Pension questions

[nikita**]

Everybody is part of the system we all have to pay our taxes �" to safeguard our future" � so why government appears helpless for pensioners? Is it because their system does not work? Or is it another excuse for us to pay expensive private pensions (which few can afford) and it makes it harder for state pension system?

[vehelpfulguy]

The problem (and it is affecting all Western countries) is that the age mix has changed over the last 100 years or so.

A 100 years ago not many people lived past 65, and people had many children (because so many died young). This meant that there was about 10 people working for everyone over 65.

Gradually people are having less children, AND people are living longer, so now there is only 2 people working for everyone over 65.

This means that the cost of looking after older people is going up, and the number of people in work paying for it is going down (relatively).

Of course we also live in a society that has more benefits, so it is costing more and more to keep more and more older people.

The simple answer is that the country cannot afford it.

One way round the problem has been to encourage immigration, generally young people, who also tend to have more children.

This in itself is bringing problems, because the birth rate amongst immigrants is higher and they are increasing in number faster than the indiginous population (but that is another matter).

So overall, as a country, it is getting too expensive to give everyone over 65 a pension (plus all the other benefits) so we have to encourage people to either work longer, or have their own pension.

[nikita**]

The country is richer for having an older generation. The medai have protrayed them as a burden and a disability. They have paid their taxes like anyone else. It is so easy to target a group of people when the sytsem is fails them. The population has grown anyway, therefore the government receive more taxes than ever before. We are a one of the wealthiest countries. Our pension system is the most complicated in the world. Our taxes are spent more on neverending wars.

[noxlumos]

A lot less hysterics about immigration would certainly help the squalid pension situation long term, but whilst you have the Daily Mail churning out it's drivel can't see much hope of that. Personally I agree that the elderly are not a burden, we just don't use them as a society in the right way and all this nonsense that the optimal age for everything is 20 something to 30 something needs dealing with. If you're younger than that you're either a hooded tearaway and potential mugger, or a student sponging off the state doing a degree course that wouldn't have passed for a quiz in junior school 30 years ago. If you are older than that, you are behind the times, a burden, washed up and of no practical use to anyone. It's all a load of sh*te.We need to get our perceptions of both the old and the young more on a par with something that actually represents them rather than negatively stereotyping each group to the detriment of our whole society.