Retirees set to lose billions ..........

[KAYS6912]

This country is a bloody disgrace. People who have paid into the system all their lives get zilch. In fact, if you are part of the indigenous population of the UK, forget it! What really annoys me - and I know I'm not alone here - is all the services which are being cut because the country can't afford them. Really? Then how can we afford to send billions abroad in aid? I know that will go down like a lead balloon in some quarters but frankly I'm passed caring. Until the UK economy - and the country in general - is stabilised, aid to anywhere should be suspended. Charity should begin at home and there are plenty of families in the UK living below the breadline who need help that they aren't getting.

[papagran40]

you are on the right track Nancy , and you are not alone with your thoughts.........papa.

[ZenKarma]

Charity should begin at home and there are plenty of families in the UK living below the breadline who need help that they aren't getting.

Yes. Well said, I couldn't agree more.

The government of this country still seems to think in terms of its old colonialist ways when it controlled half the world. It still seems to think it's some kind of world power. The reality of course is that rather than controlling half the world as we did up to Victorian times, we are now a rather insignificant dot off the coast of Europe.

I could add to your comments about overseas aid (much of which ends up in the pockets of corrupt dictators and equally corrupt government officials) of why exactly this country and its armed services are interfering in countries we have no business being in? Not only spending billions of pounds of tax payers money (money they don't actually have) on military, defence and armaments fighting wars we have no business being involved with, but even worse, squandering the lives of our own armed service personnel.

If America wants to flex its muscles and spend its money sorting out the worlds evil dictators and world problems, let them get on with it. Why is this country stupid enough to go along with them?

It is as you rightly say, quite disgraceful.

This country has already rid the world of two tranches of German madness in the First and Second World War which effectively bankrupted this country (and it never really fully recovered from it, it's only recently that it finished paying off those loans to America) yet Germany the instigators on both occasions were never forced to make any reparation payments to this country for all the damage and financial loss they caused us. Let alone the millions of lives lost.

Nobody thanked us.

Yet who now has the strongest economy in Europe (and one of the strongest in the world) and effectively runs, rules and bosses the whole European Union of which this country is still unfortunately a member? Yeah you guessed it - Germany.

The politicians running this country never learn. They're still making the same mistakes now as they did then.

[craig7501]

Millions of Britons due to retire over the next few years face a 'double whammy' that risks seeing £11.5 billion wiped off their retirement funds, according to a new report by the Saga Foundation.
This figure takes in the impact on pensioners of tax and benefit changes, including the freezing of age-related allowances from April 2013 and the reduction in winter fuel payments, alongside rock bottom interest rates and three rounds of quantitative easing.

http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/ret...171946860.html

I'm due to retire in 2 years and am getting really depressed about all the knocks UK pensioners are taking at the hands of this - and the last - government. There is something VERY wrong with our system where money is handed out hand-over-fist to those who haven't contributed ...................etc. etc.

Probably so they can up their own pensions by 40% MPs’ pay could climb by 40 per cent to £92,000 under pensions review

[buttons-and-bows]

I think they just want to make theirselves look good in the eyes of the US and Germany etc, as though we are a strong florishing important nation who can dole the cash out to other nations, when in reality they are starving their own people to do it.

[NuttyKrafts]

Well said Buttons! I'm a great believer in 'charity begins at home' and get very angry when I read or hear of all the millions of pounds going overseas when people here are in desperate need of help.

[poppyrowan]

This country has already rid the world of two tranches of German madness in the First and Second World War which effectively bankrupted this country (and it never really fully recovered from it, it's only recently that it finished paying off those loans to America) yet Germany the instigators on both occasions were never forced to make any reparation payments to this country for all the damage and financial loss they caused us. Let alone the millions of lives lost.

Nobody thanked us.

Yet who now has the strongest economy in Europe (and one of the strongest in the world) and effectively runs, rules and bosses the whole European Union of which this country is still unfortunately a member? Yeah you guessed it - Germany.

I have been shot down in flames on more than one occasion for putting forward this point of view, but it is a view I hold and I believe that 'free speech' entitles me to voice it? It seems to me that Germany says 'jump' and the British Government puppets say 'how high?' Yes,I think the politicians are puppets, bought and paid for by the highest bidders in commerce and business. Their policies are directly in line with what best benefits the super-rich, multi-nationals and multi national banks....just my opinion of course...

[moonwitch]

Yes,I think the politicians are puppets, bought and paid for by the highest bidders in commerce and business. Their policies are directly in line with what best benefits the super-rich, multi-nationals and multi national banks....just my opinion of course...

I totally agree with you about the current government.

My personal view is that governments shouldn't bail out banks that fail

They wouldn't bail out my business if I didn't manage it well enough.

[sidthelamp]

contra to popular thought the EU or more correctly the EU Parliament is not run and controlled by the Germans, MEPs are voted for by there own countrys who then sit in the EU parliament the bigger the country the more MEPs so the top 4 are germany 13.5 % france 9.8 % italy 9.8 % GB 9.8 % which works out at for the germans at 96 seats with 27 member states they hardly hold a monopoly of control .

the EU parliament is just one part of this massive EU theres the commision and council. EP is now one of the most powerful legislatures in the world both in terms of its legislative and executive oversight powers.

what i belive is there is no clear mandate and never has been in the EU people of all member states could there fore never of known what exactly they were voting for in the wider sense EG we voted for a common market which would be fair to say would just mean that a free trading arrangement between european countrys not a build up too as happened in 2009 a complete control of the EU budget it also controls the president and executive of the european central bank

i know lots of Germans they are just as aprehensive to the EU as the english like wise dutch and Belgians

the nature of this over Bureaucratic monster is in the fine print that we never see or are presented with in a clear manner nor do we as a working nation on the whole bother, to find out. which is what all these bureaucratics bank on, coupled with the fact there is no clear mandate allows them to take control and dominate whole countrys with there own agenders, it really has not a lot to do with Germans as a people.

[sidthelamp]

I totally agree with you about the current government.

My personal view is that governments shouldn't bail out banks that fail

They wouldn't bail out my business if I didn't manage it well enough.

agreed no business be it a bank or a butchers should be bailed out by a government unless its the government who cause the failure they have of course destroyed the minerals extraction business in the early 1900s which was in the private sector then nationalised the coal industry which they then destroyed even going after the free miners of the FOD to make it almost impossible for them to apply there born rights set down in english common law.