MSE News: David Cameron - We will give pensioners security and dignity

Cyberman60

Stormy_Petrel wrote: »

Why do the Tories start every single statement with a line about the mess they inherited from their predecessors? I mean, fair enough when you're in your first year of office, but it's been FOUR YEARS. Have they just been sitting around interfering with themselves all this time?

Maybe because to get rid of the 160 Billion pound annual deficit could take between 10-15 years !! You cannot just leave a legacy such as that and it to be forgotten in one year, the same as if you destroy private pensions by removing the dividend tax credit in 1997 and taking 150 Billion out of pension schemes. We're still getting pension schemes closing to this day.

The legacy of Labour is always a far-reaching disaster. :mad:

protempore

David Cameron say's "We will give pensioners security and dignity". First off you are not giving them anything, the money for state pensions comes from the contributions made by the pensioners over a lifetime, it is THEIR money. The government are just administrators.
Second, once again the frozen 4% are not mentioned. How can any minister talk about security and dignity when they withhold the cost of living increases for certain state pensioners just because of where they live? These pensioners have a pension which is worth LESS each year. They have the same rights as the rest and yet are discriminated against for no good reason. This article by Cameron is just lies and spin. We are not fooled by his pseudo caring attitude. State pensioners have the right to be treated the same under the terms and conditions of the contributions they all make to the NI scheme, not to treat them all the same is an outrageous injustice. How about addressing this Mr Cameron?

Thrugelmir

Stormy_Petrel wrote: »

Why do the Tories start every single statement with a line about the mess they inherited from their predecessors? I mean, fair enough when you're in your first year of office, but it's been FOUR YEARS. Have they just been sitting around interfering with themselves all this time?

Get used to it. The blame is going to rumble on for a long time yet. The easy part of austerity has now gone. To find the real savings going forward is going to be lot tougher.

Doc_N

Cyberman60 wrote: »

The legacy of Labour is always a far-reaching disaster. :mad:

And the legacy of the Tories is always a fouled up NHS, plus yet another reorganisation to waste yet more of its precious resources.

mgdavid

protempore wrote: »

David Cameron say's "We will give pensioners security and dignity". First off you are not giving them anything, the money for state pensions comes from the contributions made by the pensioners over a lifetime, it is THEIR money. The government are just administrators.
Second, once again the frozen 4% are not mentioned. How can any minister talk about security and dignity when they withhold the cost of living increases for certain state pensioners just because of where they live? These pensioners have a pension which is worth LESS each year. They have the same rights as the rest and yet are discriminated against for no good reason. This article by Cameron is just lies and spin. We are not fooled by his pseudo caring attitude. State pensioners have the right to be treated the same under the terms and conditions of the contributions they all make to the NI scheme, not to treat them all the same is an outrageous injustice. How about addressing this Mr Cameron?

First off, you are misinformed. State pensions are unfunded and are paid out of current revenue / taxation.

Second, if you abandon your home country and no longer contribute in any way, why should you continue to get anything from the state? If you planned to move abroad you could have set up a private / personal pension and shipped it abroad with you (as friends of mine are doing right now).

redhairedwrinklie

You have to admire [!] his effrontery. Does he realise how many sensible people - and amongst them how many existing pensioners - read Martin's weekly email etc?

Some people below have asked for an analysis: I would recommend you go to the National Pensioners' Convention website and seek a document written by Neil Duncan Jordan which provides exactly that; you will see a scathing analysis of the new scheme and its effect particularly on existing pensioners. And how can the new scheme be really good even for "new" pensioners when the Government's own figures show that the pensions bill will be much lower by 2050?

Morgeo

D iscrimination
A gainst
V ulnerable pensioners
I n Commonwealth Countries
D enies
C onservatism
A nd
M altreats
E very
R esident pensioner
O verseas who is frozen who
N ever gets justice - no indexation

Truepat

rdr wrote: »

Funny he doesn't mention the approx £250k he has stollen from my civil service pension.

Was that £250K of your own contributions or the £250K you did not pay in and were intending to steal from the real tax payers?

mr-tom_2

I'm a consultant working in the industry - I design the functionality behind pensions, ISAs etc.

This year, I've had two different product providers (can't say which) as clients, designing the pension products that will be sold fom April.

To a large extent, the changes are easy to make - remove a bunch of complexity and much of the useful information that gives people guidelines on how much income is too much (GAD rates). This isn't why I'm posting.

Whilst many providers are saying publicly that they appluad the government treating people like adults and allowing them to choose what to take from their pensions, and when; behind closed doors, it's a somewhat different matter. Within any provider, you get the mouthpieces, you get the simpletons and you get the people who actually think about the changes and what they will mean for customers. Almost universally, the latter group are against the changes.

The obvious question is why. Well it's simple. Yes, the changes could benefit the well off. The triple lock is also excellent and the changes to taxation on death are long overdue. Sadly, missing from the regs were the changes that would allow those over 75 who were still saving to obtain tax relief, but that's not many people. The elephant in the room though is the ability to take what you want from your pension, when you want to.

The rich had this option for a long time any way, so nothing new there. The problem is extending it to everyone else. The general opinion was that many people would just cash in their pensions as they never expected to get much in weekly payments, but when viewed as a lump sum, it looks like a lot of money. They've all done research and this supports that view. Typical replies (from employed people in their 50s) are, "we'll have a really good Christmas" and "we'd use the money to repair the boiler".

Obviously, Santa doesn't visit for free, and yes, when it's cold, having a working boiler is pretty necessary, but for people who are still in work to choose not to scrimp and save and instead cash in their pensons begs the question of how they'll afford to repair the boiler when it dies again and they've retired and have even less money.

The reality is simple. People will need money when they are too old to work, and the main thrust of these changes will ensure that for many of them, that money will already have been spent. I loved the principles, but they translate to a rubbish reality for far too many people.

crin

Unfair changes to the pension system penalises people, especially women who where born in the early 50's. Under the old rules people born in those years were on a scale of born in 51 retire at 61 born 52 retire 62 born 53 retire 63 etc. This government changed all that and stopped the slide pretty much straight away.

People born in those years not only paid NI but mist also paid some graduated pension until it was stopped in the early 70's.

People in those years also had school leaving dates in Dec, Easter and July.

If you calculate the number of years of NU paid for women who didn't stay home to look after their children then they would have paid over 44 years worth of NI. As I understand it at the moment you only need to have paid 30 years and next year 35 years to get the flat rate. Nothing has been said about the additional years if NI paid and how it will affect you.

Why should people who have paid into the system for many years get the same as someone who hasn't?

People who get the full amount will also be penalised for some things that the ones who haven't paid into the system get as a right because they will be topped up by Income Support or Pension Credit or something similar, totally unfair.

Making people work til they drop which seems to be what this government and the next want beggars belief it's just more of the same getting screwed for working and paying into a state pension system.

There is also the matter of being taxed on your occupational or private pension that you have contributed to throughout your working life and have given up a % of your income for many years only to be penalised and again be worse off than some who never have.

The run in period for retiring should have been left as it had been set up to be and not changed.

None of these changes make it any better for the children leaving education to get into work as more and more pensioners are going to have to work just to make ends meet.

None of the 3 main parties want out of the EEC but our pensions are far lower than most of the rest of Europe.