Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Pension Malhomme

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    Pension Malhomme

    Okay, statement of interest first - I work in the public sector. I earn under £14k. I do my job because I like to think I'm making a difference.

    Anyway, I could barely contain my rage last night, which is good for the missus and the cat, when some numpty from the Institute of Directors came on the radio with their latest wheeze to make the rest of us more miserable than we already are.

    You see, us public sector workers have got it too good. We have "gold-plated" pensions and that's got to stop. We can retire earlier than anyone else and get a final salary guarantee. This is a VERY BAD THING.

    Only it's not, is it? It only looks bad when you compare it to most prive sector pensions. And why does it look bad then? Because these idiots have destroyed their schemes with greediness and arrogance (at best) or malice and sociopathy (at worst).

    As it stands, I will get a final salary guaranteed pension (although I fully expect that to vanish at some point very soon). The thing is, compared to the private sector, my final salary will be very much smaller than it ought to be. Again, I will be able to retire at 60, except that I won't because I won't be able to access my state pension until 68, and there's no way I'll be able to live on my work pension.

    We look upon our pensions as the last great reward for a working life of low pay - it's a deferred salary, if you like.

    Is there a greater bunch of arseholes out there than the IoD? Digby Jones might just have some competition...

    Full story here

    #2
    Pension Malhomme

    I know the record of armed revolution in establishing successful societies is patchy at best, but quite apart from that it would be a pleasure in its own right to march along Park Lane with these people's heads on pikes.

    Comment


      #3
      Pension Malhomme

      This is a big thing over here at the moment. The Irish banking industry (aided by its right-wing cheerleaders in the press) is trying to shift the blame for the economic crisis away from itself and onto the public sector, by jabbering loudly about the latter's supposedly obscene salaries and pension schemes (as opposed to the €200 a week that bankers live on, presumably).

      There is much talk of the trade union "beards" leading us all down the path to rack and ruin by insisting on public sector wages not being cut. All of which is pretty amusing, given that the sector which got us into this ghastly fucking mess in the first place -- the banking sector -- is private, not public, and that its own salaries have been disgustingly out of control for years, and that we the taxpayers are all going to have to shoulder the burden of paying for the Anglo Irish Bank disaster.

      Being burned alive is too good for these bastards.

      Comment


        #4
        Pension Malhomme

        Not muckraking here, but honestly asking: is there such thing as a private sector pension any more? Over here, they've largely been jettisoned. Don't know if that's objectively a good thing or a bad thing, but it's a good thing in light of how they've typically been run; ie, chronically underfunded by the employer; or they can be dipped into (by the company) during times of crises. Most companies have moved from the defined-benefit model of say GM and Ford, to the defined contribution model, so that it's off their books each year.
        I've grown up with the idea that, aside from a meagre state pension, I'm looking after my own retirement funding.

        Comment


          #5
          Pension Malhomme

          There aren't anything like as many as there were, WOM, and that's a big shame. Companies took massive pension "holidays" for years, then claimed they could not afford to make up the missing millions. And we let them get away with it.

          Those that still exist are under attack, of course.

          Comment


            #6
            Pension Malhomme

            Errr....yeah....but that's a defined benefit scheme. If I were on that board of directors, I'd be trying to change that, too. And for no other reason than a company can't responsibly guarantee a steady benefit to 4200 people for a period that may start 25 years from now and extend to 50 years from now. The company can guarantee neither the performance of the market nor the profitability of the company in order to sustain those benefits. It's virtually guaranteed that the scheme will be under-funded eventually.

            I don't disagree that it is a shame, to be sure. But the time period when a company could be virtually assured of steady future growth prospects and steadily increasing profits has long passed. The new reality is that any company that 'knows' where it's going to be in ten years is a rarity; so pretending it can reasonably plan for its employees' futures 30 or 40 years out is wreckless. Better to support government pensions and personal plans, instead.

            Comment


              #7
              Pension Malhomme

              Yeah I know it is. And if I was a worker there, I'd be doing my best to stop you changing it.

              I don't see why it should be "virtually guaranteed" to be under-funded, unless the company decides to underfund it. Otherwise surely it would be as likely to be over-funded?

              Comment

              Working...
              X