Public sector strikes on Wednesday

[Drencrom]

...Personally, I've never viewed the expense as an option - I've viewed it like tax - and essential deduction from my wages, that should fund my retirement life...

True that.

 

[suburbanreuben]

And suggesting I should have saved more when times were good is frankly insulting.

Well, you should have done. It's common sense really , isn't it?
I didn't either. Should have done, but didn't.
But heh ho, I'm paying for it now, as you do when self employed....

 

[mikee]

it saddens me the way everyones taken the bait ,hook line and sinker

the media villify the public sector and like rabid dogs you all tear in

we should be a bit smarter than this and not do the govt's work for them


sheep

 

[suburbanreuben]

The ageing population would have happened no matter what government was in or what had happened in economy

But why has it taken 30 years to actually prepare society for this mess?

We talked about this happening when we did geography in third year.... when I was 13! I've not expected to retire at 65 since then.

Party politics really has nothing to do with it as we've had both parties in power for long periods of time in the period inbetween. And noone has done anything about it - anywhere in the world as far as I can see. It's an issue in Denmark aswell.

Didn't Germany sort it out a few years back, when they were the "Sick man of Europe"?

 

[MikeD]

I don't believe it is fair that the private sector, through taxes, pay for the pensions that public sector workers have.

I'm pretty sure that public sector workers pay taxes too.

 

[stevec1975]

I don't believe it is fair that the private sector, through taxes, pay for the pensions that public sector workers have.

I'm pretty sure that public sector workers pay taxes too.

True, although my point was around private sector paying taxes to ensure that the public sector have these gilt-edged pensions that the private sector could never afford and yet still complain/strike about it.

 

[mikee]

how are we paying their pensions ?

with govt pension funds being in surplus we dont pay their pensions

read the facts first

the govt want to raid the surplus in the pension funds
thats the point of the bloody strike

 

[Neil]

I don't believe it is fair that the private sector, through taxes, pay for the pensions that public sector workers have.

I'm pretty sure that public sector workers pay taxes too.

True, although my point was around private sector paying taxes to ensure that the public sector have these gilt-edged pensions that the private sector could never afford and yet still complain/strike about it.

You know what? Some of the lots of tax I pay, every damned month, goes towards Xboxes or playstations for young offenders. Some goes to fund weapons, and other industries I don't approve of. Some on subsidies and contributions I don't agree with, either. In fact now you've raised this, I'm outraged at a whole heap of things the government spends money on - so thanks for that.

Here's the rub, though - we don't get to have that degree of surgical control over where or how our tax contributions get spent.

If we had that degree of control, it'd be an industry in itself to support it, but public sector pensions would be way down my list of things that money was being wasted on.

 

[grahame]

I don't believe it is fair that the private sector, through taxes, pay for the pensions that public sector workers have.

I'm pretty sure that public sector workers pay taxes too.

True, although my point was around private sector paying taxes to ensure that the public sector have these gilt-edged pensions that the private sector could never afford and yet still complain/strike about it.

Now there's the issue that I alluded to a couple of pages ago. The private sector did have, and could afford, final salary pensions of the same type as are now being described as "gold plated" or "gilt edged" fpor the public sector. Then in 1992 (or thereabouts) the fund managers claimed that they all had massive surpluses of funds to liabilities and allowed private companies to take "pension contribution holidays" to increase their short-term profits that, along with Brown's raid on the pension funds' tax advantages, eroded any surplus and put the pension funds into deficit. The companies response to the discovery of this deficit was, almost universally, not to increase their contributions to make up for their shortfall over the previous years, but to close the schemes by claiming they were unaffordable. A situation that they had caused by their short term greed.

The only difference was that the public sector employees did not allow the pension funds to be depleted. They are (mostly) fully funded with surpluses of funds against liabilities. IE there is no reason for the government to raid the pensions, other than to subsidise other areas of government liabilities.

If the private sector had stood up to the employers' short-termism 20 years ago, there would still be no difference between public- and private- sector pension provision.

 

[makster]

As I'm not married and have no children (and at 37, now have no desire to get involved with either!), I'm not bothering with a pension.
When I finish working at 65 (or maybe later by the time I get there) I'll be selling my property and buggering off to Thailand to die in an explosion of drugs and hookers