Pensions

[srw]

you dont see many old roofers or bricklayers, as their bodies are knackered long before old age.

That's funny. The chap who came round after storms in about 2002 to refit a capping tile must have been 75 if he was a day. The builders who built our extension included several in their 60s. And they started in the middle of the worst snowstorms we'd seen for a decade.

 

[gary in derby]

go on a proper building site. not oh think i will go and do a bit today jobs. different beasts
i know a bricky forman whos mantra is if your backs not bent your not earning. you wouldnt believe the amount of brickies he give the DCM to

 

[Drago]

Drago, I am very pleased you see it that way.

Now here is another thought on this, 74 people a year on average die on building sites. Seems in comparison with the Police it is a very dangerous place to be.

Adrian, you are doing selective reading again.

A similar number of bobbies die whe on duty each year, thoughts its generally only the murders that make the news. I can think if people I knew who've died that way, a motorway officer run over, an officer cycling to work knocked off and killed on the way to work (you're considered in duty from the moment you leave home because its not terribly uncommon to nick soneone on the way to work), a lad had a heart attack while doing the advanced fitness test for a specialist unit. And the list of serious injuries and broken limbs from accident of injury is huge. Lad I know a few years younger than me had just had to retire due to a serious leg injury which gas left him barely able to walk. In a financial sense that's not a bad way to go cos they'll have to compensate him for the loss of his career, his difficulty finding work outside of the police due to his injuries etc. ill get a lesser degree of this as my bionic arm gives me most grief whe driving, so ill be compensated for difficulty finding work as a consequence etc. the formula is so complex it makes you sweat to even think of it.

All the same, I wouldn't want to be a builder, yet soneone had to build our homes and repair them so respect to the builders and artisans that do stick at it.

 

[swee'pea99]

My question to the pension experts out there how much would be needed in the pot to pay this out?

When this whole subject came up on This Week recently, Michael Portillo said that for a private sector retirer to get the equivalent of a teacher's pension after a normal working life in the job, they'd need a pension pot of £700,000.

 

[Drago]

I didn't realise Portillo was qualified to give pensions advice.

4 more years then ill be retiring for maybe a month, before returning to work for the Dark Side. £50 an hour is better than enhoying retirement on Tesco prison-brand beans.

 

[twentysix by twentyfive]

Think I may have a solution to the pension crisis. Allow unrestricted and cheap smoking and subsidise McDonalds - petrol vouchers with every big mac. There ya go - sorted

 

[ASC1951]

A similar number of bobbies die whe on duty each year, thoughts its generally only the murders that make the news. I can think if people I knew who've died that way, a motorway officer run over, an officer cycling to work knocked off and killed on the way to work (you're considered in duty from the moment you leave home because its not terribly uncommon to nick soneone on the way to work), a lad had a heart attack while doing the advanced fitness test for a specialist unit. And the list of serious injuries and broken limbs from accident of injury is huge..

Yebbut. Assault deaths in the UK force has been just over one a year for the last decade, with serious injuries at around 400. http://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2011-10-11a.72028.h
Accidental injuries can happen in any occupation and police work is actually safer than most.

 

[bof]

When this whole subject came up on This Week recently, Michael Portillo said that for a private sector retirer to get the equivalent of a teacher's pension after a normal working life in the job, they'd need a pension pot of £700,000.

With £500K buying an annuity of £19K or so at 65, he's right. I have worked alongside public sector workers who I have the greatest respect for, but when a discussion has turned to pensions or investments many just don't 'get it' when it comes to the choices available to people outside final salary schemes.

 

[swee'pea99]

I didn't realise Portillo was qualified to give pensions advice.
.

I don't suppose he is - nor would claim to be. What does that have to do with it?

The point is, public sector workers have become used to a level of entitlement the private sector has long since found unsustainable, and with demographic trends the way they are, it's a problem that's only going to get worse.

 

[asterix]

Or cutting through to the core issues as we sometimes prefer to say

Do we expect a roofer to chase after the tiles?

I have done a bit of roofing. It is hard work. One problem is that you are working against the slope of the roof, much harder than working on the level. IMO you don't know what you talking about!

 

[Flying Dodo]

[QUOTE 2119593, member: 9609"]And you certainly can't count on a personal pension plan providing for you either - no matter how much money you pump in!

What they told me I was likely to receive when I started over 20 years ago, and what the projections are now are worlds apart, they are now saying I will get about an eighth of what they were saying 22 years ago. Paying into a PPP has been my greatest waste of money![/quote]

It all depends what you're invested in. If you have a decent spread of investments, then in the long term (barring a complete collapse of everything), this would be more secure and diverse, compared with having it all in 1 fund which would be more volatile.

The actual assumed investment returns for illustrations have reduced a number of times in the last 15 years, so any projection would by default look smaller.

With tax relief, investing long term in pensions is likely to do better than anything else, and I don't regret the amount of money stashed away into my various pension plans over the last 30 years.

 

[Drago]

[QUOTE 2120021, member: 9609"]Police pensions shouldn't start until they are 65 / 67. If they can't do their job when they are 50 they should leave and do something else - Plenty of builder etc have to retrain when their backs pack in in their mid 40s, why can't the police be in the same boat.[/quote]
Because you'd have no one wanting to join. They'd then have to lower standards so much to keep recruitment levels going and you'd end up down the U bend.

They don't join for the money - my brother is a shift manager in a clothing warehouse, 8 to 4, weekends off, biggest danger is a paper cut - and he comfortably out earns me with 26 years reckonable service.

Remove the incentive and not only would you have trouble with recruitment, but the existing officers bound to the job solely by pension provision will quit on the spot, and the country would be truly Donald ducked.

 

[GrumpyGregry]

I truly envy my grandparents generation. Pensions like that have been and gone.

Some study or other I read recently suggested 1942 was the best year to be born and if you are hitting 65 in the next 10 - 15 you're stuffed.

 

[GrumpyGregry]

Awesome. Prisoners get community service as a punishment, yet pensioners would be expected to do the same for their income? This guy is a [Expletive Deleted]

The big problem us but the number of pensioners but the mis management of a long series of governments. Instead of the contributions being invested and used as an actual pot to fund my pension, but is used as a giant ponzi scheme where my contributions today are used immediately to fund payouts for current pensioners.

The Government need a big cash injection into state and government pensions so they can be managed properly. Lets halt our overseas aid contributions for less than a year to do this. After all, India has both a space programme and nuclear weapons sure the wont miss it for a bit.

You do talk nonsense at times.

 

[GBC]

[QUOTE 2119593, member: 9609"]And you certainly can't count on a personal pension plan providing for you either - no matter how much money you pump in!

What they told me I was likely to receive when I started over 20 years ago, and what the projections are now are worlds apart, they are now saying I will get about an eighth of what they were saying 22 years ago. Paying into a PPP has been my greatest waste of money![/quote]

+1, although my last indication was almost exactly one tenth of the original illustration in 1985. I'd have been better off putting the money under the mattress.