Saturday, December 5, 2020

Funny Life

 In the UK the government made retirement (especially for women, minorities and naturalized citizens) an impossible and unaffordable dream.  The new pension age to receive meager state pension is 66 years old and its less than a third of an average salary.   To get this “full pension” you need to work for 35 years. The pension is $1,000 a month.

 There is an expression “smoke and mirrors”.  This means the obscuring or embellishing of the truth of a situation with misleading or irrelevant information. The Black Lives Matter, climate change, transgender issues and the rest are there to distract attention from real issues, injustice and discrimination in everyday life.

 A colleague of mine is about to retire (at the age of 55), after working for the same company for 30 years.  As he worked part of his career abroad (for about 18 years), he has two pensions.  The pension for the time abroad is worth $1.7 million and you could take it as tax free lump sum.  The other is worth $1.7 million too but subject to taxes, should he withdraw it as a lump sum.

According to the pension fund conditions, the second $1.7 million pension, should he leave it in the fund, will generate $50K a year taxable, inflation adjusted pension for life.  This is an independent confirmation of my four percent rule review. 

 I am working for the same company. We worked together on two projects in to different countries, as expatriates. I actually progressed faster than him, by approximately 6 years.  The truly illuminating detail that my pension will be zero with the same company. The reason?  We have different nationalities, so when we work on the same project and in the same role the employment conditions are different.  This is hidden truth that will never be published or discussed, as this is how western system is all built and functions to this date. 

The funny part? Having zero pension contributions is not considered an employing advantage, as “non-core” nationalities are perceived as inferior.  Such behavior is revealing in its hypocrisy.

I actually have to take money out of my paycheck to make my savings for the retirement. The paycheck is lower too for doing the same job. I will be very lucky to have half of his pension as taxable and ten years later (65 years) at the current savings rate. 

 It is clear that discrimination and exploitation is integral to the UK and EU economy nowadays, like the slavery was for more than a century, with proceeds enjoyed at home and misery parked offshore.

 Fun fact: The richest 1 per cent of humanity is responsible for over 15 percent of all emissions between 1990 and 2015, while the richest 10 per cent were responsible for 52 per cent. While the poor will pay for the greenhouses gases emissions transition.

2 comments:

  1. This is just bizarre. In Australia employers must contribute a minimum 9.5% on top of the salary to a superannuation fund. This applies to people on temporary visas, permanent residents, and citizens. We get 17% in higher ed (if on a more than 1 year contract) because the union negotiated that apparently. We can also choose between defined benefit and defined contribution. But there can't be a case where someone gets no employment related pension. USD 3.4 million sounds really huge though.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hello mOOm, many thanks for stopping by.
    In the UK automatic and mandatory pensions for all where introduced in October 2012. Initially combined contributions were 2% (1% by employees and 1% by employer). Next year it is 8% (5% employee and 3% employer). The percentage include tax relief. The salary for contributions is capped at $65,000 USD a year.

    Of course, there have been more generous provisions in some companies before and now. This is where the companies have right to decide to whom they will pay those extra.

    ReplyDelete