To think stopping the pension triple lock and bus passes would reduce inequality

[feellikeahugefailure]

Yes it would be great to give everyone free bus travel and put up their money each year. But the country is already in a financial black hole.

Most other benefits have been frozen for years but pensioners protected. Also the bus pass is given universally and not means tested, where as the bus pass for the unemployed was axed years ago.

There are many people like my wealthy ex in-laws who used the bus pass to avoid paying parking and getting the BMW scratched. The state pension they always called peanuts - as it was compared to their final salary pension. These changes would not affect their lifestyle one bit.

Ideally I'd like unemployed people and poor pensioners to get some help with bus travel (as it can be super expensive) and increases each year in money to allow people at the bottom to live their life with dignity, regardless of age.

jobhap.com/bus-passes-and-state-pensions-triple-lock-threat-on-brexit/

Blanche - apart from becoming politicised, how exactly do you think we should collectively address the problem? Are the older generations going to accept massive immigration, massive wage inflation causing a collapse in their living standards, higher rates of tax forcing them to sell up and consume some of their housing wealth to support their pensions, a non-free NHS, having to sell their houses to pay for care/healthcare? What is the solution? Never mind the amorphous "they": what would you do if you were in charge

I have already said, I am in no way qualified... especially no more qualified than consecutive governments and their fiscal experts. Why would you ask anyone on a forum like this to solve such a problem? Ah! Do you think it undermines my position not to have a solution?

OK, what would you do?

Why is for the older generations to accept anything? I really don't get what you mean by that! If any of those issues befell 'the older generations' they would also befall 'the younger generations'

As for the amorphous They I think you misunderstood my post... as that was the point I was trying to make... They are Us, all of Us!

having to sell their houses to pay for care/healthcare? and that already happens - only to 'the older generations'...

Why is for the older generations to accept anything? I really don't get what you mean by that! If any of those issues befell 'the older generations' they would also befall 'the younger generations'

Because the older generations own the houses (assets), and want the pensions (income).

The younger generations want some houses (assets), but don't have anything to pay for the houses, apart for the proportion of their income they are already paying/will pay for the pensions.

People have to live in houses. Houses or pensions? Pensions or houses?

Will the older generation swap some of their houses for some of the pensions they want?

Will they accept lower prices for their houses in return for securing some of the younger generations' incomes?

Or will they forego the claim on the next generations' incomes and try to sell their houses instead to make up the shortfall?

But who will they sell their houses to?

Maybe Chinese businessmen and overseas investors. If we can find enough Chinese businessmen investors to buy up all the houses, we can all pay them rent to live in the houses, and spend the profits on pensions. Does that work.....?

....um......

(For "houses" read "housing wealth" here. Obviously pensioners also need to live in houses: but they do not need to live in expensive houses. Previous generations were quite used to downsizing at retirement....)

Maybe Chinese businessmen and overseas investors. If we can find enough Chinese businessmen investors to buy up all the houses, we can all pay them rent to live in the houses, and spend the profits on pensions. Does that work.....?

Er, the Chinese are screwed too. They are hiding how screwed they are too. If that particular shit hits the fan, we are screwed - especially if we decide to invest more in China if we leave the EU. No escaping that particular time bomb either.

A slow, planned and controlled redistribution of wealth (including off shore and corporate nonsense which requires massive international political good will - which might also be at risk if we or anyone else calls time on the EU) and restructuring of debt (namely the demon that is PFI) is the only way will avoid a massive economic bomb at some point in the future.

We have spent far too long kicking the pebble down the road and no one taking the bull by the horns.

Because the older generations own the houses (assets), and want the pensions (income). Again with the generalisation... the first half isn't universally true and the second half is, younger generation and all... which makes all that followed it groundless blather!

1. Many houses are being sold off to pay for health care.... many of 'the younger generation' decry this selling off of their inheritance.

1. Downsizing is being forced on everyone these days, isn't it? Well, in social housing, which many of 'the older generations' are also reliant on.

It isn't as simple as you want it to be. Stop taking the rhetoric and hyperbole as the absolute truth!

We have spent far too long kicking the pebble down the road and no one taking the bull by the horns. Absolutely!

That has to be done by society as a whole. Sadly, whilst various political entities want to obfuscate that fact and offer up a scapegoat, that is unlikely to happen.

free travel for pensioners helps literally millions of people get out and about stay connected healthy and active. The drain on the NHS would be huge of the free bus pass was withdrawn

"free travel for pensioners helps literally millions of people get out and about stay connected healthy and active"

Assuming of course that they live near a bus route....

Er, the Chinese are screwed too. They are hiding how screwed they are too.

Yes, I know. I was being sarcastic!

OurBlanche- if you are so set on denying the economic truth, I don't think anyone can help!

25 year olds, for the most part, don't own mortgage-free houses. People over 50 do.

50 year olds aren't going to be working in 20 years' time. The current crop of 25 year olds will be paying their pensions and for their NHS use.

If those 25 year olds can't afford to meet these obligations (because the tax take isn't enough to pay for them), how will the 50-somethings pay for them? Their assets are their houses.

If those 25 year olds can't afford to buy houses at 20 times their wage, who are the current 50-somethings going to sell them to? Either they'll sell them at prices the younger generations can afford, and take the loss; or they'll sell them at today's prices....to whom....?

bonnet this is not logical at all
of course 50 year olds mostly own their own houses as they had 25 year mortgages and paid them off.
you do realise that anyone who has an income over the personal allowance (the same for everyone) pays tax on everything over - so they are contributing not just being parasites on the back of the young.
those 50 year olds now will probably be working and paying tax for the next 15 to 20 years as the state pension age is increasing.

It drives me loopy that so much of the wealth of this country is tied up in one generation - pensioners. My parents are higher rate taxpayers but get fuel, protected state pension and bus passes. They both also get an index linked government occupational pension...They say that their comparative wealth is because they worked hard but most of it comes from having sold the family home for about 25 times what they paid for it. If I ever point this out I get a rant about how it is the fault of the banks for changing lending criteria from 3 times one salary to multiples of two. DF just doesn't seem to get that regardless of whose fault it is, their generation have benefited from house price inflation as well as generous pensions that all the rest have to foot the bill for.

I don't see why fuel, bus passes and the triple lock shouldn't be clawed back from higher rate tax payers in the same way as they do for child benefit for the younger generation.

We are comfortable and own our own home but I despair of my children ever being able get a foot on the property ladder, starting out their careers with student debt. We have a good income but spend pretty much all we have so savings for our retirement are slim and I doubt we'll inherit as most of the money seems to go in funding long haul travel and they will no doubt be picky when it comes to care homes.....

London
of course your parents did not work any harder than someone who worked in low paid jobs all their life. The fault is not 'pensioners' as a cohort but a select subset like your parents who have it all. (and their bus pass is worth A LOT if they live in London. )
they are right though that house prices have become insane and it is partly the fault of easy credit, low interest rates and the banks pushing money into BTL.
I assume they still live in a house that they will have had to pay an insane price for - so no-one really wins except the banks and the losers are the young renters who cannot now afford to buy.

BillSykes - I known the thread's grown a lot, but going back to your quote:

80% of the nations wealth is held by today's pensioners

I asked for your source and you posted something quite different, which says 80% of wealth is held by baby boomers (in other words, NOT pensioners, given that many boomers will not be able to retire for anothere decade or so.)

Not sure we are up the creek really. Productivity continues to increase, technological development carries on at an apparently ever faster rate, humans are not getting stupider or becoming worse educated in the uk. So we should in theory be generating more income per person as we go merrily on every year.

Against that we have higher health care and pension costs because more intervention is possible and people are living longer. and crucially, low interest rates, high mortgage multiples, overseas investor interest and increasing population have led to huge increases in housing costs in certain areas of the uk. These problems should not be insoluble, given humans' endless ingenuity and talent - if the political will is there!

? productivity and technological development have notoriously plateaued/ stagnated, along with salaries....

Our economy is based on massive over-borrowing on credit, financed off trillions of pounds of fantasy derivative instruments and secured only on houses that are known to be overvalued by more than three times their historical mean value....

We have a rapid ageing population often in poor health (with huge lifestyle disease time bombs from diabetes, dementia and heart and lung disease), and not enough workers to pay for their costs....

No, nothing could go wrong here.

if you are so set on denying the economic truth, I don't think anyone can help! Mmmm Does that translate into "If you refuse to change your mind and see things my way?"

50 year olds aren't going to be working in 20 years' time. You are quite right. Currently we are allowed to retire in 17 years by then I will have paid in for, let me see, ttart work at 17, finish at 67... oh yes 50 years! And I have already pointed out that many pensioners, well, those who are home owners, will sell their houses be forced to sell their houses to pay for their end of life care. If many posts here are anything to go by, that will be done much to the ire of their kids, who relied on getting the house as their rightful inheritance.

That you are focussed on home ownership as your absolute measure of wealth you won't be able to see A N Other perspective. i.e. that not all BBs are home owners, not all pensioners have much disposable income, and all the other things others have pointed out, repeatedly.

londonmummy - It drives me loopy that so much of the wealth of this country is tied up in one generation - pensioners. Except it isn't... I posted the % for age related wealth ages ago... mid 40 year olds are not pensioners!

Our Blanche - actually the way in which wealth is distributed between different age groups largely depends on the way in which you value pension wealth. Many of the studies/statistics are skewed by the way in which annuities are valued versus personal pension funds.The value of the latter as an investment pot when compared with the capital value of a drawn down annuity is a major distortion in the figures.

Hell, I worked Saturdays and holidays from when I was 15, suddenly saw my pension and buspass age zoom from 60 to 66, and now you expect me not to be allowed a bus pass?
Look at it this way - less well off oldies need the bus passes. Better off ones will pay for the cost of theirs in their taxes.
We made our financial plans when we thought I'd get my state pension at 60, then wallop - too ill to work, not ill enough for disability allowance. We saved carefully, and the goalposts are being moved each time I get near them.
Give us oldies our pensions, put us out to grass, so the young people can have the jobs.

Mary Berry was on Woman's Hour, she mentioned how hard it was to work with young children as in those day you only got 2 weeks off per year.

Lot's of things in life were less comfortable than they are today which younger people don't even know about.

Our Blanche - actually the way in which wealth is distributed between different age groups largely depends on the way in which you value pension wealth Actually, that was part of my point, way back up thread.

You can always find a statistic, a measure that will disagree with any ne that is stated here (or anywhere else). It just seems to be questioned here more when the fact that is posted does not follow the 'balme the boomer/pensioner rhetoric'... and the last piece of data I posted to contradict that pov came from the same place as the post I was replying too!

Remember, I am NOT saying that the economy is not skewed or screwed, I am just saying thtthe uber simplistic scapegoating is not going to solve anything... it just distarcts a large and loud sector of society from other issues/causes. A handy trick all governments use when convenient!

But I'm caught in the middle - 2 weeks off work to have the babies (no part time work after that) and just baout no pension either and a retirement age for state pension of nearly 70 not that I will retire at that age plus father died just after spending last of his life savings on dementia care night and day at home which cost him £130k in the last year! Plus now trying to help children with property purchases in London with the prospect of 2x £9k a year plus £7k rent a year 2 for the youngest children looming as no free university now.

Life has always been hard and now is the time to strip pensioners of those free passes etc particularly as they will be the ones getting us into a much worse financial pickle when they vote to damage their grandchildren by voting to leave the EU. We will not forget what they have done to us by that vote if it goes that way.

Yabvu op any effects on inequality would be minimal. Why do so many people hate old people so much?

Life has always been hard and now is the time to strip pensioners of those free passes etc particularly as they will be the ones getting us into a much worse financial pickle when they vote to damage their grandchildren by voting to leave the EU. We will not forget what they have done to us by that vote if it goes that way.

So we blame pensioners if we leave the EU? Jesus wept.

Why do so many people hate old people so much?

Because "it'll never happen to them".

some people hate the older generation because :
they are jealous and stamp their feet as it isn't fair that some old people have a lot - so they blame all of us. (glossing over the work and saving we did to survive to our venerable age)
it is on a par with other forms of discrimination (but somehow acceptable on mumsnet) to say derogatory things about old people that they cannot say about LGBT, Immigrant, non-white people, women categories. A scapegoat they can attack without being 'pulled up' on it