Monthly Archives: March 2022
Annuities – a well-behaved retail pensions market.
To mark another rise in interest rates , I was about to write a blog about annuities when my young friend Mark Ormston dropped this set of slides into my inbox! What’s left of the annuity market – since George … Continue reading
Posted in pensions
8 Comments
The dark side of pension freedom; the NAO report on the FCA and BSPS
The National Audit Office has produced what will no doubt become the definitive report on the British Steel Pension Scheme and what happened to it. It focuses on how the FCA was organised to prevent, identify, and respond to unsuitable … Continue reading
Sorting pension credits – my strategic and tactical solutions.
We’ve been learning this week how this state and its citizens can work together to provide humanitarian aid where and when it is needed. Tax-payers agree to offer free accommodation to refugees and are rewarded for their expense by our … Continue reading
Posted in pensions
Tagged elderly, Pension Credit, pension minister, Pensions, Rishi Sunak
1 Comment
Can demographics help us understand Putin’s game?
The following thread is from Simon Kuestenmacher Simon’s one of the clearest thinkers on Geography I’ve read, maybe because he writes like Abba sang, as a European in a second tongue (making his words stand out as each is thought … Continue reading
Posted in pensions
Tagged demographics, geography, putin, Simon Kuestenmacher, Ukraine, Vladmir Putin
Leave a comment
A testing time for the DWP and its Pension Minister.
The Pensions Minister has called out the private sector for not having a long-term view. In this blog I call on his department to focus on a short-term strategy to deal with the problems facing people approaching and in retirement … Continue reading
UK-raine ; we open our borders and our homes
This is good news and proof that we can do peacefully , what we cannot do with violence, bring help to the people of Ukraine. Within weeks, Britain will know Ukrainians much better, let’s think of ourselves for the next … Continue reading
Posted in pensions
Leave a comment
The great resignation – from privilege or pestilence?
Earlier in the year I wrote a number of blogs about the 550,000 or so older workers who’d disappeared from the UK labour force over the time of the pandemic. Not much was then known about them except they weren’t … Continue reading
Posted in pensions
Tagged Alistair McQueen, pension, Pestilence, Privilege, Resignation, Retirement
Leave a comment
GMP equalisation; will my DB transfer get a top-up?
This blog is a Q&A from the Daily Mail’s”This is Money” online service . I love reading Steve Webb’s answers which are as authoritative and simple as Martin Lewis’. “I transferred my final salary pension to my private pension scheme … Continue reading
Refugees in your Home
If you are interested in getting on with helping refugees get rehoused , you may wish to get on with it. If so, there is a charity you can contact now which can help you. Thanks to Louise Inward … Continue reading
Russia leaves an open-goal for the planet.
If you’re looking for a silver lining to the dark cloud hanging over us this Monday morning, it can be found in a talk given to an FT conference by Christopher Hohn, whose hedge fund, TCI Fund Management has … Continue reading