£690 billion for Count Kostov's old age should come in handy. It might pay the champagne bill. I might even upgrade from Tesco's Transylvanian fizz to Krug. And don't mention Dom Perignon. That is drunk by peasants who have been watching too many James Bond films. They also think that a martini (shaken not stirred) is the hieght of sophistication.
But someone has stolen my little nest egg for old age.
If you want to find the biggest thieves of all, look no further than government. Legalised theft is still theft from ordinary hard working families and from layabout aristocrats alike.
This time the theft comes in the shape of the public sector pensions black hole. First the government pays civil servants to make our lives a misery. And then it pays them to do nothing for the rest of their lives. The cost of the the black hole is estimated, by our friendly useless actuaries, to be about £690 billion. (See BBC News Feb 15th 2005). The useless actuaries are Watson Wyatt who spent a great deal of time, effort and money telling us what we already knew: we are well and truly screwed paying for the post dated pensions cheques which the government has been signing off in order to buy a few more lousy votes and stay in power.
The scale of this theft is huge. Even the great fraud and robber, Maxwell, could only get hold of £400 million his pensioners money. A thousand Maxwells would still be dwarfed by the government's pension theft. Even one Maxwell took alot to dwarf, let alone 1,000 of them.
If this debt takes 25 years to pay off, that comes to about £28 billion a year we will be paying as the price of past promises. That is nearly £1,000 for every household for the next 25 years. If anything, the black hole is going to get much worse before it gets much better.
At some point the children of the idle baby boomers may decide they can't pay, won't pay for the profligacy of their parents and past generations and governments. Then the chickens truly come home to roost.
Meanwhile the government gets all pompous and lectures private companies on their pension failings and life companies on pensions mis-selling. This is the same governmetn that is raiding £5 billion a year (£40 billion so far and counting...) from private pension plans in extra tax. It then wonders why private pensions are in trouble. But the private pension mess is a storm in a tea cup compared to the public pensions mess. The difference is that anyoen who works in the private sector is screwed: first the government will wreck the pension with its £5billion a year tax on it, and then when the pesnion fund goes bust, the pensioner will be left high and dry. In contrast, the public sector pensioner will be bailed out of the bottomless black hole by the bottomless pocket of the taxpayer. The final twist is that the government now wants private sector companies to bail out failing pension funds. The consequences are obvious:
- dodgy pension funds get bailed out by good funds. This gives no incentive for the dodgy funds to clean up their act. But it gives every incentive for companies to run a mile from any involvement in pensions provision: it costs enough to pay for your own pensioners, let alone anyone elses. So the result is that company pension schemes, (at least the final salary sort which the public sector enjoys so much) are disappearing faster than the self-destruct Mynah bird can squawk "kitty kitty kitty" to the nearest cat.
Meanwhile, Count Kostov would like to suggest some simple solutions which emanate from his glorious homeland.
First, the pensions crisis can be solved completely for the benefit of society once you realise that dead peasants make very good compost, especially for the rose bed.
Second, uncle Joe Stalin was a little suspect on some things, but he was pretty good on law and order. The first to be shot are not the lawyers or bourgeois running dog capitalists: it should be the actuaries who should first calculate precisely how long it will take the shot to leave the gun and pierce their heads (heart shots would not work as a crucial part of actuarial training is the removal of the heart. They also remove any part of the brain that deals with common sense).
But someone has stolen my little nest egg for old age.
If you want to find the biggest thieves of all, look no further than government. Legalised theft is still theft from ordinary hard working families and from layabout aristocrats alike.
This time the theft comes in the shape of the public sector pensions black hole. First the government pays civil servants to make our lives a misery. And then it pays them to do nothing for the rest of their lives. The cost of the the black hole is estimated, by our friendly useless actuaries, to be about £690 billion. (See BBC News Feb 15th 2005). The useless actuaries are Watson Wyatt who spent a great deal of time, effort and money telling us what we already knew: we are well and truly screwed paying for the post dated pensions cheques which the government has been signing off in order to buy a few more lousy votes and stay in power.
The scale of this theft is huge. Even the great fraud and robber, Maxwell, could only get hold of £400 million his pensioners money. A thousand Maxwells would still be dwarfed by the government's pension theft. Even one Maxwell took alot to dwarf, let alone 1,000 of them.
If this debt takes 25 years to pay off, that comes to about £28 billion a year we will be paying as the price of past promises. That is nearly £1,000 for every household for the next 25 years. If anything, the black hole is going to get much worse before it gets much better.
At some point the children of the idle baby boomers may decide they can't pay, won't pay for the profligacy of their parents and past generations and governments. Then the chickens truly come home to roost.
Meanwhile the government gets all pompous and lectures private companies on their pension failings and life companies on pensions mis-selling. This is the same governmetn that is raiding £5 billion a year (£40 billion so far and counting...) from private pension plans in extra tax. It then wonders why private pensions are in trouble. But the private pension mess is a storm in a tea cup compared to the public pensions mess. The difference is that anyoen who works in the private sector is screwed: first the government will wreck the pension with its £5billion a year tax on it, and then when the pesnion fund goes bust, the pensioner will be left high and dry. In contrast, the public sector pensioner will be bailed out of the bottomless black hole by the bottomless pocket of the taxpayer. The final twist is that the government now wants private sector companies to bail out failing pension funds. The consequences are obvious:
- dodgy pension funds get bailed out by good funds. This gives no incentive for the dodgy funds to clean up their act. But it gives every incentive for companies to run a mile from any involvement in pensions provision: it costs enough to pay for your own pensioners, let alone anyone elses. So the result is that company pension schemes, (at least the final salary sort which the public sector enjoys so much) are disappearing faster than the self-destruct Mynah bird can squawk "kitty kitty kitty" to the nearest cat.
Meanwhile, Count Kostov would like to suggest some simple solutions which emanate from his glorious homeland.
First, the pensions crisis can be solved completely for the benefit of society once you realise that dead peasants make very good compost, especially for the rose bed.
Second, uncle Joe Stalin was a little suspect on some things, but he was pretty good on law and order. The first to be shot are not the lawyers or bourgeois running dog capitalists: it should be the actuaries who should first calculate precisely how long it will take the shot to leave the gun and pierce their heads (heart shots would not work as a crucial part of actuarial training is the removal of the heart. They also remove any part of the brain that deals with common sense).
posted by Count Kostov at
12:14 pm
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