Wednesday, Sep 22, 2010
Great news! - Who'd want to be just starting out in the UK now?
Telegraph: State pension costs to soar in 2012 as 800,000 baby boomers turn 65
More than 800,000 people will celebrate their 65th birthday during the year – 150,000 more than in 2011, according to the Department for Work & Pensions.
The massive increase, which stems from the post-war spike in births in 1946 and 1947, will lead to a significant rise in government spending on the state pension.
Posted by tyrellcorporation @ 09:03 AM (833 views) Add Comment
24 Comments
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1. tyrellcorporation said...
I'm not boomer bashing, just commenting on the plight of the youth of today. If I was graduating now I'd be on the first plane to SE Asia. The trouble is when I got there I'd find better trained and more highly motivated people prepared to work longer hours for less money.
'Stuck between a rock and a hard place'
2. braindeed said...
Re TC @1....
Response, Cue Mr G:.....Eeh bah gum, when I were a lad, we 'ad to get up two hours before we went to bed, mum would slash us with a broken bottle.....blah blah, drone drone
3. montesquieu said...
Let me see, successive Governments have had ... let me do the arithmetic ... 63 years so far to work this one out, so they ought to be well prepared. The fact that this statistic is on the news pages speaks volumes for Government incompetence throughout the post-war period.
4. Crunchy said...
1. tyrellcorporation
I don't think there are any safe places to run from mass destiny, not overland anyways.
The only solution?
5. tyrellcorporation said...
Short-termism and the emergence of the media cycle has destroyed the notion of national strategic planning in the UK.
6. Crunchy said...
3. montesquieu
I take it that banking history is of little interest to you.
That's a problem for a lot of people that seek sense.
7. alan_540 said...
tc said : I'm not boomer bashing...
Yes you are.
braindead said : Blah, blah, blah..
montesquieu said : Let me see, successive Governments have had ... let me do the arithmetic ... 63 years so far to work this one out...
Couldn't agree more, trouble is successive Labour governments have serially screwed the country's finances.
8. Crunchy said...
Who's calling the shots now?
The same people that have done for hundreds of years.
The elephant has grown to big to miss, or fail in it's relentless charge.
"Money makes the world go round." Governments help to spin it.
9. tyrellcorporation said...
tc said : I'm not boomer bashing...
Yes you are.
No I'm not.
10. drewster said...
Raise the retirement age. There, problem solved.
11. mark wadsworth said...
What Drewster says.
There are only three variables here:
We could, for example, decide that we are prepared to commit (say) six per cent of GDP to a flat rate Citizen's Pension, say £90 billion in total per year.
Then we decide which % of the population gets it - we could do the oldest ten per cent at £15,000 a year each, or the oldest twenty per cent at £7,500 a year each or anything else. That way pension age adjust up automatically.
Or we could decide how much the Citizen's Pension should be and choose on of the other two variables (how many people get it OR what % of GDP we commit to it) and the third variable is just a derived figure.
12. greenmind said...
How about raising inheritance tax to cover any shortfall (up to a maximum of 100% of inheritance if necessary).
13. Simon said...
Pay-as-you-go pensions are always going to be susceptible to demographic bulges .
Much better to replace them with fully funded pensions .
There has to be a transition to this , each generation has to pay for it's own pensions , it's only fair !
14. montesquieu said...
I have to say I don't blame Labour particularly for this one, the problem was known about and discussed in the 17-year Thatcher/Major era and equally nothing was done about it (apart from the cynical breaking of the link between pensions and earnings which was the only Thatcherite strategy of dealing with it).
Personally I'm of the view that the only thing that will get the UK back on its feet are 1) a one-off wealth tax - 5% of every holding over, say £1m and 2) proper cuts in public expendature, not bogus ones that will see public spending higher at the end of this parliament than at the beginning.
Oh and as to 1), if people have their wealth in property or paintings or whatever rather than cash or shares etc, they'll just have to sell some of it, won't they.
15. braindeed said...
7. drewster said...
Raise the retirement age. There, problem solved.
If we done that NOW rigorously, and effect similar rules towards the earliest time pots and annuity are invovoked – it would go a distance to be fairer on the XYZ gens.
The actuaries responsible for this mess should be dug up and fed to the dogs.
16. Crunchy said...
8. mark wadsworth said...What Drewster says.
"There are only three variables here:
We could, for example, decide that we are prepared to commit (say) six per cent of GDP to a flat rate Citizen's Pension, say £90 billion in total per year.
Then we decide which % of the population gets it - we could do the oldest ten per cent at £15,000 a year each, or the oldest twenty per cent at £7,500 a year each or anything else. That way pension age adjust up automatically.
Or we could decide how much the Citizen's Pension should be and choose on of the other two variables (how many people get it OR what % of GDP we commit to it) and the third variable is just a derived figure."
Bill Gates has a forth mark, if you care to check.
17. mark wadsworth said...
Green Mind: "How about raising inheritance tax to cover any shortfall (up to a maximum of 100% of inheritance if necessary)."
I never understood this lefty obsession with IHT. It is currently 40% and raises about £3 billion a year, which is much the same as the TV licence fee. Hiking the rate to 100% will just lead to massive evasion and avoidance, you'd be better off just hiking the TV licence to £500 a year or something.
18. braindeed said...
MW@12...
"will just lead to massive evasion and avoidance......"
A fairly conventional analysis..... but unless we as an electorate shift our perception towards the stance that evasion or even avoidance is as anti-social as benefit theivery, then we strengthen the stranglers grip.
19. timmy t said...
We also need tax changes on second homes. How many people buy additional properties, planning for that to be their pension? This then drives up prices, as we've witnessed, so those on lower incomes spend their whole lives struggling to pay a mortgage leaving nothing to go in a pension. Ban interest only mortgages too.
20. Crunchy said...
12. mark wadsworth said...Hiking the rate to 100% will just lead to massive evasion and avoidance.
Not if all money transactions are solely electronic. The state wanting wage slips sent directly to them, prior to taxation is perhaps a
stepping stone into this future.
Fancy a risky barter?
21. Crunchy said...
13. braindeed
Their always one step ahead. How is that.
22. greenmind said...
MW, Im not a tax expert so your 40% & £ 3 billion figures are news to me - surprisingly low given that about 500,000 over 50s die in the UK each year. IHT appeals because it takes from the oldest generation when they pop their clogs instead of making the younger generation work longer (into their 70s!). Is that left wing?
23. mark wadsworth said...
GM, as it happens I am a tax expert, but I find out these figures by googling Public Sector Finances Databank and not because of any special insider knowledge.
As it also happens, the only tax worth raising is Land Value Tax and let's get rid of ALL the others, including IHT. That'll sort out Timmy T's second homes problem. Evasion will be impossible (so that answer's braindeed) but avoidance will be easy - you just trade down, take in a lodger etc. And it's much easier to assess and collect that trying to value paintings (to respond to Monty).
24. braindeed said...
MW ....with re to LVT
Any supporters of note (notwithstanding the occasional Tech Col rebel tutor)?
I believe that it's a tax that could only be brought in post-Apocalypse/Catastophe.....its been a marginal theory for a century (excluding the likes of Tasmania etc)
,,,,Mind you as, an 'expert' ...the consultancy fees in the run up to said melt down would be enormous. - need to be paid in pork bellies or wheat bushels, mind.