Protect against UKGOV savings confiscation

N1AK

Glen_Clark wrote: »

So why stop at 2% inflation
(or 8% made out to be 2% by manipulating the CPI figures)
Why not have 20% or more ?

Because you only need enough to discourage excessive hoarding. Now you can certainly debate how you measure that, what the level required is etc; I personally don't think 2% is some magical level though I think it's probably about right most of the time.

N1AK

Glen_Clark wrote: »

They have been buying time with negative real interest rates for 5 years. Robbing savers is the very opposite of what is needed in the long term - we need to encourage people to save so they can provide for themselves.

It is true that in the long term we need more saving, but part of the reason for that is so that we have more to fall back on during hard times. We should have been saving and investing more as a nation during the decade of boom we had before the crash so that we could keep spending without harsh austerity during the crash and recovery.

For that same reason you don't encourage people to save more while the economy is weak. Ideally we'd see the government moving to encourage more saving as wages begin to rise. In practice it rarely happens because pro-saving policies aren't generally as popular as policies based on spending the money.

talexuser

bigadaj wrote: »

Do you have any evidence of that ring fencing in Germany as it definitely doesn't do so here. That would be a critical point as if it is then Germany continues to look very strong, if those future increasing number of pensioners being paid large state pensions are relying on younger generations then their ageing problem makes things look pretty bad.

Only that was how it was explained to me when I worked in Germany, but that was years ago now. I don't think it is totally ring fenced, but was under the impression it was more so than here where NI is just another income tax rather dishonestly called "insurance" making people think they are contributing to something akin to a fund for their retirement.

kidmugsy

talexuser wrote: »

rather dishonestly called "insurance" making people think they are contributing to something akin to a fund for their retirement.

Such people are being very dim. Hells bells, even that noxious socialist Nye Bevan admitted in the middle of the last century that "the secret of the National Insurance fund is that there ain't no fund". Pretty clear, that, don't you think?

Jegersmart

N1AK wrote: »

Because you only need enough to discourage excessive hoarding. Now you can certainly debate how you measure that, what the level required is etc; I personally don't think 2% is some magical level though I think it's probably about right most of the time.

The current global level of population (taxpayer) growth is around 1.14% (UK about 0.6% as far as I can tell incl immigration) according to sources that I can readily find.

The latest global average inflation CPI rate that I can find is for 2012 at 4.1% and is probably higher in reality for most people.

Someone somewhere is printing a lot of money........oh wait....;)

If you look at the spreads between base/libor and mortgage rates - they are pretty hefty too. Beneficial for taxpayers?

We are taught that inflation is a good thing. When all money in existence more or less is debt-based I would say that the correct word is "necessary", not necessarily "good".

imho
J

talexuser

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25645425

Glen_Clark

talexuser wrote: »

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25645425

Old people are the most likely to vote. Consequently they get the best deal, because no political party dare upset the grey vote. Even though it means promising the unaffordable, because thats a matter for after the election.

Granariesgirl

Glen_Clark wrote: »

Old people are the most likely to vote. Consequently they get the best deal, because no political party dare upset the grey vote. Even though it means promising the unaffordable, because thats a matter for after the election.

Sadly that is only too true. I think we should all vote, even if the vote is deliberately "spoilt" for lack of viable candidates in peoples' respective constituencies, it is the only way that political parties will listen... & if they don't listen then I guess it's just handing votes to the radical parties.:(

bigadaj

Glen_Clark wrote: »

Old people are the most likely to vote. Consequently they get the best deal, because no political party dare upset the grey vote. Even though it means promising the unaffordable, because thats a matter for after the election.

In some ways, but many of teh old are those that have suffered most by near zero interest rates.

talexuser

Maybe some radical parties are what we need. I want to vote for a party to separate retail from investment banking to make our salaries and savings safer - no traditional party will offer this because they are there only for their paymasters.

People voted LibDem for a signed promise not to increase student fees and to have boundary changes to make each MP as representative as the rest. Look what they got from them in return. Osbourne called QE the last resort of a desperate government when all other policies have failed, as soon as he is in charge, what do we get? This is not a pro-Labour point, just examples from the last lot to get in. How anybody could trust Labour with the (end of boom and bust) economy again is pretty amazing.

Perhaps we should have a "none of the above" option on the paper. Then if the winner had less votes than "none of the above" it would reinforce the lack of legitimacy of what are minority governments.