The Politics Thread 2020

[Van der MoodHoover]

2 hours ago, King Kevin said:

Most schemes were 60th schemes and the most you could retire on was 2/3 ths of your final salary .So 40 years would get 2/3 you could also take some as a lump sum and a reduced pension.

Suppose you retire at 65. Pensions in final salary schemes often also had indexation and a widows pension. Schemes were designed in the days when retiring males had a life expectancy of about 5 years.

Now  to buy a pension of the type described above costs about 50 quid per pound of pension.

So if you had accrued a pension of say 30k pa  that would need a fund of 1.5m in today's market to fund.

If you're in a defined contribution scheme as I have been all my life   you can only accrue a maximum of 1m. That gives you an idea of the benefits I can look forward to.

If I want to improve my lot, I have to take risk....

- i can leave my fund invested in the market to try and grow it as long as possible and draw it down. But then I'm sweating if markets suddenly lose 20% as they've done this year.

- i can give up the indexation,  which would give me more now  but leaves me sweating over future inflation which could quickly erode my purchasing power.

Either way I'm likely to get a far lower pension value overall. But I'm also going to experience worry in retirement. These are 2 slightly separate points as I was trying to explain to @jono.

You could have a lower pension than the 2/3 to reduce cost a lot. But guarantee it to take the worry away. People I'm afraid will have to choose between lower pension or much higher contributions. 

[G STAR RAM]

10 hours ago, A Ram for All Seasons said:

The EU has reached an agreement and is coming together to serve its people: €240 billion from the European Stability Mechanism for states that have been particularly badly affected, credit guarantees to companies worth €200 billion from the European Investment Bank and a €100 billion program called Sure for laid-off workers run by the European Commission. Britain gets bugger all and the EU lives to see another day.

Doesnt sound like much of a package when split between 27 countries.

[jono]

12 hours ago, King Kevin said:

Most schemes were 60th schemes and the most you could retire on was 2/3 ths of your final salary .So 40 years would get 2/3 you could also take some as a lump sum and a reduced pension.

Yes, I understand that, I was really responding to @Van der MoodHoover who seemed to think that final salary schemes could be re introduced if less was expected as a benefit, which made good sense to me. But I was also making the point that whatever is taken or guaranteed depends on having profitable companies that can pay dividends and grow.

[sheeponacid]

10 hours ago, A Ram for All Seasons said:

The EU has reached an agreement and is coming together to serve its people: €240 billion from the European Stability Mechanism for states that have been particularly badly affected, credit guarantees to companies worth €200 billion from the European Investment Bank and a €100 billion program called Sure for laid-off workers run by the European Commission. Britain gets bugger all and the EU lives to see another day.

Yeh right...The agreement simply shows that’s its every country for itself in the EU....little solidarity in the EU as demonstrated by the richer nations desperately trying to avoid the pooled debt that would of helped the poorer more effected nations....a deal built on the Dutch softening their hardline stance, Germany & the rich nation getting  their wish to avoid sharing the debts, & the hardest hit nations having little choice but to accept the agreement.

Speaking to the few Italians I know, they won’t be forgetting Germany & France blocking the export of medical supplies being sent to them some weeks back...I wouldn’t be surprised if Russia did more to help them in their hour of need.

Solidarity & serving its people in the EU ffs..righto...Protecting their corporate globalisation dream more like.

[GboroRam]

47 minutes ago, G STAR RAM said:

Doesnt sound like much of a package when split between 27 countries.

You're right - better off pulling out and sharing £0billion between 1 nation.

[A Ram for All Seasons]

19 minutes ago, sheeponacid said:

Speaking to the few Italians I know, they won’t be forgetting Germany & France blocking the export of medical supplies being sent to them some weeks back...I wouldn’t be surprised if Russia did more to help them in their hour of need.

The German army has just been very nice to Britain by supplying 60 ventilators for free! Don't understand why you're being so unkind.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/09/german-army-donates-60-mobile-ventilators-uk-coronavirus-nhs?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_In_die_Zwischenablage_kopieren

[sheeponacid]

3 minutes ago, A Ram for All Seasons said:

The German army has just been very nice to Britain by supplying 60 ventilators for free! Don't understand why you're being so unkind.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/09/german-army-donates-60-mobile-ventilators-uk-coronavirus-nhs?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_In_die_Zwischenablage_kopieren

Not sure I’m being unkind, simply stating fact about Germany blocking medical supply export to Italy a few weeks back, & saying true solidarity would of seen all 27 countries pooling the debt burden to help the poorer more effected countries like Italy & Spain,  as they had requested. 
 

 I can’t argue it’s a great gesture by Germany with the ventilators but it doesn’t change my opinion on the above.

 

[i-Ram]

2 hours ago, G STAR RAM said:

Doesnt sound like much of a package when split between 27 countries.

The package finally agreed is much smaller than the European Central Bank (ECB) had urged. The ECB has said the bloc may need up to €1.5tn (£1.3tn) to tackle the crisis.

[A Ram for All Seasons]

5 minutes ago, i-Ram said:

The package finally agreed is much smaller than the European Central Bank (ECB) had urged. The ECB has said the bloc may need up to €1.5tn (£1.3tn) to tackle the crisis.

More to come then

[i-Ram]

Just now, A Ram for All Seasons said:

More to come then

[G STAR RAM]

2 hours ago, GboroRam said:

You're right - better off pulling out and sharing £0billion between 1 nation.

Oh, I thought the Government had pumped money into our economy?

[G STAR RAM]

2 hours ago, sheeponacid said:

Yeh right...The agreement simply shows that’s its every country for itself in the EU....little solidarity in the EU as demonstrated by the richer nations desperately trying to avoid the pooled debt that would of helped the poorer more effected nations....a deal built on the Dutch softening their hardline stance, Germany & the rich nation getting  their wish to avoid sharing the debts, & the hardest hit nations having little choice but to accept the agreement.

Speaking to the few Italians I know, they won’t be forgetting Germany & France blocking the export of medical supplies being sent to them some weeks back...I wouldn’t be surprised if Russia did more to help them in their hour of need.

Solidarity & serving its people in the EU ffs..righto...Protecting their corporate globalisation dream more like.

Not seen you post in a while.

Not sure if you understand how the thread works these days, but the laughing emoji under your post means that the poster has absolutely no comeback to anything you've stated...just in case you was wondering!

[GboroRam]

1 hour ago, G STAR RAM said:

Not seen you post in a while.

Not sure if you understand how the thread works these days, but the laughing emoji under your post means that the poster has absolutely no comeback to anything you've stated...just in case you was wondering!

Thanks for confirming that's been your intention every time you've responded to my posts.

[G STAR RAM]

42 minutes ago, GboroRam said:

Thanks for confirming that's been your intention every time you've responded to my posts.

Only really works with sensible posts. Sorry.

[Van der MoodHoover]

4 hours ago, jono said:

Yes, I understand that, I was really responding to @Van der MoodHoover who seemed to think that final salary schemes could be re introduced if less was expected as a benefit, which made good sense to me. But I was also making the point that whatever is taken or guaranteed depends on having profitable companies that can pay dividends and grow.

The term "final salary" is an example of the class of pensions that are "defined benefit".

So you can choose any number you like as the benefit your scheme is prepared to provide (within HMRC's limits), and then cost it accordingly. 

You can of course do the sums in reverse and work out what benefit you are prepared to underwrite for a given cost as a %age of the salary role. It probably will not look close to 2/3 of the final salary tho.....

[jono]

42 minutes ago, Van der MoodHoover said:

The term "final salary" is an example of the class of pensions that are "defined benefit".

So you can choose any number you like as the benefit your scheme is prepared to provide (within HMRC's limits), and then cost it accordingly. 

You can of course do the sums in reverse and work out what benefit you are prepared to underwrite for a given cost as a %age of the salary role. It probably will not look close to 2/3 of the final salary tho.....

Yes I know. I think it was pretty clear that I understood it from my earlier posts. I have been round the block a bit you know. 
But in every case the company needs to make a profit. Fine, employees via their company pension, can take a share of that profit. I really don’t think we are disagreeing here .. unless you are saying that a company can only be owned by its employees ? .. even in the case of John Lewis this is paid as a dividend ! I suppose that could be redirected in to the pension fund rather than paid directly to the employee. No issue there, you could even simply give employees a choice. Co-ops are great institutions in our mixed economy. 
 

I might be misunderstanding you ? Are you saying that every company should have to guarantee not only a pension but also it’s benefits ? .. nice and desirable

but in these uncertain times who underwrites that guarantee. The State ? Or are the contribution levels so big and the benefits offered so modest that every actuary in the world would bet on it ? And would that company having to cover the cost of that security blanket be able to stay in business in Our joined up world ? 

[jono]

Steve Hedley cements his political credentials as a top union leader and let’s us all know what he really thinks. 
 

This is why I am so disgusted by the extreme left and am too often out of character on this topic. 

[ramit]

Interviewers head looks ready to explode

 

[Phoenix]

6 hours ago, Van der MoodHoover said:

The term "final salary" is an example of the class of pensions that are "defined benefit".

So you can choose any number you like as the benefit your scheme is prepared to provide (within HMRC's limits), and then cost it accordingly. 

You can of course do  the sums in reverse and work out what benefit you are prepared to underwrite for a given cost as a %age of the salary role. It probably will not look close to 2/3 of the final salary tho.....

As I'm sure you're fully aware, Final Salary is not always the same as Final Pensionable Salary. In our (60ths) scheme, we used to deduct an  'LEL' (lower earnings limit, I believe) to arrive at the Final Pensionable salary. This LEL supposedly approximated to the amount of State Pension you would receive. Something that was difficult to explain to the impending retirees.

As I understood it, it was to ensure that your TOTAL pension, i.e. Company  pension plus OAP didn't exceed 2/3 of your Final Salary, as stipulated by the Revenue. Why they made this stipulation, I could never understand. Mind you, I retired 18 years ago so things may have changed.

 

[Van der MoodHoover]

1 hour ago, Phoenix said:

As I'm sure you're fully aware, Final Salary is not always the same as Final Pensionable Salary. In our (60ths) scheme, we used to deduct an  'LEL' (lower earnings limit, I believe) to arrive at the Final Pensionable salary. This LEL supposedly approximated to the amount of State Pension you would receive. Something that was difficult to explain to the impending retirees.

As I understood it, it was to ensure that your TOTAL pension, i.e. Company  pension plus OAP didn't exceed 2/3 of your Final Salary, as stipulated by the Revenue. Why they made this stipulation, I could never understand. Mind you, I retired 18 years ago so things may have changed.

 

Yes, definitions of "final salary" vary widely as do "pensionable salary". 

Deducting an amount of the type you described was simply a device to reduce cost and not an HMRC requirement.