Just seen a news report saying "Britain must brace itself for decades of austerity even after George Osborne's spending squeeze, to pay the price for an ageing population, the independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) warned on Wednesday". (here is the link to the article I read - www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/jul/13/age-austerity-continue-decades-obr?CMP=twt_gu )

It seems that because we are living longer, pension and healthcare costs are landing the country in hock. This may be the case but I can't believe that the blame for public spending can be laid so squarely at our door...we've spent our entire working lives paying our national insurance thank you. There are plenty of other groups who also play their part in using public funds so I think that "paying the price for an ageing population" is a bit rich. Love to know your thoughts

Good grief; so they're blaming us now! Why isn't there a 'ministry for forward planning' [I believe they have one in Japan].What about drug abusers, work shy etc [I know there's more to drug abuse including young people having no hope of getting work etc so feel bad mentioning them]. He's said this because you can't be many 'ists' in this country but you can be ageist it appears. We've always know there will be an ageing population. Create work for the unemployed and there will be more people paying taxes to subsidise 'us'. Anyways; once people have to work till they're 69 they will probably keel over and die the minute they retire..that will solve the problem[aha; perhaps there is a 'ministry for forward planning after all .

So they are saying there are too many grannies?! How can it be our fault? So many of us would love to be working longer and contributing to society but we get pushed out of jobs. So often people don't take us seriously because they are ageist (they will be older too one day - and sooner than they think!)

We have so much to offer to society but this report is simply encouraging us to see ourselves as dependent and useless. It's all a vicious circle.

I do wish the government and pundits would stop talking about our generation as if we have all just suddenly appeared out of the blue at more or less pension age like Athena springing fully armed from the head of Zeus. Umpteen previous governments have had decades to plan for a boom in oldies in the early twenty-first century and have also had decades of an adult population bulge working and paying taxes and NI. I refuse to accept the blame for austerity measures throughout society, particularly when there is an almost endless list of failed, cancelled and over-budget projects, thanks to government inefficiency at best and jobs for the boys at worst. How many extraordinarily expensive computer systems have been commissioned only to prove unfit for purpose and been scrapped? What about all those regional emergency centres – fire service? – all standing empty, unused and being paid for? What about £375 million – at the last count, probably lots more now – spent bombing Libya and some unrevealed but horrendous sum of money chucked away over the last ten years in Afghanistan? (Note any military families, that is a comment about politicians not a criticism of soldiers, sailors or airmen.) What about buying aircraft carriers when there are no planes to put on them and we shall, presumably, have managed perfectly well without them for the 10 years it will take for them to be built – if they are delivered on time?

We are being made the patsy's here and being blamed, as you have said we have worked all our lives and paid our taxes and insurances. There is never any mention of increasing the income tax paid by the higher earners you notice! I feel sure that it would have been better not to cut quite so severely thus creating more unemployment and less money in the economy for businesses to start or grow. The role of the banks seems to have been forgotten. On a programme on Radio 4 today it was pointed out that at the end of the last government our debt was relatively small and that it was the subsequent world banking problems that exacerbated everything. My heart bleeds for our children and grandchildren, their future seems far from bright at the moment.

And what about the money being spent on developing and producing Trident, a deterrent to what? The cost has been estimated at between £80 billion and £100 billion over Trident's lifetime of around 40 years.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/parties_and_issues/8636879.stm

Outrageous brat! (Osbo not you Annobel) Now you know why i refer to Dave as "the boy". Disadvantage of having such youngsters in power.
There is a similar theme along the lines of "Baby boomers have all paid off their mortgages, have benefitted from housing market and are living the life of riley" that I have heard a few times. Followed by the implication that younger people should be envious and resentful because they cant get on the housing ladder.
A decade to pay for the bloated lifestyles and mistakes of a small group of bankers more like.
Divisive stuff.

It is not just national insurance, most of us have worked, full or part time for mast of our working years so have paid income tax and VAT..

The problem is they only look at what older people cost the state , they do not consider what we contribute. There was a report came out recently that looked at the full picture of older people within the economy and overall we were net contributors, yes, from the public expenditure point of view we cost more than we paid in on current spending but we had pensions which we spent in the shops and this contributed to employment and taxation as most of our purchases included the payment of VAT. Many of those of us with occupational pensions (men & women) also paid income tax plus there was the money we saved the state in child care, care for the disabled, the voluntary service we do (where do all those charities running the Big Society get their volunteers from? many, if not most, are over 60) plus much of the infra structure of the country, schools, hospital, roads etc etc were paid for by the taxation we paid when we were in work.

If we cost more when we are older it is simply a case of payback time.

Unless we are on the lowest pension, most of us are still paying tax anyway.

I do so agree with all the above points on the subject of lack of forward planning and vilification of the older person. whta they dont seem to have taken into account is that older people are so much healthier than the previous generation who suffered poverty, poor healthcare, poor housing, the war and a much harder physical working life. I think the figures are overstated and dont take into account how we live now, how mcuh better care people are taking of themselves and improvements in health care and medicine.

You are right about that susieb. Those who grew up in the war years in particular had a really bad time with diseases like rheumatic heart disease. They missed out on childhood vaccinations. Also there was a lot of propaganda encouraging them to smoke because it dulled the appetite during rationing. Us babyboomers have had much more healthy lives and the benefit of knowledge on ill effects of smoking etc

Children born during the war were some of the best nourished and best supported there have been. Pregnant women for the first time received free ante natal care by right and got extra rations including milk to ensure that the baby thrived in the womb and the mother was as healthy as possible for the birth. The children got all the available vaccinations, we had special rations plus vitamin supplements (cod liver oil, orange juice concentrate and, I think, malt) and free milk. This continued when we went to school and the free 1/3pt of milk that we received in primary and secondary school.

During the 1950s I can remember a lot of publicity saying that the 'war babies were growing up to be healthier than any previous generation.

It may be that those of us born since 1939 may live longer but be much healthier so that our need for care will not be as high as forecasters expect. Presumable their forecasts are based on the care needs of the elderly over the last 10 years. That will include, as Susie CB and JessM point out many people whose childhood and early adult years were spent in deprivation and who were involved in the war as soldiers, downmines and doing war work.

Sorry yes you are right FlicketyB the earlier generations were even worse off but the wartime kids were a lot worse off than post war generation.
I was thinking of my poor MIL who has had a lifetime of ill health and lived in an industrial area. They spent every night sleeping in a damp Anderson shelter and mother used to give father the lion's share of food because he was a steel worker. I think probably only smallpox vaccination available and no antibiotics of course.
What I really should have said is that us postwar babies had a much better start in life and, as long as they have stayed off the demon weed, are likely to have far fewer health problems in their 60s and 70s - the timeline has shifted and we will get the health problems in 80s and 90s.

I agree with all the above posts. Here in Australia they are brainwashing youngsters that there will be no money for pensions when they are old, so they must save. However, everyone gets superannuation paid by their employers: this has been compulsory since the mid 1990s, people can contribute extra themselves if they want, and there is the old age pension available for those who do not have a private pension, and did not get superannuation paid because they were too old (like me) when the system came in.

While gray power exists, old age pensions will continue here and the UK. The government and superannuation companies are running a scare and guilt campaign which is appalling. If any government thinks they can nobble the pension, they must be insane. Any party going to general election while threatening the security of older voters will lose.

Who do they think they're kidding?

As long as we have the vote, they dare not hurt us.

Our grandson has additional needs. I think social services should give us the same support that my daughter and son-in-law get. We do a lot of caring without all the bits and bobs. We have to get toys/equipment via freecycle or charity shops, as buying new would be a terrific waste of dwindling funds as our grandson may not be able to use the things afterall, despite our wishful thinking. The biggest drawback is a disabled parking badge, - only one per family, and I will not let the badge go in his school bad for us then to use, just in case it gets lost (that would be disasterous). I don't know what the alternative is!

He and his parents are so lucky to have your support.
Suggest you write to David Cameron - having had a disabled child himself, he should have some understanding. Although of course he has never been short of a bob or two. Even so they must have had logistical problems.
Copy in your MP. Sometimes people will jump around and bend the rules if the MP gets involved. If you write to your MP via writetothem website they will respond, and will nearly always "stick their oar in" by writing to the agency involved.
Alternatively maybe the school could help in some way by ensuring disabled badge is kept safely for you during the day?

So sorry for being a baby boomer, even for being born in 1948 ( a classic vintage, I gather). So sorry I am still alive too!
I agree with you all: take account of us for we are legion and we vote!
I paid into my pension, have used the NHS barely at all, but I fear it won't be there when I need it. I still pay tax and would be willing to pay eg self employed rate NI even though I do not work: I am a fully paid up member of society, so there! Yes, I have benefits: a bus pass, worth a lot, and my winter fuel allowance, but it doesn't make me a scrounger or a burden on society. If I only had my state pension, I'd need all the help i could get, but that wouldn't be my fault; rather a fault of the inadquate pension planning from HMG.
Like many of us, I by-passed the money from the sale of my late mother's small house to my children so they could buy a house; I paid them through uni, though no fees, thank God; I support them even now when the going gets tough. I give my time through volunteering. I'm not unusual, just fed up with being blamed for existing, like the rest of you.
It is, indeed, not as if THEY didn't know we were coming.

As FlicketyB mentions we are still contributing towards society. At 67 years old I'm still working albiet parttime, have never collected unemployment benefit and for a short time collected single parent when my ex and I parted company. I did all kinds of work to ensure that I could pay my mortgage for my own place. Not expecting the council to rehouse me as a lone parent, like so many young girls do today. It just didn't occur to me. As for being a burden, happily I'm still very healthy - in fact my daughter visits her GP far more often then I do. I have 2 work pensions and one state pension - none of them huge amounts. Just with my salary I can have a normal life, my mortgage is now paid for - yipee!!! If I continue to be in good health I intend to live in my flat until I'm carried out in my wicker coffin.

When we are not busy being a burden we had better get out there and do that big society thing that Dave is so keen on. Oh darn, I forgot, we were already hard at it before he came up with such as silly phrase.
I still can't believe that Osbo so stupid. He knows that the great Brit public either blames the bankers or Labour. What is he thinking?

Sorry i am ranting in a knee jerk manner without having read original post. Not osbo. eat words.

Too many grannies? What bullshit! Too many overpaid bankers and CEOs of big corporations, too many arms merchants making obscene profits by selling weapons of mass (and individual) destruction, too many "nuclear deterrents" which deter nobody and are all under the control of the US anyway. Too many millionaires in the government, who have never had to scrape to pay a bill in their entire lives. Too many royals and their myriad hangers-on. Too many dishonest or just plain incompetent politicians.
Better stop there before I start using bad language! Born just in time for WWII, worked since I was 17, paid taxes, rates, NI all my life. Raised five children, all hard-working.
Maybe I should start my own political party. How about OCWA? (Old Cows with Attitude) - do you think it would catch on?

I felt quite affronted when David Willett's declared a few years ago that the post-war generation had benefitted from so much and he, or at least those reporting on his book/speech, made out that we had stolen the futures of the next generation. Yes, we are a very fortunate generation benefitting from the NHS, free University education, good schools (some of us), pensions at 60, no world wars (yet) etc etc., owning our own houses early (some of us). This allowed the social mobility that politicians are now trying to recreate.
What should we have done? Foreseen the future? Said no thank you to a University grant or I won't make a profit on my house in a rising market in case it looks unfair to the next generation in 40 years time?
His words have given some of the next generation the perfect excuse to blame us and shift responsibility from their own shoulders. They forget that, at least in my case, we had few of the opportunities they have had while growing up - no holidays, no TV, record player, car etc, no multiple Gap years, often no careers of our choice, lower wages than men in the same jobs, poor childcare, working hard with little time for going out, not buying things until they could be afforded, University education for only a few, no extended adolescence into your 30s, poor contraception and/or strict moral upbringings leading to the social norm for marrying early or suffering social stigma if you got pregnant if unmarried. If we went wrong anywhere it was probably wanting our kids to have opportunities and things we didn't have. Looking at the fortunes of my friends' offspring, some have more material wealth than we had, but at a greater cost to family life, while others have far less and are being rescued in the family version of the Big Society - the bank, supermarket, travel service, advice agency, childcare service etc of Mum & Dad. The changes in fortunes are a matter of fact that we all have to take responsibility for sorting out now, not a matter of blame of one generation by another. What are the current generation meant to be predicting about their children's fortunes in 30 years time? Will they be blamed for having grandparents who retired 'young' & were available for childcare?

Interestingly, I'm just back from Germany where the same arguments are being made about inter-generational injustice.

Oh nice rant Gadaboutgran. Me like. Even those of us women who were lucky enough to go to university in the 50s and 60s and 70s faced huge disadvantages when it came to careers.

I agree we had huge advantages - schools, free university, job opportunities, introduction of equal pay just as I started working. BUT I was horrified the other day to hear the son of a friend planning to buy an X-Box with his EMA cash. This Educational Maintenance Allowance is meant to be paid to help families to keep their children at school post-16 when they would otherwise find it hard going. It should cover basics like bus fares, lunches etc. He has just been given £150 to see him through school hols and plans to spend it on this TOY. Having worked and paid my dues all my life - and still paying income tax - I have to question this!!

Let's not forget that this government is very talented at divide and rule. It's probably all their talented at.

Well said, gadabout.