How long do you think your country's Social Security will last?

[AnnieS]

@spitfire

Governments rely on Actuaries for advice as to how much of the pot to dip into.

Probably.

Pensions finance is my Bette Noire of accounting studies. It’s right up there with stock control, closely followed by process costing. The words “unwinding the discount” send a shiver down my spine. It’s good that we have people who are paid who actually enjoy this type of tedium and painful number crunching on a macro or micro level.

[spitfire]

I used to love the numbers AnnieS, still do to an extent.

[Lincolnshire]

@AnnieS

yes that is correct ref paying it out of the pot of government funds received each year from taxation, investments and borrowing. I see this as a pie (chart) and pensions are a slice of pie. So long as there is a pie there is a slice for pensions and if they run out of money for ingredients to run everything they borrow some sugar or flour.

But there is a contract with the population who paid national insurance in good faith and have been conned into thinking that is a pension. So the government have been running a scam all these years if they think they can dip into that part of the Treasury pie that is ring-fenced for pension payments.

All true but what there is not, is what you get with a private pension. Those have specific value in total for you - which you can take out as a single lump sum or move to another provider. The state pension is, as you explain, paid out from the slice of the year’s government spending. There is no big lump sum for each of us.
And I’m not sure how the credit rating is relevant. Do you mean that the cost of borrowing will shoot up at some point and that will take a bigger and bigger slice of the overall government spending? And that in turn will reduce the amounts available for all other government spending, including state pensions?

[AnnieS]

@Lincolnshire

And I’m not sure how the credit rating is relevant. Do you mean that the cost of borrowing will shoot up at some point and that will take a bigger and bigger slice of the overall government spending? And that in turn will reduce the amounts available for all other government spending, including state pensions?

I meant that if our credit rating goes down the loo the country will find it increasingly difficult to borrow and any credit terms will be really rubbish