I am not Mark Wadsworth
It's always very nice to have one's own prejucies, or suspicions even, confirmed by those more gifted with time and intelligence than oneself. This article just about sums up what I've suspected, and consequently how I've been working for the last 20+ years.
I've long considered, that except for a few minor admin bits and pieces and some client education, that my job and business was largely redundant. And that in 'investing' for clients all I am really doing is defending them from inflation at the least possible cost.
What they really pay me for though is comfort. Trouble is the more this ludicrous financial charade between the Gummint, the central bank and the banking systemn goes on, the less comfort I can give them.
(The link is a 'must read' piece for all my peer group, and especially the FSA)
Love, Lola.
Tuesday, 4 January 2011
Well, Well, Well...
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7 comments:
A few years ago when by Pauline Skypala wrote a valedictory column as the FT's Deputy Personal Finance Editor, she said she thought that the Financial Services industry did a lousy job for the retail investor; she recommended her readers to bung their money into property instead. If property was too expensive when they happened to have money available, she recommended that they visit their Post Office and buy Index-Linked Savings Certificates instead.
I enjoyed that. Excellent article - thanks for the link.
While enjoying another sleepless night last night - unfortunately not sleepless for the right reasons! - I was reading "When Money Dies" by Adam Fergusson. I was very struck by some of the similarities of the experience of Austrians and Germans leading up to 1923 - amongst them, great investment returns and a feeling of well-being as the stock market responded to the money being printed - and the situation in the UK, in 2010 / 2011.
No, of course I'm not trying to say that the two situations are the same, but there were enough similarities to send a small shiver along a sleepless spine.
The dangers of inflation always seem to be massively understated. But then again it's in the government's interests to understate them until such time as the transfer of wealth and erosion of the State's debts have been maximised.
DM. She was right. It does do a generally lousy job, for two reasons. Epic ignorance and/or epic deceit. And as you would expect reg-yew-lay-shun does even worse.
FT. I write a piece for the local paper each month. My main point over the last few years has been how do we defend you, the client, from inflation. And at the same time evangalising the Misian/Austrian view of inflation as a function of money, not prices.
I have a horrible feeling I am going to be proved right again.
How do we defend ourselves agin inflation now that Index-Linked Savings certificate have been withdrawn from sale?
Borrow?
DM - The Mises paper implicitly recognises that equities, while not a perfect inflationary hedge, do have a fairly good track record at defending wealth from inflation, whilst producing an income.
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