In the Pension Schemes Bill is a clause which gives Mr Bell, the pensions minister, the power to dictate where our pensions are invested. His objective is to drive more investment capital into the UK economy.
They’re going to steal your money.
And the actual answer is:
For starters: cutting regulation, reducing corporation and jobs taxes, scrapping pointless carbon levies, reducing energy costs and raising tax revenues by opening up the North Sea, making it more attractive for companies to list on the UK stock exchange. Do all these things and you won’t need to pass authoritarian laws to invest in the UK, because companies and pension schemes will happily do it of their own free will.
Quite. As with all of Spud’s schemes. The conecntration is always upon the wrong thing. Whose money? When it should be on the incentive to invest, the carrot not the stick. Devise attractive investments and the money will flow in anyway.
And then there’s the second order effect. Which is that if you force investment upon bad terms – what is called financial repression – then you will change the amount saved and therefore invested. This can go either way too. China’s 45% of GDP savings rate is because Chinese households have to save ginormous amounts for their old age yet earnings on savings are often negative. Or, if we remain a less oppressive society than that then people might well in fact save less, thus invest less. Or abroad, or…..
If China’s saving rates are ginormous then the Chinese government can’t be taxing savings away. Sounds like, financially, China’s less oppressive than the UK.
China restricts what you may invest in much, much, more. That’s where the low returns come from.
Don’t tell me. They prevent Chinese investors investing in the UK where they’re “promised” higher returns. Seems entirely prudent to me. I wouldn’t either.
By dedicating 2 hours daily to this online job, I brought in $16,453 last month. It’s incredibly simple to start and doesn’t require any specific skills, making it perfect for anyone. For a student like me, this has been the ultimate solution to balancing my studies and finances…
.
For More… Rb.gy/axcdam
.
Mr Bell’s personal investment portfolio would make very interesting reading.
He could avoid any accusations of a conflict of interest by using the MTK excuse for getting an HIV test; “I only invested a million in XYZ Limited to show how easy it was and nothing to do with me funnelling billions into it a week later”…
I’m drawing down MY pension as fast as I can tax-wise. That money (my money) is already mostly in LSE listed stocks. No need for anyone to re-invest it unless they plan to invest it by agenda. No fossil fuels, no armaments, no mining and whatever some lobbying pressure group wants. And of course that is exactly what they plan.
Second order effect is people like me moving the money. Is it third-order when those who let their money be stolen retire and expect to get a decent retirement find out just how well the government invests?
And when the pensioners die, the state gets less in inheritance tax because the money has already been taxed away.
You’d have to be mad to start a business or invest in the UK at the moment. Of course they have to force people.
A VC who specialises in UK early stage high tech companies told me that the issue is really one of scale and attitude.
These companies will get funded, but they get funded more readily if the CEO goes and raises the money in the deep and welcoming US capital market: which distracts her from pushing ahead with innovation back in the lab in the UK.
Of course none of this means that the right answer is to use Clause 40 to put Torsten Bell in charge!….
“Her”?
The article talks about fund managers being forced to put money into investments the government thinks should be funded. I can see how this would work for a company group pension scheme.
However, I am not sure how it would work with SIPPs, which are individual defined contribution scheme where the user is invested in funds, bonds or stocks. If such a SIPP was totally invested in a target date fund, then maybe it could work. However, if you are dealing with a SIPP owned by someone who actively manages their SIPP, then I cannot see it working as it would end up being too complicated for the investment platforms to enforce.
The only thing they could do is restrict which markets the SIPP could put money in. London – sure. European markets – OK, maybe a little. America – no.
We need to find a way to link MPs’ and civil servants’ pensions to the performance of any fund that a politician directs private funds to invest in.
A dangerous little turd with a face you’d never tire of slapping…
D’you reckon he was the bullied runty kid at school, now getting his own back? He looks like an utter, deranged, malicious cunt to me.