Have we done this already? Let the taxpayer insure your mortgage

[TheBigD]

True, but who has destroyed our pensions since 1997 and increased taxes our savings, by reducing the tax-free allowance when bringing in ISAs !! Failing to encourage saving and encouraging benefit-scroungers by discouraging marriage is one of the worst crimes of this HMG.

Wasn't it Norman Lamont who first reduced the amount private sector companies could put into final salary pension schemes?

[expat]

Labour have destroyed pensions except for gold-plated ones in the public sector. Not only will people not get proper pensions, but HMG will lose out on tax that they would have got through these people when their pensions are paid, and also have to pay additional benefits via pension supplements.
Thus a double whammy for all future taxpayers and the economy as pensioners' spending power is reduced.

True, but not actually relevant to my point. It is not because of NL that Boomers around the western world have not saved enough. Hence why I feel hijacked: I made what I thought was a good, general, and important point about retirement and demographics in the west, and you took it and used it as a narrow anti-NL rant.


I'll make another one, and you can't blame that on NL: it doesn't matter how much people have saved, they will not all be able to afford a decent retirement because there simply will not be enough non-retired people to run the place and provide them with what they hope to have. People save for their retirement in order to be able to buy the goods and service that they want, but these come from the working population, which is shrinking. If retirees all save more, it just means that what they buy will cost more; until demand drops back to match supply again.

[Cyberman]

Wasn't it Norman Lamont who first reduced the amount private sector companies could put into final salary pension schemes?

This was probably to stop directors embezzling company funds into their own pension schemes.

In normal company schemes, the company matches at least what the employee puts in. Thus it is very worthwhile being a member of a company scheme, but unfortunately most final-salary schemes have ceased because HMG's stealth tax since 1997 made them unaffordable.

[Bagpuss]

Hence why I feel hijacked: I made what I thought was a good, general, and important point about retirement and demographics in the west, and you took it and used it as a narrow anti-NL rant.

Have you only just noticed the MO of every post he EVER replies to?

[Cyberman]

True, but not actually relevant to my point. It is not because of NL that Boomers around the western world have not saved enough. Hence why I feel hijacked: I made what I thought was a good, general, and important point about retirement and demographics in the west, and you took it and used it as a narrow anti-NL rant.


I'll make another one, and you can't blame that on NL: it doesn't matter how much people have saved, they will not all be able to afford a decent retirement because there simply will not be enough non-retired people to run the place and provide them with what they hope to have. People save for their retirement in order to be able to buy the goods and service that they want, but these come from the working population, which is shrinking. If retirees all save more, it just means that what they buy will cost more; until demand drops back to match supply again.

So how does making most pensioners worse off actually help them ? Please explain. Do you mean that the ploy is to make them have to continue working ?

[expat]

So how does making most pensioners worse off actually help them ? Please explain. Do you mean that the ploy is to make them have to continue working ?

I spoke of no ploy. I didn't say that anybody made pensioners worse off. I am not claiming that anybody is helping them.

Unsuccessful hijack, apparent relation to original must exceed 0%.