To its credit the Times publishes several columnists who go against the opinions of its readers. Sometimes, however, I suspect that the Times ignobly picks writers who are not the best ambassadors for their causes. The readership of the paper’s Scotland section is devoutly Unionist. Every week Fiona Rintoul reminds them why. In an article called “Scotland can prosper once we take the wheel”, she writes:
Fresh ideas have also come from Jim Osborne, of the Scottish Banking and Finance Group. He has proposed reforming the pension system to benefit pensioners and the wider community. Scotland’s council pension funds, which control £45.5 billion of assets, could, he feels, help to support the expansion of Scotland’s social housing stock. This chimes with global developments in pension funds’ asset allocation. With bond yields at historic lows, pension funds are turning to infrastructure investments for yield.
Osborne has also suggested that Scottish local authorities be allowed to issue municipal bonds to power spending. Again, this chimes with global developments as bond markets diversify. Scottish local authority “munis” could form suitable investments for pension funds too.
Presumably the idea is that when it all goes TU and the money’s nowhere to be seen, English taxpayers will bail them out again.
And you know what, they probably will. Involuntarily, of course.
When paying for their pensions – along with their living expenses, their taxes (which paid for ‘social housing’ and other ‘wider community’ things), and so on – naive Scottish pensioners imagined their pension funds were to benefit them in their old age. Now their pensions will be taxed as before, but the funds that pay them will do so after benefitting ‘the wider community’ as well. I am reminded of the old Scots joke about the dying Aberdonian who asked his friend to pour a bottle of whisky on his grave after the funeral. His friend solemnly promised to do so, adding, “Do ye min’ if it’s been through ma kidneys first?”
Simply increasing the tax on Scots pensions and/or their investments would seem administratively simpler, but would have that most politically undesirable feature of paying the costs before – or at least no later than – getting the benefits of more social housing and whatever. If Scotland’s pension funds are moved into ‘higher yield’ Scottish local authority “muni” bonds whose whole point is to invest the money on held-below-market returns (social housing means subsidised/below-market rents) – how does that end? What state will the pensioned ‘whisky’ be in by the time it waters the final chapter of its pension-payers lives?
In the mid-1980s, one factoid trotted out by the Young Conservatives was that Scotland had a higher proportion of state-owned housing (i.e. in Scotland council-owned housing) than Enver Hoxha‘s Communist Albania. We see the fruits of that state of affairs in Scotland’s present-day political culture. What I see here is a future where many Scots rent housing notionally privately-owned in which State employee pay rent to the pension funds of current and past local council employees, whose pensions are heavily taxed to pay the taxes that pay the salaries that pay the rent that pays their pensions, until it all collapses, and then an Enver MacHoxha rises to power on the ruins.
I’m reminded of previous articles along the lines of “National Insurance pensions = government-run Ponzi scheme“.
e.g.
https://blog.moneysavingexpert.com/2009/03/is-the-state-pension-a-ponzi-scheme/
We’re told Scotland’s population is ageing faster than England’s (based on average age and net migration of young people out of Scotland)
e.g.
https://www.agediscrimination.info/news/2018/4/24/scotlands-population-is-ageing-faster-than-rest-of-uk
So, which Pension scheme is likely to need “adjusting” first? Or will the can just be kicked down the road by upping the minimum retirement age to (say) 70 or 75?
Sad but what working age person in their right mind wants to stay in Scotland? I got out six years ago and run a small biz in Gateshead now & several mates did same. I’m visiting my maw as I type this, she calls me a Geordie 😋 but when she shuffles off, I doubt I’ll ever go north again. Such a dog’s breakfast, really is.
At this point the avenue of Scottish independence, should it happen, seems more likely to be ejection than secession.
I’m beginning to think that, having consistently failed to win majority support, this is the separatists’ plan now.
Niall the Geordie: me, too. I moved South in 1979 and have been saddened at the way Scotland has circled the bowl continuously since.
According to Al Beeb:
But also
Ref: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-41760952
Am I reading that correctly?
For every 100 people one more person might be added to the working population (paying into the NI Ponzi scheme), but 25 more might be expecting to take money out?
For a government keen on “sustainability”, this doesn’t smell very sustainability. In fact, it smells rotten.
Not quite (if I am reading your summary correctly).
For every 100 people now working one more person might be added to the working population (paying into the NI Ponzi scheme), but for every 100 people now taking money out, 25 more might be taking money out.
@Niall Kilmartin
Thanks, I’d also missed this part:
So that’s an increase of 180,000 (overall).
With a predicted increase in the working population of 1% = 55,800
Digging deeper in the original report:
https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/statistics-and-data/statistics/statistics-by-theme/population/population-projections/population-projections-scotland/2016-based
This is a lot bigger than Scotland.
It has long been an aim of “Sustainable Development” “Stakeholder Capitalism” (World Economic Forum, United Nations, and the rest of the international set) to undermine private property in land and homes (using taxes, regulations and so on), for most people, and turn most people into renters.
Bringing Pension Funds and Governments together in Private-Public partnerships (i.e. Fascism – the Corporate State) has also long been an aim of the international establishment.
Scotland is just more blatant about all this – it is present just about everywhere else as well.
People who own their own homes on their own land, and run independent small business enterprises, are hard to control – the aim is to make most people dependent on government and a handful of vast Corporations who will work with government. In no way a “conspiracy” – as the international establishment are very open about their “Sustainable Development” aims.
Lastly it should be noted that this all goes back long before the creation of Covid 19 or even the human emissions of C02 are causing Global Warming theory – for example Klaus Schwab’s book on Stakeholder Capitalism (Fascism – Corporate State) was published in 1971. In short the “cure” for Global Warming and Covid 19 came out long before anyone had heard of these things.
That most Western government and vast Corporations have no problem at all working with people such as Klaus Schwab (indeed dote on his ravings) should tell you, gentle reader, all you need to know about the modern world.
One interesting thing is how the banks and other corporations (such as Black Rock in the United States) are buying up houses, flats and what used-to-be small business enterprises – the enterprises intentionally destroyed by the lockdowns and other restictions.
The Cantillon Effect (Richard Cantillon three hundred years ago – but now on a truly epic scale that would make John Law faint) means that people who get the Credit Money (money from nothing) first can buy up real assets – such as land (Bill Gates and others love buying land) and property – and turn people into renters.
“But how will people pay the rent?”.
Simple – if people are good (do not make politically or culturally “insensitive” statements) then the government will pay the rent – people will live in small apartments and their rent will come from government – and will go to the corporations, and also “non profits”, that own these small apartments.
The government will get the money by the Central Banks creating it – from nothing.
The dream of Saint-Simon two centuries ago – and the “Sustainable Development” “Stakeholder Capitalism” dream of Klaus Schwab today.
“But it will all end in total disaster”.
Of course it will.
Yes, land – and farms. You don’t need to watch “Clarkson’s Farm” to know that family-run farming businesses are being squeezed out. Who buys up the farms at bargain prices? “Investment funds”.
Is there any effective difference between the end-result being called “Neo-Feudalism” or “Stakeholder Capitalism” or just Fascism?
The adventures of Justus Walker, an American in Russia:
https://www.rbth.com/business/2017/02/23/the-agrarian-adventures-of-an-innovative-american-farmer-in-siberia_707903
We live in a age in which Russia, ironically, is the last redoubt of Western culture and civilization, and maybe even the family farm.
Most land in Russia is still state owned – and the abortion rate is high.
Most certainly Russia is vastly better now than it was under Soviet rule – but it is not a free and traditional society like, for example, little Liechtenstein.
As for comparisons with America – well I would rather live in Florida, and many other American States, than Russia, and not just because of the weather.
“But would you rather live in a Woke city like New York, Chicago, San Francisco… rather than Russia?” – oh God no.
I sometimes hear people saying “there were no lockdowns in Russia” – but there were lockdowns, very severe and early ones. They, of course, failed – Covid 19 spread regardless (the Economist magazine is gloating about Russian Covid deaths this week – but it falsely blames them on the Russian government not doing enough, not the basic POLICY of lockdowns being wrong). I do not remember Mr Putin supporting EARLY TREATMENT (with a combination of well known medications – which could have been in use from March 2020) – he is just as much a lockdown and vaccine person as the rest of the international establishment.
I think what happens is that people disgusted with the leftist modern West, “project” the conservative, limited government, society they want to see onto Russia – which is NOT really a conservative limited government society.
The late John Enoch Powell even did this during the Soviet Union – saying that “Russia” (which was under Soviet occupation at the time – it was not an independent country) was a conservative society, when it was actually a Marxist Hell-Hole with an abortion rate similar to that of New York.
“Paul I bet you support Pussy Riot messing up a church and…..” – no I do NOT, I do not support any “Woke” stuff. I am just saying that the Putin regime is not good – and it is not good.
The leader of the Russian opposition (presently in jail – for the “crime” of surviving Mr Putin’s effort to poison him to death) is actually a Social Conservative – light years away from “Pussy Riot”, feminism, Black Lives Matter, and all the rest of the “Woke” stuff.