Well-off baby boomers should pay more for their aged care

The report of the aged care taskforce, released on Tuesday, makes eminently sensible proposals for changes to cover the ever-growing cost of aged care. But since its solution is to require the well-off elderly to bear more of the cost, I doubt if Aged Care Minister Anika Wells will be able to implement the changes without much pushback from those well-off elderly – otherwise known as the “wealthy Boomers”.The cost of aged care...

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What a future: impossible climate, a life of renting and a crappy job

The older I get, the more I worry about the nightmare we oldies are leaving for our children and grandchildren. The obvious, in-your-face problem is climate change, but other difficulties are everywhere you look.Now the northern hemisphere has been introduced to the joys of bushfires and heatwaves with, I imagine, a cleanser of flooding to come, global warming has become global boiling. Climate change is now — and will get a...

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It's no wonder the young hate Boomers like me

As I get older, more parts of my body are giving me gyp and I spend more of my life seeing doctors, but the people I don’t envy are the young. They may be fit and keen, but everywhere they look they see problems.The big advantage of capitalism is supposed to be that it makes each generation better off than the last. But that’s breaking down before our eyes. The really harmful problem we’re leaving them is climate change, of course,...

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Generational conflict comes to a polling place near you

The most memorable news photo I’ve seen in ages is one from the first School Strike 4 Climate late last year. It shows a young woman holding a sign: MESS WITH OUR CLIMATE & WE’LL MESS WITH YOUR PENSION. One minute we oldies are berating the younger generation for their seeming lack of interest in politics (although, having arrived on the scene at a time when our politicians are behaving so badly, who could blame them?),...

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Home affordability problem caused by generational conflict

You know the remarkably high price of homes is now a top issue for our politicians, state and federal. But you may need reminding that house prices are an intergenerational issue. As a general rule, the younger generation buys its homes from an older generation, which means rising house prices constitute a transfer of wealth from younger to older generations. Unfortunately, this conflict of interests between the generations...

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There are few "taxed-nots" apart from the elderly

It's a sad day when economic commentators like me have to spend so much time explaining what's wrong or misleading about the things the federal Treasurer says, rather than backing up his efforts to educate the public on economic realities and helping him fight for sensible though unpopular policies. To be fair, Scott Morrison did have useful points to make in his big speech last week, his first major contribution since the election. But...

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We shouldn't feel bad about leaving public debt to our kids

There are a lot of nice people in the world, people who worry about all the debt we're leaving to our kids and grandkids. I know this from the letters I get from people. I got an email from a retired couple who said they'd be happy to pay more – a 15 per cent goods and services tax, medical co-payments or even a 10 per cent increase in income tax – if only it was guaranteed that the money was spent "to pay down debt, not rack...

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Growing signs young won't do as well as their olds

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