Pensioners will be hardest hit by rising inflation, with figures suggesting that those over 65 will lose more than £700 a year..
For, you see, pensioners as a whole have a lower poverty rate than the population as a whole. Thus we have the least poor part of the population taking a larger portion of the economic hit that must be shared……
It might make sense economically but not if your are a politician looking for votes.
The baby boomer cohort is just moving in to retirement age and as all politicians know the elderly are more likely vote than young people.
I am now semi-retired and work two days per week for a charity that is partly funded by the taxpayer. I reconciled this with my libertarian beliefs once I realised that my after tax pay was less than the loss suffered on my lifetime savings through government created inflation. So my salary is really a partial tax refund!
So the group least likely to be responsible for the massive debt splurge of the past ten years takes the biggest hit in inflating it away?
Well, that’s fair then. Also a great incentive to save.
Here’s a good one to think about when next you ponder the importance of adhering to the rule of law, as long as it relates to taxpayer funds being spent on bankers’s bonuses.
I have a relative aged 74, retired and with pension in payment for over nine years. They paid into the Scottish Education Department pension scheme for 39 years, all the while believing that the pension they received would be index linked. Up to April 2010, their pension was indeed index-linked. In April 2010, the Treasury removed the indexation element from their pension. They have gone from having an inflation proof income to having one exposed to inflation overnight, without a moment’s consultation.
The demand for cheap money which has fuelled low interest rates has also eroded the value of their savings. Their spouse was infirm before they retired, and since their retirement they have been their spouse’s sole carer. They receive no state assistance, only because they are petrified of anyone from outside the family nosying about their business, a mindset not uncommon among those who grew up in tenements.
This person has committed no crime other than expect the contract they honoured to be honoured in turn. Now that’s not happening.
I think you’d agree that’s all a bit shit, wouldn’t you? But we’re all in it together. I do hope Fuckface Osborne either doesn’t go, or hasn’t been, to Davos this year, because that would be an unseemly waste of public funds is times of austerity.
And for what it’s worth, if that sort of treatment is good enough for my relative, it’s good enough for Heseltine. His minsterial pension should be means-tested, because we were always told he was a gazillionaire, and so he might not need it.
Tim,
Sorry I was a bit of a sore arse in these comments. Lots of things goings, etc., ad nauseam.
Best,
MK
So the group least likely to be responsible for the massive debt splurge of the past ten years takes the biggest hit in inflating it away?
Hmm. Except for the fact that they’re the group that bought houses for a grand that are now worth half a million thanks to the debt-fuelled housing boom, and therefore benefited more than anyone else from it.