Wealth of misconception

Sheila Hancock and Alice Garnett (“The age-old question”, April) suggest one of the great intergenerational divides is inequality of wealth—in particular, the increase in the value of houses, which is the main wealth component for older people. It is not all as it is made out to be. I believe that I am fairly representative: I bought my home for £300,000 in 1991, and one calculator places today’s inflation-adjusted value at just over £800,000. This represents a notional profit of £500,000 over 33 years.

But of course it is no profit at all. This increase in worth is of no value to me. It does not increase my income, does not allow me to embark on adventurous and expensive holidays nor buy a luxurious car. All of these things, which in fact I cannot afford, I would have to pay for from my retirement income which—like that of many others—is being squeezed by the rising cost of living. It is true, of course, that as a store of value it might well be needed to pay for long-term care, which I cannot pay for out of income.

The country has complex and major issues to resolve. Blame-gaming between generations, political parties and indeed between any other of the myriad groups into which humanity divides itself will only make understanding harder to

Sheila Hancock and Alice Garnett agree there are “snowflakey” tendencies in the younger cohort. The thing about snowflakes is that if you add enough together, you have an avalanche. Once my lot (50plus) are sufficiently cleared away I do think the world will improve.

Mark Earls, via the website