The supposed problem of rapidly increasing ageing population is a temporary one and will ‘balance out’, given intelligent Government policies.
Endless immigration, to support UK aged via taxation is not the answer, as immigrants also age and simply compound the problem, way beyond any ‘sustainable’ solution.
UK’s population is set to rise to 73 million, according to Government projections. Compare with New Zealand’s 6 million, for country virtually the same size, UK’s saturation population becomes evident.
Adequate pensions could easily have been funded had the ‘pension’ section of one’s N.I. stamp been ‘ring fenced’ and invested, instead of being spent as ‘ready cash’ by decades of incompetent UK Governments.
Had governments spent this vast annual sum, at say 5%interest, then pension cash would present us no problem. Instead we simply had “theft” of our pension premiums.
Realistically present retirement age cannot be sustained, given the vast increase in ‘life years’ since 1945.
It is obvious that unless one has a good pension pot, retirement will increase substantially, probably to 70 or 75. Earlier retirement on a state pension would only be possible assuming a government doctor has medically ‘written one off”!
“Skilled Man” shortage is in fact a “self inflicted injury” caused by virtually ‘zero apprentice’ by incompetent employers since Thatcher’s time.
Similar shortage in New Zealand has been resolved by ‘retirees’ returning to the tools – the wage is taxed, but not their pension.
Some years ago Sweden used ‘fit retirees’ in a similar manner, to run “homes for the retired infirm”, doing all manner of non-medical tasks. There is no valid reason for UK not doing same while population numbers “balance out”.
We are still useful and I, for one, resent the vicious “Joseph Goebbels” style Government propaganda, classing retirees as the ‘enemy’
Mr G Butler
Stockton
