Category Archives: Change
Let it rain, let it rain, let it rain
The River Thames is hammering past my patio delivering the rain that’s fallen in mid England back to the ocean, it curls under Windsor bridge and pounds down to Romney Weir past Minivet and on to Eton College. Years ago … Continue reading
Reformation The Mallowstreet Party
Vincent Franklin looked out from what used to be the roof of City Telephone Exchange. The Exchange (according to Con Keating) had walls fifteen metres thick and had been built to withstand a nuclear bomb. They’d pulled it down to … Continue reading
Blue is the colour
Unless of course you are Scottish. City’s injury time miracle was played out on our iPhones as we watched the World Sevens at Twickenham..Chelsea‘s eleventh hour heist in a Brentford pub. The blue and white hoops of Reading go up, those of … Continue reading
How can you tell if your pension’s any good?
The Pension Play Pen had a debate last November when we tried to set an order of importance on the six things that the Pension Regulator said , made for good DC pensions (outcomes as they call them). The top of … Continue reading
CIT; your ABC of auto-enrolment!
CIT compliance investment trust your three steps to success on the road to tomorrow’s pension. Yes I know there are a number of ways of pronouncing that “C” but if using a “sh” helps you remember what I’m talking about- I’ve no objection. Worse has been … Continue reading
How to buy a pension
Buying your pension is one if not the biggest financial decisions you will take (or have taken). It’s fearfully difficult and most people take it with little help and – worse-information. Almost everyone is going to have to do it and that so … Continue reading
Top News! – Scrap national insurance on your pension payments!
There’s plenty reasons to feel depressed if you run a pension scheme for your staff. Investment returns – depressed, annuity rates – depressed, you and your staff – depressed! NEWS*** GOOD PENSION NEWS*** Ah that “good pension news” oxymoron! – I … Continue reading
Auto-enrolment ; winners and losers.
Tesco doesn’t seem to be getting too much credit from the DB aficionados who have been perturbed by its attempts to push back retirement ages as part of the new deal.
All the Queen’s Men (overtime at Romney Weir)
What do you do when you come back from Church on a wet April Sunday morning? If you live opposite Romney Weir in Eton, you can enjoy watching eight engineers monitoring how the largest archmides screw in Europe is coping with the extra flows … Continue reading
500,000 pensioners who will get no help from the Government.
If you have purchased an annuity in the past three years of are likely to purchase one in the next three years you will be buying into pension conversion rates artificially depressed by the Government‘s quantitive easing program and by insurance … Continue reading