to ask if you're pissed off with the Baby Boomers?

[DamFineBeaver]

Because people who are currently young-ish adults (MN's main demographic?), and younger, will be paying for the lavish lifestyle they've enjoyed?
The money borrowed for their nice big pensions will be paid back by us and our children.

Does this mean they shouldn't spend so much time in Tenerife?

Loving the fact there is a free course. Maybe I will sign my parents up for it, they have plenty of time on their hands as retired baby boomers and it wont even cost them a penny of their final salary pensions and house inflation savings.

LOL at a 4 week course.

Well I'm a babyboomer but not a rich one like Margaret. The thing is very few rich people think they are. They see themselves as 'normal'. Some people send their DC to private school and insist they are not well off.

I think anyone a similar age to my older DC (34,32,29) had the chance of a reasonable start. Mine went to a fairly bog standard comp but got good enough grades to go to university. Two chose that route. They paid tuition fees of 3K which they are paying off with interest. Both started working immediately and have bought home and started families of their own. Admittedly they do not live and work in SE England. I realise property there is a real problem but most of the UK is (well was) OK.

Things are much worse for those following. My 21,19 and 18 year olds really cannot afford to go to university and housing is now expensive everywhere. They have every right to think that some 30 - 40 year old posting on here have had it easy. They have no right to blame that age group for all the countries problems.

I don't begrudge baby boomers their free uni education, their low housing costs, their low retirement age, free bus passes, final salary pensions etc but it irritates that they sometimes don't realise how lucky they are/were. I also don't get the inequality that has seen child benefit removed in some cases, frozen for the rest, shutting down sure start centres, lowering the threshold for tax credits, stagnated public sector wages, changes to public sector pensions for those still working, the raising of the retirement age, the lack of council housing when benefits to older people have been untouched. Are we all in it together or not? I know not all older people are in the same situation. In fact it is a narrow group as my DM born in 54 has to work until 67. Mil born a few years earlier retired at 60. But I still am irritated by it all.

You see, I could use sovery's post as an example of why this whole argument is based on ridiculous generalisations.

I'm a baby boomer. I had no free uni education (I was from a working class family and university wasn't considered an option - I was told to work at 16 so I wasn't a drain on family resources), my first flat, rented when I was 16 cost me £9 a week when I earned £12/week. Who knows whether there will still be free bus passes when I retire. My public sector pension will be approx £4,500/year after paying in for 26 years, I have direct experience of stagnant public sector wages - no pay rise for 4 years, my retirement age has been raised from 60 to 67, etc. I also have an 18 year old and am well aware of the problems she faces and will do everything I can to mitigate them. And yet, according to the majority of posters on this thread, as a baby-boomer I lack understanding and am selfish, entitled, vote out of self-interest, etc.

Yes twofingers. They also forget that the majority of boomers are still working. Many of them lost their jobs and homes and had to start again. Someone up thread even acknowledged the 15% interest rate but because it wasn't for long so it didn't matter. FGS if you lost your business or your home it lasted long enough.

Gideon, it has been said many times that the sweeping generalisation was a mistake from the OP. However, there are a minority who do fit the description. Luckily, Margaret came on here to exemplify that group just in case people didn't believe they really exist. Many others have shown sensible empathy and understanding.

Young people today couldn't afford a flat of their own at 16, or much older. Not for three quarters of their wage. Not for all of it in most places. They are expected by the government to stay at home with their parents, and if they do want independence they house share. A whole flat for a 16 year old is a luxury I cannot imagine anyone stretching to these days!

How is your pension so low- are you part time? Looking on my intranet the lowest paid most junior civil servant in my department earns £18kpa, and if you have been there 26 years I would be surprised if you were at the bottom of the payscale. And 26 years of that would pay a pension of £6k pa.
And wouldn't your work pension be based on a scheme retirement age (eg 60 or possibly 65) not the state retirement age?

I also think Margaret is very fortunate.

Oh, and I am 42 and don't have a pension. This is not unusual for my age group.
Dh has a works pension that costs a lot each month.
I won't qualify for a state pension (should it even exist by then!) even if I go back to work as I won't have enough qualifying years.

Regardless of how low particular public sector pensions are the vast majority (if not all) are final salary/defined benefit schemes meaning the amount you take out is GUARANTEED. Most pensions worked this way for privately employed baby boomers too, it used to be the norm.

Non-babyboomers and non-public sector workers have defined contribution schemes which mean you are told how much you have to pay in but there is NO GUARANTEE there will be anything like enough there when you retire.

It's a huge difference for the generation following the boomers.

"Regardless of interest rates (which were15% for one day)..."

That's quite wrong, many months of interest rate misery at 15.5% in 1981/2

think the generation born from, say, 64-68 also did quite well in housing cost terms, which as others have said is one of the key issues?

Not all of us. We had a mixed bag if issues when we bought our first home, a miniscule flat.

My salary, as a woman, was not always taken into full consideration... it was 2 times his and 1 of mine - even though I earned more.

Yes, we could get a 100% mortgage and we bought as it was cheaper than renting.

Interest rates skyrocketed and a number of our friends handed their keys back to the lenders. They still owed a fortune, but with interest rates suddenly shooting up to 18 and 19% it was cheaper to bail out than to go under.

Others, like us, managed to cling on but found ourselves with properties that were utterly unsaleable - we finally sold that miniscule flat 17 years after we bought it and then had to rent, as we could not afford to buy anywhere else.

For those who managed to crawl up the housing ladder, they are now paying off debts that they ran up keeping the mortgage serviced. The ultra low rates came in just as their mortgages finished. They can't afford to move, other houses cost a fortune too!

The housing issue is not as clear cut as it seems either.

Gideon, you should also be aware that even if £4.5k is right, that is a good pension! It is index linked, so you wont be worse off as you get older. To buy an annuity to pay you that pension, you would need a pension pot of over £100k in non-final salary terms.

Oops! The 18/19% were for those mortgages that were not at base rates... like the 100% or other 'specials'.

But the base rate of 15 and a bit was crippling for many young people who had bought their first homes. Our parents, boomers or not, usually managed to ride it out as they were more financially secure at that point in their lives.

But it never crossed my mind to hate them for that then, or now!

Historic Bank of England base rate spread sheet from link. Actual mortgage rate is somewhat higher. I think that we have somewhat forgotten the effect of volatile interest rates.

Why don't young people fight to have decent pensions? Our pensions weren't just handed to us on a plate, my late husband had to contribute for 30 years!

All this sniping at baby boomers distracts at the real issue - the 1% are getting richer. You should proudly support boomers pensions to insure they exisit for your generation.

bedraggledmum....The only people I remember leaving home at 16 left to join the services. Everyone else I knew stayed at home until the very fortunate few left for university at 18. The rest worked and saved. No body new what a year out was.

Young people can't fight for their pensions. Unions are powerless in all but a few industries.

Why don't young people fight to have decent pensions? Our pensions weren't just handed to us on a plate, my late husband had to contribute for 30 years!

I hate generalisations and prejudice against any group, but you really aren't helping your cause Margaret. It is not economically viable for any company or organisation to provide a 2/3 final pension salary based on only 30 year's service and a potential 30 year's further payments. The economics of pensions no longer stack up. People are living longer, but not necessarily able to work for much longer. This is problem to which nobody has yet found the answer.

How are young people to fight for better pensions? Unions have no power in most sectors. Teachers are an obvious exception but I suspect they will be targeted if the tories win in May.

Don't know what happened there.

But you now have automatic enrolment. Appropriately affordable personal pensions were like hen's teeth for most people, way back when.

Cashing pensions in has changed too. You can do more things with them now, you used to be locked in to annuities, lump sums were restricted. You can release the cash now... unheard of until a short while ago - you had to plonk it in another pension.

There is so much changing for us all it is ludicrous to keep on banging the same out of date, inaccurate drum!