BABY BOOMERS ARE BRITAIN'S SECRET MILLIONAIRES
Those retiring now are richer than they think and they are sending Britain broke.
This photo was then captioned :Many pensioners can look forward to comfortable retirements including foreign holidays
So what has young Phillip got to say about me and my fellow post World War Baby Boomers ? Well, apparently we :
* are 'up in arms', for being criticised for 'stealing from the younger generation'.
* as a group, are far from 'homogeneous' and rich and poor are both found in our cohort, yet the accusation that we are protecting ourselves 'at the expense of everyone else still stands', because 'relatively ordinary' boomers among us will retire as 'millionaires paid for by younger workers'.
* as BT engineers on £60,000, marketing managers on £80,000 or teachers on £35,000, will 'all be in the millionaire bracket' when we retire, after paying only a fraction of the cost.
* as teachers, for example, will qualify for a £20,000-a-year pension which will cost 'between £700,000 and £800,000 to provide' and if we add our house worth £300,000, are millionaires.
* every street in the south-east has a rich one of us, if not 10 and the suburbs of our major cities are no different, with us jetting off on 4 or 5 holidays a year and driving gas-guzzling 4x4s.
* are all 'in the stratosphere compared with everyone else scrabbling for pennies' and with millions more of us having our hand-out as a reward for retiring, we, as a country, will soon be broke.
* have convinced ourselves that we have paid our way while, increasingly, 'there are academic papers showing that this is simply not true' and most of us have no idea that a pension promise or the trebling of house prices was so harmful.
Of the 82 comments the Phillip's article generated, I particularly likes these :
From 'Johnd44' :
'I am over 65. I worked all my life, straight from school, paid into a pension fund, bought a house, paid my mortgage, sent my children to university.
All my money went on giving my children the start in life that I never had. I never went abroad or flew until I was 50. I can count the number of times I've flown or been abroad on the fingers of one hand and that was when I was working.
But, Hey, No problems. I'm a millionaire. Nobody ever told me before. Perhaps that is why I've kept it a secret all these years. I'll just break off writing this to go to the bank and get out some of the money that I never knew I had. I'll give my neighbour a shout so he can come with me and get out some of the money he never knew he had as well.
Another thing that I never knew. I'm a Tory voter. Well I never. I always thought I voted Labour. I need a new pair of glasses so that I can read the ballot paper next time.
Thanks for putting me right. I always thought it was the politicians, big business and the bankers who got us in this mess. I am so very sorry for all the damage I've caused.'
From 'ordinateur' :
So John Major's 'teacher in the woolly sweater and battered sedan' is now a retired millionaire ?
We had similar rubbish on this 'pensioner bashing' theme from this guy last month.
For every pensioner swimming in the warm sea how many more are struggling to pay energy bills ? This is straight from the Goebbels propaganda textbook.
The next article will probably be on re-opening the workhouses ready for Mr. Inman's retirement.
From 'Willbe42' :
Also, retired people should be made to stay at home over the weekend, with all there doddering about and shopping done during the working week so they don't, get in my way driving 20 in a 30 or shuffle down the supermarket fruit aisle 'squeezing things'.
Seriously though, how long till the youth decide to take it back. I am fully expecting no help when i get to retirement age in (currently) 30 years.
P.S. On the subject of 'millionaires', my favourite clip from the comedy series 'Only Fools and Horses' where the 2 brothers, Del Boy and Rodney, who after running a second hand goods business for years and dreaming of becoming millionaires, finally do just that :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkkzmCRgkaA
Me and Del Boy's car last year :
My posting :
http://britainisnocountryforoldmen.blogspot.com/2010/09/britain-is-country-of-old-men-who.html
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