MSE News: Ed Miliband attacks high pension charges

dunstonh

Finally good to see a politician making this point. Ed has shown himself ahead of the curve over Levesen, the corruption in the City and now reducing pension charges.

The only point Ed has made is to show that he is as accurate as a Daily Mail headline with the same sort of scaremongering and sensationalist approach.

Paul_Herring

Moby wrote: »

Finally good to see a politician making this point. Ed has shown himself ahead of the curve over Levesen, the corruption in the City and now reducing pension charges.

You kidding, yes? Please tell me you're kidding....

jamesd

Moby wrote: »

Finally good to see a politician making this point. Ed has shown himself ahead of the curve over ... now reducing pension charges.

Stakeholder pensions were introduced in 2001. They set a cap on charges of 1% a year, changed to 1.5% for the first nine years in 2005.

As a result of the Pensions Commission Reports the last government initiated the NEST pension scheme, intending it to have lower than average charges.

A columnist for the Financial Times has been on about pension and other fund charges for at least a couple of years now, writing on them most weeks.

Mr. Miliband is about as late to this particular party as it's possible to be.

prowla wrote: »

NuLab did the biggest raid on pensions since Robert Maxwell - they can hardly reinvent themselves as the party that gives a damn about pensions.

See above. Labour has form on pension charges. They also removed the requirement to buy an annuity above age 75 when they introduced Alternatively Secured Pensions in 2006 and introduced the A day pension changes that greatly increased people's freedom and flexibility in using pensions.

Consumerist

I think this outburst from Mr. Milliband has more to do with future State Pension and benefits than anything else.

dunstonh

Milliband says things that I agree with..... unlike this shambolic excuse for a Govmt who are financed by the bankers.

Milliband is talking rubbish. Why do you agree with that?

How about the fact that there is not a pension on the market with charges he mentioned.

ABI director general Otto Thoresen says: “In newly set up automatic enrolment schemes the average annual management charge of our members is 0.52 per cent. The average annual management charge for existing schemes is 0.77 per cent. For many other existing schemes, both large and small, charges can be lower than 0.3 per cent. Nobody in the pension industry would defend a charge of 5 per cent for a standard new pension and we would ask Ed Miliband to write to us with details of the schemes he is referring to.

Moby

Sorry don't agree at all. Pensions and their charges are about as clear as mud. Only vested interests and 'in the know' people understand them. Secondly after the events of recent years I think many people have lost faith in financial 'products' and those who peddle them!



http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/pensions/article-2094841/Pick-wrong-pension-watch-charges-strip-40-000-nest-egg.html

Paul_Herring

Moby wrote: »

Sorry don't agree at all. Pensions and their charges are about as clear as mud.

Sorry, don't agree at all. Pensions (and charges) are perfectly clear if you're prepared to do even the most basic of research on them.

Only vested interests and 'in the know' people understand them.

You forgot 'people who can be bothered to read up on them' in your list. I don't work for any company in the financial industry, but I'd like to think I have a firm grasp on the concept of a pension fund, and the associated costs.

Seriously, would you blithley pick any random washing machine from an Argos catalog and blame Argos for being 'clear as mud,' on the appliances they sell to wash things, when you find your washing machine won't wash your dishes satisfactorally because you didn't realise you wanted a dishwasher in the first place? Or would you bother to research, if you didn't already know, what sort of kitchen appliance you need to save you slaving over a kitchen sink?

Secondly after the events of recent years I think many people have lost faith in financial 'products' and those who peddle them!

Again - laziness. Or put another way, lots of people wondering why they need to buy a new set of crockery every week because the thing they use to wash the last set keeps breaking it on the spin cycle.

Granted, some of the "problems with pensions" could be, to use my analogy, attributed to door-step sellers selling steam-cleaners, car-washers, window cleaners or washing machines to householders who want to wash their dishes, but - really - if you can't be bothered to educate yourself on what you're handing money over for, you have only yourself to blame.

To use another example, 419 fraud - yes, the fraudsters are a factor, but if the people actually handing the money over did some research/weren't so greedy, then there wouldn't be a problem.

Educate yourself. Don't claim 'ignorance' and expect to be spoon-fed the information.

dunstonh

Sorry don't agree at all. Pensions and their charges are about as clear as mud.

There really is no answer to those that prefer to remain ignorant than to spend 5 minutes on that ought to be up their with the biggest purchases of their life.

Secondly after the events of recent years I think many people have lost faith in financial 'products' and those who peddle them!

Not reflected in real life.

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/p...-nest-egg.html

I know. The article is a right joke. It takes future money terms and then presents them in todays money terms. Shabby. Quite a few other flaws in the article as well.

jem16

dunstonh wrote: »

There really is no answer to those that prefer to remain ignorant than to spend 5 minutes on that ought to be up their with the biggest purchases of their life.

When you have a public sector final salary pension, as Moby does, I don't suppose it is a big decision.

However it does explain most of the comments.

Moby

jem16 wrote: »

When you have a public sector final salary pension, as Moby does, I don't suppose it is a big decision.

However it does explain most of the comments.

Typical smarmy comment.

Fact is most of the people I work with have not taken advantage of the LGPS scheme, especially young people. They are not all stupid,naive, ignorant etc. Fact is they are not interested in thinking that far ahead and tying money up that they can't get access to for years and is at the mercy of changes of Govmt policy or hidden charges they are unaware of . Its not about 'educating themselves' in many cases. They often have different priorities and have a lack of faith in what is on offer! The washing machine analogy is simplistic because it does not acknowledge this reality.

It is patently obvious there is a crisis in the pensions 'industry' and a lack of faith in those people who make their money out of selling financial 'products' that don't deliver. Thankfully many are now being exposed. There are scandals upon scandals almost every day. These pages are therefore awash with questions and uncertainty. The sometimes arrogant dismissive attitude of the narrow little cliques of 'experts' compounds the situation. If pensions were really 'perfectly clear' why have I often been given completely contradictory advice by so called 'experts', IFA's etc? why is there so much controversy?
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/pensions/article-2168583/Warning-hidden-pension-charges-report-reveals-21-23-pension-fund-dont-fully-disclose-theirs.html

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/pensions/article-2159852/Pensions-vs-ISAs-Its-time-pensions-firms-admitted-savers-prefer-ISAs.html

Obviously to some these are just more badly written articles:p