These comments are made to the FT by Lloyds CEO Charlie Nunn , we did not choose Charlie Nunn to run anything, but his bank has decided to do its own thing on pensions.
Rachel Reeves, is our Finance Minister,I choose to follow the Government we elected and am happy to see my money invested for the good of the country. I would like to see my country supporting me in thirty years time through health and the wealth I will need in later days.
I do not expect Lloyds Bank to do me much good, it has not done me or my family much good in the last few years.
Nunn compares Britain with China
“Mandating allocations of pension funds is a form of capital control. I have spent 10 years of my working life in China and many jurisdictions where there are capital controls,”
Charlie Nunn told the Financial Times.
“That is a different model and that is a difficult slope for an economy that believes it is an open economy.”
What the bank that Nunn has decided to do is increase the weight of money it manages for our pensions to overseas equities and bonds and to avoid the arduous business of finding and investing in private and listed companies in the UK . It is setting an example for others but it is not following the will of the Finance Minister of this country, the person we elected to manage our financial affairs.
Nunn may think that Britain is becoming like China but I don’t see it that way, I see Britain as a democracy that follows its leaders policies and does not follow its bank’s wishes. We are only 15 years on from bailing out banks, including Lloyds and HBOS at the expense of ordinary people who have since had 10 years of austerity to pay for the banks’ arrogance.
China has been growing fast over that period, it has become a world leader in managing its emissions and it is standing up to bullying tactics from the USA. It is no longer a pariah, it is part of the global economy that Nunn claims he is arguing for. He wants Britain to have no capital controls but he knows very well that capital controls are in place the world over.
Government for long term, banks for short term finance
Our banks are not bigger than our Government, infact they depend on our Government and on the people who elect them. Nunn may feel he has a right to do what he likes with his policyholders and members money but they are electors too. Lloyds staff may not be able to speak out against their CEO but I bet many of them are amazed that Nunn and a small cabinet that is Lloyds’s executive is speaking out as he is in the FT.
Reading to the end of this article – an interview with Nunn – we find what looks Lloyds’ agenda, it does not want to see Britain reflated by long term capital from pensions – it wants its finances managed by banks like his
he stressed that any increase in the corporation tax rate for banks would “slow down my ability to lend to real customers and support business and growth”.
Nunn said Lloyds took a “glass half full” approach to the economy, although the bank only expects annual growth of about 1 to 1.5 per cent over the next three years.
“The economy is healthier . . . The issue is we don’t have the confidence and the vision to invest, and we are not getting businesses investing in that next stage of growth,” he added.
It’s not about having the confidence to invest, rather our financial institutions have captured and shaped the regulatory framework to produce a model where they get paid for not taking risk. They get paid for scale and de-risking and specifically for not investing. Thats not their fault, much easier to get paid for holding other peoples assets in a low risk low investment low competition model. It’s the fault and paucity of any long term vision from our political classes that allowed this to happen.
The multi-£billion takeover of large insurers as a means to entry shows the super profit in the system, it’s just a shame none of that profit will improve the lot of members or the Exchequer or the UK economy.
Henry, the Government has been mandating the investment policies of pension schemes for the last 30 years. Look at the outcome – losses of half a billion to a couple billion being experienced by listed companies and part publicly owned banks and significantly downgraded pension prospects for most workers who may have previously had an occupational pension!
Now they are suggesting another form of mandation (or encouragement) into a different category of potentially over-priced assets with every likelihood that the outcome will be the same – the loss of potential pension income to future pensioners.
That said I personally do not believe that investing in the “magnificant seven” through a worldwide weighted index is likely to yield long term income either. The critical investment decision now becomes can you bail out before everyone else does.
The government needs to be focused on the creation of an environment where the existing resources of the country, particularly the human capital resources, are focused onto activities that are likely to provide sustainable long term growth. There does not appear to have been a shortage of capital willing to invest in such UK activities, it is just that a lot of it is not UK capital. This is partly because the Government of the day destroyed the UK pension system where Trustees (with some employer encouragement) focused on long term growth.
You two should have been on Steve Hodder’s Pension PlayPen show this morning.
The slides and videos will be up tomorrow and will be to your liking.