Harry Monk:
ROG:
If they are saying that age 75 is ok then the D4 rules need to be medicals every 5 years up to age 70 not 60 and then annually after thatI thought it was every five years up to age 65?
You are right - it is age 65 not 60 = my bad 
I must be missing something here. ( I often do!)
Why not make retirement compulsory at 65, and give the job to a younger person?
It must be cheaper to pay out old age pension than it is to pay out benefits to keep a young family, surely? 
emmerson2:
I must be missing something here. ( I often do!)
Why not make retirement compulsory at 65, and give the job to a younger person?
It must be cheaper to pay out old age pension than it is to pay out benefits to keep a young family, surely?
By the same ( correct ) logic 60 makes even more sense.
It also leaves more jobs for younger people for older workers to share a job rather than take a job each.The problem then being that employers hate job sharing and younger people are competing with older ones for low paid jobs.Then needing to work all the hours they can get to make it pay.Then they can’t hack it when they’ve got it meaning a continuous revolving door of disillusioned younger workers and older workers in a stand off with employers who are refusing to job share or even take them on and who are waiting for the next desperate under paid over worked mug to take it.IE a cluster zb of epic proportions.
While some of the problem is that the whole establishment con is implemented by 9 - 5 clerical waste of space types,who don’t know the meaning of hard physical graft,or the specific life shortening medical issues applying to truck drivers at least.Probably therefore adding to their own lifespan,then judge everyone by their own standards.
While however you look at it the whole pension/contributions/retirement age issue is a scam.In which the fox ( pension provider ) is in charge of the hen house.In which it’s obviously in their interests to come up with a bs impossibly high life expectancy number,so as to maximise contributions and minimise payouts.That applies whether it’s the state pension or private ones.
albion:
Harry Monk:
The big problem is that now that Nanny has managed to get everyone to stop smoking, not only is there a deficit of billions to the exchequer, but also millions of people are going to live until they are 90 instead of dropping dead at 67.I’m a fat bird, I’m doing my bit for the economy by hopefully shuffling off early. Given the parents died at 63 and 68, not looking good for me.
Your telling porky pies there lady. 
emmerson2:
I must be missing something here. ( I often do!)
Why not make retirement compulsory at 65, and give the job to a younger person?
It must be cheaper to pay out old age pension than it is to pay out benefits to keep a young family, surely?
At the moment we have IIRC over a million people working who are over retirement age. And at the moment we have low unemployment- in classic economics, employment of around 96-7% is desirable as a labour market with no flex in it is too stagnant. There are always people between jobs or voluntarily taking time out. Given that we have x many thousands of EU citizens doing jobs in the UK then it would suggest that people who aren’t working are either doing so by choice or frankly they are the type that are not attractive to employers or frankly anyone but their mothers.
And some people want to work past 65. Mr John Boyd the legendary milliner (focus for making Princess Di’s hats) died aged 92 and was working up until a few months before his death. Making hats is a pleasant occupation and why shouldn’t he work till he chooses to drop. Driving trucks is generally harder and more stressful, could easily make the case for retiring before 60.
Remy, you smoothy!
Franglais:
Rjan:
…The trouble with current workers paying for the retirement of former workers, is that, as Harry says, we are living longer. To sustain this we need more workers per retiree. Since families are smaller now than previously, we need to import labour.
Our past scheme is a Ponzi scheme that is reliant on an increasing population, and currently that means it’s reliant on increasing immigration.
I disagree. The past scheme relied on increasing productivity and an increased share of productivity being captured by labour.
And never mind this country being “full”, the world is getting too “full” for our current consumerist lifestyle.
Ah, the Malthusianism reveals itself! 
Why blame consumers? The vast majority of waste, and the vast majority of choices about waste, lie in the hands of corporations and governments, not with the consumer.
You merely promote capitalist waste, by arguing that every shopping trip is the proper forum for political action, rather than a political meeting. The bosses certainly don’t decide what packaging they should use
or how long their goods should last throughh some shopping charade - they sit down in meetings and make decisions about what packaging the consumer will get his product in, and how long his goods will last.
The post war UK system of paying pensions is unsustainable. It does need reform. Each individual being responsible for their own pension during their lifetime leaves too much space for inaction by the short sighted. So, wages must be taken now for the future good of workers. Less new cars and foreign holidays? Sorry, but retirements aren’t free.
I don’t agree that the system is unsustainable.
There is actually a vast amount of capital accumulation currently occurring (i.e. the amount of production being withheld from wages), and a vast amount of unearned income being extracted from its use (functionally equivalent to how pension funds work)…
The only difference is that the capital isn’t in the ownership of pensioned workers, but in the ownership of a minority of rich.