Fuming that they are talking of taking away pensioner bus passes and the triple lock

[jdoe8]

I'm still 40 years before I will get these, but I think we need to fight to keep these for future generations.

For many people they will have left school at 16 and worked until they were 65. Now after all those years of paying their taxes they aren't getting much back so the very least we need to do is allow them to travel and guarantee that their income will rise every year.

For many people they will have left school at 16 and worked until they were 65. I see this repeated a lot when people talk about Boomers. We worked it out and since FIL and DF both went to free university and retired at a lovely young age, DM and MIL either didn't work or worked sporadically. DH and I reckon that we have paid more tax for more years than them. In our 40s. And they get pensions, bus passes and winter fuel allowance that they use and don't need.

There are a lot of hard-working pensioners on the breadline. But let's focus on NEED rather than this amorphous bullshit about the war and hard work and blah. None of which is actually true.

the older generation is incredibly selfish.

What a ridiculously sweeping shitty generalisation to make simply on the basis of age.

You post is nasty, divisive and mean spirited. Mrs Thatcher would be proud of you.

MrsTerryPratchett

Yep, my mum is the same. Worked from 16-19 and took time off to have kids and then gave up working all together at 28. My dad retired at 65. Me and DP have paid far more into the system than they have and we're only mid 40s. But I can't really blame them for taking the advantage given to them. It's the ones who refuse to accept there was an advantage! My parents will tell you better than anyone that they had it bloody easy in a lot of cases.

Our kids are a lost generation - much like the ones between 1918-1930. Really? I am not entirely certain you want to make that claim!

But then again... the vitriol here is such that you might!

And

But let's focus on NEED Absolutely. Oh!

rather than this amorphous bullshit about the war and hard work and blah. None of which is actually true. Never mind!

[Wanders off, wondering how 2 world wars can be so casually dismissed.]

wasonthelist

When you are constantly being told by them that they didn't have advantages, or that they 'deserve' help with fuel costs, but disabled people don't, or that 'too many are faking being disabled!' you start to think they're selfish.

Not all boomers voted Brexit, massive and unfair generalisation. Labour voter all my life.

Maybe blame the young for not voting?

OurBlanche

To have fought in World War 2 you'd have to be either 95 or 89. Nobody is alive who fought in both world wars. So don't try the "they fought for this country" bullshit because 99.9% of them didn't.

I think we need to preserve retirement rights - mainly for generation rent who will have far less to fall back on. Lets face it, reforms made now will be phased and largely not affect the current generation of pensioners.

NoSunNoMoon

Baby boomers overwhelmingly did though. Not all, but the majority.

You can blame young people, but many are stuck in the mindset that the government doesn't care, so they don't vote. It's true to an extent - at the G.E. nobody ever puts forward policies for the young. It's always about pension increases, or inheritance tax or other stuff that isn't relevant to anyone under 60.

MrsMatt

When you remember how little your grandparents got by on; how little money they had, how much their adult, non resident kids paid into the household to keep them going...

When you look at your own non house owning parents, DM worked since we were in junior school, who, at 70, rely on handouts from their adult non resident daughters...

You start to wonder why their realities are never, ever acknowledged here. Why the MN zeitgeist has it that such as they don't exist or are, somehow unimportant.

Might it be that there are boomers that don't fit the cozy DM pattern?

I think you might find that those of us who are disputing your reality would like that to be acknowledged. The sweeping statements upthread need to be challenged....

Baby boomers overwhelmingly did though. Not all, but the majority.

Lets see your detailed psephology for that, for example, what "majority" of boomers voted for brexit, voted Tory etc 52% perhaps?

snowgeese No it wouldn't PC is too narrow a margin to base means testing bus passes on it does not give a pensioner extra income it takes them up to the minimum anything over the minimum and they don't get it

As it stands PC for a couple is £237.55 per week, the old basic state pension is £119.30 x 2 equals £238.60 which means that a couple on the old rate and nothing else only has £1.05 extra than a couple on PC

The new single rate Is £155.65 pension credit for a single person takes their income up to £155.60. that for a single pensioner on the new basic rate (that's 35 years contributions) is 5p too much for PC.

As I said up thread you cant means test the bus pass on what the bus companies charge the council, you are going to have to means test on the fares the bus companies will charge pensioners not entitled to a pass and unless there is an agreement with all bus companies for a flat rate fare nationally it will be standard fares.

Now here on the Isle of Wight the standard single is £3.50/£4.50, on the mainland the same bus company charges £2.00 for a single, so means testing must be done at local level, other wise you will end up with a pensioner couple on the Island with only £1.05 extra between them paying a full fare of £10 a day, £24 a week or £84 a month, whilst pensioners on the same income on the mainland will paying £2 a day £10 a week etc.

MrsMatt Could you, perhaps have a re-read of your own posts? You claimed your kids were 'lost' in much the same way as those post WWI were...

MrsT posts about war and hard work, presumably referring to WWII and you feel the need to call bullshit on something neither I nor anyone but you and MrsT posted!

OK! That seems 'fair' You set's 'em up, you knocks 'em down!

If you read me back, I posted about my grandparents and parents. All of whom went through WWII and its aftermath!

MrsBonner you must know a lot of elderly posh toffs or are deliberately being goady.

The people in their 70' s and 80's who I know did have it very tough - they were kids during the war and many were evacuated. There was no NHS during their childhood and they remember their mums asking the chemist for remedies as they couldn't afford to see a doctor. They had to work bloody hard to get a mortgage( you needed a massive deposit compared to blue collar wages) and certainly when I was a child in the 60's and 70's there weren't that may cars in the street (we all played out). Only a few kids had been on a holiday and many children in my primary school lived in houses with no indoor toilet or bathroom.Yeah - life was really peachy! Not all elderly people vote Tory. Who do you think built up the Labour party and campaigned for the welfare state? Why did all those workers "with jobs for life" feel the necessity to strike so much during the 70's to gain some basic rights.

Bashing any section of society is really pernicious. When I was younger I used to feel really sorry for old people who we delivered harvest boxes to and who you would see shuffling round the supermarket checking the price of tins of pilchards to see if they could afford them for their tea. Do we really want to be the sort of society that begrudges old folk a few comforts in their dotage?

WAIT!!!!

Is it all posters called Mrs ?

I think we should be told

To have fought in World War 2 you'd have to be either 95 or 89. Nobody is alive who fought in both world wars. So don't try the "they fought for this country" bullshit because 99.9% of them didn't.

Precisely. My mill worker, fought in WW2, GF deserved so much. He ruined his hearing in the tanks and lost so many friends. He did a hard and difficult job from very young. He is long dead and died in his 80s. Pensioners are no longer that generation.

Bashing any section of society is really pernicious
^This

MrsBonner You are very disparaging about various governments divisive policies (and I don't entirely disagree), but you go on to preach exactly the nasty divisive rhetoric you claim to disapprove of.

I've often wondered if there's be something to a Government backed equity release scheme i.e. the government buys the house/percentage of the house, releases the money now and then, when the owner dies or wants to move, either owns the house, or the house is sold - with the government/LA having first refusal at market rate - to repay the debt at the same percentage of sale price or original loan value, whichever is the higher.

At worst, the government ends up loaning the money for the remaining life time for nothing. That's still probably going to be more cost effective and better for the economy than the current system.

At best, lots of money is released now, benefit bills are cut and living standards for asset rich/cash poor pensioners and their families are improved. Followed by lots of houses reverting into LA/Government control to go into social housing provision.

I'm old enough to see the majority of pensioners round here doing far better than the clients I work with at a food bank. Similarly, to recognise the irony in the use of the term "we're all in it together" on this thread.

If you can't appreciate why the younger generation feel the way they do then perhaps it is you that needs to grow up.

And besides, what is the justification behind maintaining the triple lock when social care and benefits elsewhere are being slashed to the core? A few posters on here keep patronisingly telling those questioning the fairness of the scenario to grow up, but I haven't yet seen a decent economic reason for why one sector is protected when others aren't?

Don't get me wrong, I am vociferously against all the cuts, including those against pensioners, but am uncertain as to why the latter should be protected when other vulnerable sectors aren't?

witsender assuming that is aimed at me... you made much the same point as I have been.... appreciation of A N Others point of view.

I haven't denied that life today is difficult, it is. But the picture of OAPs here is ludicrous, misinformed and dangerous in its disinformation!

And I too work in a foodbank... for an embarrassingly long time... our most regular clients are elderly. They aren't always the majority, but they are always there. The majority swings between non EU nationals, very young (often post care) young adults, young parents and middle aged, once middle class, wholly embarrassed couples. But the OAPs are always there. Always needing handouts, meals on wheels, delivery of medication, free transport to and from all sorts of appointments.

Pensioners to be evicted from their sheltered housing so it can be flattened to allow homes for sale to be built.

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/tearful-pensioners-forced-leave-decades-9375103#ICID=sharebar_twitter

You can blame young people, but many are stuck in the mindset that the government doesn't care, so they don't vote. It's true to an extent - at the G.E. nobody ever puts forward policies for the young. It's always about pension increases, or inheritance tax or other stuff that isn't relevant to anyone under 60.

That's such utter bollocks it isn't worthy of refuting.

A few posters on here keep patronisingly telling those questioning the fairness of the scenario to grow up, but I haven't yet seen a decent economic reason for why one sector is protected when others aren't?

One of the main lessons (and it's been a hard one) I've had to learn is that things just aren't always fair.

Worse than that, one person's fair is another person's polar opposite of fair.

I have no quarrel with questioning the triple lock. It was a policy designed to court votes - (you can hardly blame a politician for tabling a policy that may help get them elected - but that's for another thread). It was IIRC introduced after widespread derision at the 75p pension increase delivered by Gordon Brown's previous formula one year. Who would have imagined we'd change our minds so soon. Triple lock hasn't been around that long, but it has helped some pensioners at some of the hardest times in recent memory.

What I'm questioning is the nasty vilification of all people over a certain age. There are mean and nasty people of all ages (as this thread has amply demonstrated), but the contention that all old people are inherently selfish evil old bastards is precisely the kind of populist rhetoric that Trump and his pals would love - and yet the people spouting it probably claim to be right-on and inclusive.

I don't accept the contention that a majority of old(er) folk are selfish old gits any more than people of any other age.

And to be 'fair' I didn't simply say 'grow up'. In the posts where I used those words I did explain why... based on my own experience and my new understanding, now that I have grown up!

But that wouldn't make such a good sound bite.. or allow the weird age separatism here to continue unchecked!