BBC News - Public sector strike set to be largest for a generation
We've known for more than 40 years that the postwar baby boom would make the state pension systems of European countries unsustainable. Governments have procrastinated, prevaricated and kicked the can down the road, and now, with a worldwide financial crisis caused partly by governments continually overspending, the tulip is hitting the fan and all governments in the western world need to make savings.
One way I feel they could make large, immediate and permanent savings is to raise pension age as of tomorrow morning, not in 5 or 15 years' time, but tomorrow morning. I've always argued that that would allow the pension age to be raised by a small amount of time, perhaps 6 or 9 months. But now things have changed and public finances are not much good, so I feel that pension age in most European countries should actually rise by two years with immediate effect. Anything else is stealing from younger people who cannot be confident they'll ever get a pension. I feel George Osborne is acting too softly on state and public sector pensions and needs to man up and tackle this head on. An immediate rise in pension age would also give a signal to the world that European countries are getting their house in order.
The strikers know that their pensions are unsustainable, but still they demand to retire while they're still young and healthy enough to work and contribute. Who's going to pay if they get what they want? That's right; their own children, who'lll never be able to get a pension, won't be able to study without building up huge debts, won't be able to take healthcare for granted and will have to pay ever higher social contributions to finance an unsustainable system.
The strikers are attempting to literally steal from their own children and grandchildren and they disgust me.
We've known for more than 40 years that the postwar baby boom would make the state pension systems of European countries unsustainable. Governments have procrastinated, prevaricated and kicked the can down the road, and now, with a worldwide financial crisis caused partly by governments continually overspending, the tulip is hitting the fan and all governments in the western world need to make savings.
One way I feel they could make large, immediate and permanent savings is to raise pension age as of tomorrow morning, not in 5 or 15 years' time, but tomorrow morning. I've always argued that that would allow the pension age to be raised by a small amount of time, perhaps 6 or 9 months. But now things have changed and public finances are not much good, so I feel that pension age in most European countries should actually rise by two years with immediate effect. Anything else is stealing from younger people who cannot be confident they'll ever get a pension. I feel George Osborne is acting too softly on state and public sector pensions and needs to man up and tackle this head on. An immediate rise in pension age would also give a signal to the world that European countries are getting their house in order.
The strikers know that their pensions are unsustainable, but still they demand to retire while they're still young and healthy enough to work and contribute. Who's going to pay if they get what they want? That's right; their own children, who'lll never be able to get a pension, won't be able to study without building up huge debts, won't be able to take healthcare for granted and will have to pay ever higher social contributions to finance an unsustainable system.
The strikers are attempting to literally steal from their own children and grandchildren and they disgust me.
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