bridge too far

Unless you never, every buy anything or pay anything (I'm thinking insurance, food, white goods, cars.......) you are, unwittingly, contributing to the someone's pension. The sad thing though is that the pension you're unwittingly contributing to is more likely to be for a fat cat than it is for the ordinary worker in the business that you're buying from.

Three threads on this now

Excellent, Rallyboy - just excellent!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/13845203.stm

Such a shame because she's so talented - when she's sober / clean.

1. Why do you call him a hippie? 2. He wasn't camping on private property. Last time I looked, College Green was a public space. 3. Whether or not you agree with him, you have to admire his tenacity and his willingness to stand up for freedom of speech. Edit: as Andy says above

Thanks guys! Perhaps she should just continue to watch her dad for a couple of years. She's very well co-ordinated for her age and, if she doesn't want to dance, I want her to do something that improves co-ordination and posture. I'm still hoping she'll want to dance in years to come though.

http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/showthread.php?30850-Peace-campaigner-dies

What is a good age for a child to start karate? My 3 year old granddaughter has decided ballet is not for her () but she loves copying her father when he does his karate moves (he's a black belt I think although he doesn't do it so much these days).

Perhaps one of the reasons that secondary schools were perceived to be failures is that the children who ended up there were labelled 'failures'. Another reason could be that resources were disproportionately allocated to the grammar schools. And I speak as one who 'benefited' from a grammar school education as did all my children as we lived in Buckinghamshire at the time, one of the few counties left that has selection. Grammar schools were elitist back in the day. I was one of the few working class girls who went to my grammar school and was regularly made to feel like a second-class citizen because my father was a builder and everyone else had doctors or solicitors or the like for parents. With true comprehensive education there is always the opportunity for children to succeed as they develop at different rates. One of my daughter's friends failed her 11+ in Buckinghamshire and went to an underachieving secondary school. She was a late developer and did well at her school against the odds. She is now fashion editor for a large glossy magazine. I think Ed Miliband went to a comprehensive school. He seemed to do OK, having gone to Oxford and the LSE.

^^^ Wasn't it Spyker?

I remember, in my early management days, being told that if a meeting took longer than an hour, it was not a well-managed or productive meeting. I was also told that if people were working ridiculously long hours then their productivity decreased as their hours increased but that errors increased with line with extra hours and tiredness. And it was considered a sign of bad management to have people regularly working more than 48 hours a week (as well as being illegal, of course). Either the worker's competence or the job expectations and targets needed to be looked at.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13828800 As one comment says "Agree with his views or otherwise, the world is a better place for people who peacefully hold the courage of their convictions and try and do something, whether right or wrong. Thank goodness we live in a country where it is still - just - possible to protest in this way"

What a shame you didn't bother to read all of the link that Jonnyboy posted earlier. You will see that the happiest and most productive countries are those with a fairer distribution of wealth and better support networks. Here's the link again to save you the trouble of scrolling back http://www.alternet.org/world/151312/9_countries_that_do_it_better%3A_why_does_europe_take_better_care_of_its_people_than_america?page=entire

Or you could call it flip-flopping, a sign of a weak leader........ http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3645903/Tories-worse-for-u-turns-than-Labour.html?OTC-RSS&ATTR=News#mySunComments http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/jun/18/pensions-reform-unions-public-sector-treasury How are these U-turns going to be funded, I wonder.

Uh-oh! Do I smell U Turn no. 13 coming up? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13824173

https://www.facebook.com/#!/SteveCotterillPFC

And how is this profit made?

With private sector pensions, the employee pays a contribution as does the employer. Where does the money for the employer's contribution come from? And does that employer get tax relief on the pension contributions he pays?

Odd that you should think this. When my daughter was studying for her A level Maths, her father, a Maths with Physics graduate, was both surprised and pleased to see that she was studying stuff he'd done as part of his degree!

The average scheme has already been brought into the NHS scheme. You miss my point that lower paid workers generally can't afford to contribute to a scheme, regardless of how it is calculated. So it won't make an iota of difference to them.

No I can't because I haven't seen actuarial evidence that this is so. When I first joined the NHS, shortly after a divorce and on average clerical wages, I simply couldn't afford to join the NHS pension scheme. Food and rent took priority. I could only afford to join once I'd been promoted to senior management level. On that evidence, and judging by the experience of staff working for me, I can tell you that a large number of low paid NHS employees can't afford to join the scheme. So they're not going to benefit at all, regardless of how the pensions are calculated. Incidentally the Local Government pension scheme is self funding and will be so for at least 25 years.

No they won't because they'll probably withdraw from the schemes altogether. Their contributions will be frozen at the point of withdrawal so will be worth bugger all when they do eventually retire. This will mean they will be dependent on the state pension, whatever that will be in years to come, and pension credits. So we'll all end up paying top-ups for people who can't afford to pay into pension schemes whether in the public or private sector.

Very sound advice Dune. I'm sure loads of public sector workers on barely more than the minimum wage will file your helpful words away for the time when they can afford those AVCs.

And do you know why this was the case? It was because many women, who are also mothers, took career breaks when they had their children. Not only did this mean that their salaries at retirement would be significantly lower than their male counterparts; it also meant they had fewer years to contribute to their state pension pot via full NI contribuitons, let alone any private provision. But you know this is changing and that womens' retirement age is being increased to bring them in line with the male retirement age.