UK austerity set to last decades as cost of ageing population rises

[dipsydoodle]

Britain's age of austerity will last much longer than first thought if the UK is to keep up with the escalating costs of an ageing population, the government's independent economic forecaster has said.

In its annual check, the Office for Budget Responsibility said Britain's public finances were "clearly unsustainable" over the next 50 years, despite George Osborne's round of spending cuts.

Even if the government succeeded in saving £123bn over the next seven years, the OBR said it would need to impose permanent tax increases or reduce spending by 1.1% of GDP – about £17bn in today's terms – to return the national debt to pre-crisis levels.

If the government continued with current policies, and if those policies succeeded, the OBR said public finances would improve until the mid-2020s. But there would still be a long-term deterioration in the decades that follow.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jul/12/uk-austerity-office-budget-responsibility

[fedsron2us]

1. Why does having lots of older people cost more than having lots of kids ?

Why are retiring baby boomers more of a burden now than when they were children and had to be fed, clothed, housed and educated in the 1950s and 1960s ?

The UKs supposedly unsustainable state pension is one of the lowest in the developed world.

Even the cut throat capitalist Yanks get more.

Funny how we cant afford to look after our elderly and disabled but have apparently limitless sums to throwaway on the banks, the Olympics and various other boondoogles designed to pass taxpayers money from poor citizens to greedy, lazy and incompetent bastards such as the board of G4S.

[non sociopath skin]

2. First they blamed Labour. Then they blamed the EU. Then they blamed the elderly ....

.... while the bankers stood by, shaking their heads and saying "O Dearie Dearie me."

The Skin