Makes my blood boil

Muscle750

MPD wrote: »

What is it you want Muscle750?

To tell us life is unfair? Yes it is. I felt that most keenly when a friend got a brand new sports car for his 21st birthday. I think I've done alright since due to hard work and luck. I must say that some of the public sector jobs I have done are far harder than anything I did in the private sector.

To complain about your pension circumstances? Your time would be better spent engaging with the many knowledgeable people on this forum to improve your position first.

To complain about your job? It is never too late to change direction. I have several times, mostly through having no other choice and it is tough but if you are prepared to work hard it is achievable. IMO this will be the norm in the future. BTW I haven't had anything other that flat rate overtime since the 90's and no overtime at all in the public sector.

To demand a race to the bottom in pension provision? That won't make a jot of difference to you in the long run. Reduce government sending by £10 billion. In 1500 years we may have paid off the government debt with this. There is almost no way this will improve your position.

This is an internet forum. If you state an opinion then someone will come and give you a contrary opinion in short order. Ask for help on financial matters and its a gold mine.

I take your point however i do work hard and have done for years and often worked 7 days a week prehaps i should have jumped ship years ago but with 4 kids now all grown up and gone i had to put the food on the table some etc, I just cant getmy head round how many can afford to retire at 50 /55 from the public sector which you must admit there are alot. I do know a few that have walked with big money from companies such as Shell and Kraft Foods with health issues unrelated to work but still walked with big money. My wife may well be pensioned off due to ill health soon and she is in the public sector its certainly hasnt been a easy last 4 years for her

uk1

Muscle750 wrote: »

I take your point however i do work hard and have done for years and often worked 7 days a week prehaps i should have jumped ship years ago but with 4 kids now all grown up and gone i had to put the food on the table some etc, I just cant getmy head round how many can afford to retire at 50 /55 from the public sector which you must admit there are alot. I do know a few that have walked with big money from companies such as Shell and Kraft Foods with health issues unrelated to work but still walked with big money. My wife may well be pensioned off due to ill health soon and she is in the public sector its certainly hasnt been a easy last 4 years for her

You are clearly unhappy with the way things have panned out for you, but it does seem unproductive to be annoyed with people retiring in the public sector, particularly as your own wife is in the public sector.

Feeling embittered about things that have happened and that you cannot change is unproductive. You can't change the past. You can't change who you perceive to be unfairly advantaged. All you can do is to start planning your joint futures and how to make the most of the options you do have rather than fret about those you don't or about the past.

Hopefully you have someone close you can chat these things through with? Also if these issues are so serious, the good thing about these forums is that you are anonymous.

All the best

Jeff

hyubh

Muscle750 wrote: »

This morning prime example in at 6 am left at 1pm all for single rate money not OT but normal hourly rate

Proletarian aristocracy! Back in the petty bourgeois salaried world, I do hours at the weekend for nowt but a sense of not being completely bombarded on a Monday.

yet the fire brigade kick off and want their gold plate pensions early because they cant do their job till normal retiring age

Join the fire brigade then.

My wife may well be pensioned off due to ill health soon and she is in the public sector

WOT?!?!?!?! So, not only do you personally have a small final salary pension in your own name and GET PAID for working at the weekend, but your wife is one of those idle slackers getting an ill health public 'service' pension who you have so cogently critiqued in this thread...? It makes my blood boil!!!!!

BobQ

Muscle750 wrote: »

I take your point however i do work hard and have done for years and often worked 7 days a week prehaps i should have jumped ship years ago but with 4 kids now all grown up and gone i had to put the food on the table some etc, I just cant getmy head round how many can afford to retire at 50 /55 from the public sector which you must admit there are alot. I do know a few that have walked with big money from companies such as Shell and Kraft Foods with health issues unrelated to work but still walked with big money. My wife may well be pensioned off due to ill health soon and she is in the public sector its certainly hasnt been a easy last 4 years for her

MPD made good points.

Retirement at 50-55 is not that common in the publc sector and is mostly confined to the uniformed jobs like fire, police, military. and has mostly has been or is being changed in the future. Pensions are a long term thing so you cannot instantly stop people who have opportunities to take their pension at the time their contractual terms allow.

How can they afford it? Well where jobs have previously had pension ages at 50-55 they have usually paid higher pension contributions. Apart from that the public sector has the same issues as the private sector when they need to reduce staff numbers and it comes down to what is most cost effective. Redundancy schemes can be expensive, persuading (incentivising) the less useful employees to leave can work out cheaper in the long run. Also, unless you know otherwise it may be the case that people choose to retire at 50-55 because they will have a pension at 60 and say inherited enough money to bridge the gap or had a lottery win.

agarnett

uk1 wrote: »

In today's Sunday Times:

The burden on the taxpayer of paying public sector pensions has increased by nearly £200bn in just 12 months.

The liability of final salary retirement schemes for NHS staff, police, teachers and other state workers rose by £190bn to £1.5 trillion in the 12 months to the end of March last year, according to official data.

The revelation throws into sharp relief the rising cost to the state of covering these commitments. Public sector workers — except for local government staff and university lecturers — are in unfunded schemes, which means their retirement benefits are paid out of general taxation.

The new figures — contained in the recently published government accounts — will add fuel to the official review of the state pension age started recently by the former CBI director-general John Cridland. By April 2028, the pension age will have risen to 67 for men and women, and Cridland’s study will explore whether this threshold should rise in line with rising life expectancy. The results of the review will be published next May.

One government adviser called the pension deficit a “ticking time bomb” and said the state pension age will have to go up faster than the government has forecast.


Experts have warned that people entering the workforce today may have to wait until their mid-70s before they can retire.

Some analysts say the burden of state sector pensions could be even greater than the reported figure.

“The government fiddles the numbers to understate the annual cost of new public sector pension promises by at least £10bn a year,” said John Ralfe, an independent pension consultant.

So Sunday Times reads MSE and sometimes then builds its own story around the most important topics it finds? Well, well, well

Muscle750 is a pathfinder - no matter what else you may think. Public sector pensions may be too generous because they cost an outrageous amount of taxpayers' money ? You read it here first, and Sunday Times may agree.

So Sunday Times have published a UK public sector pensions liability figure that seems to be 50% higher than any other previously published, and even it is now nearly 15 months old, too?

£1,500,000,000,000?

9999/10000 people probably aren't even sure how to write it without resorting to Google (myself, and probably most public servants of my age who might be most vociferous in arguing to keep their pension entitlement, included), so what is the likelihood that anyone here on the thread has any idea at all of how to manage such a number, yet alone to assert that the solution is to just continue with no major change to the commitment ?

Most in government won't have a clue. The dynamics of numbers like that can only be predicted by very few people indeed - I would discount the views of most already employed as pension actuaries - their work is stale. Deficits seem to bore them in their daily quest for equilibria in their personal finances.

A fresh approach is needed to both the problem and the people entrusted to manage it.

I am sure, relatively speaking, we are closer to resolving the perils of continued global warming, and the menace of cancer than we are to resolving the public sector pensions time-bomb ... it is fascinating just how ignorant and in denial the population can be to problems which require both the design of effective barometers which show how problems are waxing or waning in real significance, and an understanding of how those barometers have been calibrated, and why.

When we went to school, most people my age learned (if they learned much at all) that it was essential that the percentage of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere should remain around the same, and not much more. If I recall correctly, that period of my learning was also about the time I learned the meaning of the word "equilibrium". Most of us would not be able to state now, that the concentration had increased around 20% in the past 50 years or why that might be a dangerous trend, or indeed whether it still represented some kind of eqilibrium. If they even had a considered view, most people might have a tendency to argue along very basic lines that it didn't seem to have had any ill effect on the continuation of life as we know it, Jim, or do I mean Jeff?

Similarly, the potential ramifications of a 2 degree C increase in worldwide average surface air temperatures, or surface sea temperature would pass by completely the understandings of 9999/10000 people. They wouldn't have a clue about whether 2 degrees change in sea temperature was more or less important than air temperature or indeed whether the air temperature was broadly the same anywhere on a line from the beach at Hunstanton to the High Street in Hungerford on any given day, or by how much it could possibly vary by.

Most people are neither sufficiently intelligent nor educated enough to be able to comment sensibly about how to forecast even the difference in the weather between two points in England, even if they had lived at one of them all their life, let alone comment on whether their pension versus someone else's pension was sustainable, or not.

£1,500,000,000,000.

Come on then. How is it going to continue to vary? Why does it matter? Does it not matter much? Versus what? What else varies which could affect the same landscape? Historical CO2 concentration levels have generally changed independently of air and sea temperatures over the ages. Changes in both however, are thought to be problematical when considering climate change risks.

So the total public sector pensions liability has increased by 50% in 10 years, by a certain measure, or maybe by two different measures - does anyone know? I now see two different names who have put their hands up and claimed some published understanding of the subject sufficiently that they've put an actual number on it as a measure of the unfunded risk - I see Neil Record for the first estimate, and tI see two Johns mentioned in association with the larger end March 2015 number - one Cridland, and one Ralfe.

Anyone else done it yet? Who among our MSE wise men and women and forecasters can describe what is happening and where it will end up?

bowlhead99

agarnett wrote: »

£1,500,000,000,000?

9999/10000 people probably aren't even sure how to write it without resorting to Google (myself, and probably most public servants of my age who might be most vociferous in arguing to keep their pension entitlement, included)

My own estimates are that greater than 1 in 10,000 people know how to write out 1.5 trillion in numbers.

If you believe otherwise you would be suggesting that fewer than about 6500 people in the country know how to do it, which seems laughable.

Do you really believe the stuff you write or is it just a deliberate intention to pad your posts until they are so long and rambling that people can't be bothered to engage you in discussion?

The dynamics of numbers like that can only be predicted by very few people indeed - I would discount the views of most already employed as pension actuaries - their work is stale. Deficits seem to bore them in their daily quest for equilibria in their personal finances.

Yes, I'm sure the fundamentals of maths and statistics have changed so much since people did their actuarial exams that all their techniques have become irrelevant and we should get the philosophy graduates to go back to square one and reinvent logic. Except you would probably discount the views of philosophers too in your quest to always be asking the inconvenient questions and never take anything for an answer, as is your wont.

£1,500,000,000,000.

Come on then. How is it going to continue to vary?

Up, and down. Key factors are likely to be life expectancy, number of people employed by the public sector, their average pay, terms of the schemes, and interest rates. All of these change over time so when you try to boil the cost down to one single large figure, you get a figure that isn't expected to stay constant.

Why does it matter?

I'm sure you'll tell us.

Does it not matter much?

It probably matters less than you think because it is only a snapshot estimate at a point in time and is not a bill that anyone is trying to pay off today.

Versus what?

I expect it matters a lot versus some really unimportant things but matters relatively less when compared to other things.

What else varies which could affect the same landscape? Historical CO2 concentration levels have generally changed independently of air and sea temperatures over the ages. Changes in both however, are thought to be problematical when considering climate change risks.

I expect CO2 concentration levels are some way down the list when considering key drivers of the change in estimates of public sector unfunded pension liabilities.

So the total public sector pensions liability has increased by 50% in 10 years, by a certain measure, or maybe by two different measures - does anyone know?

Different measures.

I see two Johns mentioned in association with the larger end March 2015 number - one Cridland, and one Ralfe.

Cridland is the ex CBI chap doing a review of state pension age. He didn't come up with the number for the government's unfunded public sector pension liability.

Ralfe is an independent pensions consultant who often pops up to suggest that government estimates of liabilities are based on flawed methods.

Spidernick

Whilst I don't agree with the sentiments of the OP, I do worry about how much Public Sector pensions are costing us.

I cannot find a link, but remember reading years ago that the average worker is paying something like £150 helping to fund Public Sector pensions for every £100 they are putting into their own pension! Is this true? If so, I'm sure that most people would agree that that is totally unjustifiable on any level.

agarnett

Well bowlhead99, clearly you aren't the self-effacing type, and are ultra sensitive about some things. I dare say you claim one of those 6,500 slots for yourself. I don't. Are you also one of the 144,000 or rather greater number I believe I shall meet in heaven one day? :rotfl:

Yes, I'm sure the fundamentals of maths and statistics have changed so much since people did their actuarial exams that all their techniques have become irrelevant ...

You seem to be asserting otherwise - so, since I got most of my maths and stats a long time ago, but I am around maths and stats and engineering people (I helped create a couple of good ones!) I think I am entitled to assume you might not know what you are talking about there

...and we should get the philosophy graduates to go back to square one and reinvent logic.

Funny you should say that - a PhD is aspired to by rather more post-graduates than usedto be the case, and strangely, if they obtain their doctorates in philosophy, it seems the corporate recruiting world deems them as superior candidates !

Except you would probably discount the views of philosophers too in your quest to always be asking the inconvenient questions and never take anything for an answer, as is your wont

Yes I enjoy a good philosophical argument, don't you?

£1,500,000,000,000.

Come on then. How is it going to continue to vary?

Up, and down. Key factors are likely to be life expectancy, number of people employed by the public sector, their average pay, terms of the schemes, and interest rates. All of these change over time so when you try to boil the cost down to one single large figure, you get a figure that isn't expected to stay constant.

...and down? Like gilt yields over a year, or FTSE over 5 minutes? Or like global sea levels over a few decades?

Are you a habitual denier, bowlhead99?

Yes you are ... those poor Johns should never have jumped on that bandwagon as you know doubt call it ... you're one of thse official debunker chaps, aren't you, surfing the net for inconvenient truths, throwing people off the scent so HMG doesn't have to face too many tsunamis of public opinion ... No? Well, looks can be deceiving sometimes, so perhaps you'll forgive me for just saying :rotfl:

Andy_L

Spidernick wrote: »

Whilst I don't agree with the sentiments of the OP, I do worry about how much Public Sector pensions are costing us.

I cannot find a link, but remember reading years ago that the average worker is paying something like £150 helping to fund Public Sector pensions for every £100 they are putting into their own pension! Is this true?

Seeing as how there's an awful lot of private sector workers who aren't paying anything into a pension and the private sector is ~4x the size of the public it seems a plausible, though ultimately useless, factoid

bowlhead99

agarnett wrote: »

Well bowlhead99, clearly you aren't the self-effacing type, and are ultra sensitive about some things. I dare say you claim one of those 6,500 slots for yourself. I don't. Are you also one of the 144,000 or rather greater number I believe I shall meet in heaven one day? :rotfl:

You seem to be asserting otherwise - so, since I got most of my maths and stats a long time ago, but I am around maths and stats and engineering people (I helped create a couple of good ones!) I think I am entitled to assume you might not know what you are talking about there

I'm sorry you spend time with maths and stats and engineering people, and produce them, yet don't know how many zeros to put on a trillion these days.

The government for its part has not changed its mind on how many zeros there are in a million or billion or trillion for at least four decades, but if you're right in your assertion that the 65 million UK residents who aren't part of my elite cohort don't know what numbers are, it doesn't bode well for people voting for stuff. But maybe that's your point.

Andy_L wrote: »

Seeing as how there's an awful lot of private sector workers who aren't paying anything into a pension and the private sector is ~4x the size of the public it seems a plausible, though ultimately useless, factoid

Personally I pay a greater portion of my gross salary into public services via tax than I pay into my own pension. That in itself doesn't tell me if the public sector is efficient or inefficient; or how it should split the compensation of public employees between salary and pension; or whether, if a significant component of the remuneration is pension, whether it should be defined contribution or defined benefit; and if DB, whether fully funded or unfunded.

So yes I agree - not a particularly useful factoid, but I expect there's someone up in arms about it somewhere.