Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Thought for the day (Black humour warning!)

I meant on TM . Unless you call Simon, Andy, and Brian the Gov.

No Morgans in a (UK) SIPP, the Government Guide states:

What can’t I invest in?
It is important to note you can’t invest in:
• Taxable assets such as works of art, fine wines and vintage cars
• Residential property

Expected, I suppose. Nothing fun or useful that "They" can tax you on again and again and again....

Wow! This is a bit if a heavy thread to come across tonight! Having just visited my 95yr old father, who is not going to last much longer, and my 96 year old mother, who swam 4 lengths of the local pool yesterday, it struck a few chords.
I moved them out of their house 4+ years ago after the NHS tried but failed to kill my mother, and into a care home a mile away from where I live, and I visit at least 5 times a week.
My mother is as happy as anything, relishing every day, and a real 'cup half full' person, who lived a full and active life - GP, JP, riding, hunting etc, and is great fun to be with. Each day is a bonus.
My father is very unhappy, partly because he is now virtually blind, but he lived a very full and active life, ocean racing, climbing, expeditions, as well as being a GP, and detests his current physical state. I have power of attorney, but haven't needed to use it except for financial matters, but I have now - having explained to him the implications - stopped the future use of antibiotics, as he now wants to be allowed to die. Pneumonia used to be in the pre antibotics days, in his words, the old man's friend. The next illness will see him off, and he is now comfortable with that. In the meantime pain can be controlled, but quality of life is nil. Not a great place to be, and extremely difficult. Thank heavens the care home is first rate.
I do agree with him when he says he kept himself too fit, and for what? He feels he has outlived his useful and enjoyable life by at least five years, so why did he bother?
The trouble is we don't all get that fatal stroke or heart attack in our sleep at 90, just as we are ready to go.
It certainly makes the debate on assisted dying very pertinent. It also makes me relish every moment of every day while I can. What a week, with the TOTH, 250 miles in the Roadster, 2 excellent sails on my boat, and a regatta to look forward to over the weekend. And a transatlantic sail at the end of the year! It almost seems worth having worked for years to build up a pension, buy a house, pay enormous taxes, but how the hell my kids are going to cope, I do not know.
Another scotch is called for! And a woman! And some food!

Well... when I started this thread I was in reflective mood and TBH I didn't expect much in the way of responses, but clearly it stimulated some quarters.

WRT assisted dying - we (SWMBO and I) are in favour of some form of clarification as to whether your loved one, partner, or doctor can ease the way to a painless managed departure when the time is right. This may be from a selfish point of view as we have no children. As ever, the devil is in the detail and any legislated approach will probably be a long time in coming.

WRT pensions - I guess we are both lucky to have retired early on final salary pensions. However, when the government of the day (and I use this phrase because in this respect they are all as bad as one another) start to dabble with short term decisions that adversely affect an individual's life time saving and retirement planning, then I start to get very uneasy.

So, I guess that my underlying concern in my tongue in cheek initial post is one of trust, and in particular trust of government. Sadly, I no longer trust government to do the right thing morally. IMHO greed and selfishness has gripped our green and pleasant land like never before, and the get rich quick and celebrity culture is driving this inexorably towards a two tier society of the haves and have nots. During and post the financial crisis the rich have got richer and the poor have got poorer, and the government of the day have done little if anything to address this; some would say they have exacerbated it to the detriment of cohesive society.

Noting Andy's (Brum Rum) "Comrades" comment, I'm not trying to incite revolution or drive a socialist or communist agenda, I just feel we need to see more fairness and morally acceptable decision making at the higher political levels. Only then will people start to feel comfortable with and confident in government decisions, and not sceptical that they are not made for purely political or indeed personal gain.

When I look at companies that have closed down their pension schemes I feel really sorry for those, who may have contributed for 30-40 years, having their life savings and retirement plans shattered at a time in their lives when they can do nothing about it, through no fault of their own. Those individuals deserve protection for their contributions from the government of the day, but it is the recent government changes that have for the most part allowed the pension schemes to become an untenable burden on the companies. Pension holidays (a Conservative plan) to allow companies to stop contributions when funds were in rude health in the good times only allowed funds to become seriously underfunded in the "dot com crash" and financial crisis. Taxing pension dividends (a Labour plan) to drag billions into the treasury coffers for their redistribution agenda, again stripping pension schemes of the potential to recover and ride out the bad times through the financial crash. If you look at these political decisions, and the companies themselves shutting down schemes to grow their companies, grow their profits, grow shareholder value and of course grow director level salaries and bonuses, they are all decisions derived from greed.

The provision of private pension arrangements through pension plans and annuity schemes suffers equally or even worse from the greed of the financial institutions that provide them. Pathetic fund growth returns combined with high commission and fund management fees mean that investors are struggling to get anywhere near the promised retirement income. Again, greed on behalf of those "trusted" with retirement savings.

We are today bombarded with stories in the media about the baby boomer demographic time bomb, too many people in or approaching old age with insufficient tax revenues from the workforce to pay for the healthcare needs. Well "No sh*t Sherlock"... It's not as if this has dropped on us suddenly is it? We've all been around for a year or two now, they even made a Trivial Pursuit Baby Boomer edition in the 70's. But, the good old government of the day for the past 30+ years has been focused on the short term policies that might get them re elected next time round, instead of looking to the best interests of the country in the long term.

Nonetheless, if you really trusted the government of the day you'd be quite happy that the House of Lords debate on the Assisted Dying Bill was well intentioned and not a slippery slope underpinned by greed to mitigate future care costs... wouldn't you?

On the up side, post implementation and of course after the first revision to allow people to select the date they wished to "pass over" (don't you just hate that uphanism?), just imagine what sort of annuity returns you could get on your pension for a defined life period post retirement

Anyway, enough depression already, time to get out in the Mog for a run and nice lunch in the sunshine. Bugger... It's raining and there's thunder in the air

Assisted dying has being going on for years with little publicity or public backlash. When my mother died of cancer in 1996 and my wife in 2006, they were both assisted by very kindly doctors, in full discussion with the family and in my wife's case she had already come to an agreement with her palliative care doctor. It gave me great peace of mind in both cases that neither suffered in their final hours.

Quite a heavy subject for me to read myself.

After listening to my Mother on the Phone yesterday (quick history Had Cancer decided to take the Chemo' and Rad' therapies eventually came out the other side beaten up by the experience to then have a broken Pelvis and Back which is still giving her incredible pain, pain killers giving worse side effects than pain relief!) she hates this era - you do what you can to cheer a person in this frame of mind up - very aware of what is in the news I hope she isn't watching the news at home! I leave the conversation with mixed emotions thinking if things are really that awful then why hasn't she done the obvious? it's a very difficult subject and a very personal one at the end of the day.

It'll definitely be one of those populous dividers.

John I don't think I am brave or strong enough to say yes and feel I am greedy because I dont wish to let go . Its not the death that hurts its the never seeing, talking to that person again . The only way I could explain to my daughter is that it felt like someone had put his hand inside of me and removed something but I did not know what , just a hollow empty feeling inside , if there is a soul it went that day.

Totally agree John, sadly Harold Shipman did future generations no favours at all in this respect.