to say this to all the teachers who are striking next week

[Memoo]

As a parent I am 100 % behind you.

I really appreciate that you put your life and soul into your job and im sorry more people don't get just how hard you work for the benefit of our children.

Don't let the bastards grind you down!

With the need for investment (to get us out of this debt and to borrow to pay the deficit) we need to show we can balance our liabilities. A typical way foreign countries look into if a country is worth investing in (esp buying Government gilts) is looking at liabilities such as pensions (this has been examined in detail in countries such as Greece and Italy and Spain and their high unfunded pension liabilities are a big part of the problem. The countries credit score (AAA is the highest) also reflects the likely interest rate any borrowed money may be charged at . We are borrowing so much we really do not want to lower our rating. What Branson pays for a bank makes no difference.

ps, we may yet make profit on the bank bailout.

I am all for closing tax havan loop holes (tax where profit is made not where a brass plaques exists ). I have no doubt both sides are working on solutions ( maybe to differing degress and willingness to implement them- who knows) but seeing how other countries have such difficulties and accountants are great at tax avoidance I do not hold my breath (the opposition didn't manage it).

The government has been working on reducing tax relief on pension contributions from high earners:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11605558

iggly2

"Have you realised the generosity of the current scheme"

but up thread we were told that no-one leaving uni ever thought about their pension.

so which is it?

iggly2

"ps, we may yet make profit on the bank bailout."

Look

over there

its a flying pig

Boney back guardian website (pretty left wing):

? Since 2007 the UK has committed to spending £1.162 trillion at various points on bailing out the banks. This figure has however fluctuated wildly during the period and by March 2011 it was £456.33bn. That total outstanding support was equivalent to 31% of GDP in March.

? The £456.33bn figure breaks down into £123.93bn in loan or share purchases, which required a cash injection from the government to the banks, and £332.4bn in guarantees and indemnities which haven't actually been paid, but were offered to shore up the failing bank system.

? Of the £123.93bn, the Royal Bank of Scotland received £45.80bn, Lloyds £20.54bn, Northern Rock a total of £22.99bn, Bradford and Bingley £8.55bn and a further £26.05bn went on "loans to support deposit".

? By March 2011 the Treasury had received £11.75bn in fees and interest on the £332.4bn guarantee schemes.

Look at the reduction also on the page an economist (views held elsewhere) believes a profit will be made. So of the £456.33bn a total £332.4bn is in reserve just in case. Seems uite small in comparison to £770 billion-1,176 billion in unfunded public sector pension costs.

Oh we still have lots of shares to sell.

link:

www.guardian.co.uk/politics/reality-check-with-polly-curtis/2011/sep/12/reality-check-banking-bailout

I'm behind teachers striking but out of courtsey beleive they should inform the headteacher if they will be striking or not to allow for planning on the day of the strike, as parents need to be able to make arrangements fr thier children and work responsibilities. It tough times for everyone

Financial industry makes up a bigger % of GDP than manufacturing we have unfortunately done away with so much industry that we do rely on financial services (and selling these financial services abroad). I do not know what would have happened if there was no bailout and nor does anyone else. The rising age and pension crisis is infact (relatively) more easily predicted. What the bank crises did is bring it more to the forefront.

Opps , crisis (though I have made so many other spelling errors I do not know why I correct that one).

iggly, it seems you're completely wasting your time with your reasoned and well researched points.

The people to whom you're trying to explain the blunt truth just don't care. They want to keep their pensions and they don't mind who has to pay for it, just so long as it's not them.

We've had:

It's not fair;
It's not what we signed up to;
We're trying to protect public services (honest);
Race to the bottom;
Tax the rich (even more);
It's the Tories' fault;
There's a surplus;
Reforms are a tax on the public sector;
Everyone in the private sector gets paid more and has bonuses and company cars;
etc, etc, etc.

The thing is, graduates who enter teaching IME do it for a mix of reasons, of which financial rewards (short term in the form of salary, or long term in the form of pensions) are only ever a part.

Graduates will never enter teaching rather than law or banking if they are solely motivated by money, and it is bonkers to try to increase teachers' remuneration to try to sway those who are only motivated in that way.

Graduates who enter teaching mostly have - though few would call it that - a 'vocation', a calling. Whether that be because they have been inspired by a fabulous teacher, because they have a family background of teaching, because they want to 'make a difference', it is MORE than just a financial reason.

(It's a bit like saying that if the pay for vicars was higher, we'd get more people applying to join the clergy - it might make a difference at the margins BUT in the end joing the church is a question of vocation first and foremost).

Of course there are reasons of local jobs, job security, child-friendly holidays, love of subject, interest in children and education, comfort factor (becoming a teacher as a new graduate means never leaving that 'known' environment of school) etc. But I think it is possible to over-estimate the influence that level of remuneration has on the career choice on that subset of graduates who might ever consider teaching.

ShellyBoobs

and every question that has been asked by the public sector has either been ignored or answered from a paper with a lack of proof/transparency from its source material.

teacherwith, remuneration might not be a major recruitment incentive, but a retention one? When the bright-eyed graduate has given teaching a few years and, like most do, is thinking about leaving and checks out the competition?

I consider teaching my vocation however I would be lying if I did not admit that my pension and reasonable salary have kept me in the career.

The word vocation can often be translated into " an excuse for poor remuneration "

Right iggly, you keep saying: Public sector pensions underfunded by £770-1,176 billion.

Upthread it was posted that 29k wasn't a lot of money if spread over a teaching career, and someone else pointed out that it depended on how much money you were making.

So, can you please help. £770 billion obviously sounds like a lot of money. But, how many years is this spread out over? What percentage of GDP is it per year? Is this going up or down? What are the percentages for other expenditures for comparison? What percentage is being written off in unclaimed tax from corporations. Does this £770 billion represent good value for money?

Also, your report says that pensions represent 40% of salary and only 20% of salary is paid in by employees and employers so 20% is what we should get. Is that a 50% reduction in the value of my pension they're proposing? I'd like to see some concrete figures. And where are the calculations for the number of people who will drop out of the schemes because they can't afford the increased contributions? That surely has to be balanced against any deficit because they should be paying for current pensions and the fact that they won't be claiming a pension won't come into effect for many years yet.

teacherwith2kids I have several teachers in my immediate and extended family. Several of my friends are teachers, too. None of them had exam grades or degrees good enough to go into the law, or medicine, or engineering, or banking, or accountancy. Not one of them.

thetasigmamum

"teacherwith2kids I have several teachers in my immediate and extended family. Several of my friends are teachers, too. None of them had exam grades or degrees good enough to go into the law, or medicine, or engineering, or banking, or accountancy. Not one of them."

you do know that the last three don't require a degree?
and the first two would require a degree in law or medicine not a teaching degree, so apples and oranges spring to mind.

That is not my experience. Everyone in my department has a 2:1 or 1st. In fact I think I may be the only one in my department without a 1st.

Anyone can call themselves an accountant, without any sort of qualification at all. Professional accountants require at the least good A levels (incuding maths)with 5 or 6years of professional training and examinations. The bankers who earn the money, and all engineers, require high levels of numeracy. And the ones with the really good jobs are mainly graduates (certainly the ones in their 30s and 40s). None of the teachers I know, save for one, have a maths A level. None of them went to a Russell Group university and none of them got great grades for the A levels they did do. The one exception on the maths A level front got a D (in the early 80s, worth more these days obviously). And he is a maths teacher.

I know there are plenty of teachers who got 3 As and went to Oxbridge. But there are a lot more who didn't. I think it's more than a little disingenuous to pretend that all teachers teach because they have a vocation, and that all of them could easily get a better paying job in the private sector. Most of them couldn't. Many of them opted for teaching because they didn't have a huge range of options available to them.

I did go to a Russell group, I did get top grades at A level. I didn't do A level maths though although I don't teach maths or a science. I think I am quite the norm tbh. In my current school I am the resident low achiever.

Incidentally - my DH is a teacher. As are most of his family.

Nobel, perhaps I can help a little

"Outstanding public sector pension liabilities will not need to be paid off in a single year, but if they continue to grow, they would lead to very high annual costs that would largely fall on taxpayers. If, as discussed in Chapter 1, the ratio of workers to pensioners falls, these annual costs may well become intolerable."

A) Aren't they shown to be falling?
B) If people start to drop out of the scheme, won't that add to the intolerable cost?

"In 2010-11, £18 billion is projected to come from taxpayers (£13.5 billion of employer contributions and £4.5 billion from the Treasury)"

So - we are looking at a shortfall of £4.5billion - doesn't sound so much compared to the hefty amount needed to bail out the Banks does it?

^"To understand these annual costs, we must examine how the annual payments to current retirees are met. Because the schemes are unfunded, payments this year to retirees are met by this year?s employer and
employee contributions, with the Treasury making up the difference."^

Again, the high drop out rate and probably the number of job cuts, is going to add to those figures

However...^The Treasury does not provide a breakdown of employee and employer contributions, merely giving the aggregate figure (as shown in the table above). Despite this lack of transparency, it is possible to provide a
robust estimate of the employer share.^

So, looks a little more like there is room for negotiation there, doesn't it iggly perhaps not needing all three strikes as they are trying.

Out of interest, I wonder how much money they recieve back from tax? Oh and I wonder if the future projections are based on everyone staying in the scheme for 40+ years?

www.public-sector-pensions-commission.org.uk/wp-content/themes/pspc/images/Public-Sector-Pensions-Commission-Report.pdf

twinklytroll if you don't have a maths A level then how could you be confident you could get a big money job in the private sector? I mean - I know you didn't make that claim so it's a bit unfair quizzing you when the people who have made those claims have disappeared - but unless a teacher has a degree in law or a MFL, without at least some numeracy I think s/he would struggle to earn more than they do in teaching, in the private sector. I know for a fact that despite my qualifications I would not be able to teach a load of school kids. I am always amazed that so many teachers are so confident they could do everybody else's job if only they wanted to. Obviously self confidence is a good trait in teachers but some seem to take it a bit far.