gravy wrote:
It's interesting talking to people at work though, quite a lot are either ambivalent or pro-union with the independence supporters being in the minority.
Yeah, I think among my peer group the pro-independence lot are a minority. I have one English friend who takes the whole idea as a personal insult. It's certainly the anti-English idiots who shout loudest about independence, but I think there are more rational supporters than not.
I'm half English, so that's certainly not where my support comes from (My mum is whole-English and she supports it too). Ideally I'd like to see a federal UK, but I don't think that will ever happen.
As far as Westminster goes, I think as unpopular as they are the Tories might get in again next time. Miliband is just unelectable I reckon. Labour need a real shake up.
Because fucking marketing cunts would never call a spade anything other than a Deluxe Easi-Shift Earth Movement Solution.
Ratsoap wrote:It's certainly the anti-English idiots who shout loudest about independence,
I quite enjoy reminding such people how it was King James VI of Scotland that created the union with England after he inherited the English throne. Tends to baffle, confuse and shut the fuck up. Also gets me called an English smart arse that supports the oppression of Scotland... Oh well...
I've always been pro-union but also a supporter of devolved government. What frustrates me with the SNP independence argument is that the same can be said of a lot of English counties historically frustrated with London centric governance. To be really honest, I think the majority of anti-English sentiment in Scotland boils down to football and the BBC.
If the BBC were banned from ever mentioning the 1966 World Cup and included the SFA prominently on the evening news I think 99% of Scotland would be happy as is.
So I am reading BBC news today, I think this is pretty scary, have you seen the thing about the new pension scheme reform ?
It's getting like the US, where basically now ( part of at least ) of your pension is tied to the workplace not the government.
I don't like the fact that it seems you don't have an option to opt-out from this but you are kind forced to have it.
Isn't it "the beginning of the end" or "it's already the end" ?
Should not be "the state" by itself "the best and safest thing to handle all this" isn't all this like admitting "the whole pension
stuff in the state is completly fucked up and we can't fix it any more" ?
Aren't we going to risk situations "A la' Enron" where "something big collapses and all your pensions are going bye bye ?".
Why now we should have "insurance companies" taking care of our pensions ?
This to me sounds really like BIG SHIT, something of massive crap porportions is going on.
What do you think about all this ?
At this point we are getting to the level of "screw that all up, I am not going to pay you any extra shit of anything, give me
my money I'll save it my own".
gilesgoat wrote:So I am reading BBC news today, I think this is pretty scary, have you seen the thing about the new pension scheme reform ?
It's getting like the US, where basically now ( part of at least ) of your pension is tied to the workplace not the government.
I don't like the fact that it seems you don't have an option to opt-out from this but you are kind forced to have it.
Isn't it "the beginning of the end" or "it's already the end" ?
Should not be "the state" by itself "the best and safest thing to handle all this" isn't all this like admitting "the whole pension
stuff in the state is completly fucked up and we can't fix it any more" ?
Aren't we going to risk situations "A la' Enron" where "something big collapses and all your pensions are going bye bye ?".
Why now we should have "insurance companies" taking care of our pensions ?
This to me sounds really like BIG SHIT, something of massive crap porportions is going on.
What do you think about all this ?
At this point we are getting to the level of "screw that all up, I am not going to pay you any extra shit of anything, give me
my money I'll save it my own".
It does not sound really good to me.
The aim is to reduce the burden on the taxpayer/Government finances and provide a broader range of workers the chance to have a workplace pension on top of the State minimum. The real kick in the teeth is that for the majority it will mean the end of final salary schemes, where your pension value is related to the level of your pay at the end of your career. And as gravy said, you can opt out of the workplace scheme.
gilesgoat wrote:Should not be "the state" by itself "the best and safest thing to handle all this" isn't all this like admitting "the whole pension stuff in the state is completly fucked up and we can't fix it any more" ?
Not quite in those terms, but roughly, yes. The existing pension system was designed when on average the pension only had to fill in a few years between the state pension age and death. That's pushing up over a decade now and two in the future and that makes the system unaffordable.
Simple maths: consider having half as many pensioners as workers and the average tax rate on workers of 20% - then a pension of 40% of average wage would consume all income tax.
The problem is that the state pension is nothing more than a pyramid scheme. The only reason it's "safer in the government's hands" is it's only a government that is allowed to run a scheme as flawed as that. But by that logic you could say a private pension is better. But they just aren't, they still boil down to the majority bottom supporting the minority top which doesn't match up the situation we're looking at. And investment growth/return is too slow compared to the changing shape of the population.
A lot of people think the pension crisis is pretty bad at the moment. I think we're just scratching the surface and it's going to get a whole lot worse. It's hard to see any real value in pension schemes when growth and interest is so low and it's seemingly impossible for the younger generation to find jobs. So I do fear that a lot more of us are going to have to get used to the idea of a work based retirement. My father's on the cusp of that at the moment, with a miniscule state pension and a not very healthy private pension to his name.
Grim.
Pensions and the NHS are what will decide the next election for me.
Yes, I think a lot of people on private pensions are in for a very rude shock. I doubt there will be many of them (including mine) worth more than about 25% of their salary, completly unlike our parents' generation.
England is the one that lacks its own national assembly / parliament. England is the one that lacks its own national anthem (distinct from the British anthem). England is the one lacking its own self-identity, in this regard.
England is the actual cause of this problem, in that it still defiantly defines itself by its imperial conquests in a post-imperial age.
Indeed, if England properly equalised itself within the union, then I think you'd find the Scottish and Welsh and Cornish and everyone else would be perfectly happy to re-subscribe back up to a genuinely equal union (with something akin to the USA's "state rights" for each nation to primarily handle its own affairs, when it's not an inherently shared responsibility like, say, defence), in exactly the same way that most of the former "British colonies" were happy to re-subscribe back up to "the Commonwealth of Nations", once the former master / slave ownership relationship was re-formulated as a peer-to-peer "let's all trade together, for mutual benefit" relationship instead.
What pissed them off, what pisses off the Scottish and the Welsh, is the feeling of being a second-class "slave" nation to the English.
"The West Lothian question" is not caused by Scottish devolution. It's really caused by a lack of comparable English devolution.
Because, otherwise, were there an English Parliament, then the solution would be perfectly obvious and implicit; every national parliament deals with its own internal affairs. Except where it's a union-level responsibility, which would be the remit of Westminster, becoming quite unambiguously "the British Parliament", in the proper sense of a parliament dealing with union-level matters.
In fact, the essence of the entire problem is summed up quite neatly by the very fact that even though it's England that's the clear exception in all of this, I'm likely to be the first person that many of you have heard phrase the issue in this way. To call for English Independence instead (in an anti-nationalist and pro-union way, at least).
And that is the essence of the problem the Scots and the Welsh - and the Cornish and the Cumbrians and the North and, heck, even the Indians and the Pakistanis and the Irish and the Australians and the Kiwis and the Canadians and the Americans.... - have or have had.
It's not all these places that have been getting it wrong, it's England that's been getting it wrong in its relationship with them.
Switching from "master / slave" to "equal peer-to-peer" instead and all these places were perfectly happy to remain good friends and have "special relationships" or "share the Commonwealth" with England. It's not England or the English they hated, it's the slave shackles that England once placed upon them that they rightly despised.
England is the exception here. England is the one with the identity crisis.
England is the one that needs to become independent - in order to find out who it is, standing on its own two feet, without trying to define itself by its past conquests over others and how much "imperial property" it owned. That was always just a cheap substitute for "patriotism" anyhow.
There is much to recommend England as well. It should not be afraid to try.
"Words ought to be a little wild - for they are assaults of thought on the unthinking."
- John Maynard Keynes
KlaxonCow wrote:I'm more interested in English Independence.
England is the one that lacks its own national assembly / parliament. England is the one that lacks its own national anthem (distinct from the British anthem). England is the one lacking its own self-identity, in this regard.
England is the actual cause of this problem, in that it still defiantly defines itself by its imperial conquests in a post-imperial age.
Indeed, if England properly equalised itself within the union, then I think you'd find the Scottish and Welsh and Cornish and everyone else would be perfectly happy to re-subscribe back up to a genuinely equal union (with something akin to the USA's "state rights" for each nation to primarily handle its own affairs, when it's not an inherently shared responsibility like, say, defence), in exactly the same way that most of the former "British colonies" were happy to re-subscribe back up to "the Commonwealth of Nations", once the former master / slave ownership relationship was re-formulated as a peer-to-peer "let's all trade together, for mutual benefit" relationship instead.
What pissed them off, what pisses off the Scottish and the Welsh, is the feeling of being a second-class "slave" nation to the English.
"The West Lothian question" is not caused by Scottish devolution. It's really caused by a lack of comparable English devolution.
Because, otherwise, were there an English Parliament, then the solution would be perfectly obvious and implicit; every national parliament deals with its own internal affairs. Except where it's a union-level responsibility, which would be the remit of Westminster, becoming quite unambiguously "the British Parliament", in the proper sense of a parliament dealing with union-level matters.
In fact, the essence of the entire problem is summed up quite neatly by the very fact that even though it's England that's the clear exception in all of this, I'm likely to be the first person that many of you have heard phrase the issue in this way. To call for English Independence instead (in an anti-nationalist and pro-union way, at least).
And that is the essence of the problem the Scots and the Welsh - and the Cornish and the Cumbrians and the North and, heck, even the Indians and the Pakistanis and the Irish and the Australians and the Kiwis and the Canadians and the Americans.... - have or have had.
It's not all these places that have been getting it wrong, it's England that's been getting it wrong in its relationship with them.
Switching from "master / slave" to "equal peer-to-peer" instead and all these places were perfectly happy to remain good friends and have "special relationships" or "share the Commonwealth" with England. It's not England or the English they hated, it's the slave shackles that England once placed upon them that they rightly despised.
England is the exception here. England is the one with the identity crisis.
England is the one that needs to become independent - in order to find out who it is, standing on its own two feet, without trying to define itself by its past conquests over others and how much "imperial property" it owned. That was always just a cheap substitute for "patriotism" anyhow.
There is much to recommend England as well. It should not be afraid to try.
The problem with that idea is that "Eng-a-lund" is the cry of fascists, loonies or sports fans (logical "or"). I think of myself as British in part to distance myself from the NF and the BNP.
"My way is the way of not fighting":- the book of Enter the Dragon.
The thing is, pensions speaking, no matter how you turn this thing round the only logic thing it could work would be increase
quite a bit what you put away for it, instead of being 20% probably it should be more around 40% if not more.
That you pay if via the government, or a private thing or you save it yourself "make your computations", assume when you
think you'll stop working ( earning money ), how many years left you assume to live and with how much you want per month
at that time and you'll see how much money you need to start saving.
Fact is, do that and I am quite sure "all in sudden no one is earning enough money for that" and/or labour costs will go the
moon.
But the question is whether the tax benefits outweigh the risk of the value of pension annuities plunging catastrophically when you come to cash-in. Personally I'm putting less into a pension than I might (and more elsewhere) for this reason. Pensions are massively inflexible ways to save.
I'm confused as to how Scotland as a region could manage on its own. The main industries appear to be oil and tourism (please correct me if I'm wrong, I don't know of any manufacturing, and I am assuming that fishing and the like are much smaller in terms of the revenue they bring to the region), so if Scotland became independent, assuming the oil companies didn't all smeg off to England and take their fields with them, it's left with one industry that will last more than the next few decades.
I may be looking at it simplistically, but doesn't that leave Scotland as a potential nation with essentially no income? Is there a lot more to it that I'm not seeing?
OMG (or oligodendrocyte myelin glycoprotein) is a molecule found in your central nervous system.
venusian wrote:But the question is whether the tax benefits outweigh the risk of the value of pension annuities plunging catastrophically when you come to cash-in. Personally I'm putting less into a pension than I might (and more elsewhere) for this reason. Pensions are massively inflexible ways to save.
Depends on what you're comparing it against. If it's putting your post tax income under a mattress I'd be amazed if that ended up being the better deal.
Also gets me called an English smart arse that supports the oppression of Scotland... Oh well...
