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This is one of the major reasons why the UK Conservatives just lost the election, they attempted to 1) Maintain the ratio of working life to retired life by in

This is one of the major reasons why the UK Conservatives just lost the election, they attempted to 1) Maintain the ratio of working life to retired life by increasing retirement age in proportion to increased life expectancy. Which meant increasing retirement age to 67 by something like 2050. 2) Reduce the triple lock of pensions - which means the state pension rises by a minimum of either 2.5%, the rate of inflation or average earnings growth, whichever is largest - to a double lock, which only includes the latter two elements. 3) Means test the payment of winter fuel allowance, which is a yearly payment of about £300 made to everyone above a certain age, so that it would not be received by wealthy pensioners. 4) Put in place what was effectively an inheritance tax for payment of social care (i.e. care homes and in-home care) after death, which is currently both criminally underfunded and also massively expensive. In combination, this is something like £15bn each year of extra spending now, rising to £50-70bn each year within the next 30 years. All of these measures were opposed by Labour, and their most enthusiastic supporters are the young.

barrkel 9y ago
Put in place what was effectively an inheritance tax for payment of social care This is the one policy of the Tories that I supported. There's been a massive transfer of unearned housing wealth to the elderly in recent years, owing to property price increases. It's criminal to tax young people to pay for elderly care, when those same young people cannot afford housing, housing that is owned by the elderly they'll be paying to care for. This is exactly how the old are eating the young.
- crdoconnor 9y ago
  "This is the one policy of the Tories that I supported. There's been a massive transfer of unearned housing wealth to the elderly in recent years" Nothing close to the size of the transfer from poor & middle class to the very, very rich. "This is exactly how the old are eating the young." The wealthy are explicitly trying to create a divide between young and old precisely so that the old can be relied upon to offer no resistance to student loan increases that soak the young while the young can be relied upon to offer no resistance to cuts to pensions and elderly care. If young people are complicit in this game of divide and conquer they'll ultimately only hurt themselves.
  - kazagistar 9y ago
    How exactly are they hurting themselves when they can clearly see the impossibility of the system surviving long enough for them to benefit from it?
    - crdoconnor 9y ago
      The Robber baron Jay Gould once put it as "I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other". The middle and working classes are much less powerful political bloc if they are fighting each another (young/old). Hence the steady flow of articles like this one pitting "boomers" against "millenials" and vice versa. The provision of decent pensions, free education and social welfare was affordable in the 50s-80s when the country was much poorer and the idea that it has become less affordable because we live slightly longer after many decades of massive economic growth is, to put it bluntly, economically illiterate. The money is there.
      - int_19h 9y ago
        What was the difference in birth rates between 50s-80s and today? That's the more important metric in this case.
        crdoconnor 9y ago
        The dependency ratio went up from 15% in 1960 to 22% today. The GDP per capita, by contrast, has increased 300% in 2005 adjusted dollars. This is the metric that answers the question "why are pensions deemed unaffordable?", not birth/aging/death rates: http://retired.talkingpointsmemo.com/images/productivity.png http://retired.talkingpointsmemo.com/images/productivity.png
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    This exactly: the old v. young issue is a deliberate distraction and divide-and-conquer strategy so the superrich can keep eating everyone else.
- FLUX-YOU 9y ago
  >There's been a massive transfer of unearned housing wealth to the elderly in recent years, owing to property price increases. Ok, that's got to be the weirdest mental gymnastics I've seen for justifying rich old people running the world. I'm also suspicious that's it actually true because I'm sure a lot of houses changed hands in the US housing crisis, and it probably went to real estate brokers who decided to rent instead of sell even after getting a bunch of houses in the firesale. Even if old people realized those gains by selling their house (and going where?), it's not going to be enough money that they'd go out and start buying a bunch of other houses and charging outrageous rent. Certainly not enough to lord over sprawling apartment complexes filled with a bunch of millennial wage slaves. Maybe, maybe someone in California bought a house for like 50k and turned it into life-changing millions, but to imply that's a massive transfer of wealth for entire countries is disingenuous.
  - treerock 9y ago
    Not sure how you think this was 'justifying rich old people running the world', rather it seemed to be justifying getting money to cover social care for old people, from the value of their house (after they die). It's also in reference to the UK, where publicly owned housing was sold off to tenants in the 80s at below market rates, and housing markets have been booming ever since.
    - collyw 9y ago
      > housing markets have been booming ever since. Petty sure 8 or 9 years of "emergency" low interest rates have had an effect in preventing the otherwise inevitable crash in prices.
  - tonyedgecombe 9y ago
    The situation in the US is somewhat different to the UK, we are a densely populated nation and have significantly under-built houses for the last 30 years.
  - Brakenshire 9y ago
    The UK isn't the same as the US, here house prices have doubled relative to wages almost everywhere in the country over the last few decades. You're right in the sense that it isn't just a transfer of wealth to the elderly, it's a transfer of wealth to home owners, particularly in the prosperous parts of the country, and in the long run to their families. In the short term that's correlated although not matched to young/old, and it gets more and more fuzzy the further into the future you go. Ironically in effect the left wing party just made a lot of political headway by allying with the right-wing tabloids to protect this inherited wealth against being used for care of the elderly. There are better ways of organizing it, but I didn't hear much nuance in the campaign against it, and I wouldn't be surprised if all policies even vaguely similar are now dead in the water.
- ZeroGravitas 9y ago
  I thought (and I admit not to being an expert here) that one of the issues was that they were trying to basically bankrupt people who got a particular kind of illness. Now, you might say, well they got a very expensive kind of illness, and so they should pay for it, because someone has to pay for it. But, applying the "veil of ignorance" test, of not knowing whether you or your family will be struck by such a disease in the future, it would seem a system where everyone effectively pays insurance to guard against the highly negative outcome would be fairest and most sensible outcome. I see parallels to the current healthcare fight in America, which seems to take advantage of people's strong belief that "it won't happen to me" to form policy, rather than actual statistics and a general right wing antipathy to these kinds of solutions. I guess it's easier to sell potential bankruptcy to people when they're young and healthy than a 100% certain tax rise.
  - Brakenshire 9y ago
    > I thought (and I admit not to being an expert here) that one of the issues was that they were trying to basically bankrupt people who got a particular kind of illness. It was nick-named 'the dementia tax', although that aspect of it was only half accurate, it depends on whether the case was severe enough to need to go into a care home. Residential care (in a care home) already has to be paid for by the person receiving it. The difference is that now you have to pay the money up front until your assets go down to £23k, which usually means being forced to sell any property to release funds, whereas this bill increased the limit to £100k, and postponed payment so that it came out of your estate after death. The major change was that care in your own home was going to be subject to the same system, whereas at the moment it is paid for by the state, albeit only available patchily. But a lot of this in-home care is going to be quite limited, I remember with my own grandparents the major help they received was someone coming in to give a bath once a week. That was probably only about £30 a week (£1500 a year) in costs, frankly it would have been better if they had received more care, and more money had come out of their property. If you are the child, and you begrudge £20-100k coming out of your inheritance so that your elderly relatives can be properly looked after, I don't exactly sympathize. I agree with you about the insurance aspect of it, and that was what was recommended by a cross-party (that is, bipartisan) commission. The problem I see with that is that inheritance taxes are very unpopular, and the more you sever the link between the tax, and the thing that is being paid for, the more that people will object. But I agree that is what should happen, let's hope this 'dementia tax' label doesn't stick to those efforts as well.
- gaius 9y ago
  This is exactly how the old are eating the young And yet, the young overwhelmingly voted for it! A paradox no?
  - passivepinetree 9y ago
    Not necessarily. Usually older people vote in much greater numbers than the young.
    - gaius 9y ago
      Indeed... Simpson's Paradox I was referring to.
viraptor 9y ago
> these measures were opposed by Labour, and their most enthusiastic supporters are the young. I wouldn't take many conclusions from the last elections. A lot of labour votes were actually "not-tories" votes. They didn't agree with Labour, but it's still better than the status quo.
- Brakenshire 9y ago
  Yes, nevertheless, conclusions will be drawn. Anything that could possibly be described as a 'dementia tax' is now dead in the water. That probably includes the cross-party proposals, even though they are incredibly important.
- eli_gottlieb 9y ago
  Well, that shows that Labour can run with a more left-wing manifesto and still capture the please-no-more-Tories votes.

barrkel 9y ago

Put in place what was effectively an inheritance tax for payment of social care This is the one policy of the Tories that I supported. There's been a massive transfer of unearned housing wealth to the elderly in recent years, owing to property price increases. It's criminal to tax young people to pay for elderly care, when those same young people cannot afford housing, housing that is owned by the elderly they'll be paying to care for. This is exactly how the old are eating the young.

crdoconnor 9y ago
"This is the one policy of the Tories that I supported. There's been a massive transfer of unearned housing wealth to the elderly in recent years" Nothing close to the size of the transfer from poor & middle class to the very, very rich. "This is exactly how the old are eating the young." The wealthy are explicitly trying to create a divide between young and old precisely so that the old can be relied upon to offer no resistance to student loan increases that soak the young while the young can be relied upon to offer no resistance to cuts to pensions and elderly care. If young people are complicit in this game of divide and conquer they'll ultimately only hurt themselves.
- kazagistar 9y ago
  How exactly are they hurting themselves when they can clearly see the impossibility of the system surviving long enough for them to benefit from it?
  - crdoconnor 9y ago
    The Robber baron Jay Gould once put it as "I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other". The middle and working classes are much less powerful political bloc if they are fighting each another (young/old). Hence the steady flow of articles like this one pitting "boomers" against "millenials" and vice versa. The provision of decent pensions, free education and social welfare was affordable in the 50s-80s when the country was much poorer and the idea that it has become less affordable because we live slightly longer after many decades of massive economic growth is, to put it bluntly, economically illiterate. The money is there.
    - int_19h 9y ago
      What was the difference in birth rates between 50s-80s and today? That's the more important metric in this case.
      - crdoconnor 9y ago
        The dependency ratio went up from 15% in 1960 to 22% today. The GDP per capita, by contrast, has increased 300% in 2005 adjusted dollars. This is the metric that answers the question "why are pensions deemed unaffordable?", not birth/aging/death rates: http://retired.talkingpointsmemo.com/images/productivity.png http://retired.talkingpointsmemo.com/images/productivity.png
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  This exactly: the old v. young issue is a deliberate distraction and divide-and-conquer strategy so the superrich can keep eating everyone else.
FLUX-YOU 9y ago
>There's been a massive transfer of unearned housing wealth to the elderly in recent years, owing to property price increases. Ok, that's got to be the weirdest mental gymnastics I've seen for justifying rich old people running the world. I'm also suspicious that's it actually true because I'm sure a lot of houses changed hands in the US housing crisis, and it probably went to real estate brokers who decided to rent instead of sell even after getting a bunch of houses in the firesale. Even if old people realized those gains by selling their house (and going where?), it's not going to be enough money that they'd go out and start buying a bunch of other houses and charging outrageous rent. Certainly not enough to lord over sprawling apartment complexes filled with a bunch of millennial wage slaves. Maybe, maybe someone in California bought a house for like 50k and turned it into life-changing millions, but to imply that's a massive transfer of wealth for entire countries is disingenuous.
- treerock 9y ago
  Not sure how you think this was 'justifying rich old people running the world', rather it seemed to be justifying getting money to cover social care for old people, from the value of their house (after they die). It's also in reference to the UK, where publicly owned housing was sold off to tenants in the 80s at below market rates, and housing markets have been booming ever since.
  - collyw 9y ago
    > housing markets have been booming ever since. Petty sure 8 or 9 years of "emergency" low interest rates have had an effect in preventing the otherwise inevitable crash in prices.
- tonyedgecombe 9y ago
  The situation in the US is somewhat different to the UK, we are a densely populated nation and have significantly under-built houses for the last 30 years.
- Brakenshire 9y ago
  The UK isn't the same as the US, here house prices have doubled relative to wages almost everywhere in the country over the last few decades. You're right in the sense that it isn't just a transfer of wealth to the elderly, it's a transfer of wealth to home owners, particularly in the prosperous parts of the country, and in the long run to their families. In the short term that's correlated although not matched to young/old, and it gets more and more fuzzy the further into the future you go. Ironically in effect the left wing party just made a lot of political headway by allying with the right-wing tabloids to protect this inherited wealth against being used for care of the elderly. There are better ways of organizing it, but I didn't hear much nuance in the campaign against it, and I wouldn't be surprised if all policies even vaguely similar are now dead in the water.
ZeroGravitas 9y ago
I thought (and I admit not to being an expert here) that one of the issues was that they were trying to basically bankrupt people who got a particular kind of illness. Now, you might say, well they got a very expensive kind of illness, and so they should pay for it, because someone has to pay for it. But, applying the "veil of ignorance" test, of not knowing whether you or your family will be struck by such a disease in the future, it would seem a system where everyone effectively pays insurance to guard against the highly negative outcome would be fairest and most sensible outcome. I see parallels to the current healthcare fight in America, which seems to take advantage of people's strong belief that "it won't happen to me" to form policy, rather than actual statistics and a general right wing antipathy to these kinds of solutions. I guess it's easier to sell potential bankruptcy to people when they're young and healthy than a 100% certain tax rise.
- Brakenshire 9y ago
  > I thought (and I admit not to being an expert here) that one of the issues was that they were trying to basically bankrupt people who got a particular kind of illness. It was nick-named 'the dementia tax', although that aspect of it was only half accurate, it depends on whether the case was severe enough to need to go into a care home. Residential care (in a care home) already has to be paid for by the person receiving it. The difference is that now you have to pay the money up front until your assets go down to £23k, which usually means being forced to sell any property to release funds, whereas this bill increased the limit to £100k, and postponed payment so that it came out of your estate after death. The major change was that care in your own home was going to be subject to the same system, whereas at the moment it is paid for by the state, albeit only available patchily. But a lot of this in-home care is going to be quite limited, I remember with my own grandparents the major help they received was someone coming in to give a bath once a week. That was probably only about £30 a week (£1500 a year) in costs, frankly it would have been better if they had received more care, and more money had come out of their property. If you are the child, and you begrudge £20-100k coming out of your inheritance so that your elderly relatives can be properly looked after, I don't exactly sympathize. I agree with you about the insurance aspect of it, and that was what was recommended by a cross-party (that is, bipartisan) commission. The problem I see with that is that inheritance taxes are very unpopular, and the more you sever the link between the tax, and the thing that is being paid for, the more that people will object. But I agree that is what should happen, let's hope this 'dementia tax' label doesn't stick to those efforts as well.
gaius 9y ago
This is exactly how the old are eating the young And yet, the young overwhelmingly voted for it! A paradox no?
- passivepinetree 9y ago
  Not necessarily. Usually older people vote in much greater numbers than the young.
  - gaius 9y ago
    Indeed... Simpson's Paradox I was referring to.

viraptor 9y ago

> these measures were opposed by Labour, and their most enthusiastic supporters are the young. I wouldn't take many conclusions from the last elections. A lot of labour votes were actually "not-tories" votes. They didn't agree with Labour, but it's still better than the status quo.

Brakenshire 9y ago
Yes, nevertheless, conclusions will be drawn. Anything that could possibly be described as a 'dementia tax' is now dead in the water. That probably includes the cross-party proposals, even though they are incredibly important.
eli_gottlieb 9y ago
Well, that shows that Labour can run with a more left-wing manifesto and still capture the please-no-more-Tories votes.