Pensions plea

To lose one's hearing in old age is bad enough but to lose one's income through no fault of one's own is unfortunate. Many pensioners who lived frugally, putting aside what savings they could to provide that little bit extra in old age now find themselves sadly disappointed.

While bankers continue to reward themselves at taxpayers' expense with billions of pounds following their incompetence, savers have suffered a loss of £43 billion compared with their income before and after the Bank cut rates to 0.5%. In addition the value of investments is being eroded as markets fall.

Inflation is adding to their misery made worse by the Government's unilateral action to change the measure of calculating pension increases from the Retail Price Index to the Consumer Price Index resulting in lower increases. 

Last night I listen to complaints about the 50p tax rate payable by the top 1% of earners who receive over £150,000 a year (ie, ten times that of the average pensioner based on £29,000 for a couple). One man said he had had to work hard to achieve that. There are many who have worked very hard for much less. If they were to receive a bit extra they would be more likely to spend it.

An e-petition has been organised to protest against the unjust change in the method of calculating pension increases. Please sign it and ask others to do so. Thanks.


Update


E-mail received today (29/02/2012):



"The e-petition 'Public & Private Pension Increases - change from RPI to CPI' recently reached 109,392 signatures and a response has been made to it.
This e-petition has reached 100,000 signatures. The Government has notified the Backbench Business Committee in the House of Commons who will consider its suitability for debate when Parliament returns in September. This e-petition will remain live, and people will be able to continue adding their signatures. The Backbench Business Committe have announced that a debate relating to this e-petition will take place on Thursday 1 March 2012 in the Chamber of the House of Commons. Further information about the debate, and on the workings of the Backbench Business Committee, can be found on the Committee's website at http://www.parliament.uk/bbcom The Government will post a further response to this petition following the debate.


View the response to the e-petition."

Bankers

If I had received taxpayers’ money to ensure my survival through a severe financial crisis I would feel duty bound not to reward myself for success in advance of re-paying my debts, with interest, and certainly not if I were still making a loss. Not so Bankers.

They have regularly used other people’s money to line their pockets so manna from heaven is no more than they have come to expect. In their world, deductions precede credits in same day transactions, in advance if a payment is due on a non-working day, while credits have to await clearance for days even in this electronic age, often putting people in the red giving rise to unauthorised overdraft fees out of all proportion to the amount involved.

The Royal Bank of Scotland which is 84% owned by the tax payer has paid over 100 bankers a bonus of £1m or more, a sum more than most people earn in a life time of hard work particularly those caring for others.

To justify their greed Bank chiefs say they have to remain competitive. Not as competitive as the thousands they have put on the dole as they compete with one another for scarce, often low paid jobs to provide any income at all to support their families.

How kind of the Chief Executive of the RBS to waive his £1.6M bonus having to make do on his £1.2m salary. I see that the CEO of another huge loss maker, Lloyd’s Banking Group, is kindly waiving his bonus of £2.3m and the top brass at Barclay’s have given in to pressure to forgo their bonuses while still paying out £2.3bn to their staff.

The “loadsamoney” days of the yuppie were offensive enough; today’s extravagance at other people’s expense is an obscenity too far.