With Markets Up and Down Like Yo-Yos, What Will Happen to Our Pensions?
Does anybody trust stock markets anymore? Following a 10 month bull run which seemed to suggest that corporate confidence was back, we saw last week what effectively amounted to a wipe out across the world's stock indices.
This morning, the FTSE is already up 1%! I suppose this is what is called volatility.
If we were sitting in an aircraft most of the passengers would be throwing up by now.
But what does this unprecedented unpredictability mean for people's longterm investments? There must be many individuals who are worried sick about their pensions, wondering whether there will be enough money in the pot in ten to twenty years to help see them through old age.
More than likely, these last few years have been so destructive as far as pension funds are concerned that there will be nothing left, and we will be faced with the largest population of elderly people of all time having nothing to live on but scraps.
I do not want to be a scaremongerer but at a time when nations are struggling to pay current debt, what exactly is being put aside for future rainy days?? The news this morning which sparked a market revival, despite the uncertainty of the UK election result, was that Europe has agreed to set aside almost a trillion dollars of bailout for the sick nations among them.
That makes about two trillion dollars of bailout money in two years, enough to eradicate poverty around the globe many times over.
Unfortunately, far from eradicating poverty, it may well be exacerbating it.
These numbers are becoming more and more ludicrous.
Where is the money coming from and how does it affect the pound in your pocket? The world is lending itself money and then expecting the world to pay it back! Personally, I think capitalism is about to disappear up its own exhaust pipe and the only choice we have is a slow lingering death which may last about twenty years, by which time the first world will have joined the third, or we put up our hands now and say "Fair play, we did our best and it didn't work!" For pity's sake let's abandon this unregulated free market experiment and get locked in to some serious discussions about saving the planet.
Perhaps Clegg and Cameron have the answers.
The youthful duo will need to learn fast about the way things work.
They have the advantage of being new to a scenario that no one else has a clue about, so if they screw up nobody can blame them.
And if they get stuck with their homework, they can always call Gordon Brown!
This morning, the FTSE is already up 1%! I suppose this is what is called volatility.
If we were sitting in an aircraft most of the passengers would be throwing up by now.
But what does this unprecedented unpredictability mean for people's longterm investments? There must be many individuals who are worried sick about their pensions, wondering whether there will be enough money in the pot in ten to twenty years to help see them through old age.
More than likely, these last few years have been so destructive as far as pension funds are concerned that there will be nothing left, and we will be faced with the largest population of elderly people of all time having nothing to live on but scraps.
I do not want to be a scaremongerer but at a time when nations are struggling to pay current debt, what exactly is being put aside for future rainy days?? The news this morning which sparked a market revival, despite the uncertainty of the UK election result, was that Europe has agreed to set aside almost a trillion dollars of bailout for the sick nations among them.
That makes about two trillion dollars of bailout money in two years, enough to eradicate poverty around the globe many times over.
Unfortunately, far from eradicating poverty, it may well be exacerbating it.
These numbers are becoming more and more ludicrous.
Where is the money coming from and how does it affect the pound in your pocket? The world is lending itself money and then expecting the world to pay it back! Personally, I think capitalism is about to disappear up its own exhaust pipe and the only choice we have is a slow lingering death which may last about twenty years, by which time the first world will have joined the third, or we put up our hands now and say "Fair play, we did our best and it didn't work!" For pity's sake let's abandon this unregulated free market experiment and get locked in to some serious discussions about saving the planet.
Perhaps Clegg and Cameron have the answers.
The youthful duo will need to learn fast about the way things work.
They have the advantage of being new to a scenario that no one else has a clue about, so if they screw up nobody can blame them.
And if they get stuck with their homework, they can always call Gordon Brown!