Do you want to retire ?

[Peter_]

Originally Posted by Chris

especially as it was you baby boomers that urinated so much of this country's natural wealth up the wall.

Not me never been my style and I disliked those people.

Originally Posted by Chris

Er no, that was exactly my point. You are older than me. You will retire before me. My taxes and possibly those of my kids will fund your retirement. And I see no reason why my taxes should fund a 15-year retirement for you, when my parents' taxes funded only an 8-10 year retirement for those that went before them - especially as it was you baby boomers that urinated so much of this country's natural wealth up the wall.

Congratulations on having 4 pension funds though, it's nice that you have lived through an age when there was enough spare cash about for that sort of thing.

Erm, one size does not fit all.

I did without to contribute to my company pensions (often adding additional payments), and overpaid my mortgage when possible - how did I do that? By not going on overseas holidays until my kids were teenagers, only having one car, and not eating out much. We spent our disposable income on opportunities for our kids (things like riding lessons, music lessons, PGL, school trips, etc).

My personal opinion is that the "baby boomer wasting their money" is a bit of a myth - after all, I don't remember the previous generation leaving a lot to us, yet we are leaving what we have accumulated to our children (anything we haven't spent on them already......)

[Ignitionnet]

Hmm.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pinch-Boomer.../dp/1848872313
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Jilted-Gener.../dp/1848311982

Amongst others present a number of persuasive arguments.

So I have ruined my children's future?

Never claimed anything but child benefit (and only so I got the Carers contribution to NI),never went on the dole even when I was entitled.Opted to pay full NI contributions when many of my married peers were paying reduced married women's NI contributions.

Saved for my children's presumed forays into FE,struggled when my husband was made redundant 3 times..

I suppose the naval pension my husband receives might possibly have contributed but he did spend 24 years in service so it could said he earned it.It's only enough to cover our basic outgoings and has helped us to survive those three redundancies with very little help from the state..we still had to eat however.

In the last 40 years I've had 4 holidays abroad.Not exactly gone overboard compared to some.

Trying to see how I peeded away my children's futures.

[danielf]

Hm, I think the biggest underlying problem is the fact that people are getting older and there not being enough young people to foot the bill. If that means the baby boomers stealing their children's future, then they did so by not having many children.

Personally, I blame their parents for having the audacity to breed so many children when things were looking up after WW2, thereby skewing the population distribution.

So it's smaller families to blame..I thought the reason why there was so much poverty in this country pre the 60s was too many people having too large a family..Of which you might lose anything up to 50% of them and have no one to take care of you in old age(if you lived that long) and end up in the workhouse

So the pill arrives and we have smaller planned families of which 100% survived into adulthood and have increased better health.Which was wrong because there aren't enough people to keep the pyramid of social care going.

I can't see going back to having big families will help though..because each of those will eventually be a charge on the system as they reach their 200th year.I can see everyone being forced to have a minimum of 10 children.

Sorry I'm getting a bit carried away here..To be honest there is no quick fixit except we all die in harness.

[Ignitionnet]

One solution would have been to save North Sea oil revenue instead of spunking it up the wall.

I'm also struggling to see what long term legacy has been left behind. I can't think of much as far as huge infrastructure goes. When you look at the enduring investments in the past the boomer generation's legacy is pretty weak.

Nothing to do with most individuals of course. Down to fatally flawed government policy using the future earnings of those who can't vote yet to buy the votes of those who can.

But again, I think if we spent our children's future (and this all seems to be based on property prices), we (mostly) spent it on our children (ungrateful wretches ).

I have never used my property to get a larger mortgage to buy something other than moving to the next property (and that only twice) as my family got bigger, and will leave that property (or whatever I am living in at the time) to my children.

I was left nothing from my parents (because they had nothing to leave), and have paid more taxes and spent more on my kids upbringing and education that was ever spent by my parents - new definition of "spending the kid's future" I haven't come across before, methinks.

Anyhoo, a review of the The Pinch from the Grauniad shows (imho) perhaps it's not that simple. The problem in the future (everyone living longer and requiring pensions to be paid for longer, and the associated healthcare costs) was ignored by all politicians of all generations, and when the current lot try to do something to sort it out, they are cried down by all generations.

Man up, move on......

Update - just read i's post above mine, and we appear to be in (mostly) violent agreement.

[papa smurf]

Originally Posted by Hugh

But again, I think if we spent our children's future (and this all seems to be based on property prices), we (mostly) spent it on our children (ungrateful wretches ).

I have never used my property to get a larger mortgage to buy something other than moving to the next property (and that only twice) as my family got bigger, and will leave that property (or whatever I am living in at the time) to my children.

I was left nothing from my parents (because they had nothing to leave), and have paid more taxes and spent more on my kids upbringing and education that was ever spent by my parents - new definition of "spending the kid's future" I haven't come across before, methinks.

Anyhoo, a review of the The Pinch from the Grauniad shows (imho) perhaps it's not that simple. The problem in the future (everyone living longer and requiring pensions to be paid for longer, and the associated healthcare costs) was ignored by all politicians of all generations, and when the current lot try to do something to sort it out, they are cried down by all generations.

Man up, move on......

Update - just read i's post above mine, and we appear to be in (mostly) violent agreement.

same here all my dad left was the Bill
since then ive squandered every thing on my kids [i must be a right swine ]

[tosh mate]

Would love to retire ( I wish )
but have a meeting next week about a Private Pension...........