Jeremy Hunt in plea to early retirees: ‘Britain needs you’

zagfles

DoublePolaroid said:

zagfles said:

Anonymous101 said:

Stubod said:

I think I would be more inclined to "help out", if I truly believed that our "leaders" shared the same commitment rather than doing their very best to avoid paying their own fair share...???

I’m sure they see it as “fair” after all they’re not PAYE worker drones. They’re far to important to play by those rules.

As opposed to, say, premiership footballers who earn in one week what an MP does in a year?

Maybe a country that values the job of kicking a football round a pitch 50 times as much as the job of running the country deserves the politicians it gets.

Don’t really get this. If you include expenses, jobbing MP’s get paid a similar salary to NHS consultants. Nobody complains about the competence of our brain surgeons, cardiologists and the like and medicine in general has no problem attracting thousands upon thousands of rather bright minds happy to work productively and (generally) for the benefit of the public for a salary that is apparently so low that it encumbers us with thick, incompetent politicians. It’s pretty clear that pay isn’t the issue. 

You understand "expenses" aren't salary, right? They're costs incurred doing the job. You may as well include the cost of the operating theater and support staff in a surgeon's salary if you're going to include offices, assistants etc for an MP.

As for PL footballers, rather unlike MP’s, they are in the top minuscule fraction of a percent for talent at a game that vast numbers play and every penny they earn is paid for by people happy to fork out to watch the post popular sport in the world. Apart from Jesse Lingard. He gets paid far too much. 

That's the point. People are prepared to pay a lot for the pretty useless talent of being good on a football pitch, but not for the pretty important talent of competantly running a country.

zagfles

SouthCoastBoy said:

Maybe one way for the govt to get over 50s back to work is change the qualifying years to receive the state pension and also not allow people to buy qualifying years.

You couldn't do that retrospectively so it'd just affect younger people which would cause more (justified) whinging about inter-gerenration unfairness

DoublePolaroid

zagfles said:

DoublePolaroid said:

zagfles said:

Anonymous101 said:

Stubod said:

I think I would be more inclined to "help out", if I truly believed that our "leaders" shared the same commitment rather than doing their very best to avoid paying their own fair share...???

I’m sure they see it as “fair” after all they’re not PAYE worker drones. They’re far to important to play by those rules.

As opposed to, say, premiership footballers who earn in one week what an MP does in a year?

Maybe a country that values the job of kicking a football round a pitch 50 times as much as the job of running the country deserves the politicians it gets.

Don’t really get this. If you include expenses, jobbing MP’s get paid a similar salary to NHS consultants. Nobody complains about the competence of our brain surgeons, cardiologists and the like and medicine in general has no problem attracting thousands upon thousands of rather bright minds happy to work productively and (generally) for the benefit of the public for a salary that is apparently so low that it encumbers us with thick, incompetent politicians. It’s pretty clear that pay isn’t the issue. 

You understand "expenses" aren't salary, right? They're costs incurred doing the job. You may as well include the cost of the operating theater and support staff in a surgeon's salary if you're going to include offices, assistants etc for an MP.

As for PL footballers, rather unlike MP’s, they are in the top minuscule fraction of a percent for talent at a game that vast numbers play and every penny they earn is paid for by people happy to fork out to watch the post popular sport in the world. Apart from Jesse Lingard. He gets paid far too much. 

That's the point. People are prepared to pay a lot for the pretty useless talent of being good on a football pitch, but not for the pretty important talent of competantly running a country.

So you nitpicked and avoided the substantive point. Do you think we’d suddenly get substantially better MP’s if we paid them the circa £100k a consultant gets rather then the £84k they get now? Ok, compare MP’s to what used to be called specialist registrars rather than consultants then. They’re the training grade docs who basically run the hospital on the clinical side. Salaries range from somewhat less than to slightly more than an MP.

My point stands. We pay them the same money as politicians yet get smart, competent people, virtually without exception. It’s pretty clear pay isn’t the issue. 

As for footy, it’s easy to be sniffy about it, but it brings pleasure to vast swathes of people, at a time when people need all the pleasure they can get. 

zagfles

p00hsticks said:

michaels said:

However if the govt wants to force people to work longer they should change NI so that rather than not paying it on unearned income instead you don't pay it once over state pension age.

@michaels

??? I don't believe those over State Pension Age currently pay NI on any income, whether earned or unearned.

I know that at one point they were down to pay the proposed social care surcharge element, but I thought that had all been scrapped ?

https://www.gov.uk/tax-national-insurance-after-state-pension-age

The suggestion was instead of "not paying NI on unearned income" that that only applies after state pension age, ie people would pay NI on pension income if below state pension age. Hugely controversial of course, it would be double taxation on the same income for those who didn't use sal sac and it would just encourage people to save outside of pensions eg in ISAs.

badmemory

I can only think of two reasons for going back to work after retiring.  One is that you jumped too early & it turns out the funds are not really enough.  The other is being bored & if you are bored you are doing it wrong.  I do have one friend who could retire now at 76.  But he would get bored because all he does when not working is watch westerns on TV, whereas I often forget to turn mine on for several days, I just don't have the time.

SouthCoastBoy

For those in their 50s who have not accumulated the full state pension I don't see why they couldn't adjust it to 40 years, so each year is worth less and stop voluntary contributions. They've moved the number of qualifying years around a lot in the last decade or so.

zagfles

DoublePolaroid said:

zagfles said:

DoublePolaroid said:

zagfles said:

Anonymous101 said:

Stubod said:

I think I would be more inclined to "help out", if I truly believed that our "leaders" shared the same commitment rather than doing their very best to avoid paying their own fair share...???

I’m sure they see it as “fair” after all they’re not PAYE worker drones. They’re far to important to play by those rules.

As opposed to, say, premiership footballers who earn in one week what an MP does in a year?

Maybe a country that values the job of kicking a football round a pitch 50 times as much as the job of running the country deserves the politicians it gets.

Don’t really get this. If you include expenses, jobbing MP’s get paid a similar salary to NHS consultants. Nobody complains about the competence of our brain surgeons, cardiologists and the like and medicine in general has no problem attracting thousands upon thousands of rather bright minds happy to work productively and (generally) for the benefit of the public for a salary that is apparently so low that it encumbers us with thick, incompetent politicians. It’s pretty clear that pay isn’t the issue. 

You understand "expenses" aren't salary, right? They're costs incurred doing the job. You may as well include the cost of the operating theater and support staff in a surgeon's salary if you're going to include offices, assistants etc for an MP.

As for PL footballers, rather unlike MP’s, they are in the top minuscule fraction of a percent for talent at a game that vast numbers play and every penny they earn is paid for by people happy to fork out to watch the post popular sport in the world. Apart from Jesse Lingard. He gets paid far too much. 

That's the point. People are prepared to pay a lot for the pretty useless talent of being good on a football pitch, but not for the pretty important talent of competantly running a country.

So you nitpicked and avoided the substantive point. Do you think we’d suddenly get substantially better MP’s if we paid them the circa £100k a consultant gets rather then the £84k they get now? Ok, compare MP’s to what used to be called specialist registrars rather than consultants then. They’re the training grade docs who basically run the hospital on the clinical side. Salaries range from somewhat less than to slightly more than an MP.

My point stands. We pay them the same money as politicians yet get smart, competent people, virtually without exception. It’s pretty clear pay isn’t the issue. 

My window cleaner is competant, therefore maybe pay doctors the same and they'll be equally competant, is that the logic?

As for footy, it’s easy to be sniffy about it, but it brings pleasure to vast swathes of people, at a time when people need all the pleasure they can get. 

Maybe people should travel to other countries with seriously bad leaders and then they might realise how important having good leaders are. However bad our politicians are, by world standards they're well above average.

The other point is due to the way politics work, politicans come under far more scrutiny than other professions, and due to the adversarial nature of politics the opposition and media will seize on any slight weakness or trivial issue and blow it out of all proportion. Because in politics if you want someone to vote for you it seems that rather than try to persuade people you have the best policies and answers to the country's problems, it's easier to persuade people that the other lot are incompetant, uncaring, evil, stupid etc.

That results in politicans being constantly abused - just look at this thread for instance! And in real life, loads of examples of politicans being abused on the streets. Hate against politicians is apparently acceptable.

So it's not just the job but the hate you're expected to endure, personally I wouldn't become a politican even if I got premiership footballer's wages!

DoublePolaroid

zagfles said:

DoublePolaroid said:

zagfles said:

DoublePolaroid said:

zagfles said:

Anonymous101 said:

Stubod said:

I think I would be more inclined to "help out", if I truly believed that our "leaders" shared the same commitment rather than doing their very best to avoid paying their own fair share...???

I’m sure they see it as “fair” after all they’re not PAYE worker drones. They’re far to important to play by those rules.

As opposed to, say, premiership footballers who earn in one week what an MP does in a year?

Maybe a country that values the job of kicking a football round a pitch 50 times as much as the job of running the country deserves the politicians it gets.

Don’t really get this. If you include expenses, jobbing MP’s get paid a similar salary to NHS consultants. Nobody complains about the competence of our brain surgeons, cardiologists and the like and medicine in general has no problem attracting thousands upon thousands of rather bright minds happy to work productively and (generally) for the benefit of the public for a salary that is apparently so low that it encumbers us with thick, incompetent politicians. It’s pretty clear that pay isn’t the issue. 

You understand "expenses" aren't salary, right? They're costs incurred doing the job. You may as well include the cost of the operating theater and support staff in a surgeon's salary if you're going to include offices, assistants etc for an MP.

As for PL footballers, rather unlike MP’s, they are in the top minuscule fraction of a percent for talent at a game that vast numbers play and every penny they earn is paid for by people happy to fork out to watch the post popular sport in the world. Apart from Jesse Lingard. He gets paid far too much. 

That's the point. People are prepared to pay a lot for the pretty useless talent of being good on a football pitch, but not for the pretty important talent of competantly running a country.

So you nitpicked and avoided the substantive point. Do you think we’d suddenly get substantially better MP’s if we paid them the circa £100k a consultant gets rather then the £84k they get now? Ok, compare MP’s to what used to be called specialist registrars rather than consultants then. They’re the training grade docs who basically run the hospital on the clinical side. Salaries range from somewhat less than to slightly more than an MP.

My point stands. We pay them the same money as politicians yet get smart, competent people, virtually without exception. It’s pretty clear pay isn’t the issue. 

My window cleaner is competant, therefore maybe pay doctors the same and they'll be equally competant, is that the logic?

As for footy, it’s easy to be sniffy about it, but it brings pleasure to vast swathes of people, at a time when people need all the pleasure they can get. 

Maybe people should travel to other countries with seriously bad leaders and then they might realise how important having good leaders are. However bad our politicians are, by world standards they're well above average.

The other point is due to the way politics work, politicans come under far more scrutiny than other professions, and due to the adversarial nature of politics the opposition and media will seize on any slight weakness or trivial issue and blow it out of all proportion. Because in politics if you want someone to vote for you it seems that rather than try to persuade people you have the best policies and answers to the country's problems, it's easier to persuade people that the other lot are incompetant, uncaring, evil, stupid etc.

That results in politicans being constantly abused - just look at this thread for instance! And in real life, loads of examples of politicans being abused on the streets. Hate against politicians is apparently acceptable.

So it's not just the job but the hate you're expected to endure, personally I wouldn't become a politican even if I got premiership footballer's wages!

I’m following your logic. You implied that we get the politicians we deserve because we don’t judge them important enough to pay them more. I chose a job of comparable importance and requiring a similar degree of education and ability to do well, as a yardstick to demonstrate that that level of pay is not incompatible with attracting skilled individuals. Needless to say your window cleaner doesn’t have a job of comparable importance and skill. Even if he’s one of those like gold dust who actually uses a ladder.

I agree with much of the rest of your post. 

NedS

DoublePolaroid said:

zagfles said:

DoublePolaroid said:

zagfles said:

Anonymous101 said:

Stubod said:

I think I would be more inclined to "help out", if I truly believed that our "leaders" shared the same commitment rather than doing their very best to avoid paying their own fair share...???

I’m sure they see it as “fair” after all they’re not PAYE worker drones. They’re far to important to play by those rules.

As opposed to, say, premiership footballers who earn in one week what an MP does in a year?

Maybe a country that values the job of kicking a football round a pitch 50 times as much as the job of running the country deserves the politicians it gets.

Don’t really get this. If you include expenses, jobbing MP’s get paid a similar salary to NHS consultants. Nobody complains about the competence of our brain surgeons, cardiologists and the like and medicine in general has no problem attracting thousands upon thousands of rather bright minds happy to work productively and (generally) for the benefit of the public for a salary that is apparently so low that it encumbers us with thick, incompetent politicians. It’s pretty clear that pay isn’t the issue. 

You understand "expenses" aren't salary, right? They're costs incurred doing the job. You may as well include the cost of the operating theater and support staff in a surgeon's salary if you're going to include offices, assistants etc for an MP.

As for PL footballers, rather unlike MP’s, they are in the top minuscule fraction of a percent for talent at a game that vast numbers play and every penny they earn is paid for by people happy to fork out to watch the post popular sport in the world. Apart from Jesse Lingard. He gets paid far too much. 

That's the point. People are prepared to pay a lot for the pretty useless talent of being good on a football pitch, but not for the pretty important talent of competantly running a country.

So you nitpicked and avoided the substantive point. Do you think we’d suddenly get substantially better MP’s if we paid them the circa £100k a consultant gets rather then the £84k they get now? Ok, compare MP’s to what used to be called specialist registrars rather than consultants then. They’re the training grade docs who basically run the hospital on the clinical side. Salaries range from somewhat less than to slightly more than an MP.

My point stands. We pay them the same money as politicians yet get smart, competent people, virtually without exception. It’s pretty clear pay isn’t the issue. 

And we then pay failed politicians £320k for appearing on a TV show to watch them eat bugs in a jungle. Shakes head in despair.

MaterialGirl*

Jeremy Hunt saying this in the same week the government refused to look at trials to support menopausal women is just ridiculous!

Many menopausal women stop working in their 50s just because they are not feeling supported at work.  Give women support though their menopausal years and so many more women would stay in work.