it's not as simple as "hardware has gotten better, software has gotten worse" because a lot of companies making physical devices are lost in the wilderness from a design perspective, but a rule of thumb that anything that charges you monthly gets worse over time works pretty well

I honestly don’t think there are any easy options - such a difficult dilemma that doesn’t seem to get any discussion

Very interesting paper on this by Demos - it’s nearly a decade old, and very depressing that so little seems to have changed in that time.

Among the issues it highlights is that retirement developers can’t compete for land. It recommends a stamp duty exemption for retirement homes.

This is very interesting, thanks!

(Also very depressing line about the green paper on social care that may be forthcoming - in 2017 😔)

Good point!

Gosh, that’s striking (and matches my impression)

Yes, I feel like this should ideally be an affordable and attractive option (of course, more people doing it in their 60s would help that)

It just feels like a very difficult phase of life we don’t handle very well at all in the UK (*gestures at the social care system*) and housing should be a big part of changing that

Obviously a tax would nudge more people in this direction.
But £2m won’t catch many people, and carrots can be helpful too…

And a lot of retirement properties seem… not the best deal? Lots of leases, hidden charges etc.

I guess most people who own homes outright want to preserve some kind of asset. And maybe want to be able to integrate care etc. later on without having to think about it at all at first?

But is downsizing in your 60s really very attractive if you don’t have to?

People don’t want to embrace old age too early (understandably!) or plan too much for care, they want to keep space for grandkids etc. And leaving a family home is a huge wrench and hassle

Yes, I feel like it’s the business model in quite a few industries

So true!

100%
I’ve got to be honest, I bristled at the implication that learning disabled children don’t have serious mental health needs.
Author may well not have meant this, but it’s the kind of implication that follows from this binary imo

That’s all for now, but you can of course read more here:

getting-out-of-the-hole.uk

Rather than assuming people will switch contracts, we should recognise most people don’t switch - because it’s confusing and because many lack the time or skills. A competition policy that accepts this would deliver much better outcomes we think

On the contracting side of things, we advocate a more hands-on approach. RPI + x% contracts should be under review, and we should stop using RPI if we can. It should be much easier to cancel contracts - buy online, cancel online.
And terms for products like insurance should be much more standardised

There is no easy solution to that, but we think it includes: a) better funding regulators so they can more actively manage these markets; b) leaning in much more to demand management measures, time of use charges and so on. The previous light touch regulation plus competition has largely failed

One thing that’s compounded this is our inability to manage congestion on infrastructure. Our regulation has largely failed to manage or spread demand so that it can make best use of the infrastructure we have. Using markets in these areas often hasn’t worked