Protect against UKGOV savings confiscation

peterg1965

I am not so sure that PFI is off the balance sheet anymore.

brendon

I think it's unlikely. If it happened, society would deteriorate overnight. There would be civil war on the streets.

puk999

brendon wrote: »

I think it's unlikely. If it happened, society would deteriorate overnight. There would be civil war on the streets.

Or would we just lie back and be shafted as usual?

Thrugelmir

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. 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

Don't see the connection.

HTB has benefits i.e. new house building.

guitarman001

WOULD society riot and be on the streets? They should be already but it isn't happening..

What country? I quite like the idea of renting in Germany or Austria at the moment. Not sure about buying just yet - I'd want it to be for the longer-term and that's not what's in mind right now, plus I still think prices will have to come down at some point. As for investments - I have about 8% of my savings in investments, but considering my cash would have been used as potential house buying money (again not sure on that) or emigration fund, I don't think I'm long-term enough to put it all into investments. Plus, I think the markets are a bit peaky (I know, you can't time it!!). Saying that buying 'foreign' investments may be easier than moving if you don't want to move. I'm just getting more sick of the UK by the day, though.

Correct on the gold front: I'd have lost a lot of money if I'd bought last year... and I considered it... and I'm so glad I never! Bitcoin is too choppy. I lost a WAD of cash (tens of £k) in risky investments about 2 years ago and don't want to repeat that sort of mistake.

Agree on the seriously rich being asset rich...

I honestly believe we'll see this come to pass. Nobody thought Greece would have done what they did, right? Every time I've seen an idea floated and then perpetuated by the media, it usually happens. The UK has some serious debt issues - they need cash - savers have cash - now the media is softening us up to the idea. Crossed fingers that it doesn't happen, but I'm looking into all options now - no way I'm going to pass my heard-earned savings to some debt junkie who bought an overpriced house in which I can't even afford to live. After my previous (self-inflicted) investment loss, I can't bear to lose any of what I've built up.

Good discussion so far, thanks!!

atush

Go find some remote island, and buy a gun and some canned food?

Seriously, HTB has actually been announced it will finish.

As for your self inflicted loss, if you didn't sell it it might not have been a loss. and if you invested more wisely, by learning here and elsewhere you'd have made money like most of us.

ffacoffipawb

Best way to protect your assets is to make sure we never ever have another Labour regime.

Wilkins

JohnRo wrote: »

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.

Think about the big picture. Over £1 trillion is held in UK deposit accounts by about 70% of the population. Collectively, savers are rich, even though most of them won't have very much (20% have less than £1500). That's why they are targeted through inflation.

By contrast, 30% of the population have no savings and many of them contribute to the £150 billion pile of unsecured debt. Debtors can't get the economy going --they have no money at all. Only savers can do that by spending their money.


One way or another, governments will always target savers, even the poorer ones, whether you like it or not.

JohnRo

except (of course) when they're in opposition

http://www.saveoursavers.co.uk/featured/we-know-what-they-did-but-what-did-they-promise-to-do/

Then when elected they run into the real decision makers.

Wilkins

JohnRo wrote: »

except (of course) when they're in opposition

http://www.saveoursavers.co.uk/featured/we-know-what-they-did-but-what-did-they-promise-to-do/

Then when elected they run into the real decision makers.

Indeed, it is part of the miraculous process of change that always seems to come over politicians when they get into power. Reality bites.


I always feel a bit sorry for SOS and their sometimes deluded following since they haven't a chance of changing government policy. Equally, however, I find that their constant whingeing about interest rates (and I speak as someone with substantial cash savings myself) lacks historical perspective and financial insight.