TOT Electric cars will be cheaper to run

[Fredxx]

Quite.

When the money tree is a bit bare, socialist go for easy targets:

Now if only they made a similar hit to public service pensions.

[Richard]

One way would be to have an energy equivalent of income tax threshold. Let's say all households pay zero tax up to the first £500 then taxed at exponentially rising rates from there up. That would satisfy those who say it's their money to waste.

[Tim Streater]

If by occupational pensions you mean those organised by companies whose core business is not pensions, these should never have been allowed and should be banned. In fact these schemes are tending to ban themselves as companies that have them go bust, leaving tuppence-ha'penny in the fund.

People should be obliged to organise their own pensions whicb they take with them (obvs) as they change jobs. If your new employer attracted you by offering to pay into your pot, then so much the better.

[Dave Plowman (News]

Is that the reason people have children then? To provide wealth in the future?

It could explain quite a bit about you. ;-)

And looking after the old or infirm an extremely foreign concept to the right wing like you.

[Andrew]

You are of course referring to your favourite government, NuLab.

In 2001 Gordon Browns raids on private pensions are well known, but it was his meddling with company tax rules that then had to include pension 'deficits', plus legislation forcing pension funds to sell most of their equities and replace them with UK gilts (that Brown was furiously printing), plus the ONS staggering error regarding longevity, effectively closed private final salary schemes overnight. Many even closed them to existing members. Annuity rates crashed at the same time that he was announcing that he was selling off the UK's gold.

When Mrs T and John Major left, Britain had well-funded private pensions and public service pension liabilities that were manageable.

13 years of NuLab competely reversed that situation, one that is probably impossible to resolve now apart from a few years of hyper- inflation.

[Andrew]

Or your employer. Since NI is just tax with a cuddly name, this is a loophole that needs to be closed.

[Steve Walker]

Yes and no. Although all life if driven to reproduce, in societies with no pension provision, people have more children specifically to care for them in their old age.

[Fredxx]

It's usually instinct and self fulfilment that drives people to have children.

The discussion was on societal terms where people who are of pensionable age and retired exist on a parasitic way on others that create wealth, or from a societal way pay taxes, usually making a net contribution to the Treasury for instance.

I hope I pass on some of my wealth onto my children. Any expectation of my children providing wealth for my parasitic existence is a socialist construct and one I don't aspire to.

Is this why you've had children?

That is why old or infirm should make provision rather than a parasitic existence only a left winger would expect from the magical money tree. The same left winger would endorse the raiding the provisions others have made.

[Vir Campestris]

Isn't NI supposed to be paying for your state pension (which you already have) and your unemployment benefit (which you'll never need)?

Andy

[Dave Plowman (News]

Jealous? I'm very happy with my scheme which is one of those. As are all my other retired ex colleagues.

Err, the pension fund shouldn't be allowed to shore up the company. It's not their money, for a start. It belongs to the pensioners and potential pensioners. Using it for other purposes is fraud.

As a true Tory I'm sure you just love having some other business getting nice fat fees from other's pensions. And they go bust too.

[tim...]

Agreed,

but few of them have an income in excess of 40 grand

even 30 grand is going to be a minority figure, and at 30 grand the amount of tax you will be paying is, in relative terms, small

[tim...]

I'll not comment upon your fictions delusions.

well both parties are complicit in that

Brown started their demise and the Tories have continued with policies precipitating it

So I have no idea what choice the electorate might have in voting for it to happen.

[Andy Burns]

The BBC in common with just about every pension scheme seems to be letting their DB members die-off while accepting new employees onto a DC scheme.

You (and plenty of others of a similar generation, my father included) were just lucky to join in the era between no bugger having much of a pension, and realising that DB pensions are unaffordable long-term ...

[Tim Streater]

Really? You astonish me. And your collective happiness somehow makes these schemes viable, does it?

Odd then the number of such schemes which somehow *do* manage to get diverted elsewhere.

Someone has to manage it. And fees can be regulated.

[Andrew]

Prior to about 1980 I think that was the case. I did have a DHSS leaflet describing all the benefits that employees and employers NI 'paid for', after a spell of sickness wheb I got some paltry industrial disease compensation, but I can't find it.

Mrs T increased NI at the same time that the really high top tax rates were removed and NuLab went even further in 2001 when they increased NI a lot with the specific intention of funding their plans to massively increase the NHS budget. Patricia Hewitt was interviewed on R4 Today and was allowed to talk without interruption for over 15 minutes during which time she used the phrase "National Health Insurance" to describe NI over a dozen times.

Historically NI was never used as a significant source of funding for the NHS. Since most people still don't seem to regard NI as 'tax', and the media only ever care about headline tax rates, both NuLab and governments immediately before and since have got away with it.

One thing is certain, those 'better' pensions that continental folks receive are the result of much higher personal tax rates than we pay in the UK. Also since the welfare state and the NHS was created, inflation in the NHS is significantly higher than general inflation.

Todays ultra expensive cancer treatments, £20,000 heart valve replacements that don't involve bypass, keeping premature babies alive where they were born significantly early, dialysis and transplants etc did not exist in 1948. The few shillings per week 'stamp' is never going to pay for what is provided free today so who should pay for it ?.

[Tim Streater]

Here's how it worked for me, in the US, where in my case the scheme operates in exactly the way I've been suggesting.

I worked at a DOE lab, but run by Stanford University, so I was a Stanford employee. I got to choose how much off my salary went to the pensions outfit, TIAA-CREF, which is used by all educational organisations in the US (although I could have chosen others). This means it's large, too. The Lab also paid into my pot, but only up to a certain %-age limit.

After I left and returned here, I let it be until we reached the Internet age and they set up online access. This allowed me to switch funds between TIAA (stocks) and CREF (cash, paying interest). In 2007 I noticed that the TIAA side had three consecutive quarters of loss, so I switched almost everything into CREF. That's more flexibility than UK pensions companies appear able to offer (but then perhaps I'm out of date). Fees were less than 1%, and no charge for moving funds around.

Eventually I decided to get something out of it, with the options being cash drawdown, or a one or two life annuity. I selected the last of those three options, so if I peg it before SWMBO (likely), she continues to receive the same amount we get now. Nice and flexible.

[bert]

Pensioners don't get the principle benefits from NI

[bert]

In article [e-mail]>, "Dave Plowman (News)" [e-mail]> writes

That would be Tony Blair's government with Brown as chancellor.

[bert]

He also raided the state pension fund by transferring it's investments from gilts to the Commissioner for the National debt, and also switched about £2bn of income from that find to the treasury. Oh and he gave pensioners the notorious 50p per week increase which ultimately lead to the triple lock

[bert]

In article <scjhsr$dae$ [e-mail], tim... [e-mail] writes

Same as an employed person on that salary. Exception being income from savings in ISAs.