AIBU to think that pensioners are NOT victims?

[SugarMouse1]

Sorry, but they have had about 40 years where jobs were very easy to get

It was comparitively easy for them to buy a house

They could have easily got a council/HA house (where the rent is FA) if they couldn't afford to buy a house......

They should have saved up for their retirement themselves, the taxpayer should not be subsidising them- Young people now can't retire until well into their seventies!

Redbindy-

i am happy to pay for my own life- but NOT other peoples

and laziness is not a very nice trait

Hahahaha, my dead parents would be laughing their heads of at this.

I don't know, the only pensioners I know are dp's parents, neither are rolling in cash. MIL has basically worked all her life, at 73 she has recently retired, she lives in social housing and is as skint as the rest of us. She does the whole "pensioners are attacked at every turn, nobody else suffers" thing but tbh, I just ignore it along with her other waffling about fecking Emmerdale.

I do feel sorry for my own Mother though, she was very clever and sent to grammar school, but then followed the path of getting pregnant, she worked a shitty job with crappy pay for more than 40 years, my Dad being in construction, was in and out of poorly paid work.

She had a very Protestant work ethic, would drag herself to her dead end job on her last legs, did it pay off for her, did it fuck. She died aged 60, having reaped about zero benefits from her life of basically shite.

Protestant work ethics is a load of actual crap, spend your life toiling for some faceless wanker to benefit, we are all born on the same planet, why the hell do some get to profit off of others, just because some random ancestor said "all this is mine".

Wankers.

Superabound- many people work in low-paid jobs for little reward

its not an excuse to claim benefits as an alternative

it was your mothers lifestyle choice to have children

What this thread clearly shows is that intergenerational strife clearly exists.

People arguing about baby boomer entitlements is not limited to MN. It is happening everywhere. This arguement is only going to get worse as the years roll by.

My FIL and I had this conversation some years ago and the maths is very simple. If you retire at 65 having gone to university and you take an index linked pension equal to 50% of your average salary and live to 87 you will have needed to have put 25% of every pay packet into a pension fund to pay for what you take out. If you retire on a final salary scheme you wiill need to have put even more in - somewhere between 35% and 50% of every pay packet. Nobody in the boomer generation put that much of their pay into a pension scheme.

You can see from that calculation how much people, especially public sector workers, are getting as a pension compared to what they put in. It really cannot go on. Some pensioners are poorer than others but none of them have contributed what they will take out if they have an average life expectancy. This is the great lie of the welfare state that politicians told every election of the last 60 years and now the financial chickens are coming home to roost..

Expat and Sugamouse - you make your assumptions, which is that most pensioners had a lovely comfy life full of modern conveniences, no shortages, no frugality, no prudence, and don't deserve their benefits. And I'll make mine. I know which are more likely to tbe true.

This is another case of somebody basically saying "I want your money".

In your world what would eventually happen is people who, despite everything, still try to save for their retirement, simply won't bother, because everything they've gone without for won't be worth it -- it will all be taken off them anyway.

But you want their money NOW don't you?

Ah sugarmouse1, who called me a "scrounger" on another thread for daring to claim benefits while I care for a disabled child. He/she missed that I had also worked full time for 30years without ever claiming anything. Doesn't this thread just say so much about him/her?

I would like to say "troll" but sadly I think sugarmouse is oh so real.

Now to the question in hand....no pensioners are not "victims" so YANBU there. They are on the other hand vulnerable by age and the fact that they are more likely to become ill than the rest of the population....and are living longer so all those age related illnesses are increasing.

But given your attitude in other threads sugarmouse perhaps you'd like to have them all shot. Anything except raid your money in the form of taxation eh?

"It was your mothers lifestyle choice to have children"

Er, no actually. MIL is 83. Back in the 1950s contraception wasn't widely available to the average working class woman.

Why are you so bitter? You haven't just got a chip on your shoulder, but the entire Harry Ramsdens.

I find pensions a minefield. You sign up thinking your paying in an amount to get a certain return and then the goal posts move!

Wasn't there a big scandal about 12 years ago about a pension fund that was found to be unsustainable - equitable life was it? People paid in but lost a lot of money and didn't get what they thought. They'd thought they'd made adequate provision for themselves and then poof! It was gone.

I think pensioners are a vulnerable group but blaming today pensioners is pointless - it isn't going to change anything for them. Also I think the expectations of pensioners has changed - 20 years ago noone imagined the state wouldn't or couldn't support them (my grandparents were definately of this kind of thought) and its only more recently people have actively thought about their futures.

My worry is for the younger people in this country who are just getting by day to day but who aren't or can't afford a pension. We can only change the future and if they can't start making their own provision then we might continue to see a lost generation.

OH had an Equitable Life pension . Then the pension fund of the company he worked for went bust

I agree that it isn't going to be easy for young people starting out these days, but it wasn't any easier for working class people of MIL's generation when she was young. When she got married her first house (rented) had no inside toilet, no bathroom, no washing machine, no central heating or any of the modern conveniences etc.

She just has a basic state pension, but keeps saying that when she was young she never imagined she would be as comfortable as she is now - small bungalow (paid for by OH and me), inside bathroom and toilet, central heating, washing machine. She can't afford to run a car or splash out on luxury extras, but she is content with what she has.

MoreBeta - a lot of pensioners won't live to 87 though.

'But you want their money NOW don't you?'

Their money? Do you see a government like a bank with whom you have a savings account? Because it isn't. It isn't a pay in-get out system. That is a bank.

The true value of a government to whom its inhabitants pay tax is a peaceful society with good infrastructure which allows the inhibitants to mostly go about their business of earning a living unmolested and with ease.

Many people in their 40s and 30s realise there probably won't be any state pension provision when they reach whatever will be retirement age, if there is any one at all by that time.

But they're still paying NI. They are still paying in, but realise the likelihood is that they won't get back out.

And so? Government isn't a bank.

RedHelen, life expectancy is increasing.

RedHelen - the ONS lifes expectancy tables are as follows:

A man who retires at 65 in 2012 is expected to live on average another 18.7 years - making his expected age at death 83.7 years old.

A woman who retires at 65 in 2012 is expected to live on average another 21.1 years - making her expected age at death 86.7 years old.

That life expectancy appears to be increasing by 0.1 years per year at the moment so women are pretty much already there and men will soon be there.

Some will die earlier and some will die later of course.

Gah I am going senile already.

A woman who retires at 65 in 2012 is expected to live on average another 21.1 years - making her expected age at death 86.1 years old.

The state pension wasn't set up to support more and more people for twenty plus years.

Exactly. The idea of the state pension was founded on teh beleif that men would work a life time and then retire and die within 5 years and women in 10 years. Doubling that life expectancy after retirement plus the fact that people were not even contributing enough when life expectancy was a lot lower and you have what is called the 'Pension Timebomb.

Successive governments over the last 30 years have looked at it and ducked the issue because they know that telling the baby boomer generation that they had to a) pay twice as much in b) expect to take half as much out and c) sell their family home to make up the difference was electoral suicide.

Look at Greece to see what happens when you make welfare promises that cannot be met by economic growth.

Have a pension equivalent to 50% of their average salary! Where the fuck does that figure come from. The VAST MAJORITY of pensioners get nowhere near that amount. Most of us, me included, could not afford to contribute to our private pensions for many years as we were paying exorbitant interest rates on our mortgage and just struggling to bring our children up.

You try living on £600 pounds a month!

With better health care and lifestyles (unless they prefer to stuff their obese faces with McDonald's burgers) today's young adults should live to their 70s in the equivalent health of a 60 year old nowadays, so an increased retirement age is valid.

Maybe OP wants an extermination camp for all pensioners when they get to 75!

OP of course it is my choice to look after my grandchildren. I am still CONTRIBUTING to society!

None of my children get tax credits!

I'm not whining, I am glad I worked hard and own my own house, but it took sacrifice. It wasn't my generation who fuelled the credit boom with ridiculous borrowing, it was your generation darling! We lived within our budgets.

It's your generation who produce children without any means to support them and are rewarded with public housing and a income for life, we at least lived within our means. Maybe the current benefit system needs a good overhaul.

I most certainly have not 'sailed through life' with constant green lights!! It's to laughable to cite the difficulties most pensioners lived through. I well remember 15% rate on our mortgage!

Ps I have nothing against single mothers, unemployed teenagers, immigrants etc etc. but I most certainly resent young people who make living on benefits a LIFESTYLE CHOICE! I at least have contributed where they have not....maybe the OP should focus on them. We will eventually be in a position where they claim pensions, while never contributing a penny, at least most of us have [hgrin]

What does the op want pensioners to do?

'It wasn't my generation who fuelled the credit boom with ridiculous borrowing, it was your generation darling! We lived within our budgets.

It's your generation who produce children without any means to support them and are rewarded with public housing and a income for life, we at least lived within our means. Maybe the current benefit system needs a good overhaul.'

That's really making this 'generation' want to work harder to pay for you, since many of this 'generation' have lived within their own budgets, or not had children they can't afford, or live in public housing.

And the largest slice of the 'benefit' system/welfare budget is pensions. So yes, by all means, overhaul it - every single bit of it, including the benefits like Winter Fuel Allowance and free bus passes.

Since 'we're all in this together', that needs to include pensioners, too.

expatinscotland what do you suggest pensioners do? would it be enough to give up their fuel allowance and bus passes or do you want them to give up their pensions as well?
May be euthanasia is your preferred option?

Get rid of universal benefits WFA and free bus pass, for starters, mirry, same way universal Child Benefit was got rid off. Link the WFA to those claiming Pension Tax Credit and therefore have demonstrated need of it.

Free bus passes are costing councils a fortune, and the cost is passed onto those who pay to ride. Either raise the age for them or means-test them.

op, you are ranting, with some half thought out ideas.
Like Cogito said at the beginning,you cannot lump all pensioners in together.
You appear to be a non-polish immigrant.
I would not dream of lumping all immigrants together,or any other group in society for that matter.
Would you like to say a bit more about your personal cirsumstances?
Because they are personal to you. You are not like anyone else are you?

Op and expat, if this thread was about immigrants or ethnic minorities in general it would quite rightly be pulled by MNHQ. IMO your posts are the equivalent of trying to stir up racial hatred, except it is hatred against the aged, who have done nothing to warrant it