Thanks to Anna Brading for making this podcast and for Torsten Bell for explaining pensions to me, someone who needs to see things as simply as you do.
It’s easy to see why Torsten Bell gets annoyed having to talk to pension experts within our bubble (people like me). I’m interested in how he explains what he’s up to, to ordinary people. This is a conversation between two youngish adults, one a man and one a woman, one asking questions and the other answering them. Here’s how the event is described, it’s the things that two 40 year olds talk about.
I find this podcast a sensible explanation about what’s happening to the financing of our retirement. It makes pensions simple in a way that pension people have not been very good at doing.
Here’s how Torsten promoted the podcast on social media.
Retirement for the many, not just the few, was one of the great wins of the 20th century. So there’s not much more important than building a pensions system today’s workers trust will be there for them too.
If you want to find the bits that interest you, here’s a menu of what goes on over three quarters of an hour
Some highlights for me
I could listen to a pod on each of these four subjects.
A conversation for women
I hope that a lot of people who listen to the Money & Us will continue to be women. Most people who read this blog are men and that’s because of me and my writing as a man (unwittingly for men). The sections that Torsten Bell talks about why women have had a bad time and how it may get better in the future are highlights for me
The magic of compound interest
Torsten Bell was asked if people can get to £400,000 , he replied that it was not savings alone that get us to that kind of number. The magic of compound interest is the hope that Torsten gives the audience, the £400,000 won’t be the amount saved but the amount that compound growth over a working lifetime can achieve for us.
Life can be messy
Making it easier for poorly people to get at their pension early, Torsten Bell talks about a pension change for those with a terminal illness
Wealth isn’t all about money
Wealth is a life well lived; higher income makes you happy but it’s not the main thing. This from Torsten Bell- a boring old fashioned social democrat.