Year of the pensions CRUNCH: 2027 apocalypse

pqrdef

kabayiri wrote: »

It will become the cultural and moral norm to look after our grandparents at home.

Victorian family values, thought Thatcher, ignoring the workhouses.

But this is what people most fear. They want their parents to cost them as little as possible when they're alive and to leave as much as possible when they die, but what they really really want is not to have to look after them when they're decrepit.

And not without reason. Remember Bill Oddie on Who Do You Think You Are? His grandmother drove his mother insane. A relative put it well - "The thing about your grandmother was, she was always there."

sjaypink

pqrdef wrote: »

Victorian family values, thought Thatcher, ignoring the workhouses.

But this is what people most fear. They want their parents to cost them as little as possible when they're alive and to leave as much as possible when they die, but what they really really want is not to have to look after them when they're decrepit.

And not without reason. Remember Bill Oddie on Who Do You Think You Are? His grandmother drove his mother insane. A relative put it well - "The thing about your grandmother was, she was always there."

That's sad , though I don't disagree with your post.
Looking from the outside - & trying to be optimistic - I see the value in it for all concerned.
& then my mind wanders to the horrific possibility of living with my mother & I just retuirn to agreeing with you fully

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

sjaypink wrote: »

....and after that?.....

Future generations will only need to pay for themselves, so population can fluctuate up or down with little impact to retirement costs.

sjaypink

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

Future generations will only need to pay for themselves, so population can fluctuate up or down with little impact to retirement costs.

Option 1. ....we'll freeze immigration,..

Option 2.We can expand population

Sorry, I am obviously far drunker than I thought as I am failing to understand how these two options ultimately give the same economic outcome in 50 yrs +

Pobby

Hang on please. We need more immigration? No where near enough jobs for the likes born in the UK. Tories are slashing into certain sectors of the population. Hamish, plenty of houses for sale and plenty that can`t afford.

I believe that the fairly recent riots are only a taste that is what to come.

The government is relying more and more on the grey vote and from what I see on tv today there are plenty that are not happy.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

sjaypink wrote: »

Sorry, I am obviously far drunker than I thought as I am failing to understand how these two options ultimately give the same economic outcome in 50 yrs +

The same economic outcome can only be achieved by more money being pumped into the system. The choice we face is whether or not this money is contributed by the many or the few.

At the moment, you don't pay for your pension, you pay for your grandparents pension, and are assuming your grandchildren will pay for yours. This works well when we have 4 workers for every retiree, but doesn't work at all when there are 4 retirees for every worker.

So we need to increase contributions to advance the situation until you are paying for your pension, AND at the same time within a lifetime have paid for all the pensions for your parents and grandparents, so that future generations only have to pay for their own and therefore become relatively immune to demographic change.

I'll use nice easy numbers, but assume you need to save £10 in a pension for your retirement. And in addition to that you need to put £10 in for your parents, and £10 in for your grandparents. That's what happens with no population growth if you want to move the pension burden forward by 2 generations. You have to pay it all.

Now assume you have 3 immigrant friends, and none of them have parents or grandparents here.

So now you have to save £10 for you, but only contribute £2.50 for your parents, and £2.50 for your grandparents. As your 3 friends also now have to contribute the £10 for themselves, and are forced to contribute £2.50 each for your parents and grandparents, as they don't have parents or grandparents here.

That's a very simplified version of how immigration works to reduce pension costs for the native born population.

oldvicar

michaels wrote: »

Stepping back.

We will have more older people looking to turn assets in to cash as income from inadequate provision private pensions and demographic constrained taxation transfer will be insufficient.

We will also still have a housing shortage due to population growth and insufficient house building.

The asset liquidisers will still need to live somewhere so presumably will be pushing up demand of smaller properties.

Net result may be a narrowing of the gap between different property sizes and labour may be gaining a bigger share of national income at the expense of capital, so a reverse of what has been happening for the last few years.

How big will the effect be? I haven't a clue.

I think you need to watch more daytime television, where people are seeking a new home. The asset liquidisers - 'downsizers' - when shown a £750k house to downsize to always squeal about it being too small compared to the house they are leaving. What they are seeking is a cheaper home, not necessarily a smaller one.

The solution? Old people need to retire Oop North. And younger folks can move Down Sarf, to where the jobs are. Simples .

Graham_Devon

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

The same economic outcome can only be achieved by more money being pumped into the system. The choice we face is whether or not this money is contributed by the many or the few.

At the moment, you don't pay for your pension, you pay for your grandparents pension, and are assuming your grandchildren will pay for yours. This works well when we have 4 workers for every retiree, but doesn't work at all when there are 4 retirees for every worker.

So we need to increase contributions to advance the situation until you are paying for your pension, AND at the same time within a lifetime have paid for all the pensions for your parents and grandparents, so that future generations only have to pay for their own and therefore become relatively immune to demographic change.

I'll use nice easy numbers, but assume you need to save £10 in a pension for your retirement. And in addition to that you need to put £10 in for your parents, and £10 in for your grandparents. That's what happens with no population growth if you want to move the pension burden forward by 2 generations. You have to pay it all.

Now assume you have 3 immigrant friends, and none of them have parents or grandparents here.

So now you have to save £10 for you, but only contribute £2.50 for your parents, and £2.50 for your grandparents. As your 3 friends also now have to contribute the £10 for themselves, and are forced to contribute £2.50 each for your parents and grandparents, as they don't have parents or grandparents here.

That's a very simplified version of how immigration works to reduce pension costs for the native born population.

And it kind of works....

....In isolation from any other economic factors.

And it's in isolation that you are looking at this. You are not looking at it from all the other areas it impacts. And that's why you fall down on the argument.

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

Graham_Devon wrote: »

And it kind of works....

It does work.

....In isolation from any other economic factors.

I haven't even started on the other economic and social benefits of immigration.

And it's in isolation that you are looking at this. You are not looking at it from all the other areas it impacts. And that's why you fall down on the argument.

For every negative you might come up with, I'll give you a positive.

The reason you always fall down on this argument is because you think of economic systems as being static rather than dynamic.

A common, but fallacious, approach.

So for example....

- you think there are no more jobs to have, so if you increase population you increase unemployment, (whereas the reality is that an increase in population creates more jobs.)

- you think that increasing population means greater cost to service providers, (whereas the reality is that more taxes are also paid which only cover those costs but also increase services for the native born as we profit from immigrants).

- you think that house prices will rise if more people come here, (without realising that pension, infrastructure and healthcare costs on a per person basis will rise more if they don't.)

etc

Graham_Devon

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

The reason you always fall down on this argument is because you think of economic systems as being static rather than dynamic.

A common, but fallacious, approach.

As ever, you are jumping the gun.

I do not think that economies are static, you are putting words into my mouth to back up your own.

Economies ARE dynamic. BUT, this being the gaping hole in your argument. You are putting the cart before the horse.

You are trying to ramp up immigration before the economy and infrastructure is there to cope. Indeed, you are trying to do it at a time when the infrastructure is in decline which basically means your pulling the cart away from the horse further.

Economies work best on need. When the economy is growing, then fine, you can look at immigration. The NEED will be there and the OPPORTUNITIES will be there to be filled.

At the moment, and for the forseeable future, that's simply not the case. So all your suggestions will do is end up increasing the demand on the avaiable infrastructure, such as welfare, transport, public services. It does NOT go hand in hand that if you suddenly increase the population, there will suddenly be money there to (after the population increase) build the infrastructure.

Increased population does not mean economic reward. You only have to look at places with large and fast growing populations to recognise that.

You are, put bluntly, trying to engineer growth. Theres a word for that, and it's called "artificial".

And I'm done. Mainly because it's pointless putting these arguments across when all you seem to do is put words in mouthes to back up your argument.