Why are people obsessed with getting a pension

high_king

awec wrote: »

Anyone who thinks a pension is a bad idea should go to a financial advisor and get them to run some numbers. Even just for curiosities sake. They will ask you what sort of retirement you want, like what you want to do, any hobbies etc. They'll come up with a figure as to how much you'll need each year, and then tell you how much you need to be saving to get that.

And you will be shocked.

Almost no one thinks a pension of some form or type is a bad idea, what some better off people with plenty spare cash left every week, don't seem to grasp is when you can barely make ends meet to afford accommodation, supporting a family, paying all the other taxes and stealth charges. . . any savings, never mind pensions have to take a back burner.

Also what people wise to successive Irish governments and politicians of all shades, suspect, is given the constant lies told and promises in the past, that this is very likey, not matter what anyone denies, the first step in making the state pension means tested only, i.e. only the non contributory state pension will be left intact. In other words the wealthy will be grand, and those in the welfare classes who never work and pay feck all taxes will be grand, but the ordinary working joe who worked like a dog all his life and paid all his taxes, will qualify for feck all, other that what pittance he could afford to pay into this crappy new scheme, of which, as usual, the usually politically well connected mega companies running it will benefit most of all in fat fees and admin charges. What's left of his pittance will then be confiscated from the working man with the "fair deal" scheme, but the waster will as usual get first class nursing care for free.

It can be denied all day, but this is not the start of a scheme to save the contributory state pension for workers, its the start of a scheme to save the non contributory state pension for the wasters, while abolishing any decent state pension for ultra squeezed lower middle, while making nice fat fees for the golden circle. Life isn't going to begin at 70, as the "fair deal" scheme knows all too well.

GreeBo

KyussB wrote: »

The thread is currently bumped due to government enacting auto-enrollment into private pensions, which has spurred the discussion on whether government should be subsidizing private pensions and the finance industry in this way - versus maintaining/expanding proper public pensions instead.

Yeah I know that, but the question of whether or not one should have a pension (be that auto enrolled or not) is still far more important than whether public pensions are funded 1:1 from tax or borrowings from the sale of moon biscuits.


Filling the thread with those arguments is just pushing away the very people who need to be reading about WHY they should have a private pension.

GreeBo

high_king wrote: »

Almost no one thinks a pension is a bad idea, what some better off people don't seem to grasp is when you can barely make ends meet to afford accommodation, supporting a family, paying all the other taxes and stealth charges. . . any savings, never mind pensions have to take a back burner.

and what some of the less well off people dont seem to grasp is that if you are struggling now, while you are earning, what on earth are you going to do when you are 65 and dont have any income other than the €248/week the government is going to AT BEST give you?

Squozen

KyussB wrote: »

That is false - the retirement age in Australia was falling until the introduction of auto-enrollment in 1992 - and thereafter the retirement age has been increasing:

Great, we have contradicting figures.
https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/6238.0

donkey balls

I was lucky to start my pension in my early 20s and around 30 I left the company but still had the funds left there,I am playing catch up since as I didn't have a pension after leaving the company who Inhad the pension with.
Saying that I lost my job in 08 due to the downturn so from there on till 2016, I lived and worked doing agency work so the last thing on my mind would be paying into a pension fund.
Myself personally if in a full time job back then i would have tried to put some money away, But there is always Bill's to pay or people may have dependants that come first.

high_king

GreeBo wrote: »

and what some of the less well off people dont seem to grasp is that if you are struggling now, while you are earning, what on earth are you going to do when you are 65 and dont have any income other than the €248/week the government is going to AT BEST give you?

What to you expect them to do "magic" extra money after paying for accommodation and feeding a family and all their other taxes ? Are you really that detached from reality ? and they can deny it all they like, but this scheme is designed to make sure there won't even be 248 a week for anyone who worked for a living.

KyussB

GreeBo wrote: »

Yeah I know that, but the question of whether or not one should have a pension (be that auto enrolled or not) is still far more important than whether public pensions are funded 1:1 from tax or borrowings from the sale of moon biscuits.


Filling the thread with those arguments is just pushing away the very people who need to be reading about WHY they should have a private pension.

Perhaps people should have a private pension. They should not be automatically forced into a private pension, though - espcially given the state of the private pension industry's ethics, through investing in all manner of unethical industries, ranging from fossil fuel, tobacco, pharma - and many industries busy exploiting the developing world - and often dealing with tax havens shuffling the proceeds of financial/capital plundering in the developing world.

Pension funds do not have the combination of transparency and informed choice of investments needed, in order to pick a pension which people can be confident has an ethical set of investments.

Add to that, the calculations for returns on pensions often touted, do not factor in that ethical investments will not have the rate of return of unethical/exploitative investments, due to the competitive advantages they have (through externalized costs and various indirect forms of exploitation of cheap/poorly-treated labour, exploitation of third world resources where corruption was used to gain favourable access at the expense of the public etc..).

It's a can of worms. Anyone with a conscience and who cares about ethics, will have trouble navigating it - not just because they are not financial experts, not experts on the companies/investments their money gets put in, often not fully informed of the specific investments of their pension through disinterest and/or lack of transparency etc. - but because it is almost impossible to successfully navigate towards having fully ethical investments, which also generate safe returns.

That's before you even get to the fact that a huge number of financial institutions involved in providing pensions, have lengthy rap sheets for continuous neverending fraud...

Ethics matter - it's not all about money.

Squozen

high_king wrote: »

What to you expect them to do "magic" extra money after paying for accommodation and feeding a family and all their other taxes ? Are you really that detached from reality ? and they can deny it all they like, but this scheme is designed to make sure there won't even be 248 a week for anyone who worked for a living.

The idea is to pay into your pension BEFORE paying those other bills. You won't miss €10-20 a fortnight out of your pay packet if you never see it.

GreeBo

Squozen wrote: »

Great, we have contradicting figures.
https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/6238.0

The overall average is just over 55, but the average from the last 5 years is 62

"The average retirement age for people aged 45 years and over in Australia is 55.3 years. But we're tending to retire later in life. When you narrow it down to people who've retired in the past five years, the average increases to 62.9 years"

so you are both right....or wrong, depending on how you look at it.

GreeBo

KyussB wrote: »

Perhaps people should have a private pension. They should not be automatically forced into a private pension, though -

You are not forced, just opt-out?

KyussB

Squozen wrote: »

Great, we have contradicting figures.
https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/6238.0

The figures in the link you give, come with this rather lengthy disclaimer, that pretty much renders the 55 retirement age unreliable:

It is important to note that data on retirement age presented in this summary only refer to 'surviving' retirees aged 45 years and over in 2016–17. Based on this, the distribution of retirement age in this population may not be representative of the age at which all persons retire. For example, based on Australian life expectancy, a person who retired aged 40 years in 1992 (aged 65 years in 2017) would more likely be alive to participate in this survey than a person who retired aged 65 years in 1992 (aged 90 years in 2017). This effect will be more pronounced for estimates presented in relation to persons who retired a long time ago, but will have some effect on all estimates, particularly as 30% of the retired population included in this summary retired more than 20 years ago. It should also be noted that persons living in non-private dwellings such as retirement homes are excluded from this survey. This may result in the average age at retirement data being lower than reality.

KyussB

GreeBo wrote: »

You are not forced, just opt-out?

It shouldn't be an opt-out situation in the first place. The government has no place subsidizing-by-default the private pension industry.

GreeBo

high_king wrote: »

What to you expect them to do "magic" extra money after paying for accommodation and feeding a family and all their other taxes ? Are you really that detached from reality ?

What are they expecting to do for money once they retire.."magic" *any* money into existence?
How are they going to pay for accomodation and feeding a family with ZERO income?
Are they that detached from reality that they dont think about their future?

and they can deny it all they like, but this scheme is designed to make sure there won't even be 248 a week for anyone who worked for a living.

Who is "they"? They big bad government?
A pension is for *your* benefit and no one else, not having a private pension because you somehow think thats "sticking it to the man" is just juvenile and is what leads people to be destitute in their later years.

A not small number of these people who believe they dont have money still drink and smoke and go out, the cost of living in the present is only their future, sure what harm?


Btw, its the "they" who these people are banking on to look after them in their old age...funny how attitudes change.

high_king

Squozen wrote: »

The idea is to pay into your pension BEFORE paying those other bills. You won't miss €10-20 a fortnight out of your pay packet if you never see it.

Jesus, you are detached from reality, some working people can't meet the mortgage or pay for the kids basic needs / heating every week, never mind lock extra money away for 20 -30 years. And 10 per week for someone in middle age now, who is has been paying the pension prsi all their working life, is never going to pay an annuity anywhere near 248 per week.

GreeBo

KyussB wrote: »

It shouldn't be an opt-out situation in the first place. The government has no place subsidizing-by-default the private pension industry.

Care to explain how this is subsidizing private pensions?
What is wrong with people having to opt out of something that is inherently in their interests to be part of?
Its no different to opting out of being an organ donor imo.

GreeBo

high_king wrote: »

Jesus, you are detached from reality, some working people can't meet the mortgage or pay for the kids basic needs / heating every week, never mind lock money away fro 20 -30 years. And 10 per week for someone in middle age now, who is has been paying the pension prsi all their working life, is never going to pay an annuity anywhere near 248 per week.

Ok, lets go with this.
Please explain how these people are going to survive when they have no income?

GreeBo

KyussB wrote: »

Anyone with a conscience and who cares about ethics, will have trouble navigating it - not just because they are not financial experts, not experts on the companies/investments their money gets put in, often not fully informed of the specific investments of their pension through disinterest and/or lack of transparency etc. - but because it is almost impossible to successfully navigate towards having fully ethical investments, which also generate safe returns.

Anyone with a conscience will provide for their families future above all else.

Ethics matter - it's not all about money.

Tell that to the 70 year olds who dont have enough money to put the heat or kettle on.

KyussB

GreeBo wrote: »

What are they expecting to do for money once they retire.."magic" *any* money into existence?
How are they going to pay for accomodation and feeding a family with ZERO income?
Are they that detached from reality that they dont think about their future?


Who is "they"? They big bad government?
A pension is for *your* benefit and no one else, not having a private pension because you somehow think thats "sticking it to the man" is just juvenile and is what leads people to be destitute in their later years.

A not small number of these people who believe they dont have money still drink and smoke and go out, the cost of living in the present is only their future, sure what harm?


Btw, its the "they" who these people are banking on to look after them in their old age...funny how attitudes change.

A private pension is in the finance industries interest, primarily, as it makes people dependent on the finance industry - the one that lobbies constantly to collecively harm our ability to be self-sufficient financially, so we end up dependent on them - and causes people to 'buy-in' to their unethical practices by putting their money into that.

A proper publicly provided pension with additional social supports depending on circumstances, that guarantee a person enough necessary funding to live comfortably within the present cost of living, is what's needed - simply as a social safety net - and it's not a difficult goal.

high_king

GreeBo wrote: »

Ok, lets go with this.
Please explain how these people are going to survive when they have no income?

They were at least going to get 248 a week, please explain how they will live on LESS when they no longer qualify for the non contrib scheme because they were working too hard, instead of taking the handy welfare route, and paying prsi but couldn't afford this extra scheme ?

GreeBo

KyussB wrote: »

A private pension is in the finance industries interest, primarily, as it makes people dependent on the finance industry and causes people to 'buy-in' to their unethical practices.

You are suddenly obsessed with ethics...can you eat ethics? Do ethics keep your house warm? Do cars run on ethics?

A proper publicly provided pension with additional social supports depending on circumstances, that guarantee a person enough necessary funding to live comfortably within the present cost of living, is what's needed - simply as a social safety net - and it's not a difficult goal.

Speaking of magic money...where does the cash come for this public pension pot and additional social supports?
Let me guess, its from those poor sods who go out and work every day in those unethical jobs that you so despise?

TL;DR
I'm alright as someone else will pay for me.

and you have the temerity to talk about ethics!

kennethsmyth

GreeBo wrote: »

Ok, lets go with this.
Please explain how these people are going to survive when they have no income?

He’s referring to the fact that the government will not run these pensions, instead they are setting up a quango to identify multiple pension policies from private pension companies which no doubt due to our government’s incompetence or shear corruption will not provide as good a return (or has heavy fees) as maybe one you get yourself. As it’s a group policy essentially it really should be extremely good value, but it won’t.

Additionally the opt-out method is a bit if the old mandatory but not compulsory type effort - you have to stay 6 months and there will be fees involved, if you opt out the government should be made repay these fees or it’s essentially stealing and fully against your will. By the way I have my own pension so no skin in this game.

kennethsmyth

GreeBo wrote: »

Care to explain how this is subsidizing private pensions?
What is wrong with people having to opt out of something that is inherently in their interests to be part of?
Its no different to opting out of being an organ donor imo.

Apologies my reply was meant to be about the sbove

pensions are good people should do what they can about getting one

everything else is just boards.ie

KyussB

GreeBo wrote: »

Care to explain how this is subsidizing private pensions?
What is wrong with people having to opt out of something that is inherently in their interests to be part of?
Its no different to opting out of being an organ donor imo.

It's functionally the same as a tax - with an opt-out - going to the private finance industry. It's a subsidy that the government is lining up to make mandatory later.

The auto-enrolment is inherently against peoples best interests - among many other reasons, it includes the fact that their money is almost guaranteed to go into unethical investments, with the way this is being setup.

Organ donations save lives. The finance industry is parasitical and corrupts governments into enacting policies which harm society - and harm lives.

The position that needs justification in the first place, is the why - not the why not.

GreeBo

high_king wrote: »

They were at least going to get 248 a week, please explain how they will live on LESS when they no longer qualify for the non contrib scheme because they were working too hard, instead of taking the handy welfare route, and paying prsi but couldn't afford this extra scheme ?

Im confused now...so you want people who never contributed anything to anyone elses future to suddenly get the same handout as those that did?

How are they working too hard to pay PRSI?
If they paid PRSI then they will be on the contributory scheme and can choose that or non-contrib, whichever yields them the most cash.

on top of that they would have their private pension, assuming they didnt opt out.

Whats your alternative to people saving for their own future?
(Other than of course, me paying for your future)

KyussB

GreeBo wrote: »

Anyone with a conscience will provide for their families future above all else.


Tell that to the 70 year olds who dont have enough money to put the heat or kettle on.

Or provide a proper state pension rather than that ridiculous false dichotomy - since having a proper public pension is already the political consensus.

Morals are about family and the people around/closer-to you - Ethics are about everybody, everywhere - a person with an ethical conscience, rather than just a moral conscience, will not be ok with what much of the average pension funds invest in, if they are well informed enough (which is made hard enough, due to lack of transparency in the industry).

GreeBo

KyussB wrote: »

It's functionally the same as a tax - with an opt-out - going to the private finance industry. It's a subsidy that the government is lining up to make mandatory later.

The auto-enrolment is inherently against peoples best interests - among many other reasons, it includes the fact that their money is almost guaranteed to go into unethical investments, with the way this is being setup.

Organ donations save lives. The finance industry is parasitical and corrupts governments into enacting policies which harm society - and harm lives.

The position that needs justification in the first place, is the why - not the why not.

OK, I dont know your history but you clearly have some bee in your bonnet about the finance industry and ethics, so I'm going to bow out *unless* you can answer the simple question of whats your alternative?

BTW, pensions save lives, just ask the people who cant afford to live without one.
also, the "why" has been explained several times already on this thread, its an investment in your future.

GreeBo

KyussB wrote: »

Or provide a proper state pension rather than that ridiculous false dichotomy - since having a proper public pension is already the political consensus.

"provide"
You are still avoiding the question...who "provides" this state pension?
Where does the money come from?

From my PRSI, thats where.

high_king

GreeBo wrote: »

Im confused now...so you want people who never contributed anything to anyone elses future to suddenly get the same handout as those that did?

How are they working too hard to pay PRSI?
If they paid PRSI then they will be on the contributory scheme and can choose that or non-contrib, whichever yields them the most cash.

on top of that they would have their private pension, assuming they didnt opt out.

Whats your alternative to people saving for their own future?
(Other than of course, me paying for your future)

Read the posts, despite all the denials there won't be any contrib state pension for workers, this is the first phase of getting rid of it by stealth. The one's going to get stung the most are the workers that paid into it all their lives, but could not afford extra private payments in this new scheme, or their payments will come no where near enough for an annuity of 248 per week. As usual the well off and the wellfare scroungers will have nothing to fear, but the ordinary working person who can't afford any very SIGNIFICANT private pension payments on top of prsi is going to be screwed.

GreeBo

kennethsmyth wrote: »

He’s referring to the fact that the government will not run these pensions, instead they are setting up a quango to identify multiple pension policies from private pension companies which no doubt due to our government’s incompetence or shear corruption will not provide as good a return (or has heavy fees) as maybe one you get yourself. As it’s a group policy essentially it really should be extremely good value, but it won’t.

Additionally the opt-out method is a bit if the old mandatory but not compulsory type effort - you have to stay 6 months and there will be fees involved, if you opt out the government should be made repay these fees or it’s essentially stealing and fully against your will. By the way I have my own pension so no skin in this game.

Are you seriously trying to tell us that the government is going to setup fake pensions companies that will exist purely to siphon off the populations cash?

come on man...think about it logically for 1 minute...all that would do, IF it were true, is put more people begging at the governments door come retirement age....not exactly a well thought out plan is it?

BTW, if you think the new pension fund is crap and you could get a better one yourself...then whats stopping you exactly?
your employer has to provide at least one PRSA...unless you think the government has also gotten to that one?