Public Sector Pensions Ballooning

[RufflesTheGuineaPig]

I work in the private not public sector, but want to make this clear.

It's not a matter of "greedy public sector workers".

It's merely a matter of contracts.

One group (generation) of people promised another group a fat pension if they agreed to work for lower wages. That group then didn't put any money aside to pay those pensions.

Those at fault aren't those that agreed to do the work. In balance they are victims... often they contributed into a pension pot which their employers simply stole as tax cuts.

The solution isn't to force those that worked for 40 years and paid into a pension to live in poverty, it's to force those that made them the offer to make good on it.

The problem is how to make the generation that made the offer pay up.

I admit, the issue is complicate by the fact that many of the victims were also partial benefitiaries, and that, had they looked at it, they could have seen there was no money to back it up.

Look at it in these simple terms:

How much more tax would those in their 50s, 60s and 70s have had to pay if the pensions they had promised these people were fully funded. Now you can see who should pay.

We can't blame the "greedy public sector workers" for asking us to pay them what they were promised. We instead need to hand the bill for those promises to the people that made them and received far better public services than they paid for.

There has been a huge intergeneration debt transfer and it's going to lead to an intergenerational war... quite literally.

If anyone has any doubt about the this transfer, look at people now going to uni, leaving with £27k in debts. A large portion of that debt goes to pay the pensions of uni staff who provided education to those now in their 50s, and most of the rest goes to pay for the educational service that was previously funded by general taxation which has been transfered to pay the pension bill.

Edited November 30, 2011 by RufflesTheGuineaPig