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April 06, 2015



Isn't the real fear that unwary pensioners will get ripped off by a rapacious financial services industry?

Matt Moore

Even if you do retire, I hope you'll keep blogging. You are one of the few left-wing thinkers I can read regularly without needing to wash my eyes out after, as are therefore very useful at reducing all sorts of biases in my thinking

An Alien Visitor

Maybe they should free us of taxes and let us freely spend the money as we wish? Seen as we are so rational?

Fat Jacques

Taking their money out and slowly drawing it down is it trying to avoid getting ripped off by a rapacious annuity industry.

Ralph Musgrave

Chris says, “..people who most want immigration controls also tend also to want state intervention in other areas of the economy..”. I doubt it.

It’s the political left that is keener on immigration than the right, and it’s the left that tends to want “intervention in other areas of the economy”.

gastro george

AFAICS, the main discussion point of these reforms is that they break the previous compact between punters and government - which is that, if we saved for our old age, and relieved part of the burden of old age expenditure from the government, then they would provide a subsidy (tax relief) for those savings.

Now our "pensions" are just another savings vehicle - aligning them with ISAs, the difference being when the subsidy is applied.

The question now should be - is it correct that we should prioritise government expenditure towards a subsidy of the savings of already comparatively rich people, and away from other areas.

Some people complain about the welfare state - but conveniently forget about government subsidies for the middle classes and above.


gastro george has a point. This isn't Pensions Freedom, this is The End Of Pensions (as in an insurance contract to cover you against not knowing how long you will live and hence how much money you will need).


Don't retire Chris, just scale down your work, think of it as diversification and it enables you to test having a little less income. Employment is a reasonable inflation hedge and that is valuable.

From my point of view pensions are now as they should be and the only thing they need is left alone. If someone saves a little and spends it, then that is probably a better use than getting a minute increase in income.

If they save a lot then they have learned how to postpone gratification and should be trusted to make sensible choices in retirement.


Those that are left wing by definition believe the state is best placed to look after the citizen, however this issue is complex and is influenced by how authoritarian/libertarian one is and other factors.

My brother was politically active for the Scottish Socialist Party. However when campaigning in the poorer areas of Glasgow they avoided discussing race as their core electorate while left wing were not libertarian. They arguably also had real individual economic risk from well educated Poles. So there position was personally rational although perhaps not proportionate to the real risk.

I am a right wing libertarian and believe that immigration has a strong utilitarian case.


This was 'New Labour's' 'left wing' immigration policy?



Someone's got to look after these oldies. We sensibly said 'Save tax free, and the private sector will look after you'. Now we're saying 'save tax free, do whatever you want with it'. There will be consequences.

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