Hands off my pension

johnny_storm

Spirit wrote: »

I pay additional sums into my pension so that it costs me 17.5 %. my employer pays 14%. I really believe the employers contribution is too high. That we are creating a terrible legacy for the next generation to pick up. If I want a higher pension I should have a smaller basic pay now.

Although you make some good points, you fail to realise that it hasnt cost you anything. This 17.5% is merely money that they never gave you that was taken from everyone else who works (like all your wages), a lot of whom cant afford a pension for themselves. The same with the 14%, except that comes from nowhere. You may also believe you pay taxes, no you dont.

I know its easy to believe there is some account just for you where all this money goes, but there isnt. There is no pension pot, all the money is spent as the country goes along the vast majority of it on things that the tax payers would never endorse in a million years.

Spirit_2

johnny_storm wrote: »

Although you make some good points, you fail to realise that it hasnt cost you anything. This 17.5% is merely money that they never gave you that was taken from everyone else who works (like all your wages), a lot of whom cant afford a pension for themselves. The same with the 14%, except that comes from nowhere. You may also believe you pay taxes, no you dont.

Great I look forward to the refund. Any HM revenue people reading please send the cheque c/o MSE Towers.

vivatifosi

johnny_storm wrote: »

There is no pension pot, all the money is spent as the country goes along the vast majority of it on things that the tax payers would never endorse in a million years.

Whether or not there is a pot, spirit is entitled to his/her accrued benefits. How could it be fair to say that someone who works for a private firm which goes bust will get 90% of their pension through the PPF, but someone who works in government should get nothing because the taxpayers wouldn't endorse it. Isn't that the same "one rule for one, one rule for another" that people have repeatedly said favours the public sector, but in reverse?

johnny_storm

Spirit wrote: »

johnny_storm wrote: »

Great I look forward to the refund. Any HM revenue people reading please send the cheque c/o MSE Towers.

I look forward to my refund of tax taken from me to pay people like yourself who do work I have no need for. I suspect we will both be waiting a long time.

vivatifosi wrote: »

Whether or not there is a pot, spirit is entitled to his/her accrued benefits. How could it be fair to say that someone who works for a private firm which goes bust will get 90% of their pension through the PPF, but someone who works in government should get nothing because the taxpayers wouldn't endorse it. Isn't that the same "one rule for one, one rule for another" that people have repeatedly said favours the public sector, but in reverse?

The rule is that people get 90% of the pot, in public sector pensions there is no pot so 90% of nothing is still nothing.

Running_Horse

atomicsheep wrote: »

No its not the real world. If the public sector workers have the balls to do something about it, then good luck to them all

Don't remember any of them offering "to do something" when our pensions were being withdrawn. Having lost my pension, I'm supposed to pay extra for theirs? And lose a days pay when they "do something". Balls to that.

Oldernotwiser

PasturesNew wrote: »

So you don't know either.

No, the private employers I've worked for didn't have policies.

Don't be silly, you couldn't write this for someone else, with a different background and different employment experiences.

You must have been unlucky with your employers then. 85% of companies with an HR department have EO policies and 60% of those without have them.

Oldernotwiser

ILW wrote: »

In most jobs it would not, you are talking rubbish.

You have also shown what is so wrong with much of the public sector, I so wish they would just get on with what they are paid to do.

Why is it wrong for a company to ensure that its staff and customers are treated fairly and that these policies are understood and implemented by its staff?

J_i_m

hcb42 wrote: »

so why didnt you strike then?

In my job it would actually be very difficult indeed to strike, in-fact it may even be illegal.

I work in a secure Psychiatric hospital, which obviously has people detained there on the mental health act for their own safety and for that of the public.

It's a place that has to be manned 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Apart from the poor saps who clean the place my role is amongst the lowest paid in the public sector, yet with the probable exception of prison workers, the one where we're most open to abuse.

Due the nature of the place, it would simply be impossible to strike, and not just out of a supposed moral duty but simply because mayhem would ensure if a strike did happen.

Like most areas in both private and sector, we're under going budget cuts, jobs are under threat, staffing levels are going down, work loads are going up, yet incomes are being cut and stress levels are off the scale.

Now... many private sector workers seem to think that they're paying for these pensions. Indirectly you are in part, of course you're indirectly funding the public sector wage, but that's a silly way of looking at it, as you can as easily say that all consumers are paying the wages of private sector workers... some of whom are on lucrative bonuses.

atomicsheep

Well said Jim. All these public sector haters also seem to forget that civil servants are paying into their pensions themselves, NOT fully fuinded by tax payers. They also seem to forget that civil servants DO PAY TAX AS WELL!

If it were THEIR private pension that was being slashed, they'd have something to say about it!

johnny_storm

atomicsheep wrote: »

Well said Jim. All these public sector haters also seem to forget that civil servants are paying into their pensions themselves, NOT fully fuinded by tax payers. They also seem to forget that civil servants DO PAY TAX AS WELL!!

Really? Are they doing weekend productive jobs too?

You arent making the mistake to think that money taken from other tax payers and then given back is somehow contributing are you?

They pay no tax, is it so difficult to understand.