I don’t know about many of you out there, but if there is one thing that is really starting to annoy the bejasus out of me across all media, it is the open attack on the welfare and wallets of the over 65s. You must have all seen the ads plashed across prime time TV. “Get health insurance”, “think of your family”, “invest in life insurance today” and a never ending litany of visual begging letters cloaked in an air of genuine benevolence.
It all amounts to the same thing – we want your money. We don’t care really how you live or die, but please, pleeeeese leave us all your money. After all, you’re only going to leave it to your children…nooooo! WE want it! Make us a bequest in your will! Invest in a retirement village! Move into OUR rest home – we won’t tell you about the real cost of all the hidden extras that will ensure you’re left a pauper in no time. Corporations don’t care. The elderly have become the cash cow of the modern world.
Three years ago I lost my own father to Alzheimers. A horrible, slow and miserable way for anyone to die, especially the heavy emotional toll placed on my mother who watched her husband deteriorate into a gaping mouthed vegetable before her eyes. It was even worse for her when each month she received a huge bill from the rest home, to be paid in full by the date, no excuses accepted. A lifetime of hard earned savings being systematically drained into the ravening maw of a rest home. Even with all of the ongoing expenses they incur, these places are making an absolute fortune, which is why so many businesspeople are investing in them. Why not? Guaranteed high returns. No complaints at the end of the day as your plucked pigeons are guaranteed to die before much longer. And the wider population is ageing all the time.
By the time my father died, he literally had nothing left he could call his own. All of his original clothes and shoes had disappeared, (we know his brand new underwear we bought him when he moved in was stolen by light fingered staff) and we dared not even bring so much as a chocolate to him lest it be snatched away. And this is endemic across the entire care sector, although they will openly deny it. But far too many people with relatives in care know all too well the demeaning and rapacious theft that takes place. But hey, who cares? They are just old. Has-beens. Useless mouths to feed.
What a way to treat past generations that have survived world wars, depressions, economic hardships many of us can only imagine and who, like my father, spent over 10 hours a day, six days a week slaving at thankless jobs so the new generations could benefit. All we can see now is that they have hard-earned savings we want, and too bad about the living, breathing person. Just keep ’em alive until we’ve milked the last of their money from them. That is the modern world’s motto.
One point here. The world is ageing rapidly. Uncertainty now across the highly unstable job market and the growing concern over climate change means that many of us are delaying or not having families. Technology is devouring our earning power, gobbling jobs and closing as many avenues as it claims to open as what jobs there are becoming ever more highly demanding and fiercely competed. Many analysts talk now of a BMI (Base Universal Income) as they can foresee a day coming all too soon where most of us will not have any other guaranteed income. So once this current old generation has passed and all their assets have been swept into the purses of rest homes and government agencies, thus eliminating any inheritance to pass onto newer generations to help cushion the blows they are facing, this will leave younger people facing a very bleak future. Many people now cannot adequately save, and paying mortgages and rents is becoming a regular ordeal for many. Upon retirement, they will have no real assets for governments and rest homes to prey on, and so the current old age cash cow they have all depended on will be dried up and obsolete. What then? Will all those TV ads begging for bequests and so forth still be on air?
Remember the bible adage; Treat others as you yourself would wish to be treated. With this in mind, I can foresee that as a society we are facing a very poor future – unless we change our short term rapacious thinking.
The sooner the better!
alisonjoyceblog 