| Let them eat chips! on 13:34 - Nov 13 with 1623 views | MrSheen |
| Let them eat chips! on 13:03 - Nov 13 by R_from_afar |
I am in Berkshire, as it happens. I work in the private sector, my wife in the public sector, and she has done over 25 years.
"In the UK the average public sector pay has now overtaken the private sector" - Agreed, but I think you will find there is not a vast difference and what difference there is will not compensate public sector workers for the major impact on their pensions. To get the same pension she signed up for, my wife is having to make vastly increased contributions (so, to pay more), plus she will need to work several (I can't remember how many) years more.
You talk about "1 million extra jobs that the Country couldn't afford" - Let's see if they end up being the pointless jobs that you are implying. After all, who needs A&E departments? I well remember how the public railed against Labour's spending on health and education when they were in power.
Replacing Trident, £250m on extra bin collections, and HS2 are, on the other hand, an excellent use of money which we can afford. While we are talking about disproportionate spending, we spend a ridiculous amount on defence for a country of our size (fifth most in the world, from memory).
RFA |
I agree with you on Trident and HS2, but on pensions everyone has to get realistic. We are all living about a decade longer post retirement than was imagined 20-30 years ago. Why shouldn't public sector workers work longer and contribute more as a result, like private sector workers? Whatever you were "promised" decades ago, it can't be right to refuse to provide for your own extra longevity, therefore passing on the responsibility to someone else, who is already making their own provision.
As it happens, central government pensions (including the NHS) aren't funded, to the extent that there is a pool of assets set aside for genrating income in the future. Local government pension schemes, and the old nationalised industries have funds, though most are in deficit given low returns and longer life expectancy. All there is for them is a promise that taxes will be diverted to them in future. WIth the number of pensioners rising and the number of tax payers falling, one or both groups will be facing a massive squeeze in future. So much for the empty promise of security. |  | |  |
| Let them eat chips! on 22:42 - Nov 13 with 1576 views | QPRMUSO |
| Let them eat chips! on 13:03 - Nov 13 by R_from_afar |
I am in Berkshire, as it happens. I work in the private sector, my wife in the public sector, and she has done over 25 years.
"In the UK the average public sector pay has now overtaken the private sector" - Agreed, but I think you will find there is not a vast difference and what difference there is will not compensate public sector workers for the major impact on their pensions. To get the same pension she signed up for, my wife is having to make vastly increased contributions (so, to pay more), plus she will need to work several (I can't remember how many) years more.
You talk about "1 million extra jobs that the Country couldn't afford" - Let's see if they end up being the pointless jobs that you are implying. After all, who needs A&E departments? I well remember how the public railed against Labour's spending on health and education when they were in power.
Replacing Trident, £250m on extra bin collections, and HS2 are, on the other hand, an excellent use of money which we can afford. While we are talking about disproportionate spending, we spend a ridiculous amount on defence for a country of our size (fifth most in the world, from memory).
RFA |
Hi RFA, I recognise this is a QPR forum and for that I love all QPR fans and there will be a limit to how far I will go but it is clear we have different political views. I have a friend who is retired from public sector at the age of 49 on 75% salary after just 25 years service, he can now go off take his 75% and get an additional job to supplement while the tax payer is covering him, this can't and isn't right. If you seriously analyse public sectors pensions against private sector pensions they are truly amazing and public sectors workers including my wife must and should pay a lot more contribution as things have changed in recent years. Most private sectors pensions are not worth 20% of final salary let alone 75% so this is how unfair it is. And public sectors workers (most ofthem can strike), most private sector workers can't. The blunt reality is that much of the public sectors just don't realise how good they have it and whilst I appreciate the great job they do, most of them need to reflect on how much better it is for them than in the private sector. That's all. |  | | |
| Let them eat chips! on 09:04 - Nov 14 with 1537 views | pomanjou |
| Let them eat chips! on 18:03 - Nov 12 by R_from_afar |
Woah there! A lot of the people, probably the majority, that have "final salary pension schemes that private sector workers can only dream of" are also on very poor wages e.g. dinner ladies, binmen etc.
Their pensions are part of their overall remuneration. In the same way that I would be upset if someone suddenly cut my wages, they are very unhappy.
"Gordon Brown totally screwed us over" you say. Should he have let the banks fail? Are you fond of anarchy? This "Labour caused all the debt" argument does not bear any scrutiny, let alone close scrutiny. The banks turned out to be poor at sums and more than willing to take huge risks, then needed to be bailed out to avoidance the meltdown of our entire financial system.
Meanwhile, we have 5m people and rising on less than the living wage. Well done David, that's progress.
RFA |
RFA,
You said "This Labour government caused all the debt argument does not bear any scrutiny, let alone close scrutiny. The banks turned out to be poor at sums and more than willing to take huge risks, then needed to be bailed out to avoidance the meltdown of our entire financial system"
If the banks were poor at sums what about the bank invigilator (Mr Brown's FSA)? Worse than useless. The labour handling of our economy makes you want to cry.
As a chancellor, Brown failed to keep a sensible government balance sheet in the ‘good’ years to enable him to soften the impact of bad years. Instead of putting money away he just created debt by milking the PFI system and saddling our children with long term debt which he carried off balance sheet (open government my arse) as an illusion of prudence. He declared prudence was his watchword. He declared boom and bust was finished. He sold our gold at an all time pull back market low. He was the architect of the FSA which succeeded as a box ticking bureaucracy but failed lamentably to address the larger issues which really mattered such as banks and hedge funds. As prime minister he publicly congratulated the bankers of the city of London as, his words, "the new world leaders of creativity and ingenuity". He declared, his words, "a golden age was upon us in the city of London". His lack of foresight is breathtaking as is his mendacity and obfuscation. It was the failure of the FSA to control banks ‘creativity and ingenuity’ which caused the British system to crash like the Yanks. It was not a worldwide problem on the scale of his own. It was a simple lie to say otherwise. He was a disaster for this country followed closely by most of his out of their depth cabinet. |  |
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| Let them eat chips! on 11:37 - Nov 14 with 1509 views | QPRMUSO |
| Let them eat chips! on 09:04 - Nov 14 by pomanjou |
RFA,
You said "This Labour government caused all the debt argument does not bear any scrutiny, let alone close scrutiny. The banks turned out to be poor at sums and more than willing to take huge risks, then needed to be bailed out to avoidance the meltdown of our entire financial system"
If the banks were poor at sums what about the bank invigilator (Mr Brown's FSA)? Worse than useless. The labour handling of our economy makes you want to cry.
As a chancellor, Brown failed to keep a sensible government balance sheet in the ‘good’ years to enable him to soften the impact of bad years. Instead of putting money away he just created debt by milking the PFI system and saddling our children with long term debt which he carried off balance sheet (open government my arse) as an illusion of prudence. He declared prudence was his watchword. He declared boom and bust was finished. He sold our gold at an all time pull back market low. He was the architect of the FSA which succeeded as a box ticking bureaucracy but failed lamentably to address the larger issues which really mattered such as banks and hedge funds. As prime minister he publicly congratulated the bankers of the city of London as, his words, "the new world leaders of creativity and ingenuity". He declared, his words, "a golden age was upon us in the city of London". His lack of foresight is breathtaking as is his mendacity and obfuscation. It was the failure of the FSA to control banks ‘creativity and ingenuity’ which caused the British system to crash like the Yanks. It was not a worldwide problem on the scale of his own. It was a simple lie to say otherwise. He was a disaster for this country followed closely by most of his out of their depth cabinet. |
Beautifully put, I couldn't agree more. | | | |
| Let them eat chips! on 11:47 - Nov 14 with 1502 views | Gloucs_R |
We opened the doors to mass immigration, they came flooding in....we now have a strain on education, NHS, roads, housing, etc....yet still some think that its great for this country. I read that there are Five schools where not one pupil has English as their first language... and there are another 240 that are not far behind.
How can we keep pumping money into public services when we don't have any money to spend?
How long before we introduce basic NHS care and the rest you have to pay for privately?
How long before our roads have tolls?
Its a sorry state of affairs now and I think all of the political parties are to blame. |  |
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| Let them eat chips! on 11:51 - Nov 14 with 1499 views | 1BobbyHazell |
| Let them eat chips! on 09:04 - Nov 14 by pomanjou |
RFA,
You said "This Labour government caused all the debt argument does not bear any scrutiny, let alone close scrutiny. The banks turned out to be poor at sums and more than willing to take huge risks, then needed to be bailed out to avoidance the meltdown of our entire financial system"
If the banks were poor at sums what about the bank invigilator (Mr Brown's FSA)? Worse than useless. The labour handling of our economy makes you want to cry.
As a chancellor, Brown failed to keep a sensible government balance sheet in the ‘good’ years to enable him to soften the impact of bad years. Instead of putting money away he just created debt by milking the PFI system and saddling our children with long term debt which he carried off balance sheet (open government my arse) as an illusion of prudence. He declared prudence was his watchword. He declared boom and bust was finished. He sold our gold at an all time pull back market low. He was the architect of the FSA which succeeded as a box ticking bureaucracy but failed lamentably to address the larger issues which really mattered such as banks and hedge funds. As prime minister he publicly congratulated the bankers of the city of London as, his words, "the new world leaders of creativity and ingenuity". He declared, his words, "a golden age was upon us in the city of London". His lack of foresight is breathtaking as is his mendacity and obfuscation. It was the failure of the FSA to control banks ‘creativity and ingenuity’ which caused the British system to crash like the Yanks. It was not a worldwide problem on the scale of his own. It was a simple lie to say otherwise. He was a disaster for this country followed closely by most of his out of their depth cabinet. |
It wasn't poor maths or lack of foresight etc etc, it was his carrying out the instructions of those who really call the shots, who deliberately created these 'problems'. I put that word in speech marks because as we all know in this time of recent 'financial crisis' the rich have got richer, this is not an accident or a bit of good luck but a carefully manifested event.
Until we start adressing that rather than squabbling about which colour rosette the most recent puppet was wearing whilst shafting the huge majority of us we'll never make real change. |  | | |
| Let them eat chips! on 13:10 - Nov 14 with 1484 views | R_from_afar |
| Let them eat chips! on 13:34 - Nov 13 by MrSheen |
I agree with you on Trident and HS2, but on pensions everyone has to get realistic. We are all living about a decade longer post retirement than was imagined 20-30 years ago. Why shouldn't public sector workers work longer and contribute more as a result, like private sector workers? Whatever you were "promised" decades ago, it can't be right to refuse to provide for your own extra longevity, therefore passing on the responsibility to someone else, who is already making their own provision.
As it happens, central government pensions (including the NHS) aren't funded, to the extent that there is a pool of assets set aside for genrating income in the future. Local government pension schemes, and the old nationalised industries have funds, though most are in deficit given low returns and longer life expectancy. All there is for them is a promise that taxes will be diverted to them in future. WIth the number of pensioners rising and the number of tax payers falling, one or both groups will be facing a massive squeeze in future. So much for the empty promise of security. |
Just to be clear on where I stand on this, I am talking about people who are already working in the public sector. In the case of new starters in the public sector - now and in the last few years since everything went Pete Tong - I agree with you about getting realistic. They should not expect such a great pension.
RFA |  |
| "Things had started becoming increasingly desperate at Loftus Road but QPR have been handed a massive lifeline and the place has absolutely erupted. it's carnage. It's bedlam. It's 1-1." |
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| Let them eat chips! on 13:19 - Nov 14 with 1477 views | R_from_afar |
| Let them eat chips! on 09:04 - Nov 14 by pomanjou |
RFA,
You said "This Labour government caused all the debt argument does not bear any scrutiny, let alone close scrutiny. The banks turned out to be poor at sums and more than willing to take huge risks, then needed to be bailed out to avoidance the meltdown of our entire financial system"
If the banks were poor at sums what about the bank invigilator (Mr Brown's FSA)? Worse than useless. The labour handling of our economy makes you want to cry.
As a chancellor, Brown failed to keep a sensible government balance sheet in the ‘good’ years to enable him to soften the impact of bad years. Instead of putting money away he just created debt by milking the PFI system and saddling our children with long term debt which he carried off balance sheet (open government my arse) as an illusion of prudence. He declared prudence was his watchword. He declared boom and bust was finished. He sold our gold at an all time pull back market low. He was the architect of the FSA which succeeded as a box ticking bureaucracy but failed lamentably to address the larger issues which really mattered such as banks and hedge funds. As prime minister he publicly congratulated the bankers of the city of London as, his words, "the new world leaders of creativity and ingenuity". He declared, his words, "a golden age was upon us in the city of London". His lack of foresight is breathtaking as is his mendacity and obfuscation. It was the failure of the FSA to control banks ‘creativity and ingenuity’ which caused the British system to crash like the Yanks. It was not a worldwide problem on the scale of his own. It was a simple lie to say otherwise. He was a disaster for this country followed closely by most of his out of their depth cabinet. |
Brown failed to follow his own guidance (why oh why?) and I'll willing admit that he let the debt climb too high. He was far from blameless, although the Tories wanted the banks to be subject to less regulation.
However, I cannot believe you wrote this:
"It was the failure of the FSA to control banks ‘creativity and ingenuity’ which caused the British system to crash like the Yanks.
I must be mistaken, you cannot be saying that the banks played no part in their own demise? Surely? I know I shouldn't call you "Surely" but...
RFA | |
| "Things had started becoming increasingly desperate at Loftus Road but QPR have been handed a massive lifeline and the place has absolutely erupted. it's carnage. It's bedlam. It's 1-1." |
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| Let them eat chips! on 13:32 - Nov 14 with 1474 views | R_from_afar |
| Let them eat chips! on 11:47 - Nov 14 by Gloucs_R |
We opened the doors to mass immigration, they came flooding in....we now have a strain on education, NHS, roads, housing, etc....yet still some think that its great for this country. I read that there are Five schools where not one pupil has English as their first language... and there are another 240 that are not far behind.
How can we keep pumping money into public services when we don't have any money to spend?
How long before we introduce basic NHS care and the rest you have to pay for privately?
How long before our roads have tolls?
Its a sorry state of affairs now and I think all of the political parties are to blame. |
Yes they are all to blame to some extent. Politics is no longer about running the country, it's a popularity contest. Stuff which needs to be done sooner or later gets put off so those in power avoid making themselves unpopular. Then - surprise surprise - there is a crisis and it all kicks off. Take the energy sector: Labour sat on their hands when investment was urgently needed, then the ConDems started throwing their weight around for a while, knowing they would have to kowtow to our energy overlords in the end because our destiny is no longer in our own hands. Madness. Our energy bills effectively subsidise energy prices in France, Germany etc.
We do need an even handed approach to controlling budgets though. It's not just about reducing our expenditure on public services, we need to rein ourselves in when it comes to the other areas too. Our defence spending is ridiculous for a relatively small country. HS2 is sheer lunacy.
RFA | |
| "Things had started becoming increasingly desperate at Loftus Road but QPR have been handed a massive lifeline and the place has absolutely erupted. it's carnage. It's bedlam. It's 1-1." |
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