Cut old people's benefits, they'll die soon anyway
Discussion
julian64 said:
Axionknight said:
Unless they have been paying my mortgage directly I beg to differ, I pay my own way like many others, nobody supports me at all.
Also, it that is the case, what were the saveds of the day doing when rates were sky high, oppressing younger mortgage payers?
Whether you agree with it or not makes little odds. Low interest rates have benefitted those paying mortgages greatly over the last ten years at the expensive of anyone who had savings invested for a return. The decision to keep interest rates low is a political one.Also, it that is the case, what were the saveds of the day doing when rates were sky high, oppressing younger mortgage payers?
Edited by Axionknight on Monday 5th October 14:23
£10k in the building society before the rate cut was bringing in around £60 a month if you shopped around, now it's around a tenner. That's a massive hit to an elderly person.
However this brings me to a bit of a rant.... Leave the pensioners alone. Seriously just f
k right off.The last thing a pensioner wants to worry about is their savings. They don't want to have the hassle of investments, dealing with so called
s sorry IFAs.Some pensioners live in fear of answering the phone never mind the door. All they hear about is scams, bank scams, charity scams. Now they are hearing about winter fuel cuts, pensions and bus passes. Not all of them understand, their first emotion is one of fear.
Pensioners of a certain age/mind set can't function in the modern world, some find it terrifying.
A bus pass. Even if the pensioner has a bit of spare cash the mentality is a bus fare is a lot of money. So they don't travel.
I know for a fact that a bus pass brings a lot of business to city/town centers and shopping centers. A couple of quid of the bus fare transpires to perhaps a coffee with friends or a bit of window shopping. Getting elderly people out and about, socialising, visiting the Dr, post office.
The vast majority of millionaire pensioners will never use a bus pass and probably pay more tax than some can imagine. It would probably cost more to means test than what is actually saved.
Smollet said:
crankedup said:
By the same token, many of the Baby Boomers (me included) will be looking to make funeral arrangements soon.
Probably not for you as you have family but I gather if you give your body to science there are no funeral costs as there's no body to be dealt with. That's what I'm going to do and leave the cost of a funeral for a piss up.
My 87, nearly 88 year old Nan is in that state of mine these day, anything panics her, and I mean panics a lot.
She's well off'ish
full NHS pensions and 50% ex police widows pension, plus the national one of course, and her house was paid off decades ago.
But its shocking how easy she panics.
All she wants to be left alone and enjoy the regular visits off her grand and great grand children.
She's well off'ish
full NHS pensions and 50% ex police widows pension, plus the national one of course, and her house was paid off decades ago.
But its shocking how easy she panics.
All she wants to be left alone and enjoy the regular visits off her grand and great grand children.
The generation that was in their early 20s in the early 1960s and are now in their 70s have generally seen a meteoric rise in living standards. They've also achieved the neat trick of having the highest disposable income (by generation) in the 1960s/1970s and the highest disposable income (by generation) in the present day.
V8 Fettler said:
The generation that was in their early 20s in the early 1960s and are now in their 70s have generally seen a meteoric rise in living standards. They've also achieved the neat trick of having the highest disposable income (by generation) in the 1960s/1970s and the highest disposable income (by generation) in the present day.
and as they progress in age they will be our most vulnerable, lonely and ignored members of our society's TAX payers."generally"!
V8 Fettler said:
The generation that was in their early 20s in the early 1960s and are now in their 70s have generally seen a meteoric rise in living standards. They've also achieved the neat trick of having the highest disposable income (by generation) in the 1960s/1970s and the highest disposable income (by generation) in the present day.
Apparently we should leave statistics aside as we don't know what it was like.They got up half hour before they went to bed and licked road clean with their tongue, tell the kids today...
Ridgemont said:
However there are many millions of more affluent boomers who have managed to benefit from the following;
1) Access to a well supplied housing market back in the 70s. They may have accessed the right to buy in the 80s for added kerching. That access is pretty much constrained in the last 7 years post crash as capital requirements for house purchases has edged over 20% of home value; putting a deposit in the region of £40K. 110% mortgages are a thing of the past.
1968, the year of my engagement.1) Access to a well supplied housing market back in the 70s. They may have accessed the right to buy in the 80s for added kerching. That access is pretty much constrained in the last 7 years post crash as capital requirements for house purchases has edged over 20% of home value; putting a deposit in the region of £40K. 110% mortgages are a thing of the past.
I was in full time employment, in a job that paid over the average industrial wage. My wife was a PA to a publisher, greater take home pay than me.
We were engaged for around 20-22 months. In that time my fiancee's pay went into a fund for a deposit on a house. We went nowhere where we weren't subsidised or it was free. If we couldn't afford it, we didn't have it. A lovely 14-year-old Standard Pennant took me to work and occasionally us out for a Sunday - I worked most Saturdays - but not often. We didn't live together but with out separate parents. No electronic devices, no toys as such. My brother had gone through the same process a couple of years before.
The deposit did not cover the house we wanted and I had to borrow £75 from my parents. We bought a little bungalow in Hextable, trying to balance fares and housing costs. I could not afford a house in London in those days. Nor now come to that.
Yeah, we benefited all right.
If couples today didn't cohabit and pay rent and instead put one of their wages away each month for 18-20 months, did not pay for mobiles, pads, TV packages, games consoles and so much more, I have that sneaking feeling that they too could afford to buy a bottom of the range house. But they won't of course.
Those of us who walked into the bonus of all but free housing, if the myths are to be believed, had to save up for the deposit. If anyone moaning about how good I had it wants to know what 'saving up' means, feel free to ask.
On top of that, the interest rate meant that for the first couple of years we were poorer than when we were saving. £36 18s 6p pcm. It meant that my wife's wages were all we lived on. My father said that he'd pay my mortgage if ever I was unemployed. That was a massive relief. My parents used to bring food parcels each week.
If I have it that good again, I'll probably kill myself.
If you stop moaning about how much better it was in the old days and start bloody saving, I'll stop telling you the realities of the 1970s and you can go back to your ignorance.
I remember an uncle of mine saying, after I moaned to him about the sacrifices (explanation of that word available as well) we were making, 'You don't know you'r alive.'
Now I know what he meant and how frustrated he must have felt at my complaints.
It's a real problem for them; pensioners have been disproportionately shielded from cuts, and some pensioners receive money they need less than some younger people do. But there are a lot of them, they are a demographic which tends to vote blue, and they tend to use their vote. The analysis that they represent a revolving pool (and thus there is a continual influx of people who will not miss what they have never had), and that for electoral advantage unpopular measures are best introduced early in a parliament is correct. It's exactly what a strategist should be saying. In private.
That 'free bus pass' and 'free' winter allowance have been paid for by 40 years of NI contributions.
Analogy - you pay your car insurance premiums for years. Then your car is stolen. Insurance company says - "we're not paying out - you own an expensive house. Why don't you sell it to buy a replacement car? We'll keep all your premiums".
Analogy - you pay your car insurance premiums for years. Then your car is stolen. Insurance company says - "we're not paying out - you own an expensive house. Why don't you sell it to buy a replacement car? We'll keep all your premiums".
audidoody said:
That 'free bus pass' and 'free' winter allowance have been paid for by 40 years of NI contributions.
Analogy - you pay your car insurance premiums for years. Then your car is stolen. Insurance company says - "we're not paying out - you own an expensive house. Why don't you sell it to buy a replacement car? We'll keep all your premiums".
More like you spend years giving money to your local homeless shelter and then say "hey, what about me, how about buying me a new conservatory?". Analogy - you pay your car insurance premiums for years. Then your car is stolen. Insurance company says - "we're not paying out - you own an expensive house. Why don't you sell it to buy a replacement car? We'll keep all your premiums".
The system didn't invest your "premiums", it gave them away. If it were an insurance company, someone would be going to jail. But it's not.
Derek Smith said:
Ridgemont said:
However there are many millions of more affluent boomers who have managed to benefit from the following;
1) Access to a well supplied housing market back in the 70s. They may have accessed the right to buy in the 80s for added kerching. That access is pretty much constrained in the last 7 years post crash as capital requirements for house purchases has edged over 20% of home value; putting a deposit in the region of £40K. 110% mortgages are a thing of the past.
1968, the year of my engagement.1) Access to a well supplied housing market back in the 70s. They may have accessed the right to buy in the 80s for added kerching. That access is pretty much constrained in the last 7 years post crash as capital requirements for house purchases has edged over 20% of home value; putting a deposit in the region of £40K. 110% mortgages are a thing of the past.
I was in full time employment, in a job that paid over the average industrial wage. My wife was a PA to a publisher, greater take home pay than me.
We were engaged for around 20-22 months. In that time my fiancee's pay went into a fund for a deposit on a house. We went nowhere where we weren't subsidised or it was free. If we couldn't afford it, we didn't have it. A lovely 14-year-old Standard Pennant took me to work and occasionally us out for a Sunday - I worked most Saturdays - but not often. We didn't live together but with out separate parents. No electronic devices, no toys as such. My brother had gone through the same process a couple of years before.
The deposit did not cover the house we wanted and I had to borrow £75 from my parents. We bought a little bungalow in Hextable, trying to balance fares and housing costs. I could not afford a house in London in those days. Nor now come to that.
Yeah, we benefited all right.
If couples today didn't cohabit and pay rent and instead put one of their wages away each month for 18-20 months, did not pay for mobiles, pads, TV packages, games consoles and so much more, I have that sneaking feeling that they too could afford to buy a bottom of the range house. But they won't of course.
Those of us who walked into the bonus of all but free housing, if the myths are to be believed, had to save up for the deposit. If anyone moaning about how good I had it wants to know what 'saving up' means, feel free to ask.
On top of that, the interest rate meant that for the first couple of years we were poorer than when we were saving. £36 18s 6p pcm. It meant that my wife's wages were all we lived on. My father said that he'd pay my mortgage if ever I was unemployed. That was a massive relief. My parents used to bring food parcels each week.
If I have it that good again, I'll probably kill myself.
If you stop moaning about how much better it was in the old days and start bloody saving, I'll stop telling you the realities of the 1970s and you can go back to your ignorance.
I remember an uncle of mine saying, after I moaned to him about the sacrifices (explanation of that word available as well) we were making, 'You don't know you'r alive.'
Now I know what he meant and how frustrated he must have felt at my complaints.
We saved every penny toward a house deposit, during which time the first house price boom took off. Unfortunately we were still saving up at that point. First home furniture was all second hand except for the sofa which was chuck outs from the local shoe shop, two club chairs used by hundreds of new shoe shoppers
Nigh on went bust in the mid eighties and more hard work long hours managed to come back. Happy days 
How about just stopping the winter fuel allowance for any new claimants so the problem doesn't keep growing instead it decrease as they pass away.
After a period what 10-15years it will be a very small issue.
Why cannot those in work elect to have the pension NI split in 2 one pays towards current pensioners the other half pays for thenselves as a pot. This is an actual invested pot not into the ether
After a period what 10-15years it will be a very small issue.
Why cannot those in work elect to have the pension NI split in 2 one pays towards current pensioners the other half pays for thenselves as a pot. This is an actual invested pot not into the ether
crankedup said:
Our experiences at that time mirrors this ^^^^^^^^^^
We saved every penny toward a house deposit, during which time the first house price boom took off. Unfortunately we were still saving up at that point. First home furniture was all second hand except for the sofa which was chuck outs from the local shoe shop, two club chairs used by hundreds of new shoe shoppers Nigh on went bust in the mid eighties and more hard work long hours managed to come back. Happy days
I forgot about the second hand furniture.We saved every penny toward a house deposit, during which time the first house price boom took off. Unfortunately we were still saving up at that point. First home furniture was all second hand except for the sofa which was chuck outs from the local shoe shop, two club chairs used by hundreds of new shoe shoppers
Nigh on went bust in the mid eighties and more hard work long hours managed to come back. Happy days You say happy days with the confused emoticom. However, in 1975 I changed jobs and took a massive cut in pay. I sold the car, the TV, had the central heating on only at weekends when the kids weren't at school and, as my wife pointed out when this came up in conversation, no new clothes for two years. We walked everywhere. I walked two miles to the railway station twice a day until the local old bill got to know me and would run me home. We would go shopping once a week and with my wife and two kids would wander in along a little mainly paved footpath. I look back on those days as a particularly happy time. I was working long hours so this was the only time I had with my kids.
The long hours you mentioned: I worked a 5.5 day week when I was 15, and then worked the extra half day for <10/-. When I had two kids I worked all but 3 days a month, despite being on a nominal 40-hr week, as I needed the money. Looking back I wonder why I didn't realise how lucky I was.
Derek, some days were happy days whilst others were riven with stress and worry, all in a days work I suppose. Same as yourself we had two kiddies but couldn't afford holidays for many years. Our first holiday was a week in Butlins Bognor Regis, cut price deal in February was all we could manage. And yet that week we enjoyed warm glorious sunshine walking along the Prom in shirt sleeves!
Now I look at young people who cannot afford to put down a deposit and cannot find affordable rent. If they can secure a rented home that's the money gone on rent and none left to save a deposit, trapped. Instead of some people blaming baby boomers they need to look at Government policies from the 1970's on.
Now I look at young people who cannot afford to put down a deposit and cannot find affordable rent. If they can secure a rented home that's the money gone on rent and none left to save a deposit, trapped. Instead of some people blaming baby boomers they need to look at Government policies from the 1970's on.
Mrr T said:
While the demise of the final salary scheme has happened over the last 20 years lets not for get to give credit to the
The Great Gordon Brown
Who in his first budget in 1997 removed UK dividend tax reclaims which increase UK tax on pensions by he claimed £4.5bn.
I know its the Wail but the facts are correct.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2613609/Re...
Now theirs a man who really knew how to screw pensioners.
I remember that and thinking at the time, what a The Great Gordon Brown
Who in his first budget in 1997 removed UK dividend tax reclaims which increase UK tax on pensions by he claimed £4.5bn.
I know its the Wail but the facts are correct.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2613609/Re...
Now theirs a man who really knew how to screw pensioners.
s trick and today I still think... What a . Didnt he also effectively double the council tax households paid, reducing central government funding and placing the burden on us, effectively double taxation... I remember him doing similar things to police funding via the council tax percept too.I thought history will expose what a dangerous and damaging man he was to this country, I've seen nothing to change my opion of him and his cohorts...
s the lot of them, may a pox befall him.../and calm
crankedup said:
Derek, some days were happy days whilst others were riven with stress and worry, all in a days work I suppose. Same as yourself we had two kiddies but couldn't afford holidays for many years. Our first holiday was a week in Butlins Bognor Regis, cut price deal in February was all we could manage. And yet that week we enjoyed warm glorious sunshine walking along the Prom in shirt sleeves!
Now I look at young people who cannot afford to put down a deposit and cannot find affordable rent. If they can secure a rented home that's the money gone on rent and none left to save a deposit, trapped. Instead of some people blaming baby boomers they need to look at Government policies from the 1970's on.
Spot bloody on! I know of several renting (emptying their pockets so they'll never get on the housing ladder) and I know of the ones 'taking' the rent and getting richer who are buying up property quicker than I can type.Now I look at young people who cannot afford to put down a deposit and cannot find affordable rent. If they can secure a rented home that's the money gone on rent and none left to save a deposit, trapped. Instead of some people blaming baby boomers they need to look at Government policies from the 1970's on.
I realised because of this TPA story today that my bus pass expired earlier this year. I didn't renew it. I had used it only the once. It proved handy on the one day in question when my car was out of action. It can also be handy if say you can't drive for some reason.
So, I've just bloody well been online and renewed it.
I'll use it more regularly now.
UP YOURS WILD!dandarez said:
Spot bloody on! I know of several renting (emptying their pockets so they'll never get on the housing ladder) and I know of the ones 'taking' the rent and getting richer who are buying up property quicker than I can type.
I realised because of this TPA story today that my bus pass expired earlier this year. I didn't renew it. I had used it only the once. It proved handy on the one day in question when my car was out of action. It can also be handy if say you can't drive for some reason.
So, I've just bloody well been online and renewed it.
I'll use it more regularly now.
UP YOURS WILD!
I found buses a bit like going blind, at least according to my aunt Maude. She had what now is called AMD. She was gradually going blind. She said, when finally admitting that she could see if she was in front of a door, that going blind wasn't as bad as she expected it to be. I realised because of this TPA story today that my bus pass expired earlier this year. I didn't renew it. I had used it only the once. It proved handy on the one day in question when my car was out of action. It can also be handy if say you can't drive for some reason.
So, I've just bloody well been online and renewed it.
I'll use it more regularly now.
UP YOURS WILD!That's how I see travelling by bus.
JagLover said:
V8 Fettler said:
The generation that was in their early 20s in the early 1960s and are now in their 70s have generally seen a meteoric rise in living standards. They've also achieved the neat trick of having the highest disposable income (by generation) in the 1960s/1970s and the highest disposable income (by generation) in the present day.
Apparently we should leave statistics aside as we don't know what it was like.They got up half hour before they went to bed and licked road clean with their tongue, tell the kids today...
king bit about being huddled around a polo mint for warmth!Well I'm sure your razor sharp mind can recall Disraeli - "there are three kinds of lies : Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics"!!
Need say no more really!
julian64 said:
Whether you agree with it or not makes little odds. Low interest rates have benefitted those paying mortgages greatly over the last ten years at the expensive of anyone who had savings invested for a return. The decision to keep interest rates low is a political one.
They've benefited people who had already taken out mortgages, but low rates have also fueled host price inflation. The monthly outgoings remain the same; people used the low rate environment to borrow more. All they've done is saddle themselves with a greater liability and more interest rate risk.The idea that keep rates low is a political decision is a bit fanciful. The developed economies all have independent central banks. Inflation has been very low. A huge amount of money was removed from the economies during the financial crisis. You'd expect interest rates to be at rock bottom levels right now regardless of politics.
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