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The fall to record lows in the borrowing costs of the British and US governments shows that investors and creditors don’t want to take risks – and when investors don’t want to take risks, it’s hard for the economy to grow. Robert Peston www.bbc.co.uk

It’s frustrating when you are in a business where your client’s futures depend heavily on the markets while the markets consistently fail to deliver what is expected of them.

So it’s interesting to read these comments; investors are not ust  speculators in the city, they are ordinary Joes who have the choice between investing in Cash or Share ISAs, whether to invest in an aggressive or cautiously managed pension fund , whether to start  the new business or sit on the sidelines.

To some extent, we are the architects of our own penury!

It’s enervating when you are working for an entrepreneurial young company as I do and you work alongside colleagues who will invest in the futures of their staff (in our case training young mathematicians in the dark arts of actuarial science!).

I work where I do because I sense we are generating wealth and stoking others to invest positively for the future. Since I’ve started working alongside my new colleagues I have been taught a few things – not least how people get better value by organising themselves collectively (pension plans for instance). I’ve also noticed  how my colleagues help  pension trustees collectively manage the risks that are currently stopping “investors and creditors” from growing our economy and stifling the growth in sister economies– notably the ailing economies of our European neighbours.

Perhaps it’s because the people who are giving trustees the advice are themselves taking the risks of building their business (First Actuarial) that they  remain positive about the need to invest over time in the real assets (companies, property and infrastructure). It’s these investments  that generate the jobs and ultimately the wealth that will revive our economy and those of our neighbours.

Here error is all in the not done,
all in the diffidence that faltered . . .

Ezra Pound 1945

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