We’ve seen how a moocher-free Libertarian paradise worked in the U.S. in the 19th century: private fire brigades having fistfights over who’d get to douse the flames of house with a given private insurance company’s shield while entire city blocks burned to the ground as a backdrop. No thanks.
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So should Sky and Murdoch be allowed to have people jailed for their “services” even if you don’t use them?
Which is why I said fire services are a common good.
So back to the question of government’s running pensions.
The prime example of where people should be allowed the right of consent.
Capitalist like myself would say no, and we would invest that 20% of our income to build wealth for our old age.
Socialists like yourself pool your money and redistribute it. The current system.
What are you going to do when you get old?
Far from it.
I’m for win win transactions. I don’t believe in win-lose, lose-win or lose-lose.
That needs consent. Why for example should the state be allowed to screw over a minority for their own gain?
So here’s a test.
If you aren’t owed a pension, you won’t mind not receiving it.
Sign a contract with me to assign all the money over to me. I’ll give it to charity.
Your lack of belief in scenarios that occur on a regular basis with or without consent (or a one-sided facsimile thereof) is entirely predictable, @nickle.
[ETA: most of us have seen your “tests” before under your old accounts. Most of us know that to engage you with facts regarding them is to talk to a brick wall.]
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Or test two.
Do you honestly believe that cancelling public sector pension, not a debt, would be taken lying down by civil servants?
The debts come with consequences. If you look at current spending, 30% goes on the debts. 209 bn a year.
Could you get better state services if you had another 209 bn to spend? Of course. Austerity is a consequence of the debts.
Or would people be better off if they took home 30% more? Of course they would, personal austerity would largely disappear.
Or a lack of investment. 108 bn a year going on state pensions. What would 108 bn a year, each year, do to investment in the UK.
Now look at the rich. Asset values have gone up so they are better off. The poorer workers haven’t because that 20% of their income hasn’t gone into assets. Wealth inequality caused by the redistribution.
If you compare the outcome of 20% being invested at retirement against the state offering, there’s a huge gulf. You wouldn’t have pensioner poverty. Care costs would be covered. Mr Average would have had 1.3 million in the bank.
They are the facts of the situation. You can check them all out. e.g ukpublicspending as a website.
So the consequences are pretty dire. Austerity, pensioner poverty, wealth inequality, … all caused by the debts.
So what’s the reaction of the electorate, the point of the article. They turn on the people who created. They have turned on Labour. Wiped out in Scotland, now taken over by marxists.
Tories are turning on May for the same reason and in particular Hammond.
But again you confirm exactly what I said. You believe in redistribution but cannot see the negative consequences, so you either go into denial or blame someone else.
PS, don’t go and tell public sector workers they aren’t owed a pension. It’s dangerous
Because railways are a ‘social good’, being something your trolley-like approach cannot countenance, let alone understand. You probably would not recognise a social good if it jumped up and bit you, even though I bet you personally benefit from several on a daily basis. FYI, I want the railways to be there when I occasionally need to use a train. I want my fellow citizens to use them as much as they like so that the roads are not even more crowded, so that people can get to their workplaces efficiently and conveniently, so that they can provide the goods and services I rely on.
As has been pointed out, you are driving trollies as much as ever before. Go back to Twatter and use your excellent driving trollies skills to lambast May or others, but stop trying to make the same old invalid, tired points here where nobody has any sympathy for you. And for avoidance of doubt seeing as attention is one of the things you thrive on, I don’t care whether you reply or what you may say, your bait stinks too much now to rise to it further.
Usually we refer to people who are the subjects of stories here in the following manner, but in this case there surely is a valid exception enabling a direct reference: Christ, what an asshole. (Yes, that is ad hominem abuse and I make no apology for it, even if this post does not survive for long.) Goodbye.
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But she was using their services.
So your whole argument on this point is completely without base. Find me a single case of them gaoling someone who actually hasn’t been watching television without a license.
I’ll wait.
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You mean like Americans with health care? Oh, wait…
(and it doesn’t even cover everyone!)
It’s clear by what you write how little you know if you think everyone has 20% of their income available to invest. Thing is, some things are better when you spread the burden. Things like social security are there as a safety net because we’ve seen what happens without it. It’s because we’re a society, not a bunch of Randian superheroes fighting bravely for our right to mooch off of everyone else.
You should listen to MC Bat Commanders message, and come and join us back in the real world.
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Don’t hold your breath. He’s having problems with the concept of “yesterday.”
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To be fair, it was mostly just an excuse to post Lobster Bucket, because the Peterson thread got locked before I could put it there.
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Bullshit. I work for a public sector pension fund. Every damn day, i deal with people who were tricked into taking all the money out of that and ‘investing’ it in private funds. They are destitute.And yes, I do deserve my very nice public sector pension, that I pay heftily into, for turning up every work day and doing my fucking job. And so do the people who aren’t lucky enough to have that and have to rely on their NI contributions deserve their state pension. Why haven’t you been banned again yet? Yeesh.
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That’s not what taxes are… try harder.
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This happened to lots of people. I have a friend whose parents were (recently retired) professors - both decided to stick with their pensions when given the option to switch to a 401K. Most of their colleagues switched… guess who is doing well and who lost their shirts at least a couple of times since the 90s?
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I spoke to a lady on Friday afternoon, She transferred 10yrs of her nurse’s pension to a private scheme. If she’d left it in there, she’d have had approx an extra 10k/yr and a tax free lump sum of 3 times that. She got £350/yr or a lump sum (25% tax-free) of 12K (which is ass-backwards as well; I figure their actuaries were on shrooms).
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Holy shit! That’s terrible. Is this her only retirement income?
I’ll also add that not having a pension that is a guranteed income (whether through the state or a private company, which used to offer pensions) means that there are MORE people being supported by public money in the long run, especially as the Boomers retire. It’s the exact same logic as healthcare, where having a public system will mean that it’s cheaper in the long run in terms of tax dollars used for health care (I mean, here in the US we pay more per capita in the current system we have, plus individuals pay much more, which can mean that people already a paycheck away from being out on the street, have a higher chance of that happening)…
I don’t think I’m being clear here, but I’m trying to say that having pensions and single payer has been shown to be cheaper to society in the long run, by a number of metrics.
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