# Pension Rant



## cabby (May 14, 2005)

A school mate having a Rant.
Summation of the facts but it does make you think doesn't it.

cabby

Medical science is helping mankind live longer but it seems that we should feel guilty for being a drain on society for taking our pension that we've paid for.

Just to cheer you up......how did a pension we all paid into suddenly become a benefit. ?????
Worth some thought - Where did all the money go????



IT MAKES YOU THINK !
PLEASE PASS THIS AROUND, UNTIL EVERY ONE HAS HAD THE OPPORTUNITY TO READ IT... THIS IS SURELY SOMETHING WE ALL NEED TO THINK ABOUT !!!!

THE ONLY THING WRONG WITH THE GOVERNMENT'S CALCULATION OF AVAILABLE PENSION IS THAT THEY FORGOT TO FIGURE IN ALL THE PEOPLE WHO DIED BEFORE THEY EVER COLLECTED OLD AGE PENSION.

WHERE DID ALL THAT MONEY GO ?

Remember, not only did you and I contribute to our Pension, our employer did, too. It totalled 15% of your income before taxes.
If you averaged only £15,000 over your working life, that's close to £220,500.


Read that again. Did you see anywhere that the Government paid in one single penny ?
We are talking about the money you and your employer put into a Government bank to ensure that you and I would have a retirement pension from the money we put in, it was not money that the Governments had any right to spend elsewhere.


Now they've started to call the money we paid in an 'entitlement' when we reach the age to take it back.
If you calculate the future invested value of £2500 per year (yours & your employer's contribution) at a simple 5% interest (that's less than what the govt. pays on the money that it borrows from overseas), after 49 years of working you'd have £892,919.98.

If you took out only 3% per year, you'd receive £26,787.60 per year and it would last better than 30 years (that means until you're 95 if you retire at age 65) and that's with no interest paid on that final amount on deposit !
If you bought an annuity with the money and it paid 4% per year, you'd have a lifetime income of £1976.40 per month.

THE CROOKS IN GOVERNMENT OVER THE YEARS HAVE PULLED OFF A BIGGER ROBBERY THAN THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERS EVER DID.

Entitlement !!??
My foot !! IT'S MY MONEY !! I paid IN real cash for my pension.
Just because they borrowed the money to spend on other things, that doesn't make my pension some kind of charity or handout!!

Remember MP's benefits ? --- free healthcare, outrageous retirement packages, 67 days paid holidays, three weeks paid vacation, unlimited paid sick days. Now that really should be called welfare entitlements, yet they have the nerve to call my O A P retirement payments entitlements ?


We're "broke" and the government can't help our own OAPs, our ex-service personnel, our orphans or our homeless. Yet in the past few years we have provided aid to Haiti, Chile, Turkey, India, Pakistan, etc., etc., etc. Literally, BILLIONS of Pounds !!!
And they can't help our own citizens !

Our retired seniors living on a 'fixed old age pension have to beg social services to receive additional aid, while our government and religious organisations pour hundreds of billions of £££ tons of food to foreign countries !

They call the old age pension an entitlement even though most of us have been paying for it all our working lives, and now, when it's time
for us to collect, the government is running out of money. Why did the government borrow from it in the first place ? It was supposed to be in a securely locked box, not to be used as part of the Government's general funds.

Sad, isn't it, that 99% of people won't have the guts to forward this.
I'm in the 1% with guts enough to do it - - - and I just did. I hope some of you will do the same.


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## mgdavid (Nov 27, 2014)

Just completely wrong on so many counts.
To explain: the NI paid by a current employee does not go into a 'personal pot' to pay that payee's State Pension (SP) when he/she retires. It goes into the general tax revenue pool. 
All the people today drawing SP are paid out of this current revenue pool.

One does not have to earn money to be awarded NI credits; everyone on JSA and ESA and Income Support and Carer's Allowance etc will get automatic NI credits while the benefit is paid. So will all recipients of Child Benefit, every year up to the child's age of 12 (used to be 16).
Also, everyone who is in fulltime education between ages 16 and 19 are awarded 3 years buckshee NI Credits.

So you can see that there are many more years of NI credits being awarded than there are people actually paying in from earned income. Consequently the cost of Pensions paid today is nowhere near met by the NI paid today, the Exchequer makes up the difference from other tax revenues.

No-one is being robbed or shafted, unless you regard all people on benefits as scroungers.

Hope this helps (and happy to be corrected if any details are wrong).


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## grandadbaza (Jan 3, 2008)

In the 1% with you Cabby

I have forwarded it lots of people in my contacts and also to my MP

Not difficult to send to your MP ,just go to https://www.writetothem.com/

only takes a minute or two


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## dovtrams (Aug 18, 2009)

MG David a wee bit wrong in places; one being 'it used to be 16' when credits were given to people (mostly women) who were bringing children up and not working. Prior to 1978 it was nothing. Moreover, child allowance or whatever it is called was not paid for the first child in the bad old days. 

I get annoyed when state pension is classed as a benefit, it is a pension which people receiving it have made a contribution towards it by paying for others state pensions when they were working. I wrote to the DWP and asked if paying my state pension was too much of a problem, could they refund all of my NI contributions and I would look after myself! Stupid reply received obviously written by someone with a degree in stating the bleeding obvious.

One thing in all of this inter-generational argument, is that I cannot ever think that I envied anything my parents received.

Dave


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## Penquin (Oct 15, 2007)

If those in Full time Education get 3 years credits, why do they not ask about that when you apply for YOUR State Pension? There is no reference to that, simply a requirement to list ALL *PAID *employment........

and then your pension is paid from the first Tuesday AFTER your 65th birthday (or so I was told) and is then paid in arrears 4 weeks later, so as my birthday was 1st March (a Tuesday) it will begin to be paid four weeks after the first Tuesday after my birthday i.e. 4 weeks AFTER March 8th - even though I became eligible on March 1st, so it will actually be sent on April 6th........

In the "old days" you were sent a book to take to the Post Office (remember them?) to had in a ticket each week in exchange for cash and that was available immediately on your 65th birthday payable from the day you were 65.

So, once again the Government hangs on to money due to pensioners......

To me, such an act is far from fair........

Dave


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## pete4x4 (Dec 20, 2006)

I have to wait until 67.
However as a civil servant close to retirement age I still get final salary pension so I retire when I'm 60 in around 12 months and then I can look forward to the top up 7 years after that.


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## TheNomad (Aug 12, 2013)

The enormous fundamental flaw in this is the assertion that you paid for your State pension. You did not. You made a relatively small contribution through your working life to the pension payments paid to your grandparents and parents. It is your children and grandchildren who will have to be paying for your index linked state pension for all those extra years that you will live beyond your forebears.


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## mgdavid (Nov 27, 2014)

dovtrams said:


> ..... I wrote to the DWP and asked if paying my state pension was too much of a problem, could they refund all of my NI contributions ........


As NI goes towards many other state benefits not just SP that was a ridiculous ask. You'd be happy to do without the NHS I trust?

Oh well, never let the facts get in the way of a good rant, eh?
It's similar opinions and attitudes that cause HMG to seriously consider doing away with NI and just making income tax 32.5% / 52.5% / 57.5%.
Be careful what you wish for.


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## peribro (Sep 6, 2009)

Hypothecation of taxation doesn't happen and hasn't happened for an awfully long time so the tenet of the OP is flawed.

My wife hasn't worked in paid employment for the last 26 years due to bringing up our four children but she has accrued state pension entitlement throughout that time which someone has to pay for. On the other hand my children have all been educated without any cost to the state and similarly any medical care we have needed has not been paid for by the state. And throughout all this time I have paid higher rate taxation. It's a fact that you can't relate what you pay in to what you get out and I don't think people should attempt to. If we did I fear we would have a very divided and a very unfair society. It's about what's the right balance and I think most governments for the last 30 years have been getting it broadly right.


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## Easyriders (May 16, 2011)

Both my parents died before they were old enough for their pension. They both worked, and very hard. Sh*t happens.

But, as stated above, National Insurance is simply another form of tax. And like tax, it takes far more as a proportion of income from the poor and middle earners than it does from the rich.

It would be simpler and cost far less to administer if there were simply one income tax that also covered NI. But it should be reformed so that people are charged fairly and according to their means. Those unable to work because of disability, illness or caring commitments who cannot contribute should still receive state benefits, including state pension. Those wealthier and more fortunate must share the cost to support these people. The poorer you are, the less you can (and should) contribute.

But the wealthier you are, the more you should contribute.

That's never going to happen with this government, nor with any conceivable UK government in the future.


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## peribro (Sep 6, 2009)

Easyriders said:


> But the wealthier you are, the more you should contribute.


Assuming by wealth you mean income rather than assets, isn't that what happens at the moment?


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## mgdavid (Nov 27, 2014)

peribro said:


> Assuming by wealth you mean income rather than assets, isn't that what happens at the moment?


Yes it is, but there seems in the country at large to be a hard core of left-wing utopia-seeking fantasists who will never be happy until the 'rich' are taxed so much we all pi55 off abroad taking our money with us. Then what would they do?


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