Why should government bail out profiteering

delt1c said:

I am on a pension
The money for my pension grew on my contributions. Dont give me that bollocks .

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How, exactly, do you suppose that the £10 you put into your pension twenty years ago has turned into the £50 that you'll be taking out?

Whisky Papa said:

I'm sorry, I've been a Firstgroup shareholder for donkeys years, having worked for them. Please can you tell me where this money is that apparently I'm getting?

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Your question to First group not me . I worked for London Transport . For a fee i could research

najaB said:

How, exactly, do you suppose that the £10 you put into your pension twenty years ago has turned into the £50 that you'll be taking out?

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It didnt, quote actual values please

delt1c said:

It didnt, quote actual values please

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Actual values don't matter. The fact is that the pension system is funded by stock market investments. If the stock market does badly, so does your pension.

A lot of people don't know that, and as a result see stocks as some sort of evil. I think some sort of investments are fairly evil (shorting in particular, which I think should be banned permanently) - but I see no harm in betting (investing) on the success of a company.

My contributens were not based on stock market, current and recent maybe. My contributiens were based on my employment contract

delt1c said:

my contributions were to goverment. Look at how many pensioners have lost out due to changes ( without their agreement). We paid in but capitalists refused to honour agreements
I am on a pension
The money for my pension grew on my contributions. Dont give me that bollocks . I paid my pension contribution all my working life and am entitled to what i paid for.

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This shows a major lack of understanding of how the basic state pension is funded. The only people who contribute to pensions are the current workers, all your 'contribution's' were to a government pot that was spent (and more) each year. If the government decided to change or even to stop funding the state pension it can as numerous world governments have in the past and, given where we're likely to be, more will do in the future.

delt1c said:

My contributens were not based on stock market, current and recent maybe. My contributiens were based on my employment contract

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Your contributions weren't. But those contributions will most likely have been invested in the stock market to produce the pension pot that is actually buying your payout. You may not see or control that but it doesn't mean it's not happened. And it might not influence what you receive directly if you get a final-salary pension, but it will influence how that's funded in the background.

(I'm talking about work pensions here. The state pension works differently, there is no "pension pot" nor investment, current payouts are paid from current taxes)

how many future pensioners are going to be disapointed, but never mind at this point keep looking at this point keep looking at capatilistic profits and dont worry about tomorrow

delt1c said:

how many future pensioners are going to be disapointed, but never mind at this point keep looking at this point keep looking at capatilistic profits and dont worry about tomorrow

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At the moment we are in a major emergency. We need to worry about today, not 10 years' time say. Practicality is over morality to some extent too.

Taunton said:

But that's a fiction. The buses are running round completely empty. The nurses are travelling to and fro by car. Just like they have pretty much always done, but even more so now as roads are clear and parking at work, always a key issue, is now fully provided.

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Taunton's hardly a metropolis is it, tiny little place compared to must places so would be easier to get around than a big city where public transport does work

carlberry said:

This shows a major lack of understanding of how the basic state pension is funded. The only people who contribute to pensions are the current workers, all your 'contribution's' were to a government pot that was spent (and more) each year. If the government decided to change or even to stop funding the state pension it can as numerous world governments have in the past and, given where we're likely to be, more will do in the future.

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previouse goverments have given s

Bletchleyite said:

Your contributions weren't. But those contributions will most likely have been invested in the stock market to produce the pension pot that is actually buying your payout. You may not see or control that but it doesn't mean it's not happened. And it might not influence what you receive directly if you get a final-salary pension, but it will influence how that's funded in the background.

(I'm talking about work pensions here. The state pension works differently, there is no "pension pot" nor investment, current payouts are paid from current taxes)

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So many goverments have given people so much Mushroom manure ( hope these words do not upset moderators, i actualy mushroom omelete), how can we trust what those in power tell us

delt1c said:

If run by government we can keep the buses running.

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For a bit of levity, I for one am not against a good metaphor and there's plenty to like about steak. Moving swiftly on...

I'm not usually one to chip in on these arguments, but "bailing out" seems a bit of a undercooked take. Rare, you could say. Three points:

• It's highly likely that, without revenue, some large operators would simply have stopped running commercial services (i.e. those not run under tender) by the end of next week. Small- and medium-sized operators may well have survived, particularly where there revenue base relies more heavily on contracted or tendered work. Could they continue to run commercial services while eviscerating their own cash reserves? Well, running for 2 weeks at 10%-ish commercial revenue has probably already done that. Meanwhile, those businesses have to lay off a lot of staff once the Jobs Retention Scheme ends, and programmes to improve services are placed on hold while the operation recovers.

• In the specific context of publicly traded transport companies, the largest shareholders are pension funds, FTSE (or Hang Seng, in the case of MTR) tracker funds, and charitable trusts (along with a decent amount of "retail" shareholders. They're simply not volatile enough in the markets (relative to the market as a whole) to attract profiteers (the interest from CVC in First Group reflects that business' increased volatility, but that's well discussed in other threads). Even so, the profit is ending up in pension funds, tracker funds, charitable funds, and small-scale individual investors.
  
  
• If the government would like to run the buses, they're welcome to buy them, the depots, the fuel, start paying the salaries... and the bill for that will make a £167m injection of cash to secure services for 12 weeks seem like a bargain.

So, with that in mind, let's let the operators collapse and have the government step in to run services:

• What's the mechanism for doing that? Assume the DfT has informed the operators they won't get a bailout and so you have maybe 10 days to formulate a plan. It probably involves Headquarters Standing Joint Command or a lot of taxis, which again, need to be co-ordinated - back to HQ SJC
• What happens at the end of the crisis?

I'm not saying there's not an answer to those questions - it's just that those aren't the questions you want to be dealing with in the context of a national crisis. There are, of course, some bus operators who (broadly speaking) know what they're doing and can crack on with this in exchange for a bit of revenue relief - which will end up coming back in corporation tax (from the business) and capital gains / income tax (from the shareholders). I don't believe in trickle-down economics (again, not an argument for this thread) but this is the theoretical mechanism justifying the government's spending.

Whisky Papa said:

Please can you tell me where this money is that apparently I'm getting?

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Quite. It's likely that, if you are a shareholder in a publicly-traded transport company, then the immediate impact of this is:

• The value of your investment is now massively reduced
• It's unlikely any dividend will be paid
• Should those businesses fail, you will lose all your investment

In normal times, on the flip side, you get:

• Growth that (broadly speaking) tracks well with the rest of the economy
• A dividend that is (broadly speaking) usually modest but reliable
• An investment that provides an essential service, so is less likely to be thrown to the wolves in times of crisis, economic or otherwise.

Of course, as a First Group (or any other transport group) employee you're also getting employer contribution of your pension, but the above is still true.

Good night from me going to feed my mushrooms now

delt1c said:

previouse goverments have given s

So many goverments have given people so much Mushroom manure ( hope these words do not upset moderators, i actualy mushroom omelete), how can we trust what those in power tell us

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I'm sorry - you're simply incorrect.

The old age pension was created in 1908 and had iterations based on employment and ages. In it's initial guise, only 1 in 4 people even reached 70 when it was payable, and fewer met the criteria.

The modern welfare state came in with the Attlee government, and it meant universal pensions, welfare and sickness benefits, and the creation of the NHS. At that time, there were a raft of people who were then scooped up and got those pensions, benefits and health care who had never paid in.

That establishes the principle that the two generations of workers below pay for the pensions and health care for those of an age who cannot work. This is not difficult to work out. It's why we have a problem with the boomers in that there is a disproportionate number now taking out and fewer people proportionately paying in.

However, you seem to hold such trenchant views, you probably won't believe these facts?

Bus companies are not profiteering.