Defined benefit pension schemes

3701

defined-benefit-pension-schemes-

For many years, the gap between public and private sector pension provision has been widening considerably – the sense of manifest injustice is certainly becoming stronger. Recent developments in the private sector with regard to the financial viability of defined benefit pension schemes are particularly relevant. With falling returns – due to a weak stock market and low gilt yields - many pension fund deficits have spiraled.

The share price ratings of both British Telecom and British Airways are being seriously damaged by their ongoing pension fund liabilities - accounting standard changes now require companies to report their pension fund liabilities in their balance sheets. Few FTSE 100 companies now offer a defined benefit pension scheme to new employees. Even BP has recently announced that it was withdrawing this option. More seriously for the future of such schemes, Barclays has confirmed that its defined benefit pension scheme will be closed to existing employees. In the longer term, few defined benefit pension schemes are expected to survive in the private sector as companies recognize their many drawbacks.

But in the public sector, defined benefit pension schemes are continuing to rack up massive liabilities for taxpayers –a figure of close to £1 trillion has been cited by the Institute of Economic Affairs. Action to stem these vast pay-as-you-go liabilities is vital. Options include levying higher pension contributions on public sector employees, a requirement for them to work longer to secure such benefits and a paring back of pension-related entitlements. Apart from removing the attraction of a defined benefit pension scheme for most new recruits, the Government could also introduce a far more radical option – the phasing-out of its defined benefit pension schemes for most existing public sector employees.

The potential savings would be massive, but such a policy would be controversial. Very controversial.

Failings of the points-based migration system

3700

failings-of-the-points-based-migration-system

Students are not the only people hurt by the UK’s points-based visa application system. Non-EU citizens who seek employment in the UK are also disadvantaged. The government intends to accomplish three objectives with the new migration control system. First, Gordon Brown’s government wants to curtail the number and type of non-EU citizens working in the UK. Second, the government wants to keep visa holders off the dole. The third government objective is to raise money from visa applications.

The first objective has been publicly stated by the Home Office. The second objective is revealed through a review of the new visa application forms. The points-based system requires all visa applicants to have sufficient funds to support themselves, and any dependants, throughout their stay. Applicants also certify that they will not receive welfare benefits whilst in the UK. The third objective is manifest by hike in visa application fees. For example, unsponsored visa applicants must now pay between £675 and £1020 for the application fee. Sponsored applicants must pay a £265 fee. Even students are required to pay £145 to apply for a visa. Applicants in these three categories who have dependents must pay the same application fee for each dependent. Visa application statistics are sparse for the period since the points-based system was launched, but in the 2006–2007 financial year, the UK government received 2.7 million visa applications. That translates into millions of pounds of revenue for the government.

The concerns underlying the government’s objectives can all be traced to the maladies of the welfare state. Welfare states attract people who are content to live on the dole. The new points-based system cracks down on would-be social loafers from non-EU nations, but European freeloaders are left undeterred. This is especially problematic due to the combination of the UK’s high standard of living and relatively generous welfare benefits. Welfare states are also expensive to run, which explains the high taxes and government fees.

The easy way to eliminate the government’s welfare-based concerns is to do away with the welfare system. That may not be politically practicable at the moment, but an effective compromise would be to pare down welfare benefits to the point that the UK’s dole is much less desirable than welfare programs in other EU nations. This will encourage net negative residents to look elsewhere for government handouts. With fewer freeloaders, many of the government’s immigration concerns will be allayed. The Home Office could then relax its points based system rules to make it easier for industrious, innovative applicants to make positive contributions to the UK economy.

Chuck on economics

3699

chuck-on-economics

Why we shouldn't learn economics from Charles Dickens.

Blog Review 996

3694

blog-review-996

A very simple solution to the gender pay gap (which isn't actually a gender pay gap, it's a mothers' pay gap).

Ooooh, how tangled it can get when politicians call for people to do things for moral reaons rather than legal ones.

As Paul Krugman has pointed out, having the pound rather than the euro has been pretty handy.

Another 17,314 things we could probably do without.

This is a constitutional reform Netsmith could get behind. Truly separate the legislature and the executive.

Something wrong here, surely? A bankruptcy judge who understands bankruptcy law? What will the UAW think of that?

And finally, which blogger is even less in touch with the real world than the Autorantic Virtual Moonbat?

Why the exodus?

3688

why-the-exodus

The technological advance in communication, particularly over the last decade, is the primary catalyst that has given ordinary people the very realistic opportunity to move abroad. The advent of social and business networking sites has revolutionised the way in which people communicate with each other. You can build up a network of friends and business contacts on the other side of the world through no more than a few degrees of separation.

Combine this with your ability to send and receive an email from just about anywhere in addition to further advances in Voice over IP technology and suddenly moving to the other side of the world doesn’t seem as daunting as it once was. The proposition is more affordable, made even more so by cheaper and more available travel.

A significant proportion of job seekers have emigrated or are looking to emigrate due to the effects of the harsh market conditions we have experienced over the last 18 months in the UK. At the same time, certain countries have incentivised UK workers to move abroad by offering advantageous tax breaks and an “enhanced quality of life". For example, the lure of The Middle East has been too great for many to ignore. Attractive relocation packages, a cosmopolitan lifestyle, the opportunity to work for a top international business tax free, good schools, restaurants and hotels are just some of the draws. The job seekers we speak to on a daily basis refer to “the work life balance". They are therefore prepared to be more adventurous in order to experience a different lifestyle, a different culture.

Finally, the news in the recent budget that people earning over £150,000 will have to pay a hefty 50% tax is likely to have implications on the number of people moving abroad. The very high earners may well be drawn to the traditional “bolt holes" of Monaco and Switzerland, whereas high earning job seekers will have further incentive to move to more tax efficient shores, particularly as international experience is increasingly sought by employers looking for talent.

To conclude, boundaries, both physical and mental, are being overcome at an alarming rate with the result that the world is becoming a far more accessible place for the increasingly adventurous and transient job seeker. People are no longer restricted by the limitations of the city they live in or even the borders of the country they were born in. Emigration, both short and long term, is bound to increase in the future and potentially at an alarming rate if the UK government makes it unappealing for job seekers to work here.

David Morel is Managing Director of Tiger Recruitment Ltd.

New report: Regulatory Myopia

3696

new-report-regulatory-myopia

'Regulators, not under-regulation, caused the financial crash'. The financial crash occurred because regulators were too preoccupied with form-filling and did not see that the whole financial system was at risk, a leading economic think-tank says today.

Like Members of Parliament in the expenses scandal, the banks did not actually break any of the regulators' rules. But the rules were targeted on the wrong things, allowing a disaster to flare up under the regulators' noses.

The comments come in a report, Regulatory Myopia, from the Adam Smith Institute, which is its response to Lord Turner's Report on financial regulation, and published ahead of the Chancellor's Mansion House Speech in the City of London.

The Institute says that Turner is wrong to suggest that regulation was too 'light touch' for the job. The banks, it says, are minutely regulated, from how they deal in the credit markets to how quickly they pick up the phone to their customers. More regulations would not have saved the system, and will not do so now. Rather, the mistake was a shortage of overall supervision that would have seen the potentially fatal risks that the banks were running and would have intervened to curb them.

The report's authors, London Business School Fellow Tim Ambler and regulation consultant Keith Boyfield, say that the Bank of England should take on this supervision role, and that far from being expanded, the powers of the regulator, the Financial Services Authority (FSA), should be cut back to 'match its competence'. The FSA, they say, must realise it is 'part of the problem, not the solution'.

Click here to download a PDF of Regulatory Myopia.

REG lunch with Sandra Boss

3691

reg-lunch-with-sandra-boss

London is slipping as a world financial centre, being overtaken by the likes of New York, Singapore, Hong Kong, Geneva, Zurich, Chicago, Frankfurt and Boston. It has a bit of breathing space to put things right, but it needs to move quickly. That was the conclusion from a high-power lunchtime seminar of the Adam Smith Institute's led by Sandra Boss, Senior Partner of McKinsey. Four issues for London were identified. First, the regulatory burden. London has benefited from having a well-policed financial market, but now new EU regulations threaten to add much more to the burden, putting London's world-leader status at risk. Second, UK taxes have risen, prompting a number of financial firms to leave. The tax on non-domiciles, the threatened 50% income tax rate, and changes in capital gains tax, have all made London more expensive once again. Third, London's infrastructure remains poor. Heathrow is still struggling to cope, internet bandwidth is less than perfect, and transport strikes are adding to the frustration of doing business in London. On the other hand, London is relatively welcoming to foreigners, while New York has become much more restrictive since 9/11. And of course London has English, everyone's second language. So it is still a talent magnet. But if the tax and regulatory burden continues to rise, for how long? To find out more about the ASI's Regulatory Evaluation Group, please click here.

How is the FED doing?

3689

how-is-the-fed-doing

Of the few that know what the FED actually does, not many think it is doing a very good job.

Blog Review 995

3693

blog-review-995

Now here's a finding you wouldn't expect. Big box stores, and especially the warehouse stores, actually reduce obesity, not increase it.

It doesn't look as if GM understands what went wrong yet. That something did, yes, but not what.

Here's at least one clue to what did go wrong. The managers never actually tried their own products.

Not just the funding of fake charities, but the funding of them so that they stagger on after the Government changes. To continue to propagandise for the fallen government's policies we must assume.

There's no new regulation, only old regulation that has been tried and found wanting already.

Some newspaper articles are so egregiously ill informed that you do rather have to suspect enemy action: surely no one working for a national newspaper is actually that stupid?

And finally, advice for the girls: "If you ever need a date, I highly recommend wearing a meat dress."

Why the London Living Wage is a bad idea

3685

boris-johnsons-disappointing-populism-or-why-the-london-living-wage-is-a-bad-idea-

It is a well known phenomenon that politicians show great promise before being elected but fail to deliver once in office.

Boris Johnson’s election as Mayor of London brought to one of Britain’s most powerful political offices a man whom many viewed (with varying degrees of excitement or terror) as a radical right winger, a free market fundamentalist and rampant Thatcherite. In fact, Johnson has proven to be that most sorry of politicians, the populist.

A prime example of this has been his shameless volte face on the minimum wage. Before he was elected he wrote how minimum wage laws drove “up your costs and greatly [reduced] your ability to reinvest". Yet since being elected he has not only accepted the minimum wage (which he is, after all, obliged to do by law) but has perpetuated the London Living Wage (over which he has discretion).

In July 2008 he described how “the living wage ... is not only morally right but also makes good business sense contributing to better recruitment and retention of staff, higher productivity and a more loyal workforce with high morale." How times have changed!

Economic theory explains why minimum wage restraints are bad for workers. By and large, minimum wage rules do not improve the wages of staff. Rather, they render the least productive workers – who tend therefore to be the poorest and the most vulnerable – unemployable. Put simply, if one can only make six widgets an hour, and a widget only sells for £1, one’s employer cannot afford to pay you £6, so if the minimum wage is over £6 she will not employ you. If widget making is your forte (if you are better at producing widgets than anything else) then the minimum wage condemns you to unemployment.

Note that Johnson is also wrong that minimum wage laws drive “up your costs and greatly [reduce] your ability to reinvest". Costs are actually lower because marginal activity is no longer profitable and so production falls (though, ironically, production per head rises – the French have higher productivity per head than the British because they have higher unemployment).

For now the London Living Wage is voluntary. However, the GLA already forces it on contractors working for the London Development Agency and there are moves afoot to foist it on Olympic contractors, too.

Meanwhile, the enthusiasm for it among non-commercial, charity- and tax- funded bodies (Tory-controlled Ealing Council, for example) is enlightening. These bodies are not constrained by economic concerns; they can continue to employ less productive staff at inflated wages because – whereas a company would have to pass the costs onto customers who would then stop buying their product – the taxpayer has no choice about whether to pay, and charity donors are simply not that discriminating.

So perhaps Johnson is right after all: minimum wage laws do drive up your costs: the cost of your taxes. If his policy were adopted across the UK, it would drive up the cost to those on low incomes in a second way, too: it would cost them their jobs.