57 BILLION pensions black hole.

[darrell.cook]

Chesters, you've just given several reasons and examples relating to people actually living longer!! Don't think you reallly meant to.

 

Seems all the " wonderfull " ideas are falling to bits. Take endowments - total disaster!! A lot of things hang in the balance of the stock market. Just what is the " stock market " a perception of worth by a load of city suits ??

Hardly a solid rock to build anything on, let alone pensions and endowments.

Then again that's an easy statement to make with hindsight, afterall it has provided huge returns in the past.

So if not the stock market then what ??

[Guest gus angus]

the other problem with the pesions schemes, was when the stockmarket was very high the pension funds had a surplus and companies took a payment holiday, then it went pearshaped and this has happend, if they had continued to pay in the problem would'nt be nearly so bad .

[chesters1]

there not living longer ....just living

the stock market i agree is not a place for public funds (although church ivestments regularily lose they still seem to have plenty to chuck after) as its a phony market based on insider trading and whispers and nods and winks.

both my parents never got to pension age and i expect theres untold millions over the past who also didnt ,my old man DID "retire" at 60 due to ill health but trying to live on I.B. forced him once again to find work ,this i know inevetivly lead to his death him having died waiting more than 18months for a triple heart byepass ,if he was able to take life steadily he may have been well enough to get the op.

 

[ 13. October 2004, 07:41 PM: Message edited by: chesters1 ]

[darrell.cook]

Gus, companies are forced to curb payments into pension plans due to Inland Revenue limits.

[Tog]

I seem to remember Maggie telling us all that the increase to 10% NI was to fund our pensions in 79!

I also seem to remember NI was 3% up till then - so all those old codgers who say - I always paid my stamp ... paid in very little in 'real terms' We pay much more 'total tax' now & seem to get very little more for it.

The NHS is a huge black hole and no amount of money will really change it - far to much waste and over management.

Education-education-education.... Hmmm my kids schools have lots of PC's only thing is .. Acorns!! Hardly any text books & I have to stump up for 'materials' , very little of which comes back. Most of the extra money into the edu budget went on wages and taxes.

Now wars Tony is good at - so although the MOD seems hard done by I'm sure them bombs will be replaced just once we've found a country with some 'surplus' (that's what the minister has told the buyer's!!) might find some on Ebay?

 

As for what to do,,,

Stop raiding our pension funds (40Bill & 7Bill a year since 98) and stop borrowing.

Then look at what waste can be cut (like regional assys), cut off Scotish aid & chuck all their MP's out of Westminster.

Look hard at the 'Euro' budget & let e'm have only what we get back.

Stop 'fiddling' about with 'anti' this that & whatsit acts.

Proportional representation (even if it means the odd greenie or mega leftie or mega righty MP)

Just a few suggestions.

Tog

[yoxer]

"Question directly to you now yoxer - what does the country need now ? and who do we need to do it ? "

 

The country certaintly needs to get away from the benifit reliance culture. As far as Im aware there are no figures available to say what percentage of the UK population receive some kind of benifit .It has to be close to, if not exceeding 90%. It is rediculous , the government takes with one hand to give back a little less with other. The idea behind this must surely be job creation and is utterly futile.( The alternative idea to this that I can think of is horrendous )The country is stiffled not only with ludicrous taxation levels but also bureaucracy that ensures business can not compete in a global world, forcing business to close or relocate abroad. The myths about forgein products being inferior ,is just that, a myth.Ive just read a trade publication on fishing tackle slagging off cheap inferior Chinese tackle that they say is flooding the UK. No doubt its true, however to say China can not produce high end specification tackle is rediculous,it is available ( and at far below any UK manufacture cost ) but the importers chose to import low end tackle because that is

the market demand in the UK. It is also just as rediculous to say that it is sweat shop labour that produces these items.I have several friends manufacturing abroad now ( in fact I have no friends left in business in the UK now ) and you will find probably the same percentage of sweat shops now operating in this country.The work ethic is undoubtably higher and from both personal experience and from what Im told, the people employed by my friends actualy look forward to going to work and have a better standard of living compaired to their UK counterparts.The sick records of UK employees is staggering, and why not, we all know how it works.Ask any GP how many patients in his waiting room need to be there. " Oi doc giz a

sick note wor lass says I need to decorate the kitchen/need a holiday in Benidorm /chance of a weeks fishing etc etc etc. After all its free. The NHS does not work and can never work as long as there are medical advances. You need to pay for

your own treatment or eventualy like council tax, rising and rising, at double the rate of any possible income increase there comes a time when it is absolutely impossible to sustain.The sooner the NHS is scrapped the better.

[darrell.cook]

So lets summarise:

 

Scrap the welfare state in all it's forms.

Scrap the NHS

Insist that people work in sweatshops - and be bl**dy well grateful.

 

Seriously yoxer, I see you have a little merit in all that you say - but in reality a move like this is just a tad extreme and likely to create just a few more problems than it would sort out, don't you agree ??

[yoxer]

If you hadnt noticed we have already got problems. You have to be very short sighted not to realise that these are going to esculate at a frightening speed.Yes I agree , the problems are horrendous and needed tackling decades back. Unfortunately they wernt and as we are now fumbling about in a world economy it realy is too late to recitfy without extreame problems either way. The alternative is to suffer endless increasing taxation that can not be sustained. In short the f***** system dosnt and can not work.

With regard to sweat shops , your kidding yourself if you think theyre not already here and also on the increase. ( the only thing booming in the UK is the black economy ) The majority of employers are not stupid and will bend over backwards to ensure good employees have the best conditions necessary for their business to compete, it is in their interests to do so. This is not happening now in the UK as business CAN NOT compete. What dont you understand about this ?

[poledark]

You are mostly talking a load of rubbish, there is nothing wrong with the pensions setup, you simply have to make an effort to save a bit for your "old" age.

 

I, and my wife, both made the effort to put a little extra by by way of private pensions.

 

We read advice which was CONSTANTLY being given and my only regret is that I did not save more.

 

I also suffered (yes really suffered) when the market crashed in the 80's and am still suffering but....and here is the big but....I took advice (again freely available) and increased my savings to try to keep up with inflation etc.

 

 

The only people I know who are really hard up are those who chose to ignore any advice (perhaps they don't put that info in "the Sun" ) and were to stupid or lazy or just couldnt be bothered to drink a few less pints and are having to live on the basic pension.

 

Even so the return on the money invested by them is still giving them (and me) a pretty good return, and it is for life!

 

Re the NHS problems, did many of you see the tv prog re the dirty hospitals? Not Tony Blairs fault at all, just dirty, lazy cleaners with greedy incompetant managers and failure of staff and management to get to grips with it, in other words it was all down to the staff involved.

 

Probably the same sort of people who will be bitching and whining when they end up with no pension at all.

 

My No 1 son who imports stuff from China and sells it all over the world is able to do so because the goods are top quality and actually made to the customers requirements, amazing isn't it!!!

 

Den

 

Den

[yoxer]

"Even so the return on the money invested by them is still giving them (and me) a pretty good return, and it is for life!"

 

sure it is lmao