Pop goes the Ponzi.

Everyone knows what a Ponzi scheme is, even those who don't know the name. They are also often known as 'pyramid schemes' and the Internet is full of them.

You join up and pay money. Then you entice others to join up and pay money, some of which comes to you. The whole thing is built on the new members and when the pool of suckers is exhausted, nobody is paying in any money and it all falls apart.

The only one who gets rich is the originator, the one at the top. Those near the top might make a little or at least break even. Everyone else gets back less than they paid in. Those at the bottom get nothing back.

Why does it work? It all hinges on convincing the new member that they won't be at the bottom when it all falls apart. The bigger it gets, the more there are at the bottom.

There is another way to make it work. You can threaten anyone who refuses to pay with jail. That way, the new member pool just keeps refilling. That kind of Ponzi can run for decades.

It's how the State pension works. The money we've all been paying in is not there waiting for our retirement. It's gone. All of it. What we pay now is used to pay the current pensioners, because the money they paid in was already gone by the time they retired.

When we retire, our pensions will come from the taxes of those who are now children. So those who are complaining about paying for pensioners at the moment will be those who are complained about in the future. That's if there is any pension in the future.

The pension age has been creeping upwards, at a rate that means I'll never reach it. I'm paying pension contributions to the State for a pension I'll never be able to claim. Well, why not? I'm paying in to a health service that wants to refuse to treat me, I'm paying towards the mortgages on MP's property portfolios, I'm subsidising their booze while they put up the price of mine, what's one more indignity heaped on that lot?

The pension Ponzi will fail because there are no longer enough taxpayers to support the current elderly. They try getting the NHS to kill them off, they try freezing them to death in the winter with coffin - I mean carbon taxes, they have plenty of homes to put them in where they can be ignored while their remaining bank accounts are emptied, but the stubborn old buggers just keep hanging on.

Meanwhile, businesses close due to idiotic regulations and spite-driven controls. More and more are out of work, more and more on benefits which means the State pays the State the National Insurance demanded by the State which really means anyone paying taxes pays that too.

They've tried raising NI, they've tried raising the pension age, they've tried killing off the pensioners and it's not enough. The money is gone. We are not paying in to a pension pot. We are throwing the money into a hole with nothing but greedy suits at the bottom.

There's only one thing left to do.

No pension age. Nobody retires. Ever.

This is sold as a benefit to you. You don't really want to retire, do you? You don't want all that bothersome gardening and tiring hobby work. Think how bored you'll be. No, best stay at work until you drop, and get a hero's funeral in a heroic mass grave provided by the State.

I know, it's not what Captain Toaster (oldies will get the Tefal reference) actually said. Look at how it works and compare it with the Righteous Standard template.

Raise NI. -------------- One non-smoking carriage.

Raise pension age. ----- One smoking carriage.

Change pension ------- No smoking on trains.
age to 'flexible'.

Next? ---------------- No smoking on the stations.


Antismokers will scoff because I compared it to the smoking template. Pensions have nothing to do with smoking, other than that most public sector pensions invest heavily in tobacco. Yet it is exactly the same template, and you can do the same comparison with drink, waist size, salt, burgers, anything you like.

Face it. If you have not retired by now, or are not retiring imminently, you're not going to. This does not mean you can stop paying NI because that's just another income tax and the government need it to support bomb-belt training in Outer Boomistan and for Hate the West lessons in Swampania.

We pay the NHS to treat us as an inconvenience, we pay the council to treat us like serfs, we pay the government to treat us like cattle, we pay the EU to treat us like something they've stepped in and now we'll be paying for a pension that's promised in the next life.

I'd rather be mugged. At least muggers are honest about it.

What to do? Write to your MP, the beneficiary of all this theft? Protest? You need police permission for that. Complain to the council? All authorities are paid out of that money taken from us all. None of them are going to help put a stop to it.

The only course of action I can see is to learn to live on an income that's just under the income tax threshold. I've managed on much less in the past. Cut expenditure to the bone, buy no gadgets, no fancy goods, and cut income to match. Barter wherever possible.

The only thing they care about is money. Stop the supply. It won't affect current pensions, they are paid out of thin air anyway.

Will that make them listen? I don't care. I no longer want them to listen.

I just want them to go.