my baby boomer parents are selfish and ungrateful

[yoofoftoday]

Had lunch with parents yesterday and left so fuming.

Mother complains about not being able to get a new car on finance and that her retirement income is only 28k after she retired early. Her current car is only 4 years old and she often uses her free bus pass (only free to her take payers have to pay for it along with the rising bus fares) as she doesn't was the BMW to get scratched in town. I barely can afford the bus and can't even afford a car.

Dad who gets his state pension but still works was complaining that he has to pay Ni and then wait till the end of the year to claim it back. Also complqains that now he gets his state pension has to up the amount in his private pension to avoid 40% tax. He only keeps doing this job as its easy and he works from home not doing much.

Uncle who sold a building plot to developers for a fortune ages ago and hasn't worked since said "oh your poor dad still working". When my dad is in perfect health and works from home paid a lot for easy work, basically on call 9-5.

Then my parents say they are putting their winter fuel allowance towards a 3d DVD player while I go home to my cold house where I only put the heating on if it goes below 16.

Nc but regular.

It wouldn't be difficult to stop wealthier pensioners receiving the WFA or bus passes. You'd simply adjust their tax code so they were taxed on the benefit.

No, Hester about your DF/FIL

Ah. You're forgiven :o

Of course I didn't mean a pension. Oh I see where the confusion came from: I used the phrase "pensionable age".

Understood Hester and my long-deceased ex-head was not claiming anything he should not have had!

And by the way, re pensions, someone very close to me is in receipt of final salary non contributory pension after having retired at 50. He is now 71 and will most likely live another 15 years. This amounts to about £25,000 a year. Obviously the mortgage is long paid off.

If that is not fucking lucky I don't know what is. Doesn't bother me too much . It means I don't have to worry about him having no money.

However those days are gone.

It's not luck Hester, it's chosing a job that offers one! That's what I did!

Mine is non contributory though but still great. I have stuck with the one company and it has paid off but nothing to do with being lucky.

Sorry, I do contribute!

It has a great deal to do with luck. Final salary pension schemes open to new members are like hens teeth now

Handcream it is luck, in that in 1966 when he graduated, there were many such jobs available to far fewer graduates. FFS! What is wrong with saying someone was lucky?! It doesn't mean you hate them!

Its everything to do with luck ffs!

What I really hate is boomers thinking they are somehow clever or smart by ending up in such a good situation when its mostly about luck. someone gen x working twice as hard would not get the same.

Take free travel: it would mean rain forests of forms, intrusive questions about income (and expenditure?), and then grossly unfair results near the borderline. Instead, being universal (as in London it is for youngsters, incidentally) it promotes the health and welfare of the entire echelon who get it

so, not only do you want free buses passes, you don't want the hassle of intrusion? Anything else you'd like on that cake? Your borderline comment is for any benefit not universally given, and most are not (HB, income support etc etc) and we simply can't afford to make most universal. and by the way, your "universal" is not in fact universal.

- all of whom paid taxes for previous generations to get it.

but there's the problem. this generation knows it will pay for your bus passes but will never see anything of the kind. they have already had their free tuition gone.

I completely agree WG.

If it weren't for the fact that I'm close to my parents and many of their friends and several of my friends' parents who all comment that the heating payment and free travel are vote pandering as none of them require either, I'd have totally changed my earlier opinions given the comments regarding 'ugly and intrusive' means testing. It is the most incredibly obtuse argument I have heard on this thread.

Means testing is totally necessary. What is truly ugly is the self interest in declaring it to be ugly and intrusive when it suits one's own circumstances.

Means testing also penalises thrift, and that's never socially valuable. Unless you are one of those who think thrifty people are failing to spend and help the recovery.

Means testing also penalises thrift, and that's never socially valuable. Unless you are one of those who think thrifty people are failing to spend and help the recovery.

do you really think so? what i think it does is separate those that are deciding they will live off state pension and those that won't. I don't think means testing for the bus pass will do anything. I am not going to save 10 quid more a month now for retirement if the announce that the bus pass will be phased out. people don't fine tune their retirement like that.

What I really hate is boomers thinking they are somehow clever or smart by ending up in such a good situation when its mostly about luck. someone gen x working twice as hard would not get the same.

I do agree with you, but I don't hunk this lack of perspective is really just a Boomer thing. Most of us, regardless of our financial position, will find ourselves wishing for more or congratulating ourselves for our successes without really appreciating how lucky we are just to have been born in a society that gave us the opportunities we take for granted.

Not talking about it helps avoid looking like a wanker though!

so, not only do you want free buses passes, you don't want the hassle of intrusion? Anything else you'd like on that cake? Your borderline comment is for any benefit not universally given, and most are not (HB, income support etc etc) and we simply can't afford to make most universal. and by the way, your "universal" is not in fact universal.

As I said upthread, 5.5 billion pounds goes unclaimed every year by pensioners, baffled by the system/unaware of what they can have/too proud to apply. Any increase in means testing would, by this example mean even more go without.

As LittleBear said, taxing the wealthy pensioners on benefits would work, but then there wouldn't be a handy whipping boy for people to foam about, a distraction for the Y gens, etc.

I wonder if the money generated from such taxes would be so slight, it might explode the idea of all the wealthy baby boomer pensioners living it up.

Taxing the WFA might be largely symbolic but at present pensioners have been largely protected from cuts because they are most likely to vote, as said above its pandering.

yes means testing is horrible. fine for child benefit though.

so that is the contradiction.

Boomers want it all, even if they don't need it. They are the most entitled people.

My parents don't need winter fuel payments and can afford the bus, but they see these goodies as their right to have, even though they weren't promised them.

Many many people do say that they 'have paid their taxes' and are fully entitled but if you looked further you would find in many cases that they havent. My DM worked as a teacher so did work full time but she was quite unusual. She also employed a childminder which again was not common.

I have seen all sorts of figures been given but how much do you need to earn before you become a net contributor to taxes on average?

I see also lots of people saying the pensioners are protected because they tend to vote, well there is an answer to that! Also there will be more and more pensioners over the next 20 years including me so unless the younger generation start to vote and push through changes pensioners will rule!

My (lovely) MiL argued that pensioners should have to apply for their "freebies". She reckoned that when her age group recognised that the freebies were, in effect, benefits then many millions would not claim them.

Not sure it would work but it would avoid means-testing and the complications of tax.

Was just reading Philip Collins on The Times who has some interesting figures: people in their 80's get £10,000 worth of services compared with £2000 for people in their 40s.

Since 1979 pensioned benefits have tripled in value. - the over-60s take a third of all benefits. The generation born between 1956 and 1961 will take from the welfare state 118% of what they put in.