Baby Boomers must die...

[rah]

She's still in college so not yet. But despite my best efforts she's still the princess. It would have probably been easier if she had been a boy.
So you're home from college now, IT"S TIME FOR THE REAL WORLD. You have 90 days and then we're moving to florida and you'll be on your own.

[Ming]

Originally posted by rah
So you're home from college now, IT"S TIME FOR THE REAL WORLD. You have 90 days and then we're moving to florida and you'll be on your own.

That's treating her just like we were. I remember our dad and I having a little chat when I got home after graduation... It went kind of like...

"You have 10 weeks, and that's it... get a job, a place to live... and feel free to visit on the holidays"

[Dauphin]

Hmm, maybe that explains why you like to punish little children on the internet.

[Ming]

Originally posted by Dauphin
Hmm, maybe that explains why you like to punish little children on the internet.

Nahhh... all it explains is that our parents wanted to teach us to be responsible for ourselves... which IMHO is a good thing

[Drogue]

This is a long reply, so I'll put the key point first:

Originally posted by Ming
So true... if we wanted something, we were told to go out and earn the money ourselves. We didn't expect it to be handed to us. The current generation thinks they have the right to have all these things, and that they should be handed to them.

So I laugh at many of the comments here. Yeah, we were big into material things... but we went out and earned them. We didn't whine that they should be handed to us

This is the point - if you wanted something, you went out and bought it with your money. It was your money. We don't want anything handed to us, we just don't want to hand you money because you guys didn't have the forethought to save some of that money you were busy spending on those material thigns you wanted. Yes, you earned money to buy those things, but you spent it, and now you come to us asking us to continue to let you buy those things when you stop earning money.

No-one here is asking for handouts, we just want what you had - the right to use the money we earn to provide for ourselves and our futures. That's the key. So any notion of entitlement we have to anything beyond the money we earn is ill-placed, as it's not us wanting to spend the money of others

Originally posted by Ming
Yeah... some morons haven't. Others of us did.

True, but as a generation. It's not dissing any individual, but as a generation, on aggregate, you guys didn't save enough.

Originally posted by Ming
My gripe is that promises were made, and some of us have paid big bucks into the system. We aren't asking for a hand out, or something that wasn't earned. Hell, if I could have taken the money I was forced to put into the system and invested it, I would be far better off.

We were forced to pay into a system. It was done on the promise that each generation was paying for the one that came before and that when our turn came, we would get something out of it. It was very clear early on that this pyramid scheme wasn't going to work in the long run due to the changing demographics. But no real changes were made, and my generation is basically getting screwed. Sure, later generations will be screwed as well, unless real changes are made in the whole system. And that might still happen. The current generation may actually do well if a better system is put in place long before they actually have to contribute large ammounts of money into the current system. Who knows.

I'm just not very happy that I was forced to live up to my end of the deal, and the other side won't live up to their end of the deal.

You're exactly right - false promises were made. People were promised things that became unable to deliver. And it's now a choice of either deliver less, or screw the next generation to pay for it. The money you paid in is gone, and most policies suggest that in 50 years, we won't have comfy social security in the same way. So either you guys get nothing and we don't pay; you guys get what you were promised and we pay twice; or you guys get part of what you were promised and we pay for ourselves and that part you get. The latter sounds easily the fairest to me.

We're saying that rather than you getting screwed, or us getting screwed, that we all get screwed a little.

Originally posted by rah
And future generations will have fewer children.
And as stated. I've put more into SS than it would have cost to cover my retirement. It will probably cover at least 3 peoples retirement. SO I think I should be able to enjoy retirement without feeling guilty. I've worked for over 40 years straight and figure after another 5 or so, I deserve a little rest. After you've worked for 45 years to raise a family, you can judge me
I also expected SS to be screwed up before I could benefit and have made other plans. All I'm hoping is for SS to supplement it a touch.

Forsight, Planning, execution of the plan.
Things that made our generation great

Your generation should try it. It's quite successful.

That's what we're doing! You're looking at this the wrong way - I accept you've paid in plenty and deserve to have a comfortable retirement. The problem is most of your generation didn't plan. They didn't save. That's the problem we're now faced with. In the UK at least, it's drummed into us at school that we have to save. Hell, we even now have compulsory employee pension schemes unless you opt-out, in addition to the state second pension compulsory scheme.

However when it comes to social security, you've missed one crucial thing:

After you've worked for 45 years to raise a family, you can judge me.

That's blatantly untrue. While I'm paying for your retirement, I can judge you. (by you and your I mean generation, not personally, obviously!). And we're not judging you, but we also weren't the ones to promise you that money, and we're being made to pay for it. It's quite reasonable, considering we've resigned ourselves to the fact that we'll have to pay for our own retirement ourselves, that we don't want to pay for your too*. However as I've said earlier, we need a halfway position.


*as an aside, in the UK, with the huge house price rises, it now means most pensioners are sitting on small fortunes in their property. This adds to the resent, not just as it means they're rich, but also because it's forced prices up to the level where the young can't afford them. So we have young people, unable to afford a house, paying the pensions of people living in those same houses that we can't afford to buy. It's one thing to pay for the poorer to have a reasonable quality of life, but quite another to be paying for the lifestyle of people richer than us, a lifestyle we can't afford for ourselves.

Originally posted by rah
And the comments that we spent more money on ourselves. I have to laugh.

I didn't say more money, I said a higher percentage of your lifetime income. Income were higher for you than for previous generations (I bet you did expect a TV and a family car, when the generation before you didn't). And they'll be higher for future generations than for us. But the major issue is that the baby boomers generation has paid the smallest proportion of their income to either pay for other's retirement or provide for their own. This is because there were lots of you to pay for your parents retirement, and not many retirees then. Yet you also figures, since earlier generations had relied on the next generation, so could you,a nd you (as a generation) spent your income. However the flip side of there being so many of you to spread the cost of the previous generation means there are lots of you to support now, and for longer periods of time.

I don't know about Generation X, but I'd strongly argue our generation isn't about entitlement, it's about that we are happy being self-sufficient, paying our own way. We just don't want to pay your way too, whatever you were promised by previous governments. However we accept we have to pay some of your way too, since you were promised it. But to pay it all would be a mockery of the self-reliance your generation taught us. A little of that yourselves wouldn't have gone amiss

Originally posted by rah
No, my daughter is turning 20 this year so that's my current experience. Most of the kids I know in their 20's are still living at home working and soaking off their parents.

We have an interesting thing in our house - next year my dad starts getting the state pension, and I start paying tax. We've swapped over directly.

Originally posted by rah
Our revenge will be when your children grow up and start the same crap. But we'll be dead and not care.

But when we grow up, we don't get to rely on our children to pay for our retirement. That's the difference

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Ming
Nahhh... all it explains is that our parents wanted to teach us to be responsible for ourselves... which IMHO is a good thing

You'd wonder where it went to, this responsible for yourselves Obviously you guys were taught well, but the rest of your generation...

[MRT144]

Originally posted by Ming


So true... if we wanted something, we were told to go out and earn the money ourselves. We didn't expect it to be handed to us. The current generation thinks they have the right to have all these things, and that they should be handed to them.

you raised us, or made half assed attempts at it. what have boomers ever done to tell us otherwise?

[Ming]

Originally posted by Drogue
Yes, you earned money to buy those things, but you spent it, and now you come to us asking us to continue to let you buy those things when you stop earning money.

First... many of us haven't "spent it"
And no, we aren't coming to you and asking for anything beyond living up the promises made to us.
Again... we were forced to live up to our side of the agreement... which was paying far more into a system that we would ever get back. Now we just ask for what was promised. NOTHING MORE

No-one here is asking for handouts,

Neither are we...just asking for some of what we were forced to put in

we just want what you had - the right to use the money we earn to provide for ourselves and our futures.

That's not what we had... we were forced to fund the retirement of others... I wish you would have what we had

I don't know about Generation X, but I'd strongly argue our generation isn't about entitlement, it's about that we are happy being self-sufficient, paying our own way. We just don't want to pay your way too.

We feel the same way... and we didn't have a choice.
We were forced into it

And again... MANY of us will have what we need for retirement. But that doesn't mean that after having to live up to my end of the deal, that I think the other side shouldn't live up to their end of the deal. We call that being fair

[Ming]

Originally posted by Drogue

You'd wonder where it went to, this responsible for yourselves Obviously you guys were taught well, but the rest of your generation...

And actually, I can say the same about you. You seem to get the "responsible for yourself" point of view... but the rest of your generation

[SlowwHand]

Do you want to know the problem in this discussion?
I've said it many times before. The premise of the thread topic concentrates on "all".

Let's repeat the axiom again, class.
Generally speaking, it's ususally ill-advised to use the following terms in a statement:

All
None
Always
Never

Thank you for your attention. I think this may resolve the discussion.

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Ming
First... many of us haven't "spent it"

True, but if all of you hadn't, there wouldn't be any issue

Originally posted by Ming
And no, we aren't coming to you and asking for anything beyond living up the promises made to us.

True, but promises made by others. If I were to promise you that rah would hand you a check for $1000 tomorrow, that wouldn't make you entitled to it. I do see that it's somewhat different from your point of view (with it being a government doing the promising), but from our point of view it still seems unfair.

Originally posted by Ming
That's not what we had... we were forced to fund the retirement of others... I wish you would have what we had

But the retirement of the few of the generation above who lived to be over 65. We have to fund the masses of you who did. There's a huge difference in magnitude.

Originally posted by Ming
But that doesn't mean that after having to live up to my end of the deal, that I think the other side shouldn't live up to their end of the deal. We call that being fair

The other side? Surely that's where your point falls - the other side is already dead. You received their inheritance. We were never any side in it.

I broadly agree with you, I just think the promises made to you, aside from the (in actually side point) that they weren't made by the people having to pay for them, were far to generous. Politicians made promises to get your vote, knowing they'd be retired when it came around to paying time. Even if you had had a funded system, your generation, as a whole, has paid far less into social security than it would get out, were it to get everything promised. You were, in effect, promised a very-much-cut-price-lunch, and now it's expected that we pay for the rest of it.

Originally posted by Ming
And actually, I can say the same about you. You seem to get the "responsible for yourself" point of view... but the rest of your generation

I'm not so sure, due to inertia, it's expected that the new compulsory funded savings system will mean all of my generation pays for their own retirement, if they worked. State pensions should be for the poor only, and will be by the time I retire. We don't have a choice but to save, and we're being told it quite plainly.

[Ming]

Originally posted by Drogue
The other side? Surely that's where your point falls - the other side is already dead. You received their inheritance. We were never any side in it.

With that logic, neither were we. I never had a "choice" in it. We had a gun put to our head and said "you will pay for the sins of your fathers"... and we did.

And yes, those promises were made by the government. And all I'm asking is that the govenment live up to those promises since I lived up to mine

When you make a deal and live up to your side of the contract, don't you expect the other party to live up to theirs? Or do you think it only applies if it's your generation and not mine

[MRT144]

by living up to our end we will have to sacrifice more than you did and recieve nothing to show for it.

[Ming]

Originally posted by MRT144
by living up to our end we will have to sacrifice more than you did and recieve nothing to show for it.

And the Government needs to fix that... since they are the ones brokering the deal

[SlowwHand]

Don't expect a lemming shuffle off a cliff over it.
I already said, you're stuck with me.