Saturday, May 27, 2006

That's daring

The Scotsman reports, the pensions revolution is here;

"The message is this: if you want anything more than the basic pension in retirement, the state isn't going to do that any more. You have to do it yourself." - LORD TURNER

The British government have bitten the bullet and announced a raise in the pension age to 68. When? Wait for it.....2044!!
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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Lindsay
You might like to see what I have been up to in my fight to help the "frozen British pensioners". We are not allowed any pension indexing at all either in Australia or Canada (and several other countries, but we would if we lived in the USA, Europe and several different countries). I am sure you have heard about it already. The whole thing is mad and very unfair for the very old who find themsleves trying to live on a tiny pension, exactly as they first received it twenty years previously - no indexing to cover the rise in the cost of living. The new Pension Minister, James Purnell, is very young and is the Labour MP for Stalybridge and Hyde. I tell you that so that the following will make sense. He held a public question and answer on Blair's website and this is what I wrote to him. He did not bite on any of the difficult questions and mine was too long. I noticed that each question plus answer took exactly five minutes so he did not have much time to think. Iwrote:


Dear James Purnell

What a wonderful idea. Thank you. I do have some ideas about pensions and here they are:

We insure our cars if we are sensible, and keep up the payments. After an accident we expect to receive help from our insurance company with the repairs and we do receive help.

We insure ourselves for health care and pensions, and being sensible does not come into it. These payments are compulsory and have to be kept up by us and our employers. In our sixties we of course expect to receive pensions with annual indexing, because we have kept up our insurance payments, and we do receive them. Or do we?

Strange, if, after an accident, someone in your constituency applied to
their insurance company only to be told "Sorry, we know you have paid all your insurance contributions to date, but you live in Stalybridge and we do not cover that area for the complete amount. You can have £10 - the insurance available when you bought your car twenty years ago. Of course, if you lived in Chester, we would pay the full amount. We are fully sympathetic with your problem but unfortunately you should have taken this into account when you moved to Stalybridge".

A small proportion of pensioners are being fed the same illogical rubbish. Only 4% of all British pensioners are not receiving indexed pensions and indexing (from insurance contributions NOT from taxes) IS affordable, if the funds are being properly managed and kept aside for health and pensions. The State Pension should be basic, dependable and absolutely transparent in advance, so that pensioners know exactly what to expect when they retire.

National Insurance is already a type of saving for the future.

Earnings-related pensions should be left to private pension companies.

Is your government wise enough to put this anomaly to rights?

With good wishes to your venture into web-conversations.

D.M.E.

(Age 71, twice your age!, British pensioner who happens to live in
Australia)

2:34 PM

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