State Pension Affordability

[willendure]

is anybody planning retirement based upon the state pension

Milan.

If they keep the triple lock, by the time I retire it will be £200K/year. But a loaf of bread will cost £50.

No. Don't be daft.

But whatever it is, it will be a nice top up. If we ever qualify that is, with the age threshold being bumped up over and again.

[Protagoras]

is anybody planning retirement based upon the state pension

Milan.

Yes, everyone I know over 60 is factoring state pension into retirement income planning. In particular, those retiring below state pension age are funding the gap years on the basis that the gap is finite and that they'll get state pension.

With state pension at c.£12k gross, and Council Tax at £6.5k gross, that's over 50% of State Pension that's effectively taxed back and so of no benefit at all.

It might be more efficient to reduce state pension and scrap council tax for pensioners, paying the funds directly from central to local government.

[WTFH]

Yes, everyone I know over 60 is factoring state pension into retirement income planning. In particular, those retiring below state pension age are funding the gap years on the basis that the gap is finite and that they'll get state pension.

With state pension at c.£12k gross, and Council Tax at £6.5k gross, that's over 50% of State Pension that's effectively taxed back and so of no benefit at all.

It might be more efficient to reduce state pension and scrap council tax for pensioners, paying the funds directly from central to local government.

I think he meant as the main (or sole) source of money.

The problems with your idea of scrapping council tax for pensioners include:
1.. Council tax at £6.5k gross is not the same for every property in the UK. If you take that figure, then some will be considerably worse off. If you go for a variable - i.e. based on the actual council tax - then it will be a nightmare in administration to calculate each individual's entitlement - that will either require a load of government employees to do it, or outsource to the private sector, and we know how expensive that will be.
2. Pensioners with multiple homes - do they get them all council tax free, or just primary residence? If it's just one residence, do they get to pick and choose the one with the highest council tax? How many minutes after this is announced will the wealthiest have worked out how to game the system, leaving the poorest worse off?

[sadkingbilly]

How many minutes after this is announced will the wealthiest have worked out how to game the system, leaving the poorest worse off?

dunno, - ask Ollie, - he'll know

[Protagoras]

I think he meant as the main (or sole) source of money.

Probably no one on here is in that position, but there are plenty of people who are. Not everyone - especially women - were able to attain a decent personal pension. Of course, that's changed a bit now for the better, but the fact remains that state pension as a sole income leaves people needing benefits.

The problems with your idea of scrapping council tax for pensioners include:
1.. Council tax at £6.5k gross is not the same for every property in the UK. If you take that figure, then some will be considerably worse off. If you go for a variable - i.e. based on the actual council tax - then it will be a nightmare in administration to calculate each individual's entitlement - that will either require a load of government employees to do it, or outsource to the private sector, and we know how expensive that will be.
2. Pensioners with multiple homes - do they get them all council tax free, or just primary residence? If it's just one residence, do they get to pick and choose the one with the highest council tax? How many minutes after this is announced will the wealthiest have worked out how to game the system, leaving the poorest worse off?

Yes, of course, there are lots of challenges. Most relate to the essential problem of council tax; viz that it's not charged per capita and not related to income. Along with that other nonsense tax - national insurance - it needs to be sorted as part of fixing the complicated mess that is the UK tax system. Why should people have over £6k of income taxed at 100% - that's just not reasonable.

And I've not even had breakfast yet . At least the sun is shining - that's not taxed yet!

[NotAllThere]

I understand Dorkeaux to mean that the people smugglers sell Britain as a place where you get a free house, mobile phone, car etc. And the right wing morons, The Mail and the Torygraph, validate it by complaining about immigrants receiveing free houses, mobile phones, cars etc...
/QUOTE]

OK, so explain the difference between you saying what people are being told by the smugglers and what the papers are saying people are being told by the smugglers...

And, just for completeness, what makes them morons?

Just to clarify for you.

The right wing morons (as opposed to the right wing smart people, just in case you think I'm calling all right wing people morons - which I'm not), The Mail and the Torygraph, go on about immigrants receiving free houses, mobile phone, cars etc... thus validating the myth which the people smugglers sell to their victims. To white, Britain is a place where immigrants will get a free house, mobile phone etc.

The reason they're morons is because they're helping to sell Britain as the place to be, thus increasing the attraction of Britain to immigrants.

[malvolio]

Just to clarify for you.

The right wing morons (as opposed to the right wing smart people, just in case you think I'm calling all right wing people morons - which I'm not), The Mail and the Torygraph, go on about immigrants receiving free houses, mobile phone, cars etc... thus validating the myth which the people smugglers sell to their victims. To white, Britain is a place where immigrants will get a free house, mobile phone etc.

The reason they're morons is because they're helping to sell Britain as the place to be, thus increasing the attraction of Britain to immigrants.

Just to clarify for you...

What the papers (all of them) are saying is what the smugglers are selling to the illegals. Look at any of the many interviews with potential illegals parked in France and they all say the same thing; get to the UK and you get free housing and health care. I doubt they are learning that from the UK press, or even La Monde.

That said, when they get here they are getting free accommodation and health care...

[willendure]

Just to be clear, most immigrants to the UK do not get here via "people smugglers". They get a Visa. Illegal immigration is but a tiny fraction of the total number. Just sayin, because a lot of people do not seem to know that and conflate "immigrant" with "arrived on a small boat".

I think they got it right in Japan. Population is aging and shrinking, but they never allowed mass immigration, although recently Japan is getting more immigrants. This caused a decline in GDP. But the people themselves did not get poorer - if anything richer as a smaller population inheritted the wealth of a larger one.

A government wants a high GDP so it can do stuff with it - often stupid stuff like starting a war, or building a high speed rail line that costs way too much and gets half cancelled so is basically just about useless anyway. They inflate away the populations wealth as a result. It isn't really what people want, would be better to allow people to accumulate wealth, live more healthily, work less, put up with less political tension caused by immigration.

[Protagoras]

A government wants a high GDP so it can do stuff with it - often stupid stuff like starting a war, or building a high speed rail line that costs way too much and gets half cancelled so is basically just about useless anyway. They inflate away the populations wealth as a result. It isn't really what people want, would be better to allow people to accumulate wealth, live more healthily, work less, put up with less political tension caused by immigration.

Inflation is great for governments that rely on long term debt funding, since it erodes the cost of debt. Inflation acts then as a hidden additional tax on the population most of whom don't really seem to understand inflation. This is not helped by published charts that should inflation vs time, so that a falling curve on the chart is considered 'good' and many seem to think that it means stuff is cheaper!

The old paradigm where people would buy a house, have a family and accumulate wealth is wearing thin. For many, it's harder than ever to accumulate wealth while government increasingly thinks that the state is entitled to a share of one's wealth - either by wealth or inheritance taxes. Taxing wealth will lead the government to run out of other peoples' money!

The time for a wholesale review of the scope of government and its cost base is long overdue. If we could work out the cost structure, a UBI could replace all benefits and state pension while getting rid of admin costs. Costings I've seen to date for this don't work because they don't remove benefits. Wealth and inheritance taxes don't work, so need to be replaced too. What we have is a complex system that doesn't't work properly and which we simply can't afford.

We also need to stop renting essential services and take into state ownership. That's water, gas, electricity, ports, etc which only need to make sufficient income to cover costs and investment, not make profit for foreign companies.

As an aside, when speaking to people about the forthcoming elections, many are not voting - because there's no one they want to vote for. Really need to capture this on the voting forms with a 'none of the above' so that it's clear that it's not apathy that's stopping people voting, it's the absence of parties and candidates with attractive policies.

[willendure]

As an aside, when speaking to people about the forthcoming elections, many are not voting - because there's no one they want to vote for. Really need to capture this on the voting forms with a 'none of the above' so that it's clear that it's not apathy that's stopping people voting, it's the absence of parties and candidates with attractive policies.

Yeah. Greens are doing well in the polls but their policies make them out to be the biggest opium addicts of all (OPM addict = Other Peoples Money addict). We all know that we need green policies, its just that the party that used to campaign for that are now hard socialist, and seem to talk more about wealth taxes and identity politics than environmental ones.

I'm going to vote for Reform at the next election. It will be a disaster in many respects if they get in, and their policies are mostly fantasy. But if they can massively cut immigration it will be a step in the right direction, and the whole thing could be the sort of wrecking ball that we need to reset politics.

But I agree, how to pick out of the options on offer when they all look so bad ?

That is a symptom of the underlying problem though, which is that fiat money unbacked by anything is eroding everything. Some kind of partial return to a gold standard seems inevitable. Short term I think there is a massive liquidity shock incoming when the second order effects of the Iran war hit, we already have had the first wave. Gold will pull back a lot. After that, the money printing will be unbelievable.