Some Lies I Heard Today
Nov. 30th, 2011 10:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
f4f31. Public Sector Workers need to pay more into their pension fund, because it's unaffordable.
Not true. The fund collects more in contributions than it pays out.
2. Public Sector Workers will pay extra into their pension funds to help pay for their pensions.
No. The extra contributions will go to help pay down government debt. It's basically a raid on the fund, or an extra tax. You pick.
3. It's unfair that public sector workers have better pensions than private sector workers.
Actually, this one is true. It is unfair. And the way to level that out, is for private sector workers to get better pensions, not for public sector workers to get worse ones.
The propaganda I've seen spewed out this week has been pretty hateful stuff. Tonight I heard Dominic Lawson, a journalist, of all things, go on about how unfair it was that taxpayers paid public sector pensions. That's right, taxpayers, unlike PSWs, who pay no taxis and eat babies. He also described PSWs as the Aristocracy of the North East, who were paid massively more then private sector workers. Massively, massively more! So, no, you nob-end: the aristocracy are the aristocracy of the North East. And massively more? How many times more? 5 times? 10 times? The 80 times difference in some private companies between highest and lowest paid workers? I think we should be told.
Not true. The fund collects more in contributions than it pays out.
2. Public Sector Workers will pay extra into their pension funds to help pay for their pensions.
No. The extra contributions will go to help pay down government debt. It's basically a raid on the fund, or an extra tax. You pick.
3. It's unfair that public sector workers have better pensions than private sector workers.
Actually, this one is true. It is unfair. And the way to level that out, is for private sector workers to get better pensions, not for public sector workers to get worse ones.
The propaganda I've seen spewed out this week has been pretty hateful stuff. Tonight I heard Dominic Lawson, a journalist, of all things, go on about how unfair it was that taxpayers paid public sector pensions. That's right, taxpayers, unlike PSWs, who pay no taxis and eat babies. He also described PSWs as the Aristocracy of the North East, who were paid massively more then private sector workers. Massively, massively more! So, no, you nob-end: the aristocracy are the aristocracy of the North East. And massively more? How many times more? 5 times? 10 times? The 80 times difference in some private companies between highest and lowest paid workers? I think we should be told.
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no subject
Date: 2011-11-30 11:23 pm (UTC)And the reason private sector pensions and other working conditions are worse is that they have been deunionised,so they've lost any bargaining power.
Every bit of the public sector sold off to the private sector siphons taxpayer money into the pockets of the directors and the shareholders. In That's Britain earlier - we need to put up rail fares so the poor rail operators can afford to buy new trains with a little government subsidy.
If I were Scots I might even be thinking about voting for further devolution.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-01 01:50 pm (UTC)