I nominated this as my Reader's Letter Of The Day last week. It was a tad provocative but I thought he made some fair points. Umbongo pointed out that "... a bit of googling has established that our Mr Pateman is apparently that glory of the 21st century - a Reader in Education at the University of Sussex. Such parasites have no business castigating those on whom they prey and on whose taxed labours they depend for their ill-earned bread."
In that funny way that real life has of intruding into the 'blogospere, Mr Pateman has now left a comment as follows:
"Just for the record: I am 62 and run a VAT registered business. I intend to continue for as long as I can. I took early retirement from the University of Sussex in 1997 and much prefer working for my living. That screws two of your correspondents.
The concessions which kick in at 60 (free bus passes and all the rest) help disguise the fact that the basic state pension, on which those in full retirement must rely, is inadequate and low in comparison to the norm in other European countries. I am much in favour of a higher retirement pension, which leaves people free to spend it as they see fit. Maybe they won't spend it on bus rides. I am also in favour of better provision for the elderly frail, but they don't vote and so are unlikely to get it.
I am opposed to universal freebies at 60, sweets handed out by politicians in the hope that you will doff your cap to them at the next election. Some of your correspondents clearly will."
Yet again, I'd agree with him on the basic thrust of that. I'm not budging on discriminatory pricing though.
But the Lawyers are Happy
2 hours ago
4 comments:
On Friday we lunched on the "Senior citizens' cod and half chips": excellent. We also got stamps in our book which means that after six such meals the seventh will be free. Yippee.
The other week I read a story somewhere, (I can't remember where), about a pensioner couple who used their free bus passes to travel from Land's End to John O'Groats.
I was too speechless to blog about it at the time.
The 'free' bus pass for pensioners is a huge waste of tax payers cash and is abused both by bus companies and the pensioners.
Well never let it be said I don't own up to my mistakes: I was wrong - he is indeed a philatelist in business and has left official academe. My bad for misreading google.
However, my main point stands: were the NI "fund" a proper fund I would be far better off taking my accumulated payments out rather than relying on politicians deciding on how much and when they will deign to pay me out of current taxation. However, that's never going to be an option (in my lifetime anyway) so, whatever today's over-60s receive by way of pecuniary or non-pecuniary benefit, they (generally) deserve.
The worst option, which it seems Mr P supports in part, is to be heavily taxed through ones productive years and then (if you've been able to save a bit) be taxed even further because the government has spent all the "insurance" premiums which were meant to be set aside to keep you in old age: the position I suspect my children will inherit.
U, we'd all be better off if:
a) We realised and accepted that NI is a tax, pure and simple.
and/or
b) Instead of taking NI off us with the vague promise of paying it back, the government didn't take it off us in the first place.
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