Ben from Dover

what if you and all your siblings and other relatives die in a car accident tonight. would you want us to take responsibility for them? How strange - somebody else posted the exact same thing - please ignor

also - what happened to the whole ' my house is my pension' line Obviously they didn't mean it in the sense that they will sell the house and then use the money as a pension. They meant it in the sense that they have put all their eggs in one basket that has loads of egg shaped holes at the bottom of it

Best suggestion I've read on the subject - you should stand for parliament. You'll never get voted in however as the electorally dominant elderly will vote nice plush benefits for themselves at the expense of current (or most likely future) tax payers. It goes without saying that by the time that you need such benefits, the system will have changed or there will be no system at all

good luck with that - anyone hoping to inherit anything from boomer generate relatives in our society is mistaken. Unless you are confident that your parents have enough money to fund 20 years of care at 40 grand a year each and survive a HPC. The social concept of inheritance will go into reverse over the next few decades with the older generational of a family relying on financial support of the middle generation. In a sense this is back to the way it has always been,

agreed - this can essentially be seen as another boomer cash grab. They want the state to pay for their infirm parents care so they don't lose the inheritance. any state care will almost certainly be funded by debt that their children will have to pay back. However it will come back to bit them as when they are old and infirm their children (as a generation) will not be able to pay for the cost of their care - either directly, through increased taxes or through high house prices at the same time as re-paying their debt to care for their grand-parents.

I posted this on Ken's 'Death Tax Shelved' thread in response to boomers who were complaining about under 30's boomer bashing. I thought I would post it here as well as I'm sure there will be boomer who post on this thread about how it is not their fault: Please do understand that us 'boomer bashers' are not suggesting any personal blame. We are not saying that you should have lived your lives differently on a personal level or that you bear any personal guilt. What we are saying is that as a generation there is guilt. We are not asking for you personally to feel bad or do anything. However, the fact that there is no personal guilt doesn't mean that we are not valid in feeling angry about the situation that your generation (not you personally) have landed our generation in. It is frustrating when boomers on here go for the 'I worked hard and payed into the system therefore don't blame me blame somebody else' argument. As a long time poster on here I would assume that you are aware of the UK's current financial situation and the vast inequalities in wealth between the generations. Particularly the huge national debt that your generation have accumulated and our's is going to have to pay back. You are right in that it is not your personal guilt to bear. The only thing that makes these boomer arguments last so long on here is that you guys refuse to simply say - our generation as a whole were financially irresponsible and are passing down to our children a country that is half way down the crapper. It is annoying to see otherwise well informed boomers on here not admit this and instead seek to defend themselves by way of the way they have managed their personal finances. No one boomer is personally to blame but to criticize us for expressing our anger and disappointment is wrong.

The way I see this is: The first dilemma is not one unique to the debate around the care of the elderly but generally our whole welfare state. We have collectively, as a country, decided that people who have money have to pay for those who are either unable or unwilling to provide for themselves. Most thinking people would disagree with the fairness of this system but it is what has been decided as a society now and will probably never be reversed (short of injin state failure). Nothing we can do about this one. The Second dilemma adds to the problems created by our decision on the first but is at the same time contradictory to it. We have created a system whereby the unable / unwilling are supported by those who are able. To then allow a section of those who are financially able (asset rich elderly) not to have to comply to this system but to also free load creates another injustice on top of the first. The first inequality is already baked in. We can still stop the second one. If somebody can pay for themselves, they should. If they can't, the state should to a decent standard. That is fair given the current social system we have. None of the above really matters though as the decision will not be made by a wise man trying to decide what is the most fair. It will be a compromise between what we can afford (not a lot) and what is politically expedient in a elderly dominated democracy (complete free care at current standard of living).

Please do understand that us 'boomer bashers' are not suggesting any personal blame. We are not saying that you should have lived your lives differently on a personal level or that you bear any personal guilt. What we are saying is that as a generation there is guilt. We are not asking for you personally to feel bad or do anything. However, the fact that there is no personal guilt doesn't mean that we are not valid in feeling angry about the situation that your generation (not you personally) have landed our generation in. It is frustrating when boomers on here go for the 'I worked hard and payed into the system therefore don't blame me blame somebody else' argument. As a long time poster on here I would assume that you are aware of the UK's current financial situation and the vast inequalities in wealth between the generations. Particularly the huge national debt that your generation have accumulated and our's is going to have to pay back. You are right in that it is not your personal guilt to bear. The only thing that makes these boomer arguments last so long on here is that you guys refuse to simply say - our generation as a whole were financially irresponsible and are passing down to our children a country that is half way down the crapper. It is annoying to see otherwise well informed boomers on here not admit this and instead seek to defend themselves by way of the way they have managed their personal finances. No one boomer is personally to blame but to criticize us for expressing our anger and disappointment is wrong.

Personally I think we have our views on this one the wrong way around. I might be wrong (feel free to correct me) but I was lead to believe that the Death Tax was designed to keep the old who need to go into residential care from having to sell their homes. They would get free care now but pay a higher inheritance tax. It was a move to further reduce inter-generational wealth redistribution and therefore we should be happy that it is being scrapped. If you are so ill that you need residential care and have an asset of enormous value that you no longer need (i.e a house that you own but no longer live in as you are in care) it makes sense that you should be made to sell it to pay for your own care. That is the system at the moment. The new tax was to allow people not to have to sell their homes and instead have their care payed for by the state. Pure madness. It's scrapping is great news.

A well run, safe and good quality environment for people who are broke to live which also provides them with some useful employment to contribute towards their upkeep surely is a more 'fair' way to offer help to people who are poor than forcing people who are neither poor nor rich to keep them in a quality of housing which they can often not afford themselves. In the post you quoted I hadn't mentioned anything about getting them working but it is actually a fairly sensible suggestion. Unless not working leads to a lower quality of life than working, working just doesn't make sense. We need to realize that again as a society. From my limited history knowledge workhouses were horrible places but theyneed not be. Why not have houses where the poor can live and combine them with call centres or something. makes sense to me.

Unless you are mega rich you don't really need to cut all ties. It tends to be more hassle than it is worth to chase you. As long as you don;t own UK property and are not earning your salary here and only come back for a few holidays you get away with it on the whole. i worked in the gulf for a few years and I knew hundreds of UK people earning tax free money and sending it back in drips and drabs, few grand here and there in remittances, taken through the airport in hand luggage when you come back on holiday. I got 70K back in 2 years this way. only trouble is you can't put it in an isa as you have to be resident for one of those. you even get to claim your tax allowance back for the year you leave the country.

Didn't mean it as a criticism Dr. I'm a big fan and your threads / comments are some of the best on here. I even quite often follow your "links" to "elsewhere".

I'm pretty sure they realized that before they voted for the policy Remember that it is a group of BTL landlords and property speculators who decide our country's housing policy and benefits system

How about £0 And instead use a very small proportion of the money to set up each town with excellent quality homeless shelters that can offer families very simple accommodation on a short term basis. With the rest of the savings we could invest it in going to war against a poor and disorganized but resource rich country after they have been significantly vilified so that no-one else really minds.

Same here in south east kent. We rent for £395 a practically identical flat that cost us £500 in 2003. Rents have dropped very slightly over the medium term but not been any short term drops and no rent rises for years.

Top class post

Sorry to do a Dr Bubb and reply to my own post but some more WOW quotes from that article: Yet public and political attitudes still have not adjusted. It is still considered a good thing to "help first-time buyers" first-time buyers are currently borrowing an average of between four and five times their annual household income when, to be safe, that multiple should stay below three The interest is like the rent. They have somewhere to live, but if they cannot pay each month, they end up with nothing It is wrong to go on presenting the bottom rung of the housing ladder as an essential mark of modern adulthood, like losing your virginity or passing your driving test. It is foolish for the Government to offer equity share to first-time buyers... this looks like mis-selling For half a century, we experienced the "revolution of rising expectations". That revolution went on for so long that the expectations outreached reality. The revolution of lowering expectations is only just beginning. Every expectation of intergenerational security on which bourgeois life thrives is blocked" any shepple who stumble across that article will have a 2 minute summary of everything said on here over the last few years and I'm sure will be left in shock.

I was just reading that article posted on the main page about personal debt in the country. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/charlesmoore/7528524/Budget-2010-We-are-in-danger-of-ignoring-Britains-real-debt-disaster.html Really interesting article. I got half way through and was struck by this line: "It is not certain that the house-price gamble any longer pays of"f. WOW. that is the first time I have seen anybody admit that in the main stream (not money week) press. I think it represents a major turning point. I've been saying for a while that the HPC will be protracted over many years as sentiment turns against the housing market. To see something like this in a major newspaper I think is quite a milestone. It was not even followed up by a BBC style comment about how the cyclical housing market means that prices will eventually rebound. Over the next few years sheeple up and down the UK will realize that there is no ladder, it was all just lies - a ponzi - and they are going to have to work to earn money to buy the stuff they wont. How will they be able to cope...

Really glad you enjoyed it. Friends are normally very chill'ed people and the focus is more on membership of the group based on the shared experience of the meetings than the shared theology or belief system. Reluctant heretic's would fit in well. Some groups even have muslim or hindu members although personally I would feel a bit funny about that. More of a philosophy about hearing from god in life than a religion as such. I've stopped being involved simply because it tends to attract quite weird people. lovely but weird. Celebration of Discipline is not totally off topic. I think the chapter on simplicity should be compulsory reading for everybody in the country. Getting people, particularly politicians, to take a deeper perspective on financial and economic issues and losing the bling culture is probably just what this country needs. I'd be interested to know how you get on if you go more often to the SoF. always interested in how people find it who aren't used to it. Probably a bit boring for everybody else though so feel from to pm me.

Yep - I grew up in a Quaker family, although I'm not really a part of it these days. Still love Richard Foster though - the quote was from celebration of discipline - possibly my favorite book.

Nice one - just the kind of quote I was hoping Google would throw up and allow me to make a really funny point. Oh well too late now. So is there any mention as to who gets the mansions? Is it linked to how much deposit you have, any particular multiple of income or can you self cert?

Just did a google search for bible references with the word house in them and it seems, based upon a quick scim-read* most of us are ok accept for the gold bugs (who are ******ed beyond belief). big house = bad according to god. * quick skim read of google probably isn't the best thing to base your afterlife expectations upon. Please take professional advice.

the outside of that building is kind of thing that gives the middle class nightmares How did this country end up so ugly?

Tax relief?? But you do pay VAT on basically everything you buy. what don't we pay VAT on. some food, books, children s cloths 49% + 17.5% = 66.5% not a long way off 70% Stick on student loan, road tax, tax on your savings interest, extra duty on fuel, insurance tax and any others I've forgotten and you get to 80% without much more effort. edit to add - obviously we haven't counted the 'tax' that inflation represents which would be very hard to put a number on but has a very real effect.

It wouldn't come as a complete shock to me if our position in the afterlife is judged based upon which level of the property ladder we attained on this mortal globe.