Baby Boomers - The Largest Ever Smash and Grab

[Huguenot]

They were born between 1945 and 1960

If they're not retired yet, they're about to.

They spent their own savings, but secured themselves final salary pensions from the salaries of their children.

They stripped the world of its resources and frittered them on junk.

They turned our energy reserves into a cocktail of gases overwhelming the ecology of the planet.

They governed over global trade imbalances that threaten the security of our nations.

They demonstrated such irresponsibility and indifference to financial management that they plunged the world into recession.

They still deny it was them - is this really plausible?

[SteveT]

I plead guilty on all charges, I fit that criteria perfectly for being born between those dates.

The facts are that all of the populace living today are responsible to a greater or lesser extent, for indulging in the life of this society, aren't they?

[Tony.London Suburbs]

Born in 1954, so Guilty as Charged.

I'm not into "denial" and have, absolutely no intention of retiring until I've seen off most of the Guys 20 years younger than me.

Indeed I truly feel I'm just at the end of the beginning of my career.

It was mainly others who committed those heinous crimes, not me.

[SteveT]

Tony LS wrote:- I'm not into "denial" and have, absolutely no intention of retiring until I've seen off most of the Guys 20 years younger than me.

I shall not retire until I have gone through the 'dribbling' stage to the shouting loudly at strangers "I'm eighty you know" also 'nurse I need changing'...................and other fun stages of decrepitism.

[louisiana]

Huguenot Wrote:

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

> They were born between 1945 and 1960

1960

>

> If they're not retired yet, they're about to.

The government has increased my retirement age, first from 60 to 65, then later from 65 to 66. So that'll be in 17 years' time.

>

> They spent their own savings, but secured

> themselves final salary pensions from the salaries

> of their children.

Final salary pension worth 2k or thereabouts from the country's biggest scheme, which looks likely to go bust before I ever see it. 2k is about 50 quid a week, before tax. So somewhat less than unemployment benefit.

>

> They stripped the world of its resources and

> frittered them on junk.

Never been on a safari, to Africa, to Australasia, to South America, to Thailand, to Goa...

No weekends in Tallinn or similar...

No car... Cyclist

No babies (and all the consumption they entail)...

>

> They turned our energy reserves into a cocktail of

> gases overwhelming the ecology of the planet.

See above

>

> They governed over global trade imbalances that

> threaten the security of our nations.

There are people who do this stuff, but most of us don't govern.

Some of us campaign against. We are dubbed boring old hippies by those younger than ourselves.

>

> They demonstrated such irresponsibility and

> indifference to financial management that they

> plunged the world into recession.

Mortgages? Debts? Don't go near them.

The irresponsible ones seem to be those under 30 who spent 10x salary on air-filled bricks on the Thames with Berkeley Homes and then wonder where it all went wrong when they're left with a 100k cash gap and are facing bankruptcy.

>

> They still deny it was them - is this really

> plausible?

Who are they? If you're saying all people born between those years, then that's a gross over-generalisation. There are those of us who were coming out of school/university when Thatcher came to power, and faced massive unemployment. And for some, it didn't get much better after that either.

If anything, it was our parent's generation who had it so good:

- full employment almost throughout their working lives, with massive growth in professional and media sectors (late 50s, 60s and most of 70s)

- house prices of one year's salary, only (paying 3-10k for a house in London or large house in SE when they bought)

- beneficiaries of huge house price inflation in subsequent years, with hardly any mortgage

- rarely having to do a proper job (able to take out massive loans on the above for ever and a day, and retiring before crazy hours came around)

- retiring before all the pensions s**t hit the fan, when company schemes had the best benefits (2/3 x salary schemes, which those of us who came later didn't get).

[PeckhamRose]

Born in 58.

Been self employed 30 years so the only benefits I am allowed is maternity, and I never wanted nor did I have, kids.

Started a personal pension plan when 29, but have never been able to afford much, and what is there is very reduced now.

Altho self employed, never earned more than ?15,000 a year and - as I said - not entitled to any benefits.

So sorry if I took anything I was not entitled to.

Please don't tar us all with the same brush!

[louisiana]

I'm with you PR on the self-employed thing. You pay NI (and tax) but don't get much in return.

I'd also point to those able to take advantage of the huge house price rises of the mid-70s, and the massive growth in demand for middle-class jobs in the 60s, as being the main culprits.

So that would be people now in their 60s and 70s, born in the 30s and 40s.

I've seen friends of my parents who've acquired a large house for 3k, sold it for nearly a million, spent years buying and selling slightly smaller but equally exquisite properties, and have never actually done a 40-hour week, anywhere, since they were 25 years old. They've just lived off the proceeds of their periodic house dealing, and are still sitting on properties 'worth' a million or so. And what's more, all those property deals were free of tax. What a way to make a living :-S They have a real problem understanding how hard you and others are working to pay the bills, because they have never had to. For them, money just magically appears in the bank.

[Mick Mac]

Not much of a take up on your argument so far Hugenot.

What I agree with totally is that final salary pensions promised to those of near pensionable age are going to cost the current taxpayer a fortune and the current government has just brought in a 50% tax rate to help them fund this public sector final salary scheme disaster and at the same time as saying certain people have to pay 50% tax, they have prevented the same people gatting higher rate tax relief on their own personal pension contributions. At the same time the benefits to final salary schemes, being in general the pension schemes of the public sector, were unaffected by the new changes other than preventing them being amended to make them more generous, but since they are so incredibly generous already the higher earners in the public sector are unaffected.

Its a disaster. Final salary schemes allow people to earn potentially 2/3 of the highest salary they ever earned, being their salary on retirement. Why would a 65 year old person need this amount of money, they tend to have little outgoings, lots of equity in their homes and all of this is being funded by people in their 30s-50s who are working their asses off with children and mortgages to pay for.

As PR and Louisiana have said, those who have been self employed have not beenfitted from these schemes. The state pension is a completley differnt matter and on its own would be difficult to live on. Public sector final salary pension schemes is an issue that must be resolved soon. The money that these people have put into these schemes would come nowhere near the amount required to pay out the pension they will get - other taxpayers pick up that bill.

[Huguenot]

Ah well, we wouldn't expect the BBs to fall on their swords ;-)

I think history will prove me right. But then that's a Bushism isn't it!

It's mainly titting me off that climate change deniers, that the obstacles to financial reform, that the rapists of the public purse are all in their late fifties / early sixties and apparently motivated only by the desire to live in their fictitious wonderland at the expense of their fellow men and their planet.

These gits demand respect for their elders while they systematically destroy our inheritance.

It's not a catch-all, but the exceptions don't undermine the general conclusion.

[macroban]

Huguenot: It would help your argument if you were to introduce some evidence to support your "general conclusion".

[Jah Lush]

Born in '58. Innocent of all charges.

[louisiana]

Huguenot Wrote:

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

> Ah well, we wouldn't expect the BBs to fall on

> their swords ;-)

>

> I think history will prove me right. But then

> that's a Bushism isn't it!

>

> It's mainly titting me off that climate change

> deniers, that the obstacles to financial reform,

> that the rapists of the public purse are all in

> their late fifties / early sixties

Ahem, you included people in their 40s. That's quite a way from late 50s or early 60s.

[louisiana]

And by the way Huguenot, whenever I mention PO or CC to others, it's mainly the youngsters that seem to believe that 'technology will solve it all, we don't need to worry, BAU'.

It tends to be those 35-55, with a little more historical perspective, who are concerned, and doing something.

The over 60s are generally do-nothing sceptics who believe that even if CC exists, it isn't caused by us humans.

There are exceptions of course.

[Huguenot]

There are of course exceptions, and every one of us is one.

I was more trying to consider the baby boomers as a social movement, a particular umbrella set of values and ambitions. Any individual will only share a few of those values, and in varying degrees. Hence a Get-out-of-jail-free card for us all.

The delusions of youth are of course partly the product of a society created by the baby-boomers, and partly their age. Their education was crippled by the baby boomers who voted for lower taxation, lower educational investment, low paid teachers and sold the playing fields to the superstores....

[louisiana]

FPTP voting system means that most people voted against those things, but got lumbered with them anyway.

[????]

The Sex Pistols had it right "Never trust a hippy" the 60s F*cked up our world, our finances, our education system and our sense of personal responsibility.......music they did ok with..

Hugenot...technically two baby boom generations in the uk - post war 1947 a one off biggest number of births following the 2nd WW...then a baby bulge from 57-64

[LegalEagle-ish]

Yeh, I blame it on the post war baby-boomers. People like my grandad left school at 14 and worked all his life strying to make it better for the next generation - the ones born after the war - then they climbed up the ladder of free health care, education housing etc and when they got into power, they pulled the rug out from the ones coming up behind them.

Plus loads of them got stoned in the 60's, but criminalised the kids born in the 80's, put their own kids into childcare, shoved my grandad's generation into old people's homes and worshipped individualism and selfish consumerism.

Bunch of selfish twats - I agree with you Hugo.

[Townleygreen]

With regard to Mick Mack's points on public sector pensions, I would point out that the Teachers Pension Scheme is fully funded by the profession and there is no input from the government.

I can't speak for the rest of the public sector though!

[macroban]

The Government Actuary thinks "The Teachers? Pension Scheme is an unfunded defined benefits scheme."

At 31 March 2008 it had a deficit of ?176.5m.

Official accounts here.

[Townleygreen]

That is a very small amount out of a large pot. Some years it has a surplus. The pensions are effectively paid by the teachers who are currently working. This is how it has always been apparently.

[helena handbasket]

My parents are baby boomers and I have seen, done, and owned more than they ever will. And I'm nothing special. Put myself through university because my parents didn't have the money, and put off having a family until much later to try get a bit ahead and unload student debt. And we were pretty typical middle class. My friends' parents are the same. Many have had the same sofa and curtains (and towels!) for twenty years. Twenty years! The other day I saw a man in all seriousness try to sell a 1970 model t.v., and you just know that he thought it was perfectly fine. Because that is what the BB's are really like. NOBODY my age will own anything for twenty years.

Gen-exers also travel more. None of this saving for years for our "dream" vacation, nope we book last minute and put it on Visa.

But the biggest sin of our generation is consumerism. Think of the iphone. Retails for maybe ?350? Maybe more? Brand new two years ago and already it's old and creaky because the new one is even better. The BB generation would never have gone along with this. Look how long vinyl lasted. Until the eighties. Until we (their children) shifted the market to cassette, and then c.d., and then mp3, and then and then and then.

People in glass houses.........

[macroban]

The Teachers? Pension Scheme:

I went through several years of accounts before posting. None of those years showed a surplus. Perhaps I didn't go far enough back. In which year was the Scheme last in surplus?

No more than a back of an envelope calculation (and I claim no more): If each not yet retired member of the Scheme had made an additional pension contribution of about ?25k on 31 March 2008 this would have been sufficient to extinguish the deficit. "A very small amount [...]".

It will be interesting to see the Scheme surplus at 31 March 2009 when the accounts are published.

[Huguenot]

As a profession since teaching is paid from the public purse (my family are all teachers BTW, I'm a strong supporter), it would be hard to claim that the scheme is funded by teachers?

My family didn't have second jobs in the private sector from which to contribute funds.

"an unfunded defined benefits scheme" seems fair.

[SteveT]

I hope you are not going off topic Huguenot else we'll find ourselves in the lounge in double quick time.

[Huguenot]

Sure thang SteveT, I don't want the issue to be diverted.

In this case I believe we have a baby-boomer red herring... "We didn't really take it from you, it was our own money"

;-)

However, I'm not trying to do a slag-off on this, just to highlight the example.