Right - so the Labour opposes the pensions and savings reforms story is based on comments someone with no official position in the Labour party made on Newsnight yesterday. Got it.
Well, given that the Shadow Chancellor - who does have a rather significant official position in the Labour Party - managed an entire Budget response in the Commons today without saying anything apart from some poor jibes, it is hardly surprising that Labour's position is being filled in by others:
So Ed Balls worries I could end up being reckless and irresponsible with my money does he?
I suppose that's fair - after all I worry about Ed Balls being Chancellor of the Exchequer and being reckless and irresponsible with everyones money."
"EIAddio
It's patronising in the extreme to claim that retired/older poeple will "blow the lost", etc. Most of us are quite savvy, believe it or not. We aren't all demented. We've a lifetime's experience of living within our means. Some on here are far too arrogant."
"Bauer
So the bingo ad is patronising and condescending but telling people they can't be trusted with their own money isn't?
Right. Thanks for clearing that up."
"Phil
This makes total sense. The losers here are the insurance companies who were making a fortune out of pensioners."
"wek
Its the pensioners money. Let them decide how they want to spend it."
"Peter
Good news re pensions - and as regards Balls' "reckless and irresponsible" comment, I don't think I need take lessons from him about how to manage my finances"
"notrub
Ed Balls says he worries "choice and flexibility" could end up being "reckless and irresponsible"
Ed - we weren't asking you for a summary of the last labour government's performance."
"Scutty
Since Mr Balls contributed so readily and in such a 'reckless and irresponsible' manner when laying waste to our economy under Blair and Brown, I think I would rather trust my own judgement than his as to how I choose to invest my pension pot."
"TJ1949
At least people now have a choice. It is up to them what they do with their money. I suspect the vast majority will exercise their choices wisely."
"ed260
If a pensioner wants to blow their money then let them! It's their prerogative.
Maybe we shouldn't let lottery winners spend all of their money either.
Not giving elderly people this financial freedom destroys any sane concept of liberty."
Your epitaph does put the younger generation's moans in perspective. A hundred years ago, young people died from a variety of infective diseases. Consumption, the white plague, TB (whatever you call it) was a major killer.
True. One of the things I liked about The Grand Budapest Hotel was the way people were announced dying of (made-up) diseases that people no longer die of.
On the other side of the family, my great-grandfather's first marriage ended in unutterable Victorian horror...
His wife's death certificate (aged 33 in 1886) gives cause of death as "general paralysis of insane." [sic].
A little research reveals that that was the old name for end-stage tertiary syphilis.
It seems that he just dumped her in Colney Hatch asylum. Such was the shame of it she is described on the certificate merely as "Wife of ---------".
He got married again, aged 45 to a girl aged 21, fathered his only child, my grandfather, then dropped dead of "Apoplexy" in Enfield the following year...
I presume you considered whether he had it too, in its cardiovascular manifestations? Changing terminology is very tricky but a little checking of Wiki suggests that 'apoplexy' could well cover something like an aneurysm.
James Lloyd? Wasn't he one of Gordon Brown's policy advisers?
And you might wish to take issue with one of his other pieces
To suggest that pensioners determine elections in the UK is simply nonsense. The all-powerful ‘grey vote’ has been exaggerated – older people may be more likely to vote but there are fewer of them around -
Right - so the Labour opposes the pensions and savings reforms story is based on comments someone with no official position in the Labour party made on Newsnight yesterday. Got it.
Is that out of court ? We can have endless discussions here on what Nadine Dorries or Tim Montgomerie say . Sauce for the goose etc.
Indeed we do and I'd be happy to talk about what that bloke said - I disagree with him. What I don't think anyone says is that either Dorries (unlike this bloke an elected MP) or Montgomerie are expressing official Tory policy.
I can't really see the difference myself ND and TM are old conjectured as speaking for tory opinion when they don't. They speak for a shade of it perhaps. The fact is we often have so called "friends" used as mouthpieces Mandelson, Oakeshott Major and you can make your own mind up whether you take them at face value or not.
For what it's worth I suspect McT is a man looking for a job by trrying to get back in the limelight.
On topic, the 2015 Budget will the launching pad for the General Election campaign.
If we see a similar response from Labour, the Coalition will be delighted, if the best Labour can critique a budget is to criticise a tweet and whether cabinet ministers fell asleep, then the coalition has comprehensively won the economic argument. It's fire up the Quattro redux.
That said, the Tories in particular need to be careful about stuff like this.
Over-the-top reaction from unionists to someone expressing their support for the principles underpinning the GFA that everyone was meant to be signed up to:
Instead, you think: where could I put my £65,000 that would provide a steady predictable income, hopefully grow the value of my £65,000 pot, and also leave something behind for my family?
What are you going to do? Yes, that’s right: you’re going to put the money into property and buy-to-let.
You can't invest a pension fund into residential property, a point you might have thought the director of a think-tank, even one who previously worked for Gordon Brown, might have noticed.
So, yes, you could take your £65K pot, take it out and pay income tax on it (taking you into the 40% band), and then buy a property to rent out. But you wouldn't have £65K to invest, and I rather doubt that many people will want to make a chunky up-front present to the taxman in order to invest in buy-to-let, having spent years trying to build up tax-free pension savings.
There are good arguments to be made against the idea. But this isn't one of them.
Agreed. The comments are cutting. And Public Sector pensions are not affected anyway. Interesting though because it is one of the first comments I have heard that is critical. Just a daft piece really.
I think Grant Shapps must now have just a small inkling what single mothers/immigrants/muslims/benefit claimants/unemployed/state workers get most weeks.....The Express readers outrage.
Since Labour party members and activists are clearly writing those comments, why would they be outraged with single mothers/immigrants/muslims/benefit claimants/unemployed/state workers?
Oh I do enjoy a good PB Hodge flounce, now the Labour party is infiltrating The Express comments section. Don't forget The Telegraph and The Mail.
The pension change is an interesting benchmark for how the parties view government vs the rights of the people. Labour (and others) are entirely right to warn about the risks that people do daft things with their new freedom, but then the government does serve the people rather than the other way around, so it's not quite right that anyone should be saying that it's a terrible mistake. And to be fair I don't think anyone has come out and done anything other than warn of the perils. I'm rather encouraged by that.
I'm not sure whether GO will be judged by history as a good chancellor or not, but I'm pretty sure he won't be judged as a bad chancellor. He hasn't ignored the awful abyss that was so very close, and although he's hardly taken us out of peril he's made a decent fist of things. I get the impression listening to Ed Balls talk that if you pressed him there might be some recognition of that, and hopefully, if he gets the job, then he'll have learned something of that trick rather than inheriting his style from Brown (who was a bad chancellor).
@DPJHodges: Last month Labour was banging on about giving people "real power'. Now it's "we'll tell you how to spend your penson". Barmy.
I havent seen Labour officially take a position on removing the requirement to annuitise yet. Presumably Dan's close links to the current leadership gives him privileged access to their thoughts.
I havent seen Labour officially take a position on removing the requirement to annuitise yet. Presumably Dan's close links to the current leadership gives him privileged access to their thoughts.
Perhaps he is just responding to the growing number of ex Gordon Brown henchmen who have expressed concern about pensioners spending their own money
I havent seen Labour officially take a position on removing the requirement to annuitise yet. Presumably Dan's close links to the current leadership gives him privileged access to their thoughts.
Perhaps he is just responding to the growing number of ex Gordon Brown henchmen who have expressed concern about pensioners spending their own money
With Dan it's just impossible to tell. He seems to be a troubled individual.
"Second, the chancellor has in one stroke released the £12bn of savings annually spent on annuities for retirees to transfer elsewhere.
Now consider the following scenario: as you reach retirement with a pension pot of – say – £65,000, you have an annuity explained to you, but really don’t like the idea of handing over all this money, only to see nothing given back if you die early.
Instead, you think: where could I put my £65,000 that would provide a steady predictable income, hopefully grow the value of my £65,000 pot, and also leave something behind for my family?
What are you going to do? Yes, that’s right: you’re going to put the money into property and buy-to-let.
Indeed, one outcome that Treasury advisers may have not anticipated is that they are releasing literally billions of pounds of savings that some baby-boomers will inevitably now transfer into the UK’s overheated property market. The annuity market is already worth £12bn per year, but if some workers aged 55 also decide to opt-out of pension saving early and sink their pension savings into property, the potential effect on house prices could be even greater."
Mike, everything about this policy is about short-termism. About winning the next election with an artificial housing boom.
If annuity was so bad, why was it practised for so long ? What is the safeguard for a person if he/she lives longer than expected ? Everyone will not have sufficientlt large pot to buy a house. I am a landlord. Believe me, it is not that easy. There are times, there are no tenants. There is always the hassle of repairs etc. Managing agents ? I thought the idea was to earn more than annuities.
In 2022, I am retiring. Unlike many others, I already own more than one house and will have a much larger than average pot. In the last 24 hours I have given it some thought and have concluded that I will still buy an annuity from a proportion of my pot.
In the short term, this policy will be popular because thanks to QE, interests are historically low.
It will not be always.
Apart from that, this now becomes a superb tax avoidance vehicle for the HRT payers.
I presume you considered whether he had it too, in its cardiovascular manifestations? Changing terminology is very tricky but a little checking of Wiki suggests that 'apoplexy' could well cover something like an aneurysm.
I hadn't actually. I thought "Apoplexy" (in 1892) was just the old name for a stroke. I lean to this view in my g-grandfather's case as it actually says on the certificate "Apoplexy - 9 days certified", which suggests he lingered a while after his collapse. He was a builder and according to vague family legend collapsed after lifting something heavy... He was just 47.
Re the syphilis of the wife. Could he have given it to her but exhibited no symptoms himself? It seems plausible he discovered she had it, perhaps shortly after their marriage (they had no kids), and dumped her in the loony bin...
I have given it some thought and have concluded that I will still buy an annuity from a proportion of my pot.
I'm sure I will too, and everyone still has the option to behave as if the rules hadn't been relaxed. Annuity providers need to make them just that bit more attractive though.
Over-the-top reaction from unionists to someone expressing their support for the principles underpinning the GFA that everyone was meant to be signed up to:
It is the claim that support for a "United Ireland" is in any way linked to anti-colonialism which is tendentious. Northern Ireland is not a colony (nor for that matter was Ireland when it was part of the United Kingdom).
@DPJHodges: Last month Labour was banging on about giving people "real power'. Now it's "we'll tell you how to spend your penson". Barmy.
I havent seen Labour officially take a position on removing the requirement to annuitise yet.
That's the problem - so the vacuum is being filled - and "Labour knows best" is hardly a meme voters are unfamiliar with....
They are probably looking at the detail - it's been 24 hours..
Balls has said he supports reform in principle but has raised concerns:
Labour's shadow chancellor Ed Balls said he supported the "principle" of more flexibility over pensions, because the annuities market is "not working" and "people are being ripped off". But he said scrapping the requirement to take out an annuity altogether was a potentially "reckless and irresponsible" move, which could "leave people running out of money". "Will people with ordinary-sized pension pots be able and encouraged to withdraw all of their pension savings from their pension pot and either try and invest it themselves or spend it?" he asked. "And if they do, what happens when the money runs out? Who then picks up the tab?"
Over-the-top reaction from unionists to someone expressing their support for the principles underpinning the GFA that everyone was meant to be signed up to:
It is the claim that support for a "United Ireland" is in any way linked to anti-colonialism which is tendentious. Northern Ireland is not a colony (nor for that matter was Ireland when it was part of the United Kingdom).
Not to mention, iirc there wasn't ever an independent united Ireland. (I'm not certain on this point).
Over-the-top reaction from unionists to someone expressing their support for the principles underpinning the GFA that everyone was meant to be signed up to:
It is the claim that support for a "United Ireland" is in any way linked to anti-colonialism which is tendentious. Northern Ireland is not a colony (nor for that matter was Ireland when it was part of the United Kingdom).
On the plus side her comments did provoke reactions along the following lines for us all to enjoy:
"TUV leader Jim Allister said her comments shattered “the myth that Alliance was “agnostic” on the union. “The removal of the union flag from Belfast City Hall showed something of Alliance’s true colours. Now Anna Lo has backed Irish unity - revealing that the tricolour are more her colours,” he added."
When is the first post budget poll due ? The PBTories have already drafted their "Gideon is the new Jesus" posts ready to be zapped all at the same time.
@DPJHodges: Last month Labour was banging on about giving people "real power'. Now it's "we'll tell you how to spend your penson". Barmy.
I havent seen Labour officially take a position on removing the requirement to annuitise yet.
That's the problem - so the vacuum is being filled - and "Labour knows best" is hardly a meme voters are unfamiliar with....
They are probably looking at the detail - it's been 24 hours..
Balls has said he supports reform in principle but has raised concerns:
Labour's shadow chancellor Ed Balls said he supported the "principle" of more flexibility over pensions, because the annuities market is "not working" and "people are being ripped off". But he said scrapping the requirement to take out an annuity altogether was a potentially "reckless and irresponsible" move, which could "leave people running out of money". "Will people with ordinary-sized pension pots be able and encouraged to withdraw all of their pension savings from their pension pot and either try and invest it themselves or spend it?" he asked. "And if they do, what happens when the money runs out? Who then picks up the tab?"
@DPJHodges: Last month Labour was banging on about giving people "real power'. Now it's "we'll tell you how to spend your penson". Barmy.
I havent seen Labour officially take a position on removing the requirement to annuitise yet.
That's the problem - so the vacuum is being filled - and "Labour knows best" is hardly a meme voters are unfamiliar with....
They are probably looking at the detail - it's been 24 hours..
Balls has said he supports reform in principle but has raised concerns:
Labour's shadow chancellor Ed Balls said he supported the "principle" of more flexibility over pensions, because the annuities market is "not working" and "people are being ripped off". But he said scrapping the requirement to take out an annuity altogether was a potentially "reckless and irresponsible" move, which could "leave people running out of money". "Will people with ordinary-sized pension pots be able and encouraged to withdraw all of their pension savings from their pension pot and either try and invest it themselves or spend it?" he asked. "And if they do, what happens when the money runs out? Who then picks up the tab?"
When is the first post budget poll due ? The PBTories have already drafted their "Gideon is the new Jesus" posts ready to be zapped all at the same time.
YouGov tonight.
I suspect we'll have some budget specific polling in the YouGov for the Sunday Times
(Which I won't be able to post on Saturday night, I'm away)
(Ed Balls) "Will people with ordinary-sized pension pots be able and encouraged to withdraw all of their pension savings from their pension pot and either try and invest it themselves or spend it?" he asked. "And if they do, what happens when the money runs out? Who then picks up the tab?" http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-26649162
Extraordinarily good questions from Balls. However I'd like to rephrase it as "if there are people that have no money, then who picks up the tab? ".
The existing policies were essentially about trying to stop people who had been in the responsible class from having a wild fling and joining the irresponsible class. It meant, in effect, that if you'd been a good citizen all your life extra restrictions were placed upon you.
Over-the-top reaction from unionists to someone expressing their support for the principles underpinning the GFA that everyone was meant to be signed up to:
It is the claim that support for a "United Ireland" is in any way linked to anti-colonialism which is tendentious. Northern Ireland is not a colony (nor for that matter was Ireland when it was part of the United Kingdom).
The 1973 Sovereignty Referendum produced an even more impressive vote for the Union than did the recent Crimea Referendum did for Russia.
It meant, in effect, that if you'd been a good citizen all your life extra restrictions were placed upon you.
Wasnt it more that if you took advantage of the generous tax regime in building up your pension pot you had to promise not to splurge it all to such a degree that you might become a burden on the state? You were perfectly free to put your money into any other vehicle and do what you want with it instead.
Schapps is a lightweight who only got the job because he is a Tony Blair clone.What is more worrying for the Tories is how much of this is down to Lynton Crosby.It could be the man at the heart of Tory HQ is losing his grip.
Over-the-top reaction from unionists to someone expressing their support for the principles underpinning the GFA that everyone was meant to be signed up to:
It is the claim that support for a "United Ireland" is in any way linked to anti-colonialism which is tendentious. Northern Ireland is not a colony (nor for that matter was Ireland when it was part of the United Kingdom).
Not to mention, iirc there wasn't ever an independent united Ireland. (I'm not certain on this point).
Over-the-top reaction from unionists to someone expressing their support for the principles underpinning the GFA that everyone was meant to be signed up to:
It is the claim that support for a "United Ireland" is in any way linked to anti-colonialism which is tendentious. Northern Ireland is not a colony (nor for that matter was Ireland when it was part of the United Kingdom).
Not to mention, iirc there wasn't ever an independent united Ireland. (I'm not certain on this point).
Depends if you recognise the Republic of 1918.
Recognise it? I think I might accidentally be President of it due to a misunderstanding with a fellow traveller on a train to Kerry.
When is the first post budget poll due ? The PBTories have already drafted their "Gideon is the new Jesus" posts ready to be zapped all at the same time.
Surby
The first post budget poll may show a small uptick in Tory fortunes but it will be difficult to separate that from the general trend of the blue tide coming in.
I think Sir Roderick is right that the next major tightening of the gap is likely to come around the beginning of May. It is when voters have seen their April pay slips that they will start flocking to the altar of St. George.
Wasnt it more that if you took advantage of the generous tax regime in building up your pension pot you had to promise not to splurge it all to such a degree that you might become a burden on the state? You were perfectly free to put your money into any other vehicle and do what you want with it instead.
But in order to splurge it, you're going to have to take it out of the tax-free wrapper and take a humoungous income tax hit, thus negating the generous tax regime. Few people are going to do that unless they have a very strong reason to do so.
A more realistic concern is that a pensioner takes out a slightly excessive income relative to the pot size, thus depleting it over a period of a few years. That is a potential risk, but it comes down to trusting people to make their own decisions, and making sure they are properly informed. In any case it has to be balanced against the inflation risk on conventional (level) annuities.
It meant, in effect, that if you'd been a good citizen all your life extra restrictions were placed upon you.
Wasnt it more that if you took advantage of the generous tax regime in building up your pension pot you had to promise not to splurge it all to such a degree that you might become a burden on the state? You were perfectly free to put your money into any other vehicle and do what you want with it instead.
Nope. Pensions are tax-deferred investments.
Forcing you to buy an annuity meant the Government got its tax back from the income from that annuity.
Labour says pensioner @MikeSmithson not responsible enough to run Political Betting
Speculation is rife tonight that in a early evening internet coup Mike Smithson, editor and sometime LibDem confectionary purloiner, has been kidnapped and is being held in south west France by exiled PBers "Roger" and "tim"
Speaking exclusively to JNN, on the condition of remaining anonymous, Ed Balls said :
It meant, in effect, that if you'd been a good citizen all your life extra restrictions were placed upon you.
Wasnt it more that if you took advantage of the generous tax regime in building up your pension pot you had to promise not to splurge it all to such a degree that you might become a burden on the state? You were perfectly free to put your money into any other vehicle and do what you want with it instead.
A fair interpretation, but I'm not sure it's right. Pension income is after all liable to tax. So a pension pot that's been accumulated is an asset to the nation.
I think it's reasonable to look at a pension as deferred income, so money I pay into mine is just money I'd prefer to be paid at a later date. The tax rate on income you defer should be less than otherwise, as that money is available to drive the wheels of the economy.
Wasnt it more that if you took advantage of the generous tax regime in building up your pension pot you had to promise not to splurge it all to such a degree that you might become a burden on the state? You were perfectly free to put your money into any other vehicle and do what you want with it instead.
But in order to splurge it, you're going to have to take it out of the tax-free wrapper and take a humoungous income tax hit, thus negating the generous tax regime. Few people are going to do that unless they have a very strong reason to do so.
A more realistic concern is that a pensioner takes out a slightly excessive income relative to the pot size, thus depleting it over a period of a few years. That is a potential risk, but it comes down to trusting people to make their own decisions, and making sure they are properly informed. In any case it has to be balanced against the inflation risk on conventional (level) annuities.
It's disgusting.
Imagine grown ups being allowed to enjoy their own money before they die ?
It meant, in effect, that if you'd been a good citizen all your life extra restrictions were placed upon you.
Wasnt it more that if you took advantage of the generous tax regime in building up your pension pot you had to promise not to splurge it all to such a degree that you might become a burden on the state? You were perfectly free to put your money into any other vehicle and do what you want with it instead.
Nope. Pensions are tax-deferred investments.
Forcing you to buy an annuity meant the Government got its tax back from the income from that annuity.
They are tax-advantaged investments. If they werent then why go to the bother of putting your money into a product with such onerous restrictions?
I presume you considered whether he had it too, in its cardiovascular manifestations? Changing terminology is very tricky but a little checking of Wiki suggests that 'apoplexy' could well cover something like an aneurysm.
I hadn't actually. I thought "Apoplexy" (in 1892) was just the old name for a stroke. I lean to this view in my g-grandfather's case as it actually says on the certificate "Apoplexy - 9 days certified", which suggests he lingered a while after his collapse. He was a builder and according to vague family legend collapsed after lifting something heavy... He was just 47.
Re the syphilis of the wife. Could he have given it to her but exhibited no symptoms himself? It seems plausible he discovered she had it, perhaps shortly after their marriage (they had no kids), and dumped her in the loony bin...
Caveat - I'm not a medic - more general biological knowledge. I have had reason of late to bone up on terminology of old records (e.g. a ghastly death in the 1850s of someone who evidently had a near-term miscarriage and then massive systemic septic infection) so I am interested in this.
I also had not realised how flexible 'apoplexy' can be - even without deliberate euphemism on the death cert which was I gather very common (not much chance of that kindness in the asylum tho' I expect). But your 9 days doesn't sound like an aortic aneurysm bursting, which (tho' IANAE) is usually much quicker, isn't it? Some other form of apoplexy such as a stroke indeed probably in your case.
ON tertiary syphilis, the question that strikes me is, how long were they married? It would have to be some years (few to many, on a quick recheck of Wiki) for her to have caught it off him AND then developed tertiary form. Wiki also confirms my memory that not everyone develops the tertiary stage (and what I had not realised, that the tertiary stage is not infectious).
So there would seem to be plenty of permutations there re who had it first and if he did then what happened next (especially if he didn't admit it or thought it was cured). And in fairness syphilis could be conveyed by blood to blood contact thro' old style vaccination, though I suspect this was greatly overemphasised by anti-vaccination campaigners as well as those seeking a convenient excuse.
The tax rate on income you defer should be less than otherwise, as that money is available to drive the wheels of the economy.
But it's only the case for pensions not any other form of saving - and the cost of the tax advantage is the restrictions placed on funds placed in a pension scheme (and there will still be significant restrictions even if the requirement to annuitise is abolished).
It isn't clear...was he prompted i.e the interviewer kept asking what if they decide to buy insert large ticket item...or did he just come out with this out of the blue.
I am presuming given what I have heard of Steve Webb, it was the former, and now we have a news story out of a minister giving an honest answer to a question. Either way, whatever you think of Mr Green's tweet and / or the real long term impacts of this change, this is just a pathetic attack story.
It is now apparently a huge news story...no wonder politicians hardly ever give a straight answer to a question.
It certainly perfectly realistic for a normal working person to build up this kind of money in their pension pot (certainly isn't exclusive to the mega rich) and now they are been offered the chance to do what they want with it.
Wasnt it more that if you took advantage of the generous tax regime in building up your pension pot you had to promise not to splurge it all to such a degree that you might become a burden on the state? You were perfectly free to put your money into any other vehicle and do what you want with it instead.
But in order to splurge it, you're going to have to take it out of the tax-free wrapper and take a humoungous income tax hit, thus negating the generous tax regime. Few people are going to do that unless they have a very strong reason to do so.
A more realistic concern is that a pensioner takes out a slightly excessive income relative to the pot size, thus depleting it over a period of a few years. That is a potential risk, but it comes down to trusting people to make their own decisions, and making sure they are properly informed. In any case it has to be balanced against the inflation risk on conventional (level) annuities.
It's disgusting.
Imagine grown ups being allowed to enjoy their own money before they die ?
Wasnt it more that if you took advantage of the generous tax regime in building up your pension pot you had to promise not to splurge it all to such a degree that you might become a burden on the state? You were perfectly free to put your money into any other vehicle and do what you want with it instead.
But in order to splurge it, you're going to have to take it out of the tax-free wrapper and take a humoungous income tax hit, thus negating the generous tax regime. Few people are going to do that unless they have a very strong reason to do so.
A more realistic concern is that a pensioner takes out a slightly excessive income relative to the pot size, thus depleting it over a period of a few years. That is a potential risk, but it comes down to trusting people to make their own decisions, and making sure they are properly informed. In any case it has to be balanced against the inflation risk on conventional (level) annuities.
"Properly informed" about exactly how long they're going to live?
This budget is following the usual Osborne pattern. The Tory Press wet themselves. Tory loyalists delude themselves he's played a blinder and wrongfooted Labour. Tories shoot themselves in the foot with some wretchedly stupid PR. The budget itself unravels under scrutiny.
Incidentally few people have understood that the Osborne reforms will also have a big effect on the savings side of the pension equation. At present, many people are put off saving into pensions because they know they will be locked into an inflexible annuity, currently at very low rates. Indeed, so onerous are the current restrictions that IMHO it's a pretty marginal decision for a basic-rate taxpayer to save into a pension at all (it's unambiguously a good deal for higher-rate taxpayers, of course). Making pensions more flexible makes them more attractive, and hopefully should increase the savings rate.
It meant, in effect, that if you'd been a good citizen all your life extra restrictions were placed upon you.
Wasnt it more that if you took advantage of the generous tax regime in building up your pension pot you had to promise not to splurge it all to such a degree that you might become a burden on the state? You were perfectly free to put your money into any other vehicle and do what you want with it instead.
Nope. Pensions are tax-deferred investments.
Forcing you to buy an annuity meant the Government got its tax back from the income from that annuity.
They are tax-advantaged investments. If they werent then why go to the bother of putting your money into a product with such onerous restrictions?
A question I've been asking for the last 20 years.
Apart from differential tax rates (pay in at 40%, take out at 20%), what advantages are there to such an inflexible, opaque investment?
Wasnt it more that if you took advantage of the generous tax regime in building up your pension pot you had to promise not to splurge it all to such a degree that you might become a burden on the state? You were perfectly free to put your money into any other vehicle and do what you want with it instead.
But in order to splurge it, you're going to have to take it out of the tax-free wrapper and take a humoungous income tax hit, thus negating the generous tax regime. Few people are going to do that unless they have a very strong reason to do so.
A more realistic concern is that a pensioner takes out a slightly excessive income relative to the pot size, thus depleting it over a period of a few years. That is a potential risk, but it comes down to trusting people to make their own decisions, and making sure they are properly informed. In any case it has to be balanced against the inflation risk on conventional (level) annuities.
"Properly informed" about exactly how long they're going to live?
This budget is following the usual Osborne pattern. The Tory Press wet themselves. Tory loyalists delude themselves he's played a blinder and wrongfooted Labour. Tories shoot themselves in the foot with some wretchedly stupid PR. The budget itself unravels under scrutiny.
Osborne is truly the heir to Brown.
Ziggy
You appear to be jamming good with weird and gilly.
What's more, millions will get it. Balls lecturing them on finance FFS.
And that is the very great beauty of what Osborne has done.
In fairness Ed Balls raises some reasonable points about the misselling possibilities and the moral hazard of the money running out before death ( or "retirement ending" in Ballspeak on R4 this morning), and these have to be looked at within the huge benefits of greater freedom now on offer.
However, you are right the wondrous hypocrisy of the two Eds lecturing the prudent classes on how they are not responsible enough to handle cash and they know how to spend money better is truly breathtaking given the debt fuelled red ink they left behind.
There's some true intellectual diving lines here between the paternalistic/nannying and letting people get on with their lives without interference from others who think they know better.
Heir to Brown, hard working families, tractors stats up, beer tax down, bingo tax eyes down...headline stuff and smoke and mirrors. The fiscal drag of the 40% tax band ought to hammer Osborne, but I suppose he hopes that he would claim Labour would do worse in that respect.
Incidentally few people have understood that the Osborne reforms will also have a big effect on the savings side of the pension equation. At present, many people are put off saving into pensions because they know they will be locked into an inflexible annuity, currently at very low rates. Indeed, so onerous are the current restrictions that IMHO it's a pretty marginal decision for a basic-rate taxpayer to save into a pension at all (it's unambiguously a good deal for higher-rate taxpayers, of course). Making pensions more flexible makes them more attractive, and hopefully should increase the savings rate.
Exactly. Unlike Gordon's means testing which effectively meant it wasn't worth saving if it was less than about 50k.
ON tertiary syphilis, the question that strikes me is, how long were they married? It would have to be some years (few to many, on a quick recheck of Wiki) for her to have caught it off him AND then developed tertiary form. Wiki also confirms my memory that not everyone develops the tertiary stage (and what I had not realised, that the tertiary stage is not infectious).
So there would seem to be plenty of permutations there re who had it first and if he did then what happened next (especially if he didn't admit it or thought it was cured). And in fairness syphilis could be conveyed by blood to blood contact thro' old style vaccination, though I suspect this was greatly overemphasised by anti-vaccination campaigners as well as those seeking a convenient excuse.
They married in 1876. He was 31, she 23. There was something fishy, as there is absolutely no trace of either of them five years later in the 1881 census. Five years after that she dies in Colney Hatch of tertiary syphilis, aged 33. Four years later he marries again...
But it's only the case for pensions not any other form of saving - and the cost of the tax advantage is the restrictions placed on funds placed in a pension scheme (and there will still be significant restrictions even if the requirement to annuitise is abolished).
The question is though if I have one pound now what incentives the government might tempt me with that I won't spend it today or even soonish.
At any stage of life you should be allowed to defer tax and invest in both your and the nations future.
Heir to Brown, hard working families, tractors stats up, beer tax down, bingo tax eyes down...headline stuff and smoke and mirrors. The fiscal drag of the 40% tax band ought to hammer Osborne, but I suppose he hopes that he would claim Labour would do worse in that respect.
Interesting point, and if you accept that there are more 40% payers in the 45 to 60 age range, then the pension changes are a very attractive alternative to lower tax rates. For younger 40% payers the deal is not so interesting as it is too far away.
Politics is good, and the direction is right. I would have put more into a pension if they had these rules 20 years ago.
Trying Chrome now. So far it lacks the stupid popups of Firefox and the odd Privacy Report of IE. I might stick with this.
Thanks, Mr. D. I am not a tech-savvy sort of person and thought a bad download effort (I wanted to regain Paint.net which I use for map-making) had infected the computer, though a full virus scan found nothing.
MD
I played with paint.net, albeit some time ago. I updated it to a new version and then discovered that MS's .Net Framework also needed updating for the new version of paint.net to work.
I believe .Net upgrades (to new major versions) are optional and you may need to select them in Windows/Microsoft Update rather than just get them through automatic updates.
An obvious point, but it may explain why you are having problems with your version of paint.net.
It meant, in effect, that if you'd been a good citizen all your life extra restrictions were placed upon you.
Wasnt it more that if you took advantage of the generous tax regime in building up your pension pot you had to promise not to splurge it all to such a degree that you might become a burden on the state? You were perfectly free to put your money into any other vehicle and do what you want with it instead.
Nope. Pensions are tax-deferred investments.
Forcing you to buy an annuity meant the Government got its tax back from the income from that annuity.
They are tax-advantaged investments. If they werent then why go to the bother of putting your money into a product with such onerous restrictions?
The thing is the implied contract between State and individual in the shape of "tax incentives for annuities" was broken when the authorities started manipulating the bond market through QE ( and hence annuity rates) and frankly didn't give a stuff about what it did to the buying power of defined contribution pensions ( the type most folk in the private sector have these days - unlike MPs).
No wonder many folk seem pleased with the proposals. They've spent six years having the pitch doctored against them.
Mr. LP, cheers for the post, but I don't have paint.net now. Uncertain whether I'll try and get it again (or find the original file, if I still have it, and install it from that), or whether I'll just try and use paint for map-making. It'd be fiddlier, but I'd rather not risk more woe.
Wasnt it more that if you took advantage of the generous tax regime in building up your pension pot you had to promise not to splurge it all to such a degree that you might become a burden on the state? You were perfectly free to put your money into any other vehicle and do what you want with it instead.
But in order to splurge it, you're going to have to take it out of the tax-free wrapper and take a humoungous income tax hit, thus negating the generous tax regime. Few people are going to do that unless they have a very strong reason to do so.
A more realistic concern is that a pensioner takes out a slightly excessive income relative to the pot size, thus depleting it over a period of a few years. That is a potential risk, but it comes down to trusting people to make their own decisions, and making sure they are properly informed. In any case it has to be balanced against the inflation risk on conventional (level) annuities.
"Properly informed" about exactly how long they're going to live?
This budget is following the usual Osborne pattern. The Tory Press wet themselves. Tory loyalists delude themselves he's played a blinder and wrongfooted Labour. Tories shoot themselves in the foot with some wretchedly stupid PR. The budget itself unravels under scrutiny.
Osborne is truly the heir to Brown.
Ziggy
You appear to be jamming good with weird and gilly.
Just the beer, Balls, and bingo to guide us We have to break up Miliband
Wasnt it more that if you took advantage of the generous tax regime in building up your pension pot you had to promise not to splurge it all to such a degree that you might become a burden on the state? You were perfectly free to put your money into any other vehicle and do what you want with it instead.
But in order to splurge it, you're going to have to take it out of the tax-free wrapper and take a humoungous income tax hit, thus negating the generous tax regime. Few people are going to do that unless they have a very strong reason to do so.
A more realistic concern is that a pensioner takes out a slightly excessive income relative to the pot size, thus depleting it over a period of a few years. That is a potential risk, but it comes down to trusting people to make their own decisions, and making sure they are properly informed. In any case it has to be balanced against the inflation risk on conventional (level) annuities.
"Properly informed" about exactly how long they're going to live?
This budget is following the usual Osborne pattern. The Tory Press wet themselves. Tory loyalists delude themselves he's played a blinder and wrongfooted Labour. Tories shoot themselves in the foot with some wretchedly stupid PR. The budget itself unravels under scrutiny.
Osborne is truly the heir to Brown.
Ziggy
You appear to be jamming good with weird and gilly.
Just the beer, Balls, and bingo to guide us We have to break up Miliband
Mr. LP, cheers for the post, but I don't have paint.net now. Uncertain whether I'll try and get it again (or find the original file, if I still have it, and install it from that), or whether I'll just try and use paint for map-making. It'd be fiddlier, but I'd rather not risk more woe.
If you're making maps, use a vector program such as Inkscape, and touch up if necessary with a bitmap editor such as GIMP.
Doing them as vectors for the base work gives you a whole host of advantages, IMHO at least.
Wasnt it more that if you took advantage of the generous tax regime in building up your pension pot you had to promise not to splurge it all to such a degree that you might become a burden on the state? You were perfectly free to put your money into any other vehicle and do what you want with it instead.
But in order to splurge it, you're going to have to take it out of the tax-free wrapper and take a humoungous income tax hit, thus negating the generous tax regime. Few people are going to do that unless they have a very strong reason to do so.
A more realistic concern is that a pensioner takes out a slightly excessive income relative to the pot size, thus depleting it over a period of a few years. That is a potential risk, but it comes down to trusting people to make their own decisions, and making sure they are properly informed. In any case it has to be balanced against the inflation risk on conventional (level) annuities.
"Properly informed" about exactly how long they're going to live?
This budget is following the usual Osborne pattern. The Tory Press wet themselves. Tory loyalists delude themselves he's played a blinder and wrongfooted Labour. Tories shoot themselves in the foot with some wretchedly stupid PR. The budget itself unravels under scrutiny.
Osborne is truly the heir to Brown.
Nah. Budgets that unravel tend to do so within 24 hours. When Brown played slight of hand with the 22/20/10p income tax rates, it didn't make 30 minutes. It's still possible that something might come up but Labour, the media and financial/tax analysts will have been through the details pretty thoroughly by now and the fact that the debate hasn't moved on suggests to me that this is one that won't unravel.
On the PR note, it's a non-issue. To my mind, the biggest potential downside isn't the pronoun but how small the goodies are that are being hyped.
I retired four years ago and consider I got a very poor deal from the annuity (it was my best offer).
I used the tax-free lump sum wisely though. I bought solar panels with some of it even though I'm not a greenie - but index-linked, tax free payments of around 15% pa for a guaranteed 25 years was too tempting. Thank you, Ed, not so much green as daft. If anyone wants to frack in my back garden, they're very welcome.
So I'm a little envious of the young gits who will have this pension choice now.
Rod, your female ancestor may have had children - or rather been pregnant - as syphilis could have caused miscarriages that wouldn't have been reported.
Mr. LP, cheers for the post, but I don't have paint.net now. Uncertain whether I'll try and get it again (or find the original file, if I still have it, and install it from that), or whether I'll just try and use paint for map-making. It'd be fiddlier, but I'd rather not risk more woe.
Probably wise. Even with .Net upgraded, paint.net was never entirely stable.
Have you tried Inkscape? A different approach, vector rather than bitmap, but wonderfully stable, flexible and small. Totally free and no adware too. You can import bitmap maps as a base layer and trace/draw in higher layers. Works internally as SVG, which you can text edit, but can output to multiple formats. And not a massive learning curve either.
Mr. LP, cheers for the post, but I don't have paint.net now. Uncertain whether I'll try and get it again (or find the original file, if I still have it, and install it from that), or whether I'll just try and use paint for map-making. It'd be fiddlier, but I'd rather not risk more woe.
If you're making maps, use a vector program such as Inkscape, and touch up if necessary with a bitmap editor such as GIMP.
Doing them as vectors for the base work gives you a whole host of advantages, IMHO at least.
Express Derek is a bit miffed also: the advert is in keeping with the Budget as a whole, which he described as "a very condescending attempt to try to appeal to vast swathes of 'what the Tories believe' constitutes the non-Tory voter, in the hope that they will jump and be thankful at the scraps the Government is throwing to the country and vote them back in when the GE [General Election] comes around in 2015.
"It compounds the narrative that the Conservatives have little knowledge about how people live in modern Britain."
Well done, Labour Party members. They got the email.
In the annals of political trivia, I'm struggling to think of a sillier story.
It meant, in effect, that if you'd been a good citizen all your life extra restrictions were placed upon you.
Wasnt it more that if you took advantage of the generous tax regime in building up your pension pot you had to promise not to splurge it all to such a degree that you might become a burden on the state? You were perfectly free to put your money into any other vehicle and do what you want with it instead.
A fair interpretation, but I'm not sure it's right. Pension income is after all liable to tax. So a pension pot that's been accumulated is an asset to the nation.
I think it's reasonable to look at a pension as deferred income, so money I pay into mine is just money I'd prefer to be paid at a later date. The tax rate on income you defer should be less than otherwise, as that money is available to drive the wheels of the economy.
An asset to the nation? You're having a laugh. Mine's an asset to me. My money, I've saved it and done without fancy meals in swanky London restaurants and wide screen TVs.
Rod, your female ancestor may have had children - or rather been pregnant - as syphilis could have caused miscarriages that wouldn't have been reported.
Small point. She wasn't an ancestor. She was my great-grandfather's first wife. But I take your point. We'll never know if she was ever pregnant, but as far as I can ascertain there were no live children from this marriage. If they existed they would only be about 13 in April 1891 (census), by which time their father was living in Tottenham with his young, pregnant second wife, who would give birth to my grandfather 8 weeks later... No sign of them.
Comments
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-26649162
Here are the top ten comments at present:
"nametheguilty
So Ed Balls worries I could end up being reckless and irresponsible with my money does he?
I suppose that's fair - after all I worry about Ed Balls being Chancellor of the Exchequer and being reckless and irresponsible with everyones money."
"EIAddio
It's patronising in the extreme to claim that retired/older poeple will "blow the lost", etc. Most of us are quite savvy, believe it or not. We aren't all demented. We've a lifetime's experience of living within our means. Some on here are far too arrogant."
"Bauer
So the bingo ad is patronising and condescending but telling people they can't be trusted with their own money isn't?
Right. Thanks for clearing that up."
"Phil
This makes total sense. The losers here are the insurance companies who were making a fortune out of pensioners."
"wek
Its the pensioners money. Let them decide how they want to spend it."
"Peter
Good news re pensions - and as regards Balls' "reckless and irresponsible" comment, I don't think I need take lessons from him about how to manage my finances"
"notrub
Ed Balls says he worries "choice and flexibility" could end up being "reckless and irresponsible"
Ed - we weren't asking you for a summary of the last labour government's performance."
"Scutty
Since Mr Balls contributed so readily and in such a 'reckless and irresponsible' manner when laying waste to our economy under Blair and Brown, I think I would rather trust my own judgement than his as to how I choose to invest my pension pot."
"TJ1949
At least people now have a choice. It is up to them what they do with their money. I suspect the vast majority will exercise their choices wisely."
"ed260
If a pensioner wants to blow their money then let them! It's their prerogative.
Maybe we shouldn't let lottery winners spend all of their money either.
Not giving elderly people this financial freedom destroys any sane concept of liberty."
Thank goodness for antibiotics.
And you might wish to take issue with one of his other pieces
To suggest that pensioners determine elections in the UK is simply nonsense. The all-powerful ‘grey vote’ has been exaggerated – older people may be more likely to vote but there are fewer of them around -
http://opinion.publicfinance.co.uk/2014/01/the-great-grey-vote-myth/#sthash.uTZJo8xA.dpuf
For what it's worth I suspect McT is a man looking for a job by trrying to get back in the limelight.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-26667174
Endorsed by the man himself...
@johnmcternan: Essential reading. 'In one swoop, Budget 2014 destroyed UK pension policy' - http://t.co/bmOtoz5kfO
@DPJHodges: Last month Labour was banging on about giving people "real power'. Now it's "we'll tell you how to spend your penson". Barmy.
'Labour MP Tom Watson warns of 'every-day temptations' of large sums
Ex-Blair aide John McTernan says people cannot be trusted with money'
At least we have finally got a response from Labour to the budget and their opinion that the plebs can't be trusted with their own money.
"Careful saver will turn into complete idiot once aged 60"
"People will queue up to pay 40% on a lump sump"
What a load of rubbish.
Instead, you think: where could I put my £65,000 that would provide a steady predictable income, hopefully grow the value of my £65,000 pot, and also leave something behind for my family?
What are you going to do? Yes, that’s right: you’re going to put the money into property and buy-to-let.
You can't invest a pension fund into residential property, a point you might have thought the director of a think-tank, even one who previously worked for Gordon Brown, might have noticed.
So, yes, you could take your £65K pot, take it out and pay income tax on it (taking you into the 40% band), and then buy a property to rent out. But you wouldn't have £65K to invest, and I rather doubt that many people will want to make a chunky up-front present to the taxman in order to invest in buy-to-let, having spent years trying to build up tax-free pension savings.
I'm not sure whether GO will be judged by history as a good chancellor or not, but I'm pretty sure he won't be judged as a bad chancellor. He hasn't ignored the awful abyss that was so very close, and although he's hardly taken us out of peril he's made a decent fist of things. I get the impression listening to Ed Balls talk that if you pressed him there might be some recognition of that, and hopefully, if he gets the job, then he'll have learned something of that trick rather than inheriting his style from Brown (who was a bad chancellor).
What are the chances of that appearing in 2015?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/10625326/Rachel-Reeves-Labour-will-crackdown-on-broken-pensions-system.html
@IsabelHardman: (also why Labour is sticking to the cost-of-living stuff rather than talking about the actual Budget) http://t.co/hI3lezrpZY
I sure hope I'm reading this right and the EMH is being hopelessly exposed currently....
Vast numbers of pensioners seeing the towering irony of Ed Balls fretting about them being reckless and irresponsible with their money....
You have to hand it to George. It's beautiful, isn't it?
Now consider the following scenario: as you reach retirement with a pension pot of – say – £65,000, you have an annuity explained to you, but really don’t like the idea of handing over all this money, only to see nothing given back if you die early.
Instead, you think: where could I put my £65,000 that would provide a steady predictable income, hopefully grow the value of my £65,000 pot, and also leave something behind for my family?
What are you going to do? Yes, that’s right: you’re going to put the money into property and buy-to-let.
Indeed, one outcome that Treasury advisers may have not anticipated is that they are releasing literally billions of pounds of savings that some baby-boomers will inevitably now transfer into the UK’s overheated property market. The annuity market is already worth £12bn per year, but if some workers aged 55 also decide to opt-out of pension saving early and sink their pension savings into property, the potential effect on house prices could be even greater."
Mike, everything about this policy is about short-termism. About winning the next election with an artificial housing boom.
If annuity was so bad, why was it practised for so long ? What is the safeguard for a person if he/she lives longer than expected ? Everyone will not have sufficientlt large pot to buy a house. I am a landlord. Believe me, it is not that easy. There are times, there are no tenants. There is always the hassle of repairs etc. Managing agents ? I thought the idea was to earn more than annuities.
In 2022, I am retiring. Unlike many others, I already own more than one house and will have a much larger than average pot. In the last 24 hours I have given it some thought and have concluded that I will still buy an annuity from a proportion of my pot.
In the short term, this policy will be popular because thanks to QE, interests are historically low.
It will not be always.
Apart from that, this now becomes a superb tax avoidance vehicle for the HRT payers.
'Has anyone heard from Rachel Reeves today, if not why not?'
She's been kept away as she can't handle difficult questions. .
Re the syphilis of the wife. Could he have given it to her but exhibited no symptoms himself? It seems plausible he discovered she had it, perhaps shortly after their marriage (they had no kids), and dumped her in the loony bin...
Labour's shadow chancellor Ed Balls said he supported the "principle" of more flexibility over pensions, because the annuities market is "not working" and "people are being ripped off".
But he said scrapping the requirement to take out an annuity altogether was a potentially "reckless and irresponsible" move, which could "leave people running out of money".
"Will people with ordinary-sized pension pots be able and encouraged to withdraw all of their pension savings from their pension pot and either try and invest it themselves or spend it?" he asked.
"And if they do, what happens when the money runs out? Who then picks up the tab?"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-26649162
"TUV leader Jim Allister said her comments shattered “the myth that Alliance was “agnostic” on the union. “The removal of the union flag from Belfast City Hall showed something of Alliance’s true colours. Now Anna Lo has backed Irish unity - revealing that the tricolour are more her colours,” he added."
"reckless and irresponsible" from the man who wrote the manual.
Balls has chutzpah.
What's more, millions will get it. Balls lecturing them on finance FFS.
And that is the very great beauty of what Osborne has done.
I suspect we'll have some budget specific polling in the YouGov for the Sunday Times
(Which I won't be able to post on Saturday night, I'm away)
The existing policies were essentially about trying to stop people who had been in the responsible class from having a wild fling and joining the irresponsible class. It meant, in effect, that if you'd been a good citizen all your life extra restrictions were placed upon you.
Turnout was a mite lower though!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Ireland_referendum,_1973
L&G, Ladbrokes and William Hill. All of them got reamed. Partnership Assurance is down 60% over two days and likely won't recover.
Huge upheaval from the budget. Bookies in particular made themselves a target with FOBTs, that they didn't see this coming is pretty poor planning.
The first post budget poll may show a small uptick in Tory fortunes but it will be difficult to separate that from the general trend of the blue tide coming in.
I think Sir Roderick is right that the next major tightening of the gap is likely to come around the beginning of May. It is when voters have seen their April pay slips that they will start flocking to the altar of St. George.
A more realistic concern is that a pensioner takes out a slightly excessive income relative to the pot size, thus depleting it over a period of a few years. That is a potential risk, but it comes down to trusting people to make their own decisions, and making sure they are properly informed. In any case it has to be balanced against the inflation risk on conventional (level) annuities.
http://order-order.com/2014/03/20/watch-clueless-chris-leslies-bedroom-tax-bungle/
Forcing you to buy an annuity meant the Government got its tax back from the income from that annuity.
Speculation is rife tonight that in a early evening internet coup Mike Smithson, editor and sometime LibDem confectionary purloiner, has been kidnapped and is being held in south west France by exiled PBers "Roger" and "tim"
Speaking exclusively to JNN, on the condition of remaining anonymous, Ed Balls said :
Blah Blah .. OAP .. Blah Blah .. Banker Bonus .. Blah Blah .. Hair Restorative .. Blah Blah .. Winning Here .. Blah Blah .. Nanny State .. Blah Blah .. Bullingdon Club ..
A fair interpretation, but I'm not sure it's right. Pension income is after all liable to tax. So a pension pot that's been accumulated is an asset to the nation.
I think it's reasonable to look at a pension as deferred income, so money I pay into mine is just money I'd prefer to be paid at a later date. The tax rate on income you defer should be less than otherwise, as that money is available to drive the wheels of the economy.
Imagine grown ups being allowed to enjoy their own money before they die ?
He does deal with his irresponsibilties quite well though.
I also had not realised how flexible 'apoplexy' can be - even without deliberate euphemism on the death cert which was I gather very common (not much chance of that kindness in the asylum tho' I expect). But your 9 days doesn't sound like an aortic aneurysm bursting, which (tho' IANAE) is usually much quicker, isn't it? Some other form of apoplexy such as a stroke indeed probably in your case.
ON tertiary syphilis, the question that strikes me is, how long were they married? It would have to be some years (few to many, on a quick recheck of Wiki) for her to have caught it off him AND then developed tertiary form. Wiki also confirms my memory that not everyone develops the tertiary stage (and what I had not realised, that the tertiary stage is not infectious).
So there would seem to be plenty of permutations there re who had it first and if he did then what happened next (especially if he didn't admit it or thought it was cured). And in fairness syphilis could be conveyed by blood to blood contact thro' old style vaccination, though I suspect this was greatly overemphasised by anti-vaccination campaigners as well as those seeking a convenient excuse.
"If people do get a Lamborghini, and end up on the state pension, the state is much less concerned about that, and that is their choice."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-26649162
It isn't clear...was he prompted i.e the interviewer kept asking what if they decide to buy insert large ticket item...or did he just come out with this out of the blue.
I am presuming given what I have heard of Steve Webb, it was the former, and now we have a news story out of a minister giving an honest answer to a question. Either way, whatever you think of Mr Green's tweet and / or the real long term impacts of this change, this is just a pathetic attack story.
It is now apparently a huge news story...no wonder politicians hardly ever give a straight answer to a question.
It certainly perfectly realistic for a normal working person to build up this kind of money in their pension pot (certainly isn't exclusive to the mega rich) and now they are been offered the chance to do what they want with it.
In addition, what measure in the Budget has unravelled so far?
Welcome to pb.com.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-26649162
Apart from differential tax rates (pay in at 40%, take out at 20%), what advantages are there to such an inflexible, opaque investment?
You appear to be jamming good with weird and gilly.
However, you are right the wondrous hypocrisy of the two Eds lecturing the prudent classes on how they are not responsible enough to handle cash and they know how to spend money better is truly breathtaking given the debt fuelled red ink they left behind.
There's some true intellectual diving lines here between the paternalistic/nannying and letting people get on with their lives without interference from others who think they know better.
Heir to Brown, hard working families, tractors stats up, beer tax down, bingo tax eyes down...headline stuff and smoke and mirrors. The fiscal drag of the 40% tax band ought to hammer Osborne, but I suppose he hopes that he would claim Labour would do worse in that respect.
At any stage of life you should be allowed to defer tax and invest in both your and the nations future.
Politics is good, and the direction is right. I would have put more into a pension if they had these rules 20 years ago.
I played with paint.net, albeit some time ago. I updated it to a new version and then discovered that MS's .Net Framework also needed updating for the new version of paint.net to work.
I believe .Net upgrades (to new major versions) are optional and you may need to select them in Windows/Microsoft Update rather than just get them through automatic updates.
An obvious point, but it may explain why you are having problems with your version of paint.net.
No wonder many folk seem pleased with the proposals. They've spent six years having the pitch doctored against them.
We have to break up Miliband
1) What's the reason for the state giving tax incentives to a form of pension that guarantees a lifetime income?
2) Does tempting people to blow part of their pension pot come in soon enough to help a pre-election consumer boost? (I haven't read it so no clue.)
Doing them as vectors for the base work gives you a whole host of advantages, IMHO at least.
On the PR note, it's a non-issue. To my mind, the biggest potential downside isn't the pronoun but how small the goodies are that are being hyped.
I used the tax-free lump sum wisely though. I bought solar panels with some of it even though I'm not a greenie - but index-linked, tax free payments of around 15% pa for a guaranteed 25 years was too tempting. Thank you, Ed, not so much green as daft. If anyone wants to frack in my back garden, they're very welcome.
So I'm a little envious of the young gits who will have this pension choice now.
Rod, your female ancestor may have had children - or rather been pregnant - as syphilis could have caused miscarriages that wouldn't have been reported.
Labour supporters should be clamouring for Ed Centiband, or better still Ed Deciband!
Not sure I know the phrase for Ed Fullband, doubt we'll need that though
Have you tried Inkscape? A different approach, vector rather than bitmap, but wonderfully stable, flexible and small. Totally free and no adware too. You can import bitmap maps as a base layer and trace/draw in higher layers. Works internally as SVG, which you can text edit, but can output to multiple formats. And not a massive learning curve either.
But I take your point. We'll never know if she was ever pregnant, but as far as I can ascertain there were no live children from this marriage. If they existed they would only be about 13 in April 1891 (census), by which time their father was living in Tottenham with his young, pregnant second wife, who would give birth to my grandfather 8 weeks later... No sign of them.
I'll get my cape ....