Plebs 1 Toffs 0

[ahinton]

The problem with the age thing, just for starters, is getting at something like the truth.

Not necessarily, as long as the seeker after it avoids placing undue reliance on government statistics, especially as there are non-governmental sources for such data.

The government, especially this government , has a huge vested interest in "inflating" life expectancy.

As do all governments that continue to offer pension schemes for public sector employees! - and that interest can only continue to increase.

So, step one, for me, is to disregard what they say, and find some figures that look realistic, or to find somebody to do it. Not easy, but nobody said it is !

Indeed - as I said.

The government want people indebted very young, and working for a very long time. Ignore what they say, watch what they do. And this is what they are doing, or trying to do.

I'm not even convinced that the government cares that much about what happens to people, actually; perhaps you have more faith in governments than I do...

AH, not quite sure what you mean about the unreliable plod..my point was that the fewer hands on power the better..the police might just "turn" if push comes to shove.

My point was that drones operate 24/7 and require no licenses for individual searches whereas plod, with the best will in the world, works in shifts and is required by law to apply for search warrants for every search carried out.

On the pension front, here's this little nugget that suggests that the future of public sector pensions under any government is likely to become increasingly parlous, just as is the case with private sector ones and self-employed private ones, for broadly similar reasons:

http://www.citywire.co.uk/new-model-adviser/govt-reforms-cut-more-than-30-from-public-sector-pensions/a628708?re=21125&ea=317026&utm_source=BulkEmail_NMA_Daily_PM&utm_medium=BulkEmail_NMA_Daily_PM&utm_campaign=BulkEmail_NMA_Daily_PM

It's perhaps also worth pointing out that, since responsibility for at least part of the the British pension provision problem that is specifically associated with increased longevity rests with the historical successes of the NHS, it might be argued that, to some extent, this problem is (albeit unwittingly) the fault of the taxpayers who have funded those successes!...

[heliocentric]

I'm not even convinced that the government cares that much about what happens to people, actually; perhaps you have more faith in governments than I do...

Now that is a really silly thing to say. Of course they do. The ruling class is only able to hold on to its wealth and position by being in a minority and exploiting the majority, which involves keeping them just sufficiently educated, healthy and entertained for the maximum profit to be extracted from them. Once their working life is over due to age, or could never begin because of disability, then they become a "burden", or "benefit scroungers" etc.

[ahinton]

Here comes that "burden" again. Why should it be thought of as a "burden" to organise a society such that those advanced in years are treated as less deserving of a comfortable standard of living than younger people? Well, I've already said this: you're obviously more interested in footling details than in how grossly uncivilised this "burden" concept is.

OK, fair enough - let's drop the word "burden" as it clearly gives rise to emotive connotations that I had not intended. The point, however, remains - and I do not believe, as you appear to imply, that it rests upon the notion that those of advanced years are in any sense "less deserving of a comfortable standard of living than younger people", which of course is not the case. Where I don't see what you're getting at, however, is how - and by whom - future pensioners can be protected from the adverse consequences of increasing longevity and unstable market conditions upon the pensions to which they are contributing via their employers' schemes or private pensions for the self-employed - unless, of course, you do not believe that longevity is increasing in general terms or that the markets are volatile. When we get to the point that increased longevity means that many retirement periods may equal or exceed working ones, it surely becomes clear that fully supporting the latter throughout the former would quite simply be hopelessly unaffordable, especially for those who wish to retire and vest their pensions at times of particular market lows.

As for the police, when even they take the opportunity to put a spanner in the works of government (like they didn't when Thatcher used them as an offensive weapon against the miners) the ruling class might have reason to be concerned that they could end up in a lonely corner with piles of cash but no friends to protect it for them. The sooner the better.

Really? Firstly, Thatcher did not use them as anything of the kind; the laws governing police duties and powers that were already in place well before Thatcher assumed prime ministerial office took sufficient care of what happened during the miners' strike, however unpalatable some of that undoubtedly was, although they were clearly not intended to permit, let alone encourage, senior officers subsequently to act in their own interests by corrupting the reporting of incidents and their responses as appears now to have been the case - but, more to the point, perhaps, assuming that there is such a thing that can credibly and universally be considered as the "ruling class", haven't you heard of private security firms that do and will offer such protection? OK, some of these can be at least as incompetent as the police can sometimes be, but the suggestion that there would be no one available and willing to protect the assets of the wealthy (which is who I take you really to mean when referring to the "ruling class") is surely risible!

[teamsaint]

As Helio says really. That's where the indebtedness comes in. Tie people into a lifetime of 50 hour weeks, spending what little they earn on a roof, child care, eduction etc....no time to think....just enough to get in front of a big screen for the 7 day a week distraction that is football , (or x factor).
Whatever happened to the leisure society?
Income tax is a BIG part of this also.....but lets not go there !
I agree with AH about the drones....no nasty overtime rates...ok they need fuel...

[heliocentric]

how - and by whom - future pensioners can be protected from the adverse consequences of increasing longevity and unstable market conditions

I would have thought that was glaringly obvious: by having a planned economy instead of setting it afloat in "market conditions". So often people come out with stuff like this that seems to assume that the present unregulated "market" (ie. casino for the rich) is somehow a fact of life. It isn't.

[ahinton]

Now that is a really silly thing to say. Of course they do.

Really? Well, perhaps I'm giving them less credit than they deserve, then - but, in my experience, the extent to which some of them seem so ignorant of the aspirations and problems of members of the electorate hardly suggests the kind of caring spirit for which one might reasonably hope.

The ruling class is only able to hold on to its wealth and position by being in a minority and exploiting the majority, which involves keeping them just sufficiently educated, healthy and entertained for the maximum profit to be extracted from them. Once their working life is over due to age, or could never begin because of disability, then they become a "burden", or "benefit scroungers" etc.

We'll have to part company over this. I do not believe that the term "ruling class" has any literal meaning in present-day Britain, especially when what is invariably meant by reference to it is "the wealthy class" - and there isn't even such a thing as a wealthy "class" per se either - just people and firms with different levels of wealth. There are very wealthy people who work, despite not needing to do so, but those who cling to their concept of the "ruling class" would usually categorise such people along with those wealthy who do not work and label them all as social parasites regardless of what they do; would you consider that working multi-millionaires become a "burden" on anyone when and because they decide to cease working? In any case, I'd thought that we'd dropped the term "burden", at your own implied suggestion. As to "benefit scroungers", there are such people, as well you know, just as you and I also both know that they represent a tiny minority of those who receive state benefits of one kind and another, the vast majority being anything but "scroungers" and of whom an embarrassingly large proportion actually do paid work as well as receiving the benefits to which they are entitled.

What I still fail to grasp (because you've not explained it) is how decent company and private pension provision provision can somehow be protected forever from the effects of increased longevity and the vagaries of the market place in which employers', employees' and self-employed people's pension contributions are invested.

[ahinton]

I would have thought that was glaringly obvious: by having a planned economy instead of setting it afloat in "market conditions". So often people come out with stuff like this that seems to assume that the present unregulated "market" (ie. casino for the rich) is somehow a fact of life. It isn't.

OK - thanks for answering that question - but it's still not "glaringly obvious" to me. Of course it's sensible to maintain a "planned economy", but how would you see one as wholly replacing the national and international market vagaries of which I wrote? More specifically, how would a "planned economy" offer an entirely alternative investment vehicle for all those corporate and private pension contributions? In what would they come to be invested if not in the market place? The market, incidentally, is by no means a mere "casino for the rich"; it's a casino for almost everyone who uses money, whether they like it or not, since most deposits in banks, building societies, National Savings and Investments and the like are invested in those markets so, in that sense, we are - much as I detest the phrase and its usage - "all in this together"!

[teamsaint]

The very small group of individuals, and a relatively small group of companies,(notably banks) who control a hugely (and increasingly) disproportionate share of wealth and income look a lot like a ruling class to me.
And they act as a class.

[heliocentric]

it's still not "glaringly obvious" to me.

No, that much is clear. I can sum up what I think ought to be the guiding principles in such matters in twelve words (about 0.0000000000001% of the number it would take you I think): from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs.

[ahinton]

No, that much is clear. I can sum up what I think ought to be the guiding principles in such matters in twelve words...from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs.

Nothing wrong with that - a worthy and succinct summary of a worth ideal, to be sure; however, it still doesn't explain how the market can be replaced at a stroke by something else as a vehicle for the investment of pension contributions and how such a replacement would improve the growth of contributors' investments to the point at which all contributing workers could be guaranteed a decent pension from the time they retire to the time they die, irrespective of how long that might be in any individual case.

[Barbirollians]

Did you come down with the last shower?
He wasn't arrested. They then, between them, concocted a pack of lies which they released to the press because they wanted to attack the government over their pension cuts. They have form in these matters, it seems. And I'd rather the public interest wasn't manipulated by the likes of the police while they're the subject of so many enquiries into their integrity.

I am surprised they weren't on a grassy knoll at the time . A fantasy conspiracy theory of such absurdity that one might believe you were a Daily Express journalist .

[ahinton]

The very small group of individuals, and a relatively small group of companies,(notably banks) who control a hugely (and increasingly) disproportionate share of wealth and income look a lot like a ruling class to me.
And they act as a class.

Prime ministers and their governments, monarchies et al might be described as "ruling classes" (although the first two enter that class when voted in as rapidly as they leave it when voted out of office, irrespective of their backgrounds or levels of personal wealth). Money can and often does mean power, to be sure - and power can be misused and abused just as it can be well used - but I don't in any case see quite how anyone could determine to everyone else's satisfaction what might represent a "proportionate" share of wealth and income for any one company, bank or individual; can you? And can they really be said to act as a class when some of them are seen from time to time to be at war with others of them (even if that war is purely a competitive commercial one and not an actual military one)? Lastly, is there some kind of inherent in-principle conflict of interest between trying to get rid of poverty and encouraging those suffering from it to make as much money as possible, even when a very tiny few of them might end up making what some might then call "disproportionate" amounts of it?

[ahinton]

I am surprised they weren't on a grassy knoll at the time . A fantasy conspiracy theory of such absurdity that one might believe you were a Daily Express journalist .

Can you be absolutely certain that he isn't?(!)...

[heliocentric]

can they really be said to act as a class when some of them are seen from time to time to be at war with others of them

Yes. I suspect though that all the questions you're asking are more in the nature of attention-seeking strategies than genuine enquiries, since, as you must know, Teamsaint and I are using the definition of class developed by Marx and the tradition following his work, and if you were really interested in knowing the details there are many readily-accessible places and publications where you could find out all you would need to know in order not to have to pose the questions you do. If you had any real interest in doing so.

[An_Inspector_Calls]

I am surprised they weren't on a grassy knoll at the time . A fantasy conspiracy theory of such absurdity that one might believe you were a Daily Express journalist .

No more than your absurd flight of phantasy.