Comments on: The best at arrogance

By: Scott Burgess

Scott Burgess — Wed, 22 Jun 2005 12:53:00 +0000

Incidentally, with regard to this:

"<I>Yes. I like to point it out to Rethuglican idiots whenever they claim we're living under quasi-commie economic repression...</I>"

It seems not to have occurred to John that one could, with equal validity, point out the survey's implication that the US is hardly the stereotypical bastion of unregulated capitalist greed, at least as compared to the UK. Or perhaps it has, but he prefers not to mention it.

By: Scott Burgess

Scott Burgess — Wed, 22 Jun 2005 11:36:00 +0000

" an awful lot of people (even the non-wingnuts) instantly dive in to slag off the report's authors and criticise the countries ranked above the US"

"An awful lot"? How many, exactly? If you actually analyse the comments, only one person (of unspecified nationality) does that. Two others non-abusively raise legitimate questions about the organisation conducting the study - hardly "slagging it off."

I'm sure that there are many examples of the kind of behaviour en masse that you describe; unfortunately, this isn't one of them. In your haste to "slag off" Americans, you've overplayed your hand here - better luck next time.

By: Chris b

Chris b — Wed, 22 Jun 2005 10:38:00 +0000

No the SERPS rebate is 0.5-1% of the 11% I currently pay, the implication is that I could have the whole 11% paid into a pension of my choosing which is not the case…

By: Paddy Carter

Paddy Carter — Wed, 22 Jun 2005 07:32:00 +0000

ffs a bunch of blog commentators have griped about a report, and raised some (fairly relevant looking) questions. Like that would only happen in the arrogant US.

By: dsquared

dsquared — Wed, 22 Jun 2005 06:54:00 +0000

hangon, SERPS is called the "State Second Pension" these days but the broad historical sweep is right.

By: dsquared

dsquared — Wed, 22 Jun 2005 06:53:00 +0000

I think that what they’re referring to here is SERPS; you can contract out of it and move some of your NI contributions into either a company scheme or a personal pension plan. It was this innovation of the Thatcher years that set the scene for "Ye Great Pension Mis-selling Scandal of Merrie England" which was such a fucking great millstone round the neck of the industry for most of the last decade.

By: Chris b

Chris b — Wed, 22 Jun 2005 06:43:00 +0000

"Britain’s privatized pension system, which allows workers to invest their own Social Security taxes, is in sharp contrast to the underfunded retirement systems of other European countries"
http://www.heritage.org/research/features/index/country.cfm?id=UnitedKingdom

Erm, where did they get that from? Oi Inland Revenue can I get all my NI contributions moved over to my personal pension plan? Hello? Anyone there?

By: Matthew

Matthew — Wed, 22 Jun 2005 06:24:00 +0000

Re: the Heritage Report. Is there any reason to take seriously a league table of economic freedom (either the league table or the concept of economic freedom) if it finds that Botswana is higher than France?

By: Chris Baldwin

Chris Baldwin — Wed, 22 Jun 2005 05:57:00 +0000

By the way, I’m disturbed that we’re ranked lower than Hong Kong.

By: Chris Baldwin

Chris Baldwin — Wed, 22 Jun 2005 05:56:00 +0000

Shit, I mean the economic freedom list, not the press freedom one!