Englisc Beorn

@GondorWizard @communityBombs @BovrilG It won’t be if people carry on like this (it almost works in the government’s favour, weird!). The reality is we can start actually dealing with the issue like it’s a proper pension. Cut back the waste and pile the money in to a sovereign wealth fund.

@communityBombs @BovrilG The pensions aren't going to be there either way though

In fairness to the Triple Lock Boomers, it’s a natural human temptation to ascribe all of your successes in your life to your own efforts and any of your failures to systemic forces and it must be fairly galling, at the end of a life that you’ve convinced yourself was a heroic struggle, to be told you’re actually a parasite by a SubStacker who looks like this.

@Tanyaelisabeth Yay feminism !

If I stay home and raise my own children I am a loser and not ambitious But if I hire and pay another woman to raise and take care of my children for me than I am an empowered woman If that same woman stayed home with her children she would be a loser But if she takes care of my children she is not If we both switched and raised each others children for a paycheck we would be successful ambitious girl bosses But if we do it for our own children we are losers

@Boobaloosh Sounds like the boomer generation again. Did they get anything right ?

When I first arrived in the UK from South Africa, people were very quick to call me a racist, and that I hated Black people. I didn't hate Black people, I just didn't fucking trust them! I've still not been proved wrong throughout my living years. The world pointed their fingers at South Africa, and forced a change by sanctioning us. 30 years on, and the same people are now complaining about the invasion of their countries, the crime, and the horrendous attacks on innocent women and children. The irony of it all!! just goes to show, if you don't understand how a certain demographic conducts themselves, then stay the fuck out of the countries affairs, and worry about your own countries problems. Now, you are experiencing how White South Africans had to deal with everyday life, and I can safely say, by reading all the posts on here, You don't like it.

@Kat071014 Woman’s intuition not required, it’s obviously dodgy. That aside, the reality is anyone of foreign stock is going to bring the cultural & societal idiosyncrasies of their country of origin, even if they’re born & raised here. They can’t truly represent the native population.

Why does no one ask about Zia? He seems great and can talk the talk. I like him. Why did he suddenly appear though? Who is he? Something is not right. Call it women's intuition but he appeared and then Ben and Rupert who are fantastic were kicked to the kerb.

@podcastandrei Define ‘horrible area’! If it doesn’t include people getting stabbed on a regular basis, feral kids, heroin addicts floating around and the odd rape then maybe that area wasn’t that horrible. Buy the house you can afford kids!!!!

Those of us who worked for decades, were not picky when choosing our first home. Mine was small and in a horrible area, but it was all I could afford and it was mine. It allowed me my first step on the housing ladder. Started at the bottom and worked for decades to afford something better. A lot of people need to do the same. Pro tip, look where you can afford to live and move there. Complain less, work more.

@SandyofSuffolk @Bob71136804 You should do that journey on Tuesday. Rerun your route during rush hour (as you used to) and report back how much more stressful that commute is now compared to then. Book a hair appointment to give it that sense of having to be at x location on time.

@Bob71136804 Me too. Drove from mid Cornwall to south Devon for 8 years. Sometimes left at 7am and got home at 8pm.

But, but, but, I'll have to walk 20 minutes to a station. Eeek! Oooh no. I can't commute for an hour each way. But my mum lives close by, how will I manage if I have to move away? 🤔 But jobs in xxx town don't pay £50 grand. But it might need work and decorating. Boo hoo. All my friends are here. Excuse after pathetic lame excuse. 🙄 I'm sure you all know what I'm talking about. 😜

@NM_Rdg @SandyofSuffolk Commuting these days is way way more stressful. Roads are full, public transport is rammed, signs and cameras everywhere. Boomers might have done the same 2hr commute but it would be like driving down the M1 at night ie empty compared to today’s rush hour.

@SandyofSuffolk For a couple of years I had a 2 hour commute (each way). It absolutely killed me. OK. I wasn't in my 20s but for many it's not easy.

@TomWright165389 @MysticStock @Edwina_Currie Taxing the land value will bankrupt house builders: they have massive land banks. The biggest issue is cash flow. Speeding up planning would help small house builders (the ones that do 4 houses on a plot) but for the big boys the cash flow bottleneck is the build to sale stage.

@AvengingJester @MysticStock @Edwina_Currie We can remove the barrier that do exist, plenty of developments have ended up smaller due to planning conditions and you could make land cheaper by making planning easier or taxing the land value

I live in the Peak District. In a 3bed 400 year old cottage. And the only people who’ll benefit from any growth in its value are HMRC via Inheritance Tax, and (perhaps, if anything is left) my family. Not me.

@TomWright165389 @MysticStock @Edwina_Currie Vicious circle at this point. House builders already have the land banks, planning permission is not the road block to house building. It’s labour, plant, materials and cash flow.

@AvengingJester @MysticStock @Edwina_Currie For sure reversing migration is a good thing but it’s also possible to let more housing be built

@TomWright165389 @MysticStock @Edwina_Currie Won’t help. All those OAP homes will need extensive modernising. That will just take from the trades working on new homes. The only realistic solution is stopping immigration & deportations.

@AvengingJester @MysticStock @Edwina_Currie If it’s that dire maybe they do need targeting to cover the short term

@TomWright165389 @MysticStock @Edwina_Currie I was just pointing out that targeting pensioners for their homes is not really going to solve the problem. It would also take 10yrs of focused development (training & building factories to make building products) before we could add just 50% to the number of houses built/year

@AvengingJester @MysticStock @Edwina_Currie I think it should be possible to out build migration but also the migration should be far less. Yes there is envy at those who had a better chance at housing but of course far more building is needed rather than hoping to confiscate their housing

@MysticStock @TomWright165389 @Edwina_Currie The need for that money is to fund retirement. Given the state will take your house if you need to go into a care home it seems daft to hoard the asset. You’d be better off releasing the value and buying gold yearly to give to your kids.

@AvengingJester @TomWright165389 @Edwina_Currie There's only benefit if you can get a better return on that money than the interest rate you're paying or if you have a real need for that money to fund something else.

@TomWright165389 @MysticStock @Edwina_Currie While they’re importing millions of people per year no amount of house building will be able to keep up with the increase in demand. Even if half of all pensioners disappeared you’d probably only gain 6 years worth of extra housing stock.

@MysticStock @AvengingJester @Edwina_Currie I would like all pensioners to be able to afford 3 bedroom houses but I would also like enough of them build that their grandchildren can afford their own 3 bedroom houses at the same time

@TomWright165389 @MysticStock @Edwina_Currie It’s just the interest on what you’ve released, you factor that in to how much you take out. You’re basically paying a fee to unlock the value of a fixed asset.

@MysticStock @AvengingJester @Edwina_Currie Is it really debt if you don’t pay it back until you sell a large asset?

@MysticStock @Edwina_Currie You wouldn’t. Just pointing out them at if you need the money and have the house you can release the funds without risking losing the roof over your head.

@AvengingJester @Edwina_Currie Why would you take on debt unless you have to?

@MysticStock @Edwina_Currie Actually you can equity release the value from it. Many of the mortgages involved have a clause which means you never get kicked out. You do pay interest on the amount taken out so that needs to be taken in to account.

@Edwina_Currie Exactly! At the end of the day, you have to live somewhere and that somewhere only has value when it's sold.

@GivezAway @RealDonKeith @HoodedClaw1974 Or just use a syringe

@RealDonKeith @HoodedClaw1974 Those are very young pigeons (you can hear the sound they make) being fed mixture of food and medicine which they would not eat by themselves. Not hygienic but very efective. Beautifull birds.

This is how a bird vendor feeds his pigeons in Egypt. Where does this fall on your list of most disgusting things you’ve ever seen?

@DuxVul @Landeur 70 is too old tbf, especially for low paid which tend to be more manual. The problem is the whole system is geared to propping up the feckless & work shy. That’s got to stop. People need to be allowed to become destitute and that includes pensioners.

@AvengingJester @Landeur If the age gets moved to 70 that will negatively impact the poor who have no savings and many of them will just move onto benefits at age 65 That’s an even bigger bill

Everyone is talking about the state pension and the triple lock. Don’t bother, this is a problem which is going to solve itself in the near future. The state pension in its current format, untested, won’t be able to exist for much longer, I’m afraid.

@DuxVul @Landeur Make it means tested and no one will be happy. Means tested on the way in. Means tested on the way out. You’re basically saying don’t aspire to a higher wage, don’t bother saving and spend whatever you make. That’ll work long term !

@Landeur It will probably get solved by a left wing party who will make it means tested Centre right parties rely too much on the boomer vote

@Melle25313866 @technopopulist The triple lock is not the problem. The problem is that the gov. Expects all the money to come direct from taxes rather than invest like any other pension scheme.

@technopopulist Fix the housing market. End the triple lock. Reform welfare. Cut spending on leftist nonsense. It can be done.

There’s a narrative starting to harden that we’re going to cut welfare for younger people to keep funding pensions for the elderly. You can almost picture the Greens watching this unfold in real-time and thinking their moment has arrived. What surprises me is how few boomers seem to grasp how politically toxic this is likely to become. The welfare state plainly isn’t working as it should. It creates perverse incentives, traps people in the wrong places, and often fails to deliver where it matters. But that isn’t how a lot of younger people will interpret what’s happening now. They’ll look at the hand they’ve been dealt and compare it to what came before. More secure jobs back then ("Fordism"), and a labour market where you didn’t need a degree just to get on the ladder. Housing that bore some resemblance to wages/savings; and, in the background, decades of rising asset prices quietly doing the heavy lifting. Whatever the problems with welfare, and there are plenty, this will be seen as a generational tilt in one direction. By 2029, we may be looking at the last election where older voters hold the balance of power over left-wing parties. You have been warned.