ChatterBank3 mins ago
Will You Sign This Petition Aimed At Helping Pensioners?
If enough signed it may concentrate the minds of those in government.
It can't be right that pensioners spend their Twilight years in poverty.
Answers
Not me. I recall subsidising pensioners at both my mother and father's nursing homes at the end of their lives. The fees,for them, were astronomic. A good 50%+ of the residents had lived in council property and survived thank you very much on the social most of theeir adult lives. My parents money and latterly my money subsidised the feckless and the local council paid the remainder. No such luck for my parents who never relied on handouts and made the mistake of working hard to pay a mortgage to buy their own property only for the scroungers to benefit from us.
Difficult as I see both sides, but at present I'm persuaded by the nay arguments given. Namely ...
a) The living wage is meant to reflect living costs for younger folk not those who have reached the 'finance poor, time rich' stage of life. Demands on your finances should be a lot lower in later life (unless you have an empty property and evil government robs you every year because they prefer to abuse citizens rather than help them !)
b) while I have sympathy for those unable to put resources into saving for retirement, we do have a welfare system that, while far from idea, does provide benefits for those in need. So a basic pension increase isn't justified.
c) if pensioner poverty is real then the requirement has to be to look at the benefits system not the pension.
I'm sure when I started writing I had another point, but, senior moment, I've forgotten it by the time I got here. But that all said, while we seem less generous than most western European nations regarding pension, I'm all in favour of a proper overhaul (which should include reversing the stupid continuous rising qualifying age) and putting it onto a more secure footing. Decide whether it's a citizen's benefit right, or a contribution thing; and stop using present contibutions to fund present costs, i.e. avoid what is effectively a governmental Ponzi scheme situation. It's just that the petition demand doesn't tackle that.
An influential global body has forecast Russia's economy will grow faster than all of the world's advanced economies, including the US, this year.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) expects Russia to grow 3.2% this year, significantly more than the UK, France and Germany.
Hardly sound's like they queuing for bread tora tora, there's more food poverty here.
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