Poll: Exit Poll: UK General Election 2017 - Results discussion and OcUK Exit Poll - Closing 8th July

[do_ron_ron]

A few years ago we had a new manager start and instead of hiring experienced people into entry level positions like the previous manager, they hired fresh from school kids. Previously we had people who failed to progress their career and had poor work ethic. Now we have young enthusiastic people who jump at the opportunities provided to them and because of this they then mold excellently into specialist positions which are extremely difficult to find experienced candidates for. The turn over rate for entry positions is now much higher, but they are much more capable people who remain employed with us but in higher positions.

The moral of this story? Employers should take a chance on the young again and provide on the job training. They will be a asset to your business.

Totally agree. British industry, apart from a handful of companies have always been poor at providing training for the young. They have panned it off to the state, they think the Govt should provide the training for their business. Why should the taxpayer fund what is essentially their profit. Often the same company nowadays hides part of their business in tax haven to avoid tax. The young are just starting and see that good jobs are scare and will apply themselves if given a chance. It is an outrage that, in realty, the Govt does not think you are an adult until you are 25 when the full NMW kicks in.

 

[do_ron_ron]

He used to be 7/10 to remain!

How much of his position is due to the fact that his heartlands are in the North which voted to leave. He is a politician.

 

[do_ron_ron]

He's connecting well

Just saw on Peston today that people think Corbyn would make a better PM than May. What a turn around from a few months ago.

 

[Mr Jack]

How much of his position is due to the fact that his heartlands are in the North which voted to leave. He is a politician.

These regions may have voted to remain but Labour voters did not. We're 3:1 on Remain:Leave.

 

[stewski]

Can you please expand on this and further qualify the point you're making?

On needing capitalism to work (which apparently means low pay for workers who are then subsidised by the state) I'm suggesting private pensions are already at massive risk from abuse (as many high profile cases have shown) to the point of leaving people with effectively nothing because their employer decided to gamble the whole fund. In financial investment circles, pension products are on average the worst performing financial product available.

It's from 2012 but I'll be surprised if the pensions scenario in the UK has been through significant change:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...699490/Pension-companies-fail-to-deliver.html

Is capitalism working for private pensions at the moment?

By the way, if you wish to ask a question like expand and qualify, you could input some of your own thoughts on the discussion so far.

 

[CapitalOne]

Just a quick point, a pension is not a product, it's a wrapper. You don't invest in a pension, you invest in investments (!) within the wrapper.

 

[The_Abyss]

On needing capitalism to work (which apparently means low pay for workers who are then subsidised by the state) I'm suggesting private pensions are already at massive risk from abuse (as many high profile cases have shown) to the point of leaving people with effectively nothing because their employer decided to gamble the whole fund. In financial investment circles, pension products are on average the worst performing financial product available.

It's from 2012 but I'll be surprised if the pensions scenario in the UK has been through significant change:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...699490/Pension-companies-fail-to-deliver.html

Is capitalism working for private pensions at the moment?

By the way, if you wish to ask a question like expand and qualify, you could input some of your own thoughts on the discussion so far.

If you read back through the thread you'll see several of my thoughts. Here are some more.

Firstly, as @CapitalOne has correctly stated, the pension is a wrapper. You've raised two different points: 1: that you think private pensions are at massive risk from abuse, although you don't quote any examples. 2: that pension investments (not products) perform worse than other financial products.

On the first point, I think you need to provide some examples of what you mean. I'd hazard a guess that you're thinking about things such as BHS but you need to expand more on what these 'massive risks' are.

On the second point there are two things to consider. Firstly, for defined benefit schemes, the investment decisions are made by the trustees or their appointed adviser. Both are perfectly able to ditch a poorly performing investment. Secondly, for member directed pensions, the individual makes the choice of investment and can also ditch a poorly performing investment. Of course there are some poor performers out there, and some pretty highly charged ones too (the two often go hand in hand) but the answer is simply not to invest in them.

Lastly, on investment performance, the vast majority of investments available within a pension are also available directly and through other tax wrappers, such as ISAs. Few, apart from some old legacy funds, are available exclusively for pensions. Investments that perform poorly are those that do not deliver the anticipated return. Pensions that perform poorly are those that are administered poorly, i.e. not apply tax relief correctly, failing to pay income as instructed, not valuing the fund correctly and in a timely manner, not processing contributions correctly etc.

 

[Fishbait]

Here's a thought... maybe they just didn't like Conservative policies?

As shocking as that might be to some on here, not everyone thinks they're the holy grail of politics.

Hmm, holy grail you say?

 

[stewski]

If you read back through the thread you'll see several of my thoughts. Here are some more.

Firstly, as @CapitalOne has correctly stated, the pension is a wrapper. You've raised two different points: 1: that you think private pensions are at massive risk from abuse, although you don't quote any examples. 2: that pension investments (not products) perform worse than other financial products.

On the first point, I think you need to provide some examples of what you mean. I'd hazard a guess that you're thinking about things such as BHS but you need to expand more on what these 'massive risks' are.

On the second point there are two things to consider. Firstly, for defined benefit schemes, the investment decisions are made by the trustees or their appointed adviser. Both are perfectly able to ditch a poorly performing investment. Secondly, for member directed pensions, the individual makes the choice of investment and can also ditch a poorly performing investment. Of course there are some poor performers out there, and some pretty highly charged ones too (the two often go hand in hand) but the answer is simply not to invest in them.

Lastly, on investment performance, the vast majority of investments available within a pension are also available directly and through other tax wrappers, such as ISAs. Few, apart from some old legacy funds, are available exclusively for pensions. Investments that perform poorly are those that do not deliver the anticipated return. Pensions that perform poorly are those that are administered poorly, i.e. not apply tax relief correctly, failing to pay income as instructed, not valuing the fund correctly and in a timely manner, not processing contributions correctly etc.

Before I present further information for point 1 and 2 (as you put it).

Can you explain if you feel anything you have said confirms/denies what the telegraph in 2012 and (if my Partner who works in finance is to be believed), anyone who works in the financial industry has said for many years, that private pension products are (on average) the worst performing, least well regarded, financial products available!

 

[Jokester]

Without a link to said Telegraph article, everything else is hearsay.

 

[stewski]

Without a link to said Telegraph article, everything else is hearsay.

Read my earlier post 7171

 

[stewski]

Just a quick point, a pension is not a product, it's a wrapper. You don't invest in a pension, you invest in investments (!) within the wrapper.

To be honest I am not a fan of the productisation of banking services, but that is the language now used!

 

[The_Abyss]

Before I present further information for point 1 and 2 (as you put it).

Can you explain if you feel anything you have said confirms/denies what the telegraph in 2012 and (if my Partner who works in finance is to be believed), anyone who works in the financial industry has said for many years, that private pension products are (on average) the worst performing, least well regarded, financial products available!

Yes. The fact that you keep referring to 'private pension products' despite the explanation I gave explaining the difference between pensions as a tax wrapper and the investments used within them. You either don't understand or are choosing not to.

 

[Jokester]

Read my earlier post 7171

Ah sorry.

Isn't part of the problem that the individuals themselves don't manage their own pension fund to adjust the risk their willing to take at different stages of their working life?

Default pension investments can be quite conservative in terms of their risk profile.

 

[easyrider]

Hmm, holy grail you say?

Brilliant

 

[stewski]

The Conservatives thought pension fund abuse and lack of regulation a big enough issue to make changes to the regulation/regulators powers part of their threadbare manifesto in 2017.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/conservative-manifesto-general-election-2017-key-points-policies/

Tougher punishments for those caught mismanaging pension schemes.
New powers to be given to the Pensions Regulator to issue "punitive" fines for those found to have "wilfully left a pension scheme under-resourced" and, if necessary, powers similar to those held by the Insolvency Service to disqualify the relevant company directors.
New criminal offence to be considered for company directors who "deliberately or recklessly put at risk" a pension scheme's ability to meet its obligations.

Yes. The fact that you keep referring to 'private pension products' despite the explanation I gave explaining the difference between pensions as a tax wrapper and the investments used within them. You either don't understand or are choosing not to.

Does anything you've just said make a material difference to the points raised?

Call them investments in investments, call them pensions, call them pension products, if on average they cost more to manage and perform worse than passive tracker funds, in what way is the suggestion they are a poor investment unfair?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...699490/Pension-companies-fail-to-deliver.html

while the "average" balanced managed fund produced a return of 94.3pc over the past decade, most of these pension funds have again underperformed. Friends Life's Flexible pension has grown by 76pc over the period, Clerical Medical has returned 79pc on its balanced pension, Lloyds has returned 85pc on its managed pension and Barclays 88pc on its equivalent fund.

Mr Khalaf said: "These funds have been designed to be average, but many are not even meeting these fairly modest aims."

And, of course, as these pensions are all actively managed, investors are paying higher fund management charges than those levied by "passive" tracker funds or ETFs (exchange-traded funds), which will simply mirror a given stock market index for a fraction of the cost.

 

[stewski]

Ah sorry.

Isn't part of the problem that the individuals themselves don't manage their own pension fund to adjust the risk their willing to take at different stages of their working life?

Default pension investments can be quite conservative in terms of their risk profile.

The Telegraph article suggests that even with their modest aims, on average, they are under performing, which probably explains why those who work at banks selling pensions, think they are weak!

If only we had some collective way to, nationally insure people's standard of living in old age, instead of throwing people en masse into the vagaries of under performing stock market based investments.

 

[The_Abyss]

The Conservatives thought pension fund abuse and lack of regulation a big enough issue to make changes to the regulation/regulators powers part of their threadbare manifesto in 2017.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/conservative-manifesto-general-election-2017-key-points-policies/

And this is a good thing.

You said that "private pensions are already at massive risk from abuse". Presumably you meant to say occupational defined benefit pensions, and still haven't given examples of what these risks are or shared details of the many high profile cases. I helpfully suggested BHS - were you also thinking of Tata? Perhaps BT in the future?

Does anything you've just said make a material difference to the points raised?

Call them investments in investments, call them pensions, call them pension products, if on average they cost more to manage and perform worse than passive tracker funds, in what way is the suggestion they are a poor investment unfair?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...699490/Pension-companies-fail-to-deliver.html

Call them what they actually are and make the correct distinction. So you are not complaining about poorly performing private pensions, you're complaining about poorly performing investments. And, a I said before, if an investment is performing poorly then the member / trustee has the power to do something about it. The 5 year old article you quoted shows investment performance over 10 years. I'm not going to make any effort to justify the performance - it has underperformed the benchmark that the Telegraph chose to compare it to (which is actually probably not a correct benchmark, seeing as these funds do not invest solely in equities). But if you're chosen that fund and left it for 10 years then that is not a poorly performing pension - it is an ignorant or stupid person who chose to keep it. The article itself talks about fund performance, not pension performance.

 

[The_Abyss]

The Telegraph article suggests that even with their modest aims, on average, they are under performing, which probably explains why those who work at banks selling pensions, think they are weak!

If only we had some collective way to, nationally insure people's standard of living in old age, instead of throwing people en masse into the vagaries of under performing stock market based investments.

There is a way to share risk and return - collective defined contribution schemes. The Dutch have them: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-27665364 and while he was Pension Minister Steve Webb was a big fan and wanted to introduce them in the UK under the brand of 'defined ambition'. It would have been really interesting to see that introduced as part of auto-enrolment.

 

[StriderX]

There is a way to share risk and return - collective defined contribution schemes. The Dutch have them: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-27665364 and while he was Pension Minister Steve Webb was a big fan and wanted to introduce them in the UK under the brand of 'defined ambition'. It would have been really interesting to see that introduced as part of auto-enrolment.

I like that at the end of that article that it said "Dutch pay 1/4th of their money into pensions", "British pay 1/10th of their money into pensions"... maybe there's a problem here that isnt just the style of pension?