I am moving to another country, and have the option of keeping up my national insurance contributions. I am a number of years short anyway, because I spent so long studying and not earning. The same can be said for my wife. If we will get a pension anyway, as Lord Turner suggests we should, why would we make up the shortfall? Why would we continue to pay when away? I am sure there are plently of people with missing years - will they do the same?
Then there is the rising retirement age. Too little, too late. The plan is to raise the state pension age to 66 by 2030, 67 by 2040 and 68 by 2050. It will take forty five years to raise the pensionable age by 3 miserable years? Pathetic.
This graph, from the national statistics website, says it all:
Yes - the peak in population reaching retirement age matches the first increase in pensionable age, but it is not the peak in that graph that is important - it is the area underneath it. State retirement age should be increased now by at least 5 years.
If you were born in the 1950s, you've had a pretty good life. If you were bright and worked hard, you were entitled to a free university education and easy access to the property market, and you benefited from the housing boom, high employment in your youth, unprecedented medical advances and you know what a final salary pension is. If you didn't work hard, you've had an easy life - more benefits than you can shake a stick at.
My wife and I, in our twenties, are expected to be taxed to the hilt to pay for the boomers extended life, mostly acheived through expensive NHS treatment, and our pension contributions are going to pay the boomers 30 year state pension. This is not acceptible. It's about time the boomers spent a little of their not-so-hard-earned cash. And it's about time the politicians turned off the benefits tap. But it won't happen.
There is very little I, or anyone else, can do. In years to come, if I (and people like me) object to the Government extracting ever-larger slices of my pay packet to finance pensioners' fun, the demographic balance of power will have shifted towards pensioners and soon-to-be pensioners. There will be a generational division in politics and, given the way our electoral system works, this will guarantee pensioners control of government. My generation won't be numerous enough to elect politicians to represent our interests.
So my solution? I am emigrating. And when I am over there, I intend to get stinking rich (and I know how to do it) and I will attempt to get out of paying as much tax to Gordon Brown as is legally possible. It is a "screw you, I'm ok" attitude, but I don't care. That's exactly what the boomers, union officials and public sector workers are doing, and will continue to do for many years to come. They get what they deserve - as little of my tax as possible.
Then there is the rising retirement age. Too little, too late. The plan is to raise the state pension age to 66 by 2030, 67 by 2040 and 68 by 2050. It will take forty five years to raise the pensionable age by 3 miserable years? Pathetic.
This graph, from the national statistics website, says it all:
Yes - the peak in population reaching retirement age matches the first increase in pensionable age, but it is not the peak in that graph that is important - it is the area underneath it. State retirement age should be increased now by at least 5 years.
If you were born in the 1950s, you've had a pretty good life. If you were bright and worked hard, you were entitled to a free university education and easy access to the property market, and you benefited from the housing boom, high employment in your youth, unprecedented medical advances and you know what a final salary pension is. If you didn't work hard, you've had an easy life - more benefits than you can shake a stick at.
My wife and I, in our twenties, are expected to be taxed to the hilt to pay for the boomers extended life, mostly acheived through expensive NHS treatment, and our pension contributions are going to pay the boomers 30 year state pension. This is not acceptible. It's about time the boomers spent a little of their not-so-hard-earned cash. And it's about time the politicians turned off the benefits tap. But it won't happen.
There is very little I, or anyone else, can do. In years to come, if I (and people like me) object to the Government extracting ever-larger slices of my pay packet to finance pensioners' fun, the demographic balance of power will have shifted towards pensioners and soon-to-be pensioners. There will be a generational division in politics and, given the way our electoral system works, this will guarantee pensioners control of government. My generation won't be numerous enough to elect politicians to represent our interests.
So my solution? I am emigrating. And when I am over there, I intend to get stinking rich (and I know how to do it) and I will attempt to get out of paying as much tax to Gordon Brown as is legally possible. It is a "screw you, I'm ok" attitude, but I don't care. That's exactly what the boomers, union officials and public sector workers are doing, and will continue to do for many years to come. They get what they deserve - as little of my tax as possible.
posted by Lascivious @ 8:13 PM
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