The Times - Labour Plans Pension Raid

addedvaluebob

BEWARE of all politicians regardless of political leaning, red Blue or otherwise. Not to be trusted.

Cyberman60

hugheskevi wrote: »

Studies showed the impact was much lower than the original £5bn a year, more like £2-£3bn p/a. So that is something like £50bn, not including compounding.

In comparison the RPI/CPI legislation change took £200bn out of pensions, so surely the message should be BEWARE of a Con/Lib Dem coalition?

It's a lot more than 50 Billion, but regardless, this 'theft' which GB was warned about, decimated final salary pensions and meant that many had to close or be frozen.

Hugheskevi, you show complete ignorance as RPI/CPI is the rate applied to pensions to counter inflation each year on PAYMENT of pensions, and has nothing to do with what is paid into pension schemes. For instance my pension is uprated by RPI each year or 3% whichever is the higher. I despair at the ignorance of some posters.

You'll no doubt find that the 200 Billion is the reduction in payments to pensions calculated over a number of years due to the change of downrating from the higher RPI to lower CPI due to the governments need to save money thanks to Labour's 160 Billion annual deficit legacy, while also ensuring that pension schemes decimated by Labour would still have sufficient funds to pay pensions for longer into the future.

:rotfl:

Cyberman60

addedvaluebob wrote: »

BEWARE of all politicians regardless of political leaning, red Blue or otherwise. Not to be trusted.

Wrong !! Always TRUST Labour to ruin the economy and leave massive debts, while fiddling unnecessary with things that have worked superbly for years (ie: final salary pensions) until they fail .

CLAPTON

zagfles wrote: »

Really? How come many pension funds were in "substantial surplus" in 1997 then? According to Gordon Brown at least, in his 1997 budget speech.

an interesting read


http://www.professionalpensions.com/professional-pensions/feature/2261768/how-thatchers-governments-changed-pensions



Gordon Brown isn't my personal arbiter of right and wrong.

wessy53

Cyberman60 wrote: »

Wrong !! Always TRUST Labour to ruin the economy and leave massive debts, while fiddling unnecessary with things that have worked superbly for years (ie: final salary pensions) until they fail .

Of course it was Labours fault that the US and almost all of Europe was caught up in a financial crisis, not a Global problem at all? However when Osborne misses all his targets it's due to Global Problems. Pot kettle anyone.

This is a money forum not a political forum so i would prefer not to have small minded daily mail views forced on to me.

zagfles

CLAPTON wrote: »

an interesting read


http://www.professionalpensions.com/professional-pensions/feature/2261768/how-thatchers-governments-changed-pensions

Indeed, it's all swings and roundabouts. We've had people on here who've left final salary schemes before the compulsory indexation was introduced in the mid 80's, complaining their pension is worth practically nothing because it's had no inflation protection (other than the GMP).

Before the reforms of the 80's pensions were basically used as "golden handcuffs" by companies - leave the comapny and your pension won't increase with inflation, whereas stay and it'll go up in line with your earnings. Fix one problem and create another...

Then of course the "freedom" to opt out of the company pension scheme came with greedy companies and advisers trying to get people to sign up to rubbish high charge with-profits type pensions with their massive front-loaded charges, similar to endowments.

zagfles

wessy53 wrote: »

Of course it was Labours fault that the US and almost all of Europe was caught up in a financial crisis, not a Global problem at all? However when Osborne misses all his targets it's due to Global Problems. Pot kettle anyone.

We had a worse recession than most other countries, now we're doing better than most other countries.

This is a money forum not a political forum so i would prefer not to have small minded daily mail views forced on to me.

So don't try to make political points then. Pot kettle anyone?

Cyberman60

CLAPTON wrote: »

an interesting read


http://www.professionalpensions.com/professional-pensions/feature/2261768/how-thatchers-governments-changed-pensions



Gordon Brown isn't my personal arbiter of right and wrong.

The company final salary pension schemes were doing well before 1997. That persuaded GB to tax and kill them from 1997 by removing dividend tax credits. :mad:

Cyberman60

wessy53 wrote: »

Of course it was Labours fault that the US and almost all of Europe was caught up in a financial crisis, not a Global problem at all? However when Osborne misses all his targets it's due to Global Problems. Pot kettle anyone.

This is a money forum not a political forum so i would prefer not to have small minded daily mail views forced on to me.

The crash was partially their fault by GB removing the vigilance of the Bank of England regulation and handing it to the FSA.

The 160 Billion deficit was 100% Labour's fault through not saving for a rainy day and continuing to be spendthrift. All Osborne has been doing is trying to rectify that deficit, and has done a pretty good job so far reducing annual spending by 60 Billion while Labour have resisted every cut. Still a long way to go though. :T

redux

Maybe one reason that Gordon Brown thought company pension schemes were in surplus by 1997 was that through the mid 1990s you could read company annual reports boasting of the fact, and that their actuaries had advised that no contributions were needed this year. Some companies did this several years in a row.

Basically more or less all the pension actuaries in both public and private sectors got things wrong.