Sunday 3 April 2011

PLEASE SIR, CAN I WORK A LITTLE LONGER?


Well, I bet you didn’t know it, but I’ll pass on a message from Mr Duncan-Smith.


Most people want to work past 65!


There! Just like 30 years ago when Mrs Thatcher told people that they wanted to pay for their eye tests. No one but the government actually knows what we are thinking, least of all us.


Anyway, Duncan-Smith is launching a major overhaul of the pensions system, which is aimed at encouraging people to save for their old age. Yep, you read that right: some of the lowest incomes, the highest priced housing, ditto transport, petrol, cars, supermarkets, etc. Mortgages that break us till we are 60, and for the English student, fees that rival mortgages in size....and Mr Duncan-Smith thinks we should be saving more.


What a plonker this bloke is.


The biggest joke is that inflation is, in reality at around 10-12% (at least for the poorer people), interest rates are around 1-3%, so every pound you save loses about 10p in value every year, meaning that if you save hard enough for long enough you will be left with enough for a cup of tea.


And don’t think for a second that the answer is to put the money in a pension fund. Ask the investors in Equitable Life about that! There's new government scheme designed to force employers to enroll people in saving schemes (by any other name, a tax increase).


So first National Insurance goes up, and now forced saving for a pension! How many ways can you put up income tax without saying you are putting up income tax?


How does Mr Duncan-Smith know that we want to go on working longer than we have to? Is it because he asked us? Bwa ha ha!


It’s because his friends at the top of government and business in England don’t have any desire to stop work. And why would they? Excellent pay, great conditions, people fawning all over you, chauffeur driven cars (forget all that nonsense that Cameron spouted about ministers using public transport. Like most of the rest of his pronouncements it was garbage). But go ask someone who has done a manual job and is worn out by the time they are 55; ask someone who stacks shelves in Tesco, or teaches in a badly disciplined, underfunded, inner city school, whose nerves are frayed by the time they are 40; ask a postman who gets up at 4 every morning, or a nurse who works shifts; ask a care worker in a retirement home who’s been making beds and lifting patients for 30 years.


In fact, ask most people who have to cope with rat race unreachable targets for greedy bosses with the management style of Pol Pot.


Go on Mr Duncan-Smith. Ask them.


Yes people are living longer, and yes people of your class are living active lives for much longer. You’ve been pampered all your days: the best of everything. But not everyone has been so fortunate. Some sleep in damp rooms, with no central heating or no double glazing; some have been injured at work and never got better; some lived on substandard food...yes and smoked and drank... so what?


By 55 some are finished. They may live to 90, but it’s no life.


Go away and think again. I don’t know one single person from my circle of acquaintances and friends: teachers, doctors, civil servants, shop workers, taxi drivers, lecturers, chefs, painters, joiners... and so on, that wants to work a day past the current retirement.


And I don’t know one single retired person who wishes themselves back in the rat race.


Oh, and stop blaming the EU for the fact that men and women will have to retire at the same age. It’s nothing to do with them; it’s to do with equality laws which we have had since 1975. And since you brought it up, why does the UK have the lowest pensions by comparison to wages in the EU? What do you people do with the money?


.....

25 comments:

  1. Dunno, I wouldn't mind working past 65, but saying that, I'm only 52 now and it might change. What I think should happen is the right of a company to finish you at 65 should go and be subject to an annual reviews as to whether you are capable or simply want to retire.

    Spot on about inflation though.

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  2. I'd retire right now if I could. When I reach 65 I don't think my government and private pensions will be enough to live on at the rate things are going. I'll be condemned to shuffle off to work as a greeter at Walmart or some such crap. Not much to look forward to in our "golden years" is there?

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  3. tris

    like to see Duncan-Smith riding the blister end of a shovel for 8 hours when he is 65.
    truth is him and the other filth scum Torys not only do not have a clue about work they dont want to either.

    A greater truth is there is plenty on money to go around for the vast majority in the world to live a long peaceful and happy life without any money worries.

    Its just most cash etc is being hoarded by a few greedy bastards.

    how to you get billionaires alongside poor people who have to eat dog shit to sutvive in the same society...........

    thats capitalism for you

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  4. Reintroduction of slavery.

    Economists say the figures show that George Osborne's drive to slash the public deficit and his predictions on growth are based on assumptions that debt will switch from the government's books to private households – undermining his claims to be a debt-slashing chancellor.

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  5. I’m sure there are some people who would love to work on QM. Some people do like their jobs and of course I can mention a few that, while they don’t much like their jobs, they cannot face the thought of the remaining years stuck in a very small house with the little lady... no more than she can stand the thought of 24/7 with him.

    It depends. Either, with physical work, people become less and less able, and companies are no longer as tolerant as they used to be when people stayed with them a life time... You know, ‘Old Bob doesn’t do as much, but he’s been a faithful servant of the company since my grandfather was the chairman, so we give him the light work...’ If it’s desk work, there is all the pressure of targets and results and being on top of the job, and with the best will in the world there are times when older colleagues just aren’t, be it pain, be it struggling to cope with the pace...

    As I say, for some it is just great, and not so long ago a man of 72 came into my jobshop and asked if I could find him work. He was as fit as a fiddle looked a good 20 years younger, and had muscles on his muscles! He was just gagging to be useful again!

    What I object to is old Duncan-Smith pronouncing for everyone, so that when people protest, others will thing how unreasonable they are.

    Yes, the interest rates being held down at 0.5% is great for people who owe buckets of money, but damned sad for an OAP for example, who has only a bit, and can’t risk it on the markets.

    Shameful that they are telling people to save when the value of their money depreciates by the day.

    How are you keeping btw?

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  6. Ah CH. That was the reason for invading Iraq! They were going to use Euros instead of Dollars for oil!

    Then when Saudi Arabia suggested doing it, Standard and Poor rubbished the Greek economy (which is in no worse state than the UK economy)making the Euro weak and the dollar strong.

    Silly old me, I actually thought it was about WMDs... for 2 seconds!

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  7. Yes Niko. You're right. It's easy when YOU don't have to do it. There are loads of other examples too. People might live another 25 years after retirement, but they spend 10 of them in a geriatric ward dribbling for a living.

    People's backs go, their hearing, eyesight, co-ordination, ability to remember.... they haven't extended that... and in the areas of town where the workers live, the age hasn't gone up that much. Some parts of Glasgow folk have been dead for 10 years by the time they get to pension age.

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  8. Well CH, it's not going to drive the Osbornes into debt, nor the Camerons, nor any of the rest of the Cabinet so who gives a flying one?

    So what if you've nothing to leave your kids. Do they care? No.

    Right, let's get on with it and stop whining. It serves you right. You should have gone to Eton!

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  9. You forgot prescriptions, that was another thing Mrs Thatcher and the Tories said we all wanted to pay for! But not anymore in Scotland thanks to the SNP. Rejoice at that news!

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  10. Yes indeedy Munguin. That woman was under the impression that we wanted to pay for every bloody thing under the sun. Of course she was laughing; she hooked herself a millionaire!

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  11. I think McG that the problem is that people don't WANT to go on working (specially being a greeter at Wal-Mart (they have stopped having them here), but they HAVE to, because the alternative is starvation.

    Given that choice, I suppose Mr Duncan Bloody Hyphen Bloody Smith is right.

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  12. Yea Tris don't know about you but I've always wanted to pay for fresh air and daylight as well. I'm amazed that David Cameron does not know that seeing as he is supposed to know the British people so well!

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  13. I'm sure he's getting round to it as quickly as he can Munguin. He's busy running a couple of wars and backtracking on a dozen or so policies at the moment. Give him time.

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  14. Tris, What a pompous prick that fuckwit Duncan Smith. I went on the same theme tonight, the prick. How dare he presume to tell me when I want to retire. Give me my pension at 65 and if anyone wants to work to 70 give them more when they retire, if they haven't popped their clogs first, which is of course what they want.

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  15. DL: I think your idea is spot on.

    A period of retirement seems reasonable to me. The French have this kind of thing. You can, and most do, retire at 60 (although it's going up) but you can stay on at work, paying your taxes for longer and get a bit more in the already reasonable retirement pension.

    Can't Duncan Smith and his team of out of touch ministers and civil servants (who can retire at 60 on a full unpaid for pension) know that people are different.

    Some can and want to work on, some struggle to get through the last few years. Many incidentally are on the dole because no one wants to employ them, and the transfer to pension costs the state a great deal more money. Apropos of which, have you seen this

    (I am absolutely amazed that the pensioners of the UK took the reduction in heating allowance so calmly. I expected an outrage. Perhaps most pensioners are better off than I thought. Pity so many of them die of cold related illness.)

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  16. I think anyone who earns as much as IDS (irritating dipshit syndrome) should have to work until they drop and should also be made to sponsor 5 families on a combined (per family) wage of less than £24,000 to the tune of say £10,000 per year! There I have said it so it must be a great idea and everyone will agree so is it now 'law'!
    I won't hold my breath!

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  17. Tris

    I have just had exclusive access to the theme tune that will accompany the Torys party political broadcast to explain their proposed benefit changes.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-s3WAULJN5A

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  18. LOL Dubs.... btw, that's some hair his mrs had, huh?

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  19. What is Dean? Elvis or the article?

    If it's Elvis, I'm inclined to agree with you, although it's fair to say the boy could hold a tune alright. If it's the article, tell me, do you know a lot of bus drivers, shelf stacker and bin emptiers that are dying to stay on at work till they are 70? (No pun intended!)

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  20. LOL suedenimon: What a good idea. Well, at least I can't think of a better one.

    It's high time these people were giving a little back. They can call it big society or something like that...

    Oh no wait, they already tried that and it fell flat on its face.

    Och well, nothing much in a name, just as long as they do it ...

    No, don't hold your breath. They are killing enough people off by reducing benefits for the poorest without you volunteering to die for them.

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  21. Tris

    Just trying to inject some humour into the election campaign.

    I was sent to the naughty step on Better Nation when I tried to post the Lib Dem manifesto launch program there. Just think never a naughty step on Blether without Brian but fame at last from the chuckle brothers.

    Program for Lib Dem manifesto launch.

    Opening tune

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsYJyVEUaC4

    Second half opening tune

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY0WxgSXdEE

    Tea/Coffee/ Biscuits
    Sponsored by Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Ginger Nuts

    Sponsored by the enlighten wing of the party, Breakaway.

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  22. Tris

    Is it just me, or does anyone else think the new Greens symbol looks like something you would find outside a petrol station?

    The Greens sponsored by BP maybe.

    A lifetime ban from the chuckle brothers on the horizon me thinks.

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  23. You'll be happy to know Dubs that we don't have a naughty step... we were going to, but it cost too much. (Munguiin is a tight wee animal!)

    I'm thinking maybe you should organise next years Lib Dum Bash, supposing they have one. After all you appear to have more ideas than they do.

    I'm told BT (not BP) might sponsor it in one of their call boxes

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  24. Oh dear....guess what.... I've not seen the Greens new logo thing. I didn't know that they ahd a new one; actually, to be honest I didn't even know that they had an old one!

    Hmmm...

    BP might not be the best sponsor for them, upon reflection!

    Still, as Lesley Gore nearly said.... It's their party...

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