Believe yours truly has stumbled upon the inspiration behind the effort of Ron DeSantis to purge Florida education of the Dread Woke;
from "The Struggles of Petroleum V. Nasby" by David Ross Locke (abridged edition edited by Joseph Jones)
excerpt from "A Postwar College: 'That the Southern Youth May Be Properly Trained"
"Why not," sez I, "that the Southern youth may be properly trained, start a College uv our own? Why . . . run risks uv hevin the minds uv our young men tainted with heresy?"
The entire company was struck with the idea . . . . The name by which the new college is to be known is 'the Southern Classikle, Theologikle and Military Institoot uv Confederate X Roads" . . . .
In the Scientific and Classikle Departments the text-books will be keerfully revised, and everything uv a Northern or levelin tendency will be scroopulously expergated.
In the Theologikle Department speshl attention will be given to the highly nessary work of preparin the stoodents for comin out strong on the holinis of Slavery, and to this end the three years' course will be devoted thus:-
1st year - To the cuss uv Noer 2nd year - To provin that the Afrikin n[word] wuz reely the descendants of Ham 3rd year - Considerin the various text which go to shew that Afrikin slavery is not only permitted by the skripters, but especially enjoined. [first published 1867]
Great analysis. I would extend the disadvantaged age threshold to under 50.
Anyone 50 or over reached the age of 30 before 2003 and was therefore able to get on the housing ladder before the great inflation of the 2000s.
I am 44 and only *just* managed to get on to a property that suited me in 2011. It was already probably 2x more expensive than it had been a decade before. It is now 2x more again.
For me its the defined benefit/defined contribution pension gap. Seems to map quite cleanly between those who benefited from high stability (un-globalised) jobs and the generation after.
There will be a growing divide because of this between private and public sector workers. Personally getting fed up with friends that work public sector telling me that their pensions aren't gold plated as they will give them only 10k to 15k a year. I have contributed more than them and my dc pension will pay me the square root of fuck all due to 20 years of low interest rates....so much for the miracle of cumulative interest
Go and work in the Public Sector then.
Plenty of vacancies due to the shit wages
There's clearly tradeoffs between the two sectors, which are not homogenous even within themselves, so I never quite get like it is portrayed that one is so much superior to the other in some very obvious way - if that were so, why do we have anyone in the shit one, whichever that is?
Yes yes, we couldn't have all one and not the other, but the point being when people complain about their one not being as good as the other, surely they can do something about that as an individual at least?
Most PBers, being right of centre, prefer the greater prospects of the private sector. It’s a pity that some don’t accept that others are willing to trade that for lower pay but better security and pensions; although I’m not so sure about the better security nowadays.
I work in the public sector because I see pensions as part of my renumeration. It baffles me that others don't do the same.
The trouble there though is you dont see it as part of your remuneration when arguing for payrises and your pay not being equivalent to private sector people
A public sector gets a nominal wage of 30k....you as on pension contributions and its 36k
A provate sector worker doing the same sort of job earning 33k as a nominal salary will actually be earning 34650 when you add in pension contributions.
Public sector workers will point to this and say see we could earn so much more in the private sector. Ignoring the fact that the private sector worker is actually earning less and will probably retire on about a third of your pension.
There are a damn sight more private sector workers and sooner or later we are going to say fuck off
Stop winging
Get a job in the Public Sector if you think things are so good there or STFU
Why are there so many Public Sector Vacancies do you think?
Because the public sector jobs never point out the true salary they are getting. If you saw and advert for jobs one saying 34k + 1700 salary contribution vs one saying 30k + 6k salary contribution then more people would opt for the 30k job. Simple fact is most public sector people I know dont realise how much their job is shoving into their pensions.
They also don’t realise how much their pay has grown relative to the private sector, over the past couple of decades, and how their pensions are all but unattainable outside the public sector, except for top city bankers and lawyers.
How many public sector workers have had real wage cuts in the last decade? I don't mean 'real terms' compared to inflation but actual cuts in their wages. Plenty of people in the private sector have had this.
I think public sector pay has hardly risen at all. I've been in since 2016 and from memory it's been 1% a year. That's a very big cut in real terms. I admit the pension is generous.
But as I said I am talking about actual cuts in pay rather than just not going up as much as inflation. This is a reality for many in the private sector and I am not sure I have ever heard of it happening in the public sector.
At the top end? On average I don't believe private sector wages have fallen in absolute terms but whilst that may have happened for some private sector workers others will have seen much bigger rises than the public sector depending on industry. It's more volatile, no?
I was just looking at local customer service roles and for the civil service you would be looking at £20,000 as an AO whereas in the private sector it looks more like £22-24,000 a year. I expect we have a better pension though.
On the topic of pensions still, the uk currently has 1.2 trillion in pension liabilities for public sector pensions. Three quarters of which is unfunded and will be payed for out of tax. Anyone saying as a taxpayer I should just stfu about it can do so themselves
Is there a contractual obligation to pay them, or can a future government simply legislate them away (like the state pension)?
If so, that's quite a source of uncertainty, particularly given the *interesting* fiscal outlook.
There is a contractual obligation and that has to be honoured, however like triple lock its not affordable in the long term especially given the expansion of the public sector
The triple lock is a red herring. Barty tells us pensions cost the government £300 billion a year but the state pension is only £10,000 so unless there are 30 million pensioners, the bulk of that figure goes elsewhere; tax relief on private pensions, maybe, I do not know. The basic state pension is way below minimum wage and no amount of triple locking will make a dent in that (well, it will eventually but in the long term, we are all dead).
Pensioner benefit spending is forecast to total £136 billion in Great Britain in 2023-24, of which we project £124 billion will be spent on state pensions.
Great analysis. I would extend the disadvantaged age threshold to under 50.
Anyone 50 or over reached the age of 30 before 2003 and was therefore able to get on the housing ladder before the great inflation of the 2000s.
I am 44 and only *just* managed to get on to a property that suited me in 2011. It was already probably 2x more expensive than it had been a decade before. It is now 2x more again.
For me its the defined benefit/defined contribution pension gap. Seems to map quite cleanly between those who benefited from high stability (un-globalised) jobs and the generation after.
There will be a growing divide because of this between private and public sector workers. Personally getting fed up with friends that work public sector telling me that their pensions aren't gold plated as they will give them only 10k to 15k a year. I have contributed more than them and my dc pension will pay me the square root of fuck all due to 20 years of low interest rates....so much for the miracle of cumulative interest
Go and work in the Public Sector then.
Plenty of vacancies due to the shit wages
There's clearly tradeoffs between the two sectors, which are not homogenous even within themselves, so I never quite get like it is portrayed that one is so much superior to the other in some very obvious way - if that were so, why do we have anyone in the shit one, whichever that is?
Yes yes, we couldn't have all one and not the other, but the point being when people complain about their one not being as good as the other, surely they can do something about that as an individual at least?
Most PBers, being right of centre, prefer the greater prospects of the private sector. It’s a pity that some don’t accept that others are willing to trade that for lower pay but better security and pensions; although I’m not so sure about the better security nowadays.
I work in the public sector because I see pensions as part of my renumeration. It baffles me that others don't do the same.
The trouble there though is you dont see it as part of your remuneration when arguing for payrises and your pay not being equivalent to private sector people
A public sector gets a nominal wage of 30k....you as on pension contributions and its 36k
A provate sector worker doing the same sort of job earning 33k as a nominal salary will actually be earning 34650 when you add in pension contributions.
Public sector workers will point to this and say see we could earn so much more in the private sector. Ignoring the fact that the private sector worker is actually earning less and will probably retire on about a third of your pension.
There are a damn sight more private sector workers and sooner or later we are going to say fuck off
Stop winging
Get a job in the Public Sector if you think things are so good there or STFU
Why are there so many Public Sector Vacancies do you think?
Because the public sector jobs never point out the true salary they are getting. If you saw and advert for jobs one saying 34k + 1700 salary contribution vs one saying 30k + 6k salary contribution then more people would opt for the 30k job. Simple fact is most public sector people I know dont realise how much their job is shoving into their pensions.
They also don’t realise how much their pay has grown relative to the private sector, over the past couple of decades, and how their pensions are all but unattainable outside the public sector, except for top city bankers and lawyers.
How many public sector workers have had real wage cuts in the last decade? I don't mean 'real terms' compared to inflation but actual cuts in their wages. Plenty of people in the private sector have had this.
I think public sector pay has hardly risen at all. I've been in since 2016 and from memory it's been 1% a year. That's a very big cut in real terms. I admit the pension is generous.
But as I said I am talking about actual cuts in pay rather than just not going up as much as inflation. This is a reality for many in the private sector and I am not sure I have ever heard of it happening in the public sector.
I would describe a cut in real wages as "actual", though I appreciate people's basket of goods will be different.
But who in the public sector has had to put up with their salary being cut by 10% or more. Not just compared to inflation but an actual reduction in the number of pounds in their gross pay packet? This is something that happens in the private sector but I have not heard of it in the public sector.
We have had it at certain times. Downbanding of AFC staff, as pay protection is only for 3 years.
It swings back and forth to be sure. I actually don't remember when I joined (I think it was in the Brown era but may be wrong) but back in those days the site was probably centre leftish overall with a few notable exceptions.
The trouble is that, as many have said before, these left/right labels are pretty much defunct these days. So many people are socially liberal but economically right of centre whilst others are the reverse. The number of traditional conservatives - socially reactionary/conservative and economically dry - can probably be counted on one hand.
Between GE19 and quite late into party-gate this site was very pro Johnson/Johnson Tory Party except for a few exceptions. It swings quickly.
I don't get a sense it will be very pro-Starmer/Starmer Labour if they win.
Again I don't think that is correct at all. There were those of us who would not support Johnson not matter what and we were never shy in making that clear. Indeed looking at it from the anti-Johnson side it always seemed to me that we were in the majority.
I think this site was pretty pro-Johnson/very anti-Corbyn until partygate. It's still anti-Corbyn just also anti-Johnson too.
We can agree to disagree on this one but I suppose a lot of these things are also down to perception.
Right now it feels pretty centrist to me, the people are not quite as good as when I first joined but the range of perspectives is pretty good.
I feel it's probably slightly to the right of me all told but then I am probably slightly to the left of the country. I still hope one day the Tories might be interested in my vote.
Pre Party gate, I think this site was overwhelmingly anti-Johnson, anti-Corbyn, just much more anti-Corbyn.
I feel I was in a distinct small minority in being pro Johnson until just before Partygate. I actually decided to stop supporting the Tories when NI went up which was just before Partygate.
Oh perlease.
There was a pirate who posted on here (before your time) who claimed Boris Johnson was looking like the greatest PM since Thatcher. I can't recall his name but he shared it with a Shankly/ Bob Paisley era Anfield legend. Tommy Smith?
Yes. Most influential since Thatcher I believe was the claim, and that claim stands.
Influential can be for good or ill, the same pirate also lists Atlee as an influential PM despite vehemently disliking what Atlee did to the country.
Whether you like it or not the legacy of Brexit overshadows almost everything any other PM has done post Thatcher.
Who, since Thatcher, has introduced a bigger change to the countries course than Brexit?
As I said, it was before your time. I may be wrong but I believe said pirate's eulogising was more substantial than "influential". I felt the love.
Great analysis. I would extend the disadvantaged age threshold to under 50.
Anyone 50 or over reached the age of 30 before 2003 and was therefore able to get on the housing ladder before the great inflation of the 2000s.
I am 44 and only *just* managed to get on to a property that suited me in 2011. It was already probably 2x more expensive than it had been a decade before. It is now 2x more again.
For me its the defined benefit/defined contribution pension gap. Seems to map quite cleanly between those who benefited from high stability (un-globalised) jobs and the generation after.
There will be a growing divide because of this between private and public sector workers. Personally getting fed up with friends that work public sector telling me that their pensions aren't gold plated as they will give them only 10k to 15k a year. I have contributed more than them and my dc pension will pay me the square root of fuck all due to 20 years of low interest rates....so much for the miracle of cumulative interest
Go and work in the Public Sector then.
Plenty of vacancies due to the shit wages
There's clearly tradeoffs between the two sectors, which are not homogenous even within themselves, so I never quite get like it is portrayed that one is so much superior to the other in some very obvious way - if that were so, why do we have anyone in the shit one, whichever that is?
Yes yes, we couldn't have all one and not the other, but the point being when people complain about their one not being as good as the other, surely they can do something about that as an individual at least?
Most PBers, being right of centre, prefer the greater prospects of the private sector. It’s a pity that some don’t accept that others are willing to trade that for lower pay but better security and pensions; although I’m not so sure about the better security nowadays.
I work in the public sector because I see pensions as part of my renumeration. It baffles me that others don't do the same.
The trouble there though is you dont see it as part of your remuneration when arguing for payrises and your pay not being equivalent to private sector people
A public sector gets a nominal wage of 30k....you as on pension contributions and its 36k
A provate sector worker doing the same sort of job earning 33k as a nominal salary will actually be earning 34650 when you add in pension contributions.
Public sector workers will point to this and say see we could earn so much more in the private sector. Ignoring the fact that the private sector worker is actually earning less and will probably retire on about a third of your pension.
There are a damn sight more private sector workers and sooner or later we are going to say fuck off
The fault in your logic is the "same sort of job" bit. I recently had a work colleague (data analyst in the public sector) quit for a simliar job in the private sector for a 50% pay rise .
I know someone who turned down a top Treasury job in favour of three times as much money in the private sector. You'd need an awfully generous pension scheme to make up that difference.
Perhaps the real divide is not between public and private sectors but between the C-suite and the shop floor in whichever sector; between 6- and 7-figure salaried chiefs and the rest of us.
Which brings us back to @Alastair-meeks.medium.com and the disappearing of the middle class.
The fundamental issue is a lack of growth. It's just not there in the same way it was 15+ years ago, and there's no easy way it can be.
If we can't fix it then it points to a future politics of scapegoating and grabbing off those who do, I'm afraid.
Or more hopefully a future politics focused on achieving a more equitable distribution of income and wealth.
The Russian scientist responsible for the moon shot that crashed has been rushed to hospital after "a sudden deterioration in his health", according to Mail online. Anyone surprised?
I am - I had no idea the Russian state was so efficient.
It swings back and forth to be sure. I actually don't remember when I joined (I think it was in the Brown era but may be wrong) but back in those days the site was probably centre leftish overall with a few notable exceptions.
The trouble is that, as many have said before, these left/right labels are pretty much defunct these days. So many people are socially liberal but economically right of centre whilst others are the reverse. The number of traditional conservatives - socially reactionary/conservative and economically dry - can probably be counted on one hand.
Between GE19 and quite late into party-gate this site was very pro Johnson/Johnson Tory Party except for a few exceptions. It swings quickly.
I don't get a sense it will be very pro-Starmer/Starmer Labour if they win.
Again I don't think that is correct at all. There were those of us who would not support Johnson not matter what and we were never shy in making that clear. Indeed looking at it from the anti-Johnson side it always seemed to me that we were in the majority.
I think this site was pretty pro-Johnson/very anti-Corbyn until partygate. It's still anti-Corbyn just also anti-Johnson too.
We can agree to disagree on this one but I suppose a lot of these things are also down to perception.
Right now it feels pretty centrist to me, the people are not quite as good as when I first joined but the range of perspectives is pretty good.
I feel it's probably slightly to the right of me all told but then I am probably slightly to the left of the country. I still hope one day the Tories might be interested in my vote.
Pre Party gate, I think this site was overwhelmingly anti-Johnson, anti-Corbyn, just much more anti-Corbyn.
I feel I was in a distinct small minority in being pro Johnson until just before Partygate. I actually decided to stop supporting the Tories when NI went up which was just before Partygate.
Oh perlease.
There was a pirate who posted on here (before your time) who claimed Boris Johnson was looking like the greatest PM since Thatcher. I can't recall his name but he shared it with a Shankly/ Bob Paisley era Anfield legend. Tommy Smith?
Yes. Most influential since Thatcher I believe was the claim, and that claim stands.
Influential can be for good or ill, the same pirate also lists Atlee as an influential PM despite vehemently disliking what Atlee did to the country.
Whether you like it or not the legacy of Brexit overshadows almost everything any other PM has done post Thatcher.
Who, since Thatcher, has introduced a bigger change to the countries course than Brexit?
Yes but it is Nigel Farage who occupies that position in post-Thatcher politics (most influential politician). Not Johnson. Who was and is an arse. Although crucially, in 2019, he was also not Corbyn.
Great analysis. I would extend the disadvantaged age threshold to under 50.
Anyone 50 or over reached the age of 30 before 2003 and was therefore able to get on the housing ladder before the great inflation of the 2000s.
I am 44 and only *just* managed to get on to a property that suited me in 2011. It was already probably 2x more expensive than it had been a decade before. It is now 2x more again.
For me its the defined benefit/defined contribution pension gap. Seems to map quite cleanly between those who benefited from high stability (un-globalised) jobs and the generation after.
There will be a growing divide because of this between private and public sector workers. Personally getting fed up with friends that work public sector telling me that their pensions aren't gold plated as they will give them only 10k to 15k a year. I have contributed more than them and my dc pension will pay me the square root of fuck all due to 20 years of low interest rates....so much for the miracle of cumulative interest
Go and work in the Public Sector then.
Plenty of vacancies due to the shit wages
There's clearly tradeoffs between the two sectors, which are not homogenous even within themselves, so I never quite get like it is portrayed that one is so much superior to the other in some very obvious way - if that were so, why do we have anyone in the shit one, whichever that is?
Yes yes, we couldn't have all one and not the other, but the point being when people complain about their one not being as good as the other, surely they can do something about that as an individual at least?
Most PBers, being right of centre, prefer the greater prospects of the private sector. It’s a pity that some don’t accept that others are willing to trade that for lower pay but better security and pensions; although I’m not so sure about the better security nowadays.
I work in the public sector because I see pensions as part of my renumeration. It baffles me that others don't do the same.
The trouble there though is you dont see it as part of your remuneration when arguing for payrises and your pay not being equivalent to private sector people
A public sector gets a nominal wage of 30k....you as on pension contributions and its 36k
A provate sector worker doing the same sort of job earning 33k as a nominal salary will actually be earning 34650 when you add in pension contributions.
Public sector workers will point to this and say see we could earn so much more in the private sector. Ignoring the fact that the private sector worker is actually earning less and will probably retire on about a third of your pension.
There are a damn sight more private sector workers and sooner or later we are going to say fuck off
Stop winging
Get a job in the Public Sector if you think things are so good there or STFU
Why are there so many Public Sector Vacancies do you think?
Because the public sector jobs never point out the true salary they are getting. If you saw and advert for jobs one saying 34k + 1700 salary contribution vs one saying 30k + 6k salary contribution then more people would opt for the 30k job. Simple fact is most public sector people I know dont realise how much their job is shoving into their pensions.
They also don’t realise how much their pay has grown relative to the private sector, over the past couple of decades, and how their pensions are all but unattainable outside the public sector, except for top city bankers and lawyers.
How many public sector workers have had real wage cuts in the last decade? I don't mean 'real terms' compared to inflation but actual cuts in their wages. Plenty of people in the private sector have had this.
I think public sector pay has hardly risen at all. I've been in since 2016 and from memory it's been 1% a year. That's a very big cut in real terms. I admit the pension is generous.
But as I said I am talking about actual cuts in pay rather than just not going up as much as inflation. This is a reality for many in the private sector and I am not sure I have ever heard of it happening in the public sector.
I would describe a cut in real wages as "actual", though I appreciate people's basket of goods will be different.
But who in the public sector has had to put up with their salary being cut by 10% or more. Not just compared to inflation but an actual reduction in the number of pounds in their gross pay packet? This is something that happens in the private sector but I have not heard of it in the public sector.
You can achieve the same effect by growing wages more slowly than inflation over several years. That's not as painful for current staff, but it means the pressure and discontent festers over time. Pros and cons to each approach.
Consider junior doctors - a 26% real terms cut since 2008, but no doctor will have suffered the large nominal cut you are describing.
We often lament about posters who disappear, but I think AM was a genuine loss to the site.
Agreed. Anyone know why he left? He was prolific, then seemingly disappeared overnight.
Yes I remember it well. Seems for each poster who leaves there's a very different reason, no theme. Eg Leon, just the other day, it was triggered by a prolonged and harrowing exchange with Bartholomew Roberts. Whereas with Mr Meeks it was after a prolonged and harrowing exchange with Philip Thompson.
I’ve been here a couple of years and Leon has left a few times. A cheap dig at @BartholomewRoberts doesnt mean he’s the one who drove them off the site. Whereas we know some posters have actually driven members off the site. Like Charles.
Although I do get your point, Charles's complaint was that somebody mentioned a family member, despite the fact that it was Charles who had named them in the first place. I am happy to keep the privacy of commentators, as witnessed by my treatment of @Miklosvar, but others may not be so ethical.
He thought he'd been outed, which would certainly be beyond the pale if true.
I can think of only one instance of this before on this Site. The culprit was the late Plato, and that led to the departure of an excellent poster.
It's surprising it doesn't happen more often, which is a tribute to the standard of posters here, as well as the mods and the managers.
[Btw, have just answered your private message.]
To be fair to plato said poster was a mysogynist arsehole that targetted female posters for vituperation. I feel no loss to the site that he fucked off
I am amused by TSE's patriotism that MI5 are the best intelligence agency in the world. I don't really know how we could judge that, they cannot eat out on infiltrating the IRA forever, but if they are the best I'd love to know how they've avoided the institutional malaise every other part of the state seems to have suffered.
As it notes in conclusion though No still leads in some polls, so if they infiltrating could they get around to a coup de grace already.
I did menton Double-Cross from WWII which was better than turning the head of the IRA’s Nutting Squad into an agent of the British State.
I did a seven hour shift today. I like working Sundays; it's an easy day's work: like being an Amazon driver - no heavy bags of mail to carry while walking miles
What has started to annoy me a little bit about it is how many people say, "I didn't know Royal Mail worked Sundays!"
It's not annoying for anything of itself, just that I hear it so often and I'm bored of saying "oh yes we do"
Today (when it was said to me fifteen to twenty times) I decided on a different response: I told them all, in my poshest voice, that RM doesn't; I'm just an eccentric millionaire who does this for fun at the weekend
Every single person I said it to laughed heartily. I'm going to stick with it
I'm sure there's work done but there's no actual delivery on Sunday, is there?
I’ve been delivering parcels
Ah ok. But letters and postcards etc?
No, just parcels
Which is why I said it's like being an Amazon driver
Great analysis. I would extend the disadvantaged age threshold to under 50.
Anyone 50 or over reached the age of 30 before 2003 and was therefore able to get on the housing ladder before the great inflation of the 2000s.
I am 44 and only *just* managed to get on to a property that suited me in 2011. It was already probably 2x more expensive than it had been a decade before. It is now 2x more again.
For me its the defined benefit/defined contribution pension gap. Seems to map quite cleanly between those who benefited from high stability (un-globalised) jobs and the generation after.
There will be a growing divide because of this between private and public sector workers. Personally getting fed up with friends that work public sector telling me that their pensions aren't gold plated as they will give them only 10k to 15k a year. I have contributed more than them and my dc pension will pay me the square root of fuck all due to 20 years of low interest rates....so much for the miracle of cumulative interest
Go and work in the Public Sector then.
Plenty of vacancies due to the shit wages
There's clearly tradeoffs between the two sectors, which are not homogenous even within themselves, so I never quite get like it is portrayed that one is so much superior to the other in some very obvious way - if that were so, why do we have anyone in the shit one, whichever that is?
Yes yes, we couldn't have all one and not the other, but the point being when people complain about their one not being as good as the other, surely they can do something about that as an individual at least?
Most PBers, being right of centre, prefer the greater prospects of the private sector. It’s a pity that some don’t accept that others are willing to trade that for lower pay but better security and pensions; although I’m not so sure about the better security nowadays.
I work in the public sector because I see pensions as part of my renumeration. It baffles me that others don't do the same.
The trouble there though is you dont see it as part of your remuneration when arguing for payrises and your pay not being equivalent to private sector people
A public sector gets a nominal wage of 30k....you as on pension contributions and its 36k
A provate sector worker doing the same sort of job earning 33k as a nominal salary will actually be earning 34650 when you add in pension contributions.
Public sector workers will point to this and say see we could earn so much more in the private sector. Ignoring the fact that the private sector worker is actually earning less and will probably retire on about a third of your pension.
There are a damn sight more private sector workers and sooner or later we are going to say fuck off
Stop winging
Get a job in the Public Sector if you think things are so good there or STFU
Why are there so many Public Sector Vacancies do you think?
Because the public sector jobs never point out the true salary they are getting. If you saw and advert for jobs one saying 34k + 1700 salary contribution vs one saying 30k + 6k salary contribution then more people would opt for the 30k job. Simple fact is most public sector people I know dont realise how much their job is shoving into their pensions.
They also don’t realise how much their pay has grown relative to the private sector, over the past couple of decades, and how their pensions are all but unattainable outside the public sector, except for top city bankers and lawyers.
How many public sector workers have had real wage cuts in the last decade? I don't mean 'real terms' compared to inflation but actual cuts in their wages. Plenty of people in the private sector have had this.
I think public sector pay has hardly risen at all. I've been in since 2016 and from memory it's been 1% a year. That's a very big cut in real terms. I admit the pension is generous.
But as I said I am talking about actual cuts in pay rather than just not going up as much as inflation. This is a reality for many in the private sector and I am not sure I have ever heard of it happening in the public sector.
I would describe a cut in real wages as "actual", though I appreciate people's basket of goods will be different.
But who in the public sector has had to put up with their salary being cut by 10% or more. Not just compared to inflation but an actual reduction in the number of pounds in their gross pay packet? This is something that happens in the private sector but I have not heard of it in the public sector.
You can achieve the same effect by growing wages more slowly than inflation over several years. That's not as painful for current staff, but it means the pressure and discontent festers over time. Pros and cons to each approach.
Consider junior doctors - a 26% real terms cut since 2008, but no doctor will have suffered the large nominal cut you are describing.
I suspect that someone who was a junior doctor in 2008, is now earning vastly more money than they did 15 years ago.
On the topic of pensions still, the uk currently has 1.2 trillion in pension liabilities for public sector pensions. Three quarters of which is unfunded and will be payed for out of tax. Anyone saying as a taxpayer I should just stfu about it can do so themselves
Is there a contractual obligation to pay them, or can a future government simply legislate them away (like the state pension)?
If so, that's quite a source of uncertainty, particularly given the *interesting* fiscal outlook.
There is a contractual obligation and that has to be honoured, however like triple lock its not affordable in the long term especially given the expansion of the public sector
The triple lock is a red herring. Barty tells us pensions cost the government £300 billion a year but the state pension is only £10,000 so unless there are 30 million pensioners, the bulk of that figure goes elsewhere; tax relief on private pensions, maybe, I do not know. The basic state pension is way below minimum wage and no amount of triple locking will make a dent in that (well, it will eventually but in the long term, we are all dead).
No, "social protection" (ie welfare) is £300bn of which the majority of that is pensions. Never said it was all pensions.
But welfare isn't being targeted ta those who are most in need. If you want to target welfare towards pensioners who are worst off there is pension credit etc too do that, but that isn't used and instead the triple lock goes up instead which is effectively beer wine/gin money for those with gold-plated pensions, while pensioners who are struggling get very little.
The shocking fact is that this government now spends more on welfare than Labour did.
Do you think those in most need now get more support than they did under Labour?
If not, where is the money going, and doesn't something need to be done about it?
Great analysis. I would extend the disadvantaged age threshold to under 50.
Anyone 50 or over reached the age of 30 before 2003 and was therefore able to get on the housing ladder before the great inflation of the 2000s.
I am 44 and only *just* managed to get on to a property that suited me in 2011. It was already probably 2x more expensive than it had been a decade before. It is now 2x more again.
For me its the defined benefit/defined contribution pension gap. Seems to map quite cleanly between those who benefited from high stability (un-globalised) jobs and the generation after.
There will be a growing divide because of this between private and public sector workers. Personally getting fed up with friends that work public sector telling me that their pensions aren't gold plated as they will give them only 10k to 15k a year. I have contributed more than them and my dc pension will pay me the square root of fuck all due to 20 years of low interest rates....so much for the miracle of cumulative interest
Go and work in the Public Sector then.
Plenty of vacancies due to the shit wages
There's clearly tradeoffs between the two sectors, which are not homogenous even within themselves, so I never quite get like it is portrayed that one is so much superior to the other in some very obvious way - if that were so, why do we have anyone in the shit one, whichever that is?
Yes yes, we couldn't have all one and not the other, but the point being when people complain about their one not being as good as the other, surely they can do something about that as an individual at least?
Most PBers, being right of centre, prefer the greater prospects of the private sector. It’s a pity that some don’t accept that others are willing to trade that for lower pay but better security and pensions; although I’m not so sure about the better security nowadays.
I work in the public sector because I see pensions as part of my renumeration. It baffles me that others don't do the same.
The trouble there though is you dont see it as part of your remuneration when arguing for payrises and your pay not being equivalent to private sector people
A public sector gets a nominal wage of 30k....you as on pension contributions and its 36k
A provate sector worker doing the same sort of job earning 33k as a nominal salary will actually be earning 34650 when you add in pension contributions.
Public sector workers will point to this and say see we could earn so much more in the private sector. Ignoring the fact that the private sector worker is actually earning less and will probably retire on about a third of your pension.
There are a damn sight more private sector workers and sooner or later we are going to say fuck off
Stop winging
Get a job in the Public Sector if you think things are so good there or STFU
Why are there so many Public Sector Vacancies do you think?
Because the public sector jobs never point out the true salary they are getting. If you saw and advert for jobs one saying 34k + 1700 salary contribution vs one saying 30k + 6k salary contribution then more people would opt for the 30k job. Simple fact is most public sector people I know dont realise how much their job is shoving into their pensions.
They also don’t realise how much their pay has grown relative to the private sector, over the past couple of decades, and how their pensions are all but unattainable outside the public sector, except for top city bankers and lawyers.
How many public sector workers have had real wage cuts in the last decade? I don't mean 'real terms' compared to inflation but actual cuts in their wages. Plenty of people in the private sector have had this.
I think public sector pay has hardly risen at all. I've been in since 2016 and from memory it's been 1% a year. That's a very big cut in real terms. I admit the pension is generous.
But as I said I am talking about actual cuts in pay rather than just not going up as much as inflation. This is a reality for many in the private sector and I am not sure I have ever heard of it happening in the public sector.
I would describe a cut in real wages as "actual", though I appreciate people's basket of goods will be different.
But who in the public sector has had to put up with their salary being cut by 10% or more. Not just compared to inflation but an actual reduction in the number of pounds in their gross pay packet? This is something that happens in the private sector but I have not heard of it in the public sector.
You can achieve the same effect by growing wages more slowly than inflation over several years. That's not as painful for current staff, but it means the pressure and discontent festers over time.
Consider junior doctors - a 26% real terms cut since 2008.
Since 2015 a number of companies I have been consulting for have made two 10% cuts in the salaries of all staff except those already on minimum wage. And, since inflation is the on top of that, the cuts are even more extreme.
They have made even larger cuts to day rates for contractors but since we can move elsewhere at short notice it is not such a blow for us so isn't really relevant.
Great analysis. I would extend the disadvantaged age threshold to under 50.
Anyone 50 or over reached the age of 30 before 2003 and was therefore able to get on the housing ladder before the great inflation of the 2000s.
I am 44 and only *just* managed to get on to a property that suited me in 2011. It was already probably 2x more expensive than it had been a decade before. It is now 2x more again.
For me its the defined benefit/defined contribution pension gap. Seems to map quite cleanly between those who benefited from high stability (un-globalised) jobs and the generation after.
There will be a growing divide because of this between private and public sector workers. Personally getting fed up with friends that work public sector telling me that their pensions aren't gold plated as they will give them only 10k to 15k a year. I have contributed more than them and my dc pension will pay me the square root of fuck all due to 20 years of low interest rates....so much for the miracle of cumulative interest
Go and work in the Public Sector then.
Plenty of vacancies due to the shit wages
There's clearly tradeoffs between the two sectors, which are not homogenous even within themselves, so I never quite get like it is portrayed that one is so much superior to the other in some very obvious way - if that were so, why do we have anyone in the shit one, whichever that is?
Yes yes, we couldn't have all one and not the other, but the point being when people complain about their one not being as good as the other, surely they can do something about that as an individual at least?
Most PBers, being right of centre, prefer the greater prospects of the private sector. It’s a pity that some don’t accept that others are willing to trade that for lower pay but better security and pensions; although I’m not so sure about the better security nowadays.
I work in the public sector because I see pensions as part of my renumeration. It baffles me that others don't do the same.
The trouble there though is you dont see it as part of your remuneration when arguing for payrises and your pay not being equivalent to private sector people
A public sector gets a nominal wage of 30k....you as on pension contributions and its 36k
A provate sector worker doing the same sort of job earning 33k as a nominal salary will actually be earning 34650 when you add in pension contributions.
Public sector workers will point to this and say see we could earn so much more in the private sector. Ignoring the fact that the private sector worker is actually earning less and will probably retire on about a third of your pension.
There are a damn sight more private sector workers and sooner or later we are going to say fuck off
Stop winging
Get a job in the Public Sector if you think things are so good there or STFU
Why are there so many Public Sector Vacancies do you think?
Because the public sector jobs never point out the true salary they are getting. If you saw and advert for jobs one saying 34k + 1700 salary contribution vs one saying 30k + 6k salary contribution then more people would opt for the 30k job. Simple fact is most public sector people I know dont realise how much their job is shoving into their pensions.
They also don’t realise how much their pay has grown relative to the private sector, over the past couple of decades, and how their pensions are all but unattainable outside the public sector, except for top city bankers and lawyers.
How many public sector workers have had real wage cuts in the last decade? I don't mean 'real terms' compared to inflation but actual cuts in their wages. Plenty of people in the private sector have had this.
Indeed. I’m making about 5% less money now than a decade ago, and my wife about 10% less money. There’s few time-served grade increments in the private sector, and a lot of involuntary redundancy in the past decade.
If I was eaning the same inflation based since 2002 my pay would be 43% above what it is now
Great analysis. I would extend the disadvantaged age threshold to under 50.
Anyone 50 or over reached the age of 30 before 2003 and was therefore able to get on the housing ladder before the great inflation of the 2000s.
I am 44 and only *just* managed to get on to a property that suited me in 2011. It was already probably 2x more expensive than it had been a decade before. It is now 2x more again.
For me its the defined benefit/defined contribution pension gap. Seems to map quite cleanly between those who benefited from high stability (un-globalised) jobs and the generation after.
There will be a growing divide because of this between private and public sector workers. Personally getting fed up with friends that work public sector telling me that their pensions aren't gold plated as they will give them only 10k to 15k a year. I have contributed more than them and my dc pension will pay me the square root of fuck all due to 20 years of low interest rates....so much for the miracle of cumulative interest
Go and work in the Public Sector then.
Plenty of vacancies due to the shit wages
There's clearly tradeoffs between the two sectors, which are not homogenous even within themselves, so I never quite get like it is portrayed that one is so much superior to the other in some very obvious way - if that were so, why do we have anyone in the shit one, whichever that is?
Yes yes, we couldn't have all one and not the other, but the point being when people complain about their one not being as good as the other, surely they can do something about that as an individual at least?
Most PBers, being right of centre, prefer the greater prospects of the private sector. It’s a pity that some don’t accept that others are willing to trade that for lower pay but better security and pensions; although I’m not so sure about the better security nowadays.
I work in the public sector because I see pensions as part of my renumeration. It baffles me that others don't do the same.
The trouble there though is you dont see it as part of your remuneration when arguing for payrises and your pay not being equivalent to private sector people
A public sector gets a nominal wage of 30k....you as on pension contributions and its 36k
A provate sector worker doing the same sort of job earning 33k as a nominal salary will actually be earning 34650 when you add in pension contributions.
Public sector workers will point to this and say see we could earn so much more in the private sector. Ignoring the fact that the private sector worker is actually earning less and will probably retire on about a third of your pension.
There are a damn sight more private sector workers and sooner or later we are going to say fuck off
Stop winging
Get a job in the Public Sector if you think things are so good there or STFU
Why are there so many Public Sector Vacancies do you think?
Because the public sector jobs never point out the true salary they are getting. If you saw and advert for jobs one saying 34k + 1700 salary contribution vs one saying 30k + 6k salary contribution then more people would opt for the 30k job. Simple fact is most public sector people I know dont realise how much their job is shoving into their pensions.
They also don’t realise how much their pay has grown relative to the private sector, over the past couple of decades, and how their pensions are all but unattainable outside the public sector, except for top city bankers and lawyers.
How many public sector workers have had real wage cuts in the last decade? I don't mean 'real terms' compared to inflation but actual cuts in their wages. Plenty of people in the private sector have had this.
I think public sector pay has hardly risen at all. I've been in since 2016 and from memory it's been 1% a year. That's a very big cut in real terms. I admit the pension is generous.
But as I said I am talking about actual cuts in pay rather than just not going up as much as inflation. This is a reality for many in the private sector and I am not sure I have ever heard of it happening in the public sector.
I would describe a cut in real wages as "actual", though I appreciate people's basket of goods will be different.
But who in the public sector has had to put up with their salary being cut by 10% or more. Not just compared to inflation but an actual reduction in the number of pounds in their gross pay packet? This is something that happens in the private sector but I have not heard of it in the public sector.
You can achieve the same effect by growing wages more slowly than inflation over several years. That's not as painful for current staff, but it means the pressure and discontent festers over time. Pros and cons to each approach.
Consider junior doctors - a 26% real terms cut since 2008, but no doctor will have suffered the large nominal cut you are describing.
I suspect that someone who was a junior doctor is 2008, is now earning vastly more money than they did 15 years ago.
I'm just trying to point out that you can't really compare the individual impact of someone in the private sector getting a 10% cut in wages, to the slow reduction of pay across the public sector in real terms. A major benefit of working in the public sector is the security; I don't think anyone disagrees with that.
Note that real terms cuts have taken place in the private sector too - the graduate salary for the scheme I was on was pretty small when I did it, and is now about 15 % smaller.
On the topic of pensions still, the uk currently has 1.2 trillion in pension liabilities for public sector pensions. Three quarters of which is unfunded and will be payed for out of tax. Anyone saying as a taxpayer I should just stfu about it can do so themselves
Is there a contractual obligation to pay them, or can a future government simply legislate them away (like the state pension)?
If so, that's quite a source of uncertainty, particularly given the *interesting* fiscal outlook.
There is a contractual obligation and that has to be honoured, however like triple lock its not affordable in the long term especially given the expansion of the public sector
The triple lock is a red herring. Barty tells us pensions cost the government £300 billion a year but the state pension is only £10,000 so unless there are 30 million pensioners, the bulk of that figure goes elsewhere; tax relief on private pensions, maybe, I do not know. The basic state pension is way below minimum wage and no amount of triple locking will make a dent in that (well, it will eventually but in the long term, we are all dead).
Do pensioners, rather than pensions, cost the government a lot more due to those whom the state has to pay for their accommodation, as well as their pension?
In Charles' case it was because somebody mentioned knowing one of his cousins in real life and then Charles left.
Personally I think Charles was insufferable and a bit of a tosser but I would support him coming back as I have recently changed my mind and banning people seems to achieve very little. I should know.
Wasn't @Miklosvar banned because yet again for having a slightly different view of Ukraine he was called a Russian plant?
This site does operate as a bit of a hive-mind at times.
No. There are a number of posters on here who follow a pro-Russian, or at least a more neutral, position and they are not banned. Dura-Ace is one example that springs to mind.
But crossing a line by ignoring repeated warnings not to make personal attacks on posters is pretty much gauranteed to get you banned. For clarity, I suspect it is not necesarily the personal attacks but ignoring the warnings that result in the departure.
Dura is not following a pro russian or neutral or pro anything position. He's following a realistic, pragmatic position.
But of course Dura is no shrinking violet so I'm sure he can speak for himself.
My position is to look at the situation and try to analyse it dispassionately.
That's what everyone should do. Analyse things dispassionately and realistically and pragmatically.
"Don't confuse what you want to happen with what's likely to happen."
On the topic of pensions still, the uk currently has 1.2 trillion in pension liabilities for public sector pensions. Three quarters of which is unfunded and will be payed for out of tax. Anyone saying as a taxpayer I should just stfu about it can do so themselves
Is there a contractual obligation to pay them, or can a future government simply legislate them away (like the state pension)?
If so, that's quite a source of uncertainty, particularly given the *interesting* fiscal outlook.
There is a contractual obligation and that has to be honoured, however like triple lock its not affordable in the long term especially given the expansion of the public sector
The triple lock is a red herring. Barty tells us pensions cost the government £300 billion a year but the state pension is only £10,000 so unless there are 30 million pensioners, the bulk of that figure goes elsewhere; tax relief on private pensions, maybe, I do not know. The basic state pension is way below minimum wage and no amount of triple locking will make a dent in that (well, it will eventually but in the long term, we are all dead).
Do pensioners, rather than pensions, cost the government a lot more due to those whom the state has to pay for their accommodation, as well as their pension?
I think pensioners can claim housing benefit so yes
The Russian scientist responsible for the moon shot that crashed has been rushed to hospital after "a sudden deterioration in his health", according to Mail online. Anyone surprised?
That’s sure to incentivise other talented people to take the post.
Great analysis. I would extend the disadvantaged age threshold to under 50.
Anyone 50 or over reached the age of 30 before 2003 and was therefore able to get on the housing ladder before the great inflation of the 2000s.
I am 44 and only *just* managed to get on to a property that suited me in 2011. It was already probably 2x more expensive than it had been a decade before. It is now 2x more again.
For me its the defined benefit/defined contribution pension gap. Seems to map quite cleanly between those who benefited from high stability (un-globalised) jobs and the generation after.
There will be a growing divide because of this between private and public sector workers. Personally getting fed up with friends that work public sector telling me that their pensions aren't gold plated as they will give them only 10k to 15k a year. I have contributed more than them and my dc pension will pay me the square root of fuck all due to 20 years of low interest rates....so much for the miracle of cumulative interest
Go and work in the Public Sector then.
Plenty of vacancies due to the shit wages
There's clearly tradeoffs between the two sectors, which are not homogenous even within themselves, so I never quite get like it is portrayed that one is so much superior to the other in some very obvious way - if that were so, why do we have anyone in the shit one, whichever that is?
Yes yes, we couldn't have all one and not the other, but the point being when people complain about their one not being as good as the other, surely they can do something about that as an individual at least?
Most PBers, being right of centre, prefer the greater prospects of the private sector. It’s a pity that some don’t accept that others are willing to trade that for lower pay but better security and pensions; although I’m not so sure about the better security nowadays.
I work in the public sector because I see pensions as part of my renumeration. It baffles me that others don't do the same.
The trouble there though is you dont see it as part of your remuneration when arguing for payrises and your pay not being equivalent to private sector people
A public sector gets a nominal wage of 30k....you as on pension contributions and its 36k
A provate sector worker doing the same sort of job earning 33k as a nominal salary will actually be earning 34650 when you add in pension contributions.
Public sector workers will point to this and say see we could earn so much more in the private sector. Ignoring the fact that the private sector worker is actually earning less and will probably retire on about a third of your pension.
There are a damn sight more private sector workers and sooner or later we are going to say fuck off
Stop winging
Get a job in the Public Sector if you think things are so good there or STFU
Why are there so many Public Sector Vacancies do you think?
Because the public sector jobs never point out the true salary they are getting. If you saw and advert for jobs one saying 34k + 1700 salary contribution vs one saying 30k + 6k salary contribution then more people would opt for the 30k job. Simple fact is most public sector people I know dont realise how much their job is shoving into their pensions.
They also don’t realise how much their pay has grown relative to the private sector, over the past couple of decades, and how their pensions are all but unattainable outside the public sector, except for top city bankers and lawyers.
How many public sector workers have had real wage cuts in the last decade? I don't mean 'real terms' compared to inflation but actual cuts in their wages. Plenty of people in the private sector have had this.
I think public sector pay has hardly risen at all. I've been in since 2016 and from memory it's been 1% a year. That's a very big cut in real terms. I admit the pension is generous.
But as I said I am talking about actual cuts in pay rather than just not going up as much as inflation. This is a reality for many in the private sector and I am not sure I have ever heard of it happening in the public sector.
I would describe a cut in real wages as "actual", though I appreciate people's basket of goods will be different.
But who in the public sector has had to put up with their salary being cut by 10% or more. Not just compared to inflation but an actual reduction in the number of pounds in their gross pay packet? This is something that happens in the private sector but I have not heard of it in the public sector.
You can achieve the same effect by growing wages more slowly than inflation over several years. That's not as painful for current staff, but it means the pressure and discontent festers over time. Pros and cons to each approach.
Consider junior doctors - a 26% real terms cut since 2008, but no doctor will have suffered the large nominal cut you are describing.
I suspect that someone who was a junior doctor is 2008, is now earning vastly more money than they did 15 years ago.
I'm just trying to point out that you can't really compare the individual impact of someone in the private sector getting a 10% cut in wages, to the slow reduction of pay across the public sector in real terms.
Note that this second effect has taken place in the private sector too - the graduate salary for the scheme I was on was pretty small when I did it, and is now about 15 % smaller.
My point is that an awful lot of private sector professionals are actually earning less money than they did 15 years ago, and notice this in the context of very structured career public sector employees’ complaints about real terms pay cuts at a specific grade, over the same time period.
On the topic of pensions still, the uk currently has 1.2 trillion in pension liabilities for public sector pensions. Three quarters of which is unfunded and will be payed for out of tax. Anyone saying as a taxpayer I should just stfu about it can do so themselves
Is there a contractual obligation to pay them, or can a future government simply legislate them away (like the state pension)?
If so, that's quite a source of uncertainty, particularly given the *interesting* fiscal outlook.
There is a contractual obligation and that has to be honoured, however like triple lock its not affordable in the long term especially given the expansion of the public sector
The triple lock is a red herring. Barty tells us pensions cost the government £300 billion a year but the state pension is only £10,000 so unless there are 30 million pensioners, the bulk of that figure goes elsewhere; tax relief on private pensions, maybe, I do not know. The basic state pension is way below minimum wage and no amount of triple locking will make a dent in that (well, it will eventually but in the long term, we are all dead).
No, "social protection" (ie welfare) is £300bn of which the majority of that is pensions. Never said it was all pensions.
But welfare isn't being targeted ta those who are most in need. If you want to target welfare towards pensioners who are worst off there is pension credit etc too do that, but that isn't used and instead the triple lock goes up instead which is effectively beer wine/gin money for those with gold-plated pensions, while pensioners who are struggling get very little.
The shocking fact is that this government now spends more on welfare than Labour did.
Do you think those in most need now get more support than they did under Labour?
If not, where is the money going, and doesn't something need to be done about it?
The number of well off pensioners is quite small.
They’re a large number for whom the state pension is 1/2 or more of what they get.
The next crisis will be when Generation Rent starts retiring in a big way. Instead of paid off mortgages, big rents. What will they do?
Great analysis. I would extend the disadvantaged age threshold to under 50.
Anyone 50 or over reached the age of 30 before 2003 and was therefore able to get on the housing ladder before the great inflation of the 2000s.
I am 44 and only *just* managed to get on to a property that suited me in 2011. It was already probably 2x more expensive than it had been a decade before. It is now 2x more again.
For me its the defined benefit/defined contribution pension gap. Seems to map quite cleanly between those who benefited from high stability (un-globalised) jobs and the generation after.
There will be a growing divide because of this between private and public sector workers. Personally getting fed up with friends that work public sector telling me that their pensions aren't gold plated as they will give them only 10k to 15k a year. I have contributed more than them and my dc pension will pay me the square root of fuck all due to 20 years of low interest rates....so much for the miracle of cumulative interest
Go and work in the Public Sector then.
Plenty of vacancies due to the shit wages
There's clearly tradeoffs between the two sectors, which are not homogenous even within themselves, so I never quite get like it is portrayed that one is so much superior to the other in some very obvious way - if that were so, why do we have anyone in the shit one, whichever that is?
Yes yes, we couldn't have all one and not the other, but the point being when people complain about their one not being as good as the other, surely they can do something about that as an individual at least?
Most PBers, being right of centre, prefer the greater prospects of the private sector. It’s a pity that some don’t accept that others are willing to trade that for lower pay but better security and pensions; although I’m not so sure about the better security nowadays.
I work in the public sector because I see pensions as part of my renumeration. It baffles me that others don't do the same.
The trouble there though is you dont see it as part of your remuneration when arguing for payrises and your pay not being equivalent to private sector people
A public sector gets a nominal wage of 30k....you as on pension contributions and its 36k
A provate sector worker doing the same sort of job earning 33k as a nominal salary will actually be earning 34650 when you add in pension contributions.
Public sector workers will point to this and say see we could earn so much more in the private sector. Ignoring the fact that the private sector worker is actually earning less and will probably retire on about a third of your pension.
There are a damn sight more private sector workers and sooner or later we are going to say fuck off
Stop winging
Get a job in the Public Sector if you think things are so good there or STFU
Why are there so many Public Sector Vacancies do you think?
Because the public sector jobs never point out the true salary they are getting. If you saw and advert for jobs one saying 34k + 1700 salary contribution vs one saying 30k + 6k salary contribution then more people would opt for the 30k job. Simple fact is most public sector people I know dont realise how much their job is shoving into their pensions.
They also don’t realise how much their pay has grown relative to the private sector, over the past couple of decades, and how their pensions are all but unattainable outside the public sector, except for top city bankers and lawyers.
How many public sector workers have had real wage cuts in the last decade? I don't mean 'real terms' compared to inflation but actual cuts in their wages. Plenty of people in the private sector have had this.
I think public sector pay has hardly risen at all. I've been in since 2016 and from memory it's been 1% a year. That's a very big cut in real terms. I admit the pension is generous.
But as I said I am talking about actual cuts in pay rather than just not going up as much as inflation. This is a reality for many in the private sector and I am not sure I have ever heard of it happening in the public sector.
I would describe a cut in real wages as "actual", though I appreciate people's basket of goods will be different.
But who in the public sector has had to put up with their salary being cut by 10% or more. Not just compared to inflation but an actual reduction in the number of pounds in their gross pay packet? This is something that happens in the private sector but I have not heard of it in the public sector.
You can achieve the same effect by growing wages more slowly than inflation over several years. That's not as painful for current staff, but it means the pressure and discontent festers over time. Pros and cons to each approach.
Consider junior doctors - a 26% real terms cut since 2008, but no doctor will have suffered the large nominal cut you are describing.
I suspect that someone who was a junior doctor is 2008, is now earning vastly more money than they did 15 years ago.
I'm just trying to point out that you can't really compare the individual impact of someone in the private sector getting a 10% cut in wages, to the slow reduction of pay across the public sector in real terms.
Note that this second effect has taken place in the private sector too - the graduate salary for the scheme I was on was pretty small when I did it, and is now about 15 % smaller.
My point is that an awful lot of private sector professionals are actually earning less money than they did 15 years ago, and notice this in the context of very structured career public sector employees’ complaints about real terms pay cuts at a specific grade, over the same time period.
Truss was right, we need to talk about how we return to getting growth rather than managed decline.
She handled her time in office atrociously, but on the fundamental point she was right.
Great analysis. I would extend the disadvantaged age threshold to under 50.
Anyone 50 or over reached the age of 30 before 2003 and was therefore able to get on the housing ladder before the great inflation of the 2000s.
I am 44 and only *just* managed to get on to a property that suited me in 2011. It was already probably 2x more expensive than it had been a decade before. It is now 2x more again.
For me its the defined benefit/defined contribution pension gap. Seems to map quite cleanly between those who benefited from high stability (un-globalised) jobs and the generation after.
There will be a growing divide because of this between private and public sector workers. Personally getting fed up with friends that work public sector telling me that their pensions aren't gold plated as they will give them only 10k to 15k a year. I have contributed more than them and my dc pension will pay me the square root of fuck all due to 20 years of low interest rates....so much for the miracle of cumulative interest
Go and work in the Public Sector then.
Plenty of vacancies due to the shit wages
There's clearly tradeoffs between the two sectors, which are not homogenous even within themselves, so I never quite get like it is portrayed that one is so much superior to the other in some very obvious way - if that were so, why do we have anyone in the shit one, whichever that is?
Yes yes, we couldn't have all one and not the other, but the point being when people complain about their one not being as good as the other, surely they can do something about that as an individual at least?
Most PBers, being right of centre, prefer the greater prospects of the private sector. It’s a pity that some don’t accept that others are willing to trade that for lower pay but better security and pensions; although I’m not so sure about the better security nowadays.
I work in the public sector because I see pensions as part of my renumeration. It baffles me that others don't do the same.
The trouble there though is you dont see it as part of your remuneration when arguing for payrises and your pay not being equivalent to private sector people
A public sector gets a nominal wage of 30k....you as on pension contributions and its 36k
A provate sector worker doing the same sort of job earning 33k as a nominal salary will actually be earning 34650 when you add in pension contributions.
Public sector workers will point to this and say see we could earn so much more in the private sector. Ignoring the fact that the private sector worker is actually earning less and will probably retire on about a third of your pension.
There are a damn sight more private sector workers and sooner or later we are going to say fuck off
The fault in your logic is the "same sort of job" bit. I recently had a work colleague (data analyst in the public sector) quit for a simliar job in the private sector for a 50% pay rise .
I know someone who turned down a top Treasury job in favour of three times as much money in the private sector. You'd need an awfully generous pension scheme to make up that difference.
Perhaps the real divide is not between public and private sectors but between the C-suite and the shop floor in whichever sector; between 6- and 7-figure salaried chiefs and the rest of us.
Which brings us back to @Alastair-meeks.medium.com and the disappearing of the middle class.
The fundamental issue is a lack of growth. It's just not there in the same way it was 15+ years ago, and there's no easy way it can be.
If we can't fix it then it points to a future politics of scapegoating and grabbing off those who do, I'm afraid.
What we need is growth in real GDP per capita rather than GDP.
For Chancellor's to start quoting that figure in the Budget and the Media to lead on that figure, instead of gross GDP would be a good start.
Putting aside whether the policy of government since 2015 or so has made British workers more productive or less so (I doubt we will agree on that), the other question where the fruits of that productivity end up.
As things stand, it's property prices and rents. Unless we fix that (and there I think our disagreements are much more on details) nothing else matters. Any tax cuts, national bonanza or whatever will flow, via increased rents, to rentiers.
I did a seven hour shift today. I like working Sundays; it's an easy day's work: like being an Amazon driver - no heavy bags of mail to carry while walking miles
What has started to annoy me a little bit about it is how many people say, "I didn't know Royal Mail worked Sundays!"
It's not annoying for anything of itself, just that I hear it so often and I'm bored of saying "oh yes we do"
Today (when it was said to me fifteen to twenty times) I decided on a different response: I told them all, in my poshest voice, that RM doesn't; I'm just an eccentric millionaire who does this for fun at the weekend
Every single person I said it to laughed heartily. I'm going to stick with it
I'm sure there's work done but there's no actual delivery on Sunday, is there?
I’ve been delivering parcels
Ah ok. But letters and postcards etc?
No, just parcels
Which is why I said it's like being an Amazon driver
Yes, I get you now. I just for a minute thought that bygone Sunday Delivery might be back.
Great analysis. I would extend the disadvantaged age threshold to under 50.
Anyone 50 or over reached the age of 30 before 2003 and was therefore able to get on the housing ladder before the great inflation of the 2000s.
I am 44 and only *just* managed to get on to a property that suited me in 2011. It was already probably 2x more expensive than it had been a decade before. It is now 2x more again.
For me its the defined benefit/defined contribution pension gap. Seems to map quite cleanly between those who benefited from high stability (un-globalised) jobs and the generation after.
There will be a growing divide because of this between private and public sector workers. Personally getting fed up with friends that work public sector telling me that their pensions aren't gold plated as they will give them only 10k to 15k a year. I have contributed more than them and my dc pension will pay me the square root of fuck all due to 20 years of low interest rates....so much for the miracle of cumulative interest
Go and work in the Public Sector then.
Plenty of vacancies due to the shit wages
There's clearly tradeoffs between the two sectors, which are not homogenous even within themselves, so I never quite get like it is portrayed that one is so much superior to the other in some very obvious way - if that were so, why do we have anyone in the shit one, whichever that is?
Yes yes, we couldn't have all one and not the other, but the point being when people complain about their one not being as good as the other, surely they can do something about that as an individual at least?
Most PBers, being right of centre, prefer the greater prospects of the private sector. It’s a pity that some don’t accept that others are willing to trade that for lower pay but better security and pensions; although I’m not so sure about the better security nowadays.
Really? I'd say this site is more centrist than when I joined several years ago. It was much more pro-Tory then and for a time it was only me and about three others that were remotely pro-Labour/left.
Some of us would be happy to be right of centre if a coherent, principled and competent version of it, relating to the circumstances prevailing right now in the UK, could be articulated by a party capable of winning an election.
The nearest thing to this, and not very near, would seem to be SKS.
Great analysis. I would extend the disadvantaged age threshold to under 50.
Anyone 50 or over reached the age of 30 before 2003 and was therefore able to get on the housing ladder before the great inflation of the 2000s.
I am 44 and only *just* managed to get on to a property that suited me in 2011. It was already probably 2x more expensive than it had been a decade before. It is now 2x more again.
For me its the defined benefit/defined contribution pension gap. Seems to map quite cleanly between those who benefited from high stability (un-globalised) jobs and the generation after.
There will be a growing divide because of this between private and public sector workers. Personally getting fed up with friends that work public sector telling me that their pensions aren't gold plated as they will give them only 10k to 15k a year. I have contributed more than them and my dc pension will pay me the square root of fuck all due to 20 years of low interest rates....so much for the miracle of cumulative interest
Go and work in the Public Sector then.
Plenty of vacancies due to the shit wages
There's clearly tradeoffs between the two sectors, which are not homogenous even within themselves, so I never quite get like it is portrayed that one is so much superior to the other in some very obvious way - if that were so, why do we have anyone in the shit one, whichever that is?
Yes yes, we couldn't have all one and not the other, but the point being when people complain about their one not being as good as the other, surely they can do something about that as an individual at least?
Most PBers, being right of centre, prefer the greater prospects of the private sector. It’s a pity that some don’t accept that others are willing to trade that for lower pay but better security and pensions; although I’m not so sure about the better security nowadays.
I work in the public sector because I see pensions as part of my renumeration. It baffles me that others don't do the same.
The trouble there though is you dont see it as part of your remuneration when arguing for payrises and your pay not being equivalent to private sector people
A public sector gets a nominal wage of 30k....you as on pension contributions and its 36k
A provate sector worker doing the same sort of job earning 33k as a nominal salary will actually be earning 34650 when you add in pension contributions.
Public sector workers will point to this and say see we could earn so much more in the private sector. Ignoring the fact that the private sector worker is actually earning less and will probably retire on about a third of your pension.
There are a damn sight more private sector workers and sooner or later we are going to say fuck off
Stop winging
Get a job in the Public Sector if you think things are so good there or STFU
Why are there so many Public Sector Vacancies do you think?
Because the state wants to employ too many people to do too much, not all efficiently.
There are millions more working for the public sector than there were in the past.
A lot of public sector jobs are jobs that are very valuable and needed, but not all are. If the state were to do less, it could do it with fewer people.
You appear to be arguing that the public sector vacancies are in the non-valuable jobs? That’s clearly not the case. The vacancies are in jobs that I think most people view as necessary, like teachers and nurses.
Great analysis. I would extend the disadvantaged age threshold to under 50.
Anyone 50 or over reached the age of 30 before 2003 and was therefore able to get on the housing ladder before the great inflation of the 2000s.
I am 44 and only *just* managed to get on to a property that suited me in 2011. It was already probably 2x more expensive than it had been a decade before. It is now 2x more again.
For me its the defined benefit/defined contribution pension gap. Seems to map quite cleanly between those who benefited from high stability (un-globalised) jobs and the generation after.
There will be a growing divide because of this between private and public sector workers. Personally getting fed up with friends that work public sector telling me that their pensions aren't gold plated as they will give them only 10k to 15k a year. I have contributed more than them and my dc pension will pay me the square root of fuck all due to 20 years of low interest rates....so much for the miracle of cumulative interest
Go and work in the Public Sector then.
Plenty of vacancies due to the shit wages
There's clearly tradeoffs between the two sectors, which are not homogenous even within themselves, so I never quite get like it is portrayed that one is so much superior to the other in some very obvious way - if that were so, why do we have anyone in the shit one, whichever that is?
Yes yes, we couldn't have all one and not the other, but the point being when people complain about their one not being as good as the other, surely they can do something about that as an individual at least?
Most PBers, being right of centre, prefer the greater prospects of the private sector. It’s a pity that some don’t accept that others are willing to trade that for lower pay but better security and pensions; although I’m not so sure about the better security nowadays.
I work in the public sector because I see pensions as part of my renumeration. It baffles me that others don't do the same.
The trouble there though is you dont see it as part of your remuneration when arguing for payrises and your pay not being equivalent to private sector people
A public sector gets a nominal wage of 30k....you as on pension contributions and its 36k
A provate sector worker doing the same sort of job earning 33k as a nominal salary will actually be earning 34650 when you add in pension contributions.
Public sector workers will point to this and say see we could earn so much more in the private sector. Ignoring the fact that the private sector worker is actually earning less and will probably retire on about a third of your pension.
There are a damn sight more private sector workers and sooner or later we are going to say fuck off
Stop winging
Get a job in the Public Sector if you think things are so good there or STFU
Why are there so many Public Sector Vacancies do you think?
Because the public sector jobs never point out the true salary they are getting. If you saw and advert for jobs one saying 34k + 1700 salary contribution vs one saying 30k + 6k salary contribution then more people would opt for the 30k job. Simple fact is most public sector people I know dont realise how much their job is shoving into their pensions.
They also don’t realise how much their pay has grown relative to the private sector, over the past couple of decades, and how their pensions are all but unattainable outside the public sector, except for top city bankers and lawyers.
How many public sector workers have had real wage cuts in the last decade? I don't mean 'real terms' compared to inflation but actual cuts in their wages. Plenty of people in the private sector have had this.
I think public sector pay has hardly risen at all. I've been in since 2016 and from memory it's been 1% a year. That's a very big cut in real terms. I admit the pension is generous.
But as I said I am talking about actual cuts in pay rather than just not going up as much as inflation. This is a reality for many in the private sector and I am not sure I have ever heard of it happening in the public sector.
I would describe a cut in real wages as "actual", though I appreciate people's basket of goods will be different.
But who in the public sector has had to put up with their salary being cut by 10% or more. Not just compared to inflation but an actual reduction in the number of pounds in their gross pay packet? This is something that happens in the private sector but I have not heard of it in the public sector.
You can achieve the same effect by growing wages more slowly than inflation over several years. That's not as painful for current staff, but it means the pressure and discontent festers over time. Pros and cons to each approach.
Consider junior doctors - a 26% real terms cut since 2008, but no doctor will have suffered the large nominal cut you are describing.
I suspect that someone who was a junior doctor is 2008, is now earning vastly more money than they did 15 years ago.
I'm just trying to point out that you can't really compare the individual impact of someone in the private sector getting a 10% cut in wages, to the slow reduction of pay across the public sector in real terms.
Note that this second effect has taken place in the private sector too - the graduate salary for the scheme I was on was pretty small when I did it, and is now about 15 % smaller.
My point is that an awful lot of private sector professionals are actually earning less money than they did 15 years ago, and notice this in the context of very structured career public sector employees’ complaints about real terms pay cuts at a specific grade, over the same time period.
I don't think we are disagreeing! Real terms wages have been a problem across both sectors. While the immediate effects of that are much reduced in the public sector because the structures you describe, the long-term effects for staff recruitment and retainment are still there.
On the topic of pensions still, the uk currently has 1.2 trillion in pension liabilities for public sector pensions. Three quarters of which is unfunded and will be payed for out of tax. Anyone saying as a taxpayer I should just stfu about it can do so themselves
Is there a contractual obligation to pay them, or can a future government simply legislate them away (like the state pension)?
If so, that's quite a source of uncertainty, particularly given the *interesting* fiscal outlook.
There is a contractual obligation and that has to be honoured, however like triple lock its not affordable in the long term especially given the expansion of the public sector
The triple lock is a red herring. Barty tells us pensions cost the government £300 billion a year but the state pension is only £10,000 so unless there are 30 million pensioners, the bulk of that figure goes elsewhere; tax relief on private pensions, maybe, I do not know. The basic state pension is way below minimum wage and no amount of triple locking will make a dent in that (well, it will eventually but in the long term, we are all dead).
No, "social protection" (ie welfare) is £300bn of which the majority of that is pensions. Never said it was all pensions.
But welfare isn't being targeted ta those who are most in need. If you want to target welfare towards pensioners who are worst off there is pension credit etc too do that, but that isn't used and instead the triple lock goes up instead which is effectively beer wine/gin money for those with gold-plated pensions, while pensioners who are struggling get very little.
The shocking fact is that this government now spends more on welfare than Labour did.
Do you think those in most need now get more support than they did under Labour?
If not, where is the money going, and doesn't something need to be done about it?
The number of well off pensioners is quite small.
They’re a large number for whom the state pension is 1/2 or more of what they get.
The next crisis will be when Generation Rent starts retiring in a big way. Instead of paid off mortgages, big rents. What will they do?
Define 'well off'. On average pensioners are much better off than young people paying rent and working to pay the rent and taxes that are going towards their elders.
Everyone likes to think only people richer than them are well off, but to define it neutrally then only 1.4 million out of 12.5 million pensioners receive pension credit.
So defining 'well off' as not requiring pension credit then about 90% of pensioners are 'well off' on that basis. Considering that increasing pension credit was the alternative proposal to support poor pensioners.
Great analysis. I would extend the disadvantaged age threshold to under 50.
Anyone 50 or over reached the age of 30 before 2003 and was therefore able to get on the housing ladder before the great inflation of the 2000s.
I am 44 and only *just* managed to get on to a property that suited me in 2011. It was already probably 2x more expensive than it had been a decade before. It is now 2x more again.
For me its the defined benefit/defined contribution pension gap. Seems to map quite cleanly between those who benefited from high stability (un-globalised) jobs and the generation after.
There will be a growing divide because of this between private and public sector workers. Personally getting fed up with friends that work public sector telling me that their pensions aren't gold plated as they will give them only 10k to 15k a year. I have contributed more than them and my dc pension will pay me the square root of fuck all due to 20 years of low interest rates....so much for the miracle of cumulative interest
Go and work in the Public Sector then.
Plenty of vacancies due to the shit wages
There's clearly tradeoffs between the two sectors, which are not homogenous even within themselves, so I never quite get like it is portrayed that one is so much superior to the other in some very obvious way - if that were so, why do we have anyone in the shit one, whichever that is?
Yes yes, we couldn't have all one and not the other, but the point being when people complain about their one not being as good as the other, surely they can do something about that as an individual at least?
Most PBers, being right of centre, prefer the greater prospects of the private sector. It’s a pity that some don’t accept that others are willing to trade that for lower pay but better security and pensions; although I’m not so sure about the better security nowadays.
I work in the public sector because I see pensions as part of my renumeration. It baffles me that others don't do the same.
The trouble there though is you dont see it as part of your remuneration when arguing for payrises and your pay not being equivalent to private sector people
A public sector gets a nominal wage of 30k....you as on pension contributions and its 36k
A provate sector worker doing the same sort of job earning 33k as a nominal salary will actually be earning 34650 when you add in pension contributions.
Public sector workers will point to this and say see we could earn so much more in the private sector. Ignoring the fact that the private sector worker is actually earning less and will probably retire on about a third of your pension.
There are a damn sight more private sector workers and sooner or later we are going to say fuck off
Stop winging
Get a job in the Public Sector if you think things are so good there or STFU
Why are there so many Public Sector Vacancies do you think?
Because the public sector jobs never point out the true salary they are getting. If you saw and advert for jobs one saying 34k + 1700 salary contribution vs one saying 30k + 6k salary contribution then more people would opt for the 30k job. Simple fact is most public sector people I know dont realise how much their job is shoving into their pensions.
They also don’t realise how much their pay has grown relative to the private sector, over the past couple of decades, and how their pensions are all but unattainable outside the public sector, except for top city bankers and lawyers.
How many public sector workers have had real wage cuts in the last decade? I don't mean 'real terms' compared to inflation but actual cuts in their wages. Plenty of people in the private sector have had this.
Indeed. I’m making about 5% less money now than a decade ago, and my wife about 10% less money. There’s few time-served grade increments in the private sector, and a lot of involuntary redundancy in the past decade.
If I was eaning the same inflation based since 2002 my pay would be 43% above what it is now
Great analysis. I would extend the disadvantaged age threshold to under 50.
Anyone 50 or over reached the age of 30 before 2003 and was therefore able to get on the housing ladder before the great inflation of the 2000s.
I am 44 and only *just* managed to get on to a property that suited me in 2011. It was already probably 2x more expensive than it had been a decade before. It is now 2x more again.
For me its the defined benefit/defined contribution pension gap. Seems to map quite cleanly between those who benefited from high stability (un-globalised) jobs and the generation after.
There will be a growing divide because of this between private and public sector workers. Personally getting fed up with friends that work public sector telling me that their pensions aren't gold plated as they will give them only 10k to 15k a year. I have contributed more than them and my dc pension will pay me the square root of fuck all due to 20 years of low interest rates....so much for the miracle of cumulative interest
Go and work in the Public Sector then.
Plenty of vacancies due to the shit wages
There's clearly tradeoffs between the two sectors, which are not homogenous even within themselves, so I never quite get like it is portrayed that one is so much superior to the other in some very obvious way - if that were so, why do we have anyone in the shit one, whichever that is?
Yes yes, we couldn't have all one and not the other, but the point being when people complain about their one not being as good as the other, surely they can do something about that as an individual at least?
Most PBers, being right of centre, prefer the greater prospects of the private sector. It’s a pity that some don’t accept that others are willing to trade that for lower pay but better security and pensions; although I’m not so sure about the better security nowadays.
I work in the public sector because I see pensions as part of my renumeration. It baffles me that others don't do the same.
The trouble there though is you dont see it as part of your remuneration when arguing for payrises and your pay not being equivalent to private sector people
A public sector gets a nominal wage of 30k....you as on pension contributions and its 36k
A provate sector worker doing the same sort of job earning 33k as a nominal salary will actually be earning 34650 when you add in pension contributions.
Public sector workers will point to this and say see we could earn so much more in the private sector. Ignoring the fact that the private sector worker is actually earning less and will probably retire on about a third of your pension.
There are a damn sight more private sector workers and sooner or later we are going to say fuck off
The fault in your logic is the "same sort of job" bit. I recently had a work colleague (data analyst in the public sector) quit for a simliar job in the private sector for a 50% pay rise .
I know someone who turned down a top Treasury job in favour of three times as much money in the private sector. You'd need an awfully generous pension scheme to make up that difference.
Perhaps the real divide is not between public and private sectors but between the C-suite and the shop floor in whichever sector; between 6- and 7-figure salaried chiefs and the rest of us.
Which brings us back to @Alastair-meeks.medium.com and the disappearing of the middle class.
The fundamental issue is a lack of growth. It's just not there in the same way it was 15+ years ago, and there's no easy way it can be.
If we can't fix it then it points to a future politics of scapegoating and grabbing off those who do, I'm afraid.
What we need is growth in real GDP per capita rather than GDP.
For Chancellor's to start quoting that figure in the Budget and the Media to lead on that figure, instead of gross GDP would be a good start.
The challenge of Statesmen in the next 50 years is going to be to continue to deliver growth and maintain political cohesion of their nations in an environment where we will have shrinking populations and an unstable climate without triggering war, insurrection, pandemics or catastrophic systemic failures; I think we understate just how much of our growth over the last 250 years was down to huge growth in population and ever increasing exploitation of new sources of energy.
I think it can be done, and technology lies at its heart, but it will require exceptional statecraft.
On the topic of pensions still, the uk currently has 1.2 trillion in pension liabilities for public sector pensions. Three quarters of which is unfunded and will be payed for out of tax. Anyone saying as a taxpayer I should just stfu about it can do so themselves
Is there a contractual obligation to pay them, or can a future government simply legislate them away (like the state pension)?
If so, that's quite a source of uncertainty, particularly given the *interesting* fiscal outlook.
There is a contractual obligation and that has to be honoured, however like triple lock its not affordable in the long term especially given the expansion of the public sector
The triple lock is a red herring. Barty tells us pensions cost the government £300 billion a year but the state pension is only £10,000 so unless there are 30 million pensioners, the bulk of that figure goes elsewhere; tax relief on private pensions, maybe, I do not know. The basic state pension is way below minimum wage and no amount of triple locking will make a dent in that (well, it will eventually but in the long term, we are all dead).
Pensioner benefit spending is forecast to total £136 billion in Great Britain in 2023-24, of which we project £124 billion will be spent on state pensions.
Work on the assumption that the state pension will effectively dwindle to income support levels, over time, and private pensions will eventually lose almost all of their tax relief.
Great analysis. I would extend the disadvantaged age threshold to under 50.
Anyone 50 or over reached the age of 30 before 2003 and was therefore able to get on the housing ladder before the great inflation of the 2000s.
I am 44 and only *just* managed to get on to a property that suited me in 2011. It was already probably 2x more expensive than it had been a decade before. It is now 2x more again.
For me its the defined benefit/defined contribution pension gap. Seems to map quite cleanly between those who benefited from high stability (un-globalised) jobs and the generation after.
There will be a growing divide because of this between private and public sector workers. Personally getting fed up with friends that work public sector telling me that their pensions aren't gold plated as they will give them only 10k to 15k a year. I have contributed more than them and my dc pension will pay me the square root of fuck all due to 20 years of low interest rates....so much for the miracle of cumulative interest
Go and work in the Public Sector then.
Plenty of vacancies due to the shit wages
There's clearly tradeoffs between the two sectors, which are not homogenous even within themselves, so I never quite get like it is portrayed that one is so much superior to the other in some very obvious way - if that were so, why do we have anyone in the shit one, whichever that is?
Yes yes, we couldn't have all one and not the other, but the point being when people complain about their one not being as good as the other, surely they can do something about that as an individual at least?
Most PBers, being right of centre, prefer the greater prospects of the private sector. It’s a pity that some don’t accept that others are willing to trade that for lower pay but better security and pensions; although I’m not so sure about the better security nowadays.
I work in the public sector because I see pensions as part of my renumeration. It baffles me that others don't do the same.
The trouble there though is you dont see it as part of your remuneration when arguing for payrises and your pay not being equivalent to private sector people
A public sector gets a nominal wage of 30k....you as on pension contributions and its 36k
A provate sector worker doing the same sort of job earning 33k as a nominal salary will actually be earning 34650 when you add in pension contributions.
Public sector workers will point to this and say see we could earn so much more in the private sector. Ignoring the fact that the private sector worker is actually earning less and will probably retire on about a third of your pension.
There are a damn sight more private sector workers and sooner or later we are going to say fuck off
Stop winging
Get a job in the Public Sector if you think things are so good there or STFU
Why are there so many Public Sector Vacancies do you think?
Because the public sector jobs never point out the true salary they are getting. If you saw and advert for jobs one saying 34k + 1700 salary contribution vs one saying 30k + 6k salary contribution then more people would opt for the 30k job. Simple fact is most public sector people I know dont realise how much their job is shoving into their pensions.
They also don’t realise how much their pay has grown relative to the private sector, over the past couple of decades, and how their pensions are all but unattainable outside the public sector, except for top city bankers and lawyers.
How many public sector workers have had real wage cuts in the last decade? I don't mean 'real terms' compared to inflation but actual cuts in their wages. Plenty of people in the private sector have had this.
Indeed. I’m making about 5% less money now than a decade ago, and my wife about 10% less money. There’s few time-served grade increments in the private sector, and a lot of involuntary redundancy in the past decade.
If I was eaning the same inflation based since 2002 my pay would be 43% above what it is now
To what do you attribute your lower productivity?
Is it PB?
To balance the scales my pay has more than doubled since I first posted on PB, so no complaints here and thanks to the team.
Admittedly I had my first full time job after first posting.
The discussion here this afternoon is very meta. We just need someone to write a header on PB banning policy now.
UK politics is actually pretty boring at the moment. There’s very little happening compared with most times in the last 7 or 8 years. And it’s just a bit too early to get worked up about the US election. So the site starts to eat itself, save the occasional flare up on Ukraine or by-elections.
Yes, this is the Phoney war in more ways than one.
It will liven up in conference season, and very much more in the Spring. Election fever tends to bring new posters, as it did me in 2010, though a fair few disappear at the close of polling on GE night.
PB on election night is the place to be, as its analysis is often way ahead of the other media. I have done some successful reverse ferrets on the night a few times based on analyses here.
Lol! Nobody ever disappeared faster than Stuart Truth on the night Romney lost.
PB saved my skin when Trump beat Clinton. This ferret reversed just about quickly enough to switch bets and win a few quid instead of losing my shirt. RCS was my main benefactor that night, but there were others too whose noses were twitching before the great unwashed were beginning to realise that Trump really was going to be President.
Foxy, is it ok if I send you a personal message? It's about Leicester Royal Infirmary. It's ok, it's not scandalous.
Great analysis. I would extend the disadvantaged age threshold to under 50.
Anyone 50 or over reached the age of 30 before 2003 and was therefore able to get on the housing ladder before the great inflation of the 2000s.
I am 44 and only *just* managed to get on to a property that suited me in 2011. It was already probably 2x more expensive than it had been a decade before. It is now 2x more again.
For me its the defined benefit/defined contribution pension gap. Seems to map quite cleanly between those who benefited from high stability (un-globalised) jobs and the generation after.
There will be a growing divide because of this between private and public sector workers. Personally getting fed up with friends that work public sector telling me that their pensions aren't gold plated as they will give them only 10k to 15k a year. I have contributed more than them and my dc pension will pay me the square root of fuck all due to 20 years of low interest rates....so much for the miracle of cumulative interest
Go and work in the Public Sector then.
Plenty of vacancies due to the shit wages
There's clearly tradeoffs between the two sectors, which are not homogenous even within themselves, so I never quite get like it is portrayed that one is so much superior to the other in some very obvious way - if that were so, why do we have anyone in the shit one, whichever that is?
Yes yes, we couldn't have all one and not the other, but the point being when people complain about their one not being as good as the other, surely they can do something about that as an individual at least?
Most PBers, being right of centre, prefer the greater prospects of the private sector. It’s a pity that some don’t accept that others are willing to trade that for lower pay but better security and pensions; although I’m not so sure about the better security nowadays.
I work in the public sector because I see pensions as part of my renumeration. It baffles me that others don't do the same.
The trouble there though is you dont see it as part of your remuneration when arguing for payrises and your pay not being equivalent to private sector people
A public sector gets a nominal wage of 30k....you as on pension contributions and its 36k
A provate sector worker doing the same sort of job earning 33k as a nominal salary will actually be earning 34650 when you add in pension contributions.
Public sector workers will point to this and say see we could earn so much more in the private sector. Ignoring the fact that the private sector worker is actually earning less and will probably retire on about a third of your pension.
There are a damn sight more private sector workers and sooner or later we are going to say fuck off
Stop winging
Get a job in the Public Sector if you think things are so good there or STFU
Why are there so many Public Sector Vacancies do you think?
Because the public sector jobs never point out the true salary they are getting. If you saw and advert for jobs one saying 34k + 1700 salary contribution vs one saying 30k + 6k salary contribution then more people would opt for the 30k job. Simple fact is most public sector people I know dont realise how much their job is shoving into their pensions.
They also don’t realise how much their pay has grown relative to the private sector, over the past couple of decades, and how their pensions are all but unattainable outside the public sector, except for top city bankers and lawyers.
How many public sector workers have had real wage cuts in the last decade? I don't mean 'real terms' compared to inflation but actual cuts in their wages. Plenty of people in the private sector have had this.
I think public sector pay has hardly risen at all. I've been in since 2016 and from memory it's been 1% a year. That's a very big cut in real terms. I admit the pension is generous.
But as I said I am talking about actual cuts in pay rather than just not going up as much as inflation. This is a reality for many in the private sector and I am not sure I have ever heard of it happening in the public sector.
I would describe a cut in real wages as "actual", though I appreciate people's basket of goods will be different.
But who in the public sector has had to put up with their salary being cut by 10% or more. Not just compared to inflation but an actual reduction in the number of pounds in their gross pay packet? This is something that happens in the private sector but I have not heard of it in the public sector.
You can achieve the same effect by growing wages more slowly than inflation over several years. That's not as painful for current staff, but it means the pressure and discontent festers over time. Pros and cons to each approach.
Consider junior doctors - a 26% real terms cut since 2008, but no doctor will have suffered the large nominal cut you are describing.
I suspect that someone who was a junior doctor is 2008, is now earning vastly more money than they did 15 years ago.
I'm just trying to point out that you can't really compare the individual impact of someone in the private sector getting a 10% cut in wages, to the slow reduction of pay across the public sector in real terms.
Note that this second effect has taken place in the private sector too - the graduate salary for the scheme I was on was pretty small when I did it, and is now about 15 % smaller.
My point is that an awful lot of private sector professionals are actually earning less money than they did 15 years ago, and notice this in the context of very structured career public sector employees’ complaints about real terms pay cuts at a specific grade, over the same time period.
Truss was right, we need to talk about how we return to getting growth rather than managed decline.
She handled her time in office atrociously, but on the fundamental point she was right.
In politics it isn't hard to want good things. There is hardly a politician who doesn't. So Truss added nothing to the mix, except to show that actuality in politics is hard.
On the topic of pensions still, the uk currently has 1.2 trillion in pension liabilities for public sector pensions. Three quarters of which is unfunded and will be payed for out of tax. Anyone saying as a taxpayer I should just stfu about it can do so themselves
Is there a contractual obligation to pay them, or can a future government simply legislate them away (like the state pension)?
If so, that's quite a source of uncertainty, particularly given the *interesting* fiscal outlook.
There is a contractual obligation and that has to be honoured, however like triple lock its not affordable in the long term especially given the expansion of the public sector
The triple lock is a red herring. Barty tells us pensions cost the government £300 billion a year but the state pension is only £10,000 so unless there are 30 million pensioners, the bulk of that figure goes elsewhere; tax relief on private pensions, maybe, I do not know. The basic state pension is way below minimum wage and no amount of triple locking will make a dent in that (well, it will eventually but in the long term, we are all dead).
No, "social protection" (ie welfare) is £300bn of which the majority of that is pensions. Never said it was all pensions.
But welfare isn't being targeted ta those who are most in need. If you want to target welfare towards pensioners who are worst off there is pension credit etc too do that, but that isn't used and instead the triple lock goes up instead which is effectively beer wine/gin money for those with gold-plated pensions, while pensioners who are struggling get very little.
The shocking fact is that this government now spends more on welfare than Labour did.
Do you think those in most need now get more support than they did under Labour?
If not, where is the money going, and doesn't something need to be done about it?
The number of well off pensioners is quite small.
They’re a large number for whom the state pension is 1/2 or more of what they get.
The next crisis will be when Generation Rent starts retiring in a big way. Instead of paid off mortgages, big rents. What will they do?
The refusal of successive governments to address this and to kick it into the long grass is going to lead to huge problems.
The government is going to have to step in otherwise a lot of people are going to be made homeless .
Great analysis. I would extend the disadvantaged age threshold to under 50.
Anyone 50 or over reached the age of 30 before 2003 and was therefore able to get on the housing ladder before the great inflation of the 2000s.
I am 44 and only *just* managed to get on to a property that suited me in 2011. It was already probably 2x more expensive than it had been a decade before. It is now 2x more again.
For me its the defined benefit/defined contribution pension gap. Seems to map quite cleanly between those who benefited from high stability (un-globalised) jobs and the generation after.
There will be a growing divide because of this between private and public sector workers. Personally getting fed up with friends that work public sector telling me that their pensions aren't gold plated as they will give them only 10k to 15k a year. I have contributed more than them and my dc pension will pay me the square root of fuck all due to 20 years of low interest rates....so much for the miracle of cumulative interest
Go and work in the Public Sector then.
Plenty of vacancies due to the shit wages
There's clearly tradeoffs between the two sectors, which are not homogenous even within themselves, so I never quite get like it is portrayed that one is so much superior to the other in some very obvious way - if that were so, why do we have anyone in the shit one, whichever that is?
Yes yes, we couldn't have all one and not the other, but the point being when people complain about their one not being as good as the other, surely they can do something about that as an individual at least?
Most PBers, being right of centre, prefer the greater prospects of the private sector. It’s a pity that some don’t accept that others are willing to trade that for lower pay but better security and pensions; although I’m not so sure about the better security nowadays.
I work in the public sector because I see pensions as part of my renumeration. It baffles me that others don't do the same.
The trouble there though is you dont see it as part of your remuneration when arguing for payrises and your pay not being equivalent to private sector people
A public sector gets a nominal wage of 30k....you as on pension contributions and its 36k
A provate sector worker doing the same sort of job earning 33k as a nominal salary will actually be earning 34650 when you add in pension contributions.
Public sector workers will point to this and say see we could earn so much more in the private sector. Ignoring the fact that the private sector worker is actually earning less and will probably retire on about a third of your pension.
There are a damn sight more private sector workers and sooner or later we are going to say fuck off
The fault in your logic is the "same sort of job" bit. I recently had a work colleague (data analyst in the public sector) quit for a simliar job in the private sector for a 50% pay rise .
I know someone who turned down a top Treasury job in favour of three times as much money in the private sector. You'd need an awfully generous pension scheme to make up that difference.
Perhaps the real divide is not between public and private sectors but between the C-suite and the shop floor in whichever sector; between 6- and 7-figure salaried chiefs and the rest of us.
Which brings us back to @Alastair-meeks.medium.com and the disappearing of the middle class.
The fundamental issue is a lack of growth. It's just not there in the same way it was 15+ years ago, and there's no easy way it can be.
If we can't fix it then it points to a future politics of scapegoating and grabbing off those who do, I'm afraid.
Or more hopefully a future politics focused on achieving a more equitable distribution of income and wealth.
Which is more of a niche view than you think it is.
Most people aren't that interested in socialism and accept that any human society has hierarchy. They just want for they and their families to be able to get on.
On the topic of pensions still, the uk currently has 1.2 trillion in pension liabilities for public sector pensions. Three quarters of which is unfunded and will be payed for out of tax. Anyone saying as a taxpayer I should just stfu about it can do so themselves
Is there a contractual obligation to pay them, or can a future government simply legislate them away (like the state pension)?
If so, that's quite a source of uncertainty, particularly given the *interesting* fiscal outlook.
There is a contractual obligation and that has to be honoured, however like triple lock its not affordable in the long term especially given the expansion of the public sector
The triple lock is a red herring. Barty tells us pensions cost the government £300 billion a year but the state pension is only £10,000 so unless there are 30 million pensioners, the bulk of that figure goes elsewhere; tax relief on private pensions, maybe, I do not know. The basic state pension is way below minimum wage and no amount of triple locking will make a dent in that (well, it will eventually but in the long term, we are all dead).
No, "social protection" (ie welfare) is £300bn of which the majority of that is pensions. Never said it was all pensions.
But welfare isn't being targeted ta those who are most in need. If you want to target welfare towards pensioners who are worst off there is pension credit etc too do that, but that isn't used and instead the triple lock goes up instead which is effectively beer wine/gin money for those with gold-plated pensions, while pensioners who are struggling get very little.
The shocking fact is that this government now spends more on welfare than Labour did.
Do you think those in most need now get more support than they did under Labour?
If not, where is the money going, and doesn't something need to be done about it?
Triple lock should be knocked on the head - CPI increases for state pension, the same as other benefits.
Alos, somehow the total tax on income (ICT + NI) needs to be harmonised across all income, including pensions. To me it seem the easiest way to do that gradually would be to reduce NI and increase basic rate ICT by 2% each year until employees NI is gone.
Great analysis. I would extend the disadvantaged age threshold to under 50.
Anyone 50 or over reached the age of 30 before 2003 and was therefore able to get on the housing ladder before the great inflation of the 2000s.
I am 44 and only *just* managed to get on to a property that suited me in 2011. It was already probably 2x more expensive than it had been a decade before. It is now 2x more again.
For me its the defined benefit/defined contribution pension gap. Seems to map quite cleanly between those who benefited from high stability (un-globalised) jobs and the generation after.
There will be a growing divide because of this between private and public sector workers. Personally getting fed up with friends that work public sector telling me that their pensions aren't gold plated as they will give them only 10k to 15k a year. I have contributed more than them and my dc pension will pay me the square root of fuck all due to 20 years of low interest rates....so much for the miracle of cumulative interest
Go and work in the Public Sector then.
Plenty of vacancies due to the shit wages
There's clearly tradeoffs between the two sectors, which are not homogenous even within themselves, so I never quite get like it is portrayed that one is so much superior to the other in some very obvious way - if that were so, why do we have anyone in the shit one, whichever that is?
Yes yes, we couldn't have all one and not the other, but the point being when people complain about their one not being as good as the other, surely they can do something about that as an individual at least?
Most PBers, being right of centre, prefer the greater prospects of the private sector. It’s a pity that some don’t accept that others are willing to trade that for lower pay but better security and pensions; although I’m not so sure about the better security nowadays.
I work in the public sector because I see pensions as part of my renumeration. It baffles me that others don't do the same.
The trouble there though is you dont see it as part of your remuneration when arguing for payrises and your pay not being equivalent to private sector people
A public sector gets a nominal wage of 30k....you as on pension contributions and its 36k
A provate sector worker doing the same sort of job earning 33k as a nominal salary will actually be earning 34650 when you add in pension contributions.
Public sector workers will point to this and say see we could earn so much more in the private sector. Ignoring the fact that the private sector worker is actually earning less and will probably retire on about a third of your pension.
There are a damn sight more private sector workers and sooner or later we are going to say fuck off
The fault in your logic is the "same sort of job" bit. I recently had a work colleague (data analyst in the public sector) quit for a simliar job in the private sector for a 50% pay rise .
I know someone who turned down a top Treasury job in favour of three times as much money in the private sector. You'd need an awfully generous pension scheme to make up that difference.
Perhaps the real divide is not between public and private sectors but between the C-suite and the shop floor in whichever sector; between 6- and 7-figure salaried chiefs and the rest of us.
Indeed.
There are a lot of different public sector jobs out there. It’s hard to make generalisations. I know a lot of people in the public sector, in education and the health sector, who are on short term contracts, maybe 3 years, maybe 6 months, and they move to the private sector because the private sector either offers a lot more pay for the same lack of stability, and/or because they can get permanent positions in the private sector.
Dura is not following a pro russian or neutral or pro anything position. He's following a realistic, pragmatic position.
But of course Dura is no shrinking violet so I'm sure he can speak for himself.
My position is to look at the situation and try to analyse it dispassionately.
I agree with mostly everything Dura_Ace posts on Russia/Ukraine. He seems one of the most pragmatic and realistic posters here. Far more than some of the ultra-pro Ukraine people, likewise the pro-Russian contingent.
In Seattle, following last week's heat wave, we are currently experiencing an Air Quality Alert, due to smoke from wildfires in eastern Washington and British Columbia.
At the moment, across most of the city (including my locale) air quality is rated "unhealthy for sensitive groups". And it's been slowly worsening all morning (now noon here). Gray haze outside, which is at least blocking out some sunlight - a boon for me as only way I can cool my humble abode when it heats up, is by opening the windows!
Probably gonna get worse before it starts getting better, which is forecast to begin happening Monday afternoon. However, may take a while to clear out.
NOTE that we are in WAY better shape than folks in eastern WA, particularly in Spokane where air is currently rated as outright "hazardous" to breath. And not much better in Tri-Cities (where plutonium for "Fat Man" A-bomb was refined), Yakima or Wenatchee where air is merely "very unhealty".
Dura is not following a pro russian or neutral or pro anything position. He's following a realistic, pragmatic position.
But of course Dura is no shrinking violet so I'm sure he can speak for himself.
My position is to look at the situation and try to analyse it dispassionately.
I agree with mostly everything Dura_Ace posts on Russia/Ukraine. He seems one of the most pragmatic and realistic posters here. Far more than some of the ultra-pro Ukraine people, likewise the pro-Russian contingent.
I like his attempts at more grounded expectations, I'm just not a fan of the faux edgy flourishes. But hey, we don't have to like everyone's indiosyncracies.
Great analysis. I would extend the disadvantaged age threshold to under 50.
Anyone 50 or over reached the age of 30 before 2003 and was therefore able to get on the housing ladder before the great inflation of the 2000s.
I am 44 and only *just* managed to get on to a property that suited me in 2011. It was already probably 2x more expensive than it had been a decade before. It is now 2x more again.
For me its the defined benefit/defined contribution pension gap. Seems to map quite cleanly between those who benefited from high stability (un-globalised) jobs and the generation after.
There will be a growing divide because of this between private and public sector workers. Personally getting fed up with friends that work public sector telling me that their pensions aren't gold plated as they will give them only 10k to 15k a year. I have contributed more than them and my dc pension will pay me the square root of fuck all due to 20 years of low interest rates....so much for the miracle of cumulative interest
Go and work in the Public Sector then.
Plenty of vacancies due to the shit wages
There's clearly tradeoffs between the two sectors, which are not homogenous even within themselves, so I never quite get like it is portrayed that one is so much superior to the other in some very obvious way - if that were so, why do we have anyone in the shit one, whichever that is?
Yes yes, we couldn't have all one and not the other, but the point being when people complain about their one not being as good as the other, surely they can do something about that as an individual at least?
Most PBers, being right of centre, prefer the greater prospects of the private sector. It’s a pity that some don’t accept that others are willing to trade that for lower pay but better security and pensions; although I’m not so sure about the better security nowadays.
I work in the public sector because I see pensions as part of my renumeration. It baffles me that others don't do the same.
The trouble there though is you dont see it as part of your remuneration when arguing for payrises and your pay not being equivalent to private sector people
A public sector gets a nominal wage of 30k....you as on pension contributions and its 36k
A provate sector worker doing the same sort of job earning 33k as a nominal salary will actually be earning 34650 when you add in pension contributions.
Public sector workers will point to this and say see we could earn so much more in the private sector. Ignoring the fact that the private sector worker is actually earning less and will probably retire on about a third of your pension.
There are a damn sight more private sector workers and sooner or later we are going to say fuck off
Stop winging
Get a job in the Public Sector if you think things are so good there or STFU
Why are there so many Public Sector Vacancies do you think?
Because the public sector jobs never point out the true salary they are getting. If you saw and advert for jobs one saying 34k + 1700 salary contribution vs one saying 30k + 6k salary contribution then more people would opt for the 30k job. Simple fact is most public sector people I know dont realise how much their job is shoving into their pensions.
They also don’t realise how much their pay has grown relative to the private sector, over the past couple of decades, and how their pensions are all but unattainable outside the public sector, except for top city bankers and lawyers.
How many public sector workers have had real wage cuts in the last decade? I don't mean 'real terms' compared to inflation but actual cuts in their wages. Plenty of people in the private sector have had this.
Indeed. I’m making about 5% less money now than a decade ago, and my wife about 10% less money. There’s few time-served grade increments in the private sector, and a lot of involuntary redundancy in the past decade.
If I was eaning the same inflation based since 2002 my pay would be 43% above what it is now
To what do you attribute your lower productivity?
Is it PB?
To balance the scales my pay has more than doubled since I first posted on PB, so no complaints here and thanks to the team.
Admittedly I had my first full time job after first posting.
Yes. Most influential since Thatcher I believe was the claim, and that claim stands.
Influential can be for good or ill, the same pirate also lists Atlee as an influential PM despite vehemently disliking what Atlee did to the country.
Whether you like it or not the legacy of Brexit overshadows almost everything any other PM has done post Thatcher.
Who, since Thatcher, has introduced a bigger change to the countries course than Brexit?
You dislike the NHS and the welfare state?
Yes.
All parties post-WWII were looking at healthcare free at the point of use. The NHS as a monolithic agency is one of the worst ways developed across the west to do it, despite the fact that supporters of the NHS love to pretend America is the only alternative.
As for the welfare state, yes, I support welfare safety nets but not welfare as a way of life.
But more what Attlee did went far beyond that with nationalisation of many industries and wasting a lot of money that was available for reconstruction post-WWII.
Attlee is the prime reason why Britain went from winning the war, being only of the only countries in the war not to be occupied, to sick man of Europe until Thatcher turned us around.
O/T Out to dinner with friends last night who have a holiday cottage in Cornwall (a 2 bed terrace near Rock). I was stunned to find out that they pay no Council Tax on the cottage at all, so long as it's let out for 105 days per year. No business rates either as it's rateable value is too low.
So they bought the property on a loan, rent it out for 4 months of the summer which covers the loan, spend three or four weeks a year using it themselves, and it's empty the rest of the time.
And we wonder why it's so hard for first-time buyers to get a home.
Dura is not following a pro russian or neutral or pro anything position. He's following a realistic, pragmatic position.
But of course Dura is no shrinking violet so I'm sure he can speak for himself.
My position is to look at the situation and try to analyse it dispassionately.
I agree with mostly everything Dura_Ace posts on Russia/Ukraine. He seems one of the most pragmatic and realistic posters here. Far more than some of the ultra-pro Ukraine people, likewise the pro-Russian contingent.
Dura is not following a pro russian or neutral or pro anything position. He's following a realistic, pragmatic position.
But of course Dura is no shrinking violet so I'm sure he can speak for himself.
My position is to look at the situation and try to analyse it dispassionately.
I agree with mostly everything Dura_Ace posts on Russia/Ukraine. He seems one of the most pragmatic and realistic posters here. Far more than some of the ultra-pro Ukraine people, likewise the pro-Russian contingent.
Great analysis. I would extend the disadvantaged age threshold to under 50.
Anyone 50 or over reached the age of 30 before 2003 and was therefore able to get on the housing ladder before the great inflation of the 2000s.
I am 44 and only *just* managed to get on to a property that suited me in 2011. It was already probably 2x more expensive than it had been a decade before. It is now 2x more again.
For me its the defined benefit/defined contribution pension gap. Seems to map quite cleanly between those who benefited from high stability (un-globalised) jobs and the generation after.
There will be a growing divide because of this between private and public sector workers. Personally getting fed up with friends that work public sector telling me that their pensions aren't gold plated as they will give them only 10k to 15k a year. I have contributed more than them and my dc pension will pay me the square root of fuck all due to 20 years of low interest rates....so much for the miracle of cumulative interest
Go and work in the Public Sector then.
Plenty of vacancies due to the shit wages
There's clearly tradeoffs between the two sectors, which are not homogenous even within themselves, so I never quite get like it is portrayed that one is so much superior to the other in some very obvious way - if that were so, why do we have anyone in the shit one, whichever that is?
Yes yes, we couldn't have all one and not the other, but the point being when people complain about their one not being as good as the other, surely they can do something about that as an individual at least?
Most PBers, being right of centre, prefer the greater prospects of the private sector. It’s a pity that some don’t accept that others are willing to trade that for lower pay but better security and pensions; although I’m not so sure about the better security nowadays.
I work in the public sector because I see pensions as part of my renumeration. It baffles me that others don't do the same.
The trouble there though is you dont see it as part of your remuneration when arguing for payrises and your pay not being equivalent to private sector people
A public sector gets a nominal wage of 30k....you as on pension contributions and its 36k
A provate sector worker doing the same sort of job earning 33k as a nominal salary will actually be earning 34650 when you add in pension contributions.
Public sector workers will point to this and say see we could earn so much more in the private sector. Ignoring the fact that the private sector worker is actually earning less and will probably retire on about a third of your pension.
There are a damn sight more private sector workers and sooner or later we are going to say fuck off
Stop winging
Get a job in the Public Sector if you think things are so good there or STFU
Why are there so many Public Sector Vacancies do you think?
Because the public sector jobs never point out the true salary they are getting. If you saw and advert for jobs one saying 34k + 1700 salary contribution vs one saying 30k + 6k salary contribution then more people would opt for the 30k job. Simple fact is most public sector people I know dont realise how much their job is shoving into their pensions.
They also don’t realise how much their pay has grown relative to the private sector, over the past couple of decades, and how their pensions are all but unattainable outside the public sector, except for top city bankers and lawyers.
How many public sector workers have had real wage cuts in the last decade? I don't mean 'real terms' compared to inflation but actual cuts in their wages. Plenty of people in the private sector have had this.
Indeed. I’m making about 5% less money now than a decade ago, and my wife about 10% less money. There’s few time-served grade increments in the private sector, and a lot of involuntary redundancy in the past decade.
If I was eaning the same inflation based since 2002 my pay would be 43% above what it is now
To what do you attribute your lower productivity?
Is it PB?
I have become more productive over that time as I have moved on and continued training on newer technologies (software engineer) it just wasn't reflected in pay. In 2018 I earned the same as I did in 2002 despite mastering a lot more tech which made me more productive. All jobs however continued to have the same pay scale but asked for more knowledge so had to keep up. Then we brexited and ended fom suddenly jobs started offering more....go figure. Before 2019 lots of eastern european programmers.....now not so much
In Seattle, following last week's heat wave, we are currently experiencing an Air Quality Alert, due to smoke from wildfires in eastern Washington and British Columbia.
At the moment, across most of the city (including my locale) air quality is rated "unhealthy for sensitive groups". And it's been slowly worsening all morning (now noon here). Gray haze outside, which is at least blocking out some sunlight - a boon for me as only way I can cool my humble abode when it heats up, is by opening the windows!
Probably gonna get worse before it starts getting better, which is forecast to begin happening Monday afternoon. However, may take a while to clear out.
NOTE that we are in WAY better shape than folks in eastern WA, particularly in Spokane where air is currently rated as outright "hazardous" to breath. And not much better in Tri-Cities (where plutonium for "Fat Man" A-bomb was refined), Yakima or Wenatchee where air is merely "very unhealty".
Dura is not following a pro russian or neutral or pro anything position. He's following a realistic, pragmatic position.
But of course Dura is no shrinking violet so I'm sure he can speak for himself.
My position is to look at the situation and try to analyse it dispassionately.
I agree with mostly everything Dura_Ace posts on Russia/Ukraine. He seems one of the most pragmatic and realistic posters here. Far more than some of the ultra-pro Ukraine people, likewise the pro-Russian contingent.
He is a pro-Russian troll!
I don't think he's pro-Russian. But teenage level trolling references (and that's generous, my sides are still splitting over the hilarity of the 'Disney Prince' ongoing gag) aren't needed for pragmatic takes either and in fact actually undermine such takes. But he's not a one to worry about that, and has in so many words said people shouldn't treat his takes as seriously as gospel as others sometimes take them. Automatically picking the worst case scenario instead of the best case is not deep analysis whichever armchair we are commenting from.
O/T Out to dinner with friends last night who have a holiday cottage in Cornwall (a 2 bed terrace near Rock). I was stunned to find out that they pay no Council Tax on the cottage at all, so long as it's let out for 105 days per year. No business rates either as it's rateable value is too low.
So they bought the property on a loan, rent it out for 4 months of the summer which covers the loan, spend three or four weeks a year using it themselves, and it's empty the rest of the time.
And we wonder why it's so hard for first-time buyers to get a home.
The problem isn't that some people buy a second home, or that it isn't taxed "well". The problem is that we don't build enough houses. Housing is a broken market and government won't step in to fix it. Supply is limited by planning permission, backed up by NIMBYs, and house builders who limit supply to keep prices inflated. If there were enough houses that each household could have one, some people owning two wouldn't be a problem.
Dura is not following a pro russian or neutral or pro anything position. He's following a realistic, pragmatic position.
But of course Dura is no shrinking violet so I'm sure he can speak for himself.
My position is to look at the situation and try to analyse it dispassionately.
I agree with mostly everything Dura_Ace posts on Russia/Ukraine. He seems one of the most pragmatic and realistic posters here. Far more than some of the ultra-pro Ukraine people, likewise the pro-Russian contingent.
He is a pro-Russian troll!
I don't think he is. Kind of proving my point WRT to calling anyone who isn't pro-Ukraine to 100% a Russian stooge there
I did a seven hour shift today. I like working Sundays; it's an easy day's work: like being an Amazon driver - no heavy bags of mail to carry while walking miles
What has started to annoy me a little bit about it is how many people say, "I didn't know Royal Mail worked Sundays!"
It's not annoying for anything of itself, just that I hear it so often and I'm bored of saying "oh yes we do"
Today (when it was said to me fifteen to twenty times) I decided on a different response: I told them all, in my poshest voice, that RM doesn't; I'm just an eccentric millionaire who does this for fun at the weekend
Every single person I said it to laughed heartily. I'm going to stick with it
I'm sure there's work done but there's no actual delivery on Sunday, is there?
I’ve been delivering parcels
Ah ok. But letters and postcards etc?
No, just parcels
Which is why I said it's like being an Amazon driver
O/T Out to dinner with friends last night who have a holiday cottage in Cornwall (a 2 bed terrace near Rock). I was stunned to find out that they pay no Council Tax on the cottage at all, so long as it's let out for 105 days per year. No business rates either as it's rateable value is too low.
So they bought the property on a loan, rent it out for 4 months of the summer which covers the loan, spend three or four weeks a year using it themselves, and it's empty the rest of the time.
And we wonder why it's so hard for first-time buyers to get a home.
The problem isn't that some people buy a second home, or that it isn't taxed "well". The problem is that we don't build enough houses. Housing is a broken market and government won't step in to fix it. Supply is limited by planning permission, backed up by NIMBYs, and house builders who limit supply to keep prices inflated. If there were enough houses that each household could have one, some people owning two wouldn't be a problem.
A nice, concise summation. Problems from multiple angles, and no will to address it, with other issues tinkering at the margins.
Dura is not following a pro russian or neutral or pro anything position. He's following a realistic, pragmatic position.
But of course Dura is no shrinking violet so I'm sure he can speak for himself.
My position is to look at the situation and try to analyse it dispassionately.
I agree with mostly everything Dura_Ace posts on Russia/Ukraine. He seems one of the most pragmatic and realistic posters here. Far more than some of the ultra-pro Ukraine people, likewise the pro-Russian contingent.
I disagree with pretty much all that @Dura_Ace says on the conflict, but like a few others on here he’s spent time in Russia and understands the mentality of those actually fighting this war.
He’s also a genuine guy, has taken in a couple of Ukranian refugees himself, and his knowledge on military aviation and fast cars definitely stacks up.
On the topic of pensions still, the uk currently has 1.2 trillion in pension liabilities for public sector pensions. Three quarters of which is unfunded and will be payed for out of tax. Anyone saying as a taxpayer I should just stfu about it can do so themselves
Is there a contractual obligation to pay them, or can a future government simply legislate them away (like the state pension)?
If so, that's quite a source of uncertainty, particularly given the *interesting* fiscal outlook.
There is a contractual obligation and that has to be honoured, however like triple lock its not affordable in the long term especially given the expansion of the public sector
The triple lock is a red herring. Barty tells us pensions cost the government £300 billion a year but the state pension is only £10,000 so unless there are 30 million pensioners, the bulk of that figure goes elsewhere; tax relief on private pensions, maybe, I do not know. The basic state pension is way below minimum wage and no amount of triple locking will make a dent in that (well, it will eventually but in the long term, we are all dead).
No, "social protection" (ie welfare) is £300bn of which the majority of that is pensions. Never said it was all pensions.
But welfare isn't being targeted ta those who are most in need. If you want to target welfare towards pensioners who are worst off there is pension credit etc too do that, but that isn't used and instead the triple lock goes up instead which is effectively beer wine/gin money for those with gold-plated pensions, while pensioners who are struggling get very little.
The shocking fact is that this government now spends more on welfare than Labour did.
Do you think those in most need now get more support than they did under Labour?
If not, where is the money going, and doesn't something need to be done about it?
The number of well off pensioners is quite small.
They’re a large number for whom the state pension is 1/2 or more of what they get.
The next crisis will be when Generation Rent starts retiring in a big way. Instead of paid off mortgages, big rents. What will they do?
The refusal of successive governments to address this and to kick it into the long grass is going to lead to huge problems.
The government is going to have to step in otherwise a lot of people are going to be made homeless .
The default is the government would step in. Anyone reaching State Pension Age who rents and has an income of below c. £1800 pm including State Pension will get some Housing Benefit, depending on their rent.
I did a seven hour shift today. I like working Sundays; it's an easy day's work: like being an Amazon driver - no heavy bags of mail to carry while walking miles
What has started to annoy me a little bit about it is how many people say, "I didn't know Royal Mail worked Sundays!"
It's not annoying for anything of itself, just that I hear it so often and I'm bored of saying "oh yes we do"
Today (when it was said to me fifteen to twenty times) I decided on a different response: I told them all, in my poshest voice, that RM doesn't; I'm just an eccentric millionaire who does this for fun at the weekend
Every single person I said it to laughed heartily. I'm going to stick with it
I'm sure there's work done but there's no actual delivery on Sunday, is there?
I’ve been delivering parcels
Ah ok. But letters and postcards etc?
No, just parcels
Which is why I said it's like being an Amazon driver
Wait, you deliver on Sundays?
*Ducks*
Not letters though. I was getting excited too but misunderstood.
O/T Out to dinner with friends last night who have a holiday cottage in Cornwall (a 2 bed terrace near Rock). I was stunned to find out that they pay no Council Tax on the cottage at all, so long as it's let out for 105 days per year. No business rates either as it's rateable value is too low.
So they bought the property on a loan, rent it out for 4 months of the summer which covers the loan, spend three or four weeks a year using it themselves, and it's empty the rest of the time.
And we wonder why it's so hard for first-time buyers to get a home.
The problem isn't that some people buy a second home, or that it isn't taxed "well". The problem is that we don't build enough houses. Housing is a broken market and government won't step in to fix it. Supply is limited by planning permission, backed up by NIMBYs, and house builders who limit supply to keep prices inflated. If there were enough houses that each household could have one, some people owning two wouldn't be a problem.
A nice, concise summation. Problems from multiple angles, and no will to address it, with other issues tinkering at the margins.
Multiple angles indeed.
We have acute problems in the housing sector, but NIMBYs are obtuse as to the problems they are causing, while politicians refuse by reflex to adopt the right solution.
It's £17.49 a bottle so I won't be buying it myself at Waitrose; this bottle was bought for me as a present, but it's delicious
I wholly support the Waitrose description:
"This blend of classic Bordeaux grape varieties displays ripe plum and cassis fruit with an enjoyable, long finish. Seldom do wines bestow such luscious, sweet tannins as this delightful red."
Dura is not following a pro russian or neutral or pro anything position. He's following a realistic, pragmatic position.
But of course Dura is no shrinking violet so I'm sure he can speak for himself.
My position is to look at the situation and try to analyse it dispassionately.
I agree with mostly everything Dura_Ace posts on Russia/Ukraine. He seems one of the most pragmatic and realistic posters here. Far more than some of the ultra-pro Ukraine people, likewise the pro-Russian contingent.
He is a pro-Russian troll!
I don't think he is. Kind of proving my point WRT to calling anyone who isn't pro-Ukraine to 100% a Russian stooge there
Well, it was Russia who started this conflict way back in 2014. And they are currently illegally occupying total territory belonging to Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, and Japan totalling 157,000 sq. km. Or roughly 22 times as much territory that Israel is occupying illegally.
O/T Out to dinner with friends last night who have a holiday cottage in Cornwall (a 2 bed terrace near Rock). I was stunned to find out that they pay no Council Tax on the cottage at all, so long as it's let out for 105 days per year. No business rates either as it's rateable value is too low.
So they bought the property on a loan, rent it out for 4 months of the summer which covers the loan, spend three or four weeks a year using it themselves, and it's empty the rest of the time.
And we wonder why it's so hard for first-time buyers to get a home.
That's a good illustration of how broken our property system is.
Dura is not following a pro russian or neutral or pro anything position. He's following a realistic, pragmatic position.
But of course Dura is no shrinking violet so I'm sure he can speak for himself.
My position is to look at the situation and try to analyse it dispassionately.
I agree with mostly everything Dura_Ace posts on Russia/Ukraine. He seems one of the most pragmatic and realistic posters here. Far more than some of the ultra-pro Ukraine people, likewise the pro-Russian contingent.
I like his attempts at more grounded expectations, I'm just not a fan of the faux edgy flourishes. But hey, we don't have to like everyone's indiosyncracies.
His analysis of what should be done about the F-35 crash was slightly counterintuitive - but it felt spot on when reading between the lines of the offical report, and then some more.
The Russian scientist responsible for the moon shot that crashed has been rushed to hospital after "a sudden deterioration in his health", according to Mail online. Anyone surprised?
Very much so. Has somebody mislaid the all-important window key?
O/T Out to dinner with friends last night who have a holiday cottage in Cornwall (a 2 bed terrace near Rock). I was stunned to find out that they pay no Council Tax on the cottage at all, so long as it's let out for 105 days per year. No business rates either as it's rateable value is too low.
So they bought the property on a loan, rent it out for 4 months of the summer which covers the loan, spend three or four weeks a year using it themselves, and it's empty the rest of the time.
And we wonder why it's so hard for first-time buyers to get a home.
The problem isn't that some people buy a second home, or that it isn't taxed "well". The problem is that we don't build enough houses. Housing is a broken market and government won't step in to fix it. Supply is limited by planning permission, backed up by NIMBYs, and house builders who limit supply to keep prices inflated. If there were enough houses that each household could have one, some people owning two wouldn't be a problem.
A nice, concise summation. Problems from multiple angles, and no will to address it, with other issues tinkering at the margins.
Multiple angles indeed.
We have acute problems in the housing sector, but NIMBYs are obtuse as to the problems they are causing, while politicians refuse by reflex to adopt the right solution.
Ending nimbyism and abolishing the planning system would make things worse. We don't need significantly more development in an already overheated Greater London or Home Counties. We need to redistribute economic activity and hence wealth around the country, and that will take centrally planned new towns, as we had either side of the war, even if, like Boris's hospitals, most new towns are actually refurbished old towns.
Great analysis. I would extend the disadvantaged age threshold to under 50.
Anyone 50 or over reached the age of 30 before 2003 and was therefore able to get on the housing ladder before the great inflation of the 2000s.
I am 44 and only *just* managed to get on to a property that suited me in 2011. It was already probably 2x more expensive than it had been a decade before. It is now 2x more again.
For me its the defined benefit/defined contribution pension gap. Seems to map quite cleanly between those who benefited from high stability (un-globalised) jobs and the generation after.
There will be a growing divide because of this between private and public sector workers. Personally getting fed up with friends that work public sector telling me that their pensions aren't gold plated as they will give them only 10k to 15k a year. I have contributed more than them and my dc pension will pay me the square root of fuck all due to 20 years of low interest rates....so much for the miracle of cumulative interest
Go and work in the Public Sector then.
Plenty of vacancies due to the shit wages
There's clearly tradeoffs between the two sectors, which are not homogenous even within themselves, so I never quite get like it is portrayed that one is so much superior to the other in some very obvious way - if that were so, why do we have anyone in the shit one, whichever that is?
Yes yes, we couldn't have all one and not the other, but the point being when people complain about their one not being as good as the other, surely they can do something about that as an individual at least?
Most PBers, being right of centre, prefer the greater prospects of the private sector. It’s a pity that some don’t accept that others are willing to trade that for lower pay but better security and pensions; although I’m not so sure about the better security nowadays.
I work in the public sector because I see pensions as part of my renumeration. It baffles me that others don't do the same.
The trouble there though is you dont see it as part of your remuneration when arguing for payrises and your pay not being equivalent to private sector people
A public sector gets a nominal wage of 30k....you as on pension contributions and its 36k
A provate sector worker doing the same sort of job earning 33k as a nominal salary will actually be earning 34650 when you add in pension contributions.
Public sector workers will point to this and say see we could earn so much more in the private sector. Ignoring the fact that the private sector worker is actually earning less and will probably retire on about a third of your pension.
There are a damn sight more private sector workers and sooner or later we are going to say fuck off
Stop winging
Get a job in the Public Sector if you think things are so good there or STFU
Why are there so many Public Sector Vacancies do you think?
Because the public sector jobs never point out the true salary they are getting. If you saw and advert for jobs one saying 34k + 1700 salary contribution vs one saying 30k + 6k salary contribution then more people would opt for the 30k job. Simple fact is most public sector people I know dont realise how much their job is shoving into their pensions.
They also don’t realise how much their pay has grown relative to the private sector, over the past couple of decades, and how their pensions are all but unattainable outside the public sector, except for top city bankers and lawyers.
How many public sector workers have had real wage cuts in the last decade? I don't mean 'real terms' compared to inflation but actual cuts in their wages. Plenty of people in the private sector have had this.
I think public sector pay has hardly risen at all. I've been in since 2016 and from memory it's been 1% a year. That's a very big cut in real terms. I admit the pension is generous.
But as I said I am talking about actual cuts in pay rather than just not going up as much as inflation. This is a reality for many in the private sector and I am not sure I have ever heard of it happening in the public sector.
Been happening quite a long time. Substandard increases in the 2010s, for instance. I remember that c. 2012 I was wondering why one or two of my old colleagues (who had been there for several dozens of years) were staying on in work when the metric of their pension, even on the oldest and most favourable metric of "best of last 3 years", was going downhill in value, more quickly than their pension went up because of working another year.
Great analysis. I would extend the disadvantaged age threshold to under 50.
Anyone 50 or over reached the age of 30 before 2003 and was therefore able to get on the housing ladder before the great inflation of the 2000s.
I am 44 and only *just* managed to get on to a property that suited me in 2011. It was already probably 2x more expensive than it had been a decade before. It is now 2x more again.
For me its the defined benefit/defined contribution pension gap. Seems to map quite cleanly between those who benefited from high stability (un-globalised) jobs and the generation after.
There will be a growing divide because of this between private and public sector workers. Personally getting fed up with friends that work public sector telling me that their pensions aren't gold plated as they will give them only 10k to 15k a year. I have contributed more than them and my dc pension will pay me the square root of fuck all due to 20 years of low interest rates....so much for the miracle of cumulative interest
Go and work in the Public Sector then.
Plenty of vacancies due to the shit wages
There's clearly tradeoffs between the two sectors, which are not homogenous even within themselves, so I never quite get like it is portrayed that one is so much superior to the other in some very obvious way - if that were so, why do we have anyone in the shit one, whichever that is?
Yes yes, we couldn't have all one and not the other, but the point being when people complain about their one not being as good as the other, surely they can do something about that as an individual at least?
Most PBers, being right of centre, prefer the greater prospects of the private sector. It’s a pity that some don’t accept that others are willing to trade that for lower pay but better security and pensions; although I’m not so sure about the better security nowadays.
I work in the public sector because I see pensions as part of my renumeration. It baffles me that others don't do the same.
The trouble there though is you dont see it as part of your remuneration when arguing for payrises and your pay not being equivalent to private sector people
A public sector gets a nominal wage of 30k....you as on pension contributions and its 36k
A provate sector worker doing the same sort of job earning 33k as a nominal salary will actually be earning 34650 when you add in pension contributions.
Public sector workers will point to this and say see we could earn so much more in the private sector. Ignoring the fact that the private sector worker is actually earning less and will probably retire on about a third of your pension.
There are a damn sight more private sector workers and sooner or later we are going to say fuck off
Stop winging
Get a job in the Public Sector if you think things are so good there or STFU
Why are there so many Public Sector Vacancies do you think?
Because the public sector jobs never point out the true salary they are getting. If you saw and advert for jobs one saying 34k + 1700 salary contribution vs one saying 30k + 6k salary contribution then more people would opt for the 30k job. Simple fact is most public sector people I know dont realise how much their job is shoving into their pensions.
They also don’t realise how much their pay has grown relative to the private sector, over the past couple of decades, and how their pensions are all but unattainable outside the public sector, except for top city bankers and lawyers.
How many public sector workers have had real wage cuts in the last decade? I don't mean 'real terms' compared to inflation but actual cuts in their wages. Plenty of people in the private sector have had this.
I think public sector pay has hardly risen at all. I've been in since 2016 and from memory it's been 1% a year. That's a very big cut in real terms. I admit the pension is generous.
But as I said I am talking about actual cuts in pay rather than just not going up as much as inflation. This is a reality for many in the private sector and I am not sure I have ever heard of it happening in the public sector.
Been happening quite a long time. Substandard increases in the 2010s, for instance. I remember that c. 2012 I was wondering why one or two of my old colleagues (who had been there for several dozens of years) were staying on in work when the metric of their pension, even on the oldest and most favourable metric of "best of last 3 years", was going downhill in value, more quickly than their pension went up because of working another year.
They might of course have temporarily (or indeed permanently) withdrawn from the pension, which in some cases would have frozen the entitlement at the previous high.
Great analysis. I would extend the disadvantaged age threshold to under 50.
Anyone 50 or over reached the age of 30 before 2003 and was therefore able to get on the housing ladder before the great inflation of the 2000s.
I am 44 and only *just* managed to get on to a property that suited me in 2011. It was already probably 2x more expensive than it had been a decade before. It is now 2x more again.
For me its the defined benefit/defined contribution pension gap. Seems to map quite cleanly between those who benefited from high stability (un-globalised) jobs and the generation after.
There will be a growing divide because of this between private and public sector workers. Personally getting fed up with friends that work public sector telling me that their pensions aren't gold plated as they will give them only 10k to 15k a year. I have contributed more than them and my dc pension will pay me the square root of fuck all due to 20 years of low interest rates....so much for the miracle of cumulative interest
Go and work in the Public Sector then.
Plenty of vacancies due to the shit wages
There's clearly tradeoffs between the two sectors, which are not homogenous even within themselves, so I never quite get like it is portrayed that one is so much superior to the other in some very obvious way - if that were so, why do we have anyone in the shit one, whichever that is?
Yes yes, we couldn't have all one and not the other, but the point being when people complain about their one not being as good as the other, surely they can do something about that as an individual at least?
Most PBers, being right of centre, prefer the greater prospects of the private sector. It’s a pity that some don’t accept that others are willing to trade that for lower pay but better security and pensions; although I’m not so sure about the better security nowadays.
I work in the public sector because I see pensions as part of my renumeration. It baffles me that others don't do the same.
The trouble there though is you dont see it as part of your remuneration when arguing for payrises and your pay not being equivalent to private sector people
A public sector gets a nominal wage of 30k....you as on pension contributions and its 36k
A provate sector worker doing the same sort of job earning 33k as a nominal salary will actually be earning 34650 when you add in pension contributions.
Public sector workers will point to this and say see we could earn so much more in the private sector. Ignoring the fact that the private sector worker is actually earning less and will probably retire on about a third of your pension.
There are a damn sight more private sector workers and sooner or later we are going to say fuck off
Stop winging
Get a job in the Public Sector if you think things are so good there or STFU
Why are there so many Public Sector Vacancies do you think?
Because the public sector jobs never point out the true salary they are getting. If you saw and advert for jobs one saying 34k + 1700 salary contribution vs one saying 30k + 6k salary contribution then more people would opt for the 30k job. Simple fact is most public sector people I know dont realise how much their job is shoving into their pensions.
They also don’t realise how much their pay has grown relative to the private sector, over the past couple of decades, and how their pensions are all but unattainable outside the public sector, except for top city bankers and lawyers.
How many public sector workers have had real wage cuts in the last decade? I don't mean 'real terms' compared to inflation but actual cuts in their wages. Plenty of people in the private sector have had this.
I think public sector pay has hardly risen at all. I've been in since 2016 and from memory it's been 1% a year. That's a very big cut in real terms. I admit the pension is generous.
But as I said I am talking about actual cuts in pay rather than just not going up as much as inflation. This is a reality for many in the private sector and I am not sure I have ever heard of it happening in the public sector.
Been happening quite a long time. Substandard increases in the 2010s, for instance. I remember that c. 2012 I was wondering why one or two of my old colleagues (who had been there for several dozens of years) were staying on in work when the metric of their pension, even on the oldest and most favourable metric of "best of last 3 years", was going downhill in value, more quickly than their pension went up because of working another year.
They might of course have temporarily (or indeed permanently) withdrawn from the pension, which in some cases would have frozen the entitlement at the previous high.
Possibly - depends on the scheme rules. But when I raised it with one of them I just got a blank look, so I wonder!
Edit: but my underlying point, that pay was not keeping up with inflation for long periods, remains valid.
O/T Out to dinner with friends last night who have a holiday cottage in Cornwall (a 2 bed terrace near Rock). I was stunned to find out that they pay no Council Tax on the cottage at all, so long as it's let out for 105 days per year. No business rates either as it's rateable value is too low.
So they bought the property on a loan, rent it out for 4 months of the summer which covers the loan, spend three or four weeks a year using it themselves, and it's empty the rest of the time.
And we wonder why it's so hard for first-time buyers to get a home.
Every affordable house/flat/parkhome in Cornwall on Rightmove is a bloody holiday home!
Dura is not following a pro russian or neutral or pro anything position. He's following a realistic, pragmatic position.
But of course Dura is no shrinking violet so I'm sure he can speak for himself.
My position is to look at the situation and try to analyse it dispassionately.
I agree with mostly everything Dura_Ace posts on Russia/Ukraine. He seems one of the most pragmatic and realistic posters here. Far more than some of the ultra-pro Ukraine people, likewise the pro-Russian contingent.
I like his attempts at more grounded expectations, I'm just not a fan of the faux edgy flourishes. But hey, we don't have to like everyone's indiosyncracies.
His analysis of what should be done about the F-35 crash was slightly counterintuitive - but it felt spot on when reading between the lines of the offical report, and then some more.
Sometimes his alalysis is just plain wrong. I remember a year or two back when he claimed there were no forces operating under the EU flag in East Africa - which greatly amused my neighbour who had just come back from serving with those self same forces under the EU flag.
Dura is not following a pro russian or neutral or pro anything position. He's following a realistic, pragmatic position.
But of course Dura is no shrinking violet so I'm sure he can speak for himself.
My position is to look at the situation and try to analyse it dispassionately.
I agree with mostly everything Dura_Ace posts on Russia/Ukraine. He seems one of the most pragmatic and realistic posters here. Far more than some of the ultra-pro Ukraine people, likewise the pro-Russian contingent.
He is a pro-Russian troll!
I don't think he is. Kind of proving my point WRT to calling anyone who isn't pro-Ukraine to 100% a Russian stooge there
Well, it was Russia who started this conflict way back in 2014. And they are currently illegally occupying total territory belonging to Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, and Japan totalling 157,000 sq. km. Or roughly 22 times as much territory that Israel is occupying illegally.
Are you implying that I am more pro Palestine than Ukraine? Because I am not.
Dura is not following a pro russian or neutral or pro anything position. He's following a realistic, pragmatic position.
But of course Dura is no shrinking violet so I'm sure he can speak for himself.
My position is to look at the situation and try to analyse it dispassionately.
I agree with mostly everything Dura_Ace posts on Russia/Ukraine. He seems one of the most pragmatic and realistic posters here. Far more than some of the ultra-pro Ukraine people, likewise the pro-Russian contingent.
I like his attempts at more grounded expectations, I'm just not a fan of the faux edgy flourishes. But hey, we don't have to like everyone's indiosyncracies.
His analysis of what should be done about the F-35 crash was slightly counterintuitive - but it felt spot on when reading between the lines of the offical report, and then some more.
Sometimes his alalysis is just plain wrong. I remember a year or two back when he claimed there were no forces operating under the EU flag in East Africa - which greatly amused my neighbour who had just come back from serving with those self same forces under the EU flag.
Dura is not following a pro russian or neutral or pro anything position. He's following a realistic, pragmatic position.
But of course Dura is no shrinking violet so I'm sure he can speak for himself.
My position is to look at the situation and try to analyse it dispassionately.
I agree with mostly everything Dura_Ace posts on Russia/Ukraine. He seems one of the most pragmatic and realistic posters here. Far more than some of the ultra-pro Ukraine people, likewise the pro-Russian contingent.
I like his attempts at more grounded expectations, I'm just not a fan of the faux edgy flourishes. But hey, we don't have to like everyone's indiosyncracies.
His analysis of what should be done about the F-35 crash was slightly counterintuitive - but it felt spot on when reading between the lines of the offical report, and then some more.
Sometimes his alalysis is just plain wrong. I remember a year or two back when he claimed there were no forces operating under the EU flag in East Africa - which greatly amused my neighbour who had just come back from serving with those self same forces under the EU flag.
Dura is not following a pro russian or neutral or pro anything position. He's following a realistic, pragmatic position.
But of course Dura is no shrinking violet so I'm sure he can speak for himself.
My position is to look at the situation and try to analyse it dispassionately.
I agree with mostly everything Dura_Ace posts on Russia/Ukraine. He seems one of the most pragmatic and realistic posters here. Far more than some of the ultra-pro Ukraine people, likewise the pro-Russian contingent.
I like his attempts at more grounded expectations, I'm just not a fan of the faux edgy flourishes. But hey, we don't have to like everyone's indiosyncracies.
His analysis of what should be done about the F-35 crash was slightly counterintuitive - but it felt spot on when reading between the lines of the offical report, and then some more.
Sometimes his alalysis is just plain wrong. I remember a year or two back when he claimed there were no forces operating under the EU flag in East Africa - which greatly amused my neighbour who had just come back from serving with those self same forces under the EU flag.
Great analysis. I would extend the disadvantaged age threshold to under 50.
Anyone 50 or over reached the age of 30 before 2003 and was therefore able to get on the housing ladder before the great inflation of the 2000s.
I am 44 and only *just* managed to get on to a property that suited me in 2011. It was already probably 2x more expensive than it had been a decade before. It is now 2x more again.
For me its the defined benefit/defined contribution pension gap. Seems to map quite cleanly between those who benefited from high stability (un-globalised) jobs and the generation after.
There will be a growing divide because of this between private and public sector workers. Personally getting fed up with friends that work public sector telling me that their pensions aren't gold plated as they will give them only 10k to 15k a year. I have contributed more than them and my dc pension will pay me the square root of fuck all due to 20 years of low interest rates....so much for the miracle of cumulative interest
Go and work in the Public Sector then.
Plenty of vacancies due to the shit wages
There's clearly tradeoffs between the two sectors, which are not homogenous even within themselves, so I never quite get like it is portrayed that one is so much superior to the other in some very obvious way - if that were so, why do we have anyone in the shit one, whichever that is?
Yes yes, we couldn't have all one and not the other, but the point being when people complain about their one not being as good as the other, surely they can do something about that as an individual at least?
Most PBers, being right of centre, prefer the greater prospects of the private sector. It’s a pity that some don’t accept that others are willing to trade that for lower pay but better security and pensions; although I’m not so sure about the better security nowadays.
I work in the public sector because I see pensions as part of my renumeration. It baffles me that others don't do the same.
The trouble there though is you dont see it as part of your remuneration when arguing for payrises and your pay not being equivalent to private sector people
A public sector gets a nominal wage of 30k....you as on pension contributions and its 36k
A provate sector worker doing the same sort of job earning 33k as a nominal salary will actually be earning 34650 when you add in pension contributions.
Public sector workers will point to this and say see we could earn so much more in the private sector. Ignoring the fact that the private sector worker is actually earning less and will probably retire on about a third of your pension.
There are a damn sight more private sector workers and sooner or later we are going to say fuck off
Stop winging
Get a job in the Public Sector if you think things are so good there or STFU
Why are there so many Public Sector Vacancies do you think?
Because the public sector jobs never point out the true salary they are getting. If you saw and advert for jobs one saying 34k + 1700 salary contribution vs one saying 30k + 6k salary contribution then more people would opt for the 30k job. Simple fact is most public sector people I know dont realise how much their job is shoving into their pensions.
They also don’t realise how much their pay has grown relative to the private sector, over the past couple of decades, and how their pensions are all but unattainable outside the public sector, except for top city bankers and lawyers.
How many public sector workers have had real wage cuts in the last decade? I don't mean 'real terms' compared to inflation but actual cuts in their wages. Plenty of people in the private sector have had this.
I think public sector pay has hardly risen at all. I've been in since 2016 and from memory it's been 1% a year. That's a very big cut in real terms. I admit the pension is generous.
But as I said I am talking about actual cuts in pay rather than just not going up as much as inflation. This is a reality for many in the private sector and I am not sure I have ever heard of it happening in the public sector.
Been happening quite a long time. Substandard increases in the 2010s, for instance. I remember that c. 2012 I was wondering why one or two of my old colleagues (who had been there for several dozens of years) were staying on in work when the metric of their pension, even on the oldest and most favourable metric of "best of last 3 years", was going downhill in value, more quickly than their pension went up because of working another year.
RT- sorry, was thinking in terms of *real* value - whcih of course includes both nominal and inflation-related cuts to pay. But yes, the situation described by FrankBooth was prevailing in the 2010s as well.
Dura is not following a pro russian or neutral or pro anything position. He's following a realistic, pragmatic position.
But of course Dura is no shrinking violet so I'm sure he can speak for himself.
My position is to look at the situation and try to analyse it dispassionately.
I agree with mostly everything Dura_Ace posts on Russia/Ukraine. He seems one of the most pragmatic and realistic posters here. Far more than some of the ultra-pro Ukraine people, likewise the pro-Russian contingent.
He is a pro-Russian troll!
I don't think he is. Kind of proving my point WRT to calling anyone who isn't pro-Ukraine to 100% a Russian stooge there
Well, it was Russia who started this conflict way back in 2014. And they are currently illegally occupying total territory belonging to Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, and Japan totalling 157,000 sq. km. Or roughly 22 times as much territory that Israel is occupying illegally.
Are you implying that I am more pro Palestine than Ukraine? Because I am not.
O/T Out to dinner with friends last night who have a holiday cottage in Cornwall (a 2 bed terrace near Rock). I was stunned to find out that they pay no Council Tax on the cottage at all, so long as it's let out for 105 days per year. No business rates either as it's rateable value is too low.
So they bought the property on a loan, rent it out for 4 months of the summer which covers the loan, spend three or four weeks a year using it themselves, and it's empty the rest of the time.
And we wonder why it's so hard for first-time buyers to get a home.
The problem isn't that some people buy a second home, or that it isn't taxed "well". The problem is that we don't build enough houses. Housing is a broken market and government won't step in to fix it. Supply is limited by planning permission, backed up by NIMBYs, and house builders who limit supply to keep prices inflated. If there were enough houses that each household could have one, some people owning two wouldn't be a problem.
A nice, concise summation. Problems from multiple angles, and no will to address it, with other issues tinkering at the margins.
Multiple angles indeed.
We have acute problems in the housing sector, but NIMBYs are obtuse as to the problems they are causing, while politicians refuse by reflex to adopt the right solution.
Ending nimbyism and abolishing the planning system would make things worse. We don't need significantly more development in an already overheated Greater London or Home Counties. We need to redistribute economic activity and hence wealth around the country, and that will take centrally planned new towns, as we had either side of the war, even if, like Boris's hospitals, most new towns are actually refurbished old towns.
There’s probably a fair amount of both required. Build more houses near where the current jobs are, and incentivise companies to relocate to areas of cheaper housing.
The spanner in the works is remote working, which needs to be encouraged regardless of the affect on season tickets and coffee shops.
Dura is not following a pro russian or neutral or pro anything position. He's following a realistic, pragmatic position.
But of course Dura is no shrinking violet so I'm sure he can speak for himself.
My position is to look at the situation and try to analyse it dispassionately.
I agree with mostly everything Dura_Ace posts on Russia/Ukraine. He seems one of the most pragmatic and realistic posters here. Far more than some of the ultra-pro Ukraine people, likewise the pro-Russian contingent.
He is a pro-Russian troll!
I don't think he is. Kind of proving my point WRT to calling anyone who isn't pro-Ukraine to 100% a Russian stooge there
Well, it was Russia who started this conflict way back in 2014. And they are currently illegally occupying total territory belonging to Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, and Japan totalling 157,000 sq. km. Or roughly 22 times as much territory that Israel is occupying illegally.
Are you implying that I am more pro Palestine than Ukraine? Because I am not.
Or more visually:
Are you just on a wind up now? You've posted this like 6 times today and on my wall.
I am not pro-Russia just because I am not as 100% Ukraine as some others.
O/T Out to dinner with friends last night who have a holiday cottage in Cornwall (a 2 bed terrace near Rock). I was stunned to find out that they pay no Council Tax on the cottage at all, so long as it's let out for 105 days per year. No business rates either as it's rateable value is too low.
So they bought the property on a loan, rent it out for 4 months of the summer which covers the loan, spend three or four weeks a year using it themselves, and it's empty the rest of the time.
And we wonder why it's so hard for first-time buyers to get a home.
The problem isn't that some people buy a second home, or that it isn't taxed "well". The problem is that we don't build enough houses. Housing is a broken market and government won't step in to fix it. Supply is limited by planning permission, backed up by NIMBYs, and house builders who limit supply to keep prices inflated. If there were enough houses that each household could have one, some people owning two wouldn't be a problem.
A nice, concise summation. Problems from multiple angles, and no will to address it, with other issues tinkering at the margins.
Multiple angles indeed.
We have acute problems in the housing sector, but NIMBYs are obtuse as to the problems they are causing, while politicians refuse by reflex to adopt the right solution.
Ending nimbyism and abolishing the planning system would make things worse. We don't need significantly more development in an already overheated Greater London or Home Counties. We need to redistribute economic activity and hence wealth around the country, and that will take centrally planned new towns, as we had either side of the war, even if, like Boris's hospitals, most new towns are actually refurbished old towns.
There’s probably a fair amount of both required. Build more houses near where the current jobs are, and incentivise companies to relocate to areas of cheaper housing.
The spanner in the works is remote working, which needs to be encouraged regardless of the affect on season tickets and coffee shops.
WFH is the way to level up, now instead of spending my salary in the south east I am spending it in devon supporting local businesses there
Dura is not following a pro russian or neutral or pro anything position. He's following a realistic, pragmatic position.
But of course Dura is no shrinking violet so I'm sure he can speak for himself.
My position is to look at the situation and try to analyse it dispassionately.
I agree with mostly everything Dura_Ace posts on Russia/Ukraine. He seems one of the most pragmatic and realistic posters here. Far more than some of the ultra-pro Ukraine people, likewise the pro-Russian contingent.
He is a pro-Russian troll!
I don't think he is. Kind of proving my point WRT to calling anyone who isn't pro-Ukraine to 100% a Russian stooge there
Well, it was Russia who started this conflict way back in 2014. And they are currently illegally occupying total territory belonging to Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, and Japan totalling 157,000 sq. km. Or roughly 22 times as much territory that Israel is occupying illegally.
Are you implying that I am more pro Palestine than Ukraine? Because I am not.
Or more visually:
Are you just on a wind up now? You've posted this like 6 times today and on my wall.
I am not pro-Russia just because I am not as 100% Ukraine as some others.
"Sunil" is a very old AI machine that's run through vinyl records
Dura is not following a pro russian or neutral or pro anything position. He's following a realistic, pragmatic position.
But of course Dura is no shrinking violet so I'm sure he can speak for himself.
My position is to look at the situation and try to analyse it dispassionately.
I agree with mostly everything Dura_Ace posts on Russia/Ukraine. He seems one of the most pragmatic and realistic posters here. Far more than some of the ultra-pro Ukraine people, likewise the pro-Russian contingent.
He is a pro-Russian troll!
I don't think he is. Kind of proving my point WRT to calling anyone who isn't pro-Ukraine to 100% a Russian stooge there
What do you mean by "not pro Ukraine"? Is that someone who denies Russia is out to destroy Ukraine and its civilians by all means possible? Is it someone who accepts Russia is out to destroy Ukraine, but it really doesn't matter?
O/T Out to dinner with friends last night who have a holiday cottage in Cornwall (a 2 bed terrace near Rock). I was stunned to find out that they pay no Council Tax on the cottage at all, so long as it's let out for 105 days per year. No business rates either as it's rateable value is too low.
So they bought the property on a loan, rent it out for 4 months of the summer which covers the loan, spend three or four weeks a year using it themselves, and it's empty the rest of the time.
And we wonder why it's so hard for first-time buyers to get a home.
The problem isn't that some people buy a second home, or that it isn't taxed "well". The problem is that we don't build enough houses. Housing is a broken market and government won't step in to fix it. Supply is limited by planning permission, backed up by NIMBYs, and house builders who limit supply to keep prices inflated. If there were enough houses that each household could have one, some people owning two wouldn't be a problem.
A nice, concise summation. Problems from multiple angles, and no will to address it, with other issues tinkering at the margins.
Multiple angles indeed.
We have acute problems in the housing sector, but NIMBYs are obtuse as to the problems they are causing, while politicians refuse by reflex to adopt the right solution.
Ending nimbyism and abolishing the planning system would make things worse. We don't need significantly more development in an already overheated Greater London or Home Counties. We need to redistribute economic activity and hence wealth around the country, and that will take centrally planned new towns, as we had either side of the war, even if, like Boris's hospitals, most new towns are actually refurbished old towns.
There’s probably a fair amount of both required. Build more houses near where the current jobs are, and incentivise companies to relocate to areas of cheaper housing.
The spanner in the works is remote working, which needs to be encouraged regardless of the affect on season tickets and coffee shops.
WFH is the way to level up, now instead of spending my salary in the south east I am spending it in devon supporting local businesses there
Indeed so.
One of the most insightful comments from Dominic Cummings during the pandemic period, was that No.10 would get weekly calls from newspaper proprietors. Not editors, proprietors. The only subject they ever wished to discuss was the ending of WFH, which was seriously affecting newspaper sales. There were also a lot of people with interests in the commercial property market - many of them MPs, Peers and party donors - making calls to Downing Street for similar reasons.
Great analysis. I would extend the disadvantaged age threshold to under 50.
Anyone 50 or over reached the age of 30 before 2003 and was therefore able to get on the housing ladder before the great inflation of the 2000s.
I am 44 and only *just* managed to get on to a property that suited me in 2011. It was already probably 2x more expensive than it had been a decade before. It is now 2x more again.
For me its the defined benefit/defined contribution pension gap. Seems to map quite cleanly between those who benefited from high stability (un-globalised) jobs and the generation after.
There will be a growing divide because of this between private and public sector workers. Personally getting fed up with friends that work public sector telling me that their pensions aren't gold plated as they will give them only 10k to 15k a year. I have contributed more than them and my dc pension will pay me the square root of fuck all due to 20 years of low interest rates....so much for the miracle of cumulative interest
Go and work in the Public Sector then.
Plenty of vacancies due to the shit wages
There's clearly tradeoffs between the two sectors, which are not homogenous even within themselves, so I never quite get like it is portrayed that one is so much superior to the other in some very obvious way - if that were so, why do we have anyone in the shit one, whichever that is?
Yes yes, we couldn't have all one and not the other, but the point being when people complain about their one not being as good as the other, surely they can do something about that as an individual at least?
Most PBers, being right of centre, prefer the greater prospects of the private sector. It’s a pity that some don’t accept that others are willing to trade that for lower pay but better security and pensions; although I’m not so sure about the better security nowadays.
I work in the public sector because I see pensions as part of my renumeration. It baffles me that others don't do the same.
The trouble there though is you dont see it as part of your remuneration when arguing for payrises and your pay not being equivalent to private sector people
A public sector gets a nominal wage of 30k....you as on pension contributions and its 36k
A provate sector worker doing the same sort of job earning 33k as a nominal salary will actually be earning 34650 when you add in pension contributions.
Public sector workers will point to this and say see we could earn so much more in the private sector. Ignoring the fact that the private sector worker is actually earning less and will probably retire on about a third of your pension.
There are a damn sight more private sector workers and sooner or later we are going to say fuck off
Stop winging
Get a job in the Public Sector if you think things are so good there or STFU
Why are there so many Public Sector Vacancies do you think?
Because the state wants to employ too many people to do too much, not all efficiently.
There are millions more working for the public sector than there were in the past.
A lot of public sector jobs are jobs that are very valuable and needed, but not all are. If the state were to do less, it could do it with fewer people.
You appear to be arguing that the public sector vacancies are in the non-valuable jobs? That’s clearly not the case. The vacancies are in jobs that I think most people view as necessary, like teachers and nurses.
Not at all. I have said I think teachers pay for instance is too low and that its ridiculous t hat welfare is going up faster than wages in the public sector are.
I think the Government could abolish a lot of jobs and use the revenues going to those now-abolished jobs currently to pay a higher wage to the remaining jobs instead.
But the bigger change I'd make as I say is to ensure people working for a living get the first proceeds of growth, not those who aren't working. Pay for those who aren't working should never go up at a rate faster than for those who are.
O/T Out to dinner with friends last night who have a holiday cottage in Cornwall (a 2 bed terrace near Rock). I was stunned to find out that they pay no Council Tax on the cottage at all, so long as it's let out for 105 days per year. No business rates either as it's rateable value is too low.
So they bought the property on a loan, rent it out for 4 months of the summer which covers the loan, spend three or four weeks a year using it themselves, and it's empty the rest of the time.
And we wonder why it's so hard for first-time buyers to get a home.
The problem isn't that some people buy a second home, or that it isn't taxed "well". The problem is that we don't build enough houses. Housing is a broken market and government won't step in to fix it. Supply is limited by planning permission, backed up by NIMBYs, and house builders who limit supply to keep prices inflated. If there were enough houses that each household could have one, some people owning two wouldn't be a problem.
A nice, concise summation. Problems from multiple angles, and no will to address it, with other issues tinkering at the margins.
Multiple angles indeed.
We have acute problems in the housing sector, but NIMBYs are obtuse as to the problems they are causing, while politicians refuse by reflex to adopt the right solution.
Ending nimbyism and abolishing the planning system would make things worse. We don't need significantly more development in an already overheated Greater London or Home Counties. We need to redistribute economic activity and hence wealth around the country, and that will take centrally planned new towns, as we had either side of the war, even if, like Boris's hospitals, most new towns are actually refurbished old towns.
There’s probably a fair amount of both required. Build more houses near where the current jobs are, and incentivise companies to relocate to areas of cheaper housing.
The spanner in the works is remote working, which needs to be encouraged regardless of the affect on season tickets and coffee shops.
WFH is the way to level up, now instead of spending my salary in the south east I am spending it in devon supporting local businesses there
Indeed so.
One of the most insightful comments from Dominic Cummings during the pandemic period, was that No.10 would get weekly calls from newspaper proprietors. Not editors, proprietors. The only subject they ever wished to discuss was the ending of WFH, which was seriously affecting newspaper sales. There were also a lot of people with interests in the commercial property market - many of them MPs, Peers and party donors - making calls to Downing Street for similar reasons.
They can bugger off frankly. WFH is the best thing to happen to poorer areas of the country. No longer do you have to move as I did to the south east to find work you can stay where you are among family and friends and work for a firm in london
Dura is not following a pro russian or neutral or pro anything position. He's following a realistic, pragmatic position.
But of course Dura is no shrinking violet so I'm sure he can speak for himself.
My position is to look at the situation and try to analyse it dispassionately.
I agree with mostly everything Dura_Ace posts on Russia/Ukraine. He seems one of the most pragmatic and realistic posters here. Far more than some of the ultra-pro Ukraine people, likewise the pro-Russian contingent.
He is a pro-Russian troll!
I don't think he is. Kind of proving my point WRT to calling anyone who isn't pro-Ukraine to 100% a Russian stooge there
Well, it was Russia who started this conflict way back in 2014. And they are currently illegally occupying total territory belonging to Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, and Japan totalling 157,000 sq. km. Or roughly 22 times as much territory that Israel is occupying illegally.
Are you implying that I am more pro Palestine than Ukraine? Because I am not.
Or more visually:
Are you just on a wind up now? You've posted this like 6 times today and on my wall.
I am not pro-Russia just because I am not as 100% Ukraine as some others.
Do you think Ukraine should be liberated and secure in their own borders within their entirety?
I am amused by TSE's patriotism that MI5 are the best intelligence agency in the world. I don't really know how we could judge that, they cannot eat out on infiltrating the IRA forever, but if they are the best I'd love to know how they've avoided the institutional malaise every other part of the state seems to have suffered.
As it notes in conclusion though No still leads in some polls, so if they infiltrating could they get around to a coup de grace already.
I did menton Double-Cross from WWII which was better than turning the head of the IRA’s Nutting Squad into an agent of the British State.
Great analysis. I would extend the disadvantaged age threshold to under 50.
Anyone 50 or over reached the age of 30 before 2003 and was therefore able to get on the housing ladder before the great inflation of the 2000s.
I am 44 and only *just* managed to get on to a property that suited me in 2011. It was already probably 2x more expensive than it had been a decade before. It is now 2x more again.
For me its the defined benefit/defined contribution pension gap. Seems to map quite cleanly between those who benefited from high stability (un-globalised) jobs and the generation after.
There will be a growing divide because of this between private and public sector workers. Personally getting fed up with friends that work public sector telling me that their pensions aren't gold plated as they will give them only 10k to 15k a year. I have contributed more than them and my dc pension will pay me the square root of fuck all due to 20 years of low interest rates....so much for the miracle of cumulative interest
Go and work in the Public Sector then.
Plenty of vacancies due to the shit wages
There's clearly tradeoffs between the two sectors, which are not homogenous even within themselves, so I never quite get like it is portrayed that one is so much superior to the other in some very obvious way - if that were so, why do we have anyone in the shit one, whichever that is?
Yes yes, we couldn't have all one and not the other, but the point being when people complain about their one not being as good as the other, surely they can do something about that as an individual at least?
Most PBers, being right of centre, prefer the greater prospects of the private sector. It’s a pity that some don’t accept that others are willing to trade that for lower pay but better security and pensions; although I’m not so sure about the better security nowadays.
I work in the public sector because I see pensions as part of my renumeration. It baffles me that others don't do the same.
The trouble there though is you dont see it as part of your remuneration when arguing for payrises and your pay not being equivalent to private sector people
A public sector gets a nominal wage of 30k....you as on pension contributions and its 36k
A provate sector worker doing the same sort of job earning 33k as a nominal salary will actually be earning 34650 when you add in pension contributions.
Public sector workers will point to this and say see we could earn so much more in the private sector. Ignoring the fact that the private sector worker is actually earning less and will probably retire on about a third of your pension.
There are a damn sight more private sector workers and sooner or later we are going to say fuck off
Stop winging
Get a job in the Public Sector if you think things are so good there or STFU
Why are there so many Public Sector Vacancies do you think?
Because the state wants to employ too many people to do too much, not all efficiently.
There are millions more working for the public sector than there were in the past.
A lot of public sector jobs are jobs that are very valuable and needed, but not all are. If the state were to do less, it could do it with fewer people.
You appear to be arguing that the public sector vacancies are in the non-valuable jobs? That’s clearly not the case. The vacancies are in jobs that I think most people view as necessary, like teachers and nurses.
Not at all. I have said I think teachers pay for instance is too low and that its ridiculous t hat welfare is going up faster than wages in the public sector are.
I think the Government could abolish a lot of jobs and use the revenues going to those now-abolished jobs currently to pay a higher wage to the remaining jobs instead.
But the bigger change I'd make as I say is to ensure people working for a living get the first proceeds of growth, not those who aren't working. Pay for those who aren't working should never go up at a rate faster than for those who are.
The problem with productivity increases is that they require capital investment, mastery of technology and good management.
The wages bill reduction is an almost accidental byproduct that takes time to show up.
O/T Out to dinner with friends last night who have a holiday cottage in Cornwall (a 2 bed terrace near Rock). I was stunned to find out that they pay no Council Tax on the cottage at all, so long as it's let out for 105 days per year. No business rates either as it's rateable value is too low.
So they bought the property on a loan, rent it out for 4 months of the summer which covers the loan, spend three or four weeks a year using it themselves, and it's empty the rest of the time.
And we wonder why it's so hard for first-time buyers to get a home.
The problem isn't that some people buy a second home, or that it isn't taxed "well". The problem is that we don't build enough houses. Housing is a broken market and government won't step in to fix it. Supply is limited by planning permission, backed up by NIMBYs, and house builders who limit supply to keep prices inflated. If there were enough houses that each household could have one, some people owning two wouldn't be a problem.
A nice, concise summation. Problems from multiple angles, and no will to address it, with other issues tinkering at the margins.
Multiple angles indeed.
We have acute problems in the housing sector, but NIMBYs are obtuse as to the problems they are causing, while politicians refuse by reflex to adopt the right solution.
Ending nimbyism and abolishing the planning system would make things worse. We don't need significantly more development in an already overheated Greater London or Home Counties. We need to redistribute economic activity and hence wealth around the country, and that will take centrally planned new towns, as we had either side of the war, even if, like Boris's hospitals, most new towns are actually refurbished old towns.
I don't see it as either/or. We also need lots and lots of housing in London as well as development elsewhere. People are having to give up jobs in London because there is nowhere for them to live. That's jobs, GDP and tax revenue foregone, and dreams given up on. There isn't so much nimbyism in London either, the main obstacle is government spending on the infrastructure needed to allow the housing to be built. No money for infrastructure. So no infrastructure, no housing, no jobs, no tax revenue, no money for infrastructure... A downwards spiral for a country that has forgotten how to be successful, that is failing its young.
Dura is not following a pro russian or neutral or pro anything position. He's following a realistic, pragmatic position.
But of course Dura is no shrinking violet so I'm sure he can speak for himself.
My position is to look at the situation and try to analyse it dispassionately.
I agree with mostly everything Dura_Ace posts on Russia/Ukraine. He seems one of the most pragmatic and realistic posters here. Far more than some of the ultra-pro Ukraine people, likewise the pro-Russian contingent.
I like his attempts at more grounded expectations, I'm just not a fan of the faux edgy flourishes. But hey, we don't have to like everyone's indiosyncracies.
His analysis of what should be done about the F-35 crash was slightly counterintuitive - but it felt spot on when reading between the lines of the offical report, and then some more.
Sometimes his alalysis is just plain wrong. I remember a year or two back when he claimed there were no forces operating under the EU flag in East Africa - which greatly amused my neighbour who had just come back from serving with those self same forces under the EU flag.
Still, ever known a PBer who got it always right?
How well does anyone know oneself?
Edited for grammar
"Allow myself to introduce... myself." - Austin Powers.
Dura is not following a pro russian or neutral or pro anything position. He's following a realistic, pragmatic position.
But of course Dura is no shrinking violet so I'm sure he can speak for himself.
My position is to look at the situation and try to analyse it dispassionately.
I agree with mostly everything Dura_Ace posts on Russia/Ukraine. He seems one of the most pragmatic and realistic posters here. Far more than some of the ultra-pro Ukraine people, likewise the pro-Russian contingent.
He is a pro-Russian troll!
I don't think he is. Kind of proving my point WRT to calling anyone who isn't pro-Ukraine to 100% a Russian stooge there
You have to be 110% pro Ukraine to be absolutely certain of not being called a Russian stooge.
Comments
from "The Struggles of Petroleum V. Nasby" by David Ross Locke (abridged edition edited by Joseph Jones)
excerpt from "A Postwar College: 'That the Southern Youth May Be Properly Trained"
"Why not," sez I, "that the Southern youth may be properly trained, start a College uv our own? Why . . . run risks uv hevin the minds uv our young men tainted with heresy?"
The entire company was struck with the idea . . . . The name by which the new college is to be known is 'the Southern Classikle, Theologikle and Military Institoot uv Confederate X Roads" . . . .
In the Scientific and Classikle Departments the text-books will be keerfully revised, and everything uv a Northern or levelin tendency will be scroopulously expergated.
In the Theologikle Department speshl attention will be given to the highly nessary work of preparin the stoodents for comin out strong on the holinis of Slavery, and to this end the three years' course will be devoted thus:-
1st year - To the cuss uv Noer
2nd year - To provin that the Afrikin n[word] wuz reely the descendants of Ham
3rd year - Considerin the various text which go to shew that Afrikin slavery is not only permitted by the skripters, but especially enjoined. [first published 1867]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ross_Locke
I was just looking at local customer service roles and for the civil service you would be looking at £20,000 as an AO whereas in the private sector it looks more like £22-24,000 a year. I expect we have a better pension though.
https://obr.uk/forecasts-in-depth/tax-by-tax-spend-by-spend/welfare-spending-pensioner-benefits/
Net cost of pension tax relief £48.2 billion
https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7505/CBP-7505.pdf
So £190 Billion on oldies, now ?
Edit: public sector pensions?
Consider junior doctors - a 26% real terms cut since 2008, but no doctor will have suffered the large nominal cut you are describing.
Which is why I said it's like being an Amazon driver
But welfare isn't being targeted ta those who are most in need. If you want to target welfare towards pensioners who are worst off there is pension credit etc too do that, but that isn't used and instead the triple lock goes up instead which is effectively beer wine/gin money for those with gold-plated pensions, while pensioners who are struggling get very little.
The shocking fact is that this government now spends more on welfare than Labour did.
Do you think those in most need now get more support than they did under Labour?
If not, where is the money going, and doesn't something need to be done about it?
They have made even larger cuts to day rates for contractors but since we can move elsewhere at short notice it is not such a blow for us so isn't really relevant.
Note that real terms cuts have taken place in the private sector too - the graduate salary for the scheme I was on was pretty small when I did it, and is now about 15 % smaller.
"Don't confuse what you want to happen with what's likely to happen."
TOPPING
They’re a large number for whom the state pension is 1/2 or more of what they get.
The next crisis will be when Generation Rent starts retiring in a big way. Instead of paid off mortgages, big rents. What will they do?
She handled her time in office atrociously, but on the fundamental point she was right.
As things stand, it's property prices and rents. Unless we fix that (and there I think our disagreements are much more on details) nothing else matters. Any tax cuts, national bonanza or whatever will flow, via increased rents, to rentiers.
The nearest thing to this, and not very near, would seem to be SKS.
Everyone likes to think only people richer than them are well off, but to define it neutrally then only 1.4 million out of 12.5 million pensioners receive pension credit.
So defining 'well off' as not requiring pension credit then about 90% of pensioners are 'well off' on that basis. Considering that increasing pension credit was the alternative proposal to support poor pensioners.
Is it PB?
I think it can be done, and technology lies at its heart, but it will require exceptional statecraft.
That's where we're heading.
Admittedly I had my first full time job after first posting.
The government is going to have to step in otherwise a lot of people are going to be made homeless .
Most people aren't that interested in socialism and accept that any human society has hierarchy. They just want for they and their families to be able to get on.
Alos, somehow the total tax on income (ICT + NI) needs to be harmonised across all income, including pensions. To me it seem the easiest way to do that gradually would be to reduce NI and increase basic rate ICT by 2% each year until employees NI is gone.
There are a lot of different public sector jobs out there. It’s hard to make generalisations. I know a lot of people in the public sector, in education and the health sector, who are on short term contracts, maybe 3 years, maybe 6 months, and they move to the private sector because the private sector either offers a lot more pay for the same lack of stability, and/or because they can get permanent positions in the private sector.
In Seattle, following last week's heat wave, we are currently experiencing an Air Quality Alert, due to smoke from wildfires in eastern Washington and British Columbia.
At the moment, across most of the city (including my locale) air quality is rated "unhealthy for sensitive groups". And it's been slowly worsening all morning (now noon here). Gray haze outside, which is at least blocking out some sunlight - a boon for me as only way I can cool my humble abode when it heats up, is by opening the windows!
Probably gonna get worse before it starts getting better, which is forecast to begin happening Monday afternoon. However, may take a while to clear out.
NOTE that we are in WAY better shape than folks in eastern WA, particularly in Spokane where air is currently rated as outright "hazardous" to breath. And not much better in Tri-Cities (where plutonium for "Fat Man" A-bomb was refined), Yakima or Wenatchee where air is merely "very unhealty".
https://www.iqair.com/us/air-quality-map?lat=47.568236&lng=-122.308628&zoomLevel=10
All parties post-WWII were looking at healthcare free at the point of use. The NHS as a monolithic agency is one of the worst ways developed across the west to do it, despite the fact that supporters of the NHS love to pretend America is the only alternative.
As for the welfare state, yes, I support welfare safety nets but not welfare as a way of life.
But more what Attlee did went far beyond that with nationalisation of many industries and wasting a lot of money that was available for reconstruction post-WWII.
Attlee is the prime reason why Britain went from winning the war, being only of the only countries in the war not to be occupied, to sick man of Europe until Thatcher turned us around.
I suspect their phone bill payer, on seeing their absurd Laffer curve thesis, removed their internet access.
So they bought the property on a loan, rent it out for 4 months of the summer which covers the loan, spend three or four weeks a year using it themselves, and it's empty the rest of the time.
And we wonder why it's so hard for first-time buyers to get a home.
If so, you're as much of a twat as Duma_Ace is
*Ducks*
He’s also a genuine guy, has taken in a couple of Ukranian refugees himself, and his knowledge on military aviation and fast cars definitely stacks up.
We have acute problems in the housing sector, but NIMBYs are obtuse as to the problems they are causing, while politicians refuse by reflex to adopt the right solution.
https://www.waitrosecellar.com/fine-wine/moss-wood-amys-blend
It's £17.49 a bottle so I won't be buying it myself at Waitrose; this bottle was bought for me as a present, but it's delicious
I wholly support the Waitrose description:
"This blend of classic Bordeaux grape varieties displays ripe plum and cassis fruit with an enjoyable, long finish. Seldom do wines bestow such luscious, sweet tannins as this delightful red."
Edit: but my underlying point, that pay was not keeping up with inflation for long periods, remains valid.
Edited for grammar
The spanner in the works is remote working, which needs to be encouraged regardless of the affect on season tickets and coffee shops.
I am not pro-Russia just because I am not as 100% Ukraine as some others.
Colvile has clearly been reading my posts. Hey Robert!
Some of them are scratched
edit I'm wrong there
lots of of not pro Jews didn't know about the holocaust in 1943
not pro Ukrainians now know what Putin is doing
One of the most insightful comments from Dominic Cummings during the pandemic period, was that No.10 would get weekly calls from newspaper proprietors. Not editors, proprietors. The only subject they ever wished to discuss was the ending of WFH, which was seriously affecting newspaper sales. There were also a lot of people with interests in the commercial property market - many of them MPs, Peers and party donors - making calls to Downing Street for similar reasons.
I think the Government could abolish a lot of jobs and use the revenues going to those now-abolished jobs currently to pay a higher wage to the remaining jobs instead.
But the bigger change I'd make as I say is to ensure people working for a living get the first proceeds of growth, not those who aren't working. Pay for those who aren't working should never go up at a rate faster than for those who are.
If no, then you're pro-Russia.
The wages bill reduction is an almost accidental byproduct that takes time to show up.
Perfect fit for government, eh?
This is exactly what I was referring to earlier when I said this site operates a bit like a hive-mind at times.