Darling to shaft savers!!

Hungerdunger

silentfox wrote: »

There is no option to disagree with this question as the entire premise is wrong...for the simple reason savers and pensioners ARE NOT GETTING ANY ..ANY...ANY SPECIAL TREATMENT"!!

Apart from being the only people who still get a 10% starting tax rate (assuming any income other than interest on the savings is low or non-existent)

bristolleedsfan

nilrem wrote: »

TBH considering the comment at the foot of the opening post (re Alastair Darling) I am surprised that the mods of this site have not removed this thread by now!

I thought this forum was a respectable place to air ones views on the subject of financial matters not one to insult people.

O/P appears to be on a self interest mission, :rolleyes: a number of posters appear to get some form of personal pleasure from calling Politicians names on a forum. :rolleyes:

thor

GeorgeHowell wrote: »

In addition New Labour figures that there are less votes to be had from savers than from those in debt.

It's not in their political interests to do much to help savers, that's why they are happy with ultra-low interest rates, which also reduce the impact of the ruinous public debt burden that they are building up. Labour will do little for savers.

This could be true I suppose except the well known fact that there are far more savings than debt(about 7 to 1 I think). Sort of punctures your argument doesn't it?

masonic

thor wrote: »

This could be true I suppose except the well known fact that there are far more savings than debt(about 7 to 1 I think). Sort of punctures your argument doesn't it?

Total gross UK savings held by consumers in 2007 was estimated at about £44bn compared with a total debt estimated at about £1345bn. That's about 30:1 in favour of debt.

Milarky

masonic wrote: »

Total gross UK savings held by consumers in 2007 was estimated at about £44bn compared with a total debt estimated at about £1345bn. That's about 30:1 in favour of debt.

I Think you have mis-read these items. The '44bn' appears to be per-annum saving, so the total stock of savings will be a large mutliple of this at any particular time. Likewise the 'we owe £1345bn (mostly mortgage) debt' story bizarrely claims that the money must somehow 'run out' on 5 January simply because accumulated debt is greater than '100%' of GDP.

'Help for savers'? Sounds a bit oxy-moronic. The general advice is that savers must help themselves (and they can) by shifting their savings for the best rate - they cannot rely on their banks to do this for them - they can't rely on the government somehow 'making' the banks do this for them either.

apt

It's a very disappointing article from the FT. As Milarky says savers could and should help themselves, not rely on money from the hard-pressed taxpayer. It's easy to get 4% or better for your money.

Onawingandaprayer

"It's easy to get 4% or better for your money."

I'd welcome a few suggestions, esp ones where it doesn't have to be tied up for 2 yrs or more.

apt

Lloyds Vantage £5,000-£7,000 at 4%, Barclays Monthly saver £250 per month for a year at 6%, Principality Regular ISA £300 per month at 5% until April 2010 etc.

Onawingandaprayer

"Lloyds Vantage £5,000-£7,000 at 4%, Barclays Monthly saver £250 per month for a year at 6%, Principality Regular ISA £300 per month at 5% until April 2010 etc."

Blimey, I'd hardly say they were straightforward savings accounts where you can get 4%+. For a saver with say £20k tucked away, which he/she was relying on for a bit of monthly income, whatever good are any of those going to be?

I guess I could find a lot more out there, which rely on a regular monthly feed in. Not much help if you've got a lump sum though.

Milarky

Oh dear! The 'is it worth it?' brigade....

(I suppose in all honestly you have a right to value your time but if you are getting '3%' and aren't happy then is the Barclay's account, for example, worth the 'hassle' of about £48 extra gross? At £12 per hour that's half a day's 'work' - and for that you have to either go online and apply (as a Barclays bank customer) OR go to a branch ('oh no!') and sit down for about 10 minutes or so. I agree the latter is more tedious and time consuming - but it's not half a day.

The Pricipality ISA is worth about £39 (net/gross) - 3 and a quarter hours....
Lloyds vantage? well that's tricky; keep £5k in there at all times (although that sounds like a 'lump sum' to me) and then pay at least £1000 per month in (instantaneous in this day of Faster Payments) use to the £1000 to pay Barclays and Principality and lose the £400. All that is worth an extra £70 (pa) 6 hours 'work' - 30 minutes per month. (Worth it?)

...and these were just the examples apt could think of...