… to think that no one wants to speak up for the younger generation?

[SnowBells]

I don't know what it is. Maybe political correctness gone mad.

Pensioners who are already wealthy get winter fuel allowance, etc. Each time this kind of stuff gets mentioned on things like Question Time or something, people shout and whistle, showing complete disregard for the subject, and no real debate can happen.

I am not talking about the pensioners who aren't well off. But a huge proportion of pensioners did profit from the higher house prices - something not likely to happen for the younger generation.

Our kids have to pay to go to uni. My generation will retire much, much later. We also have to pay for inflated house prices.

And yet, there will be people who say 'but we've paid our taxes'. Well, we pay taxes and our kids will, too, but we are likely to get A LOT less back. I just feel there's a huge generational wealth divide. And I wonder why no one wants to discuss this properly? Why do people want to stop a debate before it has even had a chance to happen?

Everyone will die. Your legacy is the next generation. So why not speak up for what essentially will be your only legacy?

this government doesn't care - it's cut services to vulnerable young people and children to fuck - but they don't vote so who cares

yanbu - sadly

well don't blame the pensioners op! don't think they caused the present recession.

my parents are 80, lived through the war as kids, suffered bloody awful inflation of the 70s, food staples going up weekly nothing like today!!

worked their arses off to pay off their mortgage and bought a pension.

coping well now so lucky but they bloody worked for it.

sad when working people turn on each other. that's how the Tories get in.

The government is a shambles.

Right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing.

That's all.

I think it's a shame the debate isn't happening as well.

No one is blaming pensioners, but why we aren't means testing fuel allowances, tv licenses etc when virtually every other benefit IS means tested is a very good question.

Yes - it should be means-tested.

Politicians seem to think that it would cost too much to implement.

Well, it would - if you make it incredibly bureaucratic or - shock horror - bring in God knows how many management AND IT consultants in. It would then turn into the black hole that was the ill-fated NHS IT system.

Ninja your spot on!!

sodbodyblue

I know your parents worked hard. I'm sure other people - now or in the future - are/will, too.

There is a theory that the last few decades following the second world war were an 'anomaly'. That in the grand history of humans, there had never been such a golden era. And that no other generation will have it as good in future.

I completely don't understand the whole sense of entitlement regarding pensioners benefits. The welfare state was set up so that those who could paid money in so that those who needed it could draw on it. So what's with all the 'I paid my taxes' bollocks among OAPs? I pay my taxes but I fully understand that I pay them - in part at least - so that those who are in need are not destitute. I don't expect to be entitled to it back if I'm well off. That is not what the whole thing was set up for!!! And whilst it's debatable as to whether the OAPs caused anything with their constant remortgaging, there's no doubt that we're now in a position where the urgent need is to help the younger generation.

Ninja your spot on!!

Am I?

Get me, all political.

Nah, I was reading a Jobcentre thread earlier and the attitude towards people nowadays stinks. We don't look after people any more.

phoolani

I agree with you. Hence, we pay into our own pension fund, etc. No final salary or anything like that here!

FiL actually agrees with us. He's a pensioner, but he completely agrees that his generation 'had it good'. Hence his willingness to help his kids.

I agree with Ninja too. Thankfully I am Scottish. I dearly wish we could take you all with us too. Be independent of the rich elite who are intent of fucking us all over.

Ninja / Skivvy / Braw

What do you think should the government do? I don't think any of the political parties in existence know what to do!!!

What do you think should the government do? I don't think any of the political parties in existence know what to do!!!

Yes, that is also a good point.

I don't know. But then they haven't put me in charge.

I'm also still heavily influenced by the recent conspiracy thread and the lizardman theory is still niggling in my mind.

The problem is that it is the older generation who vote in the largest numbers. Political parties don't want to upset this very influential section of the electorate.

However, I think many of them would willingly accept some changes such as the end of universal credits (e.g the winter fuel allowance.)

Well, for a start they could remove the unfair penalising of the very poorest while the richest pay less than ever? Radical, but it might catch on.... Perhaps stop using the BBC (and the rest of the media who own them) to peddle their right wing, neo liberal rhetoric?

And if I was in charge, I would attempt to limit the mind numbing reality shite on telly which is dumbing down the young and making them think that the people who appear on Chelsea and all those nonsense programmes are role models. Perhaps we should look at what the frivolous nonsense is doing to the minds of the, predominantly young, audiences in this country, many of whom think following some Essex twat on Twitter is the height of engagement.

I don't know, I'm 50 so at the tail end of the golden generation. It is a very unpopular point of view on here, but this generation has a lot more material stuff (and sense of entitlement) than previous generations had.
I know there aren't many jobs around now, but it was the same in the eighties. Literally every single one of my close friends from University ended up in London or the South East to find work. And we lived in horrible shitty flats and were completely skint. Young people won't live like that now.
A good night out was a couple of pints and a kebab, not the sheer excess that happens now.
And yes I know house prices are crazy now, but they were pretty bad then, interest rates were shocking. When we finally scraped enough for a house we had no money for furniture, we slept on the floor for months.

I'm trying to say, it wasn't all wine and roses for us either. I know young people have it hard, but I don't think it is the old people to blame. There is plenty of divide and conquer going on from the powers that be.

I agree with Moomin. We had to eat our meals off the coffee table for a year cos we could not afford a table. Interest rates doubled from 7% to 14%. My parents did not have it easy. Their education was totally screwed up by the war and they had to endure rationing for years. Personally, I think if the students of today saw some of the dumps we lived in at uni, they would run away, screaming!

I don't think it really matters who's to blame. The thing is what do we do now? It makes me really angry the way young people these days are totally cut out of the housing and jobs market and yet are still demonised by politicians.

Whether parents or whoever had it easy or not isn't the point - life is always hard in different ways. The question is should they now get handouts they don't need at the expense of people who really do need them?

What handouts do older people really get. Winter fuel allowance? Bus pass? I think it would probably cost more to do the means testing.

Moomin

Most people pay taxes. For them to do so, the govterment should already have info on how much each person gets. So it should not be too difficult to do means testing...

But the most you can get for winter fuel allowance is about £300 quid. And then you have to be over eighty. I genuinely don't know anyone over eighty in my home village. They all die long before that of industrial disease or poverty related diseases.
Hell you could get a hell of a lot of winter fuel allowance if these fat cat corporations paid their taxes. But hey, why not just bash the pensioners.

Lets be honest, the baby boomer generation shafted the lot of us and pulled the drawbridge up after themselves. The young today are suffering because of the feckless, selfish boomer generation.