kind of blue

I have listening to this week’s VFM podcast for you. You may want to follow suit.

It starts with another conversation between industry veterans bewailing the ongoing race to the bottom on master trust pricing, consolidation and the crunch investment budgets. However , unlike most of the conversations of this type, this one’s worth listening to – probably because one of the industry veterans is Richard Parkin.

If you want to hear the acceptable voice of the ABI, Richard is it.

You can listen to Richard here

The consensus (well Richard Parkin) reckons that price hikes will only happen when consolidation stops. Inward investment into the UK will only happen when Government makes it clear what has to happen .

Parkin points out the ABI’s investment development forum commitment to invest £100bn into green debt in the UK is happening while the Mansion House commitments are still being frustrated by issues to do with liquidity and price. It looks like easements on solvency II are making it easier for insurers to get stuck into bonds while the Mansion House is doing very little for private equity.

The conversation moves swiftly on to incentivising UL investment by restoring the UK dividend tax credit ( the one that Gordon Brown took away). Parking makes the very sensible point that the £48bn net incentives on pension saving, you’d have thought there would be a quid pro quo from an investment bias towards the UK

Tradition, opportunity or mandate are the three means to get people investing in the UK.  But more threatening to the pension industry is a real drop in tax relief. My bet is with the IRS and that we’ll see an end to pensions being used as an IHT mitigation  mechanism (which would be a wealth tax, not a tax on hard-working individual).

Two out of three participants in this podcast work at BNY Mellon – my local megabank (Literally 20 yards from where I live in London). The conversation turns to presenteeism and the cost of delinquent workers spending 5 weeks a year working from home in France, Italy and Turkey.

My walk home from work involves me pushing through throngs of BNY Mellon employees hanging outside Shaw’s Booksellers and congratulating themselves that they have made it to work.  Maybe the mass emigration of the podcasters to Southern Europe will enable me to go about my daily business. I am reminded that throughout the lockdown and beyond, BNY Mellon’s external lighting was left on 24/7 for over 5 months, something that surprised me – knowing how zealous that bank is to reduce our carbon footprint.

Meanwhile rioters are smashing up crap towns.

To be fair to Darren , who I have been rather harsh to (to his face), he is picking up on real Pension Issues including some good gossip about Guy Opperman who is tweeting away about DWP inadequacies.

So the reality is that between multi millionaires and state pensioners not on pension credit 1000s of pensioners will struggle to heat their homes this winter; I know 100s of my former constituents in #Northumberland will struggle this winter. 10/

— Guy Opperman (@GuyOpperman) July 31, 2024

It would be good to have Opperman back working in pensions and joining Webb, Altmann and McClymont , all of whom are making an honest crust about doing good things.

If you want proper economic discussion about Government finances, tune into the IFS

If you believe @PJTheEconomist is the GOAT (Guru of Accurate Treasury), and you want to know how much of @RachelReevesMP Black Hole is kidology, then listen to the magnificently dull #TheExpertFactor podcast, also with @DrHannahWhite and @anandMenon1

Very enlightening

— Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells (@disgustedoftwe1) August 3, 2024

What we want is proper discussion on pensions and surprisingly, there is rather more sense from pension politicians than from some pension podcasters.

This podcast is 84 minutes long , a large chunk of which is about a discussion (well a monologue – speculating on the origins of the planet/galaxy/life on earth). If this is light relief from pensions -give me pensions.

After a storming first half an hour things turned. Do we really have to listen to pensions answer to Albert Einstein waffling on for ever. He may need a conversation with Kant and Schopenhauer but we need this metaphysical musing like a hole in the head.

There is some Bony M stuff in this but thankfully they arrive by the time that all but the hardiest podcasters have tuned out.

Hats off to Richard Parkin – I stayed for him. His account of his work for FSCS is worth listening to. He’s a good guy and modest with it.

Measuring the outcomes of advice is a really interesting area of VFM. Maybe the most value would come from not making people take decisions they don’t want to and aren’t well placed to take. But we need financial advice – don’t we?