Wealth - Cuts and Poverty

by Ken Savage GLPA

A well needed rest in the sun, vitamin D is somewhat scarce in the OK but in the South of France it is there to be had in large doses. Yes it is there to be had and I took it in large doses, together with a far healthier food diet that I admit I succumb to very rarely in equal large doses at home in Belsize Park.
I flew down to Marseilles on 19th April, took a 2 hour drive from Marseilles to the small village of Mallans where I spent a glorious nine days fed by the new from home in the Marseilles printed edition of the Times newspaper.
It was indeed a great surprise to see on page 6 in The Times of April 23 rd a picture of my friend and comrade Terry Hurt, clothed in his red, white and blue with his Union Jack flag taking up his position at Westminster for the Royal Wedding.
There you are Terry mate, you hit the Marseilles printed edition of The Times of Thursday April 23rd
On this question Terry and myself hold totally different attitudes and views, but when it comes to the social care and justice for the pensioner and the disabled we stand as one in support and campaigning for their betterment.
Tory government cuts to social care are most certainly beginning to bite, and bite hard and deep, it is indeed a very sorry state of affairs when I read in that same edition of The Times that child poverty in Britain is rising substantially.
Yes, we must continue to campaign in the best interests of all sections against injustice but should we not be taking up the real basic question - why are there such injustices perpetrated on the common people as they have been for generations, when there is such an abundance of wealth in this country, there is a sound reason, a lesson surely to be learnt and learnt in the shortest time possible to put an end to the imposed hardship on the millions of ordinary people who were not in the slightest sense responsible for the economic climate faced by this country today.
Today's recession was created by the incessant greed for more by the banks and finance houses based in the City of London; it is from that square mile of high finance that all recurring slumps and recessions are created.
My generation has seen and experienced so many in our lifetime and from each and every one the working man and woman has been blamed and made to pay in lower wages, unemployment, cuts to social care and benefits and to the excess of war, and in this lying deception the establishment media has played its part to the full.
The Sunday Times on the 8th May published its 23rd annual survey of Britain's wealthy, we should not be sidetracked by the argument that we are envious of these people, it is the means by which a great many of them create their wealth which can lead to a greater understanding of the recurring economic ills of the country, at the same time we can gain an understanding of the nature and causes of poverty amongst so many pensioners and other sections.
Are pensioners affected and concerned about the government's cuts to their welfare? Of course we're concerned and angry, especially when one, Sir Philip Green, the government's official 'austerity adviser' is directly involved in making those cuts.
Sir Philip Green is in the 13th spot on the Sunday Times Rich List together with his wife, living in Monaco, to avoid paying tax to the tune of £280 million! They possess a net worth of £4.2 billion with a growth rate annually of £221 million.
It is the wealth accumulation of people like Sir Philip Green and her ladyship, that creates the hardship and poverty for the country's ordinary people.
In 2002 the top 200 were worth £102.6 billion, today 2011 they are worth £278.9 billion and that sum is growing by the hour, the richest 1000 people in Britain possess a wealth pot of £395.8 billion, a rise of 18% a year, as we commoners are told to tighten our belts and work harder because we are all in this economic crisis together!
Tell that to the bloody Marines Mr. Cameron!!!
Ken Savage

It's Time to Take Notice and Help Stop Scam Artists From Fleecing the Elderly

By Michelle Singletary Thursday, July 16, 2009

Fraud is bad enough, but when you have family members or caregivers who are financially abusing their elderly relatives or patients, that's downright despicable.

Financial Abuse Of Senior Citizens Takes Many Forms
And yet, in most of the cases of elder financial abuse, the perpetrators are not strangers. Family, friends, neighbors and caregivers are the culprits in 55 percent of the cases, according to a report, "Broken Trust: Elders, Family, and Finances," released by the MetLife Mature Market Institute. The report was produced in conjunction with the National Committee for the Prevention of Elder Abuse and Virginia Tech.

Law enforcement and securities regulators say the recession is pushing more people to steal from well-off seniors.

"There is definitely more fraud than there has been," said Fred Joseph, Colorado securities commissioner and president of the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA). "Elder financial abuse is becoming the crime of the 21st century as the growing senior population is increasingly targeted."

The annual financial loss by victims of elder financial abuse is estimated to be at least $2.6 billion, according to the report. The typical victim of elder abuse is a woman over 75 who lives alone.

It's not surprising that the more health issues seniors have, the more likely they will be victimized. As I searched media reports of abuse for just this year, I found numerous cases where family members and caregivers took advantage of seniors with dementia.


A nursing assistant from the state of Washington was charged with stealing more than $770,000 from the elderly woman she was caring for.

In a Florida case, a man called authorities to report his 80-year-old mother's hairdresser had stolen her checks. The stylist was accused of taking $25,000 from the woman's checking account. But get this: During the investigation, police charged the victim's 52-year-old son -- who first alerted police -- with fraudulently cashing $6,900 in checks from his mentally incompetent mother.

Last month in Virginia, a home health caregiver was sentenced to six months in jail for taking $15,000 from an 85-year-old woman suffering from dementia. The victim was bedridden.

The financial abuse of seniors has become so prevalent that the NASAA and the National Adult Protective Services Association recently united to develop tips and strategies to protect them.

"A silent crime is taking its toll on America -- silent because so many of these cases go unreported," said Kathleen Quinn, executive director of the protective services association. "This announcement is the first step in a partnership we hope will grow to close the gap on elder abuse."

Following are some red-flag warnings the NASAA will be providing to adult protective services workers to help them spot and stop potential elder financial abuse:

This abuse is international!!!

Care for the elderly - Nothing to write home about

Jul 16th 2009 From The Economist

The government’s new proposals raise more questions than they answer
CARLTON HOUSE in Hatch End, north London, is a small, friendly place. A private care home, it has 22 elderly residents and a well-stocked garden where they sit of an afternoon. Several say that they like Carlton House, and can think of no way to improve it. But they are unhappy that they have had to sell their own homes to meet the bills of this one. Even Andy Burnham, the health secretary, has described care for the elderly in Britain as “a cruel lottery”. State aid for personal care (medical care is free on the National Health Service) is means-tested: those with £23,000 in assets must pay for their own. .

Some end up with bills of £200,000 whereas others receive care free.
About 45,000 people are forced to sell their homes each year to pay for social care. Two-fifths of the roughly 450,000 now in residential-care homes pay their way.
As in other countries, a rapidly ageing population in Britain is pushing the care system towards crisis. Another 1.7m older people in England will require looking after by 2026, the government reckons. This will strain care budgets, which are already heading for a £6 billion annual gap in funding over the same period.

So the government’s long-delayed consultation paper on July 14th was keenly awaited. Two radical options are ruled out: leaving people to pay for their own care and funding it entirely through general-tax revenues (devolved Scotland’s version of the latter is already running out of cash). It outlines three approaches.
The first is a system of co-payments, in which the government would guarantee to everyone a payment equal to a quarter or a third of likely social-care costs, picking up more of the tab for poorer folk. The second is optional insurance, which would let people pay £20,000 to £25,000 to cover themselves against the rest of the cost of their care. The third is a compulsory state-insurance scheme, under which everyone who could afford it would be liable for a lump sum—paid on retirement, say, or from an estate after death—of £17,000 to £20,000 in exchange for the certainty of free care. No serious new government money is forthcoming under any of the options, and state funding would go only towards personal care: the cost of food and lodging in residential homes would fall to individuals who could pay for it.
Just how likely these reforms are remains to be seen. People who already save for their old age worry that they could be forced to cough up an additional £20,000 for care that they may never want. The proposals offer no guarantee that old folk will be able to hang on to their homes. And lump-sum premiums may prove a particularly hard sell: in a Populus poll for Saga, a firm specialising in services to the over-50s, only 6% preferred this option.
Yet some answer must be found to the escalating expense of looking after an increasingly old and frail population. The biggest difficulty with these proposals is that they come years after Labour first declared its interest in the matter, and far too late to be agreed before the next election. Over to the Tories, who have ideas of their own about sharing costs between individuals and the state.

“Decent state pensions for all generations”

BRIEFING PAPER
National Joint Lobby of Parliament
Wednesday 22 October 2008
"Decent state pensions for all generations"

Theme
This event has been jointly organised with the TUC and the trade union movement in order to stress that the campaign for a decent state pension is an issue not just for today’s pensioners, but for future generations as well. We are therefore hoping that at least one pensioner and one worker from each constituency will see their MPs on the day.

Key demands
The lobby ties in with the State Pension Centenary campaign and as such, echoes the immediate demands for:

• The basic state pension to be raised above the poverty level (which was £134 a week, but has since been revised to £151)
• The link with earnings or prices (whichever is higher) to be restored
• The state pension to be paid to all existing pensioners on a universal basis

Rally
At 12 noon, there will be a rally in the Methodist Central Hall, Westminster addressed by MPs, trade unionists, pensioner leaders and others. Owing to the large number of people expected to attend, two rooms have been set aside – The Library and Lecture Hall – and we hope to run two simultaneous rallies to encourage maximum attendance. The rallies are expected to close at around 2pm.

Lobby
Anytime from 1pm onwards, lobbyists can make their way over to the House of Commons to see their MPs. Those wishing to take part in the lobby should now write to their MPs asking if they will make themselves available on the day to be lobbied. Owing to the limited space available in the House of Commons, MPs should arrange to meet lobbyists either in the Westminster Hall, Central Lobby or a private room/café.
Arrangements for getting into the House of Commons will be available shortly.

Delegation to Number 10 Downing Street
We also hope to arrange for a joint NPC/TUC delegation to see the Prime Minister sometime during the day of the lobby to present our demands.

Supporting action
Those pensioner groups, trade union branches or other groups not able to come to London on the day of the lobby are encouraged to organise some event in their local area on the same day at 12 noon. This could be a march or rally, demonstration or some other activity. This action could help spread the message even further and encourage more people to get involved in the campaign.

Campaign materials
The NPC will be producing flyers, briefing notes and campaign stickers for those attending the lobby, long with newspapers and petitions for those holding events in their local areas. Please contact the NPC office to place an order.

Further information
For further information contact the NPC on 020-7553-6510 or email: info@@npcuk.org.

The Credit Crunch

Oh, what a mess our economy is in, Banks going bust, the Footsie Index going down and those expecting a good pension on retirement having saved hard cash see it going down the drain.

The Banks and Investment Companies who paid their Executives obscene amounts of money in bonuses are crying their eyes out and for what? Sheer greed - and we are all paying the cost.

Add to that inflation in food, petrol, heating and lighting and a pension which cannot cope with such increases then we have a problem.

Not so, of course, the Public Authority Pension because we guarantee that no matter what it costs. Five years ago their pension was £44million in deficit.

Last year it had increased to £160million in deficit. Heaven knows how much in debt it is now with the Stock Market crash.

Over the years we have increased our share of contributions to their Pension Fund from 10.4% of their salary to 19.1% in 2008/09 in the vain hope that the deficit would reduce - no chance! In 2007/08, as employers, we paid through our council tax £10.9million towards the pension fund - that is £143 on a Band D council tax.

We certainly seem to have a two tier society - those who are in the boat and the rest of us trying to keep it afloat.

How long will it be before Central Government realises that this pension is unsustainable, or will they not want to upset the Unions?

The Credit Crunch - one mans opinion by Ken Lacey of Weston Super Mare Senior Citizens Forum

The case for an Increased Pension

Our pension is provided by the National Insurance Fund (NIF) which is the accumulated funds of the National Insurance Scheme set up by the Beveridge Report after the Second World War.

The income of the NIF consists of compulsory contributions from employees, employers and the self-employed, plus interest on its investments. Since the·1990s the Fund was made up of 11 % of employees' wages and 12.8% from employers contributions and it has been growing with contributions actually outweighing ,payments. The Government Actuary estimates that the NIF surplus in 2007/08 was £46billion that will rise over the next five years to £115billion.

The portion of contributions that goes. towards meeting the cost of the NHS is top sliced and is never paid into the NIF Fund. This is because once money is paid into the NIF it may only be used for the payment of Pensions and Benefits or for the cost of administering those pensions.
The Fund exists in a real sense and is held separate from consolidated revenue. Contributions are not taxes because they are not directly available for general expenditure by Government.

It has been alleged that three Ministers have admitted that money has been diverted from the Fund instead of using it to increase State Pensions. It is stated that the Fund's surplus is being used to finance expenditure which is totally unrelated to the purposes for which the Fund was set up.

It is also alleged that the surplus used to be invested in Government Gilts but since 2006 it has been invested in a Call Notice Deposit Account with the Commissioners for the reduction of national debt. If the Government has been using the surplus in the NIF to fund other public expenditure from the Pension Fund, it would appear to be a very questionable procedure.
It may be seen as a justifiable virement by Government Ministers but pensioners on low incomes may consider it a misappropriation of funds.

Joe Harris, the NPC Secretary, says it would cost £600million to restore the link between earnings and pensions now and £9billion to pay everyone a pension of £114 per week. The money is clearly there and there is no reason why pensioners should subsidise Government expenditure at the expense of having a decent pension.

If these allegations are correct, then we will await the outcome of the NPC revelations with considerable interest.

Item by Ken Lacey of Weston Super Mare Senior Citizens Forum

Prime Minister’s warm words not matched by action

Britain’s biggest pensioner organization, the National Pensioners Convention (NPC), has criticized the prime minister’s speech at the Labour party conference today, as being strong on rhetoric but weak on action.

Commenting on the prime minister’s speech, Joe Harris, NPC general secretary said: “Mr Brown is right to call an ageing population a blessing rather than a burden, but his speech still lacked any date as to when he was going to restore the state pension link with earnings. Whilst he said no-one should live in fear of old age, he has refused to give an immediate increase in the winter fuel allowance and his commitment to better social care will be meaningless if it does not include an end to means-testing. He had lots of warm words but very little action.”