Comments on: Pension revisionism

By: john b

john b — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 04:30:00 +0000

Bollocks. Labour's moves have effectively cut tax for poorer people while stopping rich people from avoiding tax om their large investments.

The problems with pensions have come partly from with-profits funds and partly from employer schemes. In both cases, the companies administering the scheme overestimated future benefits, hence the problems they're now left with. Meanwhile, the general individual pensions industry isn't screwed because it hasn't saddled itself with the same unmeetable liabilities.

You *can't* make everyone a consistent 10-12% per year in an economy where growth is running at 2-3% and interest rates are 3-5%. That doesn't add up, and if you can't see that then you're the fuckwit.

By: privatisation is good

privatisation is good — Wed, 09 Feb 2005 17:23:00 +0000

Perhaps if you had any knowledge of the pensions industry you would realise that Labour *is* taxing pensions to a ridiculous degree. Their new scam involves taxing the surplus of With-Profits funds (which are owned by policyholders) at corporation tax rates (up to 30%). This will mean a massive reduction in policyholder benefits. Because the tax is not transparent to the ignorant the fuckwit government can then blame the nasty pensions companies.

By: Matthew Turner

Matthew Turner — Fri, 04 Feb 2005 05:43:00 +0000

Yes, it’s much like most people on the right appear to believe that private pensions immediately fix the demographic problems facing the state system.

By: European Loser

European Loser — Fri, 04 Feb 2005 03:47:00 +0000

Simon – on the bright side, it’s nice to know that (should you ever be in really dire need of employment) the simple phrase "Well… The micro stuff was good, but the macro course was a bit of a turn off." pretty much guarantees you a job.

By: john b

john b — Thu, 03 Feb 2005 18:15:00 +0000

Sadly, no!

By: Simon

Simon — Thu, 03 Feb 2005 13:48:00 +0000

"Britain's pension system was a success. The state system was a swindle, but people had private or company pensions instead. Because they could be invested anywhere in the world, they gave savers much higher returns for their money than the state ever could."

Christ, what an absolute dick. Notable that the pensions mis-selling scandal doesn't even merit a mention in his potted history - I wonder why that would be? Anything to do with the fact the 'free market' took large chunks out of people's savings in administrative fees, leaving them much worse off then if they'd stuck with nasty old statist SERPS?

More importantly, has any right-wing 'think-tank' ever said anything of use? Or indeed anything you couldn't have picked up yourself from reading the first five pages of an introductory economics textbook, which is clearly the point at which they all stopped reading?