im so anxious about threats to cut ctc...

[em83]

god i feel so depressed about the threatened cut to ctc, i have been following the news religiously about this new emergency budget, and have just read an updat which was posted tonigha 22.10 which states that incomes £30.000 or over will not be entitled to ctc

im so pissed off with this and feel so anxious

Sylvanian Family - yes, you are right...we shouldn't have to rely on your children's tax payments to provide us with our pensions - we should be self-sufficient and cut our cloth according to our needs.

I think people are getting defensive and angry on here because the penny is beginning to drop that, hitherto, they have been happy for other people to foot the bill for their children and they now realise they might have to take on more responsibility.

People like allshopped just need to be returned to WWII and post war rationing standards and what a lot of us grew up with. It's a mentality change. Plenty of people who come here from abroad had very very little. Many of us had parents who grew up in the war and were used to switchign lights off to save power, cutting toothpaste open to use the last bit and many of us even in our new affluence have continued those habits. Things some see as essential aren't. People will adapt. Even things like having a TV you don't actually need. I never watch TV. I only drink tap water.

the longer post above was true - about how we can only start with the low hanging fruit, freeze benefits for a year or more etc and public sector pay. Given the rest of us int he private sector have not only had freezes but 4 day weeks and major pay cuts the public sector have no idea what it's like out there. We can only cut where lots of people are affected or it will not help bring down public expenditure.

You do get an interseting divide on these threads between those who think there is some huge rich state out there who will provide and those who think we should all mostly try to support ourselves.

I can't believe you grew up with rationing Xenia. I was born at the end of the 50s and I certainly can't remember it. I thought I was a similar age to you! Age, and the the fact I have 3 grown up DC and 3 more still at home are I'm sure the only thing we do have in common.

I do agree with some of your public/private sector comments.....can't believe it. I agree with Xenia.

I am always amazed that when people talk about the Govt funding them, they dont link it back to it really being other taxpayers funding them. I read somewhere a while ago that the top 1% of income earners fund 23% of all income taxes. I fall in that category and while I am happy to pay my taxes, it makes me angry that my 50% tax rate doesnt result in income/tax reliefs going to people who really need them but they are also going to people who want to buy presents for their kids and go on holidays. I had a happy childhood but never went on holiday (such luxuries!) and in some years didn't get a xmas present because my parents couldn't afford it.

Benefits for presents.

Sums it all up nicely!

Children are happy to be fed, have time with mum & dad and know they are loved. It is adults who worry about the extra stuff.
Perhaps we all need to remember what is important.

Horn I wasnt having a dig at you personnally but I remember how horrible it was at school never knowing if we had a teacher etc. Our GCSE work was all over the place. I just dont want that to happen to more children.
I do feel that striking wont help. It will cost teachers sympathy in the long run.
I can understand your anger though.

I just don't get what cutting pensions is going to achieve now other than causing people to leave the public sector, causing huge problems for the economy as the whole public sector comes out on strike. A few years ago the NHS pension scheme was runing at a surplus as more people were paying in than taking out.

You can't reduce the payouts on the pensions we are paying out now, they have earned that. So we are not going to see the benefits for many many years. Even those who are going to retire within the next ten years are still going to have most of their pension agreements under the old system.

As I said above I teach maths, I have a first from Oxbridge and a masters. There is more to a teacher than a degree but it is part of the package you want for teachers. It is very very difficult to recruit maths graduates into the profession. Is this going to make it any easier? As I said earlier people were tripping over themselves to offer me a job when I graduated. I thought about teaching but chased the money - as lots of young people do. I took a huge paycut to go into teaching. We need to make public sector work more attractive not less.

Ronshar I feel that public sector workers have nothing left to lose, we have no public sympathy. The right wing press has demonised us, printing lies, damned lies and statistics.

The public sector relies on an awful lot of good will, I work on average about 75- 80 hours a week. About once a month I will run a trip, extra classes, be involved in something on a weekend. I give up weeks of my holidays ( which are great, I acknowledge that) taking students on trips. I pay for resources the school budget can't stretch to. I do this happily because i thought my work was valued, clearly it is not.

I can assure you I care about the education of children.

I also have a child who will be affected by strikes, it will affect my family too. People forget that teachers are often parents too

From what I understand the married couples tax allowance AND the raising of the income tax threshold to 10k will be designed so as not to benefit anyone earning 40k plus

Free schools are a great idea. It means my child wont have to talk to working class boys and girls who are scum and don't dress in nice clothes and eat organic food. They all smoke drugs and wear baseball caps and I pay for their Sky TV as well.

If you earn over £100,000 a year the coalition should allow you to carry a taser, to taser people who shop at Lidl as well.

For goodness sake - no one is going to be leaving the public sector except by redundancies. There are NO jobs to be hasd in the private sector. We are in the grip of a huge recession. People are losing their jobs left right and centre. huge areas of the private sector are decimated. People are working for half day rather than lose jobs. It's a blood bath out there. Over paid public sector workers can't just waltz out and find the private sector queuing up to hire them.

(not a granny I'm only in my 40s but it the culture in which one was brought up that I mean - if your parents grew up with rationing then they passed that on to their children and we remember their cautiousness and parsimony - waste not want not etc. Anyway on presents some people just go in for lots of them but children sometimes just have to accept they won't get much. It does them no harm. Get them to church more or teach them better values and not consumerism and they will be done the world of good - birthday present a half day with parents at a soup kitchen helping out etc. Children often want time with a parent as much as anything else anyway)

There are some changes now which will help immediately - like the expensive projects cancelled this week and such as cutting CTC for people earning larger sums; others like freezing benefits for a year or more will have a pretty immediate effect and save lots. Others are for the future - we literally can't afford the pensions time bomb. When pensions were set up by Beveridge it was on the basis that most people would draw a pension for about 2 - 3 years and then die. Now they might liver from 65 (or whatever ridiculously early age people retire in the private sector) to 95.

Shit coolfonz, is Farm Foods safe?

Xenia I have been approached about 2 jobs in independent schools in the past few months. As I said well qualified maths teachers can work where they want really.

thankyou i dont have a time machine though!!

i do take things for granted - i watch tons of tv, eat ttoo much choccy etc
i am sure i am not the only one

My DH works in the public sector and people who think its a cushy job and a easy street and that we havn't been affected are on another planet whatever the daily fail may print!

His dept has gone from over 200 to 85 in the last 2 years, he has lost all his staff and yet is still expected to produce the same work as before, he does not get paid overtime, he has not had a pay rise in the last 2 years, nor has he been able to apply for promotion as they have frozen that as they have gotten rid of so many staff, any new openings go to people whose jobs have already been cut, there is no gold plated pension the only people in the public sector who have those are the top 200 or so employees, so it really doesn't apply to the masses!

The only over paid public sector workers are those at the top, the rest aren't!

If he left the public sector and did the same job elsewhere he would get more money, but he has worked there all his life and is dedicated to what he does.

Allshoppedout, I'm so glad that the tax my DP and I pay is buying your kids presents. I'll remember that this xmas when I'm worrying about what to buy mine.

as an aside my parents grew up during the war and it made my mum overstock the cupboard and be more extravagent when she could afford it. certainly didn't want us to have to live through what she did.

just wanted to say, nothing personal, allshoppedout, I know where you are coming from and it's not easy watching the axe approaching what you thought was your guaranteed income.

I believe the pension problem is that 30-40 years ago the NHS expanded a lot and so lots of those original recruits are suddenly becoming pensioners. Also the baby boom generation is turning 60/65 at the moment (1946+65 = 2011) so the State Pension bill is going to shoot up.

The trouble is xenia school leavers aren't going to be waltzing into the public sector either. Because they will rightly think that if they chance the private sector they have a better chance of a decent standard of living without falling into the ctc brackets. They will be able to afford pensions for themselves without worrying about a right wing press out to attack them.

If they work long hours then they will eventually reap the benefits. If they take on extra pay and responsibilities they stand the chance of being recognised and rewarded. If they try to make the company work better that gets rewarded.

In the public sector there are no benefits other than what the stated salary is.

On top of that we are expected to take on extra responsibility and extra work for less. Fine you might say - but it isn't fine when the standard of care you receive drops as a result nd your health and that of your workforce suffers. Or the education quality of your employee is substandard to what you need.

I think we are doing exactly what the right wants, ordinary people are squabbling with each other. The public sector have suddenly become the ones to blaim for everything. We should all be working together not tearing each other apart.

My morale as a public sector worker has never ever been so low and I don't know why I bother.

It is of course outrageous that poor people should expect the state to pay them anything if they can afford to buy presents at christmas.

Whatever happened to sending your kids out selling fucking matches?

where exactly in the public sector will they cut?

I have been told that my budget will be cut by about 10%. So that will mean that I will be subsidising my teaching out of my own pocket more than I already do. They know that when they announce budget cuts.