Grumpy Old Men

Hi Justin

We do have a similar thing going on here too, the government have recently introduced something called "workplace pensions" which will eventually replace state pension, the government are increasing the retirement age incrementally over time so that the younger you are the longer you have to work, there are also plans to ration medical treatment for people over retirement age.

What this means is that you will pay into a pension plan all your life, the retirement age will be so high that few people will live long enough to retire, and those few that do live long enough will not be treated for serious illness, the only people that will benefit from this are the rich who will be the majority shareholders in the pension providers who are set to collect billions of pounds safe in the knowledge that very little of it will ever have to be paid out again.

The government here cite the same reasons for doing this, IE: they cannot afford it, yet they can afford generous tax breaks for the rich.

Mark, wait... what??? You guys get paid medical treatment once you retire????
When my grandfather was in hospital just before he passed away all they covered was the ambulance cost.....
Fortunately he was a WW2 vet and the Department of Veterans affairs paid for the hospital bill, otherwise it would have been up to us to pay for it.

As for a “workplace pension”, the Aussie government isn’t implementing that.
They just expect that you will work till you drop, and then send you the bill.

Justin

Again my personal take on this is that within the next generation state pensions will not exist, and that we will be expected to take on that responsibility for ourselves.
This will also apply to many other state provisions where personal contributions to health treatment, long term care and the like will be necessary. This will be an unfortunate fact of life.
We all live longer and for example this life expectancy is increased by the many new procedures in medicine that are proving to be expensive.
Resouces are, and will continue to be, finite and hence the problems that we all face.
I have no solution other than to accept the general premis and try and plan accordingly.
Alec

Yes we get medical treatment (at the present time,) but we have paid for it many times over through our national insurance, as for workplace pensions that is just another way to extort money from working people who are unlikely to ever get the benefit from it.

I am surprised at the uncaring system you have in Australia, it's as bad (if not worse) than the system in the US, in a so called civilized society the least we should expect is a bit of care for the elderly who have worked and contributed for most of their life.

As Alec has just said we will soon be in the same boat as you.

All I can say is that all this is just getting too depressing.
I think I'll go play with my Pullmans for a while....

I didn't realise that my little grump would create such a depth of feeling I'll make my next grump a little more lighthearted

Mark,

Don't worry about it, you just brought up a point that everyone agrees on.
I'm quiet sure no one is upset over what has been said, it is just the facts of reality and sometimes that can just end up being rather disappointing.

Still I'm sure we are all glad to have gotten that issue into the open.
And anyway that is what this thread is for, getting your grump out.

When things hit home for me it was more of a case of "I'd rather not consider this now, it's just to f----d up" rather than "Oh god we're all doomed, I'm going to go hide".

Justin

Just had an email from Auran with a very interesting offer, 75% off Trainz TRS 12   then I read the small print ........................

*Discount code is valid from the 12th September through to 30th October. 1 use per customer only.

What's the bleddy use of sending that out in November

Well as it's railway related one could could say something about delays . . . perhaps there were the wrong widths on the band!

Mmmm . . . I think I'll return to making the tea, which appears to be one of my many new tasks since retirement!!!!!!!