Is it just me – small dead animals

Or is anyone else really leery of sending money to Ottawa to be ‘managed’? I have a feeling that in the end, we’ll deserve the ‘moron’ label.

8 Replies to “Is it just me”

Sending your money to Ottawa to be managed is akin to President Regan reminding us to be very worried when somebody says, “Hi. I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”

For Liberals, the aim is to make the terms this pittance so indiscernible, as to further fry the brains of their devotees, and leaving them with the illusion that they’ve been generously rewarded.

I think the CPP was “managed” by about 6 people 10-15 years ago. Costs were quite reasonable. Now the CPP employs about 1000 people & their pay packets have ballooned to levels that even bank CEO’s should be envious. All for a marginal increase on “return” to pensioners. Except it isn’t a real pension plan.
The problem with CPP, after putting in your bit & your employer putting in the other bit, is that you can’t take it with you ie hand it over to your survivors upon death like a TFSA, RRSP etc. Fractional payments and then once euthanized the rest goes into the kitty. If you wife get’s the “survivor” benefit, it’s blended, not added to hers outright. Cheapo SOB’s. We’re talking serious coin here over a 30 year or so employment history. Your estate gets a taxable one-time payment of $2500 to plant you & you have to apply for it. It doesn’t just show up in the mail. BFD!
I look at the expanded CPP contributions as expanded cash flow to the people who “manage” the CPP. More to pay themselves & more to “invest” funding offices in Hong Kong, London UK & elsewhere, other than Canaduh. Oh, and cheap loans to cash-strapped provincial governments for “infrastructure”. Been there, done that.

The real winners in the CPP lottery were my parents’ generation: minimum donations (not that many years) but a pension for many years thereafter (Mum went to 99). The biggest problem with this new initiative to “help” the middle class is the forced donation from the employer. Unless said employer is too flush with cash and profits to worry, this increase is going to come at the expense of increases to employees.
Me, I would rather cap CPP and let me have the extra cash as I see fit.

Personally, I did better funding my own “pension” in 20 years. It currently pays out more than my 30+ years of CPP ever will. I wish that I had all the money (capital) that I paid into CPP in MY account, instead of .gov’s account. It would be worth a heck of a lot more under my “management” than their’s. Dot Gov would never have to worry about my retirement at all, or have to raid other folk’s paychecks to “help” me save for retirement. Dot Gov needs to get out of our faces on this one.
CPP is just bonus if you saved & invested well. And if you stop & think about it, if the companies I invested in (like all the other pension plans, private & public sector) crash & burn due to .gov ineptitude & interference into the economic processes at work in this country, CPP ain’t gonna fix it for ya. They’ll be bust too.

Unfortunately this whacky scheme will appeal to a great many voters. We all know one or two people who blindly support the Liberals or the NDP and, without fail, are quite content to have the government look after their needs from cradle to grave. They are simply unable or unwilling to exercise the self-restraint, foresight and responsibility that is required to plan and save for retirement. Hell, most of the Liberals and all of the NDPers that I am acquainted with wouldn’t know enough to piss if their pants were on fire.