Does Peak Oil make having a pension redundant?

[UndercoverElephant]

I am 40. At least 50% of the people I know have no pension at all, and of the other 50%, nearly all of them have a pension worth less than 10K (as do I). It is a complete waste of money as far as I am concerned.

My only plan is to get hold of a piece of land I can grow vegetables and keep chickens on. I cannot think of anything else constructive to prepare for the future because nobody knows what is going to happen, especially with respect to the global economic/financial system.

[fifthcolumn]

My only plan is to get hold of a piece of land I can grow vegetables and keep chickens on. I cannot think of anything else constructive to prepare for the future because nobody knows what is going to happen, especially with respect to the global economic/financial system.

Not to be a doomer, but have you looked at the price of land?
While I was going through my "oh fnck what do I do now phase" a couple of years back that exact idea crossed my mind. There was a plot of land right across the street from my front door, more or less an acre from the size of it.
They were asking ninety grand for it.

Agricultural land is much cheaper but you can't buy just a single acre or even two or three.

The other problem you have is that if you manage to get two or three acres outside the city, how are you going to defend it or travel to it without petrol or diesel?

In short the "back to the land" idea only works if you already did it before the exits closed.

Too late. The exits are shut.

[biffvernon]

Agricultural land is much cheaper but you can't buy just a single acre or even two or three.

Oh, small plots come up quite often round here. They mostly go for horse paddocks or a bit of grazing/haymaking. Just no chance of planning permission.

[woodburner]

My kids, to some extent but certainly to an extent greater than many, should be able to look after themselves. A lot of the kids they go to school with, and who regard my kids as "weird" because they can cook and go for walks to find food, will not. Therefore, in the clear Darwinian definition, the kids of serious Peak Oilers are likely to be more "well adapted" to their environment than most others, and so they are more likely to survive; they won't (hopefully!) be part of the depopulation cohort in the contraction of the human species back to a sustainable level.

Well done for taking a practical approach. Also teach them how to defend against attack. The problems of being a little out of the ordinary is that they become a target for the morons in society. The morons never see value, they see only threat, and someone who knows more or can do more is seen as a threat.

[emordnilap]

The morons never see value, they see only threat, and someone who knows more or can do more is seen as a threat.

I've been accused of being judgemental on this forum when referring to obnoxious national character traits. Is knowing certain persons who fit the above description perfectly just me being judgemental again? If so, tough shit.

[UndercoverElephant]

My only plan is to get hold of a piece of land I can grow vegetables and keep chickens on. I cannot think of anything else constructive to prepare for the future because nobody knows what is going to happen, especially with respect to the global economic/financial system.

Not to be a doomer, but have you looked at the price of land?
While I was going through my "oh fnck what do I do now phase" a couple of years back that exact idea crossed my mind. There was a plot of land right across the street from my front door, more or less an acre from the size of it.
They were asking ninety grand for it.

I'm not expecting anyone to give it to me for nothing...

Did the land have planning permission? If so, it is worth about four times what it's worth without it.

Agricultural land is much cheaper but you can't buy just a single acre or even two or three.

All I want is a house with a decent-sized garden. I have £100K deposit. It's not beyond the realms of possibility, especially given that house prices have a long way further to fall.

The other problem you have is that if you manage to get two or three acres outside the city, how are you going to defend it or travel to it without petrol or diesel?

It'll have to be somewhere I can use public transport or a bicycle. Again, not impossible.

In short the "back to the land" idea only works if you already did it before the exits closed.

Too late. The exits are shut.

Not quite yet they aren't.

[fifthcolumn]

I've been accused of being judgemental on this forum when referring to obnoxious national character traits. Is knowing certain persons who fit the above description perfectly just me being judgemental again? If so, tough shit.

To be honest mate, I think we're pretty judgemental as a nation.
That combined with our national propensity to slag each other off even when the person you're slagging off is right, indicates to me that we're going to have a hard time getting anything changed on our little island.

I remember in one of the first jobs I was at, there was a legal spat.
Our "opponents" knew the law, knew we knew the law and still took the position that they were right just because they were a big company and we were a little company and it would cost them money.

That was a real eye opener for me because being fresh out of yooni I believed that the facts always stood for themselves and that presented with the facts, any opponent would be forced to admit defeat.

Not so. And nowhere is this more clear than when debating the hard core dieoff proponents who have not bothered to check the facts and when presented with them just repeated their mantra again.

[fifthcolumn]

It'll have to be somewhere I can use public transport or a bicycle. Again, not impossible.

Not being negative mate, just trying to force you to think it through.
Depending on how much you believe dieoff, it's likely that public transport won't work, right?
So yes, you're down to a bicycle.

How much stuff can you reasonably carry on a bicycle and remember there are going to be brigands etc waiting to relieve you of your goods.

In the end, the conclusion I came to is I needed a farm and it was too late for me to come up with enough funds to buy a farm.
I decided there was no point taking a mortgage out because if things got bad I'd not be able to make the payments and it would be seized, so I needed to buy it outright.
Even then, if I could buy it outright I'd still need to be able to pay taxes and what if I couldn't sell enough stuff to be able to feed myself and pay the taxes, again I'd end up having it seized.

The most likely scenario was that I'd need to commute to work in the city in order to both pay the mortgage off and pay the taxes and thus in the end I decided it probably was more sensible to just try to find a city that was likely to hold together better.

[biffvernon]

Also teach them how to defend against attack.

You want to teach your kids how to kill people? It would be better to teach them the path of non-violence.

[contadino]

It'll have to be somewhere I can use public transport or a bicycle. Again, not impossible.

Not being negative mate, just trying to force you to think it through.
Depending on how much you believe dieoff, it's likely that public transport won't work, right?
So yes, you're down to a bicycle.

How much stuff can you reasonably carry on a bicycle and remember there are going to be brigands etc waiting to relieve you of your goods.

In the end, the conclusion I came to is I needed a farm and it was too late for me to come up with enough funds to buy a farm.
I decided there was no point taking a mortgage out because if things got bad I'd not be able to make the payments and it would be seized, so I needed to buy it outright.
Even then, if I could buy it outright I'd still need to be able to pay taxes and what if I couldn't sell enough stuff to be able to feed myself and pay the taxes, again I'd end up having it seized.

The most likely scenario was that I'd need to commute to work in the city in order to both pay the mortgage off and pay the taxes and thus in the end I decided it probably was more sensible to just try to find a city that was likely to hold together better.

Or...."I decided it looked too much like hard work, so chickened out."

If paying taxes on no income was your reason for not buying a farm, you need to revisit the tax legislation. No income = no taxes. If you can't generate enough to pay your council tax or NI contributions, it's just down to you being a crap farmer.

[LastDrop]

Only 50% of the people you know have any kind of pension provision and the pot is less than 10K!! **** me, I thought my situation was bad.

Well to clarify we're working down the mortgage and we've fitted a wood burning stove. We have a long garden (old terrace) for growing a bit of food but its not exactly River Cottage. The thinking was that in addition to the work above (and future projects like double glazing and solar thermal) what else could I do to prepare...

I guess there are two wider issues here...

1) Are private/stakeholder pensions going to give you enough to live on? Talking to people locally and at work it seems like those without final salary schemes are in big trouble as most people can't afford to contribute enough. At low contributions it barely seems worth it.

2) What effects will Peak Oil have on the financial system? Worst case is that the current financial system tanks and we all have to wear leather and studs and listen to Tina Turner. Best case is a magic bullet comes along and saves us all and its business as usual. But there are two mid cases I can think of...

a) The baby boomers take their retirement and remove their money from the stock market that together with the effects of less energy and recessions that we climb out of only to be bopped by supply constraints causes a long period of negative growth. Result - a pension pot that's a waste of money.

b) The transition from globalization to localization and a planned response to Peak Oil benefits certain companies e.g. infrastructure, manufacturing, farming etc. If its no longer viable to ship steel from China companies in the UK can manufacture steel etc. Companies that recognise the world is changing and react to it would be worth investing in.

Just a thought...

[UndercoverElephant]

It'll have to be somewhere I can use public transport or a bicycle. Again, not impossible.

Not being negative mate, just trying to force you to think it through.

I've been thinking it through for the last twenty years.

Depending on how much you believe dieoff, it's likely that public transport won't work, right?

If it's so bad that there is no public transport then there is no hope. However, if you look at real life examples (i.e. Havana) then the opposite occurs - as private transport becomes impossible, public transport has to fill the gap. Full buses make profits even when fuel costs are high.

How much stuff can you reasonably carry on a bicycle and remember there are going to be brigands etc waiting to relieve you of your goods.

This is your vision, not mine. You sound like you are describing a role-playing game set in the middle ages.

In the end, the conclusion I came to is I needed a farm and it was too late for me to come up with enough funds to buy a farm.

I don't want to buy a farm. I want a small smallholding.

[fifthcolumn]

If paying taxes on no income was your reason for not buying a farm, you need to revisit the tax legislation.

Did you read the whole thing?
That was only one of the reasons.
All of the reasons together made it not worth the hassle.

Next time try reading the words instead of jumping to conclusions just because you don't like the fact that I am "confident".

[UndercoverElephant]

Only 50% of the people you know have any kind of pension provision and the pot is less than 10K!! **** me, I thought my situation was bad.

They are just normal people I know in Brighton. Most of them simply haven't earned enough money to worry about pensions. Those that had anything to save have been saving for the deposit on a house instead. The only people I know with anything resembling a decent pension are people who work in the public sector and one person who is an IT project manager working in the pensions sector himself. When you are surrounded by other people who have no provision for their old age (no pension fund, no property) then it is easy to not care so much. All of these people are going to have to survive somehow. At least I will own some property when I retire.

[fifthcolumn]

If it's so bad that there is no public transport then there is no hope.

Right then. So is it perhaps time to cheer up a little?

This is your vision, not mine. You sound like you are describing a role-playing game set in the middle ages.

Mate, coming back from the pub on a saturday night where I lived, facing orcs and trolls is the least of your worries.

I don't want to buy a farm. I want a small smallholding.

So did I, the cost seemed to be about 400K.
Much too high.