Tuesday 26 October 2010

Mature Pensions


Vince ‘The Knife’ Cable is set to perform a ‘radical overhaul’ of the pension system. That probably means leaving it in the care of an NHS agency nurse and allowing her to pull the plug on it.

I am certainly not looking forward to having to wait till I’m 67 before receiving my state pension, by which time the government of the day will probably have brought down the age of compulsory death.

I can’t understand the French students rioting over the pension situation there – a pension was the last thing on my mind as a student, as I considered myself immortal. Either the French students are extraordinarily mature, or they just want an excuse to riot. I cynically suspect the latter.


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

It doesn't take a great deal to start a riot in France - although in their defence, because they were so uppity they were able to stop mega-supermarkets from moving in and taking over. All hail the well-stocked, well-supported local store! The French do occasionally get things spectacularly right, provided it has to do with wine, cheese and bread - which are, after all the important things in life.

What tickled me while I was living in the States was the abortive protests about the rising cost of 'gas' (i.e. petrol). In the US, unlike here, tax makes up a very low portion of the cost of gasoline, but people were up in arms when it cleared $2 a gallon. At the same time in the UK, petrol was about $6 a gallon.

People are fun. :)

Liz said...

My husband reckons we may never catch up with the official age of retirement.

The retirement age for women has gone up twice in the 27 years since I started full-time employment and I expect it to increase by at least another year. Mind you, I've seen my pension predictions and I'm not convinced that I shall ever be able to afford to retire anyway.

Steve Borthwick said...

The French are generally annoyingly good at roads, trains and bridges too, not to mention kissing..