Did the over-45s ruin life for the rest of us?

[goldenticket]

Interesting article - it's certainly been my and DH's experience in the workplace (withdrawal of perks, pensions, travel arrangements etc etc). Wondered what anyone else thought?

It's not an idea restricted to one journalist. It's the whole theme of David Willett's new book. (Tory families spokesman and shadow universities minister.)

I was going to start another thread saying this but I can't actually be arsed (that'll be old age and taking things for granted, I expect):

AIBU to THANK the over 55s for:

• Fighting the forces of Fascim;
• Paying for me (and all of those in the UK) to have free education, healthcare and fairly good public services;
• paying off a fucking humungous debt to the US for their help in WW2;
• changing the world so that a woman can get a bank account in her own name; get a mortgage in her own name; have a baby and still have a career;
• inventing the internet;
• etc, etc.

Of course, the metrics with regard to NI (and I do know how it works) don't work any more. There weren't many old people around when it started and for generations afterwards because there were quite a lot of deaths from two world wars; Spanish flu; lower life expectation etc.

Hey ho... Off to bed now - us OAPs need our beauty sleep, you know.

Belledame, it wasn't the Baby Boomers who fought Hitler, it was their parents. Anyone who was an adult during WW2 is now at least 83. And as for free education, they were the first to benefit from it and took it away from today's young people wrt university.

(Good point re. the Yanks though, funny how everyone forgets we had to pay them to turn up during WW2 and were STILL paying off that debt until well into the current government's term in office.)

It was a blip. The generation before didn't get it, the generation after won't get it. And lets face it, a vast proportion of the baby boom generation didn't benefit either (miners, people working in manufacturing etc etc).

My parents reaped huge benefits from living in their time. We lived in a 3 bed house when my brother & I were small on my dad's bank clerk salary. Probably the equivilent of £16k now. To buy that house would now cost about £200,000 so you'd need to be on about £60k with a good deposit.

But: they didn't expect to go on holiday, or own a new car, or anything electrical except rent a tv and maybe have a washing machine. There were fewer bill to pay - there was just less stuff.

There was no maternity/paternity pay, a woman needed a man's signature to take out a hire purchase agreement. You needed to have savings in a Building Society before you would be considered for a mortage.

So, swings and roundabouts in a way.

belle...I need a word with you tomorrow, love, if you are around

edam - I know that really, I was wildly generalising to make a point - I just didn't do it very well! Perhaps I should have pretended to mean the Falklands

The university thing is a bit of red herring, IMO, as it wasn't free to everyone - grants were means tested although, admittedly, most people would have got something. I think the difference, though, is that only 5% of people went onto Uni when I was leaving school and I suspect the numbers are a lot higher now.

I had to finish school at 16 and get myself out to work and remember being pretty pissed off about it (having collected a fair few O-Levels and being top of class most of my life) but it was just the way it was. To be honest, if I could have gone to Uni and paid afterwards, I'd have been elated. As it was, I started working in an office (on the grand sum of £35 per week) and worked my way up to the dizzy heights I now inhabit. I worked my way here. Eeee, it were tough when I were a lass..

My daughter is only 2.5 and I am 44. I will working until I drop to ensure she has everything I can give her. Like the rest of us, probably.

It's very hard at the moment and I'm really looking forward to paying more NI and tax so that we can get things on an even keel (ho ho ho) when I know I will get nothing at the end of it. BUT, I'd still rather live in the UK than anywhere else and I'm grateful that I have freedom and the luxury (so far) of enough to eat and a roof over my head.

Now, I really am going to bed before I fall off this bloody soapbox!

"Of course, the metrics with regard to NI (and I do know how it works) don't work any more. There weren't many old people around when it started and for generations afterwards because there were quite a lot of deaths from two world wars; Spanish flu; lower life expectation etc."

Longer life has only been one part of the "problem".

The bigger issue is that the baby boomers started having less children. The figure of "children per woman" peaked in the early 60s in this country and as the baby boomers came into adulthood it started a steady decline.

Within ten years it had dropped below the "replacement rate" and from then on the population of this country was on a course for getting older with their being less children in each new generation to support the one before.

So that was a choice, to have less children, and not just the effects of war, disease or ageing.

Can we blame them for it?

Of course it, it's not like our generation has done anything to reverse the trend, the birth rate has remained pretty steady since the 70s. There are now more over 65s than under 16s. And as I've said before that huge bulge of the baby boomer generation is now hitting retirement with that ever decreasing younger population tottering under the weight of supporting it.

AF - I'm around. I haven't had your mail but hopefully it'll be here in the morning.

Thank you for being there and please don't worry about me (assuming you are). I've made some daft decisions over the past few days and it's all hitting me at once. Hopefully, I'll have one less thing to worry about by the morning (particularly if my emotionally charged state is anything to go by)! x

I am worrying about you

Thank you, AF. I am ok, really, I am. I'm working through some stuff but ok.

dh is 46, we have nothing materially, he went to Uni, has worked in his profession since graduating, we left it too late to get on the property ladder.

His younger brothers are both mortgage free - neither have a degree or any higher education.

Badgers - as ever, I'm impressed with your command of the actual facts (rather than my wild supposition).

I was going to pin the blame on Mrs Thatcher but couldn't make it work properly. Now, however, I am going to claim that her government should have noticed the trend for smaller families etc (as I'm sure they did) and started sorting things out then. Ta dah! It was Thatcher's fault.

I don't call worrying about being pg "working through some stuff"

it is late...will give you a shout tomorrow

I know how you need your beauty sleep

Cheeky moo!

I'm not seriously worrying about it or I would have bought test kit, etc. I'm late but I'm usually in sync with full moon which is tomorrow. I didn't know moon cycles could take longer than 28 days but it has done this time (I think).

There's more stuff going on to but will elaborate tomorrow. Did type it out but my (hand washed) dirty laundry is a bit much for this thread!

my email must be taking time to go through MN towers

speak to you tomorrow x

night x

I think the point a lot of boomers and even those in my age group 34+ miss is that at least we had the opportunity.
We may not have pensions and huge houses but I know that I had several chances to buy a house for 3 times my salary, having been to uni for free, no grant but no debt either and could have been saving for a pension since I was 21 but chose to go traveling instead.
I look at a 21 year old today leaving uni with a minimum of £9k in debt before living expenses, they will struggle to get a job paying more than £20k and everything seems out of their reach.
Those who don't go to university I don't know what the future holds for them, you seem to need a degree in business studies to be a receptionist these days.

The basic slant of the article is spot on. And it's going to get worse - I'm in my mid forties and have no expectation whatsoever of getting any guaranteed state pension/pension credit/winter fuel payment etc. It will all be means tested by then, because there will be so many pensioners. Only the ones with no employer pensions/savings/assets will qualify.

Just a few points more -

As teenagers, my sister and I kept all our clothes in a shared single wardrobe. I started work with two of my mother's skirts taken in, my white school blouses dyed and one pair of shoes.

In our rented flat when we married we had no TV, fridge or washing machine. No carpets -lino and two rugs - we thought we had done well, our friends were all much the same. Although we had zilch in the bank we had NO DEBT. Thereafter we have always saved up and bought things in sales, never had any debt except our mortgage - which was paid over 25 years at a fixed rate of 12% !!! We struggled to get a mortgage because DH was self employed and a wife's earnings were not taken into account.

The state could afford to pay for a university education when only around 5% could go - I was easily clever enough, but had to earn my keep when my mother gave up work through ill health.

Do remember that the majority of my generation have/will work and pay taxes & NI for 50 years i.e. 15 to 65, worked 45 or 48 hour weeks until recently and got 2 weeks paid holiday if we were lucky.

I realise I am beginning to sound like one of those comedy things 'there were 10 of us living in a match box......'. But really some of you on here have no idea. If my lot are the baby boomers then I think the generation that followed will be known as the 'buy now, pay later' generation. The anthem seems to be 'I want it all, and I want it now'. We accepted living within our means and make do and mend. I know this is a huge generalisation. I have ex colleagues who are having to work on past retirement age because they still have a mortgage and car loans and credit cards to clear. What will happen when the majority of people reaching retirement have huge debts and no savings?

I'm so glad I'm 'only' 43.

The big thing that worries me is pensions. Am convinced that means-testing for state pensions will come in, not that state pensions are particularly liveable-on.

And the returns in pension schemes for people of my generation are appalling. Over the last 20 years, there have been successive erosions or stealth taxes (eg removing the pension fund credits). The funds are only just worth what has been paid into them. They're not sound investments.

This general mistrust of pension schemes has partly caused the house-price crisis. People see their pension funds underperform and then put their trust (and their money) into bricks and mortar. The buy-to-let boom has made property owning unaffordable for many.

Solve the pensions issue and the property issue would almost resolve itself. I think.

You are so right QC - a good analysis. My DH actually has two private pensions. One we started when DD1 was born in 1970, which was just under £10 per month, (he earned £85 a month) the other started mid 1980s @ £60 per month. The big one pays out approx £200 per month and the wee one nearly £300. The £10 one benefitted from really big bonuses and tax breaks in the early years before Gordon Brown, as chancellor, got his greedy paws on pensions. 10 years ago the quoted terminal bonus on the pension pot was around 300%, but this has fallen steadily. We got 90% bonus on one and 100% on the other, so about a third of what we expected, some people we know got no bonus at all, so taking account of inflation actually get less back than they paid in.

i think a large part of this is down to easy credit, a materialistic society combined with a sense of entitlement, and a 'buy now, pay later/live for the moment' mentality.

There is also the 'Nanny State' which undoubtedly has made us a much more compassionate society, but paying for it all has cost (and continues to cost) taxpayers billions every year. The national and local programs in place which offer care/opportunities to everyone more equally (with special provision for those who are vulnerable) has meant taxes have increased dramatically - which makes it much more difficult to save.

Granny23 my mother has a similar view. She didn't have a washing machine when I was a baby. We had one foreign holiday when I was a child. We wre not poor compared to neighbours now.

I wod say though that maternity rights are there for thbpeople with staff jobs but if, like me, you were on a contract there are very few rights / SMP and ...er...that's it. Six month contract working is very common these days and it makes it very hard yo get a mortgage.

Anyway, ain't much I can do about it, just have to get on eith things . No point blaming anyone.

"I was going to pin the blame on Mrs Thatcher but couldn't make it work properly. Now, however, I am going to claim that her government should have noticed the trend for smaller families etc (as I'm sure they did) and started sorting things out then. Ta dah! It was Thatcher's fault."

Well in a way you're actually quite right. The birth rate started it's slump in the early 60s and had passed the rate of sustainability in the early 1970s.

It should have been obvious that the whole system was going to run into serious problems, but nothing was done. I remember it being blindingly obvious in the early 90s when I started my private pensions but I don't recall the Government doing anything.

Even now nearly 40 years since we passed the point when it was clear that the system would break we're only just beginning to see discussion of it like this one.

So in a way we can "blame" the baby boomers, but not for having it so good, but for not acting when they knew that the next generation wouldn't have the same benefits.