IF I HAD SAID TO YOU TWENTY, THIRTY YEARS THAT IF YOU GAVE ME A SET SUM OF MONEY TO INVEST FOR YOU, THAT PROMISED A SET SUM FOR YOUR PENSION...ON PAPER AND SIGNED MY NAME OR THE NAME OF MY FIRM, TO THAT PROMISE. AND IF I TOOK YOUR MONEY AND SPREAD IT AROUND RISKING IT IN WAYS NOT AGREED UPON IN OUR ORIGINAL TALKS. AND THEN ONE DAY THE NEWSPAPERS RAN WITH THE HEADLINE THAT MILLIONS WILL BE AFFECTED AS MORE FUNDS FAIL.
WOULD YOU NOT BE BLOODY ANGRY WITH ME?
WOULDN'T YOU DEMAND TO KNOW WHERE THE MONEY HAS GONE?
AND WHO HAS BEEN FIRED?
AND WHY I...NOW CEO AM STILL PAID MILLIONS?
I am not actually terribly political...and as JP swore that his father never used insurers etc and look at him, we never ever insured ourselves...cars, houses yes, businesses, yes but endowments, pensions nope, we had savings and they were safe, weren't they? Well until we had the 0.1/2 interest rate we were.
But l confess to blood red rage when l read of more ordinary, hard-working, salt of the earth, pay up and shut up folk losing their money and even having to delay their retirement.
HAS ANYONE BEEN JAILED?
HOW CAN THIS BE RIGHT?
If it was an endowment and you have any literature from the provider that claimed a definite amount then you can claim - or at least you were able to there may have been a time limit. We got compensation on ours some years back but only cos I'd kept all the paper work and the huge figures in the brochure were clearly crap.
ReplyDeleteHowever in pensions it is difficult... they are cleverer now, they don't promise. However the issue often is to do with fund management - people don't consider the fund they sign up to. In your 20s and 30s going "riskier" sounds ok as retirement is years away but if you don't tell the fund manager to change he'll just carry on as "per your instruction"... you need to move to "safer" funds. However often that means government bonds... oh! Yes that'll be the next disaster. I'm turning 50 so my "lifetime" fund should be moving to these safe investments. With the impeccable timing that has followed me most of my life this will be just as all these Eurozone countries default and my pension pot will disappear in a fog of government refinancing... Hey ho - you never miss what you never had do you?
Oh Moannie, I absolutely agree- it's horrifying. I used to be a civil servant, until I had to leave due to mass redundancies. At this tough time, you hold on to any job you can to support yourself now, but the loss of security in pensions, meaning you cant secure your future, is frightening.
ReplyDeleteMoannie.... Harry & I should be living a comfortable life now, living off savings. However, because of the foolishness of the Banks, we are now living out of savings and I wish we hadn't bothered. If I want a cleaner or need nursing or anything else because of old age & illness, we will have to pay. Why? Because we saved and tried to look after our selves. Seems that if we had spent, spent, spent, we would be getting free help.
ReplyDeleteMad...... yes, I am furious.
Lets go to Downing St with our pitchforks!
Maggie X
Nuts in May
It's NOT right, and people SHOULD be jailed. I truly fail to see how they can get away with it.
ReplyDeleteIt happened here too and its so infuriating
ReplyDeleteIt isn't right. We have had the same thing happen here. Someone decided all the businesses should have their employees put money into the stock market for their retirements. The company would put in a little for us, then we could put in more if we wanted to. It all seemed well and good....people were making lots of money on the stock market and their retirement seemed to be guaranteed to be comfortable....until the bottom fell out. My brother is 58 and was close to being able to retire, but because they had so much invested in the stock market, he now will probably have to work until he is 70 or older. It's a down right shame that not one of the ones who stole from the little guy has to pay at all. The CEOs of companies still get millions (not thousands) in bonuses. Don't ask me which companies, because my memory isn't what it used to be, but I have read about many, many of them since all this happened. We can only hope there is a Hell to rectify the unjustices that have occured, because there is no justice here on earth.
ReplyDeleteSCREAM!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteI am able to make a comparison.
ReplyDeleteThe money the government forced us to put into fund management hands was the mountain that produced a mouse. Sweet Fanny Adams.
The money we invested ourselves had its ups and downs, but enabled my husband to live for over thirty years when too ill to work and deprived of any benefits through the negligence of the National Insurance system.
Now, with sub inflation interest rates we see savings going to hell in a handcart.
And why does no one go to jail? Because they come to cozy settlements with the regulators....usually ex colleagues.
True, Moannie. One of the good things about being a layabout and spendthrift, such as I am, is that I came out of all this Bernie Madoff (and others) stuff substantially the same as I was before it happened. Bank Of America and its ilk didn't do our bank accounts one bit of damage, near as I can tell. We had no real investments, and still don't, so nothing changed. I guess that's a fair bit of luck for us ;-)
ReplyDeleteWhat is really maddening is that we are impotent...those in charge all look out for each other and we in the middle (working/earning little/paying our way)will continue to be squeezed and have to work longer for less......
ReplyDeleteIt isn't. And that's why we should all be occupying Wall Street.
ReplyDeletegood God, Moanie! i feel like i'm in a hundred battles already, are we gonna take on parliament and crooked bankers as well?
ReplyDeletehere's another one then; over here in the US, the lawmakers have everyone from ballplayers to sales clerks peeing in cups to prove we're drug free. but it is they that declare war and govern and they don't have to drug test.
huh?
much love
rick
They are all FEKKERS! And should be in prison along with the politicans who allow this whole thing to develop. Hope you are well...big hugs.
ReplyDeleteThere's nothing right about the robbers of our country. It's a disgrace how ordinary, hard working folk are being treated. Yet when they complain, they are branded as trouble makers.
ReplyDeleteAll the very best to you for 2012, lovely lady.
CJ x
It's not right. It's not just. It's one rule for Them and one for Us. It's another example of what the very rich can get away with, which would break an ordinary person or see them jailed for a very long time.
ReplyDeleteIt makes all of us furious, but sadly it's an impotent fury, isn't it? Because it's all beyond us, individually, to do anything about it. Yes, millions of innocent hard-working people have had their savings and hard-earned money STOLEN from them by unscrupulous people who the law can't seem to touch, but if I so much as park on a double yellow, I get the book thrown at me.
Makes me sick to hear those in high places pointing the finger at other countries and saying how corrupt they are, all the while turning a blind eye to the corruption in our own country.
Yes, Moannie, I am right there with you. This is why I am getting up at 5 am three days a week, and travelling 50 miles to work and back, when twenty years ago I thought I would be retired by now.
ReplyDeletei could not agree more. it's just wrong that decent hard working folks got hurt and crooks got rewarded.
ReplyDelete