UK - Election 2015

[Craig B]

Countless regular people have more than one income source as well.

Yes, but you are commenting on

No other sources of income allowed while they're an MP - being an MP should be a full time job.

MPs are not regular people, in that they are legislators. That is a full time status, and thus a "full time job". Also they are not regular people, in that they often are paid to exert political influence on behalf of their employers, when they take "other jobs". MPs are employed by the electors to exercise sovereignty on behalf of the people, and have responsibilities, as they have privileges, that regular people do not possess.

 

[Francesca R]

Perhaps. I am not sure it is always a full time job. And conflicts of interest are all over professional life and can't be easily all regulated completely away and MPs still have responsibilities even in the absence of prohibitions on outside employment.

 

[Information Analyst]

No not "swings and roundabouts" and not it all comes out in the wash either. Increasing longevity has not been cyclical, neither has been decreasing fertility. There is not much evidence that (falling) real interest rates, which affect the annuity value of savings, are mean reverting either. Investment returns (over and above real rates) might be but the cycles are something like once a generation, so due to chance you could experience all swings or all roundabouts. And investment returns are not part of the deal for PAYG pensions anyway. Moreover no future pensioner can hedge these risks. They can only be made to be equitably shared by the scheme operation itself.

As above all four of these variables have changed such that they favoured older generations at the expense of younger generations at the same time. Because older generations were systematically immunised against all of them through the design of DB pensions and younger generations were systematically exposed to all of them by the same design

Your swings and roundabouts assumption is a grossly erroneous hand wave.

Yeah, I thought you'd say something like that. Defined benefits pensions are not the same a defined contribution pensions. Tough. For decades public sector jobs traditionally paid less than the private sector equivalent, only balancing out when pensions were taken into account (that we have a slight reverse situation as the result of events in the last few years doesn't cancel that out). I'd have been quite happy to have paid more and made my own arrangements (my father was a financial advisor who always seemed to do well for his client). Trying to significantly reduce the payout of existing public sector defined benefit pensions now is pretty much the same as suddenly demanding the worker pays back previous salary because of a retrospective decision that teh employer would be in a better position if they hadn't previous paid them so much.

 

[Francesca R]

Your wilful desire to see the issue as public sector versus private sector or even employee versus employer is such that you are not arguing against anything I have written in this thread. Aside from your grossly incorrect assumptions about "swings and roundabouts" where you once-only appeared to focus on the matter I am writing about, you have a hold of the wrong end of the wrong stick in the wrong forest.

You are having your own personal tirade which you are welcome to continue and which will likely get no response from me. Enjoy.

 

[GlennB]

Trying to significantly reduce the payout of existing public sector defined benefit pensions now is pretty much the same as suddenly demanding the worker pays back previous salary because of a retrospective decision that teh employer would be in a better position if they hadn't previous paid them so much.

Er, hardly. Salaries are typically adjusted annually and can quickly reflect changing circumstances such as inflation, profitability etc etc. Committing to certain pension arrangements decades ago - at a time of relatively high birthrate and low post-retirement life expectancy - was very different. And stupid.

Unfortunately logic gets washed away in a tide of resentment - not to mention lost votes - from those who stand to gain by maintaining the staus quo.

I posted this earlier and it got no response, so will try again:

The travails of the French pension system

 

[angrysoba]

Given the choice between two similar candidates, one who wants to devote all his time to the MP job, and a second who wants to carry on his job as a dentist and only devote 50% of his time to the MP job, which one should I vote for?

So he has two surgeries?

 

[Francesca R]

Unfortunately logic gets washed away in a tide of resentment - not to mention lost votes - from those who stand to gain by maintaining the staus quo.

This is why it is unethical (and indefensible).

Typically those who stand to gain will try to misrepresent the situation as "public sector versus private" or "employee versus employer" and try to falsely position themselves as the victim rather than beneficiary of unfairness.

 

[Information Analyst]

Your wilful desire to see the issue as public sector versus private sector or even employee versus employer is such that you are not arguing against anything I have written in this thread.

No, the bottom line is that you cannot accept that defined benefit PAYG pensions exist, and are diffrent from what you think all pensions should be. I'm truly sorry that the maginificent edifice that is the financial services industry seems so great at enriching the people who work within it, but doesn't seem capable of supplying a comparable pension product for its customers. The answer to that disparity is that the latter should do better, not abolish the former.

 

[Information Analyst]

Typically those who stand to gain will try to misrepresent the situation as "public sector versus private" or "employee versus employer" and try to falsely position themselves as the victim rather than beneficiary of unfairness.

LOL! You've obviously missed all the resentful whinging in the right-wing press about "gold-plated public sector pensions." It's the private sector that has sought to drive this wedge, not the public sector.

 

[Information Analyst]

Er, hardly. Salaries are typically adjusted annually and can quickly reflect changing circumstances such as inflation, profitability etc etc. Committing to certain pension arrangements decades ago - at a time of relatively high birthrate and low post-retirement life expectancy - was very different.

Well, maybe they shouldn't have bothered, and instead paid public sector staff wages comparable to the private sector, and let them make their own pension arrangements. Only they didn't. Like I said, the average NHS pension is around £8,000 a year. The greedy bastards!

 

[The Don]

Well, maybe they shouldn't have bothered, and instead paid public sector staff wages comparable to the private sector, and let them make their own pension arrangements. Only they didn't. Like I said, the average NHS pension is around £8,000 a year. The greedy bastards!

An "average of £8,000 a year" hides a multitude of sins....

What I believe it is supposed to make those of us who have private sector pensions is that, after working their entire career in the NHS, the average pension is £8,000 a year. This is hardly exceptional but because the pension is (AFAIK) index linked and can be taken at 60 I suppose it's the equivalent of a private pension fund of around £200k (or about 5 times the size of the average private pension find)

In truth any average is skewed by very large and very small numbers. In the case of NHS pensions, that's a large number of people with small pensions because they only worked in the NHS for a few years.

Attempting to understand the scheme that was in place a few years ago, an employee buys 1/80ths or 1/60ths of their "pensionable pay" - I think the best of their last three years. Someone on £25k a year with 40 years service would retire on half their salary (£12.5k) and a lump sum of around £37k. This is by no means gold-plated but senior people in particular don't do too badly out of it. To get an equivalent index linked annuity would cost £300-£400k.

 

[Francesca R]

LOL! You've obviously missed all the resentful whinging in the right-wing press about "gold-plated public sector pensions." It's the private sector that has sought to drive this wedge, not the public sector.

Whatever the right wing press is rabbiting about is as irrelevant to my position as what the Saskatchewan Cooperative Commonwealth Federation Party newsletter is writing about.

You are merely desperate to make my argument about something that it is not. Case in point in seeking a distraction from the issue raised, which you evidently have no clue about and no defence of.

 

[Information Analyst]

An "average of £8,000 a year" hides a multitude of sins....

What I believe it is supposed to make those of us who have private sector pensions is that, after working their entire career in the NHS, the average pension is £8,000 a year. This is hardly exceptional but because the pension is (AFAIK) index linked and can be taken at 60 I suppose it's the equivalent of a private pension fund of around £200k (or about 5 times the size of the average private pension find)

In truth any average is skewed by very large and very small numbers. In the case of NHS pensions, that's a large number of people with small pensions because they only worked in the NHS for a few years.

Attempting to understand the scheme that was in place a few years ago, an employee buys 1/80ths or 1/60ths of their "pensionable pay" - I think the best of their last three years. Someone on £25k a year with 40 years service would retire on half their salary (£12.5k) and a lump sum of around £37k. This is by no means gold-plated but senior people in particular don't do too badly out of it. To get an equivalent index linked annuity would cost £300-£400k.

All true, but it does overlook the basic fact that that's what people signed employment contracts on the basis of, accepting lower salaries than comparable private sector jobs as a trade-off against the assurance of a certain type and level of pension. It's understandable that those people might raise an eyebrow at the blithe suggestion that those agreements should be unilaterally and retrospectively ripped up.

 

[Information Analyst]

Case in point in seeking a distraction from the issue raised, which you evidently have no clue about and no defence of.

I guess that's a fair trade-off against your wish to screw little people, who are evidently of no concern to you, out of agreements they signed up for decades ago.

Blocked.

 

[The Don]

All true, but it does overlook the basic fact that that's what people signed employment contracts on the basis of, accepting lower salaries than comparable private sector jobs as a trade-off against the assurance of a certain type and level of pension. It's understandable that those people might raise an eyebrow at the blithe suggestion that those agreements should be unilaterally and retrospectively ripped up.

Sure, but recognise that the "Average NHS Pension is £8k" is a canny attempt to mislead.

The other thing I think needs to be explored is whether public sector pay is indeed lower than private sector pay for comparable roles. There's a lot of noise to the contrary - how reliable that is is another matter:

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-26512643

Public sector workers are paid on average 14.5% more than those in the private sector, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...r-pay-gap-is-5000-or-a-fifth-of-earnings.html

The think tank said teachers, doctors, nurses and other state employees received an average of £28,000 a year, while private workers received £27,000.

 

[3point14]

All true, but it does overlook the basic fact that that's what people signed employment contracts on the basis of, accepting lower salaries than comparable private sector jobs as a trade-off against the assurance of a certain type and level of pension. It's understandable that those people might raise an eyebrow at the blithe suggestion that those agreements should be unilaterally and retrospectively ripped up.

Nobody's told me yet which financial contracts I can rely on and which I can't.

 

[3point14]

"The think tank said teachers, doctors, nurses and other state employees received an average of £28,000 a year, while private workers received £27,000. "

The highly qualified are paid more than the average? clolour me suprised...

Or is that just the start of the list? Are there less qualified workers on that list?