To think there is no more money?

Yes but for much of that time on average they will have been taking out more than they are putting in.

No-one is saying that pensions shouldn't exist, just that we need to accept that if we are going to have benefits and public services then we have to pay for them in our working life and we haven't been paying enough for it to be sustainable.

And these mythical billionaires are not going to cover the shortfall.

It's awful.

What we really need is people who know how to manage and resource in charge of things, but I think those people are in short supply (especially those that would actually want to do it).

You see it on a smaller scale in private companies with badly run teams. The resource could be used so much better but managers don't know how to do it.

We need the managers of well run, effective and efficient departments to be in charge of LAs and the country.

Some will, some won’t. But most lower than average earners take out more than they put in, even if they have paid some tax and nic.

@Curryle3af people pay nowhere near enough tax and NI to fund the benefits they currently receive in retirement.

No, I am not arguing we don’t have state pensions, I’m merely pointing out the issue that funding them through the current model is unsustainable.

Everyone needs to be paying more tax during their working life if they want a raft of state-backed benefits and services.

As @Badbadbunny days above, pensioners are for example excluded from NICs, despite many earning good incomes from private pensions.

Our local council spent £300k to refurbish our tiny village library. Then closed it down less than a year later. Everything ended up in a few huge skips including all the new shelving, desks, chairs and loads of books. They cleared it out. Then they decided a year later to reopen it and bought everything new again. Monumental amounts of money are wasted due to poor administration and mismanagement.

There's three things that can be done, one is borrow more and another is make more and finally change the expenditure allocation. None of these things should be done without due consideration and it's only been 2 weeks, it would be irresponsible to make promises before you work out a plan

It they will have paid tax and NI all their lives. What do you expect? People not to have a pension? How does that work?

But not nic

Money is a finite resource, yes. It can be invested, interest rates can be tweaked etc etc etc but yes, eventually there will be no more.

It's the way it's allocated and used that's important. For example, I was speaking to someone who works in a hospital near us. A million pounds was used to create a board room. Which was then turned back into office space (a cost there obviously). They are now talking about turning it back into a boardroom. That's not using their allocated funds correctly, in my opinion.

That's what needs to be looked at. The resource, the financials, all of it. Is it being used appropriately to run vital services? If not, what can be changed?

@Curryle3af doesnt make any difference if they have some private income, they are still costing the state a significant amount which is funded by current workers.

Surely, giving 'poor' people money means it goes straight back into the system? UC, child benefit, disability etc... most people don't put it in the bank, they spend it benefiting, for example, businesses who employ people and pay tax.

A lot of 'benefits' like tax breaks favour the rich who tend to put that money in the bank and save it for their heirs.

Tightening up tax loop holes, stopping moving money offshore, too much foreign investment, cracking down on bad landlords and government spending waste, would be a start!

Right but the vast majority have private or occupational pensions ( and other investments) in addition on which they pay tax.

There's no money for schools. Only if you properly fund them, children get better educations and go on to have better jobs that pay more taxes.

There is no money for healthcare. Only if you provide timely, effective healthcare people get the treatment they need before things get so back that their treatment is costly and ineffective and they cannot work.

There is no money for prisons etc. Only if you provide prisons with enough support to help criminals turn their lives around, some will do so and won't be repeat visitors.

There is no money for social housing. Only good quality social housing is a great deal cheaper than paying private rents.

Money must be spent to save money.

@Curryle3af they are eligible for an income from the state with amount to ~£10k a year minimum.

Plus winter fuel allowance, bus pass, free prescriptions etc.

Our model of funding the state pension assumed a large pool of workers and small number of pensioners - this now isn’t the case.

Pensioners pay tax on their income.

It’s not a lie - and you are being overly simplistic just looking at the employment rate.

The number of workers to pensioners for example, is currently 3 workers per pensioner.

By 2050 that will more closer to 2 workers per pensioner.

Then we have the issue that the majority of the tax burden falls on a smaller and smaller group, as others are lifted out of tax entirely.

The money markets and IMF also agreed the money had to be spent, not just in the UK but most other developed countries too. That’s why it didn’t crash the economy, bugger our credit rating nor cause massive inflation nor exchange rate disasters.

Massive amounts of what was spent was wasted - yet the news of that hasn't buggered our credit rating either.

If anything it was Liz Truss's low tax low spend offering that sent everything to shit . The money markets & imf like investment when its properly thought out.

So true. We also need investment from overseas at the moment so they need to keep a steady ship and not spook any potential investments. They need to play the long game.

Totally. That is something we can change. We actually have a lot of power as consumers.

They aren’t. They are focussing on growing the economy. That’s why they can’t just scrap the two child benefit cap. I’m sure they want to make changes to child poverty, and education is the current focus for that, but until they have grown and stabilised the economy, they can’t just borrow and spend. Things are such a mess, it will take two terms to get things sorted to any level that I’d be happy with. But with WWIII possibly on the horizon and the chaos and risk that will come with climate chaos, they are going to struggle. They are working in very uncertain and difficult times.

We also need to actually stop buying in so much cheap crap from china. They don't even buy it themselves they only sell it to us.

People need to change their view on investment spending.

Debt to invest in assets that will support economic growth is not a bad thing. Funding for transport & infrastructure. Funding for universities & schools.

For a long time a lot of economic "growth" in the west has been fueled by:

• population growth. More people, more consumption, even though most people don't feel better off
• leveraging cheap labour from the east/3rd world

Neither of these are sustainable.

Good growth needs to come from innovation. In energy production etc. We need to invest to encourage innovation.

We should also fundamentally rethink how we value governments etc. Gdp is meaningless if most people can't afford to live, economic growth on a systemic level doesn't achieve anything if the value produced isn't well distributed.

But we’ve had a balance of payments deficit for a couple of decades so money does flow out of the country. That’s why other countries are happy to lend money to the UK!

The money markets and IMF also agreed the money had to be spent, not just in the UK but most other developed countries too. That’s why it didn’t crash the economy, bugger our credit rating nor cause massive inflation nor exchange rate disasters.