Here’s my proposal.

Scheme is introduced. Part of it says that it can only be changed by a referenda.

Second part says that if the fund is taxed, people have the right to the cash prior to taxation, tax free. All of it.

Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas. No one is going to vote to have their fund taxed. The majority will be those that are saving.

Forcing the referenda issue makes it impossible for Brown to go and tax, since he won’t get the electorate for vote to be stuffed.

ie. It’s a case that a pension is financial engineering that turns a tradeable asset into a non-tradeable asset. Until that’s removed, I’m not going to use a pension

For the government to force people to do with their own money what they do not want to do is an extremely unappealing feature of an overly authoritarian state.

The consequences of not doing this, is that 50% of your income gets taken to keep the feckless in fags and booze.

I would rather have forced saving for the minimum income in retirement and unemployment, than have 50% of my income taken for the feckless chav.

Until that point the gains within the fun were tax free, and tax was paid once the fund started to pay the pension. That was the deal. Brown’s 1997 changed the deal. But the critical point is that not only did pension fund holders not have any say in the new deal, but they could do nothing about changing their pension investment if they did not like the new terms.

Pension advice is traditionally to start saving for a pension as soon as possible, but that is a forty year act of faith. The Brown budget having broken the principle of pension saving and got away with it, and the new arrangement being accepted by the opposition, it seems reasonable to expect more of the same at some time during a working lifetime. Thus, what was a good deal is now less good, and is shrouded with uncertainty. It is hardly any wonder if workers find saving for a pension less attractive.

For the government to force people to do with their own money what they do not want to do is an extremely unappealing feature of an overly authoritarian state.

Re NR & B&B…we doubt the government WILL be brave enough to auction them and cop the loss so another thought being kicked around the roast beef and yorkshire at lunchtime…

Why not run them as the kind of bank we – and it seems the government – have all been wanting? One that keeps its costs low; pays no executive bonuses or golden handshakes; that lends the money the taxpayer has given it at reasonable lowish rates; that offers concessions to first time buyers without throwing caution to the wind; that is day-to-day managed by old-fashioned pre-1997 bankers who do not waver from the basics of banking, avoiding all ‘modern instruments’.

Perhaps there’s a minority partner like Tesco who know about sound financial discipline without being steeped in banking culture and who have firm management and thrustful marketing disciplines to practice and teach. The partner would have the option of buying additional equity and other relevant partners could be introduced or a flotation might take the bank off the government’s hands in due course – quite possibly at a profit.

Rather than an auction at a big loss or knock-down price it’s a bit like the wise decision one of us took recently in ignoring accepted wisdom of getting shot of his late mother’s faded and run-down house as it stood. Instead, for £2,000 he threw out the old furnishings and borrowed some modern pieces. Replaced the carpet throughout, redecorated and then enthused the estate agents. The agents’ revaluations were 20% higher after the work and he achieved that full price with several disappointed would-be buyers! Any thoughts out there?

By the way the Roast Beef was delectable and we raised a glass of merlot to JR for a great week’s blogging!

Reply: Yes, your analogy with the house is a good one – cut the costs and sell the bank shares on. The current cost model of the nationalised banks is absurd for loss making public sector businesses.
There are too many non jobs in the public sector, starting with all that unloved unelected regional government.

One thing I do know, is that no good will come out of borrowing more money to get yourselves out of debt.

I stated at one time trying to find out just how much money this Government had committed the next generation to through PPP/PFI only to find out that it may not be the next generation because it can be anything from 30-50 years. And what if some of those firms are in difficulty during this time? I do know the figure is in the Billions. Even though we are not in the Euro, we still-as long as we remain in the EU have to comply with the EU’s Stability Pact!

What gets me in all this, our Contribution (billions also) to the EU will be paid on time without a second thought to all the debt the next generation are going to have to pay re PPP/PFI.

I also tried to find out exactly how much “Crown Land” had been sold off by this Government and what they had done with the money from that. Some are recorded, but I had to give it up in the end.

Your seven points seem fine to me, but the burden for future generations is too heavy already. I just hope and pray they do not just print more and more money.

The government hasn’t paid former shareholders for their shares and these shares should be returned to shareholders not sold on.

newsjunction.co.uk/news

1. Sack every government non-jobber in the land and give the savings back to the rest of us as personal tax cuts.
2. Get the government out of private business. The government can hardly run the post office, so why it thinks it can run the infinitely more complex banking sector is beyond me.
3. Abolish all corporation taxes, employer national insurance taxes, and every other kind of company tax that inhibits people from investing in Britain and providing British people with productive jobs.
4. Abolish all savings taxes for everyone, to encourage people to start saving private capital which can then be used to invest in productive wealth-generating projects rather than wasteful ‘Bridge To Nowhere’ government projects.
5. Move the pound to a commodity-based 100% reserve money standard of either silver or gold and abandon fiat currency after the government has now proven that it cannot be trusted to manage the money supply. (Actually this proposal is going to come true anyway, regardless of what anyone in Whitehall might want – all fiat currencies eventually become worthless, but at the rate the government is now printing money, the pound will simply disappear within the next few years and the only way out from that hole will be to adopt silver or gold as true money again. It will either be that or adopt the Chinese Yuan.)
5. Abolish the Bank of England and let the free market work out interest rates, rather than the government bureaucrats who got us into this mess.
6. Announce that the government is going to start paying off all of its debts and then living within its tax-income means for the foreseeable future. Further announce that it will become a government priority that Tax Freedom Day, which currently occurs on the 2nd of June, will be brought back to the 1st of May (then the 1st of April, the 1st of March, etc.)

That ought to do the trick.