You have had the answer from at least two posters. It is to do with the difference between being in an ecoomic position which will last the rest of your life (pension) and being in a position which the claimant is (usually) believed to want to leave (for a job) asap.
That's right, the rest of their life, or are you now retreating into pointless semantics as thogh you couldn't possibly work out the meaning?
Not even a little bit like it.
No-one wants ever to have to make a car insurance claim. Everyone hopes and expects to claim and receive Retirement Pension, preferable for a very long time.
But car insurance claims may, I suppose, be slightly likened to unemployment benefit. One hopes never to have to claim and with good luck, never will.
That certainly is often erroneously supposed to be the case. National "Insurance" is not an insurance scheme - and you know it isn't. If it were, it would cost more the greater the risk of unemployment or sickness because that's the way that insurance works. But in the UK, national insurance contributions are lowest (and can be zero) for those who spend the longest periods on benefits and those who are least likely to claim, are more likely to be paying 12% of their income for a lifetime, in National "Insurance".
And neither is NI invested in a pension pot on behalf of the contributor. You also know that but choose to ignore the fact.
National Insurance benefits have never been enough to replace earned income. When the average male industrial earnings were about £18 a week gross, UK was £3 a week (both figures approximate for 1969/1970, but very close either way).
That's why there is a separate scheme of (higher) means-tested benefits (and there isn't even the pretence of tyhat being predicated upon insurance, even though many pundits frequently claim that people "pay in" for their means-tested benefits (they don't - they get them even if they've never contrinuted a bean).
You treat being retired and being unemployed as the same thing. There's your error.
Which is how it ought to work. Then the pension liability is off the government's books. Equally, final-salary, defined-benefit, and company pensions should all be illegal. Each person should have his own pension pot that they add to during their working life.
You don't need to be rich (or anywhere near rich) for that. You just need a way of balancing out liabilities, with an overdaraft, credit card, etc. Such facilities do not necessarily lead to extraindebtedness medium to long term. They just allow you spend at a normal rate without worrying about exactly when pay-day is. I did it for years.
But there's no reason why their suddenly and unwontedly finding themselves in that position should have retrospectively affected their access to (quite normal and common) lines of credit.
A. Do you practice really hard to be so wrong, so much of the time?
Credit cards, used carefully and responsibly, can give the holder up to six weeks credit and incur *no* interest at all. I spend about £13,000 a year on my Amex card (which I signed up for in 2000) and I have never paid a penny to American Express for any reason whatsoever.
Overdrafts, properly arranged beforehand, cost nothing if not used and incur very small amounts of interest if you stray into the red by only a small amount (measured in hundreds on the fingers of one hand). Unauthorised overdrafts are quite a different matter.
B. Even if one could get past your failure to understand the above, you please recall that my post mentioned medium to long term indebtedness, not the few quid you get charged for straying £200 into the red inside the terms of an authorised overdraft.
Of course, if you are in the habit of letting credit card debt mount past the interest-free period, and/or of overdrawing on your current account without arranging the facility beforehand, you are probably the sort of person who has general difficulty in managing monmey and probably have other debts which are, or can be, out of control.
But the major point is that charges on authorised overdrafts are low and are easily managed when income resumes (as long as delay in receiving income is the main problem; not *having* an income is another problem entirely).
Good job I didn't then, isn't it?
We *were* talking about delays in payment of income, not aboiut lack of income.
Had you forgotten already, in your eager effortts to throw in another few of your usual "Ah, but"s?
Obviously you failed to notice what you posted before. You were referring to "medium to long term". Six weeks is NOT long term.
Maybe you paid if off promptly then. Although I am suprised that you earn enough, given your obvious lack of understanding in even simple concepts.
Wipe the rabid foam from your mouth. An unused overdraft is irrelevent to what we're discussing. And overdrafts can incur relatively large charges, depending on your bank.
You say you count on your fingers - maybe you should buy a calculator.
Oh dear. Yet another ignorant comment. Not agreeing with you is not the lack of understanding. It;s not difficult.
Ah so you have now admitted one of your mistakes. You're making progress (maybe).
See above to see why this is incorrect (again).
Do you want a medal?
Wrong yet again.
You seem to be living in a fantasy world. Anyway you are either a troll or an ass, probably both. Anyway your posts are not worth reading so I won't be doing so from now. Plonk.
That may be the way profit making insurance works. But not a terribly good idea for social insurance. Perhaps you'd be delighted to pay more for the health side if your family had a history of some sorts of conditions?
Any form of equalising things out seem to be an anathema to our Tim. Each should only look after themselves. Charity can look after those not able to do so. Or euthanasia.
That's exactly how I managed during a prolonged strike, with no strike pay. Held out long enough to get a massive pay rise. Not what you want to read, though. ;-)
And neither is it medium term. It is exceptionally short term.
Give that man a coconut.
You are the one who doesn't understand, and cannot distinguish, the short term from the medium and long term(s).
Authorised overdrafts (I accept that you didn't know they exist) cost very little. The trick *is* to arrange them in advance (ie, when you don't need them).
You failed to understand the distinction between the short term and the medium/long term. You have demonstrated that more than once.
I have made no mistakes. You now appear to be starting to understand the difference between the short term and longer terms.
You have said nothing which detracts from what I wrote.
No. But you should metaphorially award yourself one for your progress in understanding the proper purpose and low cost of authorised and pre-arranged short term credit.
Yes, you were. You had forgotten that this was about delays in getting payment established when moving onto benefits. And not about having no income at all.
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