£610 a week pension demand is insane

[Thisismyfinesthour]

Just read that there is an online petition doing the rounds for a £610 a WEEK pension demand to the government.
WTAF? Is the heat melting some peoples brains? It seems over 5000 have signed it.
Where do they think the money is coming from?

Thank you!

Some people seem to think stating any facts they don’t like is “rude”, while continually posting personal insults about people who have dared to highlight such facts.

What? The entire thread is about a petition for pensioners demanding that their benefits are increased! 😆

But the majority that directly responded to the idea of receiving £610 a week in no way supported that idea. There were some that wanted a bit more maybe but …. The argument was mainly around the retired being begrudged their pot of wealth, no matter how that was gained. That’s what was so infuriating. The constant thrust of papers and studies and tin pot ideas endeared @NotNowBernardNotEver to no one.

@Loopylalalou I don’t begrudge anyone their pot of wealth. This thread is about the extent to which people with a pot of wealth should be entitled to an additional universal benefit with no means testing. I’m still 25+ years from retirement and the economic reality is that I won’t receive a state pension. We will need to introduce means-testing at some point. I’m OK with that.

I’d be very happy to see additional support for low-income pensioners, but we can’t indefinitely continue to spend as much money as we do on state pension for people who have plenty of money and income already.

Someone's been busy with the report button.

Frankly I’m gobstruck. Having scrupulously resisted the temptation to say what I really think and retaliate in kind, it’s come as a real surprise to see I have posts deleted. I’d be taking it up with MNHQ if I gave a toss.

How about you retaliate in kind with some facts of your own rather than with anecdotes and ill founded grievances?

If you’d read the thread you’d see I’ve done precisely that.

From memory your links stated what we all know, some pensioners don't have much money and a low income. That doesn't change the fact that they are the richest demographic. It is like claiming the UAE is a poor country because 10% of the population are basically slave labourers.

Please find a post I’ve written that says that. I like facts. I like evidence of them even more. And I try very hard to provide it.

Sorry that you don’t like the data and facts.

The purpose of the discussion wasn’t to “endear” ourselves to each other.

Surely adults should be capable of having a discussion about economics and public policy with reference to facts and statistics. If certain posters wish to refute the facts and statistics provided in the thread then a rational and appropriate response would have been to provide some robust economic data themselves to support their own positions or, if (as was the case here) they could not do so, to have the decency to admit that they were wrong.

What is not appropriate is for posters to hurl endless and irrelevant personal attacks at other posters just because they don’t like the data and statistics provided or they don’t think other posters have sufficiently “endeared” themselves to the people posting the unacceptable personal insults.

Comedy gold!

Exactly this. It’s very depressing.

And “constant papers” were posted by me, if you actually read the thread, after incessant badgering from specific posters accusing me of fabricating statistics and questioning my credibility.

One can’t win: first accusations of not having evidence for publicly available statistics and repeated demands that I provide the sources rather than them simply using google to check the veracity, and then when I give in and post a detailed list of papers and research and source data, apparently that’s wrong as well.

Also: I haven’t seen anybody trying to “deny pensioners access to their pot of wealth”. What people have highlighted is that they’ve been significantly undertaxed over their lifetimes as a cohort, compared to the value of state services and welfare which they are demanding from the state, and that this is no longer sustainable because they are now consuming over 50% of total public spending despite being 15% of the population. Therefore, some rebalancing of public spending from the old to the young is required urgently to restore growth and prosperity, which will involve reducing unnecessary welfare payments made to wealthy elderly people (and actually mean the very small proportion of pensioners who are struggling for income/ assets to support themselves could be supported more generously, as well).

Well you've got what you wanted now. Take a bow.

It was quite a good thread too.

It could have been!

Don't be so bloody rude.

Do you have a link to prove that is rude?

That's wishful thinking on your part. It's quite common amongst your tribe.

Wishful?

In what way have you decided that “what I wanted” was personal attacks and insults (which I’ve asked you repeatedly to cease) rather than you and the rest of those involved in this unacceptable behaviour instead actually engaging with the economic discussion and providing any evidence for the assertions they’ve made that the ONS, DWP, IFS, King’s College, University of Oxford, LSE, UCL, NIESR, Resolution Foundation, Nuffield Foundation, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, London Economics, WPI Economics and the economics departments of various global banks and finance firms etc have all got it wrong?

Haha! Thank you. This cheered me up. :)

So relieved that there are some sensible people around. 😊

Yet you’ve refused to respond to any of the source evidence you demanded was posted, and haven’t either accepted that you were wrong and apologised, or provided any evidence for your earlier assertions that the statistics quoted from this evidence are incorrect.