barring a disaster like unemployment/illness etc.
.
I didn't have mine till mid thirties and chose to be SAHM financed entirely by my husband as I had had enough of pursuing a career in a male dominated area and wanted to be there for my kids.
As a kind of feminist, I think women are naive for not taking on board the full protection of the Law through marriage before having kids.
I really have trouble understanding why people get pregnant by accident when contraception is freely available in UK. Okay if you want to sleep around in your teens, at least go on the pill first.
This all sounds very right-wing but politically I am anything but...this thread seems like an unpleasant attack on pensioners (I am not one yet lol). Surely if it costs more to means test a benefit than to keep it universal, it is illogical to try to do so. It is usually the poorer people who have issues filling out the forms and getting what is 'owed' to them.
Also 'rich' pensioners can't win - they are being criticised for using the bus which is an environmentally friendly choice rather than driving their cars which isn't.

It's divide and rule as someone else said.

twofingerstoGideon · 18/03/2013 23:40

Laurie, I'm not sure where you're getting the notion that I (or Bream) think you have accused us of anything? Where have we said that?

This seems to be your reasoning:
Most Tory voters are old.
Old people vote.
Therefore most old people vote Tory.
This is not a logical argument.

OldLadyKnowsNothing · 18/03/2013 23:42

If successive governments favour pensioners because pensioners vote, isn't it the responsibility of younger generations to take back the political power by, er, y'know, voting?

"Baby Boomers" didn't choose to make vast profits out of their housing, younger generations were willing to pay stupid prices (encouraged by low interest rates, high multiplies of income, two incomes rather than one, "must get on the ladder", council house selloffs etc).

Btw, I have a good friend, older than baby boomer generation. He's wealthy, I don't know how wealthy but he bought a house for quarter of a mill, cash, so he's not broke. He gets WFA.

He also pays 40% tax on his pensions.

CloudsAndTrees · 18/03/2013 23:42

Well, yes, but I have less ability to do it than someone who doesn't have to work at all because they are being subsidised by benefits.

And if we are going to bring voluntary work into it, one of the bigger charities I work with would grind to a halt if it weren't for well educated and reasonably well off retired people doing a larger number of shifts than those of us with children can manage. They contribute a huge amount, which I think is worth saying on a thread where they are getting slated so much.

twofingerstoGideon · 18/03/2013 23:42

Laurie This is you being rude:
What on earth are you wittering about.

Perhaps you don't think that IS rude, but I do, whoever it's addressed to...

twofingerstoGideon · 18/03/2013 23:43

If successive governments favour pensioners because pensioners vote, isn't it the responsibility of younger generations to take back the political power by, er, y'know, voting?
Precisely.

HintofBream · 18/03/2013 23:44

LaurieFairy Story

Lol at 'they didn't do it on purpose'
Yes, they did - they voted for thatcher, for strike breaking, for idiotic wars, for workfare, for no house building for decades so that their properties are worth millions.

That is a generalisation.
I did not say you were accusing me of being a Tory.

Raum · 18/03/2013 23:45

No we won't all be pensioners, I will most likely be dead before retirement age as its constantly moves higher. I'll be shocked if it isn,'t 70 by 2030 at this rate. My parents are both in their late 60s and get a pension I can only dream of despite me already having paid far more into the pot than they did combined and I'm not even 40! Politicians can go jump off a bloody cliff, not one of them has the balls to tackle the utter injustice that my generation faces. We pay for the mistakes of our elders to clear up debt before it hits our children, what a fun life.

ukatlast · 18/03/2013 23:45

Laurie fairy cakes: 'Of course not all of you did but a sufficient majority did or we wouldn't have had those governments.'

Do you not understand that in our 'first past the post system' the party with the most votes is often not the one which wins the most seats?

Many people voted Tory in 1979 in order to buy their council house....

Procrastinating · 18/03/2013 23:47

""Baby Boomers" didn't choose to make vast profits out of their housing, younger generations were willing to pay stupid prices (encouraged by low interest rates, high multiplies of income, two incomes rather than one, "must get on the ladder", council house selloffs etc)."

THIS is the golf culb mentality.

ukatlast · 18/03/2013 23:48

Clouds and trees 'A SAHP on benefits can't really be said to be contributing can they? They might do stuff for their community, but it's not going to equal what they take out. Whereas a SAHP supported by their spouse can do the same things for the community, but be making a genuine contribution, because they aren't taking cash out of the pot. What they contribute is an actual contribution'.

YEP I used to do lots of voluntary work in a parent-run playgroup on the Housing Association estate opposite my private estate.

Procrastinating · 18/03/2013 23:48

club. sorry. piss is boiling.

LaurieFairyCake · 18/03/2013 23:49

Well considering it was in response to Brean saying that I was making a 'sweeping generalisation' when all I was doing was stating facts.

And you with your 'Tory voting and old age don't go hand in hand' - not for individuals, but yes statistically.

And no, that isn't my argument - that simplistic summary you posted.

HintofBream · 18/03/2013 23:50

I'm off to bed now. We OAPs need our sleep after a hard day swallowing free pills, stoking up the central heating courtesy of winter fuel allowance and carousing around the country with our bus passes.

Darkesteyes · 18/03/2013 23:51

ukatlast I think kind of feminist is a precarious desccription for you. Youve said you cant understand why people get pregnant (meaning women obvs) when there is such a lot of contraception available. No mention of "cant understand why men arnt using the free comdoms available from family planning clinics.
And intimating "if teens want to "sleep around" they can at least go on the pill putting it all on the female again. Alsoyour post intimates that a teenage girl who gets pregnant must have been sleeping around. Wow just wow.

LaurieFairyCake · 18/03/2013 23:54

I think you may have to read that second paragraph again ukatlast Wink

Though its a very funny slip. Grin

OldLadyKnowsNothing · 18/03/2013 23:57

No, Procrastinating, it's not the "golf club mentality". A house, anything, is only "worth" what a buyer is willing to pay. People are finding out now that what they were willing to pay a few years ago, is not what people are willing to pay now; you may have heard of "negative equity".

In the boom years, younger generations were willing to pay stupid sums of money, for the reasons I outlined previously.

You can't blame a seller for getting the best price offered.

And, let's face it, all that capital wealth will come down through the generations anyway, either through lumpsum inheritance or carehome fees paying wages. It's not as if anyone can take it with them.

ukatlast · 18/03/2013 23:59

Cloudsandtrees...and also the Mums who go on the school trips to make up the ratios and thereby keep the costs down for all families; or even enable the trip to run at all...according to the begging letters for volunteers which are received.

ukatlast · 19/03/2013 00:01

'But people did, and they are most likely over 60. In fact the average age of a member of the Tory party is 72.'

That's cool...they should be toast within a generation then lol

Darkesteyes · 19/03/2013 00:04

ukatlast Cant you see thats down to luck though. A working single parent will mostly be unable to go on school trips because of having to work.

ukatlast · 19/03/2013 00:13

'ukatlast I think kind of feminist is a precarious desccription for you. Youve said you cant understand why people get pregnant (meaning women obvs) when there is such a lot of contraception available. No mention of "cant understand why men arnt using the free comdoms available from family planning clinics.
And intimating "if teens want to "sleep around" they can at least go on the pill putting it all on the female again. Alsoyour post intimates that a teenage girl who gets pregnant must have been sleeping around. Wow just wow. '

I don't care who uses the contraception in fact pill and condom would be a great idea...just use some please...if contraception fails...there's the morning after pill.
Since when could anyone get pregnant without having sex first? If teenagers who want to sleep with their partners used contraception responsibly - there would be some failures still - but the numbers would be far lower than what we are currently faced with.
I put the emphasis on the female since she is the one left in the lurch when it goes wrong....

Darkesteyes · 19/03/2013 00:18

UK atlast you were referring to if teens want to sleep around they can at least go on the pill" so you were referring to girls "sleeping around" as boys cant take the pill.

ukatlast · 19/03/2013 00:19

'A working single parent will mostly be unable to go on school trips because of having to work.'

Yes but if (middle class) SAHMs from choice did not exist who would be getting involved instead?
Paid work is not the only contribution people make to the stability of society and the wellbeing of its citizens.

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