Pensions under attack - action required - Beekeepers unite!

[viridens]

I believe that many forum members have either already retired or are looking forward to it. I don't know about you, but my bee keeping hobby runs at a loss and so eats up some of my disposable income, but I hope to be able to afford to keep it up into old age.

You may already be aware that as well as raising state retirement age, the government has also moved other goal posts to further short-change pensioners. You may wish to object.

Most pensions are index-linked to counteract inflation and help maintain their spending power over time. Government has now switched index linking from RPI to the lesser CPI as a cost-cutting measure. Public sector (Nurses, firemen, teachers, armed forces etc.) and many private pensions have already been switched. State pensions will be switched in 2012, although the 'triple lock' guarantee (I wonder how long for?) will hide this. Independent pension experts like KPMG agree that this change will lead to "progressive poverty in old age". These changes were rushed through Parliament without discussion or consultation with those affected.

There is a direct gov epetition which at 100,000 signatures will trigger a government debate on this change. epetition here
Note that you will need to valdate your signature by clicking an email link for it to count.

Government are also axing reduced price National Express coach fares for the over-60's and disabled in October. Local bus passes could well follow. There is a template protest letter to email or post to your MP. Letter here

It seems to me that pensioners and other soft targets are being targeted to recover the costs of bailing out banks whose 'experts' chose to invest our cash in 'emperor's new clothes' deals, unhindered by government financial watchdog experts, and more billions arguably wasted in wars and foreign aid.

I believe that pensioners should receive what they signed up for. Their Tax and N.I. contributions whilst working were paid in good faith and in expectation of the promised benefits. RPI linking is there in black and white in my pension scheme rules, and probably yours too, but it seems that they have now been re-written retrospectively.

Rant over - for now ​

Admin - This an important issue for many members. I would be grateful if you could leave this, or at least a 'moved to' heading on the main forum for 24 hrs if you feel it must be moved.

 

[JenBee]

Just as I suspected - at 45 I am still a 'young' beekeeper. Imagine how my husband used to feel when he was a beekeeper aged 18!

 

[VEG]

e petitions are a waste of time.

 

[Swarm]

Yes, so much for contracts being a legal and binding agreement between two parties, when one party can change the contract and the other party can do nothing about it!

As for keeping bees on a pension, the way things are going many will be dead before they get the chance to claim their pension.

 

[Chris Luck]

Can I ask what has this got to do with bee keeping?

Chris

 

[Luminos]

e petitions are a waste of time.

I disagree.
Organisations such as Avaaz are making huge differences worldwide via e-petitions.

 

[VEG]

Do you think the people that make decisions take any notice of them?

 

[Hivemaker.]

This one has not done much yet,and it's been running since last Jan.

http://www.avaaz.org/en/save_the_bees

 

[Steve Dyer]

Why is it that so few people understand that no matter what the reason, whether it was Gordon Brown, Tony Blair, the Banks, the BBKA or whoever the country doesn't have enough cash to overpay benefits or pensions. Public sector pensions were always over the top and need cutting, ordinary pensions were always rubbish, but now there is even less money to pay them. We need to cut everything, and hopefully that will include the vastly expensive nanny state bureaucracies that have been built up by jobsworths and economically illiterate governments and get us back to a lean, mean but functional economy. Against that background if anyone wants any more cash don't bother with petitions - make your beekeeping more profitable or start some other business - that's what the economy really needs - profitable businesses - they are the only ones you can tax - the others go bust.

That's what it has to do with beekeeping

 

[psafloyd]

It seems to me that pensioners and other soft targets are being targeted to recover the costs of bailing out banks whose 'experts' chose to invest our cash in 'emperor's new clothes' deals, unhindered by government financial watchdog experts, and more billions arguably wasted in wars and foreign aid.

Pensioners are not soft targets, as they are far more engaged with the political process than many other groups of society. Although not very well organised in the UK, if there was an organisation like AARP (think Saga on steroids), they would be very, very scared of upsetting this group.

 

[psafloyd]

Do you think the people that make decisions take any notice of them?

Is it not better than doing nothing, Veg?

If significant numbers participate, people, including governments, will be aware there may be a groundswell and they will take notice of it.

 

[psafloyd]

Public sector pensions were always over the top and need cutting, ordinary pensions were always rubbish, but now there is even less money to pay them.

Not so, Steve. You've simply swallowed the line spun by the coaliiton government, CBI, IoD, TPA, etc.

Not all public sector pension funds are bad. Some are not even unfunded, but very well funded indeed, thank you very much.

While it is true the few benefit most from them, they are anything but gold-plated for the vast majority of those who participate in them. And they tend not to retire early, either, as they can't afford to.

We need to cut everything, and hopefully that will include the vastly expensive nanny state bureaucracies that have been built up by jobsworths and economically illiterate governments and get us back to a lean, mean but functional economy.

What, like Thatcher's monetary mayhem? Yeah, that was really effective, wasn't it.

I take the point about bloated bureacracy, as Gordon Brown's economic policy relied on growing the public sector and encouraging spending on the high street. To do that, he needed more people in work, so civil servant numbers were increased.

 

[Black Comb]

Well she sorted out all the rubbish that had built up in the 60's and 70's.
Country benefited until spend it Tony and Gordon came along.
Lots of these public sector jobs were non-jobs.

Agree, this has little to do with beekeeping.

Where's Hopit when we need him?

 

[Swarm]

It certainly grinds my gears to keep hearing how we are 'all living longer' (oh really? I know far more who died before retirement age than I do 100 year olds)

I'd imagine if we stopped p*****g money away in foreign countries we wouldn't be nearly so strapped for cash. The price of a few of those missiles would go quite a long way to plugging the gap.

 

[madasafish]

I'd imagine if we stopped p*****g money away in foreign countries we wouldn't be nearly so strapped for cash. The price of a few of those missiles would go quite a long way to plugging the gap.

The odd missile costs £0.5million. I can't imagine we've fired 30,000 of them cos that would save £15billion... which is about 1/4 of the annual savings needed.. and half the MOD's budget...

 

[psafloyd]

Well she sorted out all the rubbish that had built up in the 60's and 70's.
Country benefited until spend it Tony and Gordon came along.

Much of the failings of recent years are predicated on the policies pursued by Thatcher.
Her governments:
– deregulated personal credit and moved us away from a savings culture to debt culture (this was expolited by the Labour government, too)
– created the regulatory environment for the pensions misselling scandal and the abuse of endowments, not to meniton split capital trusts
– sold off social housing and peddled the belief we were all better off owning our own homes (and the seed was sown for mortgage fraud and asset backed securities that were conjured from thin air).
– delayed the introduction of employemnt law that offered greater protection to the employee.

And that's nothing to the abuse of power involved in clipping the wings of the unions, where some of her actions were unconstitutional (or would be if we had a proper one) and totalitarian.

 

[psafloyd]

It certainly grinds my gears to keep hearing how we are 'all living longer' (oh really? I know far more who died before retirement age than I do 100 year olds)

I'd imagine if we stopped p*****g money away in foreign countries we wouldn't be nearly so strapped for cash. The price of a few of those missiles would go quite a long way to plugging the gap.

 

[psafloyd]

The odd missile costs £0.5million. I can't imagine we've fired 30,000 of them cos that would save £15billion... which is about 1/4 of the annual savings needed.. and half the MOD's budget...

Because arms manufacturers employ quite a lot of people and goverments listen to their lobbysits because of that.

 

[Luminos]

This one has not done much yet,and it's been running since last Jan.

http://www.avaaz.org/en/save_the_bees

At least it's doing something.

 

[markylaird]

should this post not be in off topics?