economic situation is dire

[tonyh29]

so why didn't they strike in 2006 ..or sorry let me rephrase that ..why didn't the unions encourage them to strike back in 2006 ?

Could it be because the changes which were made in 2006 (to make the pensions schemes affordable over the long term, a goal which all agree was achieved) were negotiated and agreed? What's your view?

I'm fairly sure Gordon didn't consult me when he robbed my pension fund of a few thousand but let me check my voice mail

Brown mortgaged the futures of millions of workers in Britain almost as soon as he came into office .. his strategy was very clear. To move 100 billion pounds of pension fund money from the future to be spent today

he most certainly didn't consult anyone

what's your view ?

but meanwhile what is it the current government have been doing .. would it be trying to negotiate and compromise ? ? oh thought so

[mjmooney]

I think Twitter covers a pretty even spread. The Torygraph assumption is a given.

I doubt it; both represent certain sections of the population more prolifically; Twitter has a greater adaption by the young and that pompous twit from Uppingham who likes the Mac, the Telegraph by elderly people from Tunbridge Wells....

Hardly proper representations of the country.

Agreed that Twitter will have a younger constituency, but not necessarily a more "left-leaning" one.

Whereas the Telegraph readership will be overwhelmingly Tory-sympathetic.

[PauloBarnesi]

I think Twitter covers a pretty even spread. The Torygraph assumption is a given.

I doubt it; both represent certain sections of the population more prolifically; Twitter has a greater adaption by the young and that pompous twit from Uppingham who likes the Mac, the Telegraph by elderly people from Tunbridge Wells....

Hardly proper representations of the country.

Agreed that Twitter will have a younger constituency, but not necessarily a more "left-leaning" one.

Whereas the Telegraph readership will be overwhelmingly Tory-sympathetic.

But both are skewed in someway, one by age group, one by political allegiance.

I suspect that many people feel mixed emotions about this...

[blandy]

... Printing money is mostly done by the private sector, not by governments, contrary to what most people seem to believe.

I think that's misleading, isn't it? I listened to a economist say that the creation of new money can only be authorised via Government (or BofE for the UK ) decision/instruction. The actual act may be indirect - kind of proxied out to the various banks, but it's only government BoE that can decide when or if it's done and by how much - even if this is via setting down set "rules" for the country's banks and how they control the flow of money on a daily or weekly basis - so it's misleading to say that it's a private sector thing. They don't decide.

[PauloBarnesi]

printing money is done by the private sector. Its done by a company called De la Rue

[blandy]

so why didn't they strike in 2006 ..or sorry let me rephrase that ..why didn't the unions encourage them to strike back in 2006 ?

Could it be because the changes which were made in 2006 (to make the pensions schemes affordable over the long term, a goal which all agree was achieved) were negotiated and agreed? What's your view?

I'm fairly sure Gordon didn't consult me when he robbed my pension fund of a few thousand but let me check my voice mail

Brown mortgaged the futures of millions of workers in Britain almost as soon as he came into office .. his strategy was very clear. To move 100 billion pounds of pension fund money from the future to be spent today

he most certainly didn't consult anyone what's your view ?

You've completely avoided answering PMS's valid point, but you're right about the Brown pension thing. Many (if not all) private and company schemes were rodgered by him. One of the arguments I've heard/read the tories say is that "Private employees are generally lower paid, now, and have worse pensions....it's unfair that public employees should earn more, get better job protection and better pensions and retire sooner than everyone else (in the normal world).

If Brown hadn't attacked private/company pensions, then the private sector might not be so badly off, and the Tories (rubbish) argument - a race to the lowest possible standards - might hold even less water than it does.

[Xann]

The U.S. Federal Reserve is privately owned.

Which I didn't know, until someone linked a cartoon here explaining how whole nations are getting stiffed by a handful of entrenched private companies.

[VILLAFC2000]

[quote=

Balls is pitbull in the house but a thicktool when it comes to policy.

A thicktool crickey..!

What does that make Georgie Porgie.

He predicted 2.8% growth this year when its actually been 0.6% roughly.

He predicted the deficit would be halved in 5 years and has now said there will be no guarantee that it will not be halved in 7 years.

For some one who said they would be tough on the banks.

For some who said that they would crack down on tax evasion.

Add to that inflation increases, record levels of unemployment, Britain being smashed up in the summer, and a Recession - not to far.

His plan is clearly not working for the vast majority of people in this country. . He went on Holiday in the summer to one of his 100 holiday homes in LA where he sipped on the finest wine and lavished himself in the finest gourmet foods - what a joker. Its seems apparent that yes everybody is in this together just some more that others, Which is a tad different to " we are all in this together.

Nothing like getting things in to proportion.

[tonyh29]

You've completely avoided answering PMS's valid point,

He seemed to suggest that Browns pension raid was negotiated .. I thought by posting that "to my knowledge" it wasn't that I had answered the question ? I did also point out that negotiations were (/ are) taking place at the moment as well

the only difference is the unions weren't interested in mobilising their members under the party they pick the leader for in 2006 , but they are for a Tory one in 2011 ..isn't it ?

[CarewsEyebrowDesigner]

damp squib my arse, today it's been a complete standstill here.

condescending prat, mr cameron is, the world exists outside london.

[tonyh29]

rumour was that London was actually hit harder than most .. no surprise to find that Liverpool were the first lot out on the picket lines though :-)

The interesting thing about immigration queues at the airports down here is that they were quicker than ever so pick up your P45's you militant incompetents and then we can all get in and out the country far quicker next time we go off on our hols

damp squib

least he didn't say "squid" :-)

[peterms]

so why didn't they strike in 2006 ..or sorry let me rephrase that ..why didn't the unions encourage them to strike back in 2006 ?

Could it be because the changes which were made in 2006 (to make the pensions schemes affordable over the long term, a goal which all agree was achieved) were negotiated and agreed? What's your view?

I'm fairly sure Gordon didn't consult me when he robbed my pension fund of a few thousand but let me check my voice mail

Brown mortgaged the futures of millions of workers in Britain almost as soon as he came into office .. his strategy was very clear. To move 100 billion pounds of pension fund money from the future to be spent today

he most certainly didn't consult anyone

what's your view ?

but meanwhile what is it the current government have been doing .. would it be trying to negotiate and compromise ? ? oh thought so

I thought you were talking about the pensions of public sector workers, with you asking why the unions didn't suggest they strike. Are you referring to the removal of Advanced Corporation Tax relief on share dividends? Or the recommendations of the Turner report? Or what exactly? If you give a bit less rhetoric and a bit more clear information, I would find it easier to follow what you're trying to say.

[tonyh29]

I am referring to this

Fact rather than Rhetoric ?

I got 2006 stuck on my brain by mistake as it was the date I saw on the article and I was on the phone as I was reading it .. and you knew exactly to what I was referring as you mentioned it in your reply .. so no idea why you feel the need to go off on one ... I'm juggling health and safety tripe for their annual visit tomorrow , staff contracts, quotes and a shit load of other work it's not easy fitting in a forum visit as well I tell ya :-)

[snowychap]

I am referring to this

Fact rather than Rhetoric ?

That's to do with private sector pension funds, isn't it?

[blandy]

Well, I thought the same as Peter has said, Tony. Must be two of us misunderstood what you were meaning. I think you're right about Brown but wrong about the strikers etc.

I saw a thing on Newsnight a good few months ago, where it was clearly explained re the pensions of public sector people being notionally funded - i.e. although it is our taxes that pay their pensions, the amount needed is effectively treated as a seperate pot and has to be accounted as if it were an actual pension fund - in other words the contributions from the workers which were increased in 2006 are deemed by the bean counters to be adequate to cover the projected liabilities. The changes the tories want to introduce are political ideology, as are the degrading of all workers rights that they want to do.

I'm not really persuaded by some of the arguments the public sector people have made, we didn't cause the crash" for example - to me it's irrelevant who caused it. The Coalition didn't cause it either. What matters is how to sort it out, to me, and how to stop it happening again. The pension changes they want to make seem to me to have nothing to do with the crash, and everything to do with re-moulding the economy in the way the tories want. They want, it appears, to be much more Thatcherite, much more inclined to favour their natural supporters and donors.

I suppose Labour does the same, you could argue. However I feel Labour (used to be, and is heading back that way) seems to want to help the people who actually need helping the most. We'd all like helping, but I'm not sure that what the Tories are doing isn't just taking away from the lower paid, by and large, to give to the higher paid. Not really "all in it together" more "I'm all right jack".

They're playing games doing what the Lib Dems want in terms of trying to stimulate things in some areas, but instead of doing the decent and right thing and funding that from the overall spend, they're paying for this by taking away from the less well off. A proper nasty party rears it's head again.

[peterms]

... Printing money is mostly done by the private sector, not by governments, contrary to what most people seem to believe.

I think that's misleading, isn't it? I listened to a economist say that the creation of new money can only be authorised via Government (or BofE for the UK ) decision/instruction. The actual act may be indirect - kind of proxied out to the various banks, but it's only government BoE that can decide when or if it's done and by how much - even if this is via setting down set "rules" for the country's banks and how they control the flow of money on a daily or weekly basis - so it's misleading to say that it's a private sector thing. They don't decide.

Bit hard to comment without knowing a bit more about what the economist was saying, but perhaps they were talking about "base money" which is indeed created by the Bank of England. The larger part of the money supply is "broad money", or commercial bank money, and is created by private banks not on the authority of government.

Speaking of the creation of "broad money", a director of the BoE said here

Subject only but crucially to confidence in their soundness, banks extend credit by simply increasing the borrowing customer’s current account, which can be paid away to wherever the borrower wants by the bank ‘writing a cheque on itself’. That is, banks extend credit by creating money. This ‘money creation’ process is constrained: by their need to manage the liquidity risk – from the withdrawal of deposits and the drawdown of backup lines – to which it exposes them.

Some textbooks still suggest that money is first deposited and is then lent out on a multiplier model, but this is incorrect.

The power to create money has largely been devolved, unchecked, to private banks. They do not lend out what people have first saved with them, but create new money at will, as credit. They have an incentive to do so, as it expands their balance sheet and secures them interest payments on something they have created at virtually nil cost.

One of the necessary steps for sorting out the economy is taking away this power, and returning it to government - where almost everyone believes it to sit in any event.

Bit more

on money creation, and here on proposals for monetary reform. And a whole book on it here.

[mjmooney]

I am getting well pissed off with the constant mantra of: "Well private sector pensions are worse, we pay for your big pensions with our taxes", etc.

OK, why doesn't everybody flock to be a nurse or a teacher instead of a financial analyst or a lawyer, then? The fact is that that argument is a total red herring.

I started my I.T. career in the private (insurance) sector. My pension plan wasn't as good as the one I have now as a university employee, true. But I did get very nice profit sharing bonuses that I don't get now - swings and roundabouts.

We all pay taxes for the services that public sector workers provide, not especially the pensions (which are arguably the only "perk" of the job). We don't "think we're worth more than others", but we do think we're worth what the employers (the government) agreed we are worth.

Stop trying to compare apples with oranges and stick to the matter in hand - the government are trying to claw back money that the bankers pissed up the wall by taking it off those who had nothing to do with the mess we are in. Once a Tory, always a Tory. They look after their mates. Well, given the very limited means to do so, so do we.

[peterms]

I am referring to this

Fact rather than Rhetoric ?

I got 2006 stuck on my brain by mistake as it was the date I saw on the article and I was on the phone as I was reading it .. and you knew exactly to what I was referring as you mentioned it in your reply .. so no idea why you feel the need to go off on one ... I'm juggling health and safety tripe for their annual visit tomorrow , staff contracts, quotes and a shit load of other work it's not easy fitting in a forum visit as well I tell ya :-)

Hardly going off on one, just asking for a bit of clarity in what you are trying to say. No, didn't really know what you were talking about, but did find something dated 2006 referring to the 1997 changes, and thought it possible you might mean this.

I'm still not sure why you think the unions should have called their members out on strike. Should they have done so when Norman Lamont also made cuts to ACT regarding pension schemes? Do they have many members in the companies affected by this measure?

Incidentally, a view on the impact of this measure, here:

Verdict

The nation's pensions are in a state - though not so bad as is sometimes imagined. And Gordon Brown's 1997 budget did take some money out of the pension system.

But to suggest that he 'comprehensively, single-handedly destroyed' the nations pensions is an absurd exaggeration.

It's particularly ironic that a Conservative chancellor also delivered a smaller but very similar blow to the pension system in 1993.

The full article explains how they reach that conclusion.

[Jon]

they're paying for this by taking away from the less well off. A proper nasty party rears it's head again.

Indeed it does. We seem to be heading back to he dark days of Thatcherism. For shame.

the government are trying to claw back money that the bankers pissed up the wall by taking it off those who had nothing to do with the mess we are in. Once a Tory, always a Tory. They look after their mates.

Excellent paragraph Mike, and exactly hits the nail on the head for me.

[peterms]

I'm not really persuaded by some of the arguments the public sector people have made, we didn't cause the crash" for example - to me it's irrelevant who caused it.

For me, the relevance of this argument is that the spin of Cameron and Osborne is about the pensions being unaffordable, though as you recognise and as journalists have demonstrated, this is a lie. The purpose of the changes is to help with the government's wider financial targets - which in turn are what they are because of the financial crisis. That remains the case whether you agree with these targets or think they are delusional and criminal.

In other words, the changes to the pension schemes constitute a tax levied only on these workers, to meet a policy goal for the economy as a whole. It is both a lie, and unfair. To rub salt in the wounds, the government attempts to drive wedges between public and private employees, as though one is trying to steal a march on the other.

All in it together my arse.