Starmer’s chronicles

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

Whilst I support removal of the 2.5% aspect of the triple lock, it's not gonna free a lot of cash for the government when you think about what is happening in the economy and current inflation.

So, what can be done with pensions? Obviously, raise the pension age immediately to at least 70. They can't reduce the payout per week.

They can't touch health other than discover where waste can be cut. They can clamp down on welfare, but the money will need to be rirected for END/child mental health.

We really are up shit creek nix paddle.

There is a good idea in this article that you set it as a percentage of average earnings, but also link it with inflation.

So it normally goes up with workers' wage growth, but in times where inflation is higher than that, then the pension will still match inflation. The main difference here (other than giving 2.5% bump anyway) is that the pension then won't continue to go up. It says the same until wages catch up.

[Carth]

I'm not convinced that raising the pension age will do any good.

I worked until almost 67 yrs old (instead of 65½ ) and was forced to retire through poor health (knee joint and lower back arthritis).

If 70 was the retiring age I'd have spent time on long term sick . . and with all the benefits that come with it, (none of which apply now I'm a pensioner). Heck if I could be bothered to push I may even have got disability payments and free parking

Just false economy, like a lot of stuff banded about as a 'fix' for a Government with empty coffers.

[Sephiroth]

The thing about raising the pension age is that people will continue to earn (more than the pension would pay) and they'd be net contributors to the economy. People needing support would still get it and it would be affordable.

Of course, there are many people who are work shy and there's the real problem.

[Carth]

Don't think I know many from my working life that would still be do those jobs coming up to 70 . . in fact I'd guess 60 would be a push before leaving and finding something less demanding on the body.

Then you have the problem of actually finding another job at that age, where even the dumbest jobs are taken by the 'younger' ones because a 17yr old on minimum wage is paid less than an older person.

[Sephiroth]

Yep - shit creek.

[Carth]

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

Yep - shit creek.

We could always look at it from a different direction . . and drop retirement age to 60.

If everybody stopped working at 60, there would be quite a few jobs up for grabs. The (new) pensioner gets roughly £12,500 per annum and a younger bloke with a family gets a decent paid job (£25k minimum?) . . therefore the UK saves on the benefits he was being paid for not being in work.

No idea how much those benefits (for a family) would be, but he's now got a job and money to spend and the pensioner gets time to . . do whatever he wants, and if he also has a private pension he's gonna be fine.

Would it also encourage more people to put into private pensions, knowing they'll probably still have some good years of decent health if retiring at 60 ?

[Sephiroth]

You've described the big dichotomy. It actually needs careful planning and government supported initiatives to put people, opportunities and jobs where they are needed. AI might be the elephant in the room for either scenario.

Shit creek?

[Carth]

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

You've described the big dichotomy. It actually needs careful planning and government supported initiatives to put people, opportunities and jobs where they are needed. AI might be the elephant in the room for either scenario.

Shit creek?

Probably so, yes . . and the sound of Banjos to go with it

[mrmistoffelees]

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

You've described the big dichotomy. It actually needs careful planning and government supported initiatives to put people, opportunities and jobs where they are needed. AI might be the elephant in the room for either scenario.

Shit creek?

The AI argument perspective is interesting , mass layoffs in the US due to Ai however, the vast majority aren’t of them aren’t to replace staff it’s because the money is needed to purchase the GPU’s from NVIDIA.

In company’s where they did perform layoffs where AI was used to replace employees, one example of which would be Salesforce , there was a reversal where a significant number were rehired (on a lower wage though……)

AI in its current form is a bubble waiting to burst just like Dot com many years ago. Sure there’s some useful tooling available but the vast majority is just overhyped mehness

https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-case...generative-ai/

Originally Posted by mrmistoffelees

The AI argument perspective is interesting , mass layoffs in the US due to Ai however, the vast majority aren’t of them aren’t to replace staff it’s because the money is needed to purchase the GPU’s from NVIDIA.

In company’s where they did perform layoffs where AI was used to replace employees, one example of which would be Salesforce , there was a reversal where a significant number were rehired (on a lower wage though……)

AI in its current form is a bubble waiting to burst just like Dot com many years ago. Sure there’s some useful tooling available but the vast majority is just overhyped mehness

https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-case...generative-ai/

https://www.thurrott.com/a-i/openai-...evious-quarter

The Wall Street Journal uncovered a bit of financial information that Microsoft tried to hide in its recent financial results: OpenAI isn’t just unprofitable. It’s historically unprofitable.

The publication reports on a calculation made by Bernstein analyst Firoz Valliji which indicates that the $4.1 billion loss that Microsoft attributed to its OpenAI investment in the quarter wasn’t just 490 percent worse, year-over-year (YOY), than its loss one year ago. Given OpenAI’s valuation at the time and our new understanding that Microsoft owned 32.5 percent of OpenAI in that quarter, it means that OpenAI lost about $12 billion overall. That’s one of the biggest quarterly losses in tech industry history.

Armed with this information, I did a bit of research of my own. And according to Wikipedia, only two tech companies rank in the 15 biggest quarterly losses in history: AOL Time Warner ($44.9 billion in 2002) and Intel ($16.6 billion in 2024). These are the only tech firms to lose over $10 billion in a single quarter, and AOL Time Warner’s loss was tied to the bursting Dot Com bubble and that company’s exit from the tech industry.

Originally Posted by Carth

We could always look at it from a different direction . . and drop retirement age to 60.

If everybody stopped working at 60, there would be quite a few jobs up for grabs. The (new) pensioner gets roughly £12,500 per annum and a younger bloke with a family gets a decent paid job (£25k minimum?) . . therefore the UK saves on the benefits he was being paid for not being in work.

No idea how much those benefits (for a family) would be, but he's now got a job and money to spend and the pensioner gets time to . . do whatever he wants, and if he also has a private pension he's gonna be fine.

Would it also encourage more people to put into private pensions, knowing they'll probably still have some good years of decent health if retiring at 60 ?

Be extremely expensive, though. People are living longer, and you would be further tipping the balance between the retired and the workers paying for their retirement.

I think you need to keep the pension age where it is change the triple lock to a different system which doesn't let pensions erode vs inflation but doesn't trap the government into unsustainable increases.

Also further encourage private pension saving.

[Carth]

Retired workers aren't the big problem, it's the amount of unemployed workers that is the double whammy here.

If you're unemployed you receive benefits (paid for by taxation) yet pay no tax.
Get the unemployed into work and you immediately save on paying benefits whilst also getting tax income.

If you're long term sick (take a look at some of the figures lately) you get benefits without paying tax.
Deciding who is sick and who is just taking the piss is a massive undertaking, as seen with the disabled payment processes which have caused many problems to the genuine claimants.

. . . screwing businesses over isn't helping here at all

[Jaymoss]

Those on benefits spend all their money on being alive meaning it all goes and stays in circulation and a lot of that is taxed so they do pay tax just not income tax

[Carth]

Originally Posted by Jaymoss

Those on benefits spend all their money on being alive meaning it all goes and stays in circulation and a lot of that is taxed so they do pay tax just not income tax

Same as pensioners then, although pensioners are apparently the 'overpaid' now, having mainly worked all their life.

[papa smurf]

Originally Posted by Jaymoss

Those on benefits spend all their money on being alive meaning it all goes and stays in circulation and a lot of that is taxed so they do pay tax just not income tax

from my observations of my neighbours [the ones not in work, they outnumber the ones in work] they spend it on drugs and takeaways