Protect against UKGOV savings confiscation

guitarman001

Every awful thing I could imagine this government (and last) doing, it has. The worst thing being propping up the housing market via Help To Buy, using taxpayers' money to prop up a market some taxpayers can't afford to take part in themselves. Now this:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/10548104/IMF-paper-warns-of-savings-tax-and-mass-write-offs-as-Wests-debt-hits-200-year-high.html

You can have whatever opinion you want on the matter, but my opinion is that this is going to happen; savers are always the ones hit hardest. So, how to protect from the government literally just taking some of your savings from you? There are two viable options in my head (I don't count gold as one):

1 - buy a property
2 - move to another country

(1) does not appeal due to the inflated market we're in and the quality of housing you get for fractions of a million pounds.

(2) may seem a bit extreme, but I've been talking about it for ages. Move abroad, maybe go somewhere with better weather and job options, and convert all or a large part of your savings to the new currency.

Oops, of course a third option is to just stay here and convert some of your currency, but I don't have that rosy a picture of the UK in the near future so I'm still veering toward number 2. I'd say 7 out of 10 of my closest friends left within the last 4 years and they seem to be having a blast with a better lifestyle than they could afford here. All educated and in professional engineering/finance/medical jobs. I think it's time for me to sit down and look at this more seriously now - no joke.

Interested to hear your opinions on the story and solutions.

Linton

Buying a property to live in is always a good idea. The government isnt significantly propping up the housing market - this is being achieved quite nicely by the failure to build new houses. As regards where you should put your money, you dont want "savings", you need to invest. If you wish you can easily invest in foreign shares, most cheaply via funds. You dont need to actually go abroad to live.

Archi_Bald

guitarman001 wrote: »

2 - move to another country

Which country, in which there isn't a direct link between interest rates and inflation rates, did you have in mind?

dryhat

guitarman001 wrote: »

So, how to protect from the government literally just taking some of your savings from you? There are two viable options in my head (I don't count gold as one):

If you believe that the government will steal your savings then physical gold should definitely be one of your options and I don't understand why you would dismiss this.

Another alternative, of course, is Bitcoin.

Academic

For those that would like to read the full working paper by Reinhart & Rogoff it can be found here

jimjames

dryhat wrote: »

If you believe that the government will steal your savings then physical gold should definitely be one of your options and I don't understand why you would dismiss this.

Another alternative, of course, is Bitcoin.

Why has no-one mentioned investments? In no other country have they been affected when bank deposits have been confiscated. With gold you'd have lost a good proportion of your value in 2013 and probably this year too.

BUT the likelihood of it happening is so low that there are far better things to worry about.

Wilkins

guitarman001 wrote: »

Every awful thing I could imagine this government (and last) doing, it has. The worst thing being propping up the housing market via Help To Buy, using taxpayers' money to prop up a market some taxpayers can't afford to take part in themselves..

Really? Your imagination must be a bit limited.

but my opinion is that this is going to happen;

It's already happening, but UK debt is not as bad as in many other countries, so no reason to expect that FR will change radically here.

savers are always the ones hit hardest.

Obviously. That's where the money is. Why wouldn't you take from the rich and give to the poor if you wanted to rebalance economically.

So, how to protect from the government literally just taking some of your savings from you?

You can't if you believe that the democratic process will become so corrupt that the government will exercise arbitrary power. Where would you move to? Cyprus?

bigadaj

Linton wrote: »

Buying a property to live in is always a good idea. The government isnt significantly propping up the housing market - this is being achieved quite nicely by the failure to build new houses. As regards where you should put your money, you dont want "savings", you need to invest. If you wish you can easily invest in foreign shares, most cheaply via funds. You dont need to actually go abroad to live.

I would t hold with your first point, of course building more houses would ease supply and mitigate price rises, but prices have certainly been propped up by low interest rates and more recently funding for lending. Neutral base rates maintained at 4-5% would have reduced prices without any doubt though it woud! have had adverse impacts in terms of the wider economy and the banks. The boe is obviously supposedly independent but economics and politics can vpnever be fully separated.

JohnRo

For as long as governments need money printing bankers to exist, bankers will tell governments what they're going to do.

JohnRo

Wilkins wrote: »

Obviously. That's where the money is. Why wouldn't you take from the rich and give to the poor if you wanted to rebalance economically.

You're not that naive surely. Savers aren't rich, that's entirely the problem. Rich people don't keep millions in a deposit account unless it's a tiny fraction of their wealth.

Savers can't afford to diversify and often rely on the compensation banks used to pay them to cope with their money printing inflation.

Glen_Clark

Wilkins wrote: »

UK debt is not as bad as in many other countries,

only because such things as PFI are off balance sheet.

Wilkins wrote: »

Why wouldn't you take from the rich and give to the poor if you wanted to rebalance economically.

The seriously 'rich' don't keep their wealth in a Sterling deposit account!!!!!!!!
Its in assets like agricultural land that has tripled in price since QE began, and is now feeding through to farm rents and food prices, with Tesco cast as the villain for squeezing tenant farmers income by keeping food prices down.
Qe takes from the poor, (and the relatively poor like cash savers) to give to the rich, thats why they are as hooked on it as junkie on heroin.