Pensions and the EU

atush

There have also been reports in a few papers that the EU wants to control the taxes of all the EU countries, and to have records of all taxpayers (though this, like many other things, is being suppressed until after the vote). Nuts if this is true, given the very different economies of European countries, and that it could be a possible way in which the German-run super-state called the EU would like to extract money from taxpayers of more affluent countries and spread it around, with a dividend for the Brussels

there have been reports the earth is flat too?

I don't have time to look at news in depth, so I flit from source to source while working.

Flitting is fine when busy, as long as you in depth frequently. Flitting tends to be unwise if you arent a Bee.

Malthusian

jamesd wrote: »

That's the world we are in today, with firms not knowing what it's going to cost in defined benefit schemes and employees not knowing what they are going to get or have to pay to get a target income in defined contribution schemes. State pension entitlements are also mutable, as we've seen here with varying inflation adjustments and as has been seen for example in Greece where pensions were cut in raw number terms not just from reduced inflation.

There is a world of difference between amending what you will get in exchange for future contributions and amending what you have already paid for. It is the difference between saying "In future I'll have to charge you £3 a pint instead of £2.50" and "I've put the price up to £3 a pint so you now owe me £100 for all the beer you drank in this pub and only paid me £2.50".

In this country we are not going to put up with pension schemes saying "Yeah we know we said you were guaranteed £2,000 per annum but we're skint so we're only going to pay you £1,500. That's our "best effort" so you'll just have to suck it up." That has been definitively the case since Ros Altmann's campaign on behalf of Allied Steel pensioners. The Tata steel furore, remember, is a question of whether the pensioners are forced into the statutory 10% haircut or can agree on a slightly smaller haircut - relatively small beer compared to what the guru here is suggesting should be allowed.

State Pensions are different as you didn't pay for what you are getting, someone else is. Therefore the State giveth and the State taketh away again.

jamesd wrote: »

Money in the bank isn't necessarily safe, both above the FSCS limit and as we've seen in Cyprus where there was confiscation to pay for a bailout.

Hands up who wants to live in Cyprus. You can get away with it if you have a population which doesn't know whether tomorrow they'll wake up Greek or Turkish, but not in the UK where we have higher expectations as far as our security is concerned.

As for the FSCS limit, that illustrates my point. Money above the FSCS limit in Northern Rock was compensated in full, despite the lack of any statutory reason to do so. Even money in Icelandic banks was compensated in full.