Whilst I suspect we generally agree on a lot of things, I think this is an odd post.
Boomers have no idea what it’s like to be at war either.
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[Politics] Are baby boomers taxed enough?
- Thread starter Mustafa II
- Start date
Boomers have no idea what it’s like to be at war either.
LamieRobertson
Not awoke
No may about it ..and having children I’m not blind to the challenges that are out there
- Aug 7, 2003
- 8,072
I guess the fact that I was told from a young age that my Grandfather was murdered by the Russians at Katyn for the crime of being a University Professor and my Dad managed to escape from a train on the way to Siberia, after his family lost everything, and eventually made his way through Switzerland to eventually join the British 8th Army made it pretty real to me. Add the fact that my Dad fought his way through North Africa, into Italy before being wounded in the horrendous carnage at Monte Cassino and was 16 when he joined the army and was just 19 in 1945. He lost his family, home and education but still made something of himself here. I wasn’t there but it’s still very real to me nevertheless.
That’s exactly what the manufacturers and dealers want though - they literally don’t want you to pay the balloon payment. Have a 3 or 4 year PCP, at then end of the term hand the car back and get a new one (on another lucrative PCP obviously). Flash then gets to run round in a brand new car for another 4 years at more or less the same cost.
The people from work in the 20s who I know don’t live at all like I did in my 20s. We were always pissed and most of me and my mates had mortgages. It is so much harder for the youngsters now it is almost surreal it has got like this.
I just don’t see how it is sustainable.
It isn’t sustainable. We are a few years away from societal collapse.
Just like every civilisation before us, we are crumbling.
The only problem we have that they didn’t is that every single country on earth is now part of the same capitalist civilisation. So when it goes down, everyone goes down. Total collapse.
Weststander
Well-known member
Ditto. I spotted the thread from the nsc main page.
Iggle Piggle
Well-known member
- Sep 3, 2010
- 5,929
Fortune and fortunes come and go and can change dramatically through the generations.
On my father’s side, my ancestors were mainly fishermen and crofters in the Outer Hebrides. Very poor folk who struggled for a living. Fortunes changed when my father’s grandfather sent some of his 8 children to the mainland of Scotland for an education. My grandfather became a marine engineer and his two sons, my father and his brother became doctors. Their great grandfather was an illiterate fisherman. My mother’s side came largely from farm labourers in rural England and they never had any money. My mother left home, became a nurse and married my father. My sister and I are comfortably off, but my offspring struggle, although one has a decent job, the other two have problems that I won’t go into here. None of them will have what I had materially at their age, that is in part down to lack of aspiration, but equally due to cost of housing. Yes, if my wife and I don’t need care in our dotage that costs a fortune, then they will inherit some dosh, but even so, my progeny will be less well off than their parents.
After all that waffle, I’m really just saying that however one wants to tinker or alter the tax system to put right perceived societal and generational injustices, it really isn’t going to work, there are too many other variables.
IMHO, two of the biggest problems in our country today are the cost of housing and the cost of social care. Difficult to put right, along with the funding of the NHS. Future politicians must grow some balls and properly tackle these issues, especially if, like some on here, there is a wish to tax boomers wealth. There seems to be a lack of awareness that people of a certain age who have accumulated a degree of wealth do so in the knowledge that they know how much they may have to spend on care costs down the line! If you tax them on this wealth, then they will have less dosh to pay for their own care.
P.S. Mother in law’s nursing home is costing £5000 a month and she is rapidly running out of cash. When she does so, the taxpayer has to step in. There are no easy answers.
On my father’s side, my ancestors were mainly fishermen and crofters in the Outer Hebrides. Very poor folk who struggled for a living. Fortunes changed when my father’s grandfather sent some of his 8 children to the mainland of Scotland for an education. My grandfather became a marine engineer and his two sons, my father and his brother became doctors. Their great grandfather was an illiterate fisherman. My mother’s side came largely from farm labourers in rural England and they never had any money. My mother left home, became a nurse and married my father. My sister and I are comfortably off, but my offspring struggle, although one has a decent job, the other two have problems that I won’t go into here. None of them will have what I had materially at their age, that is in part down to lack of aspiration, but equally due to cost of housing. Yes, if my wife and I don’t need care in our dotage that costs a fortune, then they will inherit some dosh, but even so, my progeny will be less well off than their parents.
After all that waffle, I’m really just saying that however one wants to tinker or alter the tax system to put right perceived societal and generational injustices, it really isn’t going to work, there are too many other variables.
IMHO, two of the biggest problems in our country today are the cost of housing and the cost of social care. Difficult to put right, along with the funding of the NHS. Future politicians must grow some balls and properly tackle these issues, especially if, like some on here, there is a wish to tax boomers wealth. There seems to be a lack of awareness that people of a certain age who have accumulated a degree of wealth do so in the knowledge that they know how much they may have to spend on care costs down the line! If you tax them on this wealth, then they will have less dosh to pay for their own care.
P.S. Mother in law’s nursing home is costing £5000 a month and she is rapidly running out of cash. When she does so, the taxpayer has to step in. There are no easy answers.
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Getting married need not cost very much at all. It is the cost of the OTT wedding ceremonies that some people deem necessary that cost the dosh!
Undeserved? Really? I have worked bloody hard to have what I have and went without for a few years when the mortgage was crippling etc, etc. Jog off you leftie twat!
cjd
Well-known member
Another reminder from my past re "prefabs".
I lived in one, in Mountsorrel Leicestershire for a while with my aunt and four cousins. My parents and brother lived in a one room flat in Brighton. It was only for about 9 months, but I don't ever remember complaining about that...or that I only saw my mother on rare occasions when she could afford to visit. I think this was in the very late fifties..? I was 7 years old.
I top and tailed it in bed with two of my cousins.
We never had it so good , us boomers.
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That is very very true. Stag do costs out of hand too!
A few years is different to what people face now which is 30!
Thunder Bolt
Silly old bat
To be fair his post said parents and families of these so called boomers had to go through in WW2. not the Baby Boomers themselves.
For example, my Dad was 19 when war broke out and 25 when it finished. His youth was stolen from him. He didn't marry until 1947.
Thunder Bolt
Silly old bat
I agree. I got remarried in 1993 and hardly paid anything. Friends and relatives chipped in, making a cake for the price of the ingredients, a friend did our photos as a wedding present, and a dear close friend bought my outfit.
Why shouldn’t people be able to live like “boomers”?
Apart from the environmental impact, which every generation contributes to.
Why can’t we all have decent pensions, jobs for life, superb free healthcare, social mobility. affordable housing?
I mean, I know why. Successive governments have drawn money and resources away from working people and put into the accounts of the super wealthy.
Things get better under labour but they haven’t made a huge effort to stop the transfer of money into the hands of the wealthy and powerful.
It was a golden era and I don’t blame anyone for making the most of it. Who the heck wouldn’t?
Apart from the environmental impact, which every generation contributes to.
Why can’t we all have decent pensions, jobs for life, superb free healthcare, social mobility. affordable housing?
I mean, I know why. Successive governments have drawn money and resources away from working people and put into the accounts of the super wealthy.
Things get better under labour but they haven’t made a huge effort to stop the transfer of money into the hands of the wealthy and powerful.
It was a golden era and I don’t blame anyone for making the most of it. Who the heck wouldn’t?
I know someone who recently paid £600 for a wedding cake.
Fruit cake, marzipan, some icing.
Total rip off and anyone happy to pay that can’t complain about costs!
We got married in a Register Office in 1988 and I think the licence cost £13 or thereabouts. A do in our local pub afterwards and that was that.
Still going strong after 35 years!
Blimey, they must have been a real fruitcake to pay that much.
