Who pays for tomorrow?

‘Today's youth and future generations must have opportunities to meet their own needs to at least the same extent as the generation governing today’. So says the Foundation for the Rights of Future Generations. This would have some interesting consequences if it were ever to become a reality, in the light of the changing economic and demographic conditions.


The Institute of Public Policy and Research (if they have a web site I cannot find it) believes that inheritance tax (a tax on the estate of a person on their death) should be increased as a means of redistributing wealth. This is really about how the Government gets its hands on the increase in the price of peoples’ homes.

Today the BBC has a radio programme focusing on the issue of the transfer of wealth between generations. (You can hear this on www.bbc.co.uk - Radio Four – programme called ‘You and Yours’).

My interest in how wealth transfers between generations was stimulated by an article in the Sunday Times (7th Sept) entitled ‘Blowing the kids inheritance’ by Jon Ungoed-Thomas.

The fact that today’s youth will have a pretty hard time of things paying for the older generations is just beginning to enter the public consciousness. About time.