Those at the top never seem to be affected

WHETHER you call the actions of the Occupy Wall Street protesters the American Spring or describe those involved as anarchists or extremists, you should still be concerned at how those who were the architects of the economic collapse continue to be treated with kid gloves, and almost rewarded for the errors of their ways, while the rest of the population continues to pay for the greed of the former. It’s not just Ireland which has failed to deal with the issue.

This failure to deal with the cause of the economic problems will ultimately result in more of the same. And it will be sooner rather than later. Already our own bankers are baying for greater pay for the top dog.

The fallout from this economic mismanagement has resulted in austerity budgets being the order of the day throughout much of the western world.

Growth has ground to a halt and hundreds of thousands of Irish people remain unemployed and will probably remain so for a long time.

Indeed, those pushing on in years, and 40 seems to meet that criteria, are going to find it ever more difficult to be employed again.

Those who were self-employed will have found that their state entitlements are minimal. And those edging ever closer to retirement will find the nest egg they thought had been built up has been gouged by the pension companies and then doubly gouged by the state.

This is the same state that has been encouraging us for decades to provide for the future because with a growing and ageing population the state would not be able to do so. It provided incentives to encourage us to save.

On the one hand it is cutting tax relief so that those earning little more than the average industrial wage will not get tax relief at his/her marginal rate of tax.

On the other hand it has decided to retrospectively tax pension savings on the basis of a levy of 0.6% per annum for several years, or probably as long as they can get away with it.

Thus far, according to the Irish Association of Pension Funds and Standard Life, they have managed to take us for €460 million or so this year on the levy alone.

Without a doubt it is gouging on a grand scale.

However, our friends in the public sector suffer no such hammering. Their pensions come from current budgets. In effect they are protected from any further wage cuts as well as job losses and then when they retire their grade/inflation linked defined benefit budgets will be paid as if nothing happened.

Actuarial consultants Milliman have projected that self-employed savings will fall 12.5% in 2011 through the levy and reduced savings as ability to save and a lack of incentive to save kick in. It does say an awful lot about treating all of our citizens equally and equitably.

Prior to this economic crisis we were reported to be heading for a pensions nightmare in the future. One wonders what fantasy stories our senior civil servants, government advisors and ministers have been reading if they think that gouging private sector pension savings and reducing relief will somehow encourage these folk to continue to save.

The pension problem is only going to get worse.

It does seem that those at the top of the tree never seem to be affected.

Nothing much more can be taken from those at the bottom while those in the middle seem to have to pay for everything and everyone. The sooner our politicians and ministers are brought back into the land of the real people rather than being artificially tied to the public sector for remuneration purposes the sooner reality will begin to bite and perhaps more fairness might be evident.

The alternative, of course, is that we emulate those across the US, Spain and elsewhere and make our feelings felt more vocally.