To be raging at Dispatches "rich and on benefits"

[crashdoll]

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.

I have two children; I would dearly have liked to have more, but back in the seventies we were poor and could not afford to raise any more. I was a SAHM when they were tiny, but then worked FT for the next thirty two years, in the expectation of a reasonable public service pension in lieu of the sort of salary those in the private sector earned. Having worked and saved for so long, and now watching the government muck aboout with our pensions, I cannot for the life of me see why I should have free prescroiptions removed from me in order that the feckless in our society should able to breed at will.

"reasonable pension in lieu of the sort of salary those in the private sector earned"

Now my piss is boiling. Anyone care to take a look at the salaries in the Guardian?

When will people take on board that not everyone in the private sector ends up with a gold plated pension.

CAUTIONARY TALE: Do not read this thread then go and give yourself a face scrub with one of those dermaflannels recommended on S&B....well i certainly don't need a face peel now

"the feckless in our society should able to breed at will."

Lovely attitude! Chip on your shoulder, much?

Well, Crashdoll, should they, why?
I think the chippy shoulderson here belong to those making very spiteful and ageist remarks.

Very few people have been ageist. We have criticised Scameron for ringfencing pensioners' benefits and for the attitude of some people regarding what they think they are entitled to.

I ask you again, why should pensioners be exempt from the cuts that are affecting everyone?!

And why should others pay for your free prescriptions when they didn't 'breed at will' just because you lived when you did? So what? Plenty of people 'work hard' and make sacrifices. It doesn't entitle anyone to FA.

I see zero reason why people over 60 shouldn't shoulder their share of the cuts, too, since all the rest of us are, including children and people who are too disabled to work.

If you are wealthy then you are wealthy whatever age you are. We have lost child benefit because I earn over the threshold. In our case we are wealthy enough not to need CB so it is reasonable that it is taken from us.

If you are a wealthy pensioner then you don't need some of the benefits you receive. If you are not a wealthy pensioner then you do need some or all of the benefits you receive and should get them.

Just to remind some posters that a lot of women who are over 50, did not go to university. They went straight out to work at 15, 16, 17, 18 and will now not retire until they are 66 or 67. That is a lot of years of paying in. I went to work at 17 and took out my first mortgage at 19 years old.

I haven't everything but the invective and bile from some is incredible. Someone mentioned we're living through the biggest financial crisis of our time and that everyone should be having tighten their belts and bashing these baby boomers. Firstly, it's the second global financial crisis baby boomers have lived through and they had to deal with stupendous inflation, energy crisi, etc in the 70s and those pensioners even older, it's their third financial crisis. My grandmother lived through the 1930s, then the bankrupt post-war years. My mother remembers being continually hungry as a child and lived in poverty. She then pulled her self out of poverty and worked hard. She even went back to work 3 months after having me in the 70s, just so they could afford the house they were in...not because it was a super fandango house, but inflation was so bad, that wages could not cover the basic cost of living.

What they got from the NHS was excellent health care for its time, but eroded now because monies are diverted into state of the art medicines and treatments that we all benefit from.

That they worked hard to earn a pension on top of their state pension, good on them. My dad worked from 17 to 67, my mum is 65 and is still working, but yes, they are using the opportunity of their early pensionable years to go on nice holidays. And do you know what I think? Good idea, do it now while you're healthy. I am delighted that between them they get 30k a year because when their health is not so hot, that money will help them.

I firmly believe I won't get a state pension, but I do not begrudge those benefitting from the post war labour reform years.

On the other hand, my MIL frittered away any money she got on the silliest things, was miserable despite this and now penny pinches living off her state pension. She's the silly one.

'Just to remind some posters that a lot of women who are over 50, did not go to university. They went straight out to work at 15, 16, 17, 18 and will now not retire until they are 66 or 67. That is a lot of years of paying in.'

So what? Plenty of us in our 30s and 40s didn't go to uni, either, and we don't have a snowball's chance in hell of getting much if anything when we are 70+. We'll be 'paying in' till we drop or are close to it.

So what? The past is the past. This is now. People shouldn't be exempted from cuts just because of their age. Children and the disabled aren't, so why shouldn't those who are over 60? Or MPs?

And we're talking about all these universal benefits, not the actual pension itself, which is a major portion of the welfare budget.

surely the 'feckless' you talk about don't pay for prescriptions either. it's those who work who pay for prescriptions, which then subsidise all the free ones. i read a statistic ages ago - something like 30% of people pay for prescriptions and subsidise those who don't (this may be wildy innacurate and i'd be really grateful if someone knew the real figure of what percentage of prescriptions are paid for). some pensioners get prescriptions for paracetamol, rather than pay 25p for it. how about charging everyone a pound per prescription? unless they are below a certain income then it's free? i also think that about art galleries. sorry - getting sidetracked.

I mentioned the past due to the attitude from some that this particular economic crisis is something new and appalling. I hope your point that the sat is the past is only related to this topic and not your attitude in general!

I have to say, I believe in universal benefits and was not happy at the child benefit changes. However, I still think that people here are incredibly bitter about the generation above them. People spitting bile about baby boomers benefitting from rising house prices, forgetting (or not being alive for) the housing collapse in the 80s....

It would help if I could spell past...

My ILs have gym and weight watchers subscriptions on the NHS. All free.

I'm a pensioner. I don't have a bus pass, I give my winter fuel allowance to charity etc. as many of my pensioner friends also do.

May I politely point out to those who are having a meltdown about us wicked pensioners, that as a mum who had my kids in the 60s/70s and exactly 50 years in full time employment this debaty about who benefits from what works two ways.

For example, I had a very small amount of child benefit, one small one-off maternity grant (I bought a cot with it), no maternity pay, no maternity leave, no right to my job back, no working tax credits, no minimum wage, a top rate of income tax in 1975 of 83% (if you were in the higher tax bracket -pretty much the highest, if not the highest, in the world) and 31% if you were on a median wage basic taxpayer. If you were out of work, the level of benefits available now would have made those of us in the dole queue green with envy.

Many of us pensioners are helping out adult children to the tune of many thousands of pounds a year (I certainly am) as we don't want them to undergo the same hardships as my generation and my parents' generation did and doing it at a time when our savings are being seriously eroded by the effect of the baking crisis and credit crunch, not to mention the life on a credit card mentality of some with an attitude of see it, want it now, stick it on the credit card..

We hear about how hard it is to get a house (yes, that's why us wicked pensioners are stumping up for our adult children), having to pay for university (at least over 40% of young people have the opportunity to attend - places were limited to 10% in the 50s/60s).

I do get fed up with this attitude that us 70 plus generation are selfish and rolling in wealth when the reality is that most of us were a post war generation who worked silly hours for our families and saved every spare penny without expecting, or getting, very much from the state at all.

Well said grimbletart

Grimble that is all by the by if you are wealthy you should still not be getting benefits.

Oh and most people work silly hours and expect little from the state,pensioners don't have the monopoly on it or any entitlement to state benefits.

baking crisis? - banking crisis of course

What Kazoo said. Couldn't care less about how it was then, how hard you worked, how you didn't have a microwave and blah blah blah, no one should be exempted from the cuts. If children and the disabled aren't, then no one should be. If you're wealthy enough, you don't get benefits (I'm leaving out state pension as a benefit, even though it comprises the welfare budget), universal benefits should be abolished. Link them to those in receipt of Pension Credit via HMRC the way they did CB.

Kazooblue - I agree re wealthy, but as you can't opt out of, say fuel payments, the next best is to give it to charity. Things like bus passes you simply don't claim for.

Never said pensioners had a monopoly - just pissed off at the way assumptions are made about us as if we are some amorphous block of self-entitled selfish old bags.

Couldn't care less about how it was then, how hard you worked

well then don't expect sympathy from anyone else. if they apply your rules, your troubles will soon be history and we can forget about them.