A bit of adveritsing?

I thought I might try something a little different, so I guess this post goes under the barking mad tag. I hate driving behind another car with one of those stickers in the back window. You the ones:- baby on board or little princess. or little person or in my case grumpy old goat. I wonder what do I care? and why are they telling me it's their business. I'm not going to be more careful as I get near the vehicle I don't want to hit it up the butt anyway. I thought I might do a little advertising for the blog with this little masterpiece stuck to the rear window. Wada ya think? I got the idea when a friend lent me a wheel chair just in case this wretched disease of mine gets any worse and I have to succumb. Along the side were two plain metal strips so I designed an advertising board offering advertising in this space; competitive rates. I must admit to being very near to using a chair a couple of times in the last few weeks but hopefully that will not be a necessity. In the meantime I have two bright yellow adverts posted to the side designed in a similar way to this but with tel No and email address for enquiries. I think the idea might catch on with hospitals and clinics where wheel chairs are loaned out. The wife thinks I've finally flipped. I really should get a propa job eh?

What to spend my sixty quid on?

As you all know dear Gordon gave us pensioners a New Year bonus of sixty quid apiece to boost the economy and help us out during these hard time. A one off sixty don’t cut it for me but better than nowt I suppose. The wife who has become quite a talented artist since retiring decided she wanted a new executive swivel chair and some art materials. She wants to be comfortable when she paints. I wonder if her style will change. That blew her bonus and to some extent boosted our local economy. The question is what am I going to do with mine? Gordon would have us go borrow (if we can get credit) add to the bonus and go enjoy. To me that is bonkers economics at this time. I think I might take off a jumper tweak the gas up a degree or two and put it towards the gas and lecky bills because it don’t look as though we are going to get any relief from the energy companies despite the wholesale price of gas falling. On the plus side though petrol is coming down but sadly I’m not using the car much these days.

Credit crunch too

Would you buy a used car from this man?
I thought not either. In my earlier post “Credit crunch” I complained about Gordon’s handling of the economy and how I would not trust him with my vote at a future election unless his attitude and policies towards pensioner groups with concerns where changed. With my analogy of the motorway pile up where was Cameron and his little truck in this crash? Well he certainly didn’t make to many noises about the speed they were travelling and he hasn’t made to much sense in how we get out of the subsequent mess. I can remember well the last two recessions under his mob (the nasty party) who were telling us it was good to have 1 million on the dole and get on yer bike. So not to impressed by their past history. I have to stress though that during the last recessions I prospered because I saw the need for new skills acquired them and was able to sell my skills and experience at a good price. In the first of these, when my kids were very young I had three jobs for a short period to make ends meet. At that time I felt that labour did genuinely want to return to full employment. I have concerns that the Tories would continue with their old ways and they have not come out with any genuine pensioner friendly policies to date.
Later I will write a similar piece on the Liberals but in terms of real future leadership unless Labour get their act into gear the future looks grim.

Credit Crunch

Would you buy a used car from this man?

I thought not, but in few months he is going to ask for our support at a general election claiming he is the best person to se us through this crisis. Whether the election is this spring or next year it will be the same plea. Well I don’t think so.
I liken the credit crunch to a motorway pile up in fog. Little Georgie Bush is driving his Juggernaut full of toxic debt and failed policies as fast as he can ignoring all the warning signs “fog ahead” dear old Gordon is driving is tanker just behind as close as he can get. Laden with failed bank regulations no credit controls and tons of debt. He can smell Bush’s exhaust fumes. These two are of course followed by half the western world in their heavy trucks all blasting along in convoy when! Whoops little Georgie has to swerve to miss a mini containing some of the little folk his failed policies are about to destroy. When wallop he collides so does Gordon and the rest. Now who is to blame for this crunch? I know lets let the Insurance companies try to sort it out. In the meantime Gordon in typical dishonourable style blames everyone else. Meanwhile on the side of the international motorway Lorries from across the globe continue to implode causing the misery that is life for so many nowadays. Oh dear Gordon your day of reckoning will come. He now has three pensioner lobby groups severely disgruntled at his treatment of them, the Pension Protection Fund, Financial Assistance Scheme and now the Equitable Life group. On top of that all pensioners now realise how he has been ripping us of year in year out with our inflation rises. Add to all this the resentment now being felt by all those poor folk being made redundant and all the business failures.

We sure have a big mess on this motorway.

To little to late, AGAIN

Yesterday the government announced it was going to compensate only the worst affected by the Equitable Life pensions scandal. It is going to make ex-gratia payments to those policy holders. I find this quite incredible but in line with it’s meanness towards pensioners today. They failed to fully support pensioners who were bailed out by the Pension Protection Fund PPF and by those who pensions were supported by the Financial Assistance Scheme FAS. They (the government) have bailed out banks, given assurances of 100% protection for savings and are spending billions propping up other failing industries. Pensioners though are being left to suffer. These failures were of no fault of ours and we should all receive the same level of compensation afforded other bail outs. So come on you lot get your heads out of the sand and your fingers out your arses and give all those pensioners loosing out under these schemes a full and equitable compensation package. We deserve it. I bet if it was an MPs pension that was effected in this way there would be an outrage, but because it’s a few thousand pensioners the policy seems to be, Oh fob em off give a little sweetener and they’ll go away. I suppose we will eventually because we will die but not I hope before we can register our protest at the ballot box. There are literally thousands of us who are affected by these schemes and who feel hard done by by Brown & Co. How can bailing out a bank be different to bailing out a failed pension scheme? Present government policy is not good enough.

Credit where it’s due

My regular readers will know I am not slow in criticising our local authority when they get it wrong and in the instances where they have been miserly towards us older folk.
Recently because of my illness I have been having difficulty with some of the more basic aspects of living. Getting up off a chair and the loo has become more difficult. Putting my shoes on and getting up and down stairs and into the shower has been uncomfortable. My wife realised I needed some help with these activities and contacted Sandwell Adult Services initially to find out where to buy an extended shoe horn. They were extremely helpful, put a shoe horn in the post and then sent a lady out to asses what my needs were. They have since fitted rails in my bath a hand rail at the bottom of my stairs and supplied me with two toilet frames to assist my exits from the loo a new hand rail on the stairs will be fitted in a few days as will extensions to the legs on my settee. But the really good news is that it is all free. I never expected that. The quality of goods supplied is excellent and they are all brand new, although the service is known as the loan service. We are doing something right. Well done Sandwell.

Letters

The letters columns are always a good read in our local evening paper. Usually you will get one or more pensioners bemoaning our lot but last week one evening we had three excellent letters on issues that concern pensioners.
Headline PICKING ON PENSIONERS, WRONG CONCLUSION ON VETERAN DRIVERS and DON’T PAY INTO PENSION.
Although I do not necessarily agree with all the sentiments raised much of it I empathise with.
“Picking on pensioners” related to the major differences between public and private sector schemes and how much worse of private sector pensioners are. The writer made the point that the average public sector pension this year was £17091 whereas the private sector weighed in with a miserable £1086.
All of the schemes covered by the PPF were of course private sector schemes which were dismal by any standards but with inflation this scheme is now being steadily eroded. Will any of the political parties take this on board? Well not so far but surely someone in government must realise how badly these people are being affected. Well done to the union reps who negotiated the inflation proof deals for public sector but sooner or later these anomalies must be sorted out.
The piece on veteran drivers makes the point that most of us have been driving quite safely for perhaps forty plus years and because we are retired we take our time in getting to where we want to go. The government however now seem hell bent on getting us off the road just because we have reached a certain age. I have felt for some time that this was one of the worst ageist governments of all time and this attack on pensioners is just another in the continued war against pensioners. If we still have our faculties are fit and able to drive safely what indeed as age got to do with it. We as kids when we passed our tests saw the driving licence as a privilege and did not abuse it by going out driving to fast and crashing our cars. Most of us knew that if we did that we would not get another. The majority of us have displayed a responsible attitude to car ownership and driving for our forty plus years behind the wheel. I will know when it is time to give up and I’ll make that decision I don’t need to be wet nursed by our government to get me off the road. I think if they pursue this policy along with the other miserable decisions they have made towards pensioners it will be the final straw for many older traditional labour voters myself included.
Finally “don’t pay into a pension” is relevant to those private sector schemes that do not pay much but take the recipient above the threshold for pension credit. Because of the advantages of getting council tax, dental and optical benefits denied the rest of us.
Many more pensioners are becoming more vocal on issues that affect us. I think this is a good thing. It is particularly sad that most labour politicians think they are doing a wonderful job in respect to us. Sadly the Tories and Lib Dems are of similar mind.
Perhaps it’s time to launch the “Grey Party”

O got my sixty quid today, thanks Gord