Accept cuts or we'll target pensions, David Cameron warns unions

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/pers ... nions.html


Yes but will he keep his word? Maggie could not be trusted when dealing with the unions. The pensions are considered gold plated by those in the private sector so will be slashed no matter what.

Screw the unions. Freeze their pay and cut the gold plated pensions.
If they want to strike, let them. It's them that'll lose the wages for the strike days.

For the vast majority they do not have fabulous pensions. They generally get a few thousand pounds a year. It is those higher up that really have the fabulous pensions. The end of final salary and a switch to average salary and make it based on actual contributions and that will solve much of the problem. Certain services like the police and fire service have early retirements at 55 for most, and they are generally funded out of current contributions depending on where they are. There does need to be some pension reform, but lets start with the most egregious of the lot, MP's and senior civil servants pensions then they might have less trouble with the union ones.

I quite agree.

Maggie could be totally trusted with her dealings with the unions. Her aim was to curb the insane behaviour of the unions (and total world domination on behalf of the lizard people the trilateral commission and the scouts!)and to ensure that the excessive actions of the seventies couldn't happen on the whim of a few people, regardless of what the membership wanted.

To be fair, she was pretty up front about it. However al she actually did was replace one small group of people who screwed the country (union leaders) with another (merchant bankers).

And what about her behaviour? Not allowing the media to show footage of the Police riding horseback into the miners, just the footage of them retaliating after being attacked?

She did more harm than good to this country.

Yes but the excesses were limited to a very few unions who had a lot of power, such as the train drivers, power workers etc. I will accept that pensions need to be capped but do you honestly think that it will be the average work who has million pound pension pots? Most retire with pensions post of much less than £100 000 and with interest rates artificially low they will only get a return of a few hundred from that. by switching to average salary pensions that will take away the benefits for those that are close to retiring after a sudden spurt of wage increases.

Overall as a nation we are simply not saving enough at all levels. If that issue was addressed with the economy would slump as people save far more. Then add in the general lack of deposit savings. Governments of all persuasions have relied on the slump in savings and pension savings to keep the economy going that little faster. This is much worse than any deficit spending by any government. Now that we are entering a depression everyone will be trying to rebuild their own personal wealth by saving. Pensions saving will also have to go up if we are not all to end up on means tested benefits as we retire. From 1982 onwards the economies of the US, UK Ireland Australia Canada grew mainly because of asset bubbles. That includes housing and tech shares. At the beginning of the eighties pension provisions mean that as a nation we had more than enough saved up to give everyone a decent pension. Though both the main parties have raided pension funds as a quick way to boost the government finances. So from having a 30% surplus at the end of the seventies we have a huge pensions deficit now. Pension contributions were far too low, employers contributions were also too low and tax laws encouraged them to take pension holidays. Add in incompetence with life insurance companies expectation lowballing the life expectancy causing them to fail to increase pension contributions decades ago, and making over optimistic capital growth projections. That is why private pensions are a mess.

Public pensions had the backing of government. Though the quality of the public pensions shows how poor private ones are now. That is one reason why they are trying to downgrade them. It is a beggar your neighbour policy.

Longer working ages are a must and it must be increased fast to 70 or more. A ban on early retirement will stop people retiring early and draining pension pots from those still to retire. A cap on pension pots for all including company bosses, Labour started that, though individuals moaned.

That said the numbers and wages of the public sector are a bigger problem and deal with that and much of the pension problem will go away. Though something that I know the coalition have not considered is the impact of a serious drop in public sector incomes on house prices. That would punish everyone else as a consequence. Though they were too high to begin with.

I disagree with that. Yeas she did harm, but much more good.

I'm always amazed on the very, very, rare occasions that someone says that.

This is my amazed face

And my somewhat perplexed face

So you think that unleashing the banks to ravage and rape this country was a good thing? Just because it took years for the outcomes to occur does not mean that they were innocent of anything. I would accept that reform of the unions was necessary but the tax cutting zeal has not made much difference to the country as much of the wealth was expropriated outside the reaches of the tax man. The increase in apparent wealth has come through inflating property bubbles, and the associated debt.

She seemed to have a knack of instigating riots. Nice.

Oh and lest we forget at the time of the World Cup Thatcher labelled Mandela as a 'terrorist'. Nice.

She was a disease that we've never fully recovered from. I'm a member of this group on Facebook Clicky

Perfect.

I honestly think that would be too good for her.

There are parts of the UK that have not seen any private sector job creation for more than a decade. Middlesborough being one. So the coalitions plan is to shrink the state so that business can expand is a dream that will we will still be paying for years to come when it fails to materialise and more parts of the UK are decimated.