Comments on: We Need Frank

By: Matthew

Matthew — Tue, 07 Sep 2004 08:35:49 +0000

” been carried out on terms which seem more or less equivalent to a 5% wage cut over the last ten years” Could the government not legislate that all salaries should carry some indication of the present-value of one’s pension scheme, to concentrate minds? Admittedly it would make it more complicated… For those who haven’t seen them, John Eatwell, ‘The anatomy of the pensions crisis’ (http://www.cerf.cam.ac.uk/publications/files/Eatwell-%20pensions%20crisis.pdf) (or search google) and Nicholas Barr, ‘reforming pensions’ (http://wbln0018.worldbank.org/HDNet/HDDocs.nsf/2d5135ecbf351de6852566a90069b8b6/307dcdf30f915c4b8525696200583bf2/$FILE/Reforming%20Pensions.pdf) are both good

By: harry

harry — Tue, 07 Sep 2004 02:49:02 +0000

Daniel—I have this wierd feeling of deja vu but I can’t pin it down. Anyway, it is that once you posted something that seemed absolutely right, in all respects, to the word, and after reading it I thought—‘surely the guy understands that the fact that he is completely right is compelling evidence that the course of action he is recommending will not be taken’.

By: DC

DC — Tue, 07 Sep 2004 01:26:07 +0000

Apparently Hoon’s nickname in Westminster circles is Buff. Buff Hoon, geddit? Just saying, that’s all.

By: Jack

Jack — Tue, 07 Sep 2004 01:08:01 +0000

I would like to ban the use of the word pension for non defined benefit arrangements because, other than a vague intention to make a provision for old age they are completely different. The word conjurs images of someone else taking care of you. Not that it is necessarily the case that DC schemes are a cut. Anyone who moves employers regularly may well do better with a dc scheme. Politicians should also be banned from using the term “earnings link” unless they promise that is to hold it for at least ten and preferably twenty years. He doesn’t agree about the reason we are not saving enough. For him it is the tax disincentive arising from the pension credit that is discouraging savers and a system that is almost comically regressive. I suggest that he would need rather more backing than he is likely to get if he is to overcome the treasury. The treasury believes it has solved pensions in that the cost of the state pension is not currently expected to rise as a portion of GDP! I fear that current policy makers are satisfied that they aren’t seen to be screwing the wealthy and they are dong quite a lot for the very poor. Anything after that is unlikely to gain much traction. On the other hand the pensioners can just vote themselves a pay rise when there’s enough of them.