Poor value pensions....

[amateur51]

bafflement at the state of the world is normal for me , Anna.

Strange days indeed, as John lennon said......

answers on a postcard , with a 60p stamp, to the bloke who used to run football.......

Horace Batchelor of Keynsham, is that?

[teamsaint]

Horace Batchelor of Keynsham, is that?

that's K--e--y--


er, no the bloke I had in mind now "runs " the post office, which he trained for by running the premier League.

Welcome to the 21st century.

[ahinton]

I agree that pretending that the money is invested is pointless.

I'm not, however, claiming that governments actually do openly and overtly pretend that; what they do is refer to state retirement benefit as though it is a pension, or at least analogous to one and what they also never do is point out to people that what they pay in is NOT being invested on their behalf for a pension.

If we want well funded retirements we have to pay for them. But everybody I know WANTS a well funded state scheme, paid for out of taxes.
It can be done.

It can't be done until all of it IS paid for out of taxes, not some of it out of borrowings and, even then, those taxes would have to be subjected to such vast increases in order to make due provision that it would never work. The current plan appears to be to aim for a basic pension for all of around £7Kp.a. which would, like now, be taxable (albeit not actually taxes unless the pensioner had sufficient income from other sources to take him/her above the personal allowance). Someone paid for work at the "minimum wage" rate of £6.31 per hour (as from 1 October) for a 40-hour week would gross more than £13Kp.a., so the proposed basic state retirement benefit rate will be the equivalent of littel more than half what a working person would expect if in receipt of the "minimum wage"; given that most people can't manage on the minimum wage, how on earth would they do so on just over half of it? The average UK salary is reckoned to be in the order of £26.5Kp.a. - around twice the earnings level of those on the "minimum wage"; how would a drop of almost 75% leave them at retirement?

There are now more self-employed people than there used to be and the numbers of people in part-time employment is also increasing; many in those groups would be especially unable to afford the vastly higher taxes needed to be able to ensure that everyone at state retirement age would receive an amount equivalent to the national average salary.

Private pensions are, for most people, an illusion. They would be FAR better investing or saving elsewhere.

I agree that there are other ways to save and I did mention that when pointing out that the attraction of pension contributions has been the up=front tax relief that's not available from most other forms of contributory investment.

And the corporate sector needs telling, not asking, to start joining in again. The new provisions from next year on(?) do seem a small step in the right direction, but they are 30 years too late. Probably deliberately.

If corporation tax were scrapped, it might be resonable to tell them and enforce what they're told - and they'd be far better able to comply; the problem would remain, however, to the extent that all pensions are dependent upon investment performance which is in turn dependent upon the markets.

[MrGongGong]

Surely the only real "solution" is for some people to get a little less.
I'm no economist but the idea that somehow I can get paid for not working when i'm old is based on the daft assumption that there is an ever increasing amount of wealth to pay for it.
People of my parents generation (retired in their 70's) were simply lucky to be born at the "right time" and retired at the "right time" , nothing really (apart from a few examples) to do with being "sensible" , "prudent" or anything else.....

As someone who has always been self employed it seems a little daft that one can get paid for doing something and then when you are old get paid again for not doing it !!!

Germaine Greer's "fuck pensions, buy art" has more than a little logic to it !!!

[eighthobstruction]

This is a chance for certain ex BBC Executives to finally separate themselves from the rest of population....

[scottycelt]

Surely the only real "solution" is for some people to get a little less.
I'm no economist but the idea that somehow I can get paid for not working when i'm old is based on the daft assumption that there is an ever increasing amount of wealth to pay for it.
People of my parents generation (retired in their 70's) were simply lucky to be born at the "right time" and retired at the "right time" , nothing really (apart from a few examples) to do with being "sensible" , "prudent" or anything else.....

As someone who has always been self employed it seems a little daft that one can get paid for doing something and then when you are old get paid again for not doing it !!!

Germaine Greer's "fuck pensions, buy art" has more than a little logic to it !!!

Germaine Greer and Logic are like Oil and Water, Mr GG.

Pensions are earned through contributions (National Insurance/Contributory Employee Scheme) or are considered part of the overall remuneration deal in a non-contributory pension scheme. It is a form of savings for old age. It is not a 'gift'. It is indeed very sensible and very prudent when no money will otherwise be available to stay alive.

Most people are not over-rich, foul-mouthed feminists like Germaine Greer. They have to work hard for a living and are probably far too busy and much too poor to 'buy art'.

[MrGongGong]

Pensions are earned through contributions (National Insurance).

:Laugh: not if you are on schedule D mate
you get bugger all

don't take it too seriously you will make yourself ill !

the point is still that it's NOT "savings" (as in a sock under the bed)
it's all based on the idea that there will be an increasing number of young people making increasing amounts of wealth and making the economy grow in an increasing manner indefinitely...... now i'm not an economist but there's something about Albania that springs to mind (and it's not Norman Wisdom !)

Germaine Greer seems a sensible woman IMV (She is on the board of The Britten Sinfonia along with Mary Archer :YIKES: )

[Beef Oven!]

:Laugh: not if you are on schedule D mate
you get bugger all

don't take it too seriously you will make yourself ill !

the point is still that it's NOT "savings" (as in a sock under the bed)
it's all based on the idea that there will be an increasing number of young people making increasing amounts of wealth and making the economy grow in an increasing manner indefinitely...... now i'm not an economist but there's something about Albania that springs to mind (and it's not Norman Wisdom !)

Germaine Greer seems a sensible woman IMV (She is on the board of The Britten Sinfonia along with Mary Archer :YIKES: )

You could always clear your inbox ;-)

[teamsaint]

You could always clear your inbox ;-)

he is prolly too busy keeping two types of NI contributions up to date, to bother with trivia like that.

[amateur51]

Most people are not over-rich, foul-mouthed feminists like Germaine Greer. .

More's the pity - she clearly gets up your clenched chuff

[ahinton]

Germaine Greer and Logic are like Oil and Water, Mr GG.

Both essential, you mean?...

Pensions are earned through contributions (National Insurance/Contributory Employee Scheme) or are considered part of the overall remuneration deal in a non-contributory pension scheme. It is a form of savings for old age. It is not a 'gift'. It is indeed very sensible and very prudent when no money will otherwise be available to stay alive.

They're not real "pensions", as I've said and these "contributions" (stange word for a compulsory thing) are not invesed on behalf of the pensioner so there's no hope of investment growth in order hopefully to produce a decent pension pot for vesting at retirement.

Most people are not over-rich, foul-mouthed feminists like Germaine Greer.

Nor is Germaine Geer.

[ahinton]

:Laugh: not if you are on schedule D mate
you get bugger all

don't take it too seriously you will make yourself ill !

the point is still that it's NOT "savings" (as in a sock under the bed)

Exactly.

it's all based on the idea that there will be an increasing number of young people making increasing amounts of wealth and making the economy grow in an increasing manner indefinitely...... now i'm not an economist but there's something about Albania that springs to mind (and it's not Norman Wisdom !)

That's why I sought to draw an analogy between this and Ponzi schemes.

[Richard Barrett]

I'm no economist but the idea that somehow I can get paid for not working when i'm old is based on the daft assumption that there is an ever increasing amount of wealth to pay for it.

But actually there is an enormous amount of wealth around, more than enough for everyone to have a comfortable life in their old age, the problem being that this wealth is being sequestered by a decreasing number of people.

[ahinton]

But actually there is an enormous amount of wealth around, more than enough for everyone to have a comfortable life in their old age, the problem being that this wealth is being sequestered by a decreasing number of people.

That is undoubtedly true, of course - but how much longer do you think that such wealth will remain wealth when so little of it is actually underpinned by collateral value? Who/which, among individuals, SMEs, large national and multinational corporations and local/national governments, is not saddled with unrepayable debt? Isn't some of this "wealth" and its cynical manipulation based at least in part upon artificial asset values?

[eighthobstruction]

But actually there is an enormous amount of wealth around, more than enough for everyone to have a comfortable life in their old age, the problem being that this wealth is being sequestered by a decreasing number of people.

I have very visual mind....and I can see and feel this money being sucked in one direction....ah is of course right as well....