Old People In Poverty

[Guest AuntJess]

I wouldn't disagree with this. The whole financial base of society seems to be unsustainable. I just hope when it all goes tits-up the politicians use this event as a means to work through our unhealthy obsession with money. Whilst many of us have been getting rich (or at least fairly well off - lots of shiny tat) society has been rotting in the gutter. There are some societies that actually prize old-age as a store of wisdom and knowledge even though the aged themselves produce little monetary wealth. It is sad that people in this country are reduced to being wealth generating/consuming robots.

Twenty years I proposed to an education authority that some use could be made of the senior citizens. They would get a small remuneration for it and some feeling of being useful and the school kids could get taught skills which are fast dying out. Crocheting, barrel making, and stuff like that. One afternoon a week in a school, some old bod could come along and show the kids "their stuff".

Needless to say no one was interested so these skills will just die out. Hail the new - improved? - 'throwaway' society.

Edited January 8, 2009 by AuntJess

[laurejon]

I find this thread typical of all that has gone wrong.

Everyone will get old one day, and its a social responsiblity for people when young and healthy to save for old age.

So quite why people today are attacking old people who have been frugal with their money, made sound financial judgements based on old school economics, suprises me.

I would say to anyone who is looking at the elderly who have managed to retain some money from a lifetime of work, instead of attacking them, start trying to learn from them, because it is the following generations that have adopted the buy it now pay later mindset that have destroyed the nation.

If one were to read the history books in 50 years time, it will be noted that post 1997, Brit Pop, New Labour Britain, its supporters and advocates destroyed in a single decade hundreds of years of hard work by the working classes.

[Guest AuntJess]

I find this thread typical of all that has gone wrong.

Everyone will get old one day, and its a social responsiblity for people when young and healthy to save for old age.

So quite why people today are attacking old people who have been frugal with their money, made sound financial judgements based on old school economics, suprises me.

I would say to anyone who is looking at the elderly who have managed to retain some money from a lifetime of work, instead of attacking them, start trying to learn from them, because it is the following generations that have adopted the buy it now pay later mindset that have destroyed the nation.

If one were to read the history books in 50 years time, it will be noted that post 1997, Brit Pop, New Labour Britain, its supporters and advocates destroyed in a single decade hundreds of years of hard work by the working classes.

Post of the week, IMO, LJ

Sadly, from the way they are shaping up, we will be found to have forgotten more, than some specimens on here are EVER likely to know.

One cannot educate a closed mind.

[Minderbinder]

In mitigation, the young are at a demographic disadvantage due to the boomer bulge.

[Guest AuntJess]

In mitigation, the young are at a demographic disadvantage due to the boomer bulge.

There is a boomer bulge after every war, so I believe, and a preponderence of male children born then.

Nature counteracting for its losses.....?

[applesauce]

That computer in 'war games' was right! The winning move is not to play.

I could reply to individual points but really what's the point. Older people, is there ever a time in your life where someone younger than you has more of a clue about what's going on than you do? does a 30 year old have a better grasp of reality than a 90 year old? If you are that 90 year old will you have the mental agility to appreciate this at the time?

I've heard of the 'arrogance of youth'. There's also the arrogance of 'experience'; Up to a point it's justified, when it is no longer justified the old person is unaware of it. At this stage you can just smile and nod. I'd be on the lookout for that tipping point, old folks.

[Guest AuntJess]

That computer in 'war games' was right! The winning move is not to play.

I could reply to individual points but really what's the point. Older people, is there ever a time in your life where someone younger than you has more of a clue about what's going on than you do? does a 30 year old have a better grasp of reality than a 90 year old? If you are that 90 year old will you have the mental agility to appreciate this at the time?

I've heard of the 'arrogance of youth'. There's also the arrogance of 'experience'; Up to a point it's justified, when it is no longer justified the old person is unaware of it. At this stage you can just smile and nod. I'd be on the lookout for that tipping point, old folks.

You really are trying to get the last word here AS, when you have been 'outflanked' by the comments of others on here, and failing miserably.

No one said that any young person could never be as knowledgeable as any older one: you are trying to pretend that I was generalising, when I was being 'particular'.(or maybe you can't tell the difference...Whichever, you cannot expect anyone - whatever age - to acknowledge your wisdom when your comments clearly indicate the contrary.

[juvenal]

I could turn that right around, and it would make better sense. Don't see too many seventy year old drunken chavs, harassing young people out and about for their own amusement. Nor do we see too many old codger drivers racing stolen cars in the local car park and being total rses on the roads. Nor do you hear them bleating on about not being able to afford the latest designer wear.

I'm near retirement, in the group which you so despise, but I actually feel sorry for you. Why do you think I'm here? I WANT to see house prices at a level which young people can afford. I don't want my children, or anyone elses, to be debt-slaves for the rest of their lives.

Grow up!

Nice post. There's quite a few on here like you and I who own outright, and have strongly argued that house prices come down drastically to give the next generation a chance. That includes our own houses. When some of these younger fools start looking at real people, instead of Summer Wine stereotypes, they might have something worth saying.

[applesauce]

I seek no-ones acknowledgement of any wisdom, especially not a load of random people I know nothing about (and who know nothing about me) on the internet.

I don't consider any utterances on here as part of some linguistic battle in which a person can be 'outflanked' either!

If this is a way for you to get some jollies then knock yourself out, I was serious about the arrogance point however. Sounds like you're too far gone to take it on board. Im not bothered either way quite honestly, have a good one!

If you reply to this just imagine me smiling and nodding in response from now on, to save me some typing.

[heather5]

applesauce just remember what you have written - if you can when you are 90.

And if you are 90 at that time - well I wonder what your views will be since you will have enjoyed better health care and possibly a cure for dementia as a result of all who have passed before you - many those posting today will have donated their brains to help find a cure.

Can you all innocents of such young ages stop this thing against the more aged in your society?

Such a thread is just not becoming on a website that is leading the way in many forums on where society is going these days.

You will be old one day - what we do today in the current crisis is going to dictate what you will experience when you are old.

It's an afflication of the young that they always feel they will avoid what their parents did and their grandparents did and make life better - but history repeats itself ad nauseam - and sadly we're all part of the same human experience - and so you don't get to be old and not suffer the same fate.

Sooner you grasp that in your life - sooner you understand what life is about and can actually start to live - oh and by the way - it's not how big your house is!

Oh and a bit of clue - it's about family, friends, and life long loves whatever they may be.

[wren]

Twenty years I proposed to an education authority that some use could be made of the senior citizens. They would get a small remuneration for it and some feeling of being useful and the school kids could get taught skills which are fast dying out. Crocheting, barrel making, and stuff like that. One afternoon a week in a school, some old bod could come along and show the kids "their stuff".

Needless to say no one was interested so these skills will just die out. Hail the new - improved? - 'throwaway' society.

You are ahead of your time. I'd love to learn how to make a wooden barrel with metal braces. Maybe not yet essential today but would be good experience.

But making and fixing clothes, shoes, growing food etc. really useful stuff.

[deeplyblue]

You can't be old, you can use a computer!

Good Lord, you do need your information updating. Has the phrase "silver surfers" passed you by, or did you think that just meant young people who'd made some odd style choices?

You should meet my friend who has just had his 80th birthday. He's still a little uncertain about Windows - it seems like a shocking waste of resources when most of what he wanted to do on a computer was more easily done from a command line system. But then he was working with the first stirrings of CAD, back in the late 60s. However, recently he has finally found that an optical mouse gives him enough precision, so that he can finally do sensible art work (he's an artist) on his machine. Advances in OCR and scanning technology now save him a lot of typing up with text others send him. And now with a fairly powerful laptop and wireless broadband, he can do things online without having leave his wife, who has dementia and now can't remember that her hankie is on the table in front of her, alone in another room. Next step Skype and a video phone calls.

Or my other friend who, in her late 60s was coaxed (by me) into taking up email, and then doing her dissertation using a word processor. Then she decided herself she wanted a scanner for Christmas, to scan up her collection of family photographs (some now more than 100 years old), tidy them up, burn copies onto CDs and send them to others round the world. After which I told her she could get her old cassette tapes off her shelves. So we got her set up so she could copy the tapes, clean up the recordings, edit them down and get them on to CDs. Now in her late 70s she's got rid of almost all her tapes she really wants a new machine, to start doing video editing. But money is a problem now - not least because she took professional advice and put the bulk of her savings into Equitable Life, and the little she has left was mostly spent on putting in a new bathroom to help her cope with increasing infirmity.

Of course, I also have younger friends who hate computers and won't learn more than enough to use the touch screen at the doctor's waiting room. Me? Well my sons still ring me up - "I'm helping a friend whose computer has seized up. Remind me, what's the best way to re-install a graphics driver?" And, No , I'm neither a professional nor under 35.

db

[wren]

In mitigation, the young are at a demographic disadvantage due to the boomer bulge.

Strange comment. Would you care to elaborate?

If anything the young would experience less competition. Oh, but I forgot that they recently were the first to join the Eastern Block.

As resources decline a breakdown into competing "groups" is to be expected and the attitudes expressed here are indicative.

Going forward, those few with integral communities including intergenerational bonds will fare best.

Those many of the entitlement culture who lack social bonds and who presumably expect the state to look after them if they make it to old age will be disappointed.

[wren]

That computer in 'war games' was right! The winning move is not to play.

I could reply to individual points but really what's the point. Older people, is there ever a time in your life where someone younger than you has more of a clue about what's going on than you do? does a 30 year old have a better grasp of reality than a 90 year old? If you are that 90 year old will you have the mental agility to appreciate this at the time?

I've heard of the 'arrogance of youth'. There's also the arrogance of 'experience'; Up to a point it's justified, when it is no longer justified the old person is unaware of it. At this stage you can just smile and nod. I'd be on the lookout for that tipping point, old folks.

You said it. And you seem to have reached the internet message board equivalent of merely smiling and nodding.

There are some in their seventies who sparkle with intelligence and wit (not all of course) and there are some in their twenties who are shallow and boring (and sometimes thick).

You seem to lean rather towards the latter.

[Soldup&movedBKK]

Those daft c*nts Brown and King need f**cking shooting...f**cked the country right up......look after the thick idiots that borrowed so much money cause they cant even add 2+2....hard working people that have saved rather spend on shit get f**cked over...get the c**t out now

[Miss Madam]

I have been tolerant of older people almost all my life - making allowances for them. But I'm not going to stop becuase of what older people say on internet forums.

Seriously though - how wise have, and I will defer to Auntie Jess on this 'our elders and betters' been in shafting the generations beneath them who they are going to rely upon to look after them in their twilight years? They don't sound that clever to me.... I would be bricking myself. Think about who can afford to work in a care home these days? And how stressed and shitty their living conditions are - do they come to work as happy little campers, I'm thinking not...

[Guest AuntJess]

Seriously though - how wise have, and I will defer to Auntie Jess on this 'our elders and betters' been in shafting the generations beneath them who they are going to rely upon to look after them in their twilight years? They don't sound that clever to me.... I would be bricking myself. Think about who can afford to work in a care home these days? And how stressed and shitty their living conditions are - do they come to work as happy little campers, I'm thinking not...

Can you give me some exact info. on this as to how MY generation - ie ALL of them - has shafted anybody - en masse ?

I have been shafted in my time, by a variety of institutions and establishments - for example: working unpaid overtime so that the principal of the college could double their income from 50K to 100K iin 3 years. And I have a BARREL of examples like that to quote to you, having worked for 40 years, but I never pinned down a description of any of them to be able to blame them, 'ceptin' p'raps that they were management and or politicians. They came in all age ranges shapes and sizes, so to speak.

So come on, tell me: How many of my age group shafted the younger one, or are we just talking a set of sharks shafting some innocents, and the latter seizing on the age to identify them?

Edited January 9, 2009 by AuntJess

[General Melchett]

Are you saying means tested benefits are good?

The Socialist Frank Field has endlessly argued why that is bullocks. I agree they should use thier capital - why else did they acquire it - but means tested benefits makes saving absurd and encourages poverty.

Any benefit should be universal regardless of wealth. The BBC article doesn't argue that but you seemed to isay that's how you saw it.

Bump....

Because I'm amazed that many posters on this thread cant see that means tested benefits (in this case for pensioners) encourages people to spend their adult lives spunking their money on 42" plasma TVs, X5s/Vogues, Sky TV etc etc in the knowledge that if you do, the state will pay for you, and if you dont, you will have to pay for yourself out of all the money you didnt spunk on the same but saved up to buy krugers and backed beans? Some joined up thinking, please!

Moral hazard, anyone?

[Tummybanana]

Bump....

Because I'm amazed that many posters on this thread cant see that means tested benefits (in this case for pensioners) encourages people to spend their adult lives spunking their money on 42" plasma TVs, X5s/Vogues, Sky TV etc etc in the knowledge that if you do, the state will pay for you, and if you dont, you will have to pay for yourself out of all the money you didnt spunk on the same but saved up to buy krugers and backed beans? Some joined up thinking, please!

Moral hazard, anyone?

I'd say Folk Devils.

It's more the equivalent of Serbian women being told that if they come to Britain they are guaranteed a life of prosperity, riches and comfort, but ending up servicing fat hedge fund managers on a grotty mattress in Hackney.

State-run institutions are NOT the same quality as private ones.

[darksky]

I could turn that right around, and it would make better sense. Don't see too many seventy year old drunken chavs, harassing young people out and about for their own amusement. Nor do we see too many old codger drivers racing stolen cars in the local car park and being total rses on the roads. Nor do you hear them bleating on about not being able to afford the latest designer wear.

I'm near retirement, in the group which you so despise, but I actually feel sorry for you. Why do you think I'm here? I WANT to see house prices at a level which young people can afford. I don't want my children, or anyone elses, to be debt-slaves for the rest of their lives.

Grow up!

I 100% agree with you. Although older people are often blamed for the state of the world, many younger people have been completely reckless in their use of money. In my day I was taught that debt was bad and do not buy until you could afford it. Today no one wants to want. It is a society of greed and materialism.

I also openly accept this morally corrupt, totalitarian government have allowed debt to run out of control and I fully sympathise with the problem that young people have in affording a house. I as an older person grieve to see what this Labour government has allowed to happen to a once great country and what effect it will have on future generations.

However, the view that old people have no value and screw their savings is completely unacceptable. These people have often spent a life time of saving and asked for nothing in return. They have paid taxes and built businesses.

In addition many old people who now losing their savings served in the war and saw their friends die. A who generation was decimated.

Why, to allow the freedom of speech and expression of view put forward by the twerp that started this thread. Go an study some history before making such a crass statement.

Strikes me as total disrespect, jealousy and typically of the selfish attitude that many of today’s young people have.

Perhaps, some day the originator of this thread may also be unfortunate to get old and need to live off savings.

[Miss Madam]

I 100% agree with you. Although older people are often blamed for the state of the world, many younger people have been completely reckless in their use of money. In my day I was taught that debt was bad and do not buy until you could afford it. Today no one wants to want. It is a society of greed and materialism.

I also openly accept this morally corrupt, totalitarian government have allowed debt to run out of control and I fully sympathise with the problem that young people have in affording a house. I as an older person grieve to see what this Labour government has allowed to happen to a once great country and what effect it will have on future generations.

However, the view that old people have no value and screw their savings is completely unacceptable. These people have often spent a life time of saving and asked for nothing in return. They have paid taxes and built businesses.

In addition many old people who now losing their savings served in the war and saw their friends die. A who generation was decimated.

Why, to allow the freedom of speech and expression of view put forward by the twerp that started this thread. Go an study some history before making such a crass statement.

Strikes me as total disrespect, jealousy and typically of the selfish attitude that many of today’s young people have.

Perhaps, some day the originator of this thread may also be unfortunate to get old and need to live off savings.

Blame the parents? What beautiful children Maggie and the 80s age of 'me, me, me' created - you can hardly blame the young generations you are scorning for voting her in whilst they were children or mere twinkles in someones' eye. Furthermore, should we blame the younger generation for emulating their elders and betters and doing what they were told by the constant advertising culture they have been exposed to as children (in a much more intense, unrelenting form than earlier generations)....? Again I'm not thinking that would be something they created... Why are the young so obsessed with bling and plastic tat? It always make me think of the North American tribes who were bribed to give away their lands and future for booze and sparkly gems - here younger generation, you can have shiney shiney gadgets - ooooh look so cheap and pretty, but we're going to price you out of assets of practical value (ok prices are dropping so obviously I don't necessarily mean value in the purely financial sense) - so back away they are the older generations back up pension dontcha know. Oh and you won't be getting a pension either. Still enjoy your iPhone.

Aunt Jess I know it wasn't a deliberate process by an entire generation as one - but did no one think of the tragedy of the commons, did no one think there must be a catch here? Or were people just too busy filling their boots to worry about the consequences? Yes, we know your pensions are declining in value and Brown robbed you and virtually put a gun to your head to buy a BTL - but we're not going to get any pensions and will be taxed like feck to cope with the healthcare burden of the demographic abnormality that was the sheer numbers of the boomer cohort as they age. I know which generation I would have rather been in. That would have been the one where most Mums were able to stay at home with their kids, where values hadn't been entirely erased by mass advertising and using the TV as a form of dumbing down the populace, where education was free, and whilst not many went to uni - if you were clever enough you could work your way there, a generation at least getting some form of pension (sadly the best bet for many of the young is to take up a 60 a day marlboro red habit to avoid the need for a pension...), a generation who will spend most of the lives with a free NHS (I'm sure that's on its way out), a generation able to get on the ladder without commiting mortgage fraud or commiting themselves to a 35 year IO mortgage.

Any thoughts? Would you trade generations with a generation Xer? Honest question.

And before you go to the usual ad hominems about how bitter this generation is. To be honest I'm actually a happy go lucky sort. I am fecking opinionated and I despise inequity, but I'm not 'twisted' or whatever other adjectives you usually throw at the young (also I note often treated as an entire generation en masse....) I'm not 'blaming' anyone else for my life, I'm doing well enough thanks to a lot of hard work, and my fantastic hippy parents (they never got into BTL!), and have finally paid off my massive student debts and at 30 am starting to accure a good deposit for a house (which will no doubt get eroded away, but there is little sympathy fot would be FTBer deposits in the media, just for poor pensioners). It just sticks in the craw a little that 20 years ago, I would have been in this situation 5-7 years earlier in my life rather than having been shafted by fecktard amateur landlords unable to grasp that their backup pension has responsibilities as well as rights. I think Xers, late boomers, and any generation since have had to swim against the tide caused by the massive demographic ripple that was the boomers, and it galls that most of that generation fail to 'get' how lucky they were. I'm not saying you never faced any hardships - I'm just saying on balance that that generation (yes yes as a generaled whole, you know I use 'the generation' as a rhetorical device, of course there are exceptions so please don't just retaliate with that, your usual argument, I like your posts and would like to see you consider this one - not as point scoring but to hear your genuine view) had it easier than the young today, and will have it easier in their old age than younger generations will, particularly when you consider resource depletion, peak oil and climate change impacts that will be rearing their ugly heads come the 2030s if not earlier / already.

So come on Jess would you swap? Trinkets and gadgets and infantilized by renting / trying to raise kids in a negative equity IO slave box, or real assets that enable you to forge a self determined 'grown up' life?

And whilst it is nice to hear that some of my elders and betters feel sorry for the young and the mess we have to deal with please translate that into action - next time you vote (what good that does - harumph), or make an investment decision consider the implications for those coming after you? In return I promise not to vote for euthanasia for the old...

Edited January 9, 2009 by Miss Madam

[Miss Madam]

Bumpety bump....

The above post was a serious question for all of my 'olders and betters' not just Aunt Jess btw...

Anyone?

[Converted Lurker]

Bumpety bump....

The above post was a serious question for all of my 'olders and betters' not just Aunt Jess btw...

Anyone?

Whatsup, vanity got the better of you, are you just stamping your foot 'cos no one has replied to you? Cut it down to one paragraph next time. Overall the thread has died a natural death as the subject matter has been done to death over the years.

[silver surfer]

Can you give me some exact info. on this as to how MY generation - ie ALL of them - has shafted anybody - en masse ?

Don't know about you Aunt Jess, but I'm 52. Not sure my generation "shafted" anyone, but we've certainly had an incredibly lucky run.

1. My father, grandfather, and great-grandfather all fought in horrific wars. I don't know one end of a rifle from the other.

2. I went to a grammar school and then received a free university education. Similar opportunities don't exist for my children. I'm lucky enough to be able to afford to pay for their education, most today start their working lives saddled with debt.

3. I enjoyed a Defined Benefits pension scheme and a stock market bull run. They were both so breathtakingly lucrative that I can retire at 55 and look forward to thirty years of comfortable leisure. Previous generations had pensions but not the life-expectancy, future generations will have the life-expectancy but not the pensions. I, through no personal effort, get both.

4. I bought my first house in my early twenties for x2 income. I then moved to London and bought properties in SW1 and SW6 for x2.5 income. As my children might say, sweet.

5. I travelled the world in relative security and at bargain basement prices, with not a flicker of guilt about global warming or ecological damage.

[Optimuswolf]

Are you saying means tested benefits are good?

The Socialist Frank Field has endlessly argued why that is bullocks. I agree they should use thier capital - why else did they acquire it - but means tested benefits makes saving absurd and encourages poverty.

Any benefit should be universal regardless of wealth. The BBC article doesn't argue that but you seemed to isay that's how you saw it.

means testing is a soft target but if you think about it more clearly you need some sort of means testing. If you have no benefits then many people are poor. So you give benefits, but they cost a fortune to taxpayers, so you restrict them.

I agree that excessive means-testing is both unfair and counterproductive, but a system with no means testing has never proved workable in the long term without costing a fortune to the taxpayer