RPI to CPI Early Day Motion 1032

Ripoff_2

Just in case you missed this post Now is the time for action, go and lobby your MP on the 1st march, as many people as possible need to show that they mean business. If you can't lobby or attend the mass rally then there are things you can still do.

1) Lobby your MP on Mass www.cspa.co.uk for details
2) Visit the CSPA website www.cspa.co.uk download letter and send it to your MP
3) The NPC are organising a petition http://www.npcuk.org/ Actual petition below sign, circulate the petition and return.
4) Ask as many of your friends to do all of the above

Place the Name, Address/email and Signature along the top once you have printed out the petition heading, then get as many people as possible to sign it and return to the address shown but by no later than the 31st March 2011.

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SAVE OUR PENSIONS - RESTORE THE RPI

We the undersigned call on the Government to abandon plans to use the Consumer Price Index (CPI) as the measurement of inflation when uprating the basic and second state pensions, public sector pensions and many private sector pensions and instead restore the use of the Retail Price Index (RPI).

Name

Address/email

Signature

RETURN TO NPC WALKDEN HOUSE, 10 MELTON STREET, LONDON NW1 2EJ
NO LATER THAN 31ST MARCH 2011

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DiggerUK

If the Egyptians and Tunisians can make the world change, then why not us. See you on March 26th in London.

Just celebrate at that news. :j:T:j

JohnB47

Ripoff wrote: »

Just in case you missed this post Now is the time for action, go and lobby your MP on the 1st march, as many people as possible need to show that they mean business. If you can't lobby or attend the mass rally then there are things you can still do.

1) Lobby your MP on Mass www.cspa.co.uk for details
2) Visit the CSPA website www.cspa.co.uk download letter and send it to your MP
3) The NPC are organising a petition http://www.npcuk.org/ Actual petition below sign, circulate the petition and return.
4) Ask as many of your friends to do all of the above

Place the Name, Address/email and Signature along the top once you have printed out the petition heading, then get as many people as possible to sign it and return to the address shown but by no later than the 31st March 2011.

---

SAVE OUR PENSIONS - RESTORE THE RPI

We the undersigned call on the Government to abandon plans to use the Consumer Price Index (CPI) as the measurement of inflation when uprating the basic and second state pensions, public sector pensions and many private sector pensions and instead restore the use of the Retail Price Index (RPI).

Name

Address/email

Signature

RETURN TO NPC WALKDEN HOUSE, 10 MELTON STREET, LONDON NW1 2EJ
NO LATER THAN 31ST MARCH 2011

---

Thanks for this Ripoff but I can't see the petition you mention anywhere on the npcuk site. I can see one related to saving the NHS but not one for RPI to CPI. Probably just me but can you provide a direct link to it? Ta.

pjala

Old_Slaphead wrote: »

I'd be really, really grateful if you would publish your calcs or PM them to me to show how your 6% contributions for 40 years can equate to a fully RPI indexed pension from age of 60 and still have 20% left over

Based on current annuity rates a pension of say £17,000 (ie £25,000 salary x 40/60ths) would require a fund of approx £500,000. Over the same 40 years I would have expected Mr Average to pay about £30,000 into his scheme, assuming 6% pa, (his employers and the taxpayer will need to contribute another £120,000/£150,000 and, to balance the equation, the rest would come from investment growth).

I've done a similar exercise for the 40 years to 2008 using average wages (ie starting at £1,000pa in 1968 to £25,000pa in 2008), average inflation, an investment return of inflation +3% and arrive at a total contribution of 32% of salary to achieve required fund value.

This is not dissimilar to the findings of Price Waterhouse in 2009

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8227380.stm

You use the term "well invested" - that is the Holy Grail which we all seek but thanks to the avaricious financial services sector - is illusiory (as you have found out with your Endowment). For the purposes of my calculations I've used stock market index returns less a 1% management charge which seems about the best that Joe Public could hope for (and comes out at roughly the aforementioned 3% above inflation). If you use a higher figure you are deluding yourself or you have taken the wrong career path ie you should have chosen fund management and would have been staggeringly well rewarded for such long term outperformance.


If the public sector pensions could be paid in return for a 6% employee contribution - which they can't - then why is there currently an estimated £1.2 trillion shortfall in public pensions? Even the Labour party are not denying this. Are politicians pulling a massive con trick and are the rest of us gullible to believe them ? Politicians stealing from the public sector.....now that would be a first given the money that's been firehosed at the sector since 1999!!!

Put simply, paying in 6% to a pension plan for 40 years IN NO WAY equates to taking out 67% for 25 years (and having 20% to spare)!

Don't forget the 14% employers contribution... conveniently missed out.
I so wish these idiots would stop hijacking an informative thread - can we start putting the argumentative as opposed to supportive and informative comments onto a different "discussion" thread. If all threads were hijacked in this way it would make the site useless.

pjala

Andy_L wrote: »

Yes, really.

If there were no employers contributions (~3x the employees contributions) and the pensions were paid directly by the treasury there would be no difference in the cost (to the tax payer) of providing them. However in that case the NHS etc would not see the cost of the pensions in its accounts and so the cost of employing its staff (ie salary, training, pension, office overheads etc) would apper to them to be about 15% lower than it actually is.

This would distort cost-benefit considerations for, eg, deciding whether to employe more staff or buy newer machines to make existing staff more productive (as the NHS budget would see the true cost of machinery but not staff)

So what you are saying is that you are conveniently ignoring the employers contribution because it is public sector. Not surprising considering you are not in the public sector - sounds like pension envy to me.

There is a reputed "structural deficit" in the British economy, caused by the banks and the government being too liberal with regulations over the private sector. Sounds like to me it is not the public sector that is at fault, but the private sector. Backdating an attack against pensions is not the honest thing to do - particularly when public sector pensions are a net contributor to the economy.

Ripoff_2

JohnB47 wrote: »

Thanks for this Ripoff but I can't see the petition you mention anywhere on the npcuk site. I can see one related to saving the NHS but not one for RPI to CPI. Probably just me but can you provide a direct link to it? Ta.

JohnB47, They should be putting it up on the site soon I must have been a little too quick for them but you can download the petition from http://home.btconnect.com/AP_Publications/effectscalc/ in the meantime.

bendix

pjala wrote: »

The old Thatcher values have surfaced pretty quickly, even I am suprised at the level of selfishness some people show.

Quite right. It's ridiculously selfish that people are complaining their pensions are being INCREASED by CPI instead of RPI when so many others are losing their jobs or taking pay cuts or pay freezes to help the government reduce the deficit.

I'm glad you see things the same way I do.

Cliff1805

I have just written to my Conservative (junior minister) MP to ask him to sign the EDM. I suppose I should declare an interest in that I am a public sector worker of some 32 years. If I manage to stay employed for another 10 years until I am 60, which is a big if, then I can look forward to a pension of £26,000 p.a. based on my current salary. Yes I realise that this is an extremely good pension and I am not complaining but there are hundreds of thousands of public sector workers who cannot hope to receive even a quarter of this sum and the change from RPI to CPI is for them a very real issue.

Old_Slaphead

pjala wrote: »

Don't forget the 14% employers contribution... conveniently missed out.
I so wish these idiots would stop hijacking an informative thread - can we start putting the argumentative as opposed to supportive and informative comments onto a different "discussion" thread. If all threads were hijacked in this way it would make the site useless.

Clearly you couldn't be bothered to read the text of the posting I was replying to (the salient bits are also quoted in my reply). For your info - OP suggested he/she could pay his full pension and have 20% left over from contribution of just 6% of annual salary!

I disputed this and your response seems to back me up - many thanks for your support.

This original posting #554 was presumably from one of your "supporters" so, if it's off topic, please reprimand Prof As Was (unless of course it was him/her that you were referring to as "idiot").

As for highjacking - how long have you owned MSE ?

If you guys want a dedicated thread that's for the exclusive access to a few of you with a specific agenda then a public (thanks Martin) DISCUSSION forum is not the place to be.

BTW if you're unhappy with any of my postings then you're more than welcome to refer them to the Moderator.

Old_Slaphead

Cliff1805 wrote: »

I have just written to my Conservative (junior minister) MP to ask him to sign the EDM. I suppose I should declare an interest in that I am a public sector worker of some 32 years. If I manage to stay employed for another 10 years until I am 60, which is a big if, then I can look forward to a pension of £26,000 p.a. based on my current salary. Yes I realise that this is an extremely good pension and I am not complaining but there are hundreds of thousands of public sector workers who cannot hope to receive even a quarter of this sum and the change from RPI to CPI is for them a very real issue.

No there's not. Every public sector employee working for 40 years (FTE) can look forward to a pension of more than a quarter of your's (not forgetting 3x annual pension as a tax free lump sum)