The point is the government encourages the inherently selfish attitude by playing different sections of society off against each other.



I have no idea how they justified it and I certainly wasn't pleased when they did it because it seemed obvious to me the fees would only go one way. Up. However how Labour justified it does not excuse Willets from his deliberately disingenuous and deliberately divisive comments.

Only those who have never had to live under a previous tory administration, or who wear glasses with such a blue tint that they can't see what's in front of them, will believe that when tories tell us we'll all be better off, that's what will happen.

The rest of us realise that when tories tell us "we'll all be better off", then that's the time to stock up on KY jelly and make the shafting we are about to receive as bearable as possible

Personally I support an increase in the pension age and I would go further than 68. Really the whole issue about 'sustainability' hinges around pensions, principally the state pension.

The government likes to go on about us spending beyond our means, but its not health, education or benefits spending that is unsustainable, its not even public sector pensions, those are sustainable too - its the long term impact of pensions that is the killer. The Office for Budget Responsibility figures show this - its their 50 year projections that are based on no change in public policy, that show us in dire straits, not the short term ones. If you increase the pension age to reflect increasing longevity then that has more impact on making the public finances sustainable than anything else.

It's politically difficult, but I think we could get people onside if we said you have to accept a state pension age of 72 or 75, but we can afford to spend on good healthcare, good education, good transport networks, the things that will promote growth anyway. That doesn't mean you have to wait till 72 or 75 to retire, just thats when the state pension kicks in so if you want to retire earlier you will have to pay higher contributions yourself to a private scheme.

Yet at the same time, we have record levels of youth employment.

Aye: I can see how making people retire even later makes sense.

We don't have record levels of youth employment because older workers are taking their jobs.

Older workers are a different part of the labour market. Young workers are people with little work experience and they don't compete for the same jobs as older workers.

But surely when old people retire, everybody moves up the ladder creating more entry level jobs at the bottom?

We need to be creating new, unthought of industries to drive the economy and employment growth. That job will be for the younger generations. Not a question of older people holding the young back, that's an oudated concept. Industries tend not to last that long these days. How many computer game designers aged over 68 do you know? Rappers?

I completely agree with the first bit, and I'm not saying the old are holding the young back. I just think we need to accept that if we were to drastically increase the retirement age this would have a negative impact on youth unemployment.

Yes there are some professions where there will be few people in their 60's such as game designers, but what about all the older people who work as check-out assistants, doctors, accountants, etc? If they all work an extra 10 years all that will happen is their companies will hire less people, and the young will lose out.

p.s. were you genuinely using the rap industry to back up your point or was that a joke?

No joke. The music industry is a big overseas revenue earner. But, the key point is that the young are more creative than older people generally speaking. That creative energy should be channelled into deveopling new industries, including manufacturing new unthought of products. This idea of "jobs" is not how this country will move forward again - it will only happen through entrepreneurial activity. As someone old enough to look back I would say that anyone in their early 20s and younger with few responsibilities should be putting all their energy into trying to create their own business, develop their own ideas, etc and not expecting to follow the path that their grandparents and maybe their parents were lucky enough to have. That era was a very specific one in our history - developed on wealth created by the graft of the previous few generations. The job for life norm of a couple or recent generations has gone. It was an historical anomoly and not in fact a norm.

I'm quite pleased that this government is actually tring to tackle the issue of pensions, the devil is in the detail of course but the soundbites sound like a reasonable proposal and they are the first government that I can recall who are at least tackling the issue rather than wait for someone else to take it on.

In theory I could still opt to draw my state pension in just ten years time, in reality I am already resigned to working until at least 70 - there is a Plan B (I always have a Plan B) but if we continue down the path we're currently on then 70 will be the first opportunity that I have.

I'm fine with that and if the soundbite proposals hold true then at 70 we'll be ok at the proposed rates plus our f'kin useless private pensions, and there's always the painting income which doesn't make a profit at all these days, oh no