A million to march on Westminster!

[Lateralthinking1]

I wasn't suggesting that you were public sector bashing. Our last contributions crossed. While I accept that public sector pensions relied to some extent on investment, the key phrase is "to some extent" for rightly or wrongly with hindsight they were guaranteed. The private sector pensions were more of a gamble not simply because there was always the possibility of losses. Crucially, there was always the possibility of gigantic gains - some received those - whereas public sector pensions had a ceiling.

While I take your point about Labour, there is a very different relationship with the unions now from that in the eighties. It was Brown who tried to take the axe to compensation entitlements. He would have had no qualms about pensions and the same is true of the current miserable lot. The union I belonged to - Serwotka's - circulated information about all of the parties at election time. The message in 2010 seemed to be vote for anything other than the BNP, UKIP and the Tories. The Greens in particular were getting support. Some - I would include myself in this category - felt that any ploy on the part of the Tories to loosen the alleged influence the unions had over Labour - might be a good thing. Get a proper Peoples Party started. This is what we need.

My understanding is that the current Government is working towards a single pension arrangement. Second state pensions, for which much of the public sector wouldn't qualify anyway, will go. The main pension will incorporate elements of other benefits and/or replace them. The idea is to equalize but only in respect of what are called state pensions. Outside those, you will still have the £791,000 or whatever in separate pensions the well-off also stand to gain. That was what I meant by consolidation.

Back in the day, when pensions were introduced, you had the old folk, many of whom who no longer worked, and all the other people who were working, that is, apart from the ill and unemployed. To say to those working "you will start paying towards your own pensions and to hell with those who are old now" wasn't seen as a humane option then. Now it would be an entirely different story. Anyhow, after WW2 we were bankrupt. I realise that Lloyd George kicked it all off earlier but it was only after 1945 that we had anything like what we have all known and expected. In many ways, the hands of politicians were tied, unlike now.

[ahinton]

I wasn't suggesting that you were public sector bashing. Our last contributions crossed. While I accept that public sector pensions relied to some extent on investment, the key phrase is "to some extent" for rightly or wrongly with hindsight they were guaranteed. The private sector pensions were more of a gamble not simply because there was always the possibility of losses. Crucially, there was always the possibility of gigantic gains - some received those - whereas public sector pensions had a ceiling.

While I take your point about Labour, there is a very different relationship with the unions now from that in the eighties. It was Brown who tried to take the axe to compensation entitlements. He would have had no qualms about pensions and the same is true of the current miserable lot. The union I belonged to - Serwotka's - circulated information about all of the parties at election time. The message in 2010 seemed to be vote for anything other than the BNP, UKIP and the Tories. The Greens in particular were getting support. Some - I would include myself in this category - felt that any ploy on the part of the Tories to loosen the alleged influence the unions had over Labour - might be a good thing. Get a proper Peoples Party started. This is what we need.

My understanding is that the current Government is working towards a single pension arrangement. Second state pensions, for which much of the public sector wouldn't qualify anyway, will go. The main pension will incorporate elements of other benefits and/or replace them. The idea is to equalize but only in respect of what are called state pensions. Outside those, you will still have the £791,000 or whatever in separate pensions the well-off also stand to gain. That was what I meant by consolidation.

Back in the day, when pensions were introduced, you had the old folk, many of whom who no longer worked, and all the other people who were working, that is, apart from the ill and unemployed. To say to those working "you will start paying towards your own pensions and to hell with those who are old now" wasn't seen as a humane option then. Now it would be an entirely different story. Anyhow, after WW2 we were bankrupt. I realise that Lloyd George kicked it all off earlier but it was only after 1945 that we had anything like what we have all known and expected. In many ways, the hands of politicians were tied, unlike now.

Thank you for all of this; I now understand much better what it is that you're talking about.

That said, I do still believe that the entire notion of "retirement pensions" - real and fantasy ones - is now nearing its dénouement because there's no way that anyone can guarantee financing pension benefits to anyone, irrespective of what the contributors - again, real and fantasy ones - might or might not have "contributed" to them. As a nation, our immense and unserviceable borrowings demonstrate beyond argument that we're a lot closer to bankruptcy now than was the case at the end of WWII. The hands of politicans are indeed tied now, over all of it, because (a) the money simply isn't there ether from borrowings or from taxpayer conributions, (b) G Brown has screwed many otherwise possible pensions, (c) the markets are is a state that's sufficiently parlous to knock them on their heads and (d) the state "system" is veering increasingly towards exposure to all the electorate that it's never been more than a Ponzi-type scheme and the immense success of the NHS (criticise it as one might in some ways), having helped to contribute to the longevity of the British population, has thereby complicated an already massively unwieldy problem as little else could do.

A "People's Party"? Formed of which people? - and to seek to achieve what and how and with potential or actual access to what means?

[Lateralthinking1]

While I have argued that there will be an enhanced emphasis on the state pension, regrettably I don't disagree that it will not necessarily be delivered at some point. Economics as stated and operated are so clearly a part of the modern day inability to distinguish between reality and fantasy. This applies to almost every area of all our lives. That is, above and beyond the consistent historical truth that the nature of reality changes from one generation to the next. The "new blurring" could easily be the subject of several books. One of its characteristics is that large numbers of people internationally are becoming locked out of an effective relationship with state systems. Plus ca change. But now this is not because of who they are, or what their states are, or even a lack of will on either side. Rather it is that in many of life's fundamentals the interpretations of reality among individuals and states are so different. The former are closer to the basics while the latter deal with generalities. When these differences reach the point of being acute, it is quite impossible for either to view what is happening in the other as anything but a fantasy world. The divisions matter in a very practical sense and they do then affect confidence in every sense of that word.

I'm not sure though that I agree that "we're a lot closer to bankruptcy now than was the case at the end of WWII". As I have said before on this forum, when Churchill achieved what the ailing Maynard Keynes failed to do, securing a loan from the US, Whitehall had been in a rum panic. Post war there were many meetings in Government accompanied by confidential documents about a country which within weeks would see many dying from starvation. There were worries not only about those people but what would happen to the stability of society because of it. The culture was very different. The media were controlled. Secrecy was seen as being for the common good. The public were given a sense that times were tough but also that able people were at the helm, working with diligence behind the scenes. There wasn’t the feeling that gamesmanship was being employed to set one side against another. In fact, “we are all in this together”, while implied rather than said, was given credibility by the policies that were being formulated. Now we are given an overly-repetitive mantra about a dire situation but where does it leave us?

Only a fool wouldn't believe that we are in a mess but that still comes with a series of questions in peoples’ minds. On the average street, most people do not look as if they are on a cliff edge. Far from it. And we still see a lot of very big money sloshing around among a tiny minority who seem to be everywhere because of the media. Journalists are more able to highlight policies that suggest unlimited money is available for certain people or projects. We have consciousness as a society of how people in poor countries try to survive and contrast our lifestyles. And we have knowledge from recent history of what our Governments can afford when they put their minds to it. All these things matter. I think the widespread feelings about current Governance includes a thought that it isn’t secrecy that is being used for the public good but slyness for the good of a few. Additionally, no one appears to have the ability to be serious as in the sense of realistic about assessing and tackling the difficulties. There is a Wordsworthian airiness about their demeanour, for all of the tough utterances and grimaces, combined with a bit of halfhearted sports psychology. We are governed politically and economically as if the country were an adolescent’s computer game. It is unreal.

The ex-head of M15 declares that cannabis should be legalized. Parliamentary committees spend months discussing the Murdoch press and its intrusion into celebrities’ lives. Significant though such matters are, they do not give the impression that we are all heading towards a financial abyss. So what is the truth of it? Who knows? Who among those with real money even cares? When the rules of the game are forever being changed, it is impossible to say where we might be in the future. Money might be stronger in 30 years time, its systems improved by an inadvertent turn of the cards. Someone thinks of something that just happens to work. A peculiar and unexpected change in the way we all once viewed the financial neutrinos. A gamble pays off. On the other hand, it may have completely disappeared, albeit with huge amounts of fallout, to be replaced by something else. Reneging on pensions now is therefore short-sighted. Typically it is based on a fantasy that economic models and projections are anything other than toy town. In fact, it is egotistically driven when the ego is about as scientific as flower arranging. We have absolutely no way of being able to say with accuracy what will happen to anything in 30 years. I will leave it here for now although you have raised other points. I may come back to those later although I tore up my alternative manifesto years ago.

[ahinton]

While I accept that public sector pensions relied to some extent on investment, the key phrase is "to some extent" for rightly or wrongly with hindsight they were guaranteed. The private sector pensions were more of a gamble not simply because there was always the possibility of losses. Crucially, there was always the possibility of gigantic gains - some received those - whereas public sector pensions had a ceiling.

But this very "guarantee" is a myth and always was so; governments cannot "guarantee" anything and, if the money runs out as a consequence of the generation of insufficient tax revenues and the inability to borrow sufficient funds to top them up, they won't have the means to "guarantee" anything; all that can be said as of right now is that this hasn't happened yet. All pensions are investments and all investments are speculative to a greater or lesser degree. National Savings & Investments products, for example, are seen by its depositors as relatively low risk, but those deposits are invested in the market place, so all that those depositors do is place an intermediary between them and the speculation with their funds - in other words, they get someone else to do the speculating for free rather than do it themselves at their own expense.

[Lateralthinking1]

Hi ahinton. Thanks for these rather worrying comments. In many ways, you are right. I think you have inadvertently included some of my comments in your reply. Don't know if you want to edit it, he says gently?!

[ahinton]

Hi ahinton. Thanks for these rather worrying comments. In many ways, you are right. I think you have inadvertently included some of my comments in your reply. Don't know if you want to edit it, he says gently?!

Oops! Thanks. Done.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

can we get off pensions now please and back to the Remonstrance .....

... this offers an interesting perspective on the outbreak of pepper spraying across the USA in recent days and could have some relevance here that would make one inclined to step out a bit ...

[Lateralthinking1]

This is very, very, shocking. I feel almost apoplectic with anger on seeing this. There is no doubt in my mind in the two or three minutes of reading it that my support for Obama has gone. Just in that moment. As quick as that. If I were an American citizen, it makes all the difference between voting for him and not voting. It must seal his loss at the next election.

I have felt for a long time that these protests there, here and elsewhere mark a new era. It is possible that they might just fizzle out. They do though represent a change in the dynamics. It is one that is emerging from a full testing out of the options. This one doesn't work. Try that one etc. That has never been done so obviously before, at least not in such a short time period.

Elections as a choice between distinct alternatives? No, that doesn't work. Change the electoral system? No, that doesn't work. An e-petition? No, that doesn't work. A consultation response? No, that doesn't work. Striking? No, that doesn't work? Students on the rampage. Violence at Tory HQ. No, that doesn't work. An entirely peaceful protest? No, that doesn't work. Wherever next?

BUT the latter brings out in states what violent opposition often doesn't do. The brutality of bullying states themselves. These are the pictures of what has been happening psychologically in the relationship between states and individuals for a very long time. They are the actions behind the rules of the game, the smiles, and all of the other stuff that is fake. And images are awareness.

As the physical manifestion of such things, what we see here is the crossing of a new boundary. We may have had this over foreign wars but never on this scale in terms of citizens' welfare. The state response is a terrible mistake. Sadly, explosive responses are absolutely guaranteed. Chosen or not, they will show that the laws of human nature are the biggest of all.

[Serial_Apologist]

The evangelical crusade against the axis of evil has transferred home, as would have been its wont. They're having a tea party.

[Sydney Grew]

. . . The "no more money on the table" argument is credible only to the extent that . . .

Actually it is not credible at all. Of "money" there is absolutely NO shortage!

Here if members will spare fifteen minutes to listen to it is an interesting programme about "tax havens" and related matters.

It mainly consists of a most revealing interview with Mr. Christensen, a Jersey gentleman, who having for many years been involved therewith really does know all about the subject - and particularly about the British government's ambiguous role in the practice.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

. . . The "no more money on the table" argument is credible only to the extent that . . .

Actually it is not credible at all. Of "money" there is absolutely NO shortage!

Here if members will spare fifteen minutes to listen to it is an interesting programme about "tax havens" and related matters.

It mainly consists of a most revealing interview with Mr. Christensen, a Jersey gentleman, who having for many years been involved therewith really does know all about the subject - and particularly about the British government's ambiguous role in the practice.

Precisely. But my point was that money collected from employees (and employers) for public service pensions was stolen to be spent on whatever the governments at the time wanted to spend it on, with a promise that they would honour the pension contract when the time came. They did not create a proper fund. I'm not sure whether that makes them corrupt or incompetent, but it must be one or the other. To say there is no more money after they themselves have spent it is simply evil.

[Serial_Apologist]

with a promise that they would honour the pension contract when the time came.

Or, as likely as not, the grim reaper.

[ahinton]

Actually it is not credible at all. Of "money" there is absolutely NO shortage!

Here if members will spare fifteen minutes to listen to it is an interesting programme about "tax havens" and related matters.

It mainly consists of a most revealing interview with Mr. Christensen, a Jersey gentleman, who having for many years been involved therewith really does know all about the subject - and particularly about the British government's ambiguous role in the practice.

I agree with Eine Alpensinfonie's response to your post and I didn't suggest that there was no money on the table - that is not my phrase, I merely quoted it and, in so doing, I was, of course, referring specifically to the money olikely to be left on that particular table, not how much of the stuff is sloshing around generally.

If we take these three factors applicable respectively to private sector pensions, public sector ditto and state so-called ditto, we appear now to have, respectively, government interference in the first by way of ACT theft, government interference by way of misappropriation of invested funds and government conmanship in trying to persuade innocent compulsory contributors that their payments were being allocated to pensions as though they represented savings towards them; on the basis of theft, lies and lies, that's 0 out of 3 for governments, so it's surely no wonder that some people assert that governments should no more seek to involve themselves in the not so gentle art of retirement planning than their electorates should expect them to try to do so.

[Lateralthinking1]

Yes. Financial crash watchers might have noted that not a lot has been heard from Belgium. That is because it is doing just fine without a Government. In fact, it has been Government free for 19 months. If only that had been us.

But, oh dear, what is this that is about to happen? Just goes to show that born rulers and dividers can cosy up to arch enemies when their own irrelevance lasts so long that it overwhelms them. Expect another disaster within days:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/27/belgium-government-idUSP6E7L300S20111127

[Lateralthinking1]

.....Geronticide. That's the word. Today the state pension age rose for me and many others in their 40s to 67. The unemployment figure is set to hit 3m by 2013. There are plans to try to opt out of the minimum wage.

As benefits disappear, and others are likely only to be payable weekly for almost a full week's voluntary work, we are set for a significant percentage of the population working for £2 a hour.

Clearly this is unsustainable. It won't happen. Bills can't be paid. Let's put party politics aside for a moment. Taking decisive action is one thing. What do they have in mind to keep people, indeed of all ages, alive?

To put it another way, other than Dickensian scenes on every high street - how can there possibly not be or am I misunderstanding something genuinely? - what precisely is their vision of Britain as a whole in the next 5,10, 15 and 20 years?