you can never save enough

[expat]

I'd like to lift this one out of the "Oh dear: 8 out of ten tempted to vote for BNP..." because it's a quite different point.

The only sustainable solution to our pension deficit is for people to save more for themselves while they are earning.

Isn't the problem that it only works if you save more and others do not? The problem is not lack of savings, it's lack of working people to do the work for those who want to be retired.

I don't mean a lack of working people to come up with the money to support the oldsters: money is only a means of exchange. I mean a lack of people to fix cars and plumbing, deliver meals-on-wheels, do home care, all the things that retired people will need a workforce to do for them. There just won't be a big enough workforce. If you have saved and others have not, you're OK: you can just outbid them. But you can't fix the general shortage by having everybody save more: all that will do is put up the price of labour.

(A similar logical problem arises in housing: particularly old people's, in this context. If everybody saves more for their retirement home, it just puts the price up. Rather in the same way as upping the threshold for stamp duty from 120k to 125k just puts the price of all the 119500 flats up to 124500. You can tweak the market, but never by pretending that it's a hand of cards that's already been dealt).

[milanbenes]

thanks for that Expat,

nice one

Milan.

[Churchill]

Surely the philosophy should be. Save loads, die young, don't collect, let the annuity companies keep the lot...

[Shimano105]

No one listening to you in the pub then cowpat?

[expat]

No one listening to you in the pub then cowpat?

On yer bike, blue balls!

[expat]

Surely the philosophy should be. Save loads, die young, don't collect, let the annuity companies keep the lot...

I prefer quit now (in your head), pay cash, don't retire, and die broke.

[BlasterBates]

You've hit the nail on the head.

A lot of people fail to realise this. They think everyone will retire and someone will serve you lunch at the local pub.

THERE WON'T BE A LOCAL PUB.....

or for that matter newsagent, plumber....etc etc.

But think ......

What will this mean....lack of labour ?? hmm think so...inflation yup, erosion of savings, yup right again..

so it means people who work will earn a fortune, people who have money at the bank will have their saving frittered away due to the high cost of labour. (eg "yes sir that will be £5000 for fixing your drainpipe")


...so...that means 80 year olds all signing up for plumbing classes.

Me ...well my plan is to f** off to Asia, where they'll be plenty of young people, and plumbers willing to work for only £100 an hour.

[Gold Dalek]

"Me ...well my plan is to f** off to Asia, where they'll be plenty of young people, and plumbers willing to work for only £100 an hour."

I think the authorities are clamping down on this kind of behaviour!!

[ALM]

But you can't fix the general shortage by having everybody save more: all that will do is put up the price of labour.

Ah, but an increase in the price of labour in this industry will also lead to an increase in the supply of such labour as more and more people join the industry, enticed by the money. Indeed, working in the 'care' industry is actually becoming more and more lucrative by the day.

[wendigo100]

But you can't fix the general shortage by having everybody save more: all that will do is put up the price of labour.

What you seem to have forgotten is that, by saving more, working people are spending less, which drives the price of labour back down again.