I can tell you, as a financial advisor, that there is no money to be made from selling pensions - commission is now non-existent and will be banned as from 2013. I now have to charge fees for my advice & most people don't want to pay...........so the public aren't getting advice & therefore not taking out any type of pension at all. Public sector employees don't know how lucky they are to have a guaranteed pension scheme at very little (real) cost.
GA from what you said, the actual selling of pensions is strictly regulated but what about the fund managers? Are they as tightly controlled?
Which brings us right back to the agenda of the original poster who, with others, makes his living skimming as much as he can get away with from private pension pots.
With respect BA, that's absolute bollocks and downright offensive.
Really?
Check out the recent report by Civitas "You're On Your Own" on the disgusting level of fees taken out by pension fund managers. Up to 75% of it's value.
Apologies, but I find that much more offensive and ultimately it's driving much of the divisive attitude we've seen on here today.
So, you know exactly what he does then do you BA? He "makes his living skimming as much as he can get away with" does he?
Maybe we should let pension schemes and funds run themselves eh? Or maybe get some fuckwit civil servants to do it, if they can be bothered to turn up for work that is.
So, you know exactly what he does then do you BA? He "makes his living skimming as much as he can get away with" does he?
Maybe we should let pension schemes and funds run themselves eh? Or maybe get some fuckwit civil servants to do it, if they can be bothered to turn up for work that is.
Only to fuckwit civil servants - note, not ALL civil servants - and they're probably either too stoopid to care, on a Whitley day or off on long term sick leave.
People who strike should just be sacked, theres all us without jobs who would kill to have a job like that but yet the strikers are just like "oh we want more money"..think of us without jobs who have to make do on £200 every month where as you get a nice fat pay cheque of over a grand, man up and stop complaining
For me, the key point is that for the unfunded public pensions (which I understand to be the majority) when we retire it will be our kids and grandkids picking up the tab.
So whatever we signed up for or whatever it says in our contracts, unless we accept to receive less, they will all be paying more.
That's why we will have to accept change.
You can say the same thing about carbon emissions and global warming, but there is already enough hot air on this thread!
People who strike should just be sacked, theres all us without jobs who would kill to have a job like that but yet the strikers are just like "oh we want more money"..think of us without jobs who have to make do on £200 every month where as you get a nice fat pay cheque of over a grand, man up and stop complaining
People who strike should just be sacked, theres all us without jobs who would kill to have a job like that but yet the strikers are just like "oh we want more money"..think of us without jobs who have to make do on £200 every month where as you get a nice fat pay cheque of over a grand, man up and stop complaining
I don't think that they are after more money.
The way most of them are going on about it they are
" Working class voters were seen as racist,resistant to change,homophobic, and reactionary.So you had a terrible situation where a LABOUR government was hostile to the ENGLISH working class" who said that ? some one from The Daily Mail ? maybe The Sun ? no it was Lord Glasman Ed Milliband`s speach writer and senior political advisor --writing in Prospect magazine.
Brown and Blair wanted LESS regulation of the banks thats LESS
13 years of F**K all for England and you Labour twonks have the front to gob off about 18 months of the Tories.
I can assure you that many of us striking today have no time for the spineless backstabbing shits in the Labour party leadership
People who strike should just be sacked, theres all us without jobs who would kill to have a job like that but yet the strikers are just like "oh we want more money"..think of us without jobs who have to make do on £200 every month where as you get a nice fat pay cheque of over a grand, man up and stop complaining
This coming from a man whose work ethic extends to asking other people to point him to links to garden centre websites for temp jobs, doesn't 'do' phone calls, moans when a personnel department doesn't reply to emails within an hour of sending a CV, and then when he gets a job, works two days and takes sick days off to go to football. I've got to admire you - you've got more fucking neck than anybody I've ever encountered.
Surely a fairer and more sensible way to deal with public sector pensions would be to allow current employees to keep their entitlements but to immediately close off these schemes to new entrants, who would not then receive the same benefits. It may not save money so quickly, but at least people would know what they are signing up for as they came in to public sector employment. I imagine the unions would still complain about that strategy, but I cant see there would be much support for them.
Absolutely, but my good lady had exactly that situation presented to her by HSBC when she worked there, which seemed a fair way of going about things. Then when the bosses realised that they couldn't afford their upgrade to the latest Lear Jet, they started to chop away at everyones pensions. Funnily enough that helped us with a big decision...
Surely a fairer and more sensible way to deal with public sector pensions would be to allow current employees to keep their entitlements but to immediately close off these schemes to new entrants, who would not then receive the same benefits. It may not save money so quickly, but at least people would know what they are signing up for as they came in to public sector employment. I imagine the unions would still complain about that strategy, but I cant see there would be much support for them.
Just wanted to point out that this is exactly what has been done. Labour and the unions did this about four years ago and this is exactly why they were on strike. The goverment has made false claims about what the public sector entitlement is as an excuse to increase the treasury coffers.
I've just this minute thought of a modest proposal to gradually deal with the scandal of private sector pensions -- which have been looted by employers, the skim-meisters in financial services, and governments -- and it is... abolish them and replace them with a state guaranteed scheme for private and public sectors alike.
Waits to be shot down.
Brilliant, this idea is close to what modern economists are saying is the perfect solution, except it's even simpler. Forget tax relief and private sector involvement, government simply pays everyone a decent pension from taxation.
There is no logic in the profits companies make, (which pay salaries and pension contributions), being diverted and given to a fund manager to invest in someone else's company which may or may not make bigger profits and then the cash pot be given to an insurance company to pay you a pension. Better take the contributions as tax, which is deployed to help grow the nation's GDP, and will support pensions paid direct from government funds. This is the logic of unfunded non-contributory public sector schemes, shuffling the same money around does not add value, it feeds a food chain of financial services.
The only reason it will not, and has not happened, is that the Treasury only looks at balancing it's books on a yearly basis, not generation by generation and politicians only see the future as far as the next election.
Nowhere have I said I want public sector schemes scrapped or reduced, just recognised in the overall remuneration package of public sector workers. The logic of the above means that we should be diverting from public sector employment costs the whole cost of their pension allowing for interest to be earned in line with the future increase in GDP. That is what is being screwed up in the fog of politics and vested interests, and is out of control.
By the way, contrary to suggestions in earlier posts, I do not sell pensions, invest money and do not earn commission. Until we have a perfect system I do a management job as a trustee developing a new corporate system which eliminates the reliance on "skim meisters".
So, you know exactly what he does then do you BA? He "makes his living skimming as much as he can get away with" does he?
Maybe we should let pension schemes and funds run themselves eh? Or maybe get some fuckwit civil servants to do it, if they can be bothered to turn up for work that is.
Thought long and hard about replying to this Off It.
Firstly, and I've assumed you might be involved somehow in the the management of pension funds in this, apologies for any offence caused. I think I've been on here long enough to establish that name calling and groundless insults are not really my thing and clearly not everyone involved in that industry is acting in this way.
It was probably a reaction to months of insulting anti-public sector rhetoric, half truths, ignorance of the underlying issues and basically the knee jerk reaction of the public on this issue. Plenty of which has been reproduced again yesterday and will probably come up again in the future (tbf the other pensions thread was much better in this respect).
Having endured months of being effectively told you are a parasite, or charmingly compared to a pig in the words of the original post for example, sometimes you get to a point when you have to have a go back.
In hindsight, I could have worded it better and it was not my intention to infer everyone involved in running pension schemes were a thief or whatnot. Any more than everyone in the public sector is a lazy f###wit on a gold plated pension.
That said I still maintain that, since the main thrust of the public's view on this is that public sector pensions should be no better than private sector ones, the discussion of the level of fees paid to fund management companies and the way they work remains a valid point. I don't expect you to agree with that if indeed you are involved in that business btw but IMO it is a factor in this dispute and hence I referenced the report around this that I had heard about but I think that most others are unaware of. That's a debate for another day though...
Anyway, it's new day and I'm back at work thankfully, doing my job and so far only I've had one charming member of the public call me a w####r for not being at work yesterday so things are looking up.
BTW oddly enough I have been as sick as a dog this week too!
People who strike should just be sacked, theres all us without jobs who would kill to have a job like that but yet the strikers are just like "oh we want more money"..think of us without jobs who have to make do on £200 every month where as you get a nice fat pay cheque of over a grand, man up and stop complaining
Sack us all ? Nurses, Radiographers, Paramedics Physios, Dieticians, etc etc etc. All those jobs plus an endless list of other public sector workers are very highly trained and take years to reach their level of expertise. Who is going to do those tasks once we have been sacked. Not even politicians are so stupid as to think that is an option. What does that say about you ?
Apologies for dragging this on, another topic I know.
"...the discussion of the level of fees paid to fund management companies and the way they work remains a valid point."
To be honest the charges for large pension funds are small compared to the figures you will have seen quoted for individual schemes. Volume determines price and investing £1bn covering 20,000 employees under a single scheme might cost say 0.4% where 20,000 individuals in personal schemes investing the same money between them would each bear say 1%. (Stakeholder schemes supposed to set the benchmark for low cost pensions are allowed to charge up to 1.5%!!). The real killer historically has been the charges on top of manager charges, typically amounting to the first two years premiums to cover advice, sales and marketing by intermediaries.
Unsurprisingly, the pensions industry likes selling individual pensions to groups of workers, rather than collective corporate schemes, and employers don't care either way, it's not their pensions. Result no one is creating demand for what employees need. Couldn't Unions serve a more positive role here beyond calling strikes?
Comments
Check out the recent report by Civitas "You're On Your Own" on the disgusting level of fees taken out by pension fund managers. Up to 75% of it's value.
Apologies, but I find that much more offensive and ultimately it's driving much of the divisive attitude we've seen on here today.
For me, the key point is that for the unfunded public pensions (which I understand to be the majority) when we retire it will be our kids and grandkids picking up the tab.
So whatever we signed up for or whatever it says in our contracts, unless we accept to receive less, they will all be paying more.
That's why we will have to accept change.
You can say the same thing about carbon emissions and global warming, but there is already enough hot air on this thread!
Absolutely, but my good lady had exactly that situation presented to her by HSBC when she worked there, which seemed a fair way of going about things. Then when the bosses realised that they couldn't afford their upgrade to the latest Lear Jet, they started to chop away at everyones pensions. Funnily enough that helped us with a big decision...
Just wanted to point out that this is exactly what has been done. Labour and the unions did this about four years ago and this is exactly why they were on strike. The goverment has made false claims about what the public sector entitlement is as an excuse to increase the treasury coffers.
Brilliant, this idea is close to what modern economists are saying is the perfect solution, except it's even simpler. Forget tax relief and private sector involvement, government simply pays everyone a decent pension from taxation.
There is no logic in the profits companies make, (which pay salaries and pension contributions), being diverted and given to a fund manager to invest in someone else's company which may or may not make bigger profits and then the cash pot be given to an insurance company to pay you a pension. Better take the contributions as tax, which is deployed to help grow the nation's GDP, and will support pensions paid direct from government funds. This is the logic of unfunded non-contributory public sector schemes, shuffling the same money around does not add value, it feeds a food chain of financial services.
The only reason it will not, and has not happened, is that the Treasury only looks at balancing it's books on a yearly basis, not generation by generation and politicians only see the future as far as the next election.
Nowhere have I said I want public sector schemes scrapped or reduced, just recognised in the overall remuneration package of public sector workers. The logic of the above means that we should be diverting from public sector employment costs the whole cost of their pension allowing for interest to be earned in line with the future increase in GDP. That is what is being screwed up in the fog of politics and vested interests, and is out of control.
By the way, contrary to suggestions in earlier posts, I do not sell pensions, invest money and do not earn commission. Until we have a perfect system I do a management job as a trustee developing a new corporate system which eliminates the reliance on "skim meisters".
Thought long and hard about replying to this Off It.
Firstly, and I've assumed you might be involved somehow in the the management of pension funds in this, apologies for any offence caused. I think I've been on here long enough to establish that name calling and groundless insults are not really my thing and clearly not everyone involved in that industry is acting in this way.
It was probably a reaction to months of insulting anti-public sector rhetoric, half truths, ignorance of the underlying issues and basically the knee jerk reaction of the public on this issue. Plenty of which has been reproduced again yesterday and will probably come up again in the future (tbf the other pensions thread was much better in this respect).
Having endured months of being effectively told you are a parasite, or charmingly compared to a pig in the words of the original post for example, sometimes you get to a point when you have to have a go back.
In hindsight, I could have worded it better and it was not my intention to infer everyone involved in running pension schemes were a thief or whatnot. Any more than everyone in the public sector is a lazy f###wit on a gold plated pension.
That said I still maintain that, since the main thrust of the public's view on this is that public sector pensions should be no better than private sector ones, the discussion of the level of fees paid to fund management companies and the way they work remains a valid point. I don't expect you to agree with that if indeed you are involved in that business btw but IMO it is a factor in this dispute and hence I referenced the report around this that I had heard about but I think that most others are unaware of. That's a debate for another day though...
Anyway, it's new day and I'm back at work thankfully, doing my job and so far only I've had one charming member of the public call me a w####r for not being at work yesterday so things are looking up.
BTW oddly enough I have been as sick as a dog this week too!
Sack us all ? Nurses, Radiographers, Paramedics Physios, Dieticians, etc etc etc. All those jobs plus an endless list of other public sector workers are very highly trained and take years to reach their level of expertise. Who is going to do those tasks once we have been sacked. Not even politicians are so stupid as to think that is an option. What does that say about you ?
BA
Apologies for dragging this on, another topic I know.
"...the discussion of the level of fees paid to fund management companies and the way they work remains a valid point."
To be honest the charges for large pension funds are small compared to the figures you will have seen quoted for individual schemes. Volume determines price and investing £1bn covering 20,000 employees under a single scheme might cost say 0.4% where 20,000 individuals in personal schemes investing the same money between them would each bear say 1%. (Stakeholder schemes supposed to set the benchmark for low cost pensions are allowed to charge up to 1.5%!!). The real killer historically has been the charges on top of manager charges, typically amounting to the first two years premiums to cover advice, sales and marketing by intermediaries.
Unsurprisingly, the pensions industry likes selling individual pensions to groups of workers, rather than collective corporate schemes, and employers don't care either way, it's not their pensions. Result no one is creating demand for what employees need. Couldn't Unions serve a more positive role here beyond calling strikes?