Makes my blood boil

uk1

agarnett/muscle750

I think your points about the unfairness of the richness of public sector pay and pensions in general is a fair one. I think the unafordability and if not that the size of the cost to the rest of us seems an important issue. It does to me seem out of kilter.

I do however disagree with the slant and the way you have chosen of personalising it to individuals rather than the simply the generality and I find myself asking myself so how would I feel if I were a public sector worker on a decent salary and with the prospect of a generous pension? The answer is I would say very much as they have said. I also wonder how much of the emtion of your position is rooted by something most of us never admit and that is simple jelousy. If I look closely at my own feelings, I am bl00dy jealous.

So for your position to have complete validity as one of moral conscience which implies the background of an impartial viewpoint and judgement, if you were a public sector employee on a decent salary and with the prosepect of a generous pension would your posts have been exactly the same? If not how might they differ? Would you have raised the issue at all? Is the importance of the issue to you, have any proportionality to the amount of jelousy you feel because of the contrast of your own personal situation in comparison?

So how much of your posting is genuinely about the morality and how much is it about envy?

Jeff

Andy_L

agarnett wrote: »

Nope, the current reward levels for established employees in public sector are indeed now morally wrong particularly because of the skew caused by the outdated overly generous pension promise which has been way way overtaken by the last two decades worth of increase in life expectancy in retirement.

Which have been/are being addressed by the introduction of new less generous schemes which include caps on employers contributions which will stop that happening again.

Unfortunately past accrual is a contractual agreement. Whilst the government could change the law to let them break the law, it will destroy the governments credit rating which is likely to cost more than the savings.

uk1

Andy_L wrote: »

Which have been/are being addressed by the introduction of new less generous schemes which include caps on employers contributions which will stop that happening again.

Unfortunately past accrual is a contractual agreement. Whilst the government could change the law to let them break the law, it will destroy the governments credit rating which is likely to cost more than the savings.

Your points are good one's with the exception of the last which is in my view an incorrect presumption.

If you take Greece as an example with a public sector pension issue that is totally out of control, each time they using your words "change the law to let them break the law" they increase their government credit rating, and failing to do so decreases it.

Jeff

Andy_L

uk1 wrote: »

Your points are good one's with the exception of the last which is in my view an incorrect presumption.

If you take Greece as an example with a public sector pension issue that is totally out of control, each time they using your words "change the law to let them break the law" they increase their government credit rating, and failing to do so decreases it.

Jeff

True, but then Greece does have an unsustainable (pension) debt problem, rather than the 5% GDP pa cost that we do

uk1

Andy_L wrote: »

True, but then Greece does have an unsustainable (pension) debt problem, rather than the 5% GDP pa cost that we do

With respect I think you are trying to justify an unsustainable assertion. You can change your mind you know ....

The credit rating of the UK isn't going to suffer because other governments side with our public sector's employment rights and wish to "punish us" for doing so, but it is more likely to benefit our rating (if it has any effect at all, which I doubt) if it is the sentiment that the UK is taking bold decisions in order to get a better grip on it's deficit. Our credit rating is based solely on the perception of our ability to repay debt. It isn't like we would be defaulting on our loan debt, in fact it makes defaulting less likely.

Why do you believe that adjusting public sector rights would damage our credit rating?

Anyway ....



Jeff

Andy_L

uk1 wrote: »

With respect I think you are trying to justify an unsustainable assertion. You can change your mind you know ....

The credit rating of the UK isn't going to suffer because other governments side with our public sector's employment rights and wish to "punish us" for doing so, but it is more likely to benefit our rating (if it has any effect at all, which I doubt) if it is the sentiment that the UK is taking bold decisions in order to get a better grip on it's deficit. Our credit rating is based solely on the perception of our ability to repay debt. It isn't like we would be defaulting on our loan debt, in fact it makes defaulting less likely.

Why do you believe that adjusting public sector rights would damage our credit rating?

Anyway ....



Jeff

The market will decide. We have a AAA rating because, among other reas9ns, the government has not defaulted on debts. Once we do, by renaging on a pension promise, anyone lending money will price the risk of a repeat into the rate.

uk1

Andy_L wrote: »

The market will decide. We have a AAA rating because, among other reas9ns, the government has not defaulted on debts. Once we do, by renaging on a pension promise, anyone lending money will price the risk of a repeat into the rate.

I give up! You win.

Jeff

agarnett

uk1 wrote: »

agarnett/muscle750

I think your points about the unfairness of the richness of public sector pay and pensions in general is a fair one. I think the unafordability and if not that the size of the cost to the rest of us seems an important issue. It does to me seem out of kilter.

I do however disagree with the slant and the way you have chosen of personalising it to individuals rather than the simply the generality and I find myself asking myself so how would I feel if I were a public sector worker on a decent salary and with the prospect of a generous pension? The answer is I would say very much as they have said. I also wonder how much of the emtion of your position is rooted by something most of us never admit and that is simple jelousy. If I look closely at my own feelings, I am bl00dy jealous.

So for your position to have complete validity as one of moral conscience which implies the background of an impartial viewpoint and judgement, if you were a public sector employee on a decent salary and with the prosepect of a generous pension would your posts have been exactly the same? If not how might they differ? Would you have raised the issue at all? Is the importance of the issue to you, have any proportionality to the amount of jelousy you feel because of the contrast of your own personal situation in comparison?

So how much of your posting is genuinely about the morality and how much is it about envy?

Jeff

Hi Jeff,
I think your post is an extremely fair one and I count you as one of the wise and one who knows it!

I honestly don't think I suffer much from jealousy and envy.

Seriously, I have always lived much more like my WW2 surviving parents on quite a meagre budget and unlike my parents, I have never bought a new car (although I have been allocated and hired heaps of them of all sizes in my time). I have no requirement to own big things, but I would know how to buy big things and which to buy if I ever felt the urge. I have been exposed to wealth and big things, and how to manage them for customers and I have unusual experience in having used some expensive items myself.

On a more mundane level, I quite like trying 5 star hotels every now and then, mostly to see the warm feeling it puts on my girlfriend's face, but we both refuse to pay full rates. I am equally happy in a caravan if the people with me are enjoying it too! I would find a cruise boring. I was trained as a scientist but thesedays I like dipping into history, and especially how we ended up in the 21st century we've got.

I love fixing things so they can be used again. I am amazed at the waste created by people with so much money that they develop an attitude that never want to think about why the chain came off their bike, or why their car failed the MOT and whether they can fix it themselves!

I have damaged myself quite consciously more than once by taking a stand for the public good before others have joined the movement so to speak! I am not generally a recruiter to particular movements - I might not be good at it. But sometimes the noise I make is noticed and then harnessed by a few wise men and women who can take the lead in more sober ways to achieve good changes.

I too, on current paper, have gained fortuitously from an early days DB scheme (my first and last surviving!). When I made my first job change after 10 years, the transfer value of my DB pension was just £10,000. It is now over £200,000 and is the very core of my pension prospects. But as I have said, it is wobbly. Even as a pension promise rather than a CETV, I am unsure it will survive the three or four more years I still have to go before I can opt to take it, and possibly with the contracted out complications, it may not perform properly for even 5 years after that until we get to state pension age.

A lot could happen to it.

All my other collected pensions are DC now. Had the three other deferred DB's survived in the same way as the first, and if I had not damaged myself in the public good, restricting my career prospects in the second half, then like public sector workers, I would not have had to do much or get promoted much beyond the first ten years in order to be expecting the equivalent of a pension pot of maybe £750,000 by now, if of course I hadn't manoeuvred for a comfortable early retirement, but having been worked up to being a £50,000 a year man in the early noughties I have only half that sort of pension pot equivalent to my name and still haven't paid my mortgage off yet.

I'm happyish about my lot. I don't spend much, and can survive and still as I say get to frquent the same 5 star hotels as people with more money who spend it more easily. I can smile wryly at that!

I also have achieved much more outside work than many and have an unusually stress-free and active life that doesn't use much money. The gym membership is a bit steep but I'll live with it as I get a nice kick out of outpacing others in there who may be twenty years younger!

I have had the pleasure of raising great kids who have tremendous potential.

I will live long and my only real fear is that I might become a burden to them if I live too long. I might become some kind of burden on the state also! As someone that worked solely in the private sector, I am sure I am not alone.

Public sector employees who think they have been clever by garnering much more generous pension promises up until now might claim that they avoid both dependancies. Is the latter one really going to be true?

My kids have important things to see and achieve to add to the important things they have already seen and achieved because we saw to it from a young age. They also will have to learn what to make of the real prospect of maybe 60 or 70 years of working not 40

However, I would like to think that the state will soon achieve a balanced solution to this longevity problem which does not result in either compulsory attendance at Carousel as in Logans Run, or a split society journeying endlessly round in circles of the have it alls lording it up over the have nothings as in Snowpiercer!

Does any of that lend any credibility to my motives?

uk1

agarnett wrote: »

Hi Jeff,
I think your post is an extremely fair one and I count you as one of the wise and one who knows it!

I honestly don't think I suffer much from jealousy and envy.

Seriously, I have always lived much more like my WW2 surviving parents on quite a meagre budget and unlike my parents, I have never bought a new car (although I have been allocated and hired heaps of them of all sizes in my time). I have no requirement to own big things, but I would know how to buy big things and which to buy if I ever felt the urge. I have been exposed to wealth and big things, and how to manage them for customers and I have unusual experience in having used some expensive items myself.

On a more mundane level, I quite like trying 5 star hotels every now and then, mostly to see the warm feeling it puts on my girlfriend's face, but we both refuse to pay full rates. I am equally happy in a caravan if the people with me are enjoying it too! I would find a cruise boring. I was trained as a scientist but thesedays I like dipping into history, and especially how we ended up in the 21st century we've got.

I love fixing things so they can be used again. I am amazed at the waste created by people with so much money that they develop an attitude that never want to think about why the chain came off their bike, or why their car failed the MOT and whether they can fix it themselves!

I have damaged myself quite consciously more than once by taking a stand for the public good before others have joined the movement so to speak! I am not generally a recruiter to particular movements - I might not be good at it. But sometimes the noise I make is noticed and then harnessed by a few wise men and women who can take the lead in more sober ways to achieve good changes.

I too, on current paper, have gained fortuitously from an early days DB scheme (my first and last surviving!). When I made my first job change after 10 years, the transfer value of my DB pension was just £10,000. It is now over £200,000 and is the very core of my pension prospects. But as I have said, it is wobbly. Even as a pension promise rather than a CETV, I am unsure it will survive the three or four more years I still have to go before I can opt to take it, and possibly with the contracted out complications, it may not perform properly for even 5 years after that until we get to state pension age.

A lot could happen to it.

All my other collected pensions are DC now. Had the three other deferred DB's survived in the same way as the first, and if I had not damaged myself in the public good, restricting my career prospects in the second half, then like public sector workers, I would not have had to do much or get promoted much beyond the first ten years in order to be expecting the equivalent of a pension pot of maybe £750,000 by now, if of course I hadn't manoeuvred for a comfortable early retirement, but having been worked up to being a £50,000 a year man in the early noughties I have only half that sort of pension pot equivalent to my name and still haven't paid my mortgage off yet.

I'm happyish about my lot. I don't spend much, and can survive and still as I say get to frquent the same 5 star hotels as people with more money who spend it more easily. I can smile wryly at that!

I also have achieved much more outside work than many and have an unusually stress-free and active life that doesn't use much money. The gym membership is a bit steep but I'll live with it as I get a nice kick out of outpacing others in there who may be twenty years younger!

I have had the pleasure of raising great kids who have tremendous potential.

I will live long and my only real fear is that I might become a burden to them if I live too long. I might become some kind of burden on the state also! As someone that worked solely in the private sector, I am sure I am not alone.

Public sector employees who think they have been clever by garnering much more generous pension promises up until now might claim that they avoid both dependancies. Is the latter one really going to be true?

My kids have important things to see and achieve to add to the important things they have already seen and achieved because we saw to it from a young age. They also will have to learn what to make of the real prospect of maybe 60 or 70 years of working not 40

However, I would like to think that the state will soon achieve a balanced solution to this longevity problem which does not result in either compulsory attendance at Carousel as in Logans Run, or a split society journeying endlessly round in circles of the have it alls lording it up over the have nothings as in Snowpiercer!

Does any of that lend any credibility to my motives?

Thanks for the kind words and for taking the trouble for such a detailed response.

In reading your reply a couple of times, I don't think it really answers my question but may be more intended to cover and be a defence in response to other posts about your posts.

I was struck by some responses to some of the posts where others said they were offended when what I think they meant was that they felt the the comments were bigotted. I do not susbscribe to the idea that what some might feel are bigotted comments, causes offense, as I believe that a precondition of genuinely being offended (imho) is a worry about what another particular person who they care about thinks and feels and not that you do not know or care about. How can you possibly be hurt by someone you do not know and who you think is bigoted? I don't think any of those that say they are offended are genuinely offended. "Being offended" is most often used instead as a cheap weapon used by some because they have no arguments and simply want to shut others up. It is a bandwagon that is too easy to join by other "offended" people and becomes opposition team bullying. For the avoidance of doubt I have found none of your comments bigoted or offensive, rather I prefer "challenging", which I know is what you intended. I actually believe that people who write and express their views in a "challenging" way are useful in working out what we ourselves think about things and more importantly challenge why we do so. The problem is many cannot do so and therefore instead feign being offended. I digress.

What I think the explanation of your situation may show if you are of a questioning and argumentative disposition (like me) is a very good justfication as to why you might uinderstandably feel that those that (in your view) have been able to take a short cut at "everyone else's expense" (I paraphrase my understanding of your view for brevity) to where you have got might be upset and jealous. You have rather sought to reconfirm why someone might feel that you are jealous, rather than dispel it.

What you haven't done is to confront my question, rather it seems you have avoided it.

I asked specifically "So for your position to have complete validity as one of moral conscience which implies the background of an impartial viewpoint and judgement, if you were a public sector employee on a decent salary and with the prosepect of a generous pension would your posts have been exactly the same? If not how might they differ? Would you have raised the issue at all? Is the importance of the issue to you, have any proportionality to the amount of jelousy you feel because of the contrast of your own personal situation in comparison?"

In one sentence, would I be right in saying that you would never have raised the issue if you were one of "them"? Is it your response that you would write exactly the same posts if you were them rather than you?

If the genuine and honest answer to my question is that you probably wouldn't have raised the topic in the same way then it ceases to become a moral issue as moral issues have to raise themselves above partiality doesn't they? It simply becomes an argument about grumbling "what someone else has got is a bit unfair and I wish I had it", doesn't it?



Jeff

agarnett

uk1 wrote: »

In one sentence, would I be right in saying that you would never have raised the issue if you were one of "them"? Is it your response that you would write exactly the same posts if you were them rather than you?

If the genuine and honest answer to my question is that you probably wouldn't have raised the topic in the same way then it ceases to become a moral issue as moral issues have to raise themselves above partiality doesn't it. It simply becomes an argument about grumbling that someone else has got that is a bit unfair and I wish I had it, doesn't it?



Jeff

Well Jeff, one sentence then: The answer is that I might have, especially if I had been a Unison (or the other main public sector union starts with a P - Prospect is it?) representative who realised that if U&P did not take a stand in support of private sector pensions, then it would encourage a marked division in society to develop in the face of big changes in expected leisure time whilst of working age, including expectation of early retirement, and in such major improvements in longevity.

... and breathe :rotfl:

Here then are a few more sentences for free when you're ready ...

I can remember urging something of the above in posts I made under an MSE alter ego I used way back when private sector pensions were being would up left right and centre

I did not fully subscribe to what you might call social democratic ideas back then, because in Britain we are simply brought up to try to hit the ground running in the first job, and dash headlong into earning as much as we can as fast as we can, whilst spending a little time juggling things to avoid tax, but ... having seen it apparently working quite well in other bits of Europe ...

I have come to believe in a high tax society which creates balance, equality and inclusion and truly respects all types of workers and the unfortunates in society.

We might all still live to enjoy pretty good pensions if we all started to pay high tax and we started paying all the low paid the full living wage they deserve including one which could involve them all in noticeably paying some income tax. Taking great swarths of the population "out of tax" is extremely short-sighted and is one reason our election turnouts are generally so dire. An enormous part of the electorate doesn't feel the country belongs to them.

If another part of the country feels the country owes them unusual comfort such that their retirements with them doing no work already require taxing, then surely it is a recipe for disaster out of deliberate deprivation?

Incidentally, for the avoidance of doubt, Muscle750 is his own man (or woman). Just in case anyone got the impression that agarnett/muscle750 meant you'd rumbled alter-egos being used, that is incorrect. I worry that muscle750 may think his thread has taken a direction he didnt want it to go in - I am not sure if he is happier or more disallusioned right now on page 10 or 11 of his thread than he was on page 5!