The delights of a good old fashioned rant are that they hold truths that cannot be spoken by the young.
Thanks to this anonymous correspondent complaining that people could not see the irony of a recent blog featuring self-congratulatory award posts.
He/She talks of the pension industry’s capacity to deliver what it has failed to do in terms of pensions (not these pots to piss in).
The pensions industry is pretty shocking. Do other industries spend so much on awarding themselves awards? TPR, unintentionally I assume,took the biscuit for me with their nominated lady winning the innovation award.A trifle in comparison with the efforts of the industry to maintain their privilege. At least in their pension interests. If they are successful they will either pay more tax elsewhere or interest rates will rise. Well done for their usual hubris.
I sat in a hall in Edinburgh and heard the Pension Minister poor scorn on the pension industry for its attitude, he told us to “get real”.
If only Torsten has been able to follow through on “get real”. Rather than saving the country we might have made some quick progress.
The assumption is that Bell has already moved on to the Treasury
Of course he always wanted HMT so it was unlikely he would be in pensions for long.But of course big pension changes only ever happen if HMT agrees or does them. So he has time.In any case he has carried on with all the stuff that has been dithered over for ages and made swift progress on the Bill. What he saw as hot potatoes he gifted to Jeannie.
As close to the truth I hold on the Pension Bill and the Commission. The Bill is what Bell can do and the Commission he does not want to struggle with
She can carry the can for big changes to the triple lock and SPA and perhaps SP. It will be interesting if she and her co~commissioners come up with anything else acceptable to a cash strapped government and population.
Of course you have to have been around the block a few times to comment like this, it has the weariness of experience. But I hope it gave my correspondent some relief in getting it off his/her tits.
There is of course a simple retort to the Pension Regulator winning the innovation of the year award at an award ceremony that charges the best part of a thousand pounds a seat to have organisations take tables.
To Edi Truell , the failure is displayed in this self delusion and self indulgence of the nominated lady “winning the innovation award“.
His reply the epitome of succinctness
Behind it a despair that the 20 years of contraction of Britain’s economy resulted from the withdrawal of pensions from innovation. Rather than let our pension schemes invest, as other countries have, in our economy, money was sucked into the purchase of gilts with money borrowed to balance books.
There was a number to the cost of that failure, it is varies dependent on whether you are outside or inside the Pension Regulator but it is generally considered north of half a trillion.
Edi has a number to the cost of QE on pensions. He quote it at my rant (a rant I wrote from my hospital bed surrounded by pensioners who weren’t going private – it got real for me – while the piss up in the Brewery was gong on).
Edi read my rant and republished it, and made a comment.
There are quite a few old ranters who are disillusioned; “getting real” does not mean spending a night having a piss up in The Brewery.
“How many fabulous Women can you fit in a lift? We know how much it cost
