John Ralfe
@JohnRalfe1
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'the founding father of pension scheme de-risking' Financial Times 2022 JohnRalfe @JohnRalfe .com 0115-822-6155 07779 574193
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Joined July 2013
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Pinned Tweet
20 years tomorrow since
@TonyTassell
published "The Drugstore Maverick" "
@johnralfe1
has been called many things. Rogue outsider, an evangelist driven by dangerous ideology and the bête noire of equities are among the labels critics have sought to pin on him."
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See my latest
@Telegraph
piece:
"Published accounts show the real annual cost of MSP pensions - 1/40th accrual, final salary & NRA of 65 - is a whopping 75% of salary. They make Westminster pensions look downright stingy. "
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"Wealthy
#WASPIs
should be barred from compensation"
"How can the Tories – weeks after a tight Budget – justify a £3.5bn to £10.5bn payout when most women born in the 1950s knew full-well their state pension age was increasing?"
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See my
@thetimes
letter pointing out the self-serving stupidity of yesterday's letter from Baroness
@rosaltmann
, and others, proposing a "UK-only ISA"
@antonhowes
@DanNeidle
@johnrmyers
@jpurle
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See my new
@MoneyTelegraph
piece "The Government can get people back to work – and also reduce taxpayer costs – by allowing all public sector workers to choose higher pay today, in exchange for a lower DB pension in retirement"
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Wait until she finds out that there aren't any public sector pension assets
Nicola Sturgeon says SNP's position on pensions 'hasn't changed' since 2014.
First Minister accepts 'on an ongoing basis it will be for the Scottish Government to fund Scottish pensions'.
However, she says 'historic assets and liabilities' will be a 'matter for negotiation'
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A stonking piece from
@PrivateEyeNews
on
@Jeremy_Hunt
's half-baked
#MansionHouseSpeech
, including my "snake oil" quote. PE also has a go at
@InstituteGC
@MichaelToryondr
and Sir
@stevewebb1
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Looks like a good day to be re-tweeting my recent
@thetimes
letter on
#NHS
consultants' pensions.
@BMA_Pensions
@MerrynSW
@SteveBarclay
See my
@TheTimes_UK
letter on
#NHS
consultants ' pensions
@MerrynSW
@BMA_Pensions
@SteveBarclay
, with a special nod to our former
@Rushcliffe
MP, Ken Clarke
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There is no
#WASPI
"scandal" so no need for a public inquiry...
@paullewismoney
#50swomen
will call for a
#PublicInquiry
to get to the truth about the
#statepensionscandal
@1950sOf
@PP4J10
@_PJFSW_
@wepaidinupayout
@PensionUnited
@KrisGibson13
@jj2210
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See my
@ftmoney
article on public sector pensions. “Why is there no public outcry at the spiralling cost of public sector pensions? Because governments have conveniently ‘fiddled’ the official costs to keep taxpayers in the dark”
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"Sturgeon's tax returns show need to reform parliamentary pensions" "as John Ralfe has pointed out, while all other public sector pensions have been reformed to make them less generous, the Scottish Parliamentary Pension Scheme has not." by
@MagsTaylorish
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Just popped into the newsagents. Someone asked, “are you John Ralfe from Twitter who is always wittering on about
#USS
? I hate your feed. It's crap. Please stop.”
This sort of thing is happening a lot now. It’s both discombobulating and heartening in equal measure.
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How many men born in the 1950s have also died..?
#WASPI
EXCLUSIVE:
#WaspiWomen
#WASPI
Over 100 WASPI women 'have died in 24 hours since bombshell report' while Rishi Sunak & the Tories do nothing
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See my
@TheTimes_UK
letter on how to fund a chunky one-off payment to striking public sector workers. *spoiler alert- could be to do with DB pensions
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As long as the
@ONS
continues to ignore £1.5trn of public sector pension liabilities they are wasting everyone's time
The ONS has produced a new, broader, measure of the state of the UK's public finances today.
It's called "public sector net worth" (PSNW) - total state assets minus total state liabilties.
And the ONS calculates that in 2022 PSNW was in deficit by £570bn...(brief 🧵)
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Pls don't pretend "freedom & choice" was result of proper evidence-based decision making. It was pure politics & very very bad policy
Real danger in debate on pension freedoms of legislating by eye-catching anecdotal evidence. Tens of thousands have used well and wisely.
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Unlike private sector DB pensions, public sector DB pensions receive UNLIMITED annual inflation increases. MPs and civil servants have no pension incentive to control inflation? Inflation increases should be capped.
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A lot of the Twitter replies to my letter are about the impact on those earning over £200,000 - who can certainly look after themselves!
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Tony Blair Institute proposes ‘radical’ UK pension superfunds Can someone tell the "Tony Blair Institute" that 1. there are only about UK 5,000 DB schemes not "tens of thousands"...
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Why didn't you address this issue when you were Pensions Minister?
2016 Carillion annual report says dividend ‘has increased in each of 16 years since formation of company’; Is this really acceptable alongside a pension fund deficit over half a billion pounds?
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@Telegraph
Some people can't believe the annual cost of new MSP pensions can be at much as 75% of salary. See extract from MSP pension scheme accounts.
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My piece on public sector pensions. Moving to 1/80th accrual + CPI increases, up to £30k salary, reduces the annual cost from c£60bn to £40bn and helps close the gulf with private sector DC pensions. Will post outside paywall later.
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Absolutely spot-on from
@PJTheEconomist
"Maintaining trust in the capacity, honesty & focus of government is vital. Transparency & openness to scrutiny are crucial. They are also relatively costless. It would be foolish to abandon them."
@OBR_UK
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All public sector staff should be able to take higher pay in exchange for lower- but still very comfortable- pensions
1/ The latest Civil Service pay guidance has been published – offering a 4.5% increase, with an allowance for an additional 0.5% at lower pay bands.
A quick thread on what this means and what we know from recent
@instituteforgov
research🧵🔽
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@FraserNelson
@ChrisGiles_
You clearly weren't reading your
@ft
very carefully, Mr Nelson- along with
@trussliz
. See this from July 2022 by
@chrisflood_FTfm
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This writer believes DB scheme members "would most likely enjoy better pensions with greater equity exposure" clearly doesn't get the idea of "DEFINED Benefit" via
@FT
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Watch out for my
@ft
piece tomorrow, "Investigation needed to hold those behind UK pension crisis to account"
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As you have letters from government saying your SPA is 60, I am happy to help you with your clear legal case. DM
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Walking to my first meeting of the day in the City, and I haven't seen a single tie, even codgers like me are without! Are ties going the way of bowler hats (and when I started work in 1980 still quite a few around btw)?
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Yes, Jeff, WASPI should take 2 test cases 1 where wrong info received 2 where no info receive
@WASPI_Campaign
@JohnRalfe1
have mentioned to
@WASPI_Campaign
that they seek a review from parliamentary ombudsman. Appear to have a strong case.
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Register here for my
@ImperialBiz
on-line lecture.
What does CDC “inter-generational risk sharing” really mean? How does a “Fair” collective pension, behind the “veil of ignorance” work? Is CDC - especially Royal Mail’s version - just “fools’ gold”?
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This is nonsense - you should be ashamed of yourself
@roxpip1
The National Insurance Fund account which accumulates out national insurance contributions has a surplus of £42.5bn. The govt is stealing from it to hand NIC holidays to employers/employees in freeports, rather than theTreasury bearing the cost.
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Are we really supposed to believe that a Headteacher didn't know the State Pension Age was going up? Was she on a desert island, not reading any newspapers, or even the annual newsletter from
@TPScheme
? It just beggars belief.
#WASPI
On
#InternationalWomensDay
, hundreds of
#WASPI
women joined a national demonstration to stand against pension injustice.
We are proud to support
@WASPI_Campaign
with their crucial campaign.
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"No one set out to destroy DB pensions, but destroy them we did, by loading guarantees and unrealistic expectations"
@PJTheEconomist
No one "destroyed" DB pensions. Lower real interest rates & higher longevity simply meant they became too expensive.
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How can 630,000 people, mainly in their 50s, possibly afford to retire?
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My quote. "public sector pension liabilities are not part of
@ONS
figures so mask a big challenge for UK public finances. They are entirely ignored by decision makers - so the absolute measures of fiscal rectitude we use are just plain wrong"
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"Any payment should be means-tested, to exclude the (many) better-off women born in the 1950s, including some MPs, & even
@theresa_may
.
The govt should also explain why a woman born in Dec 1959 should receive compensation when her classmate, born in Jan 1960 would get nothing."
"Wealthy
#WASPIs
should be barred from compensation"
"How can the Tories – weeks after a tight Budget – justify a £3.5bn to £10.5bn payout when most women born in the 1950s knew full-well their state pension age was increasing?"
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"It’s hard not to think a lot of people are going to end up disappointed if they gormlessly pencil in the kind of future returns the PE industry saw in an environment with four decades of falling interest rates." I hope
@Jeremy_Hunt
reads
@FTAlphaville
. By
@RobinWigg
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If, as he says, he no longer needs the life insurance, & can't afford the premiums, JUST CASH IN THE POLICY, STOP PAYING THE PREMIUMS & STOP MOANING. Why is
@TimesMoney
covering this (again)?
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Technical term for this is "bollocks"
@NJM71
@Igerpat
@StevieJasonD
@MartinSLewis
Prior to tories turning NI into a Ponzi scheme, pensions were paid out of returns from the invested capital accrued from NI contributions. In 2008 the surplus income stood at £32billion. That surplus + the invested capital were stripped out to shore up finance houses & bonuses.
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thank goodness for hard-hitting common sense from
@Simon_Nixon
. The City great-and-the-good are just talking their own book - and politicians are taking it hook-line-and-sinker
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Yes, as I have been banging on about for years...
@rcolvile
@TorstenBell
@JudithFreedman
@johnmcternan
@Jeremy_Hunt
Wouldn't the easier solution be to change NHS contracts to allow senior doctors to continue working without having to contribute to their pension pots after the allowance limit has been breached?
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Are we really meant to believe over 55s don't want to return to work because they can't put more than £4,000 a year into their pensions? Where is the evidence?
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What could possibly go wrong?
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Sunday Times Money March 10th 2019. “Time for a triple tax bypass to get hospital doctors off the critical list”
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Jeremy Hunt wants “A much smaller number of DC pension funds with much higher levels of in-house expertise, able to pursue more balanced and — over the longer run — lower risk investment strategies" AFTER ALL THE ARM-WAVING IS REALLY ALL THERE IS?
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This is the most ill-conceived campaign Money Mail has ever launched
Big step forward for Money Mail's Unlock Our Pensions campaign as MPs join our fight to let savers cash in annuities via
@thisismoney
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I am puzzled why you didn't make telling people this a priority when you were Pensions Minister?
#WASPI
By 2020 nobody turning 65 will get their state pension. DWP must tell ppl - shd learn from failure on women's SPA
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Number 3 really is a doozy - passive funds, squeezing out management fees, are the success story of the last 50 years and should be left well alone.
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I have know
@rosaltmann
for a long time. She reacts badly to anyone who points out the inconsistencies in her position. It's not just
#WASPI
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BOLLOCKS "How you could retire a millionaire by investing £78 a month – The Sun
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@ArmitageJim
isn't telling the whole story. The fees charged for unlisted equities & PE are staggeringly high, so the overall returns for pension savers are, at best neutral, v quoted equities, with much less transparency = "snakeoil"
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See my
@TheTimes_UK
letter on
#NHS
consultants ' pensions
@MerrynSW
@BMA_Pensions
@SteveBarclay
, with a special nod to our former
@Rushcliffe
MP, Ken Clarke
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£500m is over a quarter of
#USS
employer annual contributions. Not a good look for
#USS
' s highly-paid fund managers
#USS
the UK’s largest private sector pension plan, faces writing off around £500m of investments connected to Russia. The scheme is looking to divest the 0.5% of the portfolio exposed to Russia, now subject to unprecedented global sanctions.
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This isn't an 'anomoly" - it was a deliberate change by
@GeorgeOsborne
which various people, including me and
@MerrynSW
objected to at the time
NEW: Pensions are treated more generously by the tax system when left as bequests than when funding retirement, an anomaly which needs reform.
Read our
@finan_fairness
-funded report on making the taxation of pensions at death fairer and more efficient>
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What a bad idea from
@GuyOpperman
The UK's pensions minister is exploring ways for
#pensions
to be used for house deposits.
Guy Opperman said in a few years, many young savers in the UK will have more than £10,000 in their pensions, thanks to automatic enrolment, but not necessarily enough money for a deposit
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The only winners from "doubling pension contributions " are asset managers like, er,
@abrdn_plc
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@johnmcdonnellMP
#WASPI
has deliberately misled people about the nature and extent of maladministration to "crowd-fund" large amounts of money
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1 A DB pension promise has the same economic characteristics as as long dated secured bond.
2 We know how to value long dated secured bonds, using AA bond rates.
3 Therefore we know how to value DB pension promises, using AA bond rates.
4 It's as simple as that.
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@BBCr4today
should point out:
1 The decision to increase women's SPA to 65 phased-in between 2010 & 2018, was made in 1995 Pensions Act, giving time to make financial adjustments.
#WASPI
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He is fucking nuts
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The simple answer is you are much safer with an insurance company on the hook than your former employer. To suggest anything else is plain scare mongering
Is your final salary pension safe as insurers take over UK's last schemes? - my article for the Financial Mail on Sunday on members’ rights on pension buyouts appears here and in print in today’s Mail On Sunday.
#BuyaPaoer
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