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It won't just be OAP that suffer from this

It's definitely not just OAPs.

Random example. A good friend of mine is a professional mountaineer and helicopter mountain rescue paramedic in Austria. He's 35 and has elite levels of fitness. He had moderate COVID in April and he hasn't been able to stay awake for more than five hours at a time since and brain fog is causing him problems at work.

It's improving gradually with time, I should say.

My point was more about avoiding an inflation death spiral that fucks everyone rather than equitable outcomes (sorry lfgss). Bargaining en-masse for inflation busting pay rises will lead to more inflation, just as side-moves that result in inflation busting pay rises will do. The choice for folks feels stark though; do nothing and you get fucked. Do something and you might get fucked less, maybe, maybe not.

hasn't been able to stay awake for more than five hours at a time since and brain fog is causing him problems at work.

He didn't happen to become a father at around the same time, did he?

Glad to hear that!

A sister of a colleague of mine is back at 90% energy...after she got COVID in 2019.

Ha ha, baby born in December so I'm sure that could be part of it!

Bargaining en-masse for inflation busting pay rises will lead to more inflation, just as side-moves that result in inflation busting pay rises will do

Only some bits of the economic playbook of the 70s are applicable this time around. To the extent that inflation is imported through energy price pressures (oil then, gas now), I agree that the wage-price spiral hurts everyone.

But if you look at the other causes of inflation (fucked global supply chains, weak GBP and supply-driven tightening at the low-credentialled end of the labour market) and the general health of corporate balance sheets and margins going into this crisis, I think there is space for capital to bear some of the pain rather than just labour.

If you are old school NHS staff and on the final salary pension you can retire @ 50 on an 80% pension and a nice lump sum and I would imagine for clinical staff that might look pretty tasty after the last two years and a crap pay settlement.

Added to that there is a pension tax situation that has put a cap on maximum benefit you can accrue in a year and land you with a tax bill on your pension on top of normal income tax. Senior doctors and GPs are retiring/reducing hours as a result even before the current crazy RPI numbers used to calculate your 'pension benefit' have kicked in.

see #3 "too rich to work"

The lifetime allowance (which gives rise to this situation) is £1.1 million per person. I would respectfully suggest that at this level of accumulated liquid wealth you don't require further tax breaks.

As I understand it the LA was put in place to stop the private sector stuffing their personal pension contributions with things like bonus payments etc. to keep them tax free.

If you are just signed up to a national pension scheme on nationally determined pay and conditions and fixed contributions you have no control over, it seems a bit perverse if a chunk of those salaries breach that cap.

it seems a bit perverse if a chunk of those salaries breach that cap

The tax treatment of contributions in excess of the LTA is still strictly better than getting it paid as salary under the 45p rate. In the private sector you'd also get hit by tapering, meaning that it's almost impossible to accumulate a £1.1 mm pot under today's regime at £4k p.a. contribution.

I wondered why this was a problem only recently and saw the LTA was £1.8m in 2010/11 and has been reduced and fixed since then

It's one of relatively few ways that the tax system has become genuinely more progressive over the last decade. It's just unfortunate for those still on defined benefit pensions that it coincided with really low interest rates, which meant that the net present value (i.e. taxable value) of DB / final salary schemes ballooned.

do nothing and you get fucked

I've been doing nothing for years. Yet to get fucked.

#deardeirdre

The government is planning for rolling blackouts in a "reasonable worst-case scenario"

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-08-09/uk-braces-for-blackouts-gas-cuts-in-january-in-emergency-plan?utm_content=bloomberguk&utm_medium=social&cmpid%3D=socialflow-twitter-bloomberguk&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic

^thats behind a paywall for me I think/ or something on my phone is blocking.

Are they suggesting gas supplies.would be shut off?

"The UK is planning for several days over the winter when cold weather may combine with gas shortages, leading to organized blackouts for industry and even households.

Under the government’s latest “reasonable worst-case scenario,” Britain could face an electricity capacity shortfall totaling about a sixth of peak demand, even after emergency coal plants have been fired up, according to people familiar with the government’s planning.

Under that outlook, below-average temperatures and reduced electricity imports from Norway and France could expose four days in January when the UK may need to trigger emergency measures to conserve gas, they said. The government Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment."

Blimey. I'm on an old school NHS pension with 40 years in the scheme this December.

1/80th salary for each year and mx 40 years. So that's 50% salary after 40 years on the job. Not complaining though.

The pension lifetime allowance could be a killer for lots and many at work looking to leave before next April.

Good work! I bought added years so I don’t need to do the full 40. Only sensible financial decision I ever made. And I’m an accountant.

Didn't think about extra years, in for the long haul lol.

Back to the retirement thing increasing inflation. In my experience the NHS usually takes the opportunity to replace retirees with staff on the cheapest salary they can or downgrade the post.

Don’t forget when you retire the lines deducting NI and the pension subs disappear off your payslip. 50% of salary will be like 70% of your take home pay. And you can return to work after a break if you really wanted to stack some cash. This does not constitute financial advice 😀

With this and the liquid robot thingy a while back plus Boston Dynamics we're surely only a couple of releases from the T-1000 now?

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2332773-tiny-electromagnetic-robot-runs-fast-and-re-forms-after-being-squished/

Runs like it's playing Qwop

You can see the wires. They're playing us for fools.

I had my prostate removed a couple of weeks ago, this is the guy that did the surgery and the robot he used. He said it’s only a matter of time before there will be AI guiding the robot through the process.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/29/the-robot-will-see-you-now-could-computers-take-over-medicine-entirely