2024 Election thread
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What's the difference between the Tory framing of austerity and your framing of the increasing retirement age?
“New York has the haircuts, London has the trousers, but Belfast has the reason!0 -
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Sophy Ridge's Freudian Slip describing him as one of the 'pricks in the red wall' was genuinely laugh out loud
“New York has the haircuts, London has the trousers, but Belfast has the reason!1 -
So public services would be things that benefit people like you, and handouts benefit others?
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I'm sure you know what you mean.
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The taxpayer funds your commute. The taxpayer funds housing for some people. What's the difference?
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It's *Rick's* commute.
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Also Child Benefit, state education, NHS, emergency services etc. Though I've only come in part way through this, so might be missing what this is all about (but probably boomers and 'old' people).
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I guess you're right.
I mean, that’s money for specific things (and it’s not like I’m travelling for free, it costs me £5,700 a year, that's half a state pension a year - if it wasn’t subsidies who would bother taking the train!!) but I can see your argument. In my mind social security was always separate from public services - ie services you’re paying for one way or the other, we’ve just collectively chosen to do it via state ownership and taxation. Then there are tweaks and subsidies to encourage certain behaviours etc.
To go back to the original challenge from @tailwindhome - is my objection to the triple lock and generous pensions not also just a form of austerity?
I guess there's two parts to the answer. First is, if we're gonna do austerity, why are one group saved from it? Not least as they collectively have the most disposable income yada yada.
Secondly, I think there is a wider challenge about what to do with an aging population. It is going to be expensive, austerity or no austerity, and indeed if the burden is too great, it will be hard to do the kind of investment in productivity etc that we all need to improve living standards or even stay still, given the increasing burden.
Ultimately, I guess it's just more of a political beef I have, which is illustrated here (have linked this before, but it's a really good articulation of the problem - talking about the threat to the intergenerational contract) https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/advanced/a-new-generational-contract/
The politics that I think holds the country back, and specifically the opportunities for anyone roughly my age and younger, is really only supported in any great level from those who are retired, who's politics I think genuinely denies the opportunities they themselves had. If it was rich people I'd be whinging about them but it isn't, really. So when those same people then demand to be excluded from the social security cuts, it gets me f*cking angry. Why are they so different to everyone else?
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Genuinely, come pay £5,700 a year and think "yeah, you know what, I'm lucky the state pays for it all".
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I wish I could trim your post to focus my point but...
The pensioners benefitting most from the triple lock are those needing it to get by, i.e. on £11502/annum. The pensioners with the high level of disposable income won't even notice it, or need it. Means testing is the only way round it, and I don't think anyone has argued against that other than whenever reported on it appears not to be cost effective.
PS - I found this to be most informative. There is a shedload of benefits out there to be looked at.
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
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Again I think you have made the mistake of applying population level statistics to individuals. It's perfectly possible for pensioners *as a group* to have more disposable income than other cohorts but for the distribution of income/wealth within that group to be even more skewed than the general population.
Separately, I think the idea of an intergenerational contract is a fairy story.
1985 Mercian King of Mercia - work in progress (Hah! Who am I kidding?)
Pinnacle Monzonite
Part of the anti-growth coalition0 -
This quote is part of the issue some of us have with your view Rick:
"I guess there's two parts to the answer. First is, if we're gonna do austerity, why are one group saved from it? Not least as they collectively have the most disposable income yada yada."
The vast majority (by number) of retirees are far from wealthy, that's the reality, and for them the State Pension is essential. Sure there are some very wealthy retirees, but doesn't the 90:10 type priciple apply?
As far as the cost of your commute goes, you won't get much sympathy as that is the choice you have made. Money, money, money over quality of life.
As far as DB pensions go, then unless you have worked in the State sector, anyone in their late 50s or early 60s is unlikely to see much by way of DB, but are private DB schemes a big issue as they aren't a burden on the state, just the employer or their pension trustees? All but a tiny handful of private sector DB sceheme closed to new entrants many years ago, and slighlty more remain open to future accrual still. You can argue that the liabilites are a drag on investment by the sponsoring employer though.
I am due about £600 pa from the old London & Manachester DB scheme when I retire.
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Don't know. I don't pay much attention to it as I've never received it, or any benefits other than a brief period of unemployment benefit which was £50/week.
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
Your complaints about the distribution of wealth and income applies across everyone, not just the retired - so why are they exempt from the austerity narrative?
Plenty of people on UC struggling to pay the bills as it was before they got cut. No-one here can make a good argument for why pensioners were exempt.
We all pay for DB pensions - if you didn't pay in the equivalent of £600pa, where do you think the money is coming from? Those private companies? That's money that either isn't going into reinvestment, lower prices, or higher wages. We all pay for it eventually. The money doesn't magically come out of thin air.
and lastly, I'm not looking for sympathy for the cost of a rail ticket (though it is vastly more expensive than elsewhere in the world), I'm just pushing back on the idea that the state pays my trains. It doesn't. It's a small subsidy.
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It isn't more skewed though, unless you have evidence to suggest to the contrary? If anything, it's getting less equal as you go down the age ranges - after all, nowadays you are much more reliant on who your parents are than you used to be. Obviously I mean proportionally - if you've had 40 years of earning those small differences get compounded.
And the intergenerational contract of course is there - everyone here is arguing it from the other side. If there is no contract f*ck it, leave the old to look after themselves. Obviously that's unreasonable.
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"We all pay for DB pensions - if you didn't pay in the equivalent of £600pa, where do you think the money is coming from? Those private companies? That's money that either isn't going into reinvestment, lower prices, or higher wages. We all pay for it eventually. The money doesn't magically come out of thin air."
The money comes from the fund that was set up originally by L&M, and is now part of Aviva. It has cost YOU nothing. It is a fully funded scheme. That scheme holds, wait for it ........ investments.
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DB pensions. Unless you are referring to public sector pensions then they are funded by the private company pension funds which are invested. They are yet another Ponzi scheme which often come up short and explains why DB pensions ceased to be a thing decades ago. It will be rare for anyone under 60 (65?) to receive a full DB pension.
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
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Private DB schemes largely ceased back in around 2000-2003. The liability is all on the employer and they are horrendously expensive. It's unfair to call them ponzi schemes, but hugely increased longevity made them unviable.
It also didn't help when employers were stopped from over-funding the schemes in good times, making it harder to run them in difficult times.
State sector DB schemes are largely unfunded, they are a massive expense to us all and should be closed to future accrual, but the unions would then intervene. Generally State sector employers have no idea of the true value of their pension scheme membership.
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Not retired but I have one from my Council days (first 8 years of my career). It was good as I paid in from day 1 and never really thought about the payments as it just went out like tax and NI so never saw it. I left in 1998 on a salary of something like £17-18k and it is currently showing it will pay something like £3k a year. By contrast my first private pension pot for a job I did for 17.5 years will buy me around £5k of annuity despite my average salary over that time probably being twice as much. There are a few complications in there though - my employer messed up getting me set up after my probation, it took me a while to realise and it never got back dated; I was relying solely on the employer contributions for a good few years as with young kids, a mortgage and travel costs I didn't have much spare income (believe it or not the current generation aren't the first to find that time difficult) and then the company stopped pension payments as part of the cuts in the GFC (along with the 10% paycut and various other things) and only restarted when auto-enrollment came in. However, the discrepancy between the two schemes is huge but ultimately the pension and leave were the only benefits of working in the public sector - they still have a decent scheme but not enough to entice me back which I had originally considered for my last years of work.
I know it has been said before but I don't think those in the public sector understand the value of their pension scheme even now and I would certainly say that my inlaws who both have DB pensions don't realise that it is a lot different for those yet to retire. One good thing about this thread is it has finally got me trying to sort out my various pensions and work out where they all are / what they'll be worth. I'll probably tidy all the private ones from past employers into one pot.
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One of the big changes introduced in 2015 Pross was around the death benefits for private pensions. Most pre-2015 personal pensions would pay out a lump sum on your death before retirement, so the funds leave the very tax efficient pension wrapper and go into cash.
Most post-2015 PPPs offer Beneficiaries Drawdown. You beneficiary(ies) effectively take over ownership of the pension. They can then leave it be, draw a regular or ad-hoc income & lump sums or purchase an annuity. No minimum age to access the pot. If death is before your 75th birthday then all withdrawals are tax free. If death is on or after your 75th birthday, then they will pay tax at their marginal rate.
It is a massive change.
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I have one from a job I'm was in for about 18 months back in the early 90s - according to their last letter I'll be due the princely sum of about £3k a year from age 60. Everything else is DC.
"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]0 -
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Better than a kick in the teeth but hardly life changing. Main thing now is to get the value of my DC schemes up to a certain level and keep my fingers crossed that Labour won't be in power when I retire (given their likely reimposition of the lifetime allowance) - or if they do, they reimpose it at a sensibly higher level. The latter is probably wishful thinking though.
"I spent most of my money on birds, booze and fast cars: the rest of it I just squandered." [George Best]0
