Down to my second last million

Bearing in mind that this 'story' appeared in a news paper and therefore may prove erroneous, its still an eye opener.

From an article on how over 50's are squeezing the young out of jobs, it features a fellow called Colin King aged 60 who (with his wife) sold a garden- center business for £1.25m. Or in simple language £1,250,000.

He was bored by not working so now does some. He added, "We also wanted to make sure we had enough money for old age because £1,250,000 doesn't buy you much in the way of an annuity these days. (£75,000 per annum actually). I can now see myself working to 80.

Where do these people come from?

 

🙂

Comments

  • WilkieWilkie ✭✭✭

    I would guess that this wealthy man who works even though he doesn't really need to is in a minority.

    Most of the over 50's who are "squeezing" the young out of jobs don't have any choice (including me!).

    I'd happily give up my job if I had £75k pa from an annuity.  It wouldn't necessarily go to a young person though - plenty of over-50s have been made redundant and need new jobs!

  • RicFRicF ✭✭✭

    The angle I'm working on here, is how the guy is talking as though he's barely got an income he could survive on.

    🙂

  • If I stick that in an annuity calculator assuming: his wife is also 60 and he wants escalation in line with rpi then I get ??28k pa, which I agree is not a huge amount for 2 people.
  • The guys not so strange, I guess most people look at work as if to say "one more year won't do any harm" and as for 50 somethings squeezing the young out, that's ludicrous, most of the businesses I see (admittedly all manufacturing) would fall apart without the older people.

    Just my personal observation but there is not the work ethic any more. If any younger people want the premium jobs they need to do what the older people do, be reliable, turn up every day and do your work to the highest standard. The young spend 40 - 50% of their working day catching up on social stuff and playing about on mobiles. Look to the average Company mbile bill and you could virtually put them in age order.

  • I'd have to disagree with you their EKGO, work ethic isn't age related. some people work and enjoy it, others work and hate it. The so called work ethic is nothing to be lauded.

    We work because for the most part we have to. Doesn't mean we want to or that we enjoy it or gain anything other than financial benefit from it. If the financial reward is not enough and doesn't make up for the pain then who is really going to want to work?

    My job is pants. There is no career structure, the pay is rubbish, the conditions are not good, no perks, plenty of hassle and red tapes and hoops. Appeals to students, those who don't need the income, young people who just want a job for the money, older people who just want some pin money. You can't tell who will work hard and who will be a lazy git based on age. Some people give everything, others are coasting and a couple have put their feet up. (the latter group are not the young ones, they for the most part form the first group).

    What was it, pay peanuts, get monkeys. If you take the piss out of your staff they will take the piss out of you. Young people need to believe that they are working for a reason, they need to see a future. If they don't see that in their job they'll look for it elsewhere.

    Even older people need to see a future in what they do. A temp manager one place I worked said I should be more than willing to do training in my own time. I had to let them know that they were living in cloud cuckoo land. training, for what? There was no future or career progression in that job. I couldn't train to progress up any career ladder. I had to look outside of work for my ambitions and fulfil aims here.

    If you enjoy your job and it fulfils your needs, then great. That isn't the case for a lot of people.

  • I'd quite like to know where the whole idea of over 50's "squeezing the young out of jobs" comes from in the first place. What are they meant to do if they can't afford to give up work? Commit voluntary suicide to make way for a younger person?

    People seem to forget that the idea of "retirement" has only been around since 1945. It use to be normal that you worked for pretty much your entire life until you grew too infirm, at which point your family took care of you. The difference was that in a highly industrialised nation, with lower life expectancy, there was rarely any shortage of jobs.

    I'm not sure the architects of the Welfare State  ever envisaged a time when there wouldn't be enough jobs to go round and people would regularly live to be 100. I admit I've no idea what the answer is but I don't think the solution to 18 year olds  who can't get jobs is 50 year olds on the scrapheap.

    If I was leaving school now, I think I'd be finding out which skills were in short supply and which professions were crying out for recruits and gearing my training accordingly.

  • RicFRicF ✭✭✭

    Re. LD

    Anyone who sticks £1,250,000 cash into an annuity that pays £28000 per annum is better off just spending the capital.

    Depends what your overheads and expenses are to a large degree.

     

    🙂

  • Mousey I did say it was my personal observation, I do see this in real life, and Kitten is also quite right that younger people do look down their nose at certain jobs. Trouble is everyone is geared up to careers in Media or art where the degrees are heading, then real world steps in, there are few opportunities so the choice is a stark one. I blame the people who gave out raised expectations. Lastly anyone doing a degree then a masters is slightly institutionalised and the period of adjustment from schooling to work is sometimes hard.

  • No, you don't have to be proficient in any job to look down your nose at it, nor do you have to give 100%. You don't have to do a bad job well at all. Why? For what gain? What does it get you? Sweet FA.

    That doesn't mean that any job is a bad job, there are good jobs that people are over qualified for, that doesn't make them bad jobs. There's a difference.

    I can give you an example of a bad job, bad employer - poor pay, poor conditions, no future, employer takes piss by continually cutting wages, doesn't pay on time, holds back pay for petty reasons etc. the list goes on. Yes people need work, people with limited skill and ability. There were a couple of young men with Aspergers at the above factory, they struggle to find employment that suits. They couldn't just go into any job so they were stuck.

    I've read your post about your issue with your co-worker. It's not unusual for those that have been through university then onto masters etc to struggle. D. had a problem with young engineers, his copany took on those who had done well at university rather than those who had been playing with the tools. As a consequence they had a load of useless engineers that hadn't the first idea about the industry they had just entered.

    Starting at the bottom isn't the same as a shit job. However, if you are in the wrong job then that's a different thing altogether. If you don't care about the job that's one thing but if an employer doesn't care about their staff that is quite different.

    KK - I don't know if your co-worker just doesn't care or is struggling or what. They do need someone to talk to them if it is effecting your work.
    It's similar to where I work. There are those that put themselves out to do a good job and those that can't be arsed. Some feel like the management just don't care.

    Making a job better is often impossible.

  • The real problem is those "over 50's"  who've enjoyed all the benefits of universal free education, bought up all the cheap public housing stock under Maggie, and are now piling up their savings while their children's generation can't afford an evening course course in hairdressing or bricklaying at the local poly let alone a degree.

     

  • RicFRicF ✭✭✭

    I would like to believe that a 'work ethic' would lead to some guarantee of success. Unfortunately it seems that more and more, success is something that requires an intangible set of circumstances.

    Our society is still flailing around in a system based on the concept of the 'middle classes'. That you work hard, keep your nose clean, follow the rules and you'll get a reward of some sort.

    Well the middle classes have destroyed their own system but pretends it still works.

    The tragedy for twenty and thirty somethings is that the baby boom generation have organised the infrastructure to ensure that they themselves don't lose.

    The rules of 40 years ago don't work anymore.

    Somewhat disingenuous telling youngsters to do as you did, when that generation is largely excluded from having a stake in society.

    FS, I'm going to emigrate!

    🙂

  • WilkieWilkie ✭✭✭
    Mr Puffy wrote (see)

    The real problem is those "over 50's"  who've enjoyed all the benefits of universal free education, bought up all the cheap public housing stock under Maggie, and are now piling up their savings while their children's generation can't afford an evening course course in hairdressing or bricklaying at the local poly let alone a degree.

     

    My friends who have (grown up) children didn't buy council houses (didn't go to Uni, either).  They got jobs and bought houses. 

    Their children went to University (for free), and are now working and buying their own homes.

    People who are in their fifties, their kids are probably finished university by now.  It's those who are in their forties whose kids are having to pay tuition fees.

  • Times are tough. I've had to make my butler redundant and trade down to an older Rolls Royce.

    Life's a bitch. image

  • In fairness to the guy who sold the garden centre and without knowing any of the facts, I'd take a guess that he's worked hard at building up the business for most of his life. I wouldn't have thought that owning a garden centre was an easy or obvious way to eternal riches.

    He's sold it to retire and got bored. I don't really see what the problem is if he wants to work again. He probably employed other people and generated wealth during his time owning the garden centre.

     

    Besides which, how do you know that the job he's planning to do is squeezing a young person out of a job ? He may be opening another business that employs plenty of other people. The job market isn't always a total sum game where his getting a job stops somebody else.

     

     

     

     

  • RicFRicF ✭✭✭
    Redjeep! wrote (see)

    In fairness to the guy who sold the garden centre and without knowing any of the facts, I'd take a guess that he's worked hard at building up the business for most of his life. I wouldn't have thought that owning a garden centre was an easy or obvious way to eternal riches.

    He's sold it to retire and got bored. I don't really see what the problem is if he wants to work again. He probably employed other people and generated wealth during his time owning the garden centre.

     

    Besides which, how do you know that the job he's planning to do is squeezing a young person out of a job ? He may be opening another business that employs plenty of other people. The job market isn't always a total sum game where his getting a job stops somebody else.

     

     

     

     

    My OP wasn't about the guy taking a job that could have gone to a younger person.

    It was about the way he was treating as having £1.25 million pounds in cash as a barely survivable amount of money.

    The article in the newspaper would have only made sense if the figure had actually been £125,000.

    It may well have been £125,000 but as the story was written by a journalist, it could have been changed to qualify for sensationalist or controversialist.

    Don't let truth get in the way of a good story.

    Its not about the job.

    🙂

  • He didn't say it was barely survivable, he said it didn't buy much annuity, which it doesn't.

    £75K by your reconning or £28K by Lou Diamond's reconning - I don't know which is correct, but even the higher figure is relatively small, for 2 people, who've presumably worked hard all their lives to build a successful business, the proceeds of which they hope to see them through a comfortable (not lavish) retirement and possibly leave a nice nest egg for the kids.

  • RicFRicF ✭✭✭
    Steve C amid the winter's snow wrote (see)
    RicF wrote (see)

    Well unless you're a cynic, the more you give the more you get back. If you are of a nature that grabs and hangs on to everything for oneself even in the face of others needs then good luck.

    I observe such a type round my way. Living by his miserable self-ish.

    I think you need to remember the point that this is a lighthearted, thread, Ric. By all means start another one for "Ric's moral lessons"

     

    Juliefrazz wrote (see)

    He didn't say it was barely survivable, he said it didn't buy much annuity, which it doesn't.

    £75K by your reconning or £28K by Lou Diamond's reconning - I don't know which is correct, but even the higher figure is relatively small, for 2 people, who've presumably worked hard all their lives to build a successful business, the proceeds of which they hope to see them through a comfortable (not lavish) retirement and possibly leave a nice nest egg for the kids.

    The sense of entitlement is almost overbearing. 

    Assuming that the subject has a house all paid for and needless to say won't be paying into a pension fund, I would guess that having £1500 per week at one's disposal would qualify as a little more than comfortable.

    But then again, maybe you're from a world where £1500 is just loose change.

    🙂

  • What sense of entitlement?

    He's not asking for something for nothing.

    He wants to work a bit more to earn a bit more.

  • one thing that seems to have escaped the attention of many here is if the garden centre owners had to pay capital gains tax on the amount they sold it for.  there just isn't enough context in the OP.

    it may well be that they didn't pay CGT but equally they could have taken a big hit so ultimately their annuity is based on a much smaller figure

    it seems to me that there's an awful loty of jealousy going on here of someone who has done well in business and is now reaping the benefits.  I woud applaud the garden centre owners for being successful not damning them for what they have earned from the sale. 

    blame the city guys, the greedy bankers etc who have been fucking around with many people's low finances and making themselves rich on the back of pure greed.  blame the CEO's of major corps who have ruined people's lived yet walk away with £multi-million severance packages.

    sure, the garden centre owners will be comfortably off in their retirement but at least it's probably off the back of hard graft rather than fucking people's live up.

  • RicFRicF ✭✭✭

    I read the article again.

    Not bothered about his business success. Not bothered about him taking jobs off younger people (he's self employed)

    He's talking as though he hasn't got a pot to piss in. And the article is suggesting that his is a typical example of the hardships faced by those in his position.

    The hardships of only having £1.25M to hand, unless its been removed from them by some means. No mention of having it no longer.

    The wealth being mentioned is relative. To those with £10M its peanuts. I just wonder how many readers identify with his plight.

    You can chose to believe the contents of the story or question what possible reason would be to write it.

    The feature was about retired types being forced back to work. 

    I can only imagine this guy lives surrounded by those CEO's.

     

    🙂

  • have you got a link to the article - I'd lke to have a read. if it's from the Daily Rant or Daily Excess than I wouldn't bother with the content as it will usually be scaremongering and like many press articles, what is often reported is a distortion of the truth

    does it mention him being forced to work or something that he has chosen to do.  the inference from the OP is that he chose to work as he was bored as often many people who retire early become. 

    £1.25m is not excessive wealth these days - many who came through the housing boom of last century would be sitting on assets worth much more than that through doing fuck all bar riding a financial boom.  at least the guy mentioned worked for his wealth so don't knock him for that.  he probably didn't have a nice index linked, final salary pension fund that many government employees get - his business was his pension fund and he worked for it.

    I really don't see what you're getting so het up about - bar perhaps jealousy of someone working hard and doing well.

  • RicF, since you've provided no link to the article, we can't read it ourselves and can only go from the limited quote you've given in your opening post.

    Nowhere in the quote you've given, which presumably you chose because it suitably emphasised the point you wanted to make, does it imply the man thinks he's facing hardship and hasn't a pot to piss in.

    1.25 million, for the sale of a business he and his wife have built up and worked hard on over the years, is really not a huge amount.... he's hardly Rockerfeller.

    As FB points out, he'll be paying tax on that amount (and on the annuity? I'm guessing that's taxable too).

    Since the business was a garden center, it's possible they lived on-site so the sale may have included the family home as well.

     

    X-post with FB.... I think we've said roughly the same thing!

  • JF - an annuity is an income so you're taxed in the same way as a salary.  the only income he won't be taxed on is his state pension and at 60 he doesn't qualify yet.

  • Thanks FB, I thought that might be the case.

     

  • 1.25M won't get near 75k a year.

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