Austerity Cuts – We Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet

Excerpt from City AM

The opposition to the coalition have been bleating loudly about austerity cuts, but my take is that we haven’t really had any significant cuts so far. This article articulates what I have been thinking.

One big cut that will soon begin to hurt people is the reduction/loss of the children’s allowance.

Until this month, my now ex-wife was receiving around £1760 per annum for our two children. As she earns a few grand over £50k, she will get next to nothing. This comes at a time when she is about take out a big mortgage to buy me out of the marital home. She will also have all the bills I used to pay, so her era of austerity is going to hit her like a steam train. Means testing is so crude, not that I wish to defend my wife’s predicament – she chose that route and without any discussions about how how we might have mitigated the situation for the benefit of our kids – very upsetting, but I’ve a clear conscience!

What an individual earns is only half the equation. The other half is about your non-discretionary commitments. Two people earning the same money will have vastly differing amounts of disposable income. So the means testing system is fundamentally unfair.

I conclude that this particular benefit should never have been paid in the first place.

Benefits are an overhead to the tax payer and this restricts growth. In the case of child benefit, if you can’t afford children, don’t have them, unless you are happy to take full responsibility for them. If we did so, Jeremy Kyle would be out of a job!

Err, most Western European countries are trying to encourage people to have kids, we need people to pay our pensions when we retire. Low birth rates are a real problem long term, so subsidising parent hood is in all our interests.

Single universal benefit paid on that basis. No bit for this some for that.

Pensions can’t keep getting paid by ever increasing levels of population. Western Europe is already overpopulated. Greater financial equality is the only rational solution.

Benefits are an overhead to the tax payer and this restricts growth

I don’t buy into this logic either, benefits can be a boost to the economy, lowering taxation is not the only solution, investment in the future is more important.

She’ll only lose a bit of it . It’s taken away on a sliding scale between £50K – £60K

Not entirely sure what you are saying other than your ex-wife (who earns more than £50k a year) might feel a bit of a pinch because she has been used to receiving this benefit?

My heart bleeds – that’s about double what my wife and I earn between us.

we need people to pay our pensions when we retire

I’ve heard this before and I don’t understand it.
I mean long term, over several generations ?

Benefits are a way of moving cash away from people who don’t spend all of their money to those who do. So, they’re good for the economy.

Err, most Western European countries are trying to encourage people to have kids, we need people to pay our pensions when we retire. Low birth rates are a real problem long term, so subsidising parent hood is in all our interests.

Erm , actually that is not true. Britian’s population has shot up in the last few years. Your pension may well be being paid by all the poles, bulgarians and Romanians who will work in low paid jobs etc.

The whole discussion is a mine field. Child benefits should have never been paid, but tax bands adjusted. The whole benefist system caost to much to admin. The middle classes should never recieve subsidies. They don’t need them.

Having kids is a lifestyle choice not a right. If you decide to have three kids, then it is not up to other (childless) taxpayers to keep you in sky plus subscriptions, Radley bags and people carriers.

We should pay the needy to keep them from starving, we should make sure the children of the needy are feed, educated and clothed. Hopefully, so they will be apsirational and want to do better than their parents.

Pensions can’t keep getting paid by ever increasing levels of population. Western Europe is already overpopulated. Greater financial equality is the only rational solution.

Or euthanasia? Jus’ saying, like 😉

As she earns a few grand over £50k, she will get next to nothing.

WOOOAAA THERE!!! That’s, like, totally inhumane!! She’s right at the really, nasty pointy end of austerity eh? Where the cuts are REALLY hurting!! How on earth is she going to cope?!!!!

Have you been living in a cave for the last 3 or 4 years? Seriously? Could I suggest that everything is relative, and maybe you should take a look at the rest of society – seeing as you’ve concluded….

but my take is that we haven’t really had any significant cuts so far.

….. develop an appropriate sense of proportion, and count yourself bloody lucky! 🙄

Having kids is a lifestyle choice not a right

Having kids is a lifestyle choice not a right the one single reason we are here on this earth – Professor Brian Cox made us do it.

Western Europe is already overpopulated

I’ve heard this before and I don’t understand it.
I mean long term, over several generations ?

The state pension is a Ponzi scheme. You’re not paying in to a fund and then drawing on it. What you pay is handed out and you have to hope the next set of suckers below you in the pyramid will do the same for you.

Having kids is a lifestyle choice not a right. If you decide to have three kids, then it is not up to other (childless) taxpayers to keep you in sky plus subscriptions, Radley bags and people carriers.

Spongebob – Member
Excerpt from City AM

Government consumption spending is, alas, still going up. But it’s scheduled to start being cut seriously now. Spending cuts are a potential cure for this economy, like an operation is a potential cure for a man with cancer. Our economy is like a man that fears the operation, so keeps putting it off. When he gets worse, people say: “Ah, what’s making him sicker is that he has an operation planned. To get better, he should cancel the operation.” No. What’s making him sicker is that he keeps putting it off. And if he cancels the operation, he may well die.

We need to cut government consumption spending so the UK economy can grow faster, so that households can in turn service their mortgages, so they don’t default and bust the banks. It doesn’t help public support for that when respected economists attack those correctly pointing out that such spending cuts haven’t happened yet.

Andrew Lilico is a columnist for ConservativeHome

What a load of absolute bull!

johndoh – Member
Not entirely sure what you are saying other than your ex-wife (who earns more than £50k a year) might feel a bit of a pinch because she has been used to receiving this benefit?

Beat me to it. Earning £50k and austerity aren’t predicaments i’d put together.

{EDIT] How is that picture so huge!?

I’ve heard this before and I don’t understand it.

State pensions and benefits are paid out of the taxation received each year. So if you have a population of X million who then retire, having only had X/2 children, you have a problem. You don’t necessarily need to keep expanding, but having the population contract makes things hard financially as the retired are effectively a burden on the non retired. As long as the ratios are OK, it’s not a significant problem.

WE population growth has been reducing over the last few years, and populations are being boosted by immigration (which isn’t too popular with some), so governments tend to want to encourage people to have more kids to keep the books balanced.

Think about it this way, £20 / week for a 16 years child benefit vs 40 years potential tax on earnings – it’s not a bad long term investment.

The state pension is a Ponzi scheme. You’re not paying in to a fund and then drawing on it. What you pay is handed out and you have to hope the next set of suckers below you in the pyramid will do the same for you.

and just like a Ponzi scheme, if there are too many wanting money out and not enough ‘investors’ the whole thing implodes

You could always offer to pay the difference?

OK, you need expanding populations to pay pensions.
But for every other problem, climate change, water shortages, food shortages, even down to houses being unaffordable, the elephant in the room is overpopulation. Pensions are a rather insignificant issue in comparison.

As she earns a few grand over £50k, she will get next to nothing. This comes at a time when she is about take out a big mortgage to buy me out of the marital home.

WHY OH WHY WILL we not help people struggling like this ?
Its tragic I mean only x2 the national average and able to get a mortgage at this time on one income. Something needs to be done about this ..I am outragde…if it carrie son like this she may need to retire to France where it is cheaper or something

She will also have all the bills I used to pay, so her era of austerity is going to hit her like a steam train.

That is not austerity that is the consequences of geting divorced and having only one income.

Means testing is so crude,

what testing to see if you actually need the money is crude.

What an individual earns is only half the equation. The other half s about your non-discretionary commitments. Two people earning the same money will have vastly differing amounts of disposable income. So the means testing system is fundamentally unfair.

Your argument here seems to be I have so much more money than poor folk so I spend it on a big hourse, an expensive car and ipad and holidays abroad and on the childrens horses stabling fees so in reality I am actually poorer than them – its a daft argument, really daft.

I conclude that this particular benefit should never have been paid in the first place.

Right so means testing is bad and universal is bad

Benefits are an overhead to the tax payer and this restricts growth.

Yes all tax restircts growth – especially the stuff they spend on keeping folk helathy and educating them and providing roads and stuff – the bastard govt restricting natural growth

I dont mind right wingers but really each thread you start is a mishmash ofincoherent and conflicting statements with unsubstantiated claims like that thrown in

In the case of child benefit, if you can’t afford children, don’t have them, unless you are happy to take full responsibility for them. If we did so, Jeremy Kyle would be out of a job!

Is sterlisation your preferred solution ?

OK, you need expanding populations to pay pensions.
But for every other problem, climate change, water shortages, food shortages, even down to houses being unaffordable, the elephant in the room is overpopulation. Pensions are a rather insignificant issue in comparison.

Banks lend more money than they have, which obviously only works with growth. You don’t get that with a static population.

We need a new planet, and pretty quick.

OK, so apart from the roads, keeping the pension pot topped up, paying taxes an NI for things like hospitals [to look after the pensioners]
What has procreation ever done for us?

David Attenborough is arguing the opposite – fewer kids to save the environment

But, yes the current state pensions are a ponzi scheme that will (most likely) collapse under current demographic trends.

But, yes the current state pensions are a ponzi scheme that will (most likely) collapse under current demographic trends.

Hence the reason some countries are to trying to reverse the demographic trends by offering more incentives to have children.

The biggest problem is longevity rather than population contraction as that is increasing the burden faster than we can pro-create. When antibiotics stop being effective, the situation may correct itself.

I dont mind right whingers but

Fixed it to put it in context of the OP

Or euthanasia? Jus’ saying, like

Maybe the youth in Asia are the answer !

Does anyone under the age of 50 seriously believe they’re going to have what is presently taken for granted as ‘a retirement’?

By the time we reach what is now pension age, the whole concept is going to be regarded as a quaint little late-20th-century anachronism, that was simply mental in its lack of affordability.

There will be no state pension until you’re 86 or so.

And private pensions? Ha ha ha. I’m just waiting for the biblical scale mis-selling by the banks etc to be exposed, as they collectively shrug and explain that having taken all your money for 40 years, things didn’t quite work out as planned, and there’s not much left. And what was left, we paid ourselves in fees. Then a bit more.

How much return do you think they’re presently getting on ‘our’ investments? Compared to the predictions the private pensions were sold on? Reckon they’ll have stopped taking their fees and bonuses?

😆 unless you 😥

So footlaps assuming Attenborough is correct, which is more important: the environment or first world state pensions? Ok, slightly tongue-in-cheek, but it is a REAL question (albeit not that simple!).

Does anyone under the age of 50 seriously believe they’re going to have what is presently taken for granted as ‘a retirement’?

By the time we reach what is now pension age, the whole concept is going to be regarded as a quaint little late-20th-century anachronism, that was simply mental in its lack of affordability.

There will be no state pension until you’re 86 or so.

And private pensions? Ha ha ha. I’m just waiting for the biblical scale mis-selling by the banks etc to be exposed, as they collectively shrug and explain that having taken all your money for 40 years, things didn’t quite work out as planned, and there’s not much left. And what was left, we paid ourselves in fees. Then a bit more.

Where the hell were you on my ‘Are Pensions Worth it’ thread?

[shakes head and mutters]

Torminalis – Sorry. Hadn’t spotted it. I shall resurrect it now with my two-penneth 😀

In the case of child benefit, if you can’t afford children, don’t have them, unless you are happy to take full responsibility for them. If we did so, Jeremy Kyle would be out of a job!

Is sterlisation your preferred solution ?

That would work, but people taking responsibility for their own actions would be a nice start.
If you can’t afford them, don’t have them!

So footlaps assuming Attenborough is correct, which is more important: the environment or first world state pensions?

long term (as in, more than a few human lifetimes), arguably the envt.

short term, maybe state pensions.

therefore, seeing as humans are incapable of looking at the long-term impact of anything, we’ll all prioritise pensions because we want a (relatively) nice easy quick-fix.

My pension plan is to stuff the money down a grid and wait for a rat to pick it up and use it to make a nest, hopefully in twenty to thirty years time ill find the rats nest and some of the notes will remain intact so I can buy beans.
It’s a lot like currant pension plans but the rats have tails and with luck ill have some beans..
Did I mention we’re going to Hell in a bucket..

The pensions situation is rather a case of chickens coming home to roost, for a generation or so we’ve taken funded retirement from the age of 60/65 as a right. Unfortunately rights are irrelevant if the money’s not there. Binners is correct, this will correct itself and we will be working for longer.

As for people on higher incomes like the OP’s wife, we do get hacked off at continually seeing our income fall (in our minds at least we’ve earned it). It does feel like we are getting penalised, however it does rather pale into insiginificance compared to people the system is properly letting down. There was a thread a few weeks back that openned my eyes a little, people living on very basic benefits.

As for the if you can’t afford them don’t have them brigade, that’s a rather simplistic view. There are some people that really should have abstained after the first, I don’t have time for people who have kids through multiple partners and live off the state to support them but they’re probably a very small perecentage of the population with kids.

my now ex-wife was receiving around £1760 per annum for our two children. As she earns a few grand over £50k, she will get next to nothing.

The inhumanity of it all! Won’t somebody think of the children!

Oh… 😕

Seriously, get a grip and look at the rest of society. She’s still earning 2x as much as the average person in the street.

Perfect bit of flame bait, well played OP!

It’s a lot like currant pension plans

No, I’m not raisin to that bait