Saturday 22 November 2014

More BtL Joy from the Telegraph

The whole pensions / BtL / annuity dynamic is getting truly ludicrous.

Exhibit 1. The DT indulging in some sensationalist pandering to its 'readers' with this ridiculous claim about 'annuity mis-selling'. Here. I work in this business and the biggest problems with annuities are

1) pension savers not shopping around when all the pre-retirement packs issued by all insurers tell people to shop around and
2) epic government and regulatory failure and especially the lunatic interest rates and financial repression generally.

Then there's these two dillies.

Exhibit 2. Gazumping is back.  Oh great.  So is something sensible being done to make this less likely?

Exhibit 3 Well, not really.

You just wait and see what people will spend their pension funds on when they can get at them next year.

It's not going to end well, is it?


3 comments:

Rich Tee said...

My MP is Rachel Reeves, the Shadow Work and Pension Secretary.

I wrote to her last February complaining about auto-enrolment, which she is hugely enthusiastic about. I received no reply.

I am preparing to write another letter again this coming February.

I think I will write her a letter every February for the rest of my life just to remind her that I do still exist.

Bayard said...

Exhibit 3: You swap your brix'n'mortar for shares in a fund. What could possibly go wrong with that?

"You just wait and see what people will spend their pension funds on when they can get at them next year."

AFAIAC that was the whole point of the change: to boost land prices by releasing more buying power.

Lola said...

B. Yep. I have a dinner invite with my local Tory MP for early December. I am not expecting to be asked back...