To think we are becoming a much poorer country?

[Felixss]

I keep seeing on threads increase taxes on the rich , increase salaries, increase nhs spending and increase benefits. People are acting like we are still hugely wealthy and everyone wants to come over. Poland is predicted to overtake us economically. I can earn twice my salary abroad and I'm thinking of leaving. Where is the money going to come from with a shrinking work force and low investment in new technology? AIBU to think the UK is hugely declining ?

It's just income tax. Everyone should get the basic pension at retirement age. Like a universal basic income. Then means test for anything above the basic. Simple. It's not like we want anyone to starve so what if you hadn't done 40 years? You'd still get a pension?

At the moment it's just unnecessarily complicated

The only way forward for the UK is individual contributory accounts.

This way when people say "I paid in all my life I deserve it". You nod, and then check their lifetime of individual contributions.

If they haven't paid enough...sorry. You don't get more over a minimum floor.

Gets rid of all the hassle of interacting with entitled pensioners who cannot do simple math.

I asked you to explain how it was the same apart from the same pot argument. So you repeat the same pot argument. Nobody ever suggested it was hypothecated.

As ever it's the full time working, squeezed middle that are the ones taking the hit and becoming poorer... the rich get richer and those who know how to play the benefits system (mainly by choosing to have kids they can't afford then choosing to work minimal part time hours in order to receive optimum "in work" benefits) continue to be generously rewarded with tax payers money.

I suggest you look at your payslip.

But then again, you don't work.

Oops.

I'm sorry but I think you're just arguing for the sake of it here:

"I asked you to explain how it was the same apart from the same pot argument. So you repeat the same pot argument. Nobody ever suggested it was hypothecated."

All tax is the same because it's the same pot. NI, PAYE, VAT, stamp duty, whatever. That's the point. If you don't want to pay it then don't earn, or buy, or whatever.

Sure different things are taxed at different rates and some are easier to avoid (like by not buying a house) but they're all just general taxation, to be used for whatever the government decides. There is absolutely no way that NI is different, except that pensioners don't pay it.

I’ll look at one of the 44 years worth I’ve got. 😂

Correct.

The issue now is that we have reached the end of the road due to demographics and sickness.

Its called secular stagflation.

What the pensioners dont realise is that they will get hit as well: the drs in the NHS won't be treating them very quickly as there will not be enough of them.

But like I said previously, old people dont change until the get whacked by reality hard. And thats what will happen over the next 24 months.

7.7 Million NHS waiting list?

Thats nothing. Wait till it hits 10M in 2024.

There have been several references to “the next 24 months”. What precisely should we be expecting in mid 2025 @TheThinkingGoblin? A plague on old people? Perhaps not we’ve just had one of those. A smiting in their sleep? Simultaneous spontaneous combustion of everyone over 66 as their pension hits their bank account? What is this mysterious event of which you alone have prior warning?

@Blossomtoes I think you're taking it all very personally. I'd like to explain that I don't blame any individual baby boomer for the shitty mess we're in. I'm pretty sure most younger people would have done exactly the same if we'd been born when you guys were. The only thing I take issue is with people not accepting that IT CANT GO ON!!!
Pensioners are taking more than they put in and the money just isn't there. There aren't enough workers. And the workers that we have got are on the whole significantly poorer than the pensioners they're having to pay for.
I don't want pensioners to starve, of course I don't. There should be a basic pension that everyone gets but that's it. Nothing else (from the state any way) unless you're shown to actually need it through means testing. And pensioners need to pay the same tax rate as everyone else.
It's the only way the whole country won't blow up!

And the bastard triple lock has to go. Obviously.

We are not becoming a poorer nation, we are becoming a more divided one. The top 10% can still spend spend spend, the squeezed middle are struggling and the nhs/social care system is no longer the safety net it should be, its more like a tightrope that has started to unravel . (Not the fault of the staff)

Well done for noticing brexit was the start of the fire sale. Imagine how much easier it would have been to move abroad a few years ago... now you have to hope that you have a skill other countries want.

I think we are messed up. We are spending more on pensions than education, with a dwindling working population that is a mistake, as is having poor healthcare for workers. These things need looking at urgently, and triple lock is something that should apply to education, not pensions.

We need to reappraise what we think about pensions. If you are relying on a state pension for the future alone then that is not enough - women and men now have working lives and they should be contributing to their own pensions. Anyone who has been working in the last 25 years has had quite a long opportunity to get this done. A state pension is the bare minimum. Okay, but we can't as a society keep doing playing to the pensioner vote. Societies need investment in young people. The UK particularly if it is to have a high wage economy.

I’m not taking it remotely personally. I’m sick and bloody tired of boomer bashing. While people like you are busy conducting intergenerational warfare you’re failing to see the current excuse for a government pissing our money away. Liz Truss cost us £30 billion in 49 days - that’s nearly three years pension budget. Taxes are at their highest for 70 years because Sunak has got us into so much debt we’ll be paying £500 billion interest over the next five years. But, yes, blame pensioners and their £200 a week. Have you seen how much pensions are in some other European countries? Check it out, it’ll blow your mind.

https://www.almondfinancial.co.uk/pension-breakeven-index-how-does-the-uk-state-pension-compare-to-the-rest-of-europe/

You need me to explain what is going to happen?

Sure. No problemo.

1. The JDs and Consultants that are striking in the NHS for better pay (due to 35% pay erosion in real terms since 2011) will not back down unless they get 15% or so, with additional increases over the next five years.

1. Current waiting list is 7.7M procedures in the NHS. Thats August 2023.

1. The BOE rate rises over the last 15 months are starting to bite now as people roll-off their existing fixed terms. They will really hit over the next 12 months.

1. You will see a big uptick of people then who will have way less disposable income, so will be unable to pay for private healthcare (as they could have done before). They will then obviously use the NHS.

1. The bottleneck of:

Pensioners + working folks + sick folks over the next 12 - 24 months will be enormous, at a time when there are huge shortages of nurses and Drs, and these last ones will be on strike (so emergency cover only).

1. The 7.7M now in Aug 2023 will balloon to 10M over the coming 12 months, as winter brings the twin problems of covid and flu, which will add to the bottlenecks.

Waiting lists for the NHS will be massive. Specially is you need surgery or specialised care.

We have never seen this kind of congestion in the NHS. Ever.

@Blossomtoes

"Liz Truss cost us £30 billion in 49 days - that’s nearly three years pension budget"

+++

Firstly source for the £30 billion in 49 days?

Secondly the government is expected to spend approximately 112.5 billion British pounds on state pensions in 2022/23. Which is more than the entire education budget.

Plus the government spends a further £57 billion a year on public sector pensions which is more than is spent on Defence or Policing. Plus the deficit on public sector pensions between what has been paid in and what is promised to pay out now stands at £2.3 trillion which is more than the entire value of the UK economy.

www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2023/07/20/public-sector-pension-bill-outstrips-britain-economy/

source: www.statista.com/statistics/283917/uk-state-pension-expenditure/#:~:text=The%20government%20of%20the%20United,pounds%20in%20the%20previous%20year.

Can you now see that it simply cannot carry on like this.

Here you go.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/nov/12/revealed-the-30bn-cost-of-liz-trusss-disastrous-mini-budget

Look Liz Truss and her crazy ideas cost the country a huge amount of money. Nobody is arguing that. But that doesn't change the fact that we can't carry on the way we're going. Do you really think it's right and fair? Really?

Or is it more that you don't care. Because you paid in and now you want to cash out? And fuck the rest of us?

Do you seriously think that giving retired people £200 a week is wrong and unfair? Really? How much do you think it should be? In a country that’s paying £10 billion a week interest on its national debt because of its government’s incompetence? Focus on the cause of the problem - it’s not pensioners.

I have corrected you DOZENS of times on this post.

Stop posting blatantly incorrect information.

This really is not hard. Let me take out the sock puppets.

40 years contribution at 12% per year

Vs

35 years contribution at 6% per year

Which one do you think gives you a higher pension?

If you cannot answer this question, then my advice is to stop posting until you educate yourself enough about basic financial math.

That’s completely nonsensical. Want to try again?

The rest of Europe pays a higher state pension as they pay way more in. As do the persons employer. In a lot of EU countries there is no such thing as a private or workplace pension. Your company pays the state who in turn gives you a higher ‘state pension’. So you are comparing apples and pears.

try adding together your state pension and any other workplace pension you have to produce a meaningful comparison, and if you don’t think it’s high enough perhaps you ought to have put more away while you were working.