Absolutely spot on. The pitching of arguments as boomers vs the rest is a divisive and unhelpful an argument as blaming everything on immigrants. It diverts attention from the real problems which suits the populists, especially those on the Right, just fine.
You are so right, I have to say, having turned 80 yesterday I feel that I’m an unwanted burden on society, yet luckily so far haven’t needed too much help. I am however very frightened for my future
Apart from the expense of having and raising children, when I was young I wasn’t sure I wanted to bring a child into this world with its turmoil and hatred. Fortunately, this was taken out of my hands when I turned 40, and a tiny premature son came into my life. He’s now 28 and is scraping by in rented accommodation, and working 12 hour shifts to make rent.
There are many out there in a worse situation, and I wouldn’t not want him to be here, but in my meandering way, I’m not surprised our birth rate is falling, there is no incentive to bring a human into “being” in this country anymore (in my opinion) unless you are in the 1% at the top of the pile.
We do need immigration, it seems we always have, yet the “right” use it to stir up hatred for people arriving here, without understanding that they are just pushing us (and the country they purport to “love”) into a downward spiral. The politics of the short sighted.
Excuse after excuse..in order to excuse... the greedy,profit making fat cats...reform,tories who will bethe only ones to gain ..once again..Pensioners are easy targets same as its always been.
One of the problems with the continuing compartmentalisation of social media is that these posts are only read by people who follow, and likely agree with, the Bear's viewpoint. As indeed do I. It would be very interesting to hear the reasoned argument from someone from Reform or similar, who genuinely believes that immigration is the problem. Without that we are living in our own bubble.
Ah well therein lies a problem. You can't get a 'reasoned' argument in immigration from those who are against it as that view (when sincerely meant rather than a distraction) is based on xenophobia/racism which is not reasonable.
I agree. I am just naively wishing for a reasoned debate between differing viewpoints that leads to their saying "sorry, you're right, we need more immigration". And then wanting to rejoin the EEC with free movement. I will grow up one day.....
The right is not bothered about the problem: their solution is to unravel public services to reduce taxation, and to kill off as many old people as possible (indirectly of course). They did this in 2010-24: look at how the improvement in life expectation stopped sharply in 2010 (not at the financial crisis in 2007-8), and how the life expectation for over 65s actually fell during the last few Tory years.
I saw just such a scenario in the Fire Service Pension Scheme (FSPS - declaration of interest, I’m a recipient). The FSPS is not like a private pension where you accrue benefits to your pot based on your contributions (plus interest etc), it comes straight out of the pay packets of those currently employed in the FS. This is due in part because the scheme is not allowed to be invested anywhere (a wholly short-sighted move) and because when it started back in 1947 (?) the Authorities started to use the pension payments in education, parks or elsewhere (free money for 20+ years until Ff’s started retiring).
When I joined the FS, the post-retirement life-expectancy was around 7 years, when I retired some 31 years later, it had risen to at least 12 (I’ll be retired 12 years next March 31st 😳) and as H & S and health screening of serving personnel continues to improve, so will the life expectancy.
As cuts to the service bit and life expectancy increased, it was obvious that the amounts being paid in would never reach the amount required to service pension payouts and when it comes to FS budgets, pensions come first by law. An unenviable situation for FS and Fire Authority leaders who find themselves having to fund an ever aging retired population of Ff’s which with funding already cut to the bone can only mean more cuts to services and less money in and so on, a never-ending downward spiral.
The UK population problem as seen under a FS microscope.
I can never understand why immigrants aren't allowed to work. Doesn't make sense when we need the workforce and the taxes they would pay.
Absolutely spot on. The pitching of arguments as boomers vs the rest is a divisive and unhelpful an argument as blaming everything on immigrants. It diverts attention from the real problems which suits the populists, especially those on the Right, just fine.
You are so right, I have to say, having turned 80 yesterday I feel that I’m an unwanted burden on society, yet luckily so far haven’t needed too much help. I am however very frightened for my future
Happy birthday!
Exactly. There's also such a gap in education: people look for scapegoats because they've never learned to think in system terms.
https://chrisdillow.substack.com/p/systems-not-scapegoats
It’s the result of privatization of everything. Greed has brought the UK to its knees and all the profits have been filtered out to offshore accounts.
Apart from the expense of having and raising children, when I was young I wasn’t sure I wanted to bring a child into this world with its turmoil and hatred. Fortunately, this was taken out of my hands when I turned 40, and a tiny premature son came into my life. He’s now 28 and is scraping by in rented accommodation, and working 12 hour shifts to make rent.
There are many out there in a worse situation, and I wouldn’t not want him to be here, but in my meandering way, I’m not surprised our birth rate is falling, there is no incentive to bring a human into “being” in this country anymore (in my opinion) unless you are in the 1% at the top of the pile.
We do need immigration, it seems we always have, yet the “right” use it to stir up hatred for people arriving here, without understanding that they are just pushing us (and the country they purport to “love”) into a downward spiral. The politics of the short sighted.
Excuse after excuse..in order to excuse... the greedy,profit making fat cats...reform,tories who will bethe only ones to gain ..once again..Pensioners are easy targets same as its always been.
They haven't started attacking the elderly - yet - as pensioners are more likely than younger generations to vote.
Not yet.
That's what I said.
One of the problems with the continuing compartmentalisation of social media is that these posts are only read by people who follow, and likely agree with, the Bear's viewpoint. As indeed do I. It would be very interesting to hear the reasoned argument from someone from Reform or similar, who genuinely believes that immigration is the problem. Without that we are living in our own bubble.
Ah well therein lies a problem. You can't get a 'reasoned' argument in immigration from those who are against it as that view (when sincerely meant rather than a distraction) is based on xenophobia/racism which is not reasonable.
I agree. I am just naively wishing for a reasoned debate between differing viewpoints that leads to their saying "sorry, you're right, we need more immigration". And then wanting to rejoin the EEC with free movement. I will grow up one day.....
Nothing naive about wishing for intelligence and sanity to prevail. Expecting it however would be a different story.
The right is not bothered about the problem: their solution is to unravel public services to reduce taxation, and to kill off as many old people as possible (indirectly of course). They did this in 2010-24: look at how the improvement in life expectation stopped sharply in 2010 (not at the financial crisis in 2007-8), and how the life expectation for over 65s actually fell during the last few Tory years.
If life expectancy for over-65s fell "during the last few Tory years" wouldn't that be more down to Covid than anything else?
I saw just such a scenario in the Fire Service Pension Scheme (FSPS - declaration of interest, I’m a recipient). The FSPS is not like a private pension where you accrue benefits to your pot based on your contributions (plus interest etc), it comes straight out of the pay packets of those currently employed in the FS. This is due in part because the scheme is not allowed to be invested anywhere (a wholly short-sighted move) and because when it started back in 1947 (?) the Authorities started to use the pension payments in education, parks or elsewhere (free money for 20+ years until Ff’s started retiring).
When I joined the FS, the post-retirement life-expectancy was around 7 years, when I retired some 31 years later, it had risen to at least 12 (I’ll be retired 12 years next March 31st 😳) and as H & S and health screening of serving personnel continues to improve, so will the life expectancy.
As cuts to the service bit and life expectancy increased, it was obvious that the amounts being paid in would never reach the amount required to service pension payouts and when it comes to FS budgets, pensions come first by law. An unenviable situation for FS and Fire Authority leaders who find themselves having to fund an ever aging retired population of Ff’s which with funding already cut to the bone can only mean more cuts to services and less money in and so on, a never-ending downward spiral.
The UK population problem as seen under a FS microscope.
I wish you could write speeches for Starmer. That was a brilliant explaination of the situation. Something Starmer seems incapable of doing.
Clarity and humour as ever…thanks so much Mr.B 🐻 for the enlightening focus!