Look – we are going to have to save the Boomers (I know, I know, I know)

By
Martyn Bradbury
-
35
856

Calls for Govt intervention as pensioners stretched to cover rent

Two charities are calling for the Government to step in and help pensioners struggling to pay the rent as research shows it is getting harder for people to afford housing.

A recent Massey University study shows a single pensioner on a “no frills” budget had a weekly spend of $564.25 in the provinces and $687.84 in metro areas.

The pension for those living alone was currently $519.47, meaning receivers were often spending more than they were earning in a given week.

Look.

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No one is going to like what I’m going to have to say, but Comrades, I think we are going to have to save the fucking Boomers!

I Know!
I Know!

I Know!

I Know!

I Know!

I KNOW!

The bloody boomers.

The generation who enjoyed cradle to the grave subsidy from post war Governments who saw the public service provision of the middle classes would deny the extremism that ripped the Weimar Republic to pieces without tempting the communists.

The generation who changed society’s conventions, demanded nuclear free and fought the Springbok tour.

The generation who promise much, who benefited from the cradle to grave subsidy, the generation who promptly pulled up the ladder and left everyone else to be a user pays future.

Yes, that generation.

Many boomers have speculated well and their property portfolios bulge, but not every boomer however and we are going to have to do something meaningful about elderly housing.

Firstly, we never call them boomers again, because every generation hates them, we will call them Pensioners from now on and hope everyone forgets who that generation ripped the rest of us off and left us with a burning planet was.

If we don’t support their housing and lift social participation through adult education they will be lost to Peter Williams on Reality Check Radio and Sean Plunkett on The Platform while voting for Winston.

Sigh.

We are going to have to save the Boomers from themselves.

 

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35 COMMENTS

  2. Stop the boomer bashing .Yes some have made squilions over the years but not all .All of the current assets like schools and hospitals,rail and roads were all paid for by those people you now hate .And they are still paying taxes to fund the new builds .YES we pay tax on our pension and always have done so ,even the ones that are living in poverty now .
    However the time as come to review the current system and maybe look at who really need that pension .I saw two news items early in the week that showed the huge divide that exists in NZ .One group were having their rent increased and living on baked beans .The other were gloating about buying shares in an historic launch in the Bay of islands and the weekly lunch they have at some posh restraunt where they dine on crayfish .This second group are the same entitled group who prevented housing NZ from building homes for their grand kids and other future generations of the less well off .As a pensioner myself I was disgusted at their display of self indulgence .I am fortunate to currently own my modest home in a small rural village but will have to reveiw that as the cost of rates and insurance is well over $120 per week .When one of us passes there is no way the remaining person will be able to continue to own the home so they will be paying rent or living on the road along side the growing number of homeless elderly that are now grey nomads .In time those nomads will not be able to live as they now do due to age related illness etc .

  3. I will just keep voting National and the well balanced economy they will create will look after me . Another year will see the success of their financial recovery.

  4. You can blame the Boomers for collectively shafting compulsory superannuation in this country as they fell for Muldoon’s lies that we could all look forward to a pension of 80% of the average wage fully funded by taxation. National. The party that knows how to run the economy.

  5. Remember it was a bunch of people in the Labour Party who started telling the so called boomers that There Is No Alternative the govt can’t afford it and destroyed the egaliarianism and introduced neo-liberalism.

    They are only wealthy because the world prints money and the house they own is measured in devalued currencies. That’s if they have a house. Also remember their kids aren’t going to nurse them and they have to sell the house to pay for the nursing home.

    Chloe’s Ok Boomer is as divisive as Seymours race baiting trip. Did she apologise yet?

    • There is logic to working people with large mortgages wondering why we pay national super to people who are working after 65 or have significant investments. If we don’t tax them, let’s stop their old person benefit.

      • If you work after 65 tax rate is 30 percent . With Romany not retiring at 65 due to better health the retirement age should go to 67 unless you have a medical reason for stopping at 65.

  7. And we are needing to adopt a fair and reasonable method of euthanasia. i know! I know (a married couple in their 80s decided to go together, and were found to have committed suicide in recent news. The state and you gormless citizens who vote against it ‘on principle’ need to wake up to yourselves.

    And those who would like to decide for themselves a restful, settled time to go could fund a year of their foregone pension to Grey Power to help with housing, or to a housing trust in their area. The rest homes are just parking places waiting to die. You can’t recover from creeping old age and when some life extension stuff is developed that will be another lack of courage of the self-hypnotised, to be truly human. Watch Cold Lazarus on youtube – Denis Potter.

    • Ageism apologists and arguments more often seem to be supporting the old. And this has to be looked at analytically just as the populist let- the-young-people, in as they will have to pay today’s debts etc. Having respect for the old needs to be modified by the thought that there often is a sense of superiority in them; a belief that they know best which can’t be directly challenged because of their age should give them more accumulated knowledge.

      Now if old and young could work together and get some shared desire and have searching discussions as to why present systems have not produced better outcomes, and the young could suggest pilot tests and run them with open-minded but guarded assistance of the old, there would be an opportunity for break-through. It’s learning on the job so that young mature people are able to take over from the ageing – who should step down in their sixties!

      If there are trained young people who have learned in their home country what is needed and reasonable to enable or provide we’d be sweet. I suggest start with 14 year olds at school in share planned projects with reasonable budgets. The whole class could look on and the oldies would explain what they are trying to do so that reasonable appraisals could be made.
      That would be useful education and not just pie in the sky key-tappers and programmers jostling for notice of the gods of the Ramtops!

      Simply arguing about ageism and whether it is wrong or justified to shut down or pen-arms on on people automatically at a young or older age is not helpful. And it’s time to change. Can we have examples where broad planning and public service plans are being implemented – and not just cycle tracks or skateboard parks – that’s kids stuff?

  8. As far as I’m concerned, ageism is as disgusting as racism. Labelling every person because of their birth decade, or skin colour, or religious beliefs is as ridiculous as labelling them because of their eye colour, hair colour, or side they part their hair on. People who do it, only hurt themselves, and deserve pity for their ignorance.

  10. Ennius, the logic is boomers paid tax to pay the pensions of the previous generation. The boomers kids pay the boomers pensions. The boomers grand kids pay the boomers kids pensions. Look after and respect the elderly.

    However kids can feel agreived they didn’t get a free tertiary education after Nationals ungrateful Lockwood Smith, with his State Paid For Phd, whacked kids with education loans.

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