Beyond the Budget: Fixing NZ’s retirement math problem
The truth about New Zealand’s retirement system is stark: it’s mathematically unsustainable in its current form.
Our politicians know this. Treasury knows this. Economists know this.
Yet election after election, we collectively pretend otherwise, kicking the can down a road that’s rapidly running out.
Fuck off!
Here we go again, wealthy Boomers explaining to us all that their cradle to the grave subsidisation isn’t affordable to the rest of us.
I love Boomers telling Gen Xers, (the first generation burnt by user pays), that we have to have superannuation later to ensure they can continue to get theirs.
So not only does Gen X get fucked over by User Pays thanks to Boomers, we also have to have less and later Super to ensure the Boomers are ok?
Yay.
Neat.
Not allowed to make any mention of how fucked that is and another reminder of Generational dominance by the Boomers again.
Thanks to that cradle to the grave life subsidisation they got and ensured the rest of us didn’t.
Yay. Can’t ever mention that.
Look, the Boomers can afford life preserving medicines and all the nice perks that come along with their untaxed capital gains, but they’ve helped late stage capitalism burn the planet with climate change and they won’t be around long enough to see the hell they have inherited their grand children.
Look.
The political math is turning and for the first time Gen X + Millennials are a larger voting block than the Boomers.
Isn’t it time to talk about estate duties?
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Is Gen X any better than the Boomers? Interested to hear others opinions. Seems to be quite a few comfortable Gen Xers who have stood up for nothing their entire lives. Apparently ” not caring” is cool.
I have stood up for something my entire life: telling opinionated assholes to fuck off with their judgements.
#GenX
Good on ya mate. Point still stands, as a cohort what hill has Gen x died on in NZ? User pays no. Student loans? Environment? Super will go the same way… With a winge and a wimp out
Solid.
bomber the bludger, scared hes gunna have to wait a couple more years to leech off the taxpayer
Did you know that super was granted at 55 (50 if you were a solo mother whose last kid left school after they turned 50) in 1980? No? didn’t think so. So we are having to wait 10/15 years more already than our parents.
do you realise the medical gains and huge leap in life expectancy?
And if we move the goalposts for every generation how long before it becomes 75 or 80? People might be living longer on average but you are a fool if you think good health or access to said medical gains is universal. Ever heard of waiting lists?
its not up to the state to ensure you have money saved by 65, more oldies need to die time we cut pensions and free healthcare to those over the average life expectancy.
Is that you seymoure .Dont for get your time to reach retirement is coming faster than you think .
Are you sure? I can remember it moving from 60 to 61 (1992 to 2001) then over quite a few years to the 65 it is now. The babies to adults ratio has never made a pay as you go scheme sustainable but the voters always wanted the money now and the politicians were just plain greedy also so reality was never considered. I am happy for things like asset and income restrictions provided that substantial changes are made to politicians superannuation as well. I can think of plenty of politicians who don’t deserve any retirement support.
You might just be correct. I was a child at the time. Having said that I left school in 1981 and my mum was born in 1931. By my admittedly crap math that makes her 50 when she received super. I have always just assumed it was 5 years earlier but maybe it was 10? That does seem like a big difference tho. I am 100% she got super then as i had to stay at school an extra year to make it possible as i was her youngest. Anyway, I am happy to concede 60 was the general age in 1980. Sorry, my mistake.
I believe it was 60, actually, for most people (not sure about solo mums).
Boomers don’t comprise a monolithic group.
No but they had to try very hard to end up poor.
Bull shit .Just look at the list gen x has in wellfare right now .
First year payment for each kid
Working for families
family tax credit
Accomodation alowance
ECE paid for
subsidies to send kids to boarding school
When my kids were born we got not a cent because I was working too much so did not qualify because my $225 a week was too high .even though ours was a single income family .
Martyn – Super only works if the next generation is willing to fund it …perhaps Gen X should stop funding the Boomers…?
The younger generations – (maybe not the oldest Gen X) are simply moving overseas where their taxes won’t be poured down the bottomless pit of NZ Super and free healthcare for everyone.
cool, remember us boomers funded our grand parents and parents as well as paying for the schools ,hospitals and power dams and roads all built with borrowed money in the 60s while living on low wages with out welfare .Nice selfish idea to stop paying us now and flooding the streets with home less old people .Maybe we could means test our kids and make them look after us while they wait for us to die and take over the free house they have not worked for .
Why not just go the whole hog and euthanise everyone over 65 and have yearly euthanasia partys on the first of april
Estate duties, now that would hurt the Gen X and Millenials. The boomer dies and the Gen Xer and Millennial pay the estate tax. If they can’t pay the estate tax the house gets sold and is likely bought up by a property company.
The GenX and Gen Mill need a student debt jubilee. At the stroke of a computer key the student loan asset could be removed from the government balance sheet. Then Gen X & Mill could save for a house, buy a house and may be get those capital gains over the next 40 years. A sure-fire way for Labour to get back into power would be to promise to wipe all student debt.
If you question why some, and it’s only some, Boomers received massive capital gains, you find,
Boomers watched the great generation get slaughtered in the 87 Sharemarket crash, so they decided residential property was the safe bet, causing house demand inflation.
In the 90’s National under Bolger decided NZ is part of Asia and let Chinese property buyers qualify for Golden Visas, causing house demand inflation.
Brash and Cullen spent the 90s telling boomers the next generation couldn’t afford to pay for boomer Super, so the boomers bought rentals as their own retirement savings scheme, causing house demand inflation.
Labour created the Cullen Fund but never contributed enough to cover the super problem, so boomers kept buying up housing.
Labour created Kiwi Saver, but National keeps reducing the contributions (poor economic managers) and the Kiwi Saver isnt covering the super problem so boomers were right to keep thinking current Government schemes won’t help with their pension.
Then Labour and National let a 1 million immigrants into the country in the last 12 years. There were Chinese migrants arriving solely to be the front for a syndicate of 10 newly middle-class people back in China, wanting to invest in freehold property which is not available in China. Demand in the NZ property market was opened up from 4million Kiwis to 1.4 billion Chinese at no benefit to the ordinary boomer unless they owned a rental property. Obviously, some boomers do own a rental or two, but most don’t!
Labour printed necessary liquidity during the pandemic but after the pandemic both National and Labour failed to mop up the excess liquidity as they were advised to do by Adrian Orr and so the excess money caused a house price bubble.
In the last two years, boomer property owners have lost on paper 20% of their asset. If net immigration stays low, then as the boomers start to die, the Boomer Demographic Blip will feed through to an increasing level of either boomers’ kids inheriting homes and rentals or boomers selling homes to finance retirement village apartments, which may possibly cause house prices to fall further.
Given the level of the pension at only $400 per week many boomers will be forced to take out reverse mortgages and when they die, their kids won’t inherit the family home instead, it will go to the bank and then be schemed up into large property holding companies.
Leaving the Gen X and Millennials ‘loving’, owning nothing and renting everything.
Even after the estate duties they are getting a very cheap house that they have never contributed to .
You’re not going to get much of your parents house after they go in to care at some point, and the asset is mostly used to pay rest home fees.
Not much left to tax after government and rest homes have extorted most of the cash.
I explained that to my stepson one day .He was really pissed that he has waited so long for us to die and we may have spent it all on our own care .He had this strange idea that as he was the eldest he would inherit everything and his two siblings would have to grovel to him to collect $10 each .He got a real lesson in the real world .
I do so love these articles about boomers, xers, years, millennials and post millennials, especially when they generalize to the point where their arguments are meaningless.
Let’s start with the boomers. Supposedly those born between 1945 and 1965. Yes they grew up in the cradle to the grave system, and when the wage gap was about 1:7, with the highest earners being a mere seven times the lowest. House prices were the equivalent of three years average annual income. Here’s the reality. For 8/10 boomers, they lost house, marriage, job and security between 1987 and 1995. That’s a well known statistic.
So when you talk about boomers, do you mean the 20% who have done alright, or do you mean the 80% who were screwed over? Until you get more specific in your definitions, you’re taking drivel.
Exactly the same applies to Gen Xers, Gen Years, and millennials. The descendants of the 20% ers have it made. The rest are in the same boat as the 80% boomers, fucked over every which way.
The real division in NZ is the 3% who own the wealth and the 7% who make up their enablers, and the other 90% of NZ population who survive week to week.
Any other argument is futile, meaningless, and ultimately nonsensical.
You and Joseph have made the best explanation for the current situation, as you say the 3% would love to see us fighting each other instead of blaming them for the mess they have produced.
You have nailed it buddy .Most boomers ,of which I am one worked hard with little or no welfare support and I am one of the lucky few that ended up keeping my own home .The problem with todays lot is they pay tax but get it all back in handouts so at the end of the day there is not much left in the tax take .The same moaners are happy to take the government handouts to them for the rentals they own and fleece their mates as well for the $600 pw they charge them to rent it .
It’s waaaay past time. Gen-x with voting age offspring. Boomers are/will move along naturally. Bye bye. Maybe now my offspring can have a hint of the “easy street” that I could not. Let’s start back at housing and jobs. Basics. Who’s got them and why?
Oh my God. How unbelievably dumb. Times of peace require greatest vigilance. You fucking morons.
Another miss guided boomer bash today .Can Bomber or any one else tell me how many boomers there are ,how many own more than one house ,how many are renting and how many have more than $50k in the bank .We need to remember 90% worked in the low wage system ,just the same as per jobs today .So the belief that we were all paid massive wages is just a myth .And we never had the government top ups available today for our kids .
It’s not a myth. Sure, some boomers were unemployable so have had a free ride for their entire lives. It’s no myth that ALL boomers collect the pension. It’s no myth that millionaire and significantly wealthy boomers with rental properties collect pension. It cost $4 Billion per year to pay out the pension. Guess who is paying all of that? Hint: it’s not the elderly. The sheer grifting entitlement the old folk gasp and grasp of is pathetic. Move along already. You’ve had your time. The gift is up.
“It cost $4 Billion per year to pay out the pension. Guess who is paying all of that? Hint: it’s not the elderly”
Fortunately fair NZ still has a universal pension scheme designed by a previous socialist government and everyone knows they will get a basic level of retirement and care. That’s an egalitarian deal for everyone.
clearly no one has those figures today 2.5 hours is plenty of time for you boomer bashers to have come up with the figures seeing as you are so convinced that all boomers are rolling in cash .
Why not just go the whole hog and euthanise everyone over 65 and have yearly euthanasia partys on the first of april
There shouldn’t even be an argument here: MEANS TEST SUPER. Easy.