Potential Plan B idea

**moorfield** · 22 January 2009, 23:16

It won't be too long before the lazy tube drivers wheel out Bob Crow to have a whinge and a strike about their final salary pensions. Get those walking shoes ready...

**expat** · 22 January 2009, 23:21

Originally posted by PM-Junkie View Post

....set up a private fire service, ambulance service and security service for when all the public sector pensions get frozen and the mass strikes start. And they will, if this is to be believed:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7846122.stm

The plot thickens....

I don't see anything in there about public sector pensions, only private final salary schemes. Public sector pensions are unfunded, and therefore not subject to any fund's inability to cover the liabilities. They are paid from taxation, which is non-voluntary (that is why gilts are reliable: the people who are going to repay them will do so at the point of a gun).

Not that the Plan B is a bad one .....

**moorfield** · 22 January 2009, 23:23

Originally posted by expat View Post

I don't see anything in there about public sector pensions, only private final salary schemes.

Not yet... and I wonder how many of the firms questioned are or soon will be nationalised.

**PM-Junkie** · 22 January 2009, 23:29

Originally posted by expat View Post

I don't see anything in there about public sector pensions, only private final salary schemes. Public sector pensions are unfunded, and therefore not subject to any fund's inability to cover the liabilities. They are paid from taxation, which is non-voluntary (that is why gilts are reliable: the people who are going to repay them will do so at the point of a gun).

Not that the Plan B is a bad one .....

You seriously think people will sit idly by when all the private sector final salary schemes have been locked down and say how happy they are for those in the public sector to continue?

Once/if the private sector schemes are locked down, the public sector schemes' days are numbered. Especially as we can't afford them anyway.

Strikes are a-coming.

**KentPhilip** · 22 January 2009, 23:59

A mate of mine runs his own private ambulance business in the horse-riding area. Doing OK at the moment. PM me and you can ask him some questions if you like.

**expat** · 23 January 2009, 00:00

Originally posted by PM-Junkie View Post

You seriously think people will sit idly by when all the private sector final salary schemes have been locked down and say how happy they are for those in the public sector to continue?

Yes, I do. Oh, they'll complain, as they complained about the pensions tax grab, but they won't do anything.

They might even only complain as much as they did about "key worker" house purchase schemes, i.e. scarcely at all, possibly because they didn't realise that if you're not a public sector worker then you're not a key worker - so these schemes are really just ways to use taxpayers' money to kick members of the public off the prospective housing ladder so that apparatchiks can get on.

Not a good precedent for any hope of equality between public sector and the rest of us.

**PM-Junkie** · 23 January 2009, 00:13

Originally posted by expat View Post

Yes, I do. Oh, they'll complain, as they complained about the pensions tax grab, but they won't do anything.

They might even only complain as much as they did about "key worker" house purchase schemes, i.e. scarcely at all, possibly because they didn't realise that if you're not a public sector worker then you're not a key worker - so these schemes are really just ways to use taxpayers' money to kick members of the public off the prospective housing ladder so that apparatchiks can get on.

Not a good precedent for any hope of equality between public sector and the rest of us.

You are missing the gigantic elephant in the room though - not only is there not the money to fund these public sector pension schemes in their current format, but there is no prospect of being able to fund them for at least a decade, probably longer. So they will simply have to be dealt with - and then the fun starts.

**Gonzo** · 23 January 2009, 00:28

Originally posted by PM-Junkie View Post

You are missing the gigantic elephant in the room though - not only is there not the money to fund these public sector pension schemes in their current format, but there is no prospect of being able to fund them for at least a decade, probably longer. So they will simply have to be dealt with - and then the fun starts.

The politicians that address this in advance will get no thanks for doing it. Unfortunately (for everyone) it is in the politicians' best interests not to deal with the problem until the system collapses in a heap, as it will inevitably do.

**expat** · 23 January 2009, 08:42

Originally posted by Gonzo View Post

The politicians that address this in advance will get no thanks for doing it. Unfortunately (for everyone) it is in the politicians' best interests not to deal with the problem until the system collapses in a heap, as it will inevitably do.

I know, I know.

Policitians can't be held to account for the consequences of their actions when those consequences only manifest themselves years after the politicians have gone.

Perhaps the answer is a constitutional prohibition on politicians making any decisions for later governments? This is not off the wall: Thomas Jefferson argued that the United States should not have a national bank, because that would allow one administration to accept obligations that would have to be discharged by a later administration, so that later administration would not be free and sovereign.

Potential Plan B idea