Yes the parents of the baby boomers have some culpability but the boomers must take their fair share of the blame also. How they ever thought the welfare ponzi scheme could go on for ever whilst constantly inflating the cost of everything is beyond me. They have a very large portion of their wealth in property. When that very large part of the population begins to retire at the same time and they need to downsize and live off the difference, what is going to happen to their over inflated asset wealth? Of course it is going to go down considerably. So those already doing the sums on current prices (current large home v's future smaller home) are going to get a huge shock when the time comes. You can bet your bottom dollar that the figures of boomers that will require government assistance to live in thier retirements are grossly understated now. Get ready every generation that came behind them, you are about to be put into a situation where you will have to pay for your own retirement and those that went before you at the same time.
I'm not sure I get you... The govt of 1970-2000 has largely consisted of pre-boomers. And the pre-boomer generation no doubt influenced the voting habits of their children, whilst voting themselves. I must say though that I dint hold the pre-boomer generation solely to blame, I just think they get overlooked in these discussions. I think I feel most sorry for gen X... They're at a point in life where they are least flexible to dealing with the fallout of the retirement crisis and the onset of a new paradigm. They've largely been in the shadow of boomers their whole lives and now they get this mess. And the Super they saved might amount to not much by the time they get to retire. I think gen Y has enough time to manage changes to retirement ok.
I dont understand the angst among this generation about having to pay for the last or next generation Its always been the same & will always be the same .Ive never once heard any other generation complain about it .. I would say everyone of the boomers that are entitled to it will put their hand out whether they need it or not . Thats the way it gets after paying tax for 40 or 50 years ....you want some of it back . When you guys have worked for that long you will too . Im 50 in a few weeks & am not entitled to anything at this stage but when the time comes i will be there with bells on & my hand out like a beggar . Ive been working since i was 15 & even now after 35 years of working i want some back in another 15 years of paying i will want it even more & i couldnt care who has to pay for it . Ive paid my fair share plus extra so im taking every penny im entitled to Should i be angry because my father is on the pension ? Im not because i understand how much he has put into the system & believe that what he is getting is a drop in the bucket compared to what he has paid . The same applies to any other pensioner who has worked their entire life paying .....paying & paying . These people are the ones who helped build this country & make it what it is today & as far as im concerned i dont mind my taxes paying for them .
+1 Should simply refer reno to the old Friday Night Hypothetical thread that discussed this a few months ago. Answers are all there.
Yep, never had a problem paying taxes to fund those who have paid taxes all their life. Unfortunately, most of my tax money goes to people who are of similar age to me, but choose to sit at home, doing nothing with their lives and breeding more scum, just like themselves.
Yep thats mine .... my head looks 100 though :lol:. Years of hard work ,sport & healthy living .Thats why i liked your post above about health . Whats the point in planning for retirement if your cactus & cant enjoy it . ...
+1 for openness However, aren't taxes for more than just retirement? The superannuation system is intended to rid the govt of the need to pay for everyones retirement, and pensions are the catchall for people who didn't work enough to get enough Super. So someone who did work, then cashing in on govt benefits is actually costing latter generations more than expected. It could be called greed. Obviously that doesn't fully apply to those who didn't get to take advantage of the super system. But you'd also think that the last decade of gains would make up for that, unless they own no assets which is a wtf moment.
The tax breaks given to "self funded" retires are actually now worth about the same as the equivalent pension liability. That is, there is almost no benefit to the taxpayer in having a private superannuation system over having a government pension system. If I remember correctly, the tipping point where the super system is more expensive than the pension system is only a few years off, assuming all the tax breaks stay in place and Baby Boomers keep loading all their available earnings into super accounts.
^ very interesting. Although I assume this works on 'expected revenue' models? A persons behaviour with a tax break not necessarily being the same behaviour without the tax break...
Yep .You only get one life make the most of it . IT IS NOT A DRESS REHEARSAL. Edit ..sounds like my old man last time i seen him he was up a double extension ladder with a chainsaw cutting down a palm tree (hes 79 ) lol
My point was that voting has little or nothing to do with setting policy or passing legislation. I doubt a majority voted for GST? Income Tax? Fuel Levies? Terrorism Laws? Yet we have all those.
Sorry, my brain's switched off. So some of the money the tax payers could be paying is currently going into their super fund rather than into general current expenditure or current tax cuts. The purpose is so that they have more funds in their super account and aren't relying as much on the next generations taxes to pay for their welfare "entitlements". So overall (ignoring little tax band effects) the boomers are currently paying more in tax/mandated savings now so that the future tax payers pay less for the boomers retirement. How is this an "expense" that is regarded as bad? Am I missing what your saying?
Representative democracy means that the majority almost never vote for legislation. Overall this is a great thing compared to true democracy.
What are you talking about? There won't be any generation behind me paying for my government mandated pension scheme. Yes sure the boomers are entitled to it they and their parents. They were sold a shit sandwich, a system that encouraged them to pay obscene levels of tax for the promise of a government pension. Only it is their kids that will have to eat that sandwich. You haven't heard any other generation complain because they haven't faced the eating of the shit sandwich. I totally get the fact that their pensions were spent on building the country we have today, and hence I will never advocate throwing them under a bus. It was a system that was a bad idea then as it is now. All we behind you can hope for is to change the system so that after we have finished paying for your retirements and our own, we don't repeat the same mistakes again.
Don't worry Bordsilver, Big A.D. As usual, is only concerning himself with what is seen and couldn't care less about what is not seen. He still can't reconcile that a system that takes 10c so it can give you 8c back has some serious inerrant flaws in it. BTW the GST was put to an election, and the party that was pushing for it won it on its own merit.
+1. That's basically it. It's a bad system doomed to failure. If it worked how it was sold then it would be all good and well, but anyone who's being honest about the numbers knows that it doesn't. I do get annoyed with this "building the nation" crap though. So the boomers didn't get paid for "building the nation"? And what about today's generations who are still building and maintaining the nation but won't get the same benefits? This is the problem I have with all this jingoism designed to make people feel guilty so they'll open their wallets and not ask questions. I've had it up to here with all the guilt and fear-mongering that goes on in this society and it's all associated with government in one way or another and all unjustified. Let's stick to the facts.
Er...maybe. There are a fair number of loopholes in the super system. For example, one of them is called the "transition to retirement" where people born before 1960 can access their super as a regular income stream (not as a lump sum). This means that if they're still working, they can load their salary directly into their super fund up to the maximum voluntary contribution limit and then pull it straight back out again as an "income stream" and pay 15% tax instead of, say, 37% or 45%. Now, that's all fine and perfectly legal and everything but all those tax concessions add up to the point where these people aren't really "self funded" because they're still relying on the government - they're just relying on the government letting them keep more of their earnings up front rather than the government taking some and then giving them cash later. The way it's playing out, they're relying more on the younger generations of taxpayers to keep paying for everything except pensions which is still quite a lot of stuff. Essentially, the younger generations will still end up paying for the older generation's retirement, but how they pay for it isn't as obvious. [Edit] And that's not a complaint either, just something worth noting.
