#UK pension fund

[bitcoinversus]

First UK Pension Fund Invests Directly in Bitcoin

In a landmark development for the UK’s financial sector, an unnamed British pension fund has allocated 3% of its £50 million portfolio directly to Bitcoin. This strategic move, facilitated by pension advisory firm Cartwright, marks the first instance of a UK pension scheme investing in cryptocurrency. The decision followed a comprehensive due diligence process, addressing environmental, social,…

[head-post]

A group of British women born in the 1950s are seeking compensation after the government raised the state pension age, leaving many financially vulnerable as the cost of living remains high.

The group Women Against State Pension Inequality (WASPI) is seeking compensation, arguing that women affected by the changes received minimal notice, unlike men, and were therefore unprepared for today’s high cost of living.

WASPI began campaigning in 2015, seeking redress for the UK government’s sudden change to the retirement age, which increased the retirement age for women from 60 to 65 in 1995 and then to 66.

Unlike men, who received six years’ notice of the increase, many women born in the 1950s had only one or two years to prepare for the six-year increase. They argue that this discrepancy leaves them financially vulnerable and unprepared for retirement.

In March, the Parliamentary Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) admitted that the government had failed to properly inform women about the changes. But despite this finding, the government has yet to introduce a compensation scheme.

WASPI held a rally in Parliament Square in London last week to coincide with the Labour Party’s first budget announcement since coming to power, and called on the government to address their grievances.

Lynne Ruddock, WASPI co-ordinator, said the ombudsman’s findings should be the basis for compensation. She told media, emphasising that the movement intends to continue its campaign:

They’ve been given a varying amounts of compensation that each WASPI woman should be given.

Ruddock criticised the previous Conservative government for skirting the issue, saying they ignored it knowing “they would not be re-elected” in elections earlier this year.

She also accused the new Labour government of not supporting the WASPI case in the past now that it was in power. she said:

Before Labour were re-elected, in opposition, they were massive, massive supporters of our cause. Now they’re in government, they’re not interested.

Barbara Parker, another local WASPI coordinator, emphasised the financial hardship the changes have led to, especially amid the rising cost of living.

For many of the women affected, the financial losses are significant, totalling around £40,000 to £50,000 per person.

Read more HERE

[losergames]

the UK's 'anti-BDS' boycott bill is returning to parliament for a third reading and vote Wednesday 10th of January.

this proposed law is not aimed at individuals, it would be impossible to stop people from boycotting, but instead targets public bodies like universities, public sectors, and councils in the UK. this would prevent public bodies from making ethical choices about where they want to invest their employee's pension funds. e.g. pension funds could be invested into companies that make arms for countries committing genocide.

the anti-boycott bill explicitly mentions Israel, trying to give them protection from public body boycotts as well as undermine the Palestinian led campaign for boycotting. it's disgusting and disgraceful.

share and reblog this post with your UK friends if you are not a UK resident.

UK residents, contact your MP and demand they oppose the anti-boycott bill. Palestine Solidary Campaign UK have an email template here.

UK residents, if you are able to join, Palestine Solidarity Campaign have organised a protest during the anti-boycott bill vote, Wednesday 10th of January outside of Parliament, London.

UK residents, if you are able to join, Palestine Solidarity Campaign UK have organised their 7th National March for Palestine, Saturday 13th of January in London.

[53rdcenturyhero]

Comments explain well. 13 years of support leeched from working people to shareholders and profts not put back into the businesses that have made that (training, pensions, equipment) never mind a constant demonising of less able by client media... well. Just stop voting them in.

UK politics version. Ymmv. If you're also in a country that has sold off water, electric, train, distribution, pension funds, real estate, housing etc etc etc to other countries at the same time as stopping manufacture and training whilst allowing bosses to earn more than 300 times employee wages, then and only then can you comment.

[soon-palestine]

BDS works! USS, the UK’s biggest private pension fund, has divested over $100M of Israeli assets, including Israel Bonds, following sustained pressure from its members.

This marks yet another instance in recent months of institutions divesting from Israel’s genocidal regime and complicit companies.

In February, the world’s largest sovereign fund, Norway’s $1.6 trillion oil fund, divested entirely (approx. $500M) from Israel Bonds.

In June, Norway’s largest pension company, KLP, divested $69 million from Caterpillar due to its contributions to violations of Palestinian human rights in Gaza and the West Bank.

And two of the largest US churches, the United Methodist Church and the Presbyterian Church USA, also voted to divest from Israel Bonds in May and July respectively.

We renew our call for pressure on institutions to divest from Israel’s sinking economy. Investing in it is not only unethical and illegal. It’s now also reckless. #ShutDownNation

[useless-englandfacts]

i don’t know if you guys remember this story from june:

well, the time has come and this anti-boycott bill will be voted on in parliament on 10 january. if it passes, it will prevent public bodies – including local councils, universities, and public sector pension funds – from making ethical choices about their own spending/investment, also banning participation in political boycotts (especially against israel).

the palestine solidarity campaign has provided this template for uk residents to write to their MPs encouraging them to vote against the bill - all you have to do is fill in your details and the rest has been done for you.

[txttletale]

What are your criticisms of Chavismo and Maduro just out of curiosity?

now i'd like to preface this with a disclaimer that any opposition ghoul would do nothing but sell the country out to the USA and UK every which way in a heartbeat--maduro is better than any alternative, whether that's guaidó or whichever neoliberal puppet they prop up to replace him.

anyway, there were two key problems with chavismo. firstly, it's fundamentally a national-bourgeois led social democratic movement. obviously in an imperialized country like venezuela this made it profoundly progressive, and the achievments of the bolivarian revolution were incredible--chávez cut malnutrition in half, cut unemployment in half, sent millions of children to school and gave millions of elderly people pensions. however, this project of wealth distribution ultimately had to accomodate the national bourgeoisie. which of course on one hand you can argue was completely necessary, but on the other hand allowed the parasitic classes to entrench themselves firmly within elements of the state apparatus and made chavismo as a project entirely incapable of confronting the national bourgeoisie or corruption.

these of course are the realities of 'democratic socialism', of sweeping a socialist into office in a bourgeoise democracy. through some extremely clever political structures, such as the new constitution, communes, and bolicarian circles--he was able to move much more radically than most in his position. but ultimately, he could not escape the fundamental limits of the source and constraints of his power.

the second is that--and this is a very tawdry and obvious piece of analysis--while it is of course admirable and correct that he seized the nation's oil wealth and enriched the country with it--the way he did it was obviously shortsighted. without a sovereign wealth fund, worker's democratic control of the oil industry, or a solid and far-ranging investment plan, he laid the groundwork for some of the current crisis on the assumption that oil prices would stay high forever.

maduro inherited these faults and added far more of his own. during the crisis that began in earnest in 2016, the other shoe dropped wrt oil prices at the same time as the US tightened their murderous sanctions regime. faced with economic crisis, maduro has broadly chosen to move from chávez' strategy of accomodation with the national bourgeoisie to a full on alliance. social programs have been slashed, pensions cut, wages have plummeted, and worst of all, maduro has sold off countless state enterprises in the hope that oft-prayed to benevolent deity, "foreign capital" would miraculously heal the economy. in the course of this he made an enemy of many early chavistas, as well as the leftmost wing of chávez' coalition -- he has mobilized the full force of the bourgeois state against the country's communist party and other genuinely revolutionary movements, most gallingly the marxist-leninist movimiento tupamaro.

so, tldr: chavismo was genuinely radical compared to even your average third-world social democracy--however it remained fundamentally constrained in what it could accomplish by the lack of an actual proletarian state, was unable to rid itself of reliance on the national bourgeoisie for that same reason, and made some very avoidable mistakes in the handling of the nation's oil wealth--maduro inherited those flaws but has been much more accomodating to both national and international capitalists to the detriment of the people of venezuela.

[sixseasonsofodestawithatardis]

Explaining PIP, the reforms and how YOU can help!

Recently, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Mel Stride announced measures to reform PIP (Personal Independence Payment). It's a benefit given to disabled people, whether they are employed or not, to help provide support for the extra costs incurred due to being disabled. PIP can be paid on anything you need, such as a carer, adaptions, your bills or a night out (yes, disabled people are entitled to a social life I'm NOT arguing with anyone about this!) On top of the changes to sick notes, the announced reforms are an assault on disabled people to desperately cling to power!

Below is an explanation of PIP and the reforms so people can answer the open consultations, call for evidence, and sign a petition. We need as many people in the UK as possible to answer both to try to stop these reforms from happening.

What is PIP?

The Tories are saying PIP is a one-size-fits-all benefit, which again is a lie as PIP is designed to look at how your disability affects your daily life and how difficult it makes it for you to participate in society, not whether you have this specific disability so it only affects you in these ways! It doesn't matter whether you're diagnosed or not, either. There are two categories they look at throughout, known as the 'Daily Living Component' and the 'Mobility component' The process involves 50 pages you have to fill out (link to Turn2US for proof https://www.turn2us.org.uk/get-support/information-for-your-situation/claiming-personal-independence-payment-pip/fill-in-the-personal-independence-payment-pip-form#:~:text=You%20usually%20get%20the%20paper,it%20is%2050%20pages%20long.)

With hundreds of letters from Doctors as proof of your condition! And then an assessment in which you will answer all sorts of demeaning questions, give in-depth answers that you don't feel comfortable sharing, and hope the assessor has understood how it affects your life and written it down properly and that you'll get the right amount of money at the end of this assessment or re-assessment.

To get the standard rate in both components, you need 8 points; to get the enhanced rate, you need 12 points.

They'll then give you two, three, five, or ten years (10 years is known as a fixed-term award and a light-touch review) to undergo the terror of the PIP assessment again.

The reforms proposed and why they're terrifying!

The reforms they've suggested so far are

One-off grants for aids and appliances

receipts to then be claimed back at a later date

the changing of eligibility for PIP or the category 'Long Term sickness'

Vouchers instead of cash payments

If you've read those four options and thought they were cruel, infantilising and impossible to make work, then you'd be right.

As a disabled person, bills don't magically disappear. You still have council tax and rent to pay or a carer. Will landlords and councils accept these vouchers? A one-off grant won't work here either. The vouchers also signal that we can't be trusted to pay for our own needs and aren't responsible—which is far from the truth!

Aids and treatments are already covered by the NHS, so this is redundant and will be futile, especially when you consider the long waiting lists for mental health treatment (and just generally) on the NHS—and even if they aren't, we do know that and will use PIP to save up for it, etc. It's easier and more economical to give us cash payments.

To have the receipts to claim back expenses, we need to have the money to spend on said expenses.

Changing the eligibility will (much like these other suggestions) put more disabled people at risk. If you want mental health to improve: Fix the NHS, wages, sort out the cost of living crisis and fund the research/support for Long Covid sufferers.

How you can help! - UK-based people, plz sign everyone else. Please reblog & signal boost!

If you live in the UK, there are currently two consultations open ( the sick note one closes on 8 July 2024, and the PIP one closes on 22 July 2024). Ideally, the responses will be used to decide whether these reforms go ahead.

Here are links to the two reforms for PIP and changes to the sick note process.

Please note that the PIP consultation ( the first link) is 6 pages long and must be completed in one go. It's also filled with typos, repeated questions, and very difficult wording in many places, so be on the lookout for that! People are rightfully complaining about its accessibility, so the link and end date may change. I will update this post if this happens. I also know answering stuff like this is overwhelming, so here is a thread by PeachyInWales on Twitter about how they approached the consultation. If I see any samples by any disability activists or organisations, I will post them here, too!

This second link is the second consultation or call to evidence. Which GPs are being stripped of the ability to sign sicknotes for people on benefits, which is again ridiculous!

And the last link is a petition from SCOPE to stop the government from demonising disabled people further.

Ultimately, we're trying to stop a benefit that is difficult to get and barely covers costs for many applicants from getting worse.

If I've missed anything then let me know! I'm sorry the post was so long, but it's a lot to go through! Again, UK-based people, please share your thoughts if you can and sign the petition! If you are not currently living in the UK, please share these links or the post so other UK-based users can see this and try to help.

Thank you!

[chronicallyuniconic]

The dystopian establishment says "keep people in work as part of their recovery"

When did work, ever, aid, or benefit a person's recovery.

Going back to work, left me out of a job forever onward. I never recovered.

They are saying these phrases as if we're all one and the same. We're not.

For example, about 40% of people in the UK have blue eyes. Do they think all those eyes are the same? Just because they're blue?

The Department for Work & Pensions are purposefully driving this narrative.

They can't get people angry enough about immigration and stopping the boats, because we value human lives, they don't want to talk about pumping shit in our seas, rivers & beaches, because we can see money means more to them than any human life, they can't get people angry enough about Ukraine/Russia, because that means admitting their oligarch ties, they can't get people on their side about Israeli genocide in Gaza, because we see that it's genocide and they are funding it, a part of it, they want people to look away from DRC, Sudan, Yemen, because we are aware that what they are doing could happen to us at any time.

Now it's the long term sick, disabled, unpaid and non paid full time carers, and even doctors & GPs to some degree, that are taking the hit. Hate is created. This is by design. Don't let them trick you anymore. Read between every line 3 or 4 times. It unravels so quickly.

We are not the problem, it is not our fault. The tax dodging, money laundering, wants-to-strip-you-of-your-human-rights government, is.

*I know working does wonders for some, but this isn't what will happen*

[lookingforhappy]

link to source

transcript of the section on Reginald's death:

CITY SAYS GOODBYE TO REGINALD HARGREEVES U.A. founder found dead No statements from the family issued Jennifer Chung, Gazetter Reporter Sir Reginald Hargreeves, has died at the age of 73 from a heart attack. Many knew him as a wealthy entrepreneur and Olympic gold medalist, but he was also founder of The Umbrella Academy, that mysterious group of super powered children in the early 90s. Hargreeves acted as the leader of this group of wunderkinds, and was often spotted on the sidelines of the U.A.'s missions. Yet aside from all of his feats, little was known about the personal life of the man himself. And he often kept a very low profile. After the unexpected disbandment of the U.a., Hargreeves spent his remaining days out of the spotlight -- hidden away from the public eye -- and became hihgly reclusive. Following the publication of ex-U.A. member Vanya Hargreeves' memoir, Extra Ordinary: My Life As Number Seven, surprising -- and at times, shocking -- the details emerged about the private life of not only the Umbrella Academy but also about Hargreeves. But as explosive as the content of the book was, these details were never corroborated by the other, living members of the U.A. or even by Sir Reginald Hargreeves himself. (Continued on page 16) [picture of reginald] Inventor and founder of The Umbrella Academy died in his home. His family has yet to make any public appearances in recent days or statements regarding the loss. PHOTO CREDIT: TAL AVITAL

the other columns talk about:

people who act as carers for family members often suffer from insomnia and sweden and the uk are running studies on this

people worry that pensions/social security benefits won't be able to fund their medical expenses if they claim early, and that if they claim later then they'll be missing out on money they could use before they die.

4 teenagers bought medical marijuana and made it into pot-jolly ranchers which they took to school. they were suspended and charged with drug trafficking. police claim this is what you get when you legalize marijuana.

tech such as phones, cars, TVs and planes has plateaued while nanotech, genetics engineering and computers continue to get better

two sisters spotted a house on fire and woke the people living there, two parents and their child, before they could be killed. the house was burned down due to improperly disposed cigarettes.

[beardedmrbean]

For decades, Britain’s Left-wing elite has looked at Europe’s high-spending social model with a degree of awe.

France, Germany and Scandinavia have long been viewed, perhaps through rose-tinted spectacles, as examples of what the UK could be if governments were not so tight-fisted.

Under Sir Keir Starmer, Labour is determined to give the country a much bigger state. Official projections published alongside the Budget last month show government spending will settle at around 45pc of GDP.

Spending has never been sustained at these levels before, only reaching such highs briefly in the nation’s worst moments – including the pandemic, the financial crisis and the 1970s oil shocks.

So at last the UK has a chance of becoming the high-spending social democracy of Labour dreams.

It is unfortunate, then, that this is the moment Christine Lagarde has chosen to issue an extraordinarily vivid warning: Europe’s social models are utterly unsustainable.

Weak and uncompetitive economies risk running out of money to fund their sprawling welfare states unless they can reverse decades of relative decline and emulate America’s runaway success in tech, the president of the European Central Bank (ECB) cautioned.

“Our productivity growth in Europe is progressively slowing, which means that our ability to generate income is diminishing. If left unchecked, we will face a future of lower tax revenues and higher debt ratios,” she said in a speech in Paris.

“We face a rising old-age dependency ratio which will drive up public spending on pensions. And it is estimated that governments will need to spend in excess of €1 trillion (£836bn) a year to meet our investment needs for climate change, innovation and defence.

“If we cannot raise productivity, we risk having fewer resources for social spending.”

Those pressures are only going to mount. Pensions, for instance, are becoming ever more expensive. More than one-fifth of the populations of Spain, Germany and France are now aged over-65. In Italy, almost one-quarter have reached that age. Two decades ago, none had more than 20pc in the cohort.

Projections from the United Nations show even more stark increases to come. In Italy, for instance, more than one-third of the population will be aged 65 or older by 2040.

In Britain, not only is the share of pensioners rising – despite increases to the state pension age – but the generosity of the benefits they receive is also increasing.

The triple lock means the state pension rises by the highest of inflation, wages or 2.5pc each year, meaning benefits paid out in old age are, over time, guaranteed to rise more quickly than the incomes of the people whose taxes cover the cost. Adding to that is the cost of healthcare for those pensioners.

As Lagarde put it: “We face and will continue to face growing expenditure arising from a changing security environment, ageing populations and the climate transition.”

Cutting back any of those benefits is appallingly hard, as successive British governments have found. Not unsurprisingly, voters whose taxes paid for previous generations of pensioners find it galling to be asked to receive less themselves.

Similarly in France, Emmanuel Macron faced widespread protests against his plans to raise the pension age. Marine Le Pen’s National Rally made big gains in this year’s general election, in part on promises to reverse the increase.

Costs are also growing for other age groups, with more generous childcare subsidies on offer in Britain, as well as a rising population of working-age benefits claimants.

Europe is ‘trailing behind’

If Europeans want to keep on enjoying such largesse, they need to find a way to pay the bills, says Lagarde.

“Europe is under pressure. The rapid pace of technological change triggered by the digital revolution has left us trailing behind,” said the ECB president and former managing director of the International Monetary Fund.

“We need to adapt quickly to a changing geopolitical environment and regain lost ground in competitiveness and innovation. Failure to do so could jeopardise our ability to generate the wealth needed to sustain our economic and social model, which the vast majority of Europeans nevertheless hold dear.”

While the US economy roared back from Covid, Europe’s recovery was distinctly underwhelming, with Germany effectively failing to grow at all from its 2019 level. But the problem is not just a lockdown after-effect.

Over the past 20 years, productivity has grown twice as fast in the US as in the eurozone. Output for every hour worked has climbed by more than one-quarter in America compared to less than 13pc in the single currency area.

In Britain the situation is even worse, with productivity up by less than one-tenth.

The world’s largest companies illustrate the problem. By market capitalisation, the biggest five – each worth more than $2 trillion – are all American, led by Apple. All are also tech companies – chip-maker Nvidia, Microsoft, Google-owner Alphabet, and Amazon.

In sixth place, at a mere $1.8 trillion, is the first non-American entry, Saudi Aramco, the state oil company.

Most of the top 20 are American. The first European company is in 25th place – Denmark’s Novo Nordisk, famed for its manufacture of Ozempic and Wegovy, and worth the best part of half a trillion dollars.

The biggest European tech company is SAP, a relatively unsung German titan of business technology, and the 37th-largest listed company globally.

The industries in which Europe was traditionally a world leader are under growing threat.

Germany’s car industry is struggling to compete with cheap electric vehicles from China and fashion and luxury groups are at risk from tariffs if president-elect Donald Trump makes good on his campaign policy to impose border taxes of 10pc or even 20pc on imported goods.

LVMH, the 34th-biggest company and star of French industry, ranks highly on Morgan Stanley’s list of businesses which are exposed to US tariffs, because of the large share of products which the luxuries group sells over the Atlantic.

It is also exposed to any slowdown in trade with China, showing how exposed Europe has become to geopolitical tensions.

Lagarde says the Continent risks a “middle-technology trap”.

“We are specialised in technologies that were mostly developed in the last century. Only four of the world’s top 50 tech companies are European,” she said.

“Unlike in the past, Europe is no longer at the forefront of progress. Our productivity growth – the key factor driving our long-term prosperity – is diverging from the US.”

On top of that come trade wars, and the cost of military wars with Russia the most immediate threat, for which the continent is under-prepared.

As Lagarde notes, it was only wealth that generated the taxes to pay for Europe’s welfare states in the first place.

The sun is setting on European-style welfarism. Sir Keir must take note – growth has to come first.

[thethirdromana]

It feels like I've been posting a bit recently (and indeed throughout Dracula Daily) around Victorian ideas of youth and age without ever putting any actual numbers on any of this.

This is all just me and my dear friend Mr Google, so do point out if I've got anything wrong. Where I haven't provided specific dates, this is broadly true for the 1890s.

Age 5-11: children were expected to be at school, which was compulsory (raised from 10 in 1893).

Age 11-13: children were allowed to work in factories, but they were supposed to continue attending school part-time.

Age 14-18: considered "young persons" by the Factories Act of 1878, teenagers were limited to 56.5 hours of work per week in textile factories and 60 hours in non-textile factories. (The same hours were applicable for women).

Age 16: the age of consent, as it is in the UK today (raised from 13 in 1885). Also a possible school leaving age, e.g. for junior clerks.

Age 18: the typical age for a débutante to come out in society, though this varied. She would be courting for a minimum of 6 months and be engaged for a further 6 before getting married. On average, upper-class girls married at 21 (this had increased from 18 over the course of the 19th century). Also the oldest possible school leaving age, for those destined to be educated professionals.

Age 21: the age of majority. People could marry at this age without parental consent, vote, enter contracts, and stand for elected office. In 1891, only about 2/3 of people reached their 21st birthday, compared with 99.1% of today's 21-year-olds in England and Wales.

Age 25: the average age at first marriage for women in England and Wales.

Age 26: the average age at first marriage for men in England and Wales.

Age 60: the age from which you could retire and receive a pension from the Railway Clearing System Superannuation Fund (the first one I could find with those details online).

Age 81: UK life expectancy in 2023. Only around 5% of men and 10% of women lived to this age in the 1890s.

[myalgicencephalomyelitiscfstom]

Congratulations to Katie Johnstone for her three-part article on the famous/infamous PACE trial which cost in the region of £5 million of UK taxpayers' money and was at the time (and possibly still is) the only trial part funded by the Department of Work and Pensions in the UK.

It's all available for free starting here:

[fyeah-olivia-colman]

Olivia Colman has dressed as a latex-wearing oil executive called Oblivia Coalmine in a new campaign video highlighting the role of pension funds in fossil fuel projects.

The Academy Award-winning actress’s character thanks pension savers for allowing oil and gas companies to “dig, drill and destroy more of the planet than ever before” and spills an oily black liquid over her face while toasting with a champagne glass.

Created on behalf of the group Make My Money Matter, the advert encourages people to tell their pension schemes to remove their investments in fossil fuel projects.

Research from the campaign group found £88 billion of UK pension savers’ money goes to fossil fuel companies, £20 billion of which is to Shell alone.

Ms Colman said: “Fracking hell, Oblivia Coalmine really is a nasty piece of work. But the scariest thing about her is that she represents something very real.

“That’s why this is such an important campaign. I hope everyone who sees this ad realises the shocking, but unintended, impacts of our pensions and makes their money matter. It really is one of the most powerful things we can all do to protect the planet.”

The advert, created by Lucky Generals and directed by Raine Allen-Miller, coincides with recent polling that suggests 19 per cent of pension savers support their money going towards oil and gas and 66 per cent want it to go to renewables.

David Hayman, the campaign’s director, said pension funds invest in fossil fuels because it has typically provided a good return, but this is likely to change with the global energy transition, which is putting the money increasingly at risk.

He said: “Pension funds are investing billions each year in companies developing new oil and gas, this is bad for people and bad for the planet.

“If we are to stay below 1.5C of warming, fossil fuel expansion must stop, and our pensions can play a big role in this.

“These companies face the risk of stranded assets, government regulation and customer pushback, so continuing to sink our money into these companies is hugely risky.

“It’s time for pension funds to think beyond the short term and really consider what type of world their members will be retiring into in the future.”

Countries have committed to stop the Earth’s average temperature rising 34.7F (1.5C) above pre-industrial levels, considered the limit of a safe environment, and will gather in Dubai next week at Cop28 to discuss progress on this.

Research from the UN has found there to be only a 14 per cent chance of achieving this goal with current policies, predicting that the Earth will warm by 37.4F (3C) by the end of the century.

Mr Hayman said that not one major UK pension scheme has committed to stopping fossil fuel financing and that those people who want their savings removed should email their pension schemes.

He said: “The most powerful thing any of us can do is contact our pension scheme and tell them to stop using our money to finance new oil and gas.

“Our campaign has shown that consumer power can work in pushing big financial institutions to act on climate change, and the more people show they care, the more the pensions industry will have to listen.” (X)

[360degreesasthecrowflies]

London is a city that has always been deeply uneven, with plenty of cultural treasures to hide the poverty in the Tower Blocks and the underpasses. London is effectively the main of the UK economy, and everything is geared towards it. Hence it retains a degree of economic dynamism that allows a degree of optimism, after all there's always a new restaurant, new exhibition, new flagship store, new play. Sure most workers are dirt poor, living on mashed avocado, and hoping the landlord gets visited by 3 Ghosts at Christmas, but there's the dream of making it in the big city.

Outside the London bubble, large parts of the country are either in despair, or have totally given up. Roads, bridges, hospitals, and schools are crumbling. Police have almost disappeared outside traffic stops. Courts are backlogged, prisons overfilled & well past their designed lifespan. Companies face significant trade barriers with the EU. The water industry is essentially operating on leveraged debt and mostly owned by oversea's pension funds, whilst the infrastructure collapses and raw sewage is being pumped into the rivers/seas. Everyone is underpaid compared to the cost of living, but also compared to many comparable roles in other countries.

In the shires, the more well paid commuter class can still have a nice life, but they are feeling a sharp pinch. Holidays cut. Cars held on to much, much longer than before. Meals out being reduced. Optional extras like music or sports for the kids cancelled. Impulse purchases stopped. All of which sounds like "oh poor Emma can't get her daughter Lucinda piano lessons boo hoo" but think about the economic impact. That is money that would have gone to a piano teacher (usually self employed), to the coffee shop whilst Emma waits, to a music shop for music, perhaps a CD or concert tickets to something Lucinda played at a lesson. Then when Lucinda grows up instead of having a career in arts or entertainment, even at her local bar or church, she doesn't know how to play piano. So society as a whole has lost a musician, and Lucinda as a person flourishes slightly less. The UK arts sector is one of our biggest economic powerhouses, yet it is routinely ignored and hammered by the govt. Art & music are regarded as luxury items, despite contributing £1.6 billion to the annual economy (2021 at 5.6%). That's huge, bigger than the fishing industry which contributes £1.4 billion (2021 at 4%). Yet with rents sky rocketing, and school budgets in utter crisis, arts/music get dropped and creative talent has to switch to more routine jobs to survive. UK Musicians are dropped from EU events following the botched visa system, and international work is increasingly harder for them to get.

Outside the diminishing middle class, the real difficulty and poverty of the UK hits home. People are not sure whether the next rent payment or electricity will quite literally bankrupt them and leave them homeless. Wages are mostly static, with few rises outside a number of key sectors. Some areas have seen wage growth, but that has been concentrated in a small number of jobs (especially finance/management). The population is aging, and the care system is left almost entirely to private companies in a very disjointed, expensive manner. For most people the only credible hope of a financially better life is to inherit or to win the lottery or to commit crime. This is strikingly similar to the pattern seen in many developing world economies.

For example, I have worked in the public sector for 20 years. In that time I have trained, gained professional qualifications, led larger teams, upskilled on IT/project management and become more productive. Since my pay has been capped at a 0.5% rise, it is a real terms wage cut. So I've become more productive yet I'm paid less. Why should I 1) carry on trying to be more productive, & 2) stay in the job? Productivity increases from workers have to be linked to a personal reward, as well as a benefit to an employer or there's no point for the employee. Hence "quiet quitting".

So the UK is in the dire position of poor infrastructure, rampant poverty, and a population that no longer believes hard work or being productive will improve their own lives, only maintain their survival. This is not a recipe for a flourishing economy or nation. The worst thing is that the UK has started to lose hope that things can get better without a magical solution. Without at least some hope, we are doomed.

Saved via reddit from user 'AgeOfVictoriaPodcast' - as an excellent (if depressing!) summary of the UK's economy and society in 2023 / the 2020s / post Brexit