Public sector pensions

mnmnm said:
Not withstanding the work ethics of the German population the fact remains that the restitution funds post-war have had a massive impact on their economy since. Take VW - it would not have been in existence without the efforts of the British immediately after the war ended. Ford didn't want to get involved with it. The Americans also invested a lot of other trade, be that guilt-driven or for the scientific advances (rockets and 3M as examples), which helped them to pick up after the devastation. I admire and agree with the ethos of work hard and perfectionism that the Germans are known for as far as their economic production goes. But it is not as cut and dried as to state that Germany is in such a strong financial position today purely because of it's population's sheer hard work over and above other countries.
I think Greece also had something to say recently about a certain 'war loan' to Germany that has still not been repaid....
But that is worthy of another discussion.
Click to expand...

You think thats bad - what do you think is happening in Scotland?!

The UK is getting left behind, thats the truth of it. It doesn't "do" things, such as provision of basic services, as well as other Northern European countries. Its businesses are not producing so many goods wanted on the international market. It has higher levels of people on benefits and indeed, sorry to say, far higher levels of "disabled" people than any other European country by far. Its clear that it needs to be radically modernised and working practices improved drastically in order to compete on an international stage. But in the UK, you are almost encouraged not to criticise it, or compare it to other countries.

Theres very good reason why the UK's top showjumpers are struggling to compete with the best in the world - they cannot afford the best horses, neither can they afford to breed them. Obviously there are some lucky exceptions, but there really isn't anyone in the UK who can afford to invest in a string of horses, the most expensive one costing 3.4 million Euros like Rackel Chavannaise.
 
Exactly Mithras - and not just on an individual level. The Government frittered away the benefits of the North Sea Oil finds in the 70s, the opportunities to develop patents and scientific discoveries in the 80s - computers, even the internet was a British man's idea - and I would suggest several more possibilities to strengthen this country in the 1990s. A very recent discovery, Graphene, was ignored by British politicians and companies (what is left of them) and is being taken forward enthusiastically by most other nations because of its numerous applications.
 
Subsequent generations have seen the erosion of the 'work premium' where the benefits of work are proportionally and considerably greater than welfare benefits. This has led to a loss of motivation in all but those who have a strong work ethic and self discipline. The tying-in of benefits to the 'relative poverty' measures has skewed the ratings to such that it is no longer a payment to prevent absolute poverty, which it was even as recently as the late 80s, and converted it into an equivalent income without the effort required to earn that sum as a salary.

Britain has endured a succession of short-termist politicians who do not seem to have any interest in building the country like a good CEO would be responsible for developing his company. And that, for me, is what has been a big problem with them.
 
Last edited:
Mithras said:
I increasingly think it must be modelled on the Roman Empire! Which probably explains why the Brits don't like it...



No, its because the Germans work damned hard and very productively, and are good at starting up and running successful businesses, and don't have this lax attitude towards increasing the number of people on benefits. They still expect people to take responsibility for themselves, if reasonably fit and able to do so.

Just realised that so many things I own are not British. There just aren't British goods out there of the quality to buy. My car is German, my horsebox is French, most of my riding wear is German (Pikeur, Cavallo, ELT), even my horse is German! Where are the British companies producing goods I might actually want to buy? Just bought a new washing machine, its a German Miele, which everyone knows is by far the best on the market.
Click to expand...
Maybe they havent had a succesion of labour goverments that the idiot population vote in every so often , they wreck the economy, line there friends pockets and reward the feckless, then we get the torys who try to sort it out only to have it wrecked again , yes agree on british manufactured goods , mind we do make some good cars if you have the money jaguar, landrover, RR bentley, aston,lotus or just want run of the mill honda ,nissan, toyota, vauxhall made here but no british owned maufactures...
you can get a good uk made horse box oakley, kevin parker etc so no excuse to buy french!! bet a lot of the top brands of riding wear are made in china !! as are an increasing number of white goods ... I try to buy british first then american , euro ,japanese, so have american washing machine , saddles ,tack ,riding wear, pick up truck, dutch daf lorry with british bodywork,italian van, !!!!
 
mnmnm said:
Subsequent generations have seen the erosion of the 'work premium' where the benefits of work are proportionally and considerably greater than welfare benefits. This has led to a loss of motivation in all but those who have a strong work ethic and self discipline. The tying-in of benefits to the 'relative poverty' measures has skewed the ratings to such that it is no longer a payment to prevent absolute poverty, which it was even as recently as the late 80s, and converted it into an equivalent income without the effort required to earn that sum as a salary.

Britain has endured a succession of short-termist politicians who do not seem to have any interest in building the country like a good CEO would be responsible for developing his company. And that, for me, is what has been a big problem with them.
Click to expand...

One main reason!!! LABOUR goverments since the second world war .....
 
mnmnm said:
Either way the money taken from you in tax does not all go to directly pay the wages of public servants as you have previously asserted. That is the only reason I referred to it.
Click to expand...

I did not say that it did, still less did I "assert" it.

I said that the public sector pensions and salaries are entirely funded by private sector taxation, not that nothing else was funded by it when clearly overseas aid, state pensions, benefits etc are.


mnmnm said:
After your 3 years in public sector roles and a time retraining, we are to assume that you made your career financially very successful in the private sector. I would guess that in the IT industry since the mid 80s you have been able to secure a salary in excess of the average.
Click to expand...

Please stop assuming and guessing. I did not stay in that career. I retrained again when other sectors of the economy offered me more challenge and more opportunity.

Of what relevance is the fact that I am lucky enough to have had a higher than average income to this discussion? We do not live in a Communist State where everyone is supposed to earn the same. People with higher ability and/or more drive and/or rarer skills and/or more luck do earn more than other people.

My income is irrelevant, but I haven't lost touch with the world I live in. What really makes me mad on this thread is people like a District Nurse on £30,000 a year thinking that some poor kid on a till in Tesco on £11,500 should pay additional tax so that she can still retire on a £20,000 pension :mad:

mnmnm said:
In which case, it is purely about life choices and the luck of the draw, because nobody knows what the future holds and that is your credit.
Click to expand...

The whole of life from before we are born when our parents meet is the luck of the draw. I got a lucky draw with a good brain and I worked damned hard to make the most of it and saved 1/3 of what I earned to give myself a pension that I think I deserve. Do you have a problem with that?

While you are thinking about your answer you might like to consider that I have made no value judgements whatsoever on this forum about the social value of the public sector.

It is other people who persist in interpreting my explanations of how it is financed, and my opinion that Public Sector pensions are unjust, as in some way being against the sector as a whole.

It is nothing of the kind.


mnmnm said:
the enhanced pensions and index-linking that everyone is so irritated by.
Click to expand...


"Irritated by"

Rather a trivialisation of the fact that private sector workers will have to find billions more in tax if the public sector is to keep their pensions as they curently are, don't you think?

I think that people who have already retired are completely irrelevant to this discussion. It cannot be changed in retrospect except by additional taxation of pensioners which would also hit the private sector.


mnmnm said:
I personally do not agree with the public sector striking for the pensions, because I accept the need for them to be reviewed. What I am most disgruntled at is the fact that at the top level there is no intention to 'cut the cloth' accordingly and so can understand why many of the lower paid staff feel the need to make a point and that is the only way they feel they will be heard.
Click to expand...

I agree with you. If you read the thread you would see that I have already agreed with this. We all agree with you.

I didn't see or hear anyone during the strike saying "one rule for all", all I saw were people saying "leave my pension alone". I don't agree with you that the lower paid staff struck because senior managers have a better pension than they do, sorry.
 
Last edited:
mnmnm said:
Britain has endured a succession of short-termist politicians who do not seem to have any interest in building the country like a good CEO would be responsible for developing his company. And that, for me, is what has been a big problem with them.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately the problem is democracy :rolleyes:

People won't vote for a Party saying things they don't want to hear until it is obvious that the lot that are in power have messed it up.

Benign dictatorship is the way to go to get this country moving, but unfortunately benign dictators have a way of becoming very un-benign over time :o
 
Santa Paws said:
Unfortunately the problem is democracy :rolleyes:

People won't vote for a Party saying things they don't want to hear until it is obvious that the lot that are in power have messed it up.

Benign dictatorship is the way to go to get this country moving, but unfortunately benign dictators have a way of becoming very un-benign over time :o
Click to expand...
I think things would improve if scotland got independence they could have their socilist SNP dream and we would be free of alot of destructive policys.. and best of all it would finish labour south of the border for ever unless they changed to represent the working population :D
 
Mithras said:
Does anyone know the percentage of the working population employed in the public sector in the UK as a whole? In Scotland it is around 1/3 I believe, in Germany its 9%.
Click to expand...

The Public Sector is so large in Scotland as it has been an easy way of securing the Labour Vote for years. :o The sooner they give Scotland their financial Independence the better.
 
perfect11s said:
I think things would improve if scotland got independence they could have their socialist SNP dream and we would be free of alot of destructive policys.. and best of all it would finish labour south of the border for ever unless they changed to represent the working population :D
Click to expand...

It probably would be much better for the UK, no idea why England wants to hang onto Scotland and have its voting patterns distorted by it. That said, I'd be out of Scotland in a flash. Do you have any idea of how strongly communist some of the SNP "party activists" are, or the way they behave? We are talking about really dirty tactics, not giving people jobs because they are not in the "party", high high taxes, jobs for the boys, state control of just about everything, I could honestly imagine them legislating for a Mugabe style land or property grab. The latest thing to come from Alex Salmond is that Scottish people are all to become Scandinavian now, as he wants to model Scotland on high tax, high public service economies - I think he is forgetting that Scotland is a mainly Celtic country, and Scandinavian policies just wouldn't work there. Oh, and apparantly another of his policies is to double the population by immigration from eastern Europe. Just about gets rid of the only reason for actually living in Scotland - the peace and quiet.

The economic uncertainty is terrifying. You just don't know what is going to happen next, or how to plan for your future, including pensions.

I always think a country gets the government it deserves though.
 
Santa Paws said:
My income is irrelevant, but I haven't lost touch with the world I live in. What really makes me mad on this thread is people like a District Nurse on £30,000 a year thinking that some poor kid on a till in Tesco on £11,500 should pay additional tax so that she can still retire on a £20,000 pension :mad:
Click to expand...

Which would be solved by my idea of the introduction of a rule which tied final salary pensions to a set percentage of final salary. With the excess to go into the pot. Yes, you say, it might not be fair if someone who had worked all their life for 15k a year got a smaller pension than someone who had earned 45k, but this is what happens in life. Plus my other idea is guarantee of a good enough state pension funded by slightly higher tax which people would save on having to pay for a private pension.
 
perfect11s said:
Maybe they havent had a succesion of labour goverments that the idiot population vote in every so often , they wreck the economy, line there friends pockets and reward the feckless, then we get the torys who try to sort it out only to have it wrecked again , yes agree on british manufactured goods , mind we do make some good cars if you have the money jaguar, landrover, RR bentley, aston,lotus or just want run of the mill honda ,nissan, toyota, vauxhall made here but no british owned maufactures...
you can get a good uk made horse box oakley, kevin parker etc so no excuse to buy french!! bet a lot of the top brands of riding wear are made in china !! as are an increasing number of white goods ... I try to buy british first then american , euro ,japanese, so have american washing machine , saddles ,tack ,riding wear, pick up truck, dutch daf lorry with british bodywork,italian van, !!!!
Click to expand...

I don't hold with this buy British thing at all. If it can't compete with other goods produced abroad, then I'm not going to be replacing things that break down after a short time to subsidise poor production values. Plus I'm not 100% British.

But really there is hardly anything British made that is best to buy. My Cavallo puffa jacket is so much better than the British makes, warmer, lighter and stands up to washing better. No matter where they are made, German companies like Pikeur are producing breeches of the quality I want to wear and UK companies just aren't. They're on a different level entirely to UK companies with their fabrics, appearance and tailoring. Miele appliances save money in the long run because they last so long. As for cars, you'd never get me in a Jaguar or Land Rover as I value comfort and reliability. I currently have two Mercedes, one runs like new although its done 166,000 miles and the other is a smart newer one. mpg is great on both. Parts are surprisingly cheap and usually next day delivery. Even my tyres are Continentals or Vredesteins! And as for horsebox manufacturers, unless you are going to spend 40k plus in the UK, they just aren't interested in customer service. Total snobbery. And even then they seem to be full of little niggles - my friend's megabucks Equitrek 7.5 tonner certainly is, latest was the ramp stuck and they couldn't get the horses out!

So for me I'm afraid its usually buy my German preferred brand first, not because I deliberately buy German but because in most categories they offer the best product for the best price. e.g. for washing machines its Miele first, then AEG, then Siemens/Bosch pretty much together. I know my washing machines - I have to buy so many in my line of business!
 
Anglebracket said:
There are around 6 million public sector workers in the UK. The UK workforce totals around 30 million. See:

http://www.civilservant.org.uk/numbers.pdf
Click to expand...

of this half a million are civil service.

The percentage of PS workers is massive compared to Germany's 9%. Are the figures comparing like for like and if so how is Germany functioning on 9%.
I can see wastage and slack in the system here but not that much.

Having only lived in England how do things run in Germany civil service, health servicewise etc etc.
 
Mithras said:
I don't hold with this buy British thing at all. If it can't compete with other goods produced abroad, then I'm not going to be replacing things that break down after a short time to subsidise poor production values. Plus I'm not 100% British.

But really there is hardly anything British made that is best to buy. My Cavallo puffa jacket is so much better than the British makes, warmer, lighter and stands up to washing better. No matter where they are made, German companies like Pikeur are producing breeches of the quality I want to wear and UK companies just aren't. They're on a different level entirely to UK companies with their fabrics, appearance and tailoring. Miele appliances save money in the long run because they last so long. As for cars, you'd never get me in a Jaguar or Land Rover as I value comfort and reliability. I currently have two Mercedes, one runs like new although its done 166,000 miles and the other is a smart newer one. mpg is great on both. Parts are surprisingly cheap and usually next day delivery. Even my tyres are Continentals or Vredesteins! And as for horsebox manufacturers, unless you are going to spend 40k plus in the UK, they just aren't interested in customer service. Total snobbery. And even then they seem to be full of little niggles - my friend's megabucks Equitrek 7.5 tonner certainly is, latest was the ramp stuck and they couldn't get the horses out!

So for me I'm afraid its usually buy my German preferred brand first, not because I deliberately buy German but because in most categories they offer the best product for the best price. e.g. for washing machines its Miele first, then AEG, then Siemens/Bosch pretty much together. I know my washing machines - I have to buy so many in my line of business!
Click to expand...
Oh im not for buying british at any cost.. however a strong economy is a net exporter so buying products made in the country you reside in helps ballance the books , I totaly agree about poor service you make a good point and yes equitrek is a good example having read the threads on here about their products and the dismisive attitude to faults and faulty workmanship!!! instead of seeing it as feedback and a chance to improve, its the same old our products are the best!!! and you a just a moaning pest and their are plenty of customers
... If you want a good washing machine trust me The BEST are the american made whirlpool ours is over 10 years old , :D ..
 
paddy555 said:
of this half a million are civil service.

The percentage of PS workers is massive compared to Germany's 9%. Are the figures comparing like for like and if so how is Germany functioning on 9%.
I can see wastage and slack in the system here but not that much.

Having only lived in England how do things run in Germany civil service, health servicewise etc etc.
Click to expand...
Possibly the do what they are paid for IE provide services and not sit around moaning and pretending to be busy !!!!! However my guess is there are more indians than chiefs less form filling , bovine scatter and more motivated workers !!!???
 
Last edited:
perfect11s said:
Possibly the do what they are paid for IE provide services and not sit around moaning and pretending to be busy !!!!!
Click to expand...

sorry, perhaps I should have worded my question more carefully. I was looking for facts rather than "lets slag off the public sector" type comments.
 
Mithras said:
Which would be solved by my idea of the introduction of a rule which tied final salary pensions to a set percentage of final salary. With the excess to go into the pot. Yes, you say, it might not be fair if someone who had worked all their life for 15k a year got a smaller pension than someone who had earned 45k, but this is what happens in life.
Click to expand...

Mithras I must be explaining myself very badly because you keep misunderstanding me.

I am not and never have been against one person having a higher pension than another when they have earned more.

I am and always have been very against public sector employees striking to retain a hugely disproportionately generous salary linked pension when the private sector who finance it do not have a salary linked pension at all. Particularly when some of the people paying for it are on a pittance of a salary with no pension whatsoever.

Perhaps considering two people earning the same will make it clearer. My 25 year old friend is an accounts clerk earning 20k a year. With her employer contributions of 10% and her own 10% she will end up with a money purchase fund worth £160k. Enough to buy her a pension of £6,400 a year.

Why should she pay more tax (and more, and more, higher as the years go by if things do not change) to fund a clerk in the town hall on 20k a year to get a 40/55ths salary after 40 years of work, £14,250?


No one has yet answered this question, no matter how many times or ways it has been put by different people.


[Note that I have left growth and inflation out of these figures. Inflation does not alter the comparison as long as both are subject to the same inflation. Growth on private funds is currently, and has been for a long time, below the rate of inflation. It may be possible to get higher growth, but only at higher risk, and since the public sector pension is wholly risk free it seems reasonable to me to assume that zero real growth will continue.]


Mithras said:
Plus my other idea is guarantee of a good enough state pension funded by slightly higher tax which people would save on having to pay for a private pension.
Click to expand...

Have you any idea what this would cost? The higher tax would not be "slight" it would be ginormous.

A very high proportion of people earning under the national average do not make any pension provision at all. There would be no extra money to come from them, and they are much more than half the workforce.

It sounds like a good idea, but the sums will just not add up :(
 
Last edited:
paddy555 said:
of this half a million are civil service.

The percentage of PS workers is massive compared to Germany's 9%. Are the figures comparing like for like and if so how is Germany functioning on 9%.
I can see wastage and slack in the system here but not that much.

Having only lived in England how do things run in Germany civil service, health servicewise etc etc.
Click to expand...

I believe from those figures that the German health service is a private sector business with reimbursements from the state for those who qualify for them. It is not free at point of use, is it?

German culture is very much to stick by the rules and I suspect they employ a lot less people checking up on what other people are doing. There are blocks of flats where someone will report you if you do not have your curtains in the colour specified in your tenancy agreement, or there were when a friend of mine lived there ten years ago. I doubt very much that such a society employs five-a-day advisors.

Does the German figure include Police and Fire and Rescue, I don't know?

I too would love to know the detail of how they run on so low a number of employees defined as public sector.
 
The NHS employs over a 1 million people - in thrid place after the Chinese Army and the Indian Railways - so will always skew the figures employed by the Public Sector as we are the ONLY country in the world that has a totally State funded free at the point of delivery Health Service. It is the ultimate black hole in financial terms which is why no other country has it:o
 
tinselunicorn said:
The NHS employs over a 1 million people - in thrid place after the Chinese Army and the Indian Railways - so will always skew the figures employed by the Public Sector as we are the ONLY country in the world that has a totally State funded free at the point of delivery Health Service. It is the ultimate black hole in financial terms which is why no other country has it:o
Click to expand...

Wow, that's a big number!

I have a real problem with health care that is not free at point of use. Much as I can see that it would save a fortune by stopping people with a cold going to the doc when they could go and get lemsip, it also means that some poor people with pneumonia won't go and they'll die.

I actually think a health service free at point of use is part of what makes Great Britain great.

I don't care how much of it is delivered by private companies, but free at point of use has to stay.

I cannot understand how rich Americans can sleep at night knowing children are dying for want of some money to pay for basic medication :mad:
 
I have no problem with the concept of free at the point of delivery but I think there are ways in which it could be better monitored. In the cities there is a massive problem with health 'tourists' who cost the NHS as a whole a fortune - fly in and on arrival need dialysis, treatment for HIV, delivering their babies etc etc as it is all so expensive in their country of origin and they know they will be treated here no questions asked:o there is a fairly pathetic attempt to recoup some of these costs:o There are many ways in which money can be saved and the NHS be more effective - and not by redcuing staff levels but by looking at prescription costs, bringing back the sterilisation and reuse of some equipment instead of using 'disposable' versions all the time......etc etc the list goes on but no one ever deals with it they just employ more expensive 'consultants' :o
 
paddy555 said:
sorry, perhaps I should have worded my question more carefully. I was looking for facts rather than "lets slag off the public sector" type comments.
Click to expand...
Oh what part was slaging them off???, sorry you asked I just offered
my take, lack of motivation, too many bosses and pen pushers, or maybe you think the average kraut is superhuman and can do the work of 2 brits perhaps?????
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top