No it wasn't. The government increased the contributions to 11% in order to offset a pay increase that was our due under the existing pay agreement. They didn't want to increase our pay by the agreed amount - and so took a chunk of it back by increasing our pension contributions.
Your
Police pay is set at the median of white collar workers - with an 'x' factor for the risks of the job.
I disagree - but I know I wont convince you. All public sector workers are paid out of the public purse because that is the way the public service works. They are 'working' for their money, however, not just getting it for sitting on their backsides.
That, as I understand it, is precisely the point made by "Ret.".
Quite right - work is not intrinsically good in itself , any more than the wearing of a hair-shirt is good. But work has positive outcomes the effects of which are not limited to the worker. In proper context, work (by a fit and healthy worker) is almost always better than idleness on any pretext.
I was thinking of others. Why take up an employment position that someone else, more deserving, needs, when I can live on my pension? Everyone is shouting that there aren't enough jobs to go around. Why do you want me to take one of the few available jobs for myself when my pension income is already sufficient for my needs? That would be selfish and greedy surely?
My job provided (and still does provide) a pension after 30 years service. That was the contract between me and my employer. Why do you want me to take that pension - and then greedily take on another job that someone who *does* need employment could take?
I am not talking about the time you were working, but the time since you retired at a far younger age than the majority of other people. You are then indeed getting money from the public purse for sitting on your backside - don't try to pretend that you paid in a fraction of what you will be getting out.
I do not begrudge it to you - you have used the rules to your advantage. What I object to is that when *other* people use the rules to *their* advantage, you cry, "Foul".
You are not the only person who is permitted to play the system, Kev.
So why not apply the same disingenious "logic" to people who are living off the dole? They are "generously" leaving the jobs for those folk who need more money than the dole can provide.
I don't want you to do anything of the sort. If you have found a system that you were able to use legally to your advantage, good luck to you. But if you want to refuse other people the same opportunity, then you should also call for your pension to be discontinued.
Why? His pension was only obtained by him working. The dole can be obtained without any work, although I don't believe that many people leave school, go on the dole and stay there.
I specifically made the point that work is not "good" in itself. It follows that if it is not "good", it cannot be "better" than something else.
An income? A stake in society and an incentive to behave in a way which conforms to (most) people's expectations? A general (even if not always fully-formed) plan for the future and a life to some extent mapped out in the economic sense, rather than a chaotic existence lurching from one unplanned crisis to another? An expectation of being able to bring up a family, maybe buy a house? The provision of a positive role model to one's children?
The absence of the above. And they spell out their own opposites.
An income? A stake in society and an incentive to behave in a way which conforms to (most) people's expectations? A general (even if not always fully-formed) plan for the future and a life to some extent mapped out in the economic sense, rather than a chaotic existence lurching from one unplanned crisis to another? An expectation of being able to bring up a family, maybe buy a house? The provision of a positive role model to one's children?
What's work got to do with anything? Kev will be getting far more in his pension than he paid in via work, so he is "getting something for nothing" just like the person on the dole - it is simply a matter of degree. A dole-scrounger may well argue that s/he is contributing to the neighbourhood in ways other than by taxation from paid work.
It was you who stated that work is better than idleness. I asked you what you meant by that. It appears that you do not know what you meant.
You can get that on the dole without working.
I have no idea what you mean by a "stake in society". Some people expect others to work, some people do not.
No everyone on the dole "lurches from one unplanned crisis to another". The *worst* crisis occurs when a person who is earning a good salary unexpectedly loses their job. People raise families on the dole. Why is there any need to ever buy a house if you can arrange a comfortable roof over your head in a different way?
Circular argument - it assumes that work is good and no work is bad.
Then you either have to live with no money (difficult in this society), or you have to get sufficient money for your needs without working. By going on the dole, for example, or inheriting from wealthy relatives.
Most people get more from a pension than they paid in through contributions. The difference can be seen as 'pay' for their job. They wouldn't be getting anything if they hadn't worked, so their direct employee contriubtions are irrelevant. A person who leaves school and goes straight onto the dole has never paid in anything, although such people are rare.
Once again, spot on. But work has to be done, and bringing in cheap labour to do it, while paying vast amounts to scroungersa who are capable of doing the job, is economically stupid. But we are reaping the misery now.
It was the outcomes which I should have said were better (if I didn't make that as clear as I should have, mea culpa - but it doesn't make your "arguments" any better-founded).
Not indefinitely. Make no attempt to look for work and it will (and should) stop. That has *always* been the rule, by the way, it just wasn't properly enforced.
It is reasonable to expect everyone of approipriate age and state of health to work (or at the very least, not to seek an "income" from other taxpayers on false pretences such as promising to look for work and then not doing so).
"On the dole" can mean different things to different people. Many - I would suggest it it is most - of those who life expectations consist of several decades of dependency do lurch from one unplanned crisis to another. The system even has a means of addressing (sort of) such crises built into it. It even uses that name.
What a wonderful way you have of looking at life.
It certainly assumnes that a decent income is good and that a lousy income is bad. You may disagree with that, but please don't go on about it.
"Going on the dole" (assuming unemployment, good health and a claimant of less than pension age, etc) is not primarily a way of getting an income. It's supposed to be a way of tiding one over whilst looking for work. Not looking for work whilst "on the dole" is a breach of contract.
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