Have baby boomers had it too easy?

This is too much of a generalisation. The introduction, combined with weak policing, of the welfare state after WWII inevitably led to some people milking the system. Baby boomers benefitted from much more open access to higher education via the grant system, but were also ripped off in the pensions and endowment mortgages 'mis-selling' scandal, for which the culprits were not properly penalised. The greedy and unscrupulous banking industry should make a bigger contribution instead of 'offshoring' their profits to evade paying their fair share of taxes.

I am an original Boomer, 1946, and there is now way after paying punitive tax and "insurance" for 50 years that I will let any one get my money.

What a load of nonsense!

I remember this being debated on Jeremy Vine last year and the proponent of this idea being exactly the sort of lazy Mummys boy who wants everything handed to him on a plate, without having to work for anything. A prime example of the modern day graduate - well done NuLab we have a full generation of them out there to look forward to coming up with ever more stupid ideas!

Get out and work for what you want, society owes you nothing! And before anyone starts ranting about all oldies sticking together I am 36....

"Get out and work for what you want, society owes you nothing!"

Unless you're a baby boomer in which case you probably think society owes you a final salary pension, retirement at 65 and 30 years of free social care afterwards.

I am hoping to retire in under 10 years time. I have worked many years, and done without (as has my family - few foreign holidays, no flash car etc) in order that I could save for my pension.
I wish I had never worked and brought up my family on the dole....then I needn't have worried or said 'NO' to the kids.
I also put my son through University, with working extra and he got a job. Maybe he should have run his loans to the max, and then bleated about it later

There are three baby boomers in my office at the moment. Each owns their own home outright and have several additional 'investment properties' that they rent out which they affectionately call their pensions.

This is on top of the actual final salary pensions they recieve from previous employment. All three 'retired' from their previous jobs in their early 50s and have had other jobs as hobbies since then. Until recently the one who had been in banking earned more from his pension than his current wage and property income combined. He takes great pride in telling me at every opportunity that his bank pension was non-contributory. Just to rub it in.

Last week one had been on holiday to South Wales to look at buying a second holday home down on the Gower.

And they then gloat when I have a mortgage application declined yet again depsite having a perfect credit rating. My biggest expense each month is the rent that I pay to another baby boomer and it is far in excess of what a mortgage payment would cost on a similar property (but banks won't lend).

This is the generation that had free university education but without national service. These are the ones who've never had to fight a war for the country and the only hardship they faced as children was a rationing of sweets until 1954. They're the ones who benefit from soaring house prices and were able to capitalise on the crash in the 90s to aquire yet more property.

And the ladder has been pulled up behind them.

Proof? All three are planning on retiring again in the next 6 months to ensure that their public sector pension won't have been fiddled with too much by Osborne.

Its not about whether the baby boomers had it too easy, its whether the next generation will be prepared to support them in their old age.

Its more true to say that 5the 'baby boomer' generation have received and will receive better pensions and earlier retirement dates than anyone currently under 40 will be entitled to.

They will probably have had better access to state benefits than will be available to future generations.

But its just the luck of the draw, isn't it?

At no point did that generation conciously decide to take more so that the next generations got less - Its just the way it happened.

Experts (?) say an awful lot of things that are complete drivel; but it gets them a headline when they've got a book to sell.

Take it all with a very large pinch of salt....

I thought ageism was illegal!
If a degree earns you more, then by all means tax the degree, and the doctor, solicitor, accountant and of course the civil service.
Tax a person because your parents were thrifty, the then government competent, unlike the recent. People’s greed encouraged by Nu-Lab uncontrolled by poor lack lustre regulation, when there were financial controls in the past that worked and were respected. As stupid and say the licence fee!

I am 49 years of age and have not had a single day out of work since leaving school at age 18. I served my country for 28 of those years and started a new job the day after I left the Armed Forces. I have worked hard for what I have and would probably end my days impoverished, if I were to stay in UK. All this rubbish about baby boomers is exactly that - rubbish. I will never be rich, but I will be comfortable, because I have worked for it.
Why do we always look to blame others when we don't get things handed to us on a plate?!!!

Its the same old story from a government who likes to set one against another in argument whilst they get on with filling their pockets. With the Tories they are masters at slight of hand,whilst we flounder around amongst ourselves over what can only be described as trivia. It makes no diffence who should pay what because you cant get blood out of a stone.Pensions,savings and disposable income have shrunk so much that there is very little left to be taxed to help out these disgusting bankers-because thats who is responsible for our problems and those who believe it was anyone else is living in cloud cuckoo land.Direct taxation is old hat but indirect taxation is much fairer and will knock out the debt pretty quick.Baby boomers?What a load of tommy rot.

This is interesting coming from David Willetts the Minister for universities? This so-called Minister quotes 'Baby boomer' but has has no idea or explanation of this 'buzz term' in the UK today. Shame on you Mr Willetts!!!

'Baby boomer' is a very 80s American expression of working women 'stuffed' by male management culture.

1) Yes, male and female management culture is still totally discriminatory in the UK.

2)Yes, male management are usually sexist - yes they are!

3) Yes, I, personally get the impression David Willetts is totally sexist and has a brief for cost cuts - not cost evaluation. Mr Willetts knows the stats and refuses to recognise the need for poorer women to obtain university education!

4) Am I annoyed with every comment or opinion that David Willetts has said or proposed - YES I AM. His whole agenda is a disgrace.

Will my furious comment on David Willetts, Cabinet Minister, be published on HYS - doubt it - but happy to have had the opportunity to try and expose the disingenuous spouting from Mr Willetts Department?

Not so. Baby Boomers have had no easy life- we have been the social experiment that has gone horribly wrong. We have been lied to because we were as naieve as our parents when we started. We have had housing and educational nonsense handed to us run by those who ensured that they kept the profits and that their children had the best. With a blend of Imperial rightousness and watered down socialism our taxes have been taken and spent with no heed to final outcome. We have watched as our children have been subverted by PC nonsense. No we haven't had a world war-YET, but we have never had a year when our forces have not been involved somewhere. Our politicians have lied, our bankers have stolen and we will pay. MacMillan said " You've never had it so good"- That was a freudian slip of one of our tormentors. Youngsters- you've got worse to come.

Most people believe everyone else should pay but them. As an example, Parents expect benefits for having children, there should be no benefits for having children. The state already invests into children through the free education system and healthcare. There are scroungers who live off the state and believe it is OK to do so, because they failed at school, come from a broken home or are just plain lazy.

All this while hard working people are bleed dry with unfair taxation, which in truth, makes many people better off on the dole. This is wrong and must stop.

Then of cause you have the people who, through no fault off their own (illness or unemployment), are victimized and punished by the state. This too is unfair.

Reward success not failure.

BewildreredMark: you are only seeing what those baby boomers have turned out like, not how they got there.

They are the first generation of women for whom going out to work is the norm, thus providing the country with more taxpayers than ever before. They worked and brought up their families without the help of extended maternity leave/paternity leave, flexible working rights, tax credits etc.
They paid basic rate income tax at 33% (yes, 33%)in the seventies and mortgage rates of 17% (11% after tax relief). They may have had their own university education cheaper (grants were always means tested, not free for all) but far fewer of them actually went to university and they are now supporting their adult children to a much greater extent than previous generations.
They are the product of post-war parents who largely did not own their houses, so they are less likely to inherit property wealth than today's younger people.
They are the first generation for whom superannuation deducted from their wages was the norm, so (like you) they were paying for their own pensions and for their parents' pensions too.

They have done all they can to improve their lives from a poor, war-battered starting point and , whether you like it or not, your generation now has to do the same.

i am a baby boomer born 26/12/1946 i started work on 1/1/1962 barely 15 ihave had endownments and pensions crash i will be retiring on a minimal pension but boy am i looking forward to it anyone want to buy a mechanics tool kit?

I am a baby-boomer, too - born in 1947. I worked for what I have got. I own my house outright, but paid a mortgage for years. I once bought a new car, but that was in 1985 - paid that off, too. I do not own any "investment property" and anything else I do own I have bought myself. My parents did not own their own house, and while my sister and I inherited some money from them, it would have been a very great deal more if they had been property owners. I was prudent with my money, but I have been unemployed for several years after being unfairly dismissed from my last job. I do not qualify for any benefits whatever and am living off the proceeds of an insurance policy which I sensibly took out. I have worked hard all my life except for the last couple of years, and I am officially classed as retired although I do not yet get the state pension.

I am sick of stupid nonsense such as this report. Most of my generation worked hard for what we have. We are the people who have worked since the early 1960s keeping things going. Now we are approaching retirement we get moronic reports such as this claiming we have "had it easy." Well, Mr know-nothing Willetts, I did not have it easy and I still do not.

First it was smokers, now it's drinkers, the next target is, clearly, those people coming up to a well-earned (in most cases) retirement. Think again, Willetts. The ones who have it easy are the bone idle thirty-odd year old "teenagers" who infest every town and city, who live off everyone else's taxes, who breed for benefits and have no intention of making a contribution to society. They have rarely or never done a day's work but they know their rights. How dare Willetts compare our hard-working, tax-and-insurance-paying generation with the idle, drunken chavs of today?

The people who HAVE had it too easy are the politicians, financiers, stars of film, pop, TV and sport and a whole host of other very obvious overpaid and essentially useless drones. Look closer to home, Willetts, and don't you dare try to target us. There are more of us than there are of you, and we were the mods and rockers in our day. Don't think we cannot rebel again if you try attacking us, chum. We're older, but we're just as determined and we know your nasty little game.

typical!! two brain willetts with the same thatcherite atttitude and ecstatic about doing it all over again.what about the baby boomers bourne after the first world war, they were promised a land fit for heroes all they got was a depression.i think in all fairness we were owed our wellfare state,our familys paid for it with their blood. NO! let willetts go to is mega rich bankers and high rollers thats were the guilt lies. the trouble is he and the rest of is obnoxious gang have neither the balls or inclination to take them on!i think it's time for the british people to stand up(not against)for themselfs their children and their rights, do not let the political right win this one !!!!!

"At 11:42am on 21 Jun 2010, Peter_Sym wrote:

"Get out and work for what you want, society owes you nothing!"

Unless you're a baby boomer in which case you probably think society owes you a final salary pension, retirement at 65 and 30 years of free social care afterwards."

No, we don't "think" that - we know that it was promised as part of the terms and conditions of employment under which we worked, and/or by the gavernments of the time, although the "30 years of free social care" is just another silly exaggeration by the writer. In order to get those things promised, we had to organise ourselves and struggle for them. Instead of criticising us, why not take a leaf out of our book instead and start to demand these things for yourselves? It is not our or anyone else's job to hand you things on a plate - get organised, ignore the right-wing press and start sticking up for your rights instead of moaning and regurgitating nonsense about "being grateful to have any job in these times......" In short, grow up and grow a backbone!

England got the most reparation money following WWII; while other countries spent their money on rebuilding their county's infrastructure we spent ours on maintain the civil servants and the bureaucracy that is the downfall of this country today.

This country has become full to bursting point; public services and infrastructure is stretched to the limit; local councils, councillors and politicians have forgotten who they work for; the tide of legislation introduced by the Gormless Clown party has painted everyone into an ever decreasing corner; no one is happy; everyone who has a job is having to work harder to keep it for fewer rewards; those who want a job and can't get one are on a slippery slope to welfare dependance; those who don't want a job think those that do work are mugs; those in positions of power can write their own ticket; we're bombarded with inequality at every turn.

Baby boomers have it easy because they were lucky enough to be born of a generation that had different values; they didn't earn £10 and want to spend £20; they saved for the future, used common sense and planned.

My children have a difficult time ahead of them; not because they are lazy but they (and the rest of us) have been subjected to experiments in education and social manipulation that simply have not worked and could never work - we're all paying the price for these failures. There should be howling mobs at the door of Gormless Clown for the damage that has been done to this country and all we get is an apathetic whimper because the latest football match didn't meet expectations. No one's looking at the world around them because they're too busy watching morons asleep on Big Brother or some other inane and meaningless drivel on TV.

We've been disinherited from politics; disengaged from our society and washed away by the flood of wishy-washy H&S legislation that has made society stand around with pouted lips and stamping its collective feet because it can't afford the latest designer rubbish that TV and media advertising convinces us we simply can't live without.

11. At 3:33pm on 21 Jun 2010, Chris wrote:
I am 49 years of age and have not had a single day out of work since leaving school at age 18. I served my country for 28 of those years and started a new job the day after I left the Armed Forces. I have worked hard for what I have and would probably end my days impoverished, if I were to stay in UK. All this rubbish about baby boomers is exactly that - rubbish. I will never be rich, but I will be comfortable, because I have worked for it.
Why do we always look to blame others when we don't get things handed to us on a plate?!!!

They say truth always hurts, and you're absolutely right, too! Today's young have got it easy compared with people from our generation.

I don't think it is necessarily the "baby boomers" who have had it too easy, rather than that they happen to have grown up during a time when there was very little to be had and the country was paying back loans to America, and reached adulthood in a country where there were many houses available so not worth people's interest in becoming landlords and house prices were achieveable for even modestly paid workers. As a result most had full ownership of their houses before our country reached straining point, housing-wise and before technology started really taking off.

As a result of this these people were able to use their existing house as collateral to purchase a second property, forcing the housing shortage and commensurate phenomenal price rise. They also helped the technology explosion by constantly upgrading their home entertainment items.

There is, however, no easy answer to the problems that have been created. The mismanagement of the pension pots by various companies and the pension holiday allowed by the government of the day did nothing to help, in fact it encouraged those who could to put their money into bricks. That made the housing shortage worse. And the plethora of new gadgets in the market-place encouraged them to buy nice things for their children/grandchildren which has caused to consumer society we have today.

Now, as a result of this I am unable to purchase a house in this country. the main reasons for my lack of ability are that I have no mass of savings to put as a deposit, I earn less than the national average and house prices in my area are higher than average house prices. In fact my £23K wouldn't even get a bedsit, currently the cheapest is £92K.

I don't blame the baby boomers for this, they are only looking out for themselves and their own, trying to give their dearest the lives they think they deserve. But I DO blame successive governments for allowing the situation to develop whereby house prices can be the only thing that has kept this country solvent. Or put it this way - if we accept around 10 million houses at an average of £200K then a 10% reduction in house prices would affect our economy to the tune of £200 billion. That's about 1/4 of our National Debt. Now remember that house prices have more than doubled over the term of the last government and you can see that without the house price increase we'd by around £2 TRILLION in debt just now.

reading some of the comments on this subject when all the service people came home there were few jobs few homes you took any job that you could and when i was a baby in 1946/7 my mum and i lived in the cowley work house and my dad lived in the other end of the workhouse i also went ill with double pneumonia and nearly died i think you younger people are lucky as an aside the first council house we had we lived there for 1year moved and it was demolishid what i have now is due to my wife and i working for what we have

Usual Tory tactic of "divide and rule" they play one group off against another. If we refused to play their game they wouldn't get away with it, but we don't stand up to them.
Just look how Thatcher played one group of miners off against the other in order to weaken the opposition posed by those standing up to her decimation of their communities. We have all suffered from her massive destruction of our manufacturing base and switch to service industries, always the first to suffer in a financial crisis. Now they are at it again ,but we still fall for it. But we should be very careful, it's all very well when they are going for someone else but it may be your job, service or pension next

#16 "They have done all they can to improve their lives from a poor, war-battered starting point and , whether you like it or not, your generation now has to do the same."

No. The baby boomers PARENTS (i.e my grandparents) did that and in return their kids had everything handed to them on a plate. My parents on the other hand were born into the brand new NHS, they went to university on full loans and bought houses when they could be afforded on 3x one persons salary.

Now my parents (who have made over £200,000 on the nominal value of their house) are doing everything they can to stop new developments going up as it may affect their house prices. In doing so they are making damn sure that no-one from my generation can buy a home within 50 miles of where they live.

(and incidentally I own my own house although I had to save for 5 years for a deposit and bought a wreck which I spent 2 years doing up)

Ah! surely you jest? I was born in 1948, received a po0r standard of education and ended up in a steel works at 15! After 45 years toiling in factory hell-holes, I would say that many people today have it far, far too easy, many of them have never even done a day's work in their lives!

bewildered mark nepotisum was very strong in the 1950s,60sand 70s as it still is, those people that you work with are not nice people

The baby boomers were fine as long as Britains monopolies were in the public sector.
Pensions were funded by the huge Utilities, easy money, easy permanent profits.

Maggie broke the system when Gas Electric Water Oil Phone etc etc were all privatised.

Now the chickens are coming home to roost.

The rich get the divi cash while the majority of people don't have a proverbial pot to...

Most old folk with a more than basic pension get it from the old public service utilities.

I'm a 23 year old child of two baby boomers. I have no desire to slate them, even though I am unlikely to ever own as much in terms of financial assets that they do even though I do what people would probably consider to be a harder job.

They are good people and, as I'm am lucky to be enough on the property ladder with a job during this recession, I don't think I'm in a position to demand more from those who have done so much for me.

That said, I think there is an awful lack of support for young workers at the moment, who are often ignored from potential jobs. I am also deeply shocked that funding for employment programmes for the 18-25 year old age bracket has been cut. I feel that, rather than housing or wealth procurement topics, we should focus on actually giving the youth a good start to their careers.

At a ripe 24 years of age I'm torn on opinions, As a member of society only paying my taxes for the last 7 years (yep I've been working since 17, I learnt from a young age that you don't get what you want simply handed to you, you have to work for it, and mum was no push over).

Anyway, we started as a happy family, dad earning a wage and mum got her basic child tax based on dad's earnings. Dad was very naughty with a couple of secrets leaving mum without a pot to pee in. Mum struggled by for a while and eventually had to start claiming benefits, this continued for many years until me and my 2 younger sisters were old enough for mum not to have to be around 24/7, then she tried to get back into work which was quite scary for mum after so many years if I remember rightly, she did it though and still works there today, found a man and the pair of them now work (and have done for about 5-6 years) towards paying of a large mortgage on the family home.

This I don't mind people claiming for because i've been there and it's not a great life, have you ever lived in a council place? They really don't care most of the time, the only reason we got double glazing is because the place could be seen from a new shopping mall being built across the road.

At the same time I've been down the dole office during 10 months of unemployment and countless interviews, I've seen the attitude of some of the people that go there and I've heard the stories about some of the people twisting the facts some, getting paid cash in hand doing driveways whilst still claiming full benefits.

So I see people abusing benefits now, I've known benefits to be horrid as a personal thought, but they were the only thing that kept us (mum and her 3 kids) afloat, But that still don't touch on the baby boom because that was surly my nans generation. So are you really trying to suggest that it's the fault of 2 generations ago that I probably won't get much of a state pension.... and if I do I probably won't see it until about 70 years old, their fault that I could never afford a mortgage on any place by my self, even renting a flat on my own would be stretching it.

It obviously has nothing to do with the mass immigration into the country spreading the benefits so thin and boosting unemployment by how much exactly since WWII? Or the recession in the 70's , or the recession we are still struggling with, or our government to busy bickering amongst themselves to think about the people they work for, The MP's expenses and the wasted money on such projects as the millenium dome which I don't remember getting a return on after O2 bought it.

Benefits have always been abused and still are, there is a job shortage and the banks keep taking our money in various ways so no, I don't believe for a second that it's my grandparents who have caused my generations problems, just poor money management by Government and society in general.

13. At 3:38pm on 21 Jun 2010, corum-populo-2010 wrote:

In response to your post.

1) Yes, male and female management culture is still totally discriminatory in the UK.

Evidence, please.

2)Yes, male management are usually sexist - yes they are!

Wow. A sexist comment complaining about a specific gender being sexist. That's another irony meter broken. Evidence, please.

What a ridiculous generalisation.

Yes, there's plenty from the "baby-boom" generation who've had it pretty easy, what with national and international economic conditions picking up so much over the last 60 years. There's also plenty from the same generation who've got where they are by hard work, sacrifice and making sensible life-choices.

Let's not lump everybody into pigeon-holes. Same goes for all those commentators who are insisting that anybody under 45 is a lazy, work-shy benefits cheat.

Conservative Minister David Willetts, author of The Pinch: How the Baby Boomers Stole their Children's Future {sic]

It wasn't the "Baby Boomers" that stole their Children's future! That's been the fault of successive Labour and Conservative Governments. Talk about the "No Flies on Me" scenario! The Right Honourable — Honourable? My big toe — David Willetts — who is now, 54 — ought to remember, that he too is a Baby Boomer. Wait a minute though, I suspect he thinks that being educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham, and Christ Church, Oxford, where he studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics somehow excludes him?

Conservative Minister David Willetts, author of The Pinch: How the Baby Boomers Stole their Children's Future joins Radio 4's Analysis programme to discuss whether baby boomers should shoulder a greater share of expected cuts and tax rises.

Experts argue that the generation born after World War II have enjoyed a larger share of the nation's wealth while failing to invest for future generations.
In my opinion David Willetts is a muppet.

WHO EXACTLY has regulated and coherced the people of the UK, GOVERNMENTS.

It is government that has made the BIGGEST promises to citizens, basically as carrots to get voted in.

It is GOVERNMENT who FAILED to regulate the banks.

It is GOVERNMENTS who SPEND taxpayers money.

It is GOVERNMENTS who have changed rules and regulations to instigate THEIR IDEOLOGY.

It is GOVERNMENTS who spend £MILLIONS on DEVIOUS SPIN/PROPAGANDA to convince the electorate that by following THEIR policys we will be better as a nation.

It is GOVERNMENT who is in power and has NEGLIGENTLY avoided BASIC SUSTAINABILITY in preference for SHORT-TERMISM.

HOW DARE THIS MUPPET PUT SOLE BLAME on those born after WWII.

It was POLITICIANS who have MADE so MANY STUPID promises to citizens/electors.

If we now have a system which will now penalise younger people, then THAT ALSO IS DUE TO POLITICAL DECISION.

LETS NOT FORGET.

THERE WAS NO OPTION ON THE RECENT VOTING FORM TO VOTE FOR A COALITION GOVERNMENT and ALL MAJOR PARTYS DECEITFULLY PRETENDED THAT THEY WOULD NOT ASPIRE TO A COALITION/PACT and were HUGELY NEGATIVE ABOUT SUCH AN OUTCOME.

Yet here we are- politicians of ANY/MOST partys will basically DO WHATEVER to ENSURE they can get into government/power, EVEN IF IT IS BLATANTLY TELLING LIES AND DECEIVING THE PUBLIC AS TO THEIR INTENTIONS AS BOTH TORYS AND LIB DEMS HAVE DONE.

Both partys as far as I am concerned are TRAITORS to public decency.

I'm so glad that Wikipedia exists, this is what they say about David Willetts.

The register of members interests records that Willetts is chairman of the board of Universal Biosensors Ltd, and holds shares in its parent company, Sensor-Tech Limited. He is also an adviser to Punter Southall actuaries and Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein.

Willetts is married to the artist Sarah Butterfield. The couple have one daughter and one son.

Willetts' wealth is estimated at £1.9M.

I'm pretty sure his kids won't go without in the future!

Lest we forget.. the Babyboomers started working at the age of 15, some at 14, whilst today's kids start mostly after 18 or even 21, which makes 6 years less contributions than those paid in by the Boomers. Also social security was not quite what it is today, so they did not take out much from the system to which they paid in. They also got very low wages (comparatively)to the extent that they had to live at home (no council housing for single parents, who had to live at home with their parents if they could not afford their own place), many even after getting married. So it seems unfair to be criticised by those who have had it far too easy compared to the boomers. They were just a happier lot than today's 20 and 30 somethings, even though they had a lot less material things but had a positive attitude to life.

Born in the 1940's my husband and I feel that we have been lucky (until now). OK we went without sweets when very young. Wore second hand or home made clothes because there was a war on but over all we had it easy.
Out of school straight into the career of our choice - employers were lining up to employ us.
By the 60's we could easily afford the deposit on our first home.
By the 80's we managed during the slump and my husband started his own business.
In the 1990's we were able to purchase a second home in lieu of a private pension.
From there on in it was easy until NuLabour sent the country to brink of bankruptcy. Now the money from the sale of our 'pension home' earns us a pittance but we consider that everything taken into consideration we, as a couple. have been fortunate.
When we compare our lives to that of both our children and grandchildren they are so different. They will have to wait until we die before they have any disposable income - thats if the government of the day allows them to inherit a few thousand without penalising them.

Have baby boomers had it too easy? Yes and no. I am sure that my working-class parents would have given their right arm to be afforded the opportunities I myself have had - better education, health care, social mobility, equality, affordable foreign travel etc.

However, this increased independence has brought with it a lot of pressures for our generation, which my parents themselves tell me they are glad they never had to face. For example, moving into cities for work and the breakdown of the family structure, not being able to bring up kids on a single salary due to the cost of living, struggling to save for a large deposit with house prices on even a modest house being sky-high, being thousands in debt when leaving University, and knowing that when we retire it is unlikely that we will receive a State Pension in its current form, and a less generous Occupational Pension.

Our quality of life may be better, but it is something we are paying heavily for and I for one don't see a comfortable path to my retirement.

There seems to be a lot of myths floating around. When you left school at 15-ish you either worked or went without, no unemploymeny benefit for school leavers. Most Boomers will not inherit houses form their parents as there were more people renting than owning. They had longer working hours and much shorter holidays - max 2 weeks per annum and poorly paid sick leave except in the public sector. Kids had fewer clothes and toys, girls had 3 dresses for the summer and same for the winter as all kids wore school uniforms. BUT they could play in the streets, parks and fields unattended and buy a Jublee (iced orange drink)on the way home from school once a week. Most importnatly most Boomers did not build up debt, you did not buy if you did not have the money - they went without, no brand new fridge, dishwasher, washing machine, tv etc. when moving to a house but had second hand. Many younger people today are hard up because they spend a lot of their money on entertainment and clothes. The Bommers could not afford to binge drink. You did not have children until you could afford them. Problem is that they spoilt their children, who now think they are owed. The sensible hard working ones do get on still.

24. At 4:09pm on 21 Jun 2010, cpl24013989 wrote:

reading some of the comments on this subject when all the service people came home there were few jobs few homes you took any job that you could and when i was a baby in 1946/7 my mum and i lived in the cowley work house and my dad lived in the other end of the workhouse i also went ill with double pneumonia and nearly died i think you younger people are lucky as an aside the first council house we had we lived there for 1year moved and it was demolishid what i have now is due to my wife and i working for what we have

===

Hi. Yup. You might have added that boomers experienced post-WWII rationing in their early years, including food rationing up to 1954 (but not Willetts, obviously). I can't imagine most of the younger generations ever missing as much as one portion of McDonalds fries or one Mars bar or one 6 pack of lager. Let alone the gadgets they depend upon, internet and other stuff.

The problem is NOT baby boomers. Most of that generation have worked hard to pay their taxes and should expect a decent retirement in return.

No, the problem is the later generations of lazy, work shy, tax avoiding, dole-queue-hugging freeloaders who have, and continue to do so, milk the system for every penny. Add to that the unknown numbers of foreigners which have come to this country under the pretence of asylum seeking which adds to the problem (to the detriment of minority of genuine cases)

I worked a 45hr week and went to Tech 4 nights a week for 5 yrs to get ONC & HND.

You young people won't remember 15% mortgage rates, 33% income tax rates and 50% CGT rates, 2.5 times salary max for your mortgage with minimum 25% deposit. Don't blame baby boomers for successive Governments' incompetence.

No-one likes hard times, but I've seen it before many times. Just eat beans instead of fillet steak and holiday in Barnsley instead of Barbados. You won't even notice.

I was born in 1945. My father worked 6.5 days a week in a family owned garage. I can well remember the rationing that contined until the 50s. We did not have a holiday until I was 11 years old and then in a borrowed chalet on the Isle of Sheppey, my father travelled back to work each day. We did not at that stage, have a TV, fridge or washing machine. we did however have a car, always a very old one. My mother made most of clothes.
My parents did own our house thanks to a private mortgage from a next door neighbour. This house has now had to be sold to fund my Mother's care home fees. My father worked until he was over 70 in order to leave us a legacy, there won't be much left.
I own my home thanks to help from my father and equity release enabling me to pay off the mortgage and have some very essential repairs carried out. I have never been in a position to save so I continue to work as a self employed person. I do not have holidays, central heating but without a car I am unable to earn. Most of my clothes come from charity shops and almost everything else is secondhand, even my animals.
I did however receive an excellent State education, I had freedom to walk, ride a bicycle and eventually to have riding lessons which shaped my future.
I feel sorry for today's children who do not enjoy these freedoms and their lives seem to revolve around material posessions and hero worship of so called celebrities.
Those born in the late 50s and early 60s probably did have 'it easy' certainly easier than my generation. The price of consumer goods was within most peoples' reach as were new cars.
I don't envy anyone and I have few regrets about the way my life has turned out.

True, we have not had a World War in 70 years & that has been the foundation for building a better life; the young today have even greater opportunities to succeed given the technological advances which bring information, opportunities & access to Services globally on their fingertips. David Willetts is therefore off beam & defeatist in his view of the potential for success open to the current generation.

Don't start blaming the generation's that went before, blame yourselves that try to live beyond your means. People of my age 45 - 65+ more often than not went without just to put food in your bellies, clothes on your back, and put a roof over your head. We made sure that you children wanted for nothing forgoing our own pleasures, in turn. Our prime concern and goal as parents was your security and upbringing. Ask yourselves this: did you ever go without? If we wanted luxuries, our children came first and we, your parents came last in the grand scheme of things. Talk about an ungrateful generation! What we've accumulated over time, you'll no doubt Inherit from us when we die, providing the Government doesn't get its greedy hands on it first!

Rant over.

"4. At 11:42am on 21 Jun 2010, Peter_Sym wrote:

"Get out and work for what you want, society owes you nothing!"

Unless you're a baby boomer in which case you probably think society owes you a final salary pension, retirement at 65 and 30 years of free social care afterwards."

Err, yes. Because that's the deal I signed up for (and paid for ever since) when I started work back in 1971.

so, this muppet in government is reverting to the "blame game".

Well come on down Mr Willetts muppet, the price is right, do you want your cuddly soft toy now or after you have wrecked this country a bit more.

The register of members interests records that Willetts is chairman of the board of Universal Biosensors Ltd, and holds shares in its parent company, Sensor-Tech Limited. He is also an adviser to Punter Southall actuaries and Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein.


Dresdner Kleinwort was a British-based investment bank: it disappeared as a brand from the world of investment banking in September 2009 (I wonder why?), when its remaining businesses adopted the Commerzbank branding.

Willetts' wealth is estimated at £1.9M, so as well as being a SUBSTANTIAL baby boom beneficiary he is also in my opinion quite a humungus hypocrite and actually not a nice person.

This pretentious government is the coalition of millionaires: 23 of the 29 member of the new cabinet are worth more than £1m... and the Lib Dems are allegedly just as wealthy as the Torys as reported in Mail on Sunday 23 May 2010.


So we basically have a paid advisor (Conservative Minister David Willetts) to an investment bank, (the naughty gambling type of people who made much of this economic mess)telling us how naughty and bad we are because we were born after WWII.

Now I have heard some spin before, but not much of it is as blatantly biased and hypercritical as this trash that Conservative Minister David Willetts puts his name to.

Willetts has pioneered the idea of "civic conservatism".

During an interview with The Spectator, he was referred to as 'the real father of Cameronism'

Behold, for what we are about to receive is a TRIPPLE dose of civic conservatism.

In other words- get down ye dastardly dogs to thy level that I bequeath to ye!!!!!!!!!!

The two biggest stealers of the future for todays young were Margaret Thatcher and Gordon Brown. You can take your pick as to which was worst (though I fear G Brown is my pick). One sold off the family silver, the other opted to change our pension system so that the basic pension was well below poverty level. Under Thatcher the state paid 60% of income and under Brown he dropped it to 40%. He then took 5 billion a year from the pension funds to wreck them!

When you kill off a substantial portion of your workforce, in 2 world wars and a world depression. It created a situation for the new generation that helped fuel the myth of "The baby boom". Oh........ also the advent of better medical care and nutrition, helped a generation to survive better than before. This medical care is a boon but also a curse, in that it comes at the expense of higher taxation. During my lifetime ......... a 49 er my taxation has increased exponentially. Mostly for stuff I do not want, I was never asked. Yes, I voted but seldom did do any good for the people or myself. In fact, we were sold on immigration as being necessary for the good of the country. i.e. not enough babies for the future, etc. This immigration only benefits the really wealthy, the ordinary "joe" is left living in cramped housing, roads, schools and leisure places. Which then calls for more taxation, to fix what others have broken.

In the meanwhile, the social values are eroded by people from places that have no idea? This is a global problem. Who can blame people for wanting to move to where it is perceived that gold paves the street? If the new generation wishes to change this? Then the people need to reject these politicians who would subvert the nation and regain control of government from those who own it. The Bank of England, the Federal Reserve, etc.

This is about as likely, as pigs flying. Nope, we now live on a slave planet thanks to the same people. It about reminds one, of the film "The Matrix"? Instead the humans are plugged in to supply taxation, as energy fuel for the wealthy.Unfortunately, there is no "Neo" to bring it all to right.

Yes, it's been a good life in the end for some "baby boomers" - but not all. Young people today expect too much - a university degree, a good job, a house, lots of personal possessions not to mention 3 holidays a year.

Opening up university education to 50% of the population (as opposed to the 5% who went there in the 1960s) has been hugely expensive and has to be paid for. Many of the people going to university now would have had to study as mature students in the past - or even via the Open University - because A level grades were used to ration access to higher education (so only a percentage of each year ever got an A!. Also, those graduating in the past had given up 5 to 6 years of work (as the alternative to university was work), which has its own economic cost.

Housing was poorer quality, heating expensive and there were only three channels on TV. Yes, the world has changed but it is up to the current generation to get of its collective backside and make the most of the opportunities available.

"The so called Baby boomers' had what was promised by the death of all the young men of britain, who died in world war 2 {A home fit for heroes'} But many people in power have forgotten ? I started work at 13years old jobs were plentyful for all in them days, because every one needed british made goods and services' Not like today cheap sweat-shop made goods, from low-wage countries made by no rights workers. Thats what is wrong in the U.K. today.

A birthdate n 1944 probably qualifies me as a “Baby Boomer” but I‘m damned if I can remember any part of my youth when I received any government benefits other than a 1/3 of a pint bottle of milk a day at primary school and a spoonful of some sticky black malt once a month to prevent rickets. I know my Dad came home from the war in Germany to find mum and me a home in Yorkshire in an ex-POW camp nissen hut.

We didn’t starve but we relied on the goodwill of local farmers for a lot of our food. Whatever dole Dad got paid went of fuel for a motor bike as he unsuccessfully searched the area for a job. We moved to a two room flat in London and mum found a teaching job and Dad got job at a newspaper – the Mirror I think. No child allowance or other hand-outs for us. Just sweat, and sometimes tears, as Dad fought his way up the ladder to improve our lot.

I swotted to get through the 11+ and found a place n a grammar school. After GCE’s, I took the wrong decision and joined the RAF. Wilson killed that career path within three years. Tossed into Civvy Street, I found that my peers were now more savvy than me in the ways of business and commerce having started three years before me. No free adult Uni courses for me. I got on with my work, learning on the job, and bit by bit moved up into the job where my contributory pension started out. No annual rises to take account of inflation for me. Now I’m forcibly retired by ill health and means-tested out of any benefit I might have qualified for if I‘d saved nothing.

Well, if I had it easy I apologise to those new unfortunates who feel that I got a better deal. I’m kidding! Stop whining about your lack of material possessions (except your £150 Nike trainers of course) and get on with making something of your lives. The world – and me in particular – doesn’t owe you a free ride!

If the next generation is going to be tougher than the last:
You could ask "Did baby boomers have it too easy?"
Or you could ask "Will the next generation ever get out of debt?"

#13. At 3:38pm on 21 Jun 2010, corum-populo-2010 wrote:
"This is interesting coming from David Willetts the Minister for universities? This so-called Minister quotes 'Baby boomer' but has has no idea or explanation of this 'buzz term' in the UK today. Shame on you Mr Willetts!!!

'Baby boomer' is a very 80s American expression of working women 'stuffed' by male management culture. "

I've always taken Baby Boomer to mean those people born in the post-WW2 Baby Boom, just like David Willetts. I've no idea what meaning you're talking about - so shame on me too, I guess...!

Nope, Baber Boomers haven't had it "too easy", all through my working life we paid into the pension pot & taxes to support the pensioners of the time and the kids going through education. We fulfilled our part of the social contract, it is now down to the current younger generation to do their part. Don't blame us for the economic mess! It is the politicians who failed to invest the money to build a fund. Point your anger at them, then buckle down and delivery your turn on the social contract.

4. At 11:42am on 21 Jun 2010, Peter_Sym wrote:
"Get out and work for what you want, society owes you nothing!"

Unless you're a baby boomer in which case you probably think society owes you a final salary pension, retirement at 65 and 30 years of free social care afterwards.

I hope I'm still around by the time "you" eventually retire. You'll wish you'd have never said those words and whinge about not having any money to live on!

Its been really easy. I've been self employed almost all my life as a result of S.E.T. ( selective employment tax ) I have no pension other than the house I live in. I have hardly missed a day of work since I was 20. Parents were renters and left me nothing. I now have two of my three kids living at home aged 26 and 27 . One has been out of work for over 6 months. My dream of selling up and retireing to a Greek island vanished with the fall in house prices and the depreciation of the pound against the Euro. My wife of 32 years works for the NHS . I await with bated breath to see what our lords and masters will do tomorrow to both her salary and pension. In my industry, I teach driving , the government has allowed the number of driving instructors to increase by 50% in the last 7 years causing offers of lessons at stupid prices . Yep Easy and getting easier. Which way to Beachy Head ?

I think the underlying change is in how money and wealth are perceived. A baby-boomer is likely, on winning £10,000 to put in in the bank and watch the interest grow, or maybe invest it (for a pension), possibly in bricks and mortar . It seems that the current thinking is always spend it immediately on a car and holiday, maybe with a dose of peeing it up against the wall. The baby-boomer might not have had the flash car or swanky holiday at the time, but that investment means they can have it now, or retire, or buy that second home. Or maybe all three.

"37. At 4:41pm on 21 Jun 2010, freedom-junkie wrote:
Lest we forget.. the Babyboomers started working at the age of 15, some at 14, whilst today's kids start mostly after 18 or even 21,"

Have to agree - pocket money was often earned by doing odd jobs around the home or for other people, newspaper rounds, it didn't just arrive. Clip round the ear if you asked for a TV in your room.

Didn't get a car as soon as you passed your test as early as possible, didn't drive parents' car - it was usually a motor bike or scooter, and when a car did arrive it was an old banger which you needed to be able to service yourself.

Holidays abroad? No way.

You could spot the people in the office saving up for a deposit on a house - they came in without having breakfast, descended on the free biscuits(!), luncheon vouchers at lunchtime, no holidays away, and when you got the house it often meant you had cushions on the floor because you couldn't afford furniture, and if you had cooker, fridge, it was usually because one of your parents' friends was getting rid of it.

My parents managed with us by having no television, no car, no fridge (1930s house with a north-facing larder, so not a major issue). And no central heating. Warmest room was the kitchen with a coal-fired boiler.

I assume this topic has come about from the usual "someone else is better off then me" view - and of course when you start delving you often find that isn't the case at all.

# 18.

Well said - I'm no baby-boomer (but no spring chicken either, I'm 41), but there is no comparison between those starting out as adults in the 50s and 60s and those of today. as you say, everyone has "rights" but few obligations. Everyone can breed, but not be expected to support their children. Everyoen can go to uni, even though soem can't write or construct cohesive sentences.

The next 5 years coudl be good for this country if it means people start taking responsibility for themselves, now and in the future.

Many baby-boomers have enjoyed generally fortuitous circumsatnces, but as anotehr poster said, they haven't mortgaged our future to pay for their present. They were just lucky.

David Willetts certainly has some nerve blaming the baby boomers when the fault lies with Govt and his ilk.

In comparison to Private pensions are public ones fair? Seems that there is a double standard here. The public sector certainly get less wages than the private because they have been promised a better pension. A few are funded (ie the money is put into a fund to pay the pensions) but the majority are not. Govt's over the years have spent the pension contributions letting future generations pay for them.

An example of this type of govt promise would be contained in the Armed Forces Pay Review of previous years. There it has been clearly stated that 9% of the salary has not been paid to the soldier but has been allocated as his contribution to pay for his pension (this was subsequently reduced to 7% in the early 90s). Where did this contribution go? Into the govt coffers or more factually it never existed. Net result was Govt's didn't pay the Forces as much and future generations end up paying for these mythical contributions which were never saved.

Now if those pensions had been private, contributions would have gone into a fund. Of course, this is not foolproof as we have seen large companies creaming off pension surpluses leaving many with large deficits.

Then there is the diminishing workforce pension. National Coal Board miners are such an example. They had a funded pension but there are now very few Coal Board miners left and that fund continues to grow. This might have been the case with Armed Forces as they continue to diminish in size but there was never any fund.

Another good example of what to do is Norway with their Sovereign Wealth Fund to pay for pensions. This was derived from their use of North Sea Oil. Norway politicians at least had vision unlike our myopic bunch. What did UK Govts do? Why they gave it all away to the oil companies

Altogether, pensions concern a lot of people but the way they have been run is a mess. David Willetts is typical of past Govt ministers who used the expediency of the here and now to use the baby boomers pensions for his and other politicians re-election. Certainly, he is using the here and now to apportion blame from his Conservative and Labour predecessors. Is this his new protest for more power?

So don't blame the baby boomers, blame past governments for their short sighted views in getting themselves elected rather than doing the right thing.

I just hope that something equitable can be resolved from this mess which previous Govts have brought about and credible trusts can be formed with proper and protected (away from politicians) use of the funds.

I am a baby boomer.I certainly enjoyed good health care and education in State Grammar schools and University.

But,unlike so many today,I studied to acquire useful knowledge for a career in wealth creating industries,and so did everyone that I know.

The present parlous state of the economy isn't our fault.We watched the economy being destroyed by semi-educated people looking for a fast buck;the yuppies and their New Labour successors.These people have enriched themselves at our expense and are now trying to blame us,their victims.

The baby boomers had it so good because the power of socialism was at its height just after the war years. The capitalist class were terefied this ideology would infect the minds of its workforce so steadily began to raise their living standards by accepting higher public spending and less profit, in an attempt to appease any ideas of revolution.
Economicaly backward Russia became a superpower in 20 years after the revolution, revealing the might of such an ideology. They also defeated the bulk of the Nazi army, rescuing Britain from invasion long before its capitalist allies bothered to show up. This was very much in the minds of the people. Capitalism was on the rocks, and they realised they would have to relinquish some of their economic power to the public.
The baby boomers got what they deserve from this country, a decent stardard of living, like we all deserve. However as socialism was undersiege by hostile capitalists (with new nuclear weaponry) on all fronts, it couldnt move or survive. As the Soviet empire fell apart capitalism found its feet again and then began to take back what it had conceded to the people. Public spending was cut, privatisation flourished and living standards were driven back down. And this is where we are today. So lets not blame baby boomers for our misfortune, blame the capitalists who are once again impoverishing the planet.

Ye Gods!! Am I glad I voted Labour!! With the rubbish spouted by our present "Leaders"

A deep depression is hanging over the UK

I was born before WW2 - We were OFFERED the various benefits that people seem to recent - by whatever Governments Lab and Con that was in power after the war ended.

Now what were they? rationing food and clothing. Very high tax hike - it was a max of 98$ in 1974. A 'free' NHS to take the place of very expensive private health

It was Thatcher who sold off the council housing stock leading to housing price rises and shortages.

I have never been ill - never out of work - only debt a house that I paid for by not buying luxuries or holidays - even though there was a Thatcher imposed FIFTEEN percent mortgage rate.

The CONDEMS are really proving they haven't a clue about earlier generation hardships.

I really wonder if this government will survive a five year term - when the UK population will be able to see what happens to countries like France Germany USA etc who followed a similar route as that proposed by Gordon Brown and get out of hardships faster than the CONDEMS policies of hardships to all except the rich.

I really pity the present and future generations with their shallow self-centred attitudes.

Money breeds arrogance, and with the ready availability of cheap credit over the past 15 years, the feckless and stupid have brainwashed themselves into believing that their luxuries are an entitlement and not a reward for hard graft.
I recently had an arguement with someone who thought it obscene that I could afford to run a motorbike in addition to my car and have 3 foreign holidays a year. I pointed out that I have 3 jobs, usually work 6-7 days a week, and that he could afford exactly the same luxuries in life if he got himself another couple of jobs. He ridiculed this and replied saying that doing more than one job was unreasonable and that it wasn't right that other people could afford these things and he couldn't.

That is exactly why many of the younger 'entitled' generation get themselves into the mess they do! (I'm 36 by the way).

47. At 5:54pm on 21 Jun 2010, Tony Dixon wrote:

"4. At 11:42am on 21 Jun 2010, Peter_Sym wrote:

"Get out and work for what you want, society owes you nothing!"

Unless you're a baby boomer in which case you probably think society owes you a final salary pension, retirement at 65 and 30 years of free social care afterwards."

Err, yes. Because that's the deal I signed up for (and paid for ever since) when I started work back in 1971.

But there in lies the problem. We the UK can not afford the baby boomers pensions so if they want to carry on enjoying their over inflated pensions then perhaps it is time to ask them for some money back. It's arrogant to assume that a deal made in 1971 has any relevance now when so many are struggling. Such a me me me attitude.

I think that being born in the mid 1960s I might just be the end of baby boom era.

The house I own I paid for despite interest rates ranging from 12-15% pa.

The pension fund I have is not a final salary scheme and virtually all the contributions I earned.

I did not get a grant at university.

I do not expect anything from my parents when they die (it is their money they earned it and they can spend it on whatever they like).

I remember tax rates of 83% (98% on unearned income)

I have worked damned hard for what I have, I think I have only ever taken 4 or 5 days off sick from work in my life.

I have earned what I have and I have never relied on the state largesse to get me their. I do not feel guilty or that I have taken more than my fair share, I have certainly not left a mess for my children

I am a baby boomer from 1948. Thatcher screwed my final salary pension when she destroyed ITV. The private schemes I had to invest in provide a pittance as the annuity rates are a complete rip off. I didn't get a university grant, the mortgage interest rates were in the teens of % age points and income tax was high. I don't have a second home and my first home is starting to fall apart. You can stick the work ethic where the sun don't shine.

I am a baby boomer, born in 1940. left school in 1955, and started work down a coal mine in the Doncaster area, in 1958 I moved to Rochdale in Lancashire where most of the work available was in a cotton mill, conditions were bad to say the least, it was like working in a snow storm, I had to work four hours on a Saturday morning has the working week was 44 hours. so if todays generation think we had it easy, I dread to think what hard work was like, today's generation have an open door to higher education something most baby boomers could only dream about, the people who should shoulder the blame for the state this country is in today are the manufactures who move their industry aboard where labour was cheap, and then imported their goods back to Britain to make a very large profit, and at the same time found ways of avoiding paying hardly any income tax, and at the same time Britain has been run by politicians who pardon the language "could not organize a piss up in a brewery"

This argument is stupid. For starters we live in a different culture these days. Also, it has to be remembered that after the war to tow people back into line to create a strong economy things had to be conceded and there were new reforms, welfare state and education, not to make people better off but to produce a better workforce.
The reason why people back then got more of what they wanted was because there was collective thinking. People shared a common moral fabric, generally people pulled together unlike today that is all driven by selfish individualism. Today workers are alienated and very few share this common interest of collaborative labour. As a result today’s workers end up with nothing because they don’t stand together and fight. Whereas workers in the past unionised and fought for better conditions, pensions, fairer wages and were positive about the future.
Not so today, workers are obsessed with self, Charlie big spuds and are as far away from solidarity as can be. Even unions are less collective and driven by the big I am. What’s needed is less celebrity trashy culture and a return to collectivised strength. Workers have to up the anti and push forward to change things. If you want better pensions, wages and living conditions then fight for them, like they did in he past. David Willetts is annoyed because working class citizens fought for their rights and in many ways won. David Willetts is no historian and has a weird take on things, he forgets about economic cycles, which brought the boom then bust back to earth, just like today’s recession. The difference from the 70’s was a new ideology, which has made it harder for workers to collectivise. Admittedly a few carrots were thrown, buy your own council house etc but really workers have only themselves to blame. One of the issues today is Cameron going on about big governments etc when in reality there is a huge co-dependence on the state nurtured by both right and left. If workers want a better deal then, like generations before, they have to collectivise and fight for change, and if they don’t get change through the ballot box then take it to the streets. It was not all a bed of roses for workers after the war, and David Willetts needs to basically shut up!

I was born in 1947 and object strongly to this suggestion I went to a secondary modern school- passed the 13+ but there were no places because of the number of children in that year - I passed the Northern Counties with flying colour and then went on to Technical College where as well as s/t skills I passed my O levels and then through 'Distnce learning' studied Politics and trained successfully to be an Accountant. I was the youngest ever Travel Agency Manager and took the new business through the sales needed to gain ABTA & IATA qualification as well as creating the filing system and keeping the books. As a child I had been taught to save for holidays & Christmas and as my ambition was always to travel the saving never stopped. I never claimed dole or unemployment and always knew I needed money for retirement as a bird couldn't live on the OAP. When I was in my teens the very thought of being an unmarried mother was abhorerent but in later years i.e. the next but one generation seemed to see it as a way to get a council flat or house and as that as allowed more and more the situation snowballed and we now have the repeating problem of children having children. I was in a class of 34/5 and all I know of which is quite a few went on to do very well in life and will not be depending on the state to keep them in retirement nor do any of our friends. All our parents had jobs and to be without one to us would have been unheard of. I feel very sorry for the young people of today who really do try hard but the jobs aren't there but don't blame the baby boomers they were not a problem.

Could I explode one of those myths that has arisen recently, the one about student grants. It is very emphatically NOT the case that full grants were given out like Smarties. All grants were means-tested on your parents' income and most students that I knew did not get a full grant; there was a 'parental contribution' that you were supposed to persuade your parents to give you, but if they chose not to, there was nothing you could do. There were very few p-t jobs suitable for students in the 60s and 70s, especially if you were at a university that wasn't near home - it wouldn't have occurred to an employer to take on a student who would only be there for 10 weeks at a time, and as most students lived in university residences rather than flats, most students had to go home in the vacations. Hence the stereotype of the 'impoverished student', which, believe me, was extremely true to life. When I started at university in 1973 I got a grant of £120 to last me 10 weeks and that included the cost of my room in a university residence. I had less than £5 a week to live on, once I'd paid my rent, and it wasn't much then either. The ONLY student I knew who got a full grant was the child of a widowed mother. Some parents did pay their full parental contribution, but many, including mine, didn't.

The other thing that strikes me forcibly is that it may sound as if we boomers are self-righteous when we say we were satisfied with less, but it really is true. It wouldn't have occurred to us, as newlyweds in the late 70s, to want what my own children who are in their 20s take for granted. I know it looks as if we had it easy, but you have to take into account that if we had expected the sort of houses that starter buyers now want, we'd never have got on the housing ladder in the first place. I don't know too many 25-yos now who are willing to start off in a small flat in an unfashionable area, furnished with cast-offs from relatives and without central heating. Please do take into account that material expectations have risen a great deal.

As a Baby Boomer I dispute the idea that we have had it easy, we certainly had it better than the War Generations.
I left school at 15 joined the Army Apprentice scheme, left the forces in 1975 and apart from 6 weeks have been in full employment ever since paying full contributions in Tax and N.I. I have never collected any form of benefit, never inherited a penny and have worked Damned hard for my living.
I'm am comfortably well off thanks to the work I have done and indeed I am still doing. Despite ever increasing tax bills and MP's bleeding us white whilst lining their pockets.
Dave and Mr Bean shouldn't be looking to burden us with the bailing out of the new generation, let the Bankers who caused this take up the slack.

Thatcher had no choice. She had to save a Country totally destroyed and bankrupted by Labour tax and squander policies of the '70s. Cameron has an identical problem and will have to do the same as Maggie. Don't blame the banking crisis or this Government for the pain to come, Gordon Brown was wracking up enormous debts well before the banks burst, but as he had "eliminated boom & bust" it didn't matter. Have it all on credit now as growth will pay for it later. Poor deluded Gordon and poor deluded us.

Labour Government ALWAYS ruin the UK economy, recessions or not, then the Tories (now in Coalition) get the blame as they put it right. Nothing changes.

Yes it was easy being unemployed in the 80's etc - I find the question offensive in its ignorance to be honest.

The younger generation think we have had it easy? If they would like to swap places with me then I would be more than happy to do so.

I was born in 1951 when we learned how to go without. Most of the young people whining about how hard done by they are have no idea how hard life was for us.

The claim that baby boomers have had it easy only refers to the well heeled middle classes. Working class baby boomers did not have all the advantages that David Willetts claims. Life was, and still is, harder for us than the younger generations but we know how to handle it and are not whining.

Jenny Keal

In 1950 on leaving school my fist job was five and a half days a week for £3 and 10 shillings,and at one time I had three jobs nad 30% was paid in tax I have my share.
Conservative Minister David Willetts Lets look at him,chairman of the board of Universal Biosensors Ltd,holds shares in its parent company, Sensor-Tech Limited.adviser to Punter Southall actuaries and Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein. Willetts' wealth is estimated at £1.9M, when does he find time to be an MP.

As a 24 year old, I can see both sides of this coin. Firstly, I'm sad to see some of the boomers responding quite agressively (refernces to Nike trainers, Macdonalds and iphones...) and protesting about how hard you have worked. Well, no one is saying you haven't worked hard, just that you worked in more favourable conditions. I personally don't think it's that simple. And in any case, it's not like you chose to be born when you were.

Ok, basically:

Post War, we were importing labour (due to the tradgedy of all the young people killed), so jobs and houses were plentiful. Higher Education was grant supported and no fees were charged. A house cost 3 x one persons average wage. I don't think you can blame people for taking advantage of that situation and investing as prudently as possible. Honestly? I would have done exactly the same.

On the flip side, there is a really good work ethic from my parents generation, who didn't expect luxuries and lived generally quite austere lives. They generally had an ethos of save and spend, rather than borrow and spend.

I think the motivation to work was there though in the post war years. Do 6 days a week, even in a typical working class job and you could have that 3 bed semi. Now there are people who, no matter how hard they work, will never be able to afford the 3 bed semi in suburbia. 250 grand is just too big an ask (and even I can remember when they were 80 grand, when the average wage was similar to what it is now).

I think from my generation there is an element of the grass being greener. ie, we are looking back and only seeing all the good things and non of the bad. Rose coloured specacles. And I think there is an element of envy too, (I'd love to be able to buy my own house!! :) It's easy to supress when times are good, but when now so many of my generation are finding it hard it surfaces.

I think the boomers implying that the sole difference is that the current generation are lazy are being insensitive and missing the main points of what is clearly a composite issue. Ditto for the "Boomers had it easy" brigade.

Personally I think that to some extent the boomers have inadvertently sacrificed the future of their children. Not by concious choice (as per my point above, I would have done the same) but simply by pure accident of being born at the point in time in which they did.

My parents won't leave me any money, they are too poor. But they did give me the best inheritance of all: understanding the value of hard work.

At least the "Baby Boomer" generation had values and believed in marriage, children out of marriage was undesirable, working, paying taxes and not scrounging.
Now it's time they enjoyed a pay back!

All I know for sure is that particularly in recent years, during the last government, but also before and now, people have spent and are spending what they haven't earned, through the mortgage Ponzi scheme. It appears that they expect the coming generations to foot the bill.

Baby-boomers have not had it too easy.

We are subject to age discrimination, been through redundancy(ies) through no fault of our own and have dire pension prospects. And we were targets under NuLiebour - immigrants, who were more likely to vote NuLiebour, given preference for jobs. (It is Nuliebour that I hate, not immigrants who have also been treated unfairly).

Don't plan on taxing baby-boomers - there is nothing left to tax.

There are a lot of well educated, highly skilled baby-boomers on the dole with no pension prospects.

They have not had it easy not will they.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

It depends on which Baby Boomer you are talking about. I suppose you mean the ones with the jobs in marketing or sales. Or do you mean the ones that empty your bins because young people do not want to do meanial tasks. The young want all to be celebs or rather celeBRATies. The Baby Boomers fought for their rights in the 60's they were going to change the world for the better. But guess what the Rabid Right did not like what was happening. These upstarts from common stock are getting above their station. They need to be brought to heel. The population had already been softened up by engineered strikes. Oh! it was easy then all the Right had to do was upset the unions. The unions had only one recourse STRIKE and the UK was on course for a Right Wing Government. In came Thatcher to do the Hatchet work and order was restored. But the Baby Boomers had already Bought their houses they were already in positions of potential leadership. The following generation suffered from the repressive environment the UK was being governed by and it is all happening again. The Baby Boomers wanted you the following generation to do better than they did and for our society to better and further itself but it did not happen. The Baby Boomer generation is the one that slipped the leash of control just for a short while just think of what you would have if their dreams had lived on

So thats public sector workers, baby boomers, single parents, the unemployed the disabled that are the great unclean, the cause of all the countries ills! I would have included the labour party, but they are guilty of even more amazing crimes they made all europe and north america broke, at least that what the tories and lib dems tell us.

The fact that under both the tories and labour the gap between the top ten percent and the bottom ten percent earners has grown year on year for the past thirty years, this quite clearly looks like continuing, this must have bearing on the countries problems.

67. At 7:27pm on 21 Jun 2010, KAOwen wrote:

Dear KAOwen, A few questions for you to answer

• did "your" parents ever force "you" to go without?
• did "your" parents clothe and feed "you"?
• did "your" parents provide "you" with home and a roof over "your" head?
• did "your" parents ever have to go without whilst bringing "you" up?
• did "your" parents buy "you" toys and gifts whilst "you" were growing up?

I got news for you, I did. So much for "the Baby Boomers" arrogance and the me, me, me attitude. Remember this... I wants don't always get! Just get off your whinging back-side and do an honest days hard graft and stop your moaning! Your parents don't owe you a penny, in fact, you owe them a lot more and the respect they so rightly deserve!

I am a baby boomer of vintage 1947 and have prospered, partly through hard work but also because I went to grammar school (abolished by Labour and not restored by the Tories); I came out of University without debt (unaffordable to Governments because they insist that so many people ought to go there); and ended up with a fair pension (pension system destroyed by Gordon Brown). I kept true to my wife, didn't divorce and didn't sponge off the state. I contributed voluntary service to local organisations. I have benefited enormously from inflation in the housing market but have passed a significant chunk onto my two children to enable them to buy houses. My wife and I are now enjoying helping our new grandson.

In other words, I have lived an industrious life and have looked after my family. I certainly do not feel guilty about the current generation whose lives would be so much easier if we hadn't had 13 spendthrift years of Labour. But then I never voted for them!

Was it Baby Boomers in control of the Banks when they crashed or was it Bright Young Things from the next Generation?

I'm a baby boomer and am struggling to fund a pension. Savings rates and pension funds have bombed and annuity rates are rubbish. It is a fact that to retire now a pension pot has to be much bigger than even 10 years ago and so retirement seems an impossible dream. However my parents-in-law now in their eighties retired in their late fifties and have fantastic pensions, they've never been so well off.
Baby boomers have also had to help their children more with the cost of tuition fees and in some cases housing, this all affects retirement savings whereas the parents of the baby boomers didn't have to do this.

I'm 22 and currently living with my parents, who were born at the tail-end of the boomer generation. They've amassed a good quantity of wealth, something I don't begrudge them for, but I do feel that this will be much less accessible to the current generation entering the workforce, as well as subsequent generations.

I live at home because rent prices are extortionate, especially in the city I work. I commute every day to work. Recently I had the bright idea of purchasing a property in the area. Nothing big, maybe a two bedroom flat that will allow me to let out the second room or for the possibility of my own family in the future. However, even the cheapest flats were far out of my reach for the time being, being some 7x my annual salary, and that's for a small one in the less desirable parts of town. As it stands, my choices are pay extortionate rent, or stay at home at a much cheaper price. At least the second option allows me to buy in many years time, but I'm lucky - many other young adults don't even have that choice.

The "me-me-me" attitude that has prevailed since the war, where homes are treated as investments rather than shelter, and where many houses are bought in order to be let out has widened the divide between first time buyers and those with property. Houses cost a ridiculous amount of money relative to what they are actual worth in truly material terms. Right now the situation looks dire for my generation with regards to the property ladder.

I just want to make a good living for myself with nobody else helping me, but at present that would not enable me to save enough money to buy within the next decade, short of big pay rises. So I will stay put at home, putting away what I can and hoping that the situation gets better. As before, I don't want help or anything for free, I just want to be able to pull myself up.

"Was it Baby Boomers in control of the Banks when they crashed or was it Bright Young Things from the next Generation?"

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Hmmm... well, on balance it was probably a mix of baby boomers and those of the next generation (born 1965-1975). Either way it wasn't my generation (born mid 80's), though, funnily enough, I imagine we'll end up paying the lions share of the national debt back...

Congratulations on this evening's baby boomers programme which was very well balanced with most of the issues, housing, educations, pensions, jobs, touched on. You briefly mentioned inheritances etc. In a sense the problem is as much about within-generation fairness as it is about between generation fairness. The better off, if they want to, can always redistribute resources between generations, acting like a dynasty. The less well-off can't do this of course, even if they want to. A less well-off young generation will not have its university fees and housing subsidised by its parent generation. Having family assets which can be transferred between generations greatly softens the impact of whatever the state does.

Number 84 Was removed because it broke the house rules - It would be nice if they told us what part it broke. So I have changed eight words and hope this meets with their approval!!

I was born in 1947 and started work in 1964 paid Tax and NI until the birth of my first child in 1970 I returned to work in 1972 and again paid Tax and NI, my second child arrived in 1973 and again I was back in employment in 1975 and continued to work until 1990 when the Dutch Employer I worked for sold his business an left us all unemployed, the worst to come he embezzled our Tax and NI contributions, I had retained my pay slips which showed in his own handwriting my PAYE deductions, the Tax and NI offices did not accept these pay slips as proof of deductions. Thanks to this Employer I have lost 27% of my state pension and as the ruling at that time was unless you were in full time employment you couldn't have a private pension, so this also went and could not be reinstated when I found new employment two months later.

Back at work until 1995 when I was diagnosed with cancer, then MS and finally diabetes - I have worked hard and had to have three jobs just to keep a roof over our heads.

My own mother is 91, other than looking after the house and family, has never been employed and has very good health and three pensions, c/o my father who died at 61 because of the WW2 and being overworked in a high pressured job - The moral - if I had my life over again I would not work, which would have stopped my husband extra-marital affairs and I would be sitting on 'easy street' with no money problems and an excellent Civil Servant Pension, c/o him -

P.S. I will never own my house as the Labour government allowed the mis-selling of endowments and like thousands of others we were never compensated.

So they think we had it easy - Some did but the majority didn't

All this user's posts have been removed.Why?

Well it's certainly true that many of the baby-boom generation have done very nicely thank you very much. Many benefitted from free higher education, the vast inflation in property prices and final salary pensions. All things that the generation born in the last 20 years can't hope to enjoy. Pitting one generation against another may not get us very far, but I have a great deal of sympathy for those under 30 and I'm not surprised that many feel that their futures have been mortgaged.

With reference to point 80. Not all baby boomers believe in marriage - I am a baby boomer (1948) and I detest the idea of marriage. My mother was a single parent and worked hard to support me. There was no child benefit for the first chlid, and she had only me, and to my knowledge she never claimed any other benefits. Following her example I have lived in a stable un-married relationship for for 37 years and have a 27 year old son who is well educated and in full time employment. There is definately no need for marriage just a comittment to care for one another. With a divorce rate of 1 in 3 I cannot understand why people, like Cameron, keep banging on about marriage. Strong families are what are needed and making un-married partners and parents and the children thereof second class in the tax, benefits, insurance and pension worlds just leaves a lot of resentment.

79. At 9:53pm on 21 Jun 2010, prophet_samuel wrote:

As a 24 year old, I can see both sides of this coin.

Ok, basically:

Post War, we were importing labour (due to the tradgedy of all the young people killed), so jobs and houses were plentiful. Higher Education was grant supported and no fees were charged. A house cost 3 x one persons average wage. I don't think you can blame people for taking advantage of that situation and investing as prudently as possible. Honestly? I would have done exactly the same.

I think the motivation to work was there though in the post war years. Do 6 days a week, even in a typical working class job and you could have that 3 bed semi.

===

Thank you for trying to come up with a balanced view, but you don't know much about the history of post-war Britain and you confuse periods repeatedly. Post-war, as you call it, there was actually a shortage of housing - bomb sites, prefabs -- ever heard of them? -- and people being moved around en masse into council estates in new towns like Crawley. Working class people could not buy houses, because they had no source of credit whatsoever. The only housing available to most was council housing or Rigsby-style bedsits. Even in the 70s, few could get out of the rut.

This was transformed in the 80s, when Thatcher engineered the right-to-buy home ownership boom and the start of the credit boom. It was the Tories in the 80s who created the expectation that people have had ever since that they must own a house, just to keep up. It didn't work that way elsewhere in Europe and it didn't have to work that way here. It was a politician's ploy to tie people to voting for their party.

So the "blame game" goes on so that a Conservative minister can make revenue from a book after some free advertising on this HYS and Radio 4.

And who or what shall we blame today? How about the welfare state and those fortunate to have been born when it did what it said on the tin?

Is finding a scapegoat what we are always reduced to? What a pathetic bunch we are.

The Baby Boomers have only had it 'easy' on house prices. Social mobility, equality of sexes and access to education has never been better. However, none of those things matter (or are apparent) when you can't even buy a house on the back of them - instead whittling away 60-70% of your income on overpriced rented accomodation.

My parents bought a 3 bedroom detached house for £20,000 at the turn of the 80's, which now has a market value of over £300,000. They were both on low incomes for the time and yet right at the beginning of their life a massive burden was lifted from their shoulders. My partner and I both earn a comparable income to my parents at that time, yet the price of an inner-city, one bedroom, kitchen off living room dump would cost us 6 or 7 times our income. Of course the banks won't lend us that sort of money, even if we could theoretically raise the deposit. We can afford it though, because we're paying someone else's mortgage on a similar property (plus their profit). I don't know how we can afford it, but I do know that after council tax and bills we can barely afford to eat.

We don't drink; we work long, hard hours and we don't even own a TV (our only luxury being the internet). My partner is educated to a very high level from one of the top UK universities and even has a side-gig doing a few lectures a year for them. I had to leave university because I could not afford to... well, not work. We're not stupid, we're not lazy and I resent the idea that our generation are.

Yes, there is a benefit culture in some parts of society, but really they're not the problem. The problem is an economy based largely on housing. There is not a lack of it - we all live somewhere - but there is an artificial inflation of prices caused by a greater demand than there should be. I can't compete with my parents when they decide to buy more properties - towards the end of their careers, earning a respectable salary, with no mortgage to pay and with a huge 'asset' (which they got for pennies, really) they can use to raise more capital.

Shelter is a basic human need, not a commodity to gain profit on. If you're a baby boomer reading this, I ask only one thing:

Don't artificially inflate demand (and prices) for housing. If you're thinking of buying more property for any other reason to house your relatives, please don't. Even then you're probably hurting us. The banks would rather take your money than ours (for the obvious reason your's will be more), but try to get them to take ours instead. I'm pushing 30 and I suspect I speak for many my age when I say you can forget children/grandchildren unless something gives. No way I am raising children on my lack of disposable income in a 2 room flat - I thought we got rid of that 50 years ago.

For everything else, I am grateful. You've done a great job of providing us with almost everything we need.

Unfortunately, I feel even more downbeat about the future of housing with the current coalition's plans to deregulate the letting sector.