The reason why we have arguments about pensions is because there is an unreal approach to a benefit which should not be the financial responsibility of the state at all. Neither should private companies be required or expected to contribute to employee retirement schemes. Instead there should be universal reform on these lines.<\/p>\n
Every\u00a0worker\u00a0in whatever sector should be required by law to contribute a\u00a0minimum\u00a0amount to an individual pension fund. Employees would be free to contribute more than the\u00a0minimum \u00a0to a certain maximum. Funds would to have to be of an approved standard but could be offered by normal providers in the financial services industry. The state could hold a minority of shares in propriety companies so as to draw profits back to taxpayers and there could be\u00a0mutual\u00a0providers\u00a0also. An individual fund could be moved from one company to another without significant penalty, but it would remain the property of the employee. Employees could change jobs without any impact on the fund whatsoever. Contribution maximum and minimum levels would vary with age. The outcome at the end would not be related to earnings but to the value of the fund. This would be universal for all employees.<\/p>\n
The vast investment funds which this would generate could provide a capital pool for investment in national projects. Employer’s costs would be significantly reduced allowing for improved salaries, wages and working conditions for the low to middle earners. The universal state OAP would remain as a baseline and could be increased to a level so that other benefits would not be necessary. This could be paid for by withdrawing the benefit pound by pound for all those on retirement income exceeding a certain level, say \u00a375,000 per year.<\/p>\n
Not only would this stop all the arguments in the public sector (save for the fact that the union leaders would\u00a0probably\u00a0strike themselves into oblivion when the change took place) but it would significantly improve the\u00a0prospects\u00a0for the private sector employees, where pension provision is now haphazard and some of the schemes on offer a waste of money. It would detach both\u00a0the government and employers\u00a0from a sector of people’s lives where they have no place to be and which both have exploited to the detriment of individuals personally\u00a0and the nation’s well-being\u00a0as a whole.<\/p>\n
Finally it would set the nation on a path where growth came not from borrowing on international markets but from investment from within. This is how it used to be before financial orthodoxy went off the rails. This may be blue sky thinking, but remember it is from blue sky that the sun shines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The reason why we have arguments about pensions is because there is an unreal approach to a benefit which should not be the financial responsibility of the state at all. Neither should private companies be required or expected to contribute to employee retirement schemes. Instead there should be universal reform on these lines. Every\u00a0worker\u00a0in whatever […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-malcolm-blair-robinson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4423"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4423\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4428,"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4423\/revisions\/4428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.malcolmblair-robinson.co.uk\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}