Pensions are an incomprehensible mess and we’re all paying a fortune to get a pittance. Right?
GMB trade union accused the Conservatives of allowing ‘business cronies’ to take funds from working people [Image: PA].
Mrs Mike was watching a report on them the other day and said the people of the UK needed honest reporting about the whole sorry mess.
“They could start by getting a panel of experts together and saying, ‘Everyone who isn’t already drawing a pension is f***ed, right?'” she said.
And she’s right.
Right?
Financially stressed businesses could be allowed to cut final salary pension payments to employees to save them from collapse, under Government proposals.
Ministers have concluded that while there is no overall problem with the affordability of defined benefit (DB) schemes, maintaining contributions could prove “unsustainable” for some firms.
A Government Green Paper set out a series of proposals to ease the pressure, including allowing struggling businesses to “cut or renegotiate” pensioners’ benefits.
One option could be to allow firms to suspend annual index-linked rises or peg them to the consumer prices index (CPI) measure of inflation rather than to the usually higher retail price index (RPI), which most schemes are tied to.
The proposals were condemned by the GMB trade union, which accused the Conservatives of allowing “business cronies” to take funds from ordinary working people.
Source: Pensions changes could cost 11 million Britons thousands of pounds in final payments
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So, the Tories are starting on pensioners now. It was bound to come about.
Sorry, but in fact, you are wrong. Years ago, Cap’n Bob set the template for “pensions holidays”, before he was forced to dive off his own yacht.
At that moment, he was excoriated by all and sundry.
Within three months, many corporations had set up plans for their own “pensions holidays”.
It was Thatcher’s third term, when the fingers of corruption reached the DWP(formerly Department for Education and Employment & Department of Social Security), when our real problems began.
The entire industry is now, and has been since 2001, a complete con.
That’s what I’m saying.
Yup IDS spent millions on a promotional multi coloured pension muppet (no, not Germy Hunt!) stating all businesses are sorting out pensions for everyone….god bless all you Conservatives for caring for the minions. And now the bad news, yet again. If the companies cannot afford their employees contributions lets give them a holiday from paying etc etc. God knows we have had enough evidence of companies and their beloved crooked leaders absconding or diverting the Pension funds leaving the taxpayer to pick up the tab when they go AWOL. And here we go again the old Cons looking after their own creating escape routes from paying pensions and making it so complicated no one but a blue chip accounting firm would understand what is going on. All these cunning Con plans, when they surely come to pass, must have independent overview and accountability before implementation to avoid taxpayers having to subsidise a company failure pension plan….usually after the event before anything can be done about stopping such moves.
save save save for your retirement yet throughout your lifetime the gov will dip into these pots of gold oh dear save for gove should be the motto not yours to spend