I've heard the rumor that this March's UK Budget will lower the Lifetime Allowance (LTA) from £1M to £800k or even less. They might index this for inflation. That seems to me to be a pretty low figure if I'm to have a comfortable retirement off of it. Especially given my retirement age of 65 is approximately 30 years away, so it would have to account for 30 years of inflation plus last me longer due to an expected increased life expectancy.
Apparently the broad rule of thumb is that I can expect to get £550-£600 a year for every £10k in my pension pot. That means an LTA of £750k would only pay me £41,250-£45,000 per year in income before taxes. I assume that would be in the low rate tax band still by then, so I'd net £33k-£36k / year, or around £3k / month. That would barely pay rent on my current flat in London, and it's not even inflation adjusted!
So what other options do I have for saving for retirement besides socking money away in a pension? Should I get a public services job to have a defined benefit pension? Are ISAs expected to make up the difference? Or are there other options?
Your main choices are ISAs and property. You can put over £15,000 per year into an ISA, which means over £450,000 by the time you retire, not allowing for growth in your ISA investments. But if you're paying rent, and worried about being able to pay rent when you retire, the obvious choice is to buy a flat now on a thirty-year mortgage so that you can stop paying rent and the mortgage will be paid off by the time you retire.
Obviously you should aim to max out your pension, though this is a bit of a judgement call, as future growth could take it over the limit even once you stop making contributions.
A public service job with a defined benefit pension won't make much difference, as they are also assessed against the lifetime limit at a multiplier of 20x the annual pension - so a similar rate to what you're looking at anyway (£500/year corresponds to a £10K notional pot). On the other hand public service pensions are protected against inflation - if you wanted an equivalent defined contribution pension, annuity rates are actually quite a bit lower than that - more like £350-£400 per £10K.
Apart from a pension, I'd suggest making sure you own your own property by the time you retire. The rent you save by doing that is effectively tax-free, though you have to pay for the mortgage out of taxed income. So it's equivalent to saving in an ISA, but with the added benefit that you are effectively "hedged" against rental changes.
After that ISAs are the next logical investment vehicle, though be aware that cash ISAs don't pay very good returns at the moment.
You have a large number of possible choices to make, and a lot of it does depend upon what interests you when you are older.
The first thing to note is the difference between ISAs and pension-contribution schemes tax wise, which is of course the taxation point.
When you contribute to your pensions scheme, it is done before taxation, which is why when you draw from your pension scheme you have to pay income tax. Conversely, your ISA is something you contribute to after you have already paid income tax - so besides the 10% tax on dividends if you hold any assets which may them, it is tax free when you draw on it regardless of how much you have accrued over the years.
Now, when it comes to the question "what is the best way to save", the answer is almost certainly going to be filling your pension to the point where you're going to retire just on the edge of the limit, and then putting the rest into ISAs. This way you will not be paying the higher rates of tax associated with breaking the lifetime limit, but also get maximum contributions into your various schemes.
There is an exception to this of course, which is the return on investment. If you do not have access to a SIPP (Self Invested Personal Pension), you may be able to receive a far higher return on investment when using a Stocks & Shares ISA, in which case the fact that you have to pay taxes prior to funding it may not make a significant difference.
The other issue you have, as others have mentioned is rent.
While now you may be enjoying London, it is in my opinion quite likely that will change when you get older, London has a very high-cost of living, even compared to the home counties, and many of its benefits are not relevant to someone who is retired.
When you retire, it is quite possible that you will see it fit to take a large sum out of your various savings, and purchase a house, which means that regardless of how much you are drawing out you will be able to have somewhere to live. Renting is fine when you are working, but when you have a certain amount of (admittedly growing) funds that have to last you indefinitely, who knows if it will last you.
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For the cupcakes: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line regular sized cupcake pans with 24 liners.
Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a bowl. Set aside. In a mixing bowl fitted with a whisk attachment, beat the eggs and sugar until light in color and fluffy. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the oil and vanilla. Mix until incorporated. Add the sour cream. Mix until just incorporated. Add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, and mix until just blended.
For the cannoli cream: In a mixing bowl fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the ricotta, confectioners' sugar, and vanilla on medium speed for about 5 minutes. Stir in the mini morsels.
For the whipped cream: Beat the cream and sugar together in a mixing bowl fitted with a whisk attachment until the cream is whipped.
To assemble: Using a small knife, cut on an angle directly into top of the vanilla cupcake in a circular pattern, staying within the perimeter of the top, removing the inside of the cupcake in one piece. Using a spoon or small scoop, fill the inside of the cupcake with Chocolate Chip Cannoli Cream. Place the top of the cupcake back on, putting a little pressure so that the top is pressed into the cream, holding it in place. Top with a dollop of Fresh Whipped Cream and garnish with mini morsels.


What do Venus, venison, and venereal disease have in common? They are all derived from the Latin word venari, meaning "to desire" but also "to hunt." Collective animal group nouns are called terms of venery and have been assigned to game animals as far back as 500 years ago by high-society English hunters. The hunters thought it appropriate to give the noblest beasts a proper group name.
Venison nowadays refers to meat from a deer, but in earlier times it meant the flesh of any hunted animal. Terms of venery eventually moved to animals of lower orders and even insects.
Terms of venery were chosen for various reasons – sometimes to describe the animals' usefulness (a pack of mules); other times to describe appearance (a bloat of hippopotami, a knot of toads, a bouquet of pheasants). And some were chosen for strictly poetic value – birds being a favorite for this category.
With some terms of venery, it's easy to see how the group got its name.
But others are not so obvious.
It is thought the term for crows may have come about when crows fed on human corpses. In mythology and legends, crows are often portrayed as omens of doom or death because of their tendency to circle around dying animals. They are also known to kill their own kind – either due to territorial disputes, or simply for survival of the fittest. Dark plumage and unnerving screeches only add to their ominous mystique.
One logically assumes that vultures would have a similarly uncomplimentary term, but they are known as a venue of vultures, or when the birds are circling on thermals, a kettle of vultures because they resemble the rising bubbles of a boiling pot of water. However, the ravens, as the crows' cousins, share the assignment of a gloomy although less sinister term – an unkindness of ravens.
It seems a few terms of venery were chosen for alliteration.
Many appear to have been created on a whim, for example, a business of ferrets. Some people think it relates to the "busy-ness" of ferrets. In my experience with ferrets, spending most their daylight hours sleeping draped over one another, I think a more appropriate term would be a pile of ferrets.
But it appears that most were chosen for behavioral reasons.
I'd say guinea pigs were cheated when terms of venery were handed out. They were stuck with a herd of guinea pigs. It seems they could at least share the term for groups of pigs – a sounder or a passel. In honor of the guinea pig, I came up more appropriate terms.
Some terms of venery have become obscure but all reflect a fascination with and perhaps an appreciation for the animal world. If you're interested in terms of venery, you may enjoy the book, "An Exaltation of Larks" by James Lipton.
Sunny Branson is co-owner of Single Malt Media, volunteers for Wasatch Animal Rescue, and sponsors two pot-bellied pigs at Ching Farm Sanctuary.


Free will in another hand is the ability to initiate or terminate a chain of causality.
What is compatibilist definition of free will?
The meaning of determinism is akin to an "infinite for-loop" running inside a computer program that executes the same instruction repeatedly until the external world interrupts it. I find it somewhat remarkable that an infinite for-loop contains less information than a bounded for-loop representing and checking for its own stopping condition. Consequently, infinite for-loops can be implemented on simpler devices than bounded for-loops.
Like the "forever looping" computer program, scientists who mention determinism aren't saying anything about nature, they are merely expressing the fact that their science customs do not contain the stopping-condition for their obsolescence. Talk of determinism isn't talk of positive epistemic facts, it is merely the expression of intending to do the same thing until interrupted.
There is no I in a deterministic world. It is all an illusion. Enlightened Determinists realize that they are not enjoying anything. All is without meaning.
There is no "I" in any form of Determinism. There is only the state of the universe which is all caused by the Big Bang. Any attempt to assert an "I" merely displays a misunderstanding of Determinism and the illusions it creates.
In other words, it is just an illusion that scientists are discovering anything. They are merely puppets of the Laws if Nature like everyone else.
No, there is not one single definition of free will.
Since we are want to employ the idea of free will commonly, the Compatibilist simply says what free will REALLY is, and from a deterministic perspective. Free will in normal parlance simply means not coerced, and that is a legal definition.
Philosophers do not own the language. If you were asked in court whether or not you freely made a choice, as a determinist you are able to say yes without obfuscation. Try and tell a judge that all acts are deterministic and therefor I was not free to chose not to steal the car!!!
As you know, determinism works both ways. What if the final conditions of the universe require agent freedom to have come into existence?
I mention this because perhaps determinism as it operates in reality, is not what you think it is.
I find it strange that those who deny free will in the face of determinism, because the two really aren't compatible, baulk at the notion that evolution is therefore also incompatible.
The case for the incompatibility of determinism with evolution is actually much easier to make. Determinism really means there are no chance events. Evolution requires chance to exist as a ontological ultimate.
Darwin actually wrote about this in the last chapter of his "The variation of animals and plants under domestication."
God either plays dice or he does not.
I is the word given to a group of matter that is experienced. Meaning can be given to things through experience even if they don't mean anything in an ultimate sense. Just because there may be no ultimate meaning to a table, doesn't mean I can give meaning to it based off of how I experience it. This is practical knowledge and practical meaning.
You believe in determinism, yes?
Determinism as I understand it is that for every event there exist conditions that could cause no other event. Therefore the event of one making a decision would be due to past conditions that could cause no other event, yes?
The only argument that I've come across with compatibilists in the past is that they redefine free will as a power of acting or not acting, according to the determinations of the will. Hume also redefines free will this way (you can correct me if I'm wrong about that).
However that misses the whole point of what hard determinists mean when they say there is no free will. If you redefine free will that way, you aren't taking a different position than hard determinists in their argument. You are forming a completely different argument because free will has been redefined. I doubt many hard determinists would argue that there isn't a clear difference between a decision where eat pizza because you like it and a decision where you eat pizza because there is a person holding a gun to your head telling you to eat pizza.
I'm not sure I understand your position on this so could you clarify?
I really think you are clueless here.
Determinism just means that for each effect there are causes. True there is no such thing as chance in an absolute sense. But that does not in any sense invalidate evolution. Chance in a deterministic world just means we've not enough information to predict all outcomes in a complicated world.
A dice is not random; its landing is determined by the throw, and other causal factors, that are not easy to measure.
OK, let's hope you aren't going to make a fool of yourself.
Is that all it means? Causes? OK, given quantum entanglement, how does that work out for you?
As I said Darwin wrote about this. He admitted his theory requires chance as an ontological ultimate.
A group of matter that is experiencing? Care to take a stab at the line of demarcation and how that group is performing that trick. Are they talking to each other?
As for meaning, it is all about illusion. Hence, an enlightened Determinist realizes that life has no meaning because they are able to see right through the illusion.
It's amazing that there are grown adults who actually believe all this.
Determinism acts in both ways and all ways, because it is more of a religion than a philosophy. All one has to do is assign whatever attributes one wishes to the mystical, omnipresent, omnipotent Laws of Nature and bingo, you have your story. One can appeal to the power of God in the same way.
Although you don't understand how determinism works in Reality, it doesn't matter, because those who deny Free Will because of determinism, but advocate Evolution, don't either.
The Laws of Nature act in mysterious ways and it is not for us to understand them - not that understanding had any meaning anyway.
Incorrect. Quantum mechanics doesn't say that we can change what we will.
But yes, I admit that, at philosophy forums, quantum mechanics has a big pseudoscientific mystique.
And I also admit that there are some people here who are all confused about the difference between, and the boundaries between philosophy and science (quantum mechanics is particularly popular in that regard).
Anyway, I didn't say we can't change what we will. Dieters do that all the time (some of them succeed).
What I said was that a person's actions are the result of their preferences and inclinations--hereditary and acquired.
You can go on a diet, if you already want to. Ultimately, your wants, preferences and inclinations trace back to your heredity and environment.
I'm not saying that the criminal isn't responsible for his actions. He still did it because he wanted to...regardless of the ultimately hereditary and environmental reasons why he wanted to.
I'm not saying that QM doesn't have any philosophical relevance. A recognized authority, a physicist specializing in QM, wrote that QM lays to rest the notion of an objectively-existent physical world.
As I said, your actions are the result of your preferences and inclinations--hereditary and acquired-- and your surroundings.
And I (and others) said, of course people can sometimes train themselves to have or not have a preference or inclination.
As I said, that's what people do in dieting.
The do that because they already want to.
You haven't read the previous postings to this thread, have you.
Have you ever tried to reduce your craving for some nutritionally-undesirable kind of food?
People often train themselves to have or not have some preference or inclination.
...as have others as well.
By the way, why is there QM?
Because life, our kind at least, requires stable atoms, and specific, consistent kinds of them. That requires discrete-valued quantities. A way of achieving that is via standing-waves.
...because, upon investigation and examination, physicists of course unsurprisingly find things that are consistent with our existence.
As I mentioned earlier, this type of determinisn - SUPERDETERMINISM - turns Reality into a conspiracy theory.
However, the type of determinism that really exists is quite different!
So, let me repeat myself. The testable theory that was asked for is Quantum Mechanics. The Guiding Principle is the CTD-Principle, which is proved to be respected by QM.
The CDT-Principle enjoys the same status as the Principle of Conservation of Energy.
OK, pseudoscientific, mystique. Provide references.
I suspect those are the people who have no sincere interest in philosophy or science.
Ah, the eponymous Recognised Authoritaaaay.
Sometimes I am simply overwhelmed by the depth of the arguments on this forum!
The biggest problem with determinism it's that there is absolutely zero evidence for it. Other than that, it is a nice story of how the Laws of Nature (God) determines everything.
The biggest contribution that QM has had on philosophy is that it finally put to rest the possibility that there could actually be a deterministic universe.
I don’t think it’s that mysterious. Matter interacts with other matter and energy. We can see this at the less sophisticated forms of life like bacteria. A lizard is also dependent on matter and energy. A lizard is more sophisticated than bacteria so it can interact in more complex ways. But it is still just a bunch of chemical reactions and physics. Many mammals can take it a step further where because of the way they happen to be, they will react to more social cues because through evolution it was useful. And Humans have taken it all a step further where we’ve evolved to be able to react to our own reactions in the sense that we can think about our own thoughts. More of an internal awareness. But it’s all just reactions.
Do you believe in a soul? If so, I ask why. From my studies, there is nothing in psychology to suggest that psychology is anything but biology. Biology is chemistry, and chemistry is physics.
Can an “enlightened Determinist” honestly doubt to themselves that eating something causes electrochemical messages to their brain that they experience as tastey? (in the practical sense that we use the word tastey).
Except that our deepest theories of reality are deterministic, and have been tested to extraordinary accuracy. No violation of Unitarity has ever been discovered.
You don't know the first thing about QM.
And that is about it. The rest is a magical mystery tale, conjured up by atheists so that they have their own God to worship. It is really quite amazing to observe. Basically it demonstrates that everyone needs their own God whatever the name they choose to use.
There is only one deep theory about nature and that is QM which is totally probabilistic. Other than this, you have the Laws of Nature which is not a theory but a Pagan God.
It's a probabilistic wave. Period.
Oh yeah!! Where it that? "Ontological Ultimate" is not an expression uttered by Darwin. SO who are you kidding?
Chance is a deterministic proposition; pure randomness is not.
Where is it that you draw the line so I can understand your logic? You agree that matter interacts with matter so if acid is put in water it will dissociate to make an acidic aqueous solution. Do you agree that a virus is also a bunch of reactions that are more complex? And what about bacteria then?
So matter interacts with matter. Ok. And the rest of the story, I mean the whole story... pure, unadulterated story telling, of the most creative type. Determinism is a testament to modern myth creation. In a thousand years they'll be studying it as the Greek Gods are studied.
You want me to take the story seriously? Ok, I realize all religions want to be, demand to be taken seriously. The Laws of Nature are sacred. Everything depends upon believing in them and all that they (He) can do.
You've agreed that matter interacts with matter and energy. Is the case of a virus and/or bacteria also just matter and energy interacting with matter and energy. Chemistry and physics? Yes or No?
Also, do you have any reason to believe that anything in our universe is independent from cause and effect? Yes or no?
You can answer these questions so we can have a productive discussion. You can also just dismiss them and go on with your condescending statements in which case I'll just laugh at myself for realizing I engaged with a troll for so long.
To leapfrom matter interacts with energy to the whole universe and everything we feel and experience is what is called faith. You want this story to be taken seriously, then start being serious and don't expect me to get excited over every story that people can make up.
You have to fill in the Huge blank between "matter interacts" and EVERYTHING. Even the Bible had more than this. Basically the story is the Laws of Nature did everything as opposed to God did everything. Nice story.


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Why the Gregorian Calendar Reform?
Answer: Mankind has ever been concerned with marking the passage of time. The most primitive man realized that night reliably gave way to day and then to night again. With a little more reflection he recognized the regular waxing and waning of the moon. Even as a nomadic gatherer he came to recognize the longer cycle of the seasons, and when he became a farmer he had a compelling interest in predicting when to expect the cold and the rain and the heat and the snow. Even rudimentary commerce needed some way of reckoning time in order to collect rents fairly, and to mark the beginning and ending of contracts.
The task of drawing up a calendar falls to the priests in many cultures, for the passage of time often has a religious significance. Both Judaism and Christianity commemorate the events of salvation history by observing holy days each year. Among pagans, the solstices, the equinoxes, the full, and new moons may be taken as manifestations of divinity to be worshipped in themselves, or dedicated to a pagan deity.
The task of putting together a calendar is not as simple as it might seem. The obvious units of time do not fit together especially well: the hours of the day vary with the season; the moon becomes full again in a fractional number of days (29.53) that cannot be divided into so many weeks of uniform days; 365 day-and-night days does not bring us back to the earth's position in orbit around the sun it had a year ago. Even 364-1/4 doesn't work with long term precision. And modern science has given us more than one way to measure the day and the year, each slightly different.
The practical difficulties of this stellar imprecision are enormous. In commerce (for example) two parties might agree to rent a piece of property by the month: "I'll pay you the rent each "moonth" at the new moon." But successful business require longer terms to properly develop -- how, then, do we extrapolate the monthly rent to a five year term? Some years would have twelve "moonths," while others would have thirteen. If the first year began on the day of the new moon, the other four would not. Long before the advent of Christianity, it was clear that some measure of artificiality had to be injected into the calendar. There has to be some way to make some number of days add up to a month, and some number of months add up to a year.
Some early calendars dealt with the problem of the lunar month by an extra month to the year when astronomers determined that to be necessary. The difficulties for commerce are obvious, but the phases of the moon played an important part in ancient religions, preserving the influence of the lunar calendar. The Jewish calendar contains twelve months of 29 or 30 days, and adds an extra month (Adar II) seven years out of nineteen.
The ancient Greeks employed a 354 day year, 12 months of 29.5 days, but which required the addition of three 30 day months every eight years to bring the year back into sync with the sun.
The early Roman calendar had only 304 days of 10 months, and was subject to constant refinement over the centuries until the reign of Julius Caesar, who in 45 B.C. gave us the 365 day year with an extra day in February every fourth year, and the vernal equinox (the day beginning the season of spring when day and night are both 12 hours long) at March 25th. Errors made by Caesars's successors required a fresh reform by Augustus Caesar, who took the opportunity to name the eighth month after himself, lengthening it to 31 days with a day stolen from February.
The Julian calendar worked fairly well, but its reckoning of the year was about 11-1/4 minutes longer than the actual solar year. With the passage of centuries those extra minutes became perceptible as the vernal equinox (and, consequently the feast of Easter and the season of spring) came earlier and earlier in the calendar year. Left unchecked, Easter would one day have eventually come before Christmas!
In 1582, acting on the advice of his astronomers, Pope Gregory XIII decreed the first calendar revision since Augustus: 1) Century years would not be leap years unless divisible by 400 (not just 4). 2) The vernal equinox would be reckoned as March 21 (as it was during 325 A.D. when the Council of Nicea set the rule for determining the date of Easter), with the recognition that Gregory's new tables for determining the date of Easter might occasionally differ from the vernal equinox determined by astronomers. 3) In order to set the calendar vernal equinox to the actual vernal equinox, ten days were dropped from the year 1582, with October 4th followed by October 15th.
The precision of Pope Gregory's calendar is remarkable -- we won't have to make an adjustment until 4905 A.D, when a single day will have to be added. Catholic countries were quick to adopt the Gregorian calendar, but Protestant and Orthodox countries generally were not. England adopted the calendar in 1752, and the Soviet Union in 1917. The Byzantine Rite Churches, both Orthodox and Catholic have been more resistant to the change than their political counterparts. As a young man, the present writer attend a Ukrainian Rite Catholic Church that still used the Julian calendar in the 1960s -- Christmas, for example, was observed on December 25th on the Julian Calendar, which equated to January 7th of the next year on the Gregorian calendar.
The Easter of the Orthodox is required to follow Passover, while that of the Catholics and Protestants does not. Since the Gregorian tables work somewhat differently from the Jewish system of adding extra months to the years, the Orthodox often celebrate Easter a week or more later than we. In both the East and the West, Easter is the Sunday following the full moon after the vernal equinox. Both East and West put the equinox at March 21, but the Julian calendar observes March 21 thirteen days later than the Gregorian--only when the full moon intervening before Easter provides a long enough "buffer" to negate those days will both East and West observe a common Easter.
In summary: Days, month, and years do not work out to be simple multiples of each other, and even the best calendars have small inaccuracies that grow large over the centuries. The Gregorian calendar was introduced to keep the calendar and the feasts linked to the Easter cycle in step with the seasons of the year.
One other thing, while we are on the subject of the calendar: The new millennium will begin on January 1st, 2001 -- not 2000. The calendar is based on years "anno Domini," A.D. -- "years of our Lord. It assumes that our Lord was born in the year 1 A.D. (not zero A.D.). The hundredth year after our Lord's birth date was 101 A.D. A thousand years was 1001 A.D., and two thousand years will be 2001 A.D. Of course the merchants and the travel agents would like to separate you from any money you plan to spend in observing the new millennium a year early -- and the people who bring us the nightly "news" probably don't know any better.
However, what is improperly being called the "millennium bug," or, more correctly, the Y2K (year 2000) problem will manifest itself in the year 2000 in calculating systems that keep track of the year by only the last two digits. When 1999 gives way to 2000, such systems will go from '99 to '00, and some of them will interpret this as the year 1900. Most computer users have already set their "clocks" ahead to see what effect the last year of the millennium will have on their systems. A greater problem may occur with computer chips (perhaps unknown to their owners) that are imbedded in industrial process control systems. For example, the elevator that reads its imbedded clock before taking passengers to another floor may refuse to run if it thinks it has received no maintenance since 1900.
New Year's Day 2000, a year before the millennium, might be a good day to be at home with plenty of blankets, candles, and a supply of food and water. Think of it as winter hurricane preparedness.