Pension Prospects In 20 Years Time Look ' Bleak '

[zzg113]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4694103.stm

many of today's pensioners and those about to retire, far from struggling to make ends meet, are living through a 'golden age'.

They are immeasurably richer than their parents were, and what's more, they are likely to enjoy a far more prosperous retirement than their children and grandchildren.

"I think that we will look back on this time as a sort of golden age," Ruth Lea, director of the think-tank the Centre for Policy Studies, told BBC News.

"Many of those in retirement or about to retire enjoy sizeable occupational pensions.

"In addition, they may have bought their homes in the 1970s or 1980s for next to nothing and be sitting on a large profit."

"As a result of a fundamental shift in UK demographics, the prospects for people retiring in twenty or thirty years time look bleak."

one senior government pensions adviser, who wished to remain anonymous, told BBC News that there was genuine concern that in the future there could be serious social conflict between pensioners and a smaller number of taxpayers who are being asked to pay more and more to support retired people.

Anyone relying on just the state pension in 2050 will officially be living in poverty.

[surveyor]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4694103.stm

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

This type of story seems to go under the radar for most. Far more important than .25% cut in IRs or indeed the housing market.

[MarkG]

Don't worry. Immigrants are going to rush to Britain to pay high taxes to pay fat pensions for the old farts, because they love us so much... it'll all work out happily in the end.

[newaccount99]

Anyone relying on just the state pension in 2050 will officially be living in poverty.

What does it matter to the government of today. Short term politics/economics/spin is all that counts for winning elections.

Brown has paid for today with debt for tomorrow and largely got away with it through his stealth raid on pensions and his public sector (gold plated pension) recruitment drive.

He'll get to N.o 10 and a little brass plack in the commons saying "greatest chancellor of 20th/21st Century" well before his legacy comes to Joe Chav's attention.

[GCS15]

Like i've said numerous times. I 'aint paying for the boomers retirement. I'll emigrate to the country who wants productive workers the most. The country will have less tax and decent wages.

I have been shouted down when I said that I fully intended to follow an aggressive tax minimilasation(sp) strategy.

Apparently I am supposed to pay my fair share. I beg your pardon but I PAY for my education did you (aimed at ageing boomer), I am getting rail roaded on health policy, my tax started high (no bracket creep here) and house prices are unaffordable.

I'll go the easy coasting road where there is no stress. Spend time raising a family. Let the boomer speculators eat their house. I 'aint paying for your retirements. You (boomers in general not in particular) 'aint supporting me through uni and want me to sign up for a lifetime of debt so you can get off scot free.

Yep been drinking

[Unexpected]

Like i've said numerous times. I 'aint paying for the boomers retirement. I'll emigrate to the country who wants productive workers the most. The country will have less tax and decent wages.

I have been shouted down when I said that I fully intended to follow an aggressive tax minimilasation(sp) strategy.

Apparently I am supposed to pay my fair share. I beg your pardon but I PAY for my education did you (aimed at ageing boomer), I am getting rail roaded on health policy, my tax started high (no bracket creep here) and house prices are unaffordable.

I'll go the easy coasting road where there is no stress. Spend time raising a family. Let the boomer speculators eat their house. I 'aint paying for your retirements. You (boomers in general not in particular) 'aint supporting me through uni and want me to sign up for a lifetime of debt so you can get off scot free.

Yep been drinking 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Totally agree with you GCS15 even though I am of boomer age.

[dogbox]

This pensions crisis is a farce.

One of my brothers is a classic illustration; He says he cant afford to invest yet he and his wife smoke 20 per day each. I beleive fags are about £4.00 per pack. So thats £8.00 per day x 365 = £2920 pa.

That money invested over 30 years would make a nice little nest egg.

I see 'poor people' with arms full of snacks, coke and a copy of the Sun. Surely it would be better to invest and live without some of these things?

[MarkG]

Why bother investing if you can just vote to screw the money out of your neighbour's grand-kids?

[GCS15]

It's nothing personal. Far from it. I am a bit of a shared responsibility sort of guy. Everyone looks out for each other, protect those whom are weaker than us etc.

If one generation screws another, even though it is not intentional - well it's just not cricket. If things do go pear shaped the boomers can't expect to be looked after if gen-x / gen-y were shafted. Treat others how you want to be treated and all that.

I just can't see a happy ending to this mess. The upcoming problems with Boomers retiring has been foreseen for a long long time. Yet nothing has been done about it. No putting away for a rainy day. No making the next generation richer so they can support them. Nada. short term political oportunism at it's most selfish.

Grrr

[newaccount99]

Totally agree with you GCS15 even though I am of boomer age.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I don't blame anyone for wanting to get out of UKPLC.

Low tax, low social benefit society is the only way forward. Minimal social provision and only for those most in need.

Everyone else incentivised to make their own living/provision through tax breaks i.e. high thresholds (little/no tax + incentives) for low earners who choose to work rather than claim.

Education opportunity for all kids but based on aptitude/ability. Option to switch to vocational courses where aptitude is not for pure academic. Re-instatement of the concept of responsibilities rather than rights.

[justanewbie]

Apparently I am supposed to pay my fair share. I beg your pardon but I PAY for my education did you (aimed at ageing boomer),

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

On the other hand, boomers didn't have many of the benefits which

are enjoyed by teens and twenties today.

My early years were a struggle --- no car, just a bicycle..

just one example... we only had two weeks holiday per year.

Due to the energy crisis we had the 3 day week and wage freezes

which companies manipulated to keep our salaries low for several years.

I wasn't able to buy a house until the age of 31.

I can't comment on university fees - I did day release qualifications.

[GCS15]

I don't think any generation had it easy. It's just that it seems that the Boomers are spending our future on themselves whilst the next generation get's left with a mess. Boomers did go through some tough times to be sure but it wasn't alone in that their parents and grandparents shared to load.

I am not bitter and twisted about it. Just resolute to enforce fairness. Be fair with me and I'll repay it with interest. Screw me and my family over don't expect me to go out of my way to lighten your load.

[justanewbie]

don't expect me to go out of my way to lighten your load.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Unfortunately, the way pensions work in this country is that

each generation in employment has to pay for the retired

then living.

It isn't fair.

But that's the way it is.

[aclwalker]

I think there can be too much temptation to blame the boomer generation on this forum. Just as it's easy to talk of their generous final salary schemes and their relatively affordable housing and high wage inflation eroding the debt, it's easy to say that the young today are obsessed with designer clothes, flash cars, mobile phones and spending like Beckham, all on 'credit'.

Many of the 'boomer' generation struggled, without designer clothes, without the smoking, without cars and so on. There was a tendency to buy things by saving up for them.

I think the real evil for the current generation is debt.

Even when I bought my place in 1999, I felt I was competing with people who were willing to get into far more debt than me.

Looking at it this way, the oft-talked about wealth transfer from young to old was perhaps not so much a taking from the young by the old, but a giving to the old by a willing hugely-indebted young.

Of course it is the older generation that enabled this free access to dirty money. But I don't think it's fair to blame the entire boomer generation for this. Blame the elite few.

And like drugs, young people seem to be all to happy to get all this 'cheap' money. Perhaps there's blame on all sides (except mine of course, cos I am neither old nor hugely indebted ).

[rockdoctor]

I think boomers ARE sympathetic; that's why so many of them have been remortgaging to help their kids get a house.

[MarkG]

For decades the boomers voted for spendthrift governments that inflated away their debts and promised them more and more 'free' stuff when they retired. Why shouldn't we blame them for that?

And, yes, I agree, the big difference is debt. A 20-something today might be driving around an Audi TT rather than riding a bike, but the debt they took on to buy it (or the mortgage on their 300k executive shoebox) is unlikely to be destroyed by wage inflation... their 'prosperity' is largely fake, built on the back of cheap credit.

[crystal ball]

The BBC did a series called "what if" in 2004 one of them being what if the generations fall out.

This thread reminds me of this.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/if/3489560.stm

[okonu]

Like i've said numerous times. I 'aint paying for the boomers retirement. I'll emigrate to the country who wants productive workers the most. The country will have less tax and decent wages.

I have been shouted down when I said that I fully intended to follow an aggressive tax minimilasation(sp) strategy.

Apparently I am supposed to pay my fair share. I beg your pardon but I PAY for my education did you (aimed at ageing boomer), I am getting rail roaded on health policy, my tax started high (no bracket creep here) and house prices are unaffordable.

I'll go the easy coasting road where there is no stress. Spend time raising a family. Let the boomer speculators eat their house. I 'aint paying for your retirements. You (boomers in general not in particular) 'aint supporting me through uni and want me to sign up for a lifetime of debt so you can get off scot free.

Yep been drinking 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

GCS15 - I think Singapore or Hong Kong would suit you. Good wages, low tax.

[GCS15]

GCS15 - I think Singapore or Hong Kong would suit you.  Good wages, low tax.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

pretty women

[Guest Riser]

If you havn't seen this then you must read it, made my day

Gitterdammerung (The Twilight of the Gits) - Or the coming cataclysmic property crash - and its even more cataclysmic consequences

Yet for some years now, at little wine-and-cheese affairs far from luckless and underpaid nurses or policemen, seemingly intelligent, middle-class English people assume moronic grins and glazed looks that I had only seen before on Hari Krishnas, while they explain how their lacklustre two-bedroom flat, by the time that they retire, will equal the gross domestic product of Brazil.....

Our Baby-Boomer greedy gits mortgaged their homes to buy second properties then mortgaged those to move up or to buy even more. This drove prices higher, forcing youngsters to pay more than they can afford in order to climb onto the so-called "property wagon". For different reasons, each became indebted to the hilt, over-mortgaged and "maxed out" on their credit cards – the Boomers out of avarice, and the kids out of cruel necessity.

[GCS15]

The BBC did a series called "what if" in 2004 one of them being what if the generations fall out.

This thread reminds me of this.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/if/3489560.stm

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

COMMENTARY: Despite the improving state pension of 2024, many are still unable to retire because they misjudged the property market. Back in 2004, the value of people’s homes was three thousand billion pounds.  More than double the total value of all pension funds. But some jumped on the property band wagon too late to realise their dream of a comfortable retirement.

ADAIR TURNER (Chairman, Pensions Commission): If the next generation is significantly smaller than the present generation, then that generation, the baby boom generation will be trying to sell those houses to a smaller next generation, so there is at least a possibility that will, there will be a period where house prices will fall, or certainly, no go up in the way that they have in the past.