to be annoyed that so many on mn seem to begrudge pensioners?

[Slartybartfast]

for mainly being too rich
so many of you seem to think that those who have retired at 65 and are likely enough to have a good pension have somehow cheated

It seems people are living too long past retirement age, costing too much and are general a drain on society even though they are at the bottom of the income ladder. What's to be done? I hope euthanasia won't be the answer.

There’s plenty of money - it’s just going on the wrong shit. A few percent of the planet own wealth that’s not in circulation, it just sits doing nothing squirrelled away offshore. Huge corporations pay almost no tax. We spend two million quid on a fucking tomohawk missle to blow up some poor sod in the the third world. And the media and all those rich squirrels LOVE this kind of argument, because while you’re bitter at some random pensioner in Surrey they can continue squirrelling, continue wrecking the planet and continue to do whatever the fuck they like

Totally agree ~ the right wing press love the idea of us turning on each other.

I’d add to the appalling waste of money nuclear weaponry represents, the millions spent on upholding an anachronistic way of life of the Royal Family and their multiple households and hangers on ~ some super rich pensioners there (and some bone idle willfull unemployed young ones), the waste of space and money that is the House of Lords and the total nonsense of failing to charge tourists for entry to our major museums ~ every museum I visit abroad charges us to get in, yet the UK allows free shows to tourists (UK citizens should not be charged).
Let’s start looking at cost savings on things that suck up billions ever hour.

Well start another thread on that rather than trying to distract, two wrongs don't make a right.

But 155 quid a week for pensioners is not a wrong. The UK has the worst pensions in Europe. pensioners are not the problem

The young are not fucked because of pensioners. They’re fucked because they’re competing in a global pool of talent in a country which refuses to actually engage with the rest of the world, refuses to make the rich pay their fair share and refuses to focus the economy on stuff that would actually make us some money like R and D, tech, pharma and science and good old fashioned making stuff. Instead they prefer a low wage low skill economy, with corporations being subbed by the taxpayer in the form of tax credits and everyone working in service industries.
Oh and brexit is going to lead to all the EU worker protections being dropped, so things will get worse.

This is NOT the fault of average pensioners. It’s a fundamental flaw in our society that fucks over the majority so the minority can be wealthy beyond imagining.

Backenette
You are so right. Many people don’t recognise the effect on redundant miners ~ now pensioners. Those who bought a house there found it to be unsellable ~ a very crap investment providing no buffer for retirement.

Not everybody has a house that increased in value.

I sound like a total commie and I’m not at all. Capitalism is fine, it just needs some checks and balances to stop the worst excesses. The rich can stay rich, they just need to pay their fair share and keep that money circulating - of money is squirrelled away it might as well not exist - the movement of cash through the economy is what’s important.

Right now there’s too much inequality. Most theories of how societies collapse have a set level of inequality as a trigger point for severe instability. We are at that point. Those theories posit that you then start to see ‘non linearities’ or ‘black swan events’ which are basically social shocks - so trump getting elected for example.

We are on a slippery slope. We can pull it back if we go for a more Nordic model of social democracy, but if we continue as we are it’s Fall of Rome time. And it won’t be Mavis from Tunbridge Wells who triggers it.

Yeah tapandgo houses near where family live go for 50-60k. Not everyone is sitting on a goldmine. Huge geographical divide :(

Backenette Thank heaven for people like you. It seems some people expect us to feel guilty for reaching an age where we can take a back seat in life. MN needs more people like you.

Cheers Gwen! I’m not a pensioner - I’m the tail end of generation x, but it pains me to see my parents generation getting a roasting when most of them just worked hard and did nothing wrong.

Divide and conquer, plus ce change.

Backenette Hi there, I didn't mean to include you in "us pensioners" But people reading these posts who are pensioners. Apologies for that and your support is appreciated.

I remember being a child. I had one dress to my name and when I woke up in the morning in the winter there was frost on the inside of the windows. My mum had to get up an hour earlier than us so she could light the fire in the dining room and it would be warm for us to eat our breakfast in before school. There was no heating in the kitchen though. I had one school skirt and jumper and that had to last all week. I think I had 3 or 4 shirts to my name and we had to make sure we didn't drop dinner down it otherwise we could run out of shirts by the end of the week. We had holidays, but never abroad and always self-catering.

My mother worked as well as my father but there was no childcare, and no nurseries so she could only do part time stuff. Sometimes she would be late home from work and we would be waiting on the doorstep after school for her. Nobody called social services!

Having a bath was ok but there was no heating in the bathroom so it was cold getting in and getting out, but when my parents fitted a rubber hose to the taps with a shower head and a shower curtain it was amazing. We only had hot water once or twice a week as it was so expensive so still had a Sunday bath and if lucky could manage a quick shower with the rubber hose in the week! But only in the summer because it was so cold getting out otherwise.

I bought my first house at 20. We never went out to eat or even just for a drink as we couldn't afford that and a mortgage. I didn't have a car and bought a second hand bike to get to work. It cost fifteen pounds and I paid it off at £3 a week for 5 weeks. I used to work overtime for four hours on a Saturday morning to save up to buy a car, and a couple of hours every evening whenever there was work. My partner took a second job at a pub three times a week to help pay the mortgage.

We couldn't afford furniture but my grandmother had died and had a sofa and a bed, and a chest of drawers which we had. I also had her single tub washing machine with a mangle which kept us going for a couple of years. I eventually bought the washing machine on credit but you had to save up at least 50 per cent of the cost then before you could get credit.

I rarely bought new clothes as they were relatively quite expensive then. I did go to jumble sales and second hand clothes shops and bought quite a few things from there.

We didn't have a telly for some years as we couldn't really justify the cost of a tv license, let alone afford the cost of a tv.

If you arranged to meet somebody, you had to stick to the agreed time and place because there was no mobile phones to change the time or place. If you were too late, the chances are they would have given up. I lost a couple of boyfriends because I was rubbish at getting to places on time. I had to walk most of the time as I couldn't afford the bus.

Not everybody could afford phones, but we did have one because my dad did a bit of car trading. You couldn't say anything personal though because it was a party line and anybody could have been listening.

If we wanted anything like a new coat, or a piece of furniture we saved up for it. If we couldn't save up for it then we didn't have it.

I earned my retirement at 52. So to those who say it is really tough now to afford a house. It was really tough back then too. We just did without stuff to afford it.

JON66 Well done. Your story needs to be widely read by people who think boomers had it easy.

I earned my retirement at 52. So to those who say it is really tough now to afford a house. It was really tough back then too. We just did without stuff to afford it.

This thread is just going to be a broken record. Enjoy your 30 or so years in retirement you will be the first and last generation to have that. Most of what you are talking about is technical advancements. Many youths could live on just oats for years and never even save up enough just to cover the amount that prices are rising at.

Different difficulties for each generation. The only pensioners I have an issue with is fil and similar, who constantly moans about how hard it was (yet no harder than for ppl to progress today, just different opportunities and expectations) while flitting round the world on three foreign holidays a year, and spending the rest of the time going out on activities from the comfort of one of his two homes. Me and dh have worked just as hard as him to this stage, yet have very little chance of being in the same position as him when finally retired. No doubt at a much greater (and more decrepit) age.

Um I'm 50 and like many people my age could have written that post.

Well Jons childhood description sounds pretty similar to mine. I'm 44 and going to have to work until I'm 68. We weren't poor, most people's lives in the 1970 or 1980s were pretty much the same.

When we bought our first house, DP got made redundant the very next day, so that was really a struggle and of course all that expensive insurance we'd just been talked into buying wasn't worth the paper it was written on.

graphista

For all intents and purposes we have not had a Conservative government for 40 years. The fact is Labour ran the country for many of those 40 years and had a very large say during the first term of David Cameron's government compared to the first term under Tony Blair.

You also make an assumption that I wasn't exposed to Thatcher policies. Of course I wasn't directly exposed as I was a child and no one in my family were affected. It was discussed at length at the dinner table. The miners issues too as well as the hillsborough disaster. The right to buy and repercussions of not following through with plans to build additional housing was also frequently debated within my household growing up. I started reading the Times and independent newspapers when I was in junior school (was about 9) and all of these issues were widely reported and discussed.

I posted about my parents needing a stairlift fitted which would help them and was immediately asked why they wouldnt consider a care home.

my dad is still working at 81. i got accused of wanting to "secure my inheritance"

Nothing to do with it. They want to be in the house they have had since 1968 the house they brought me and DB up in. where they are happy..............all they need is a stairlift. Its a 3 bedroom semi detached with a straight staircase.

What makes me laugh are the ones making these kinds of comments are the ones using terms like "property ladder" My parents are still in the first house they ever bought. Because they bought it to make into a home.

Ive never heard my parents use the term "property ladder" in my life. Its not their generation that invented this terminology.

Want2besupermum - genuine question - do you understand what "for all intents and purposes" means? Yes the blairite govt were labelled "labour" but their policies and ideology were Tory/right wing.

Even IF you take the view that blairite govt = labour they were only in for 13 years, so over the last 40 years tories in power for 27 of them!

"You also make an assumption that I wasn't exposed to Thatcher policies." No - because we all are from 1979 onwards.

That said, discussing/reading about/hearing about an experience/situation isn't the same as living it.

While I'm debating here the situation politically with pensioners now I'm aware that there were differences for that generation that I wasn't exposed to - eg being expected to quit work upon marriage/pregnancy.

We just round in circles in these threads. In most people's 40 or even 50 years of working life there will be very hard times and not so bad times and most people in all ages tend to have things pretty hard with a few exceptions.

So we are where we are now. I would increase income tax on pensioners (those who earn over the single person allowance), perhaps making it the same as income tax and NI combined - a merged tax/ NI at the same rate most workers pay 32%. That would not harm the huge huge number of pensioners who only have a state pension of about £150 a week.

We certainly have a North South divide on house prices even with the big current falls in house prices in London and even apparently between in the North the West - doing well - West Midlands etc and East - Newcastle , Yorkshire not doing so well. It's a very regional picture but that is not unusual. My family moved to the NE in 1800s because there were loads of jobs there. People have always had to mvoe around. I had other relatives moving down from Scotland to there too again for work.

I don't think the history of how we got here - Blair and all the rest and which party to blame helps either. We just have to think of radical solutions to help people now, today, next year. We have the fullest employment in a very very very long time although some of those wages are pretty low and topped up with benefits more so in some regions than others and veyr low productivity too compared even to places like France.

graphista

Genuine question. Did you mean to be so rude?

Blair was seen as right wing in the same way Cameron was seen as left wing by the Tories. You also forgot the coalition with the lib dems for four years.

Your comments about my exposure growing up are just rude. I experienced Thatcher policies first hand attending school. I was affected by the milk.

Yes, I agree that some people will never be able to afford to buy a house. My son has moved to a cheaper area to afford to buy and my husbands daughter has moved up to the north for the same reason. Houses are available for less than 60k in the north and there are jobs available, after all we do have full employment even if some of those jobs are part time, but my experience is on the whole, people don't want to move to areas away from their family. You need to be earning 14k for a mortgage of 60k plus 6k deposit. Like a lot of things, it comes down to how much you want it. Evenings out down the pub, eating out, running a car, having a mobile, having new clothes, crank the heating up and don't watch the bills, eat steak and prawns, tablets, laptops, have holidays . . . and so forth. That is the choice a lot of people are making. You cannot have it all when you are 20 years old unless you are very very lucky. You can when you are 50 and paid off the mortgage.

My parents never say property ladder either. Because they didn't need to move up a ladder, having been able to buy a dull sized family home straight out of the gate on one salary. 😂

They think "our generation" are mad, buying smaller houses and moving, with all the costs they entail.

Don't forget that many "wealthy" pensioners are very active in the voluntary sector, particularly in charity shops, hospital cafes, etc. If they were struggling to make ends meet personally or having to pay bus fares to get to these places, they would soon stop volunteering.

Unfortunately that generation seem hell bent on destroying that which they have benefitted from. I think we have every right to be pissed off.
Note- I know there are plenty of lovely older folks but the majority of pro brexit Tories are 60 plus.

the majority of pro brexit Tories are 60 plus

The majority of pro brexit Torres are English!

You may as well go on a ‘let’s blame the English for the pensions situation’ now!

Geez