Taking from the poor, to give to the rich
I wish the Telegraph had a facility that let me ‘share’ items on my blog as one can on Facebook, so that I could share in mor detail my annoyance at what Tesco have just announced. They’re raised their official retirement age to 67. Okay, on the face of it that’s in line with current trends and mirrors what the state is doing, although you could have bet that the first major retailer to announce it would have been Britain’s biggest, from which we are all protected only by Monopolies and Mergers policy. What isn’t acceptable is the announcement that future calculations of annual payment increases will be moved from the Retail Price Index, which includes mortgages, council tax and house prices, to the Consumer Prices Index, which doesn’t. The effect will be that future pensioners will find their incomes cut by up to 20%. I accept that pension costs to employers are rising along with average life expectancy, but I don’t accept that this should be seen as a ‘burden’ on corporate monsters like Tesco. There is another solution, one that seems fairer to me than what’s proposed: maintain pensions, and pay the shareholders less.
Quintin Jardine's blog 