Under 30? You're screwed

[steveo]

Baby boomer blaming...

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Cue Huguenot

[Seabag]

My outlaws said something like this on our last visit

"Sorry we've spent your inheritance, we're going on a cruise"

The fuckers must have read this article

[red devil]

SKINT...Spending the kids inheritance...

[steveo]

Here's another perspective: Lewisham Council has appropriated my inheritance to pay for care home fees while I'm paying bundles towards a flat for my nipper.

[miga]

.

[PokerTime]

Yeah I get fed up of hearing leftie thrown at anyone who argues for a fairer distribution of income. Capitalism doesn't have to be this way. It CAN be fairer.

I think the article is pretty spot on in some of the observations it makes (especially regarding property and housing). There has been a lot of heads buried in sand over the last 40 years. But blaming the baby boomer generation doesn't sit right with me. Most of them only did what they were told. They went to work, paid into pensions and retired. They were promised something for that. Successive government policy has played a far bigger role in putting us in the mess we are in, by not finding alternatives for declining sources of mass employment, by not preventing the devaluation of labour (wages). It's too easy to look at one generation, with on one hand, the politics of envy (yes the system worked perfectly for them), and on the other, to blame them for living longer.

Are they responsible for the ?28 billion we are spending each year to subsidise the wages of millions of people in full time work because their enployers don't pay enough for them to live on? Understandable if we are talking about a small business that is genuinely struggling, but more often than not we are talking about the min wage jobs offered by the big multi-nationals. Wealth has shifted away from labour (wages) and into capital assets and investments. If we are ever going to rebalance the economy that has to change. National wealth needs to come back into people's pockets. And a capitalist system can deliver that just as easily as what we have now.

[FraddsMan]

steveo Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Here's another perspective: Lewisham Council has

> appropriated my inheritance to pay for care home

> fees while I'm paying bundles towards a flat for

> my nipper.

Never quite understand the "appropriated my inheritance" argument. Two points:

1. Most of our parents generation started with nothing (very much) except the chance to be killed in WWII - so why should we benefit from them.

2. If you're really worried about inheritance - don't sell the property and use the capital to fund care home fees. Let it and use the rent to pay care home fees. That way you / your parent still has the asset.

[steveo]

You're right, except one of the arguments levelled against the boomers is that they somehow ran off with the housing lolly when many are funding their children and their parents.

And no way was the rent on her house going to cover three grand a month care home charges

[FraddsMan]

steveo Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> You're right, except one of the arguments levelled

> against the boomers is that they somehow ran off

> with the housing lolly when many are funding their

> children and their parents.

>

> And no way was the rent on her house going to

> cover three grand a month care home charges

Oh well - it worked well enough for our family. Pension + rent + family support = just enough to cover care home fees in specialist dementia home. In the end it one of netted out - family contribution over time was rewarded by share of inheritance - a bit more than we paid in fees at least. Seemed fair all round.