New Labour supporting pension changes..

Linton

richbeth wrote: »

I would say that the number of people asking naive questions is fairly low and what we do see is that with constructive advice from others on the forum people can quickly pick up the information they need. For every "how can I get my hands on my pension" there are many more "am I saving enough/what's the best thing to do ?".

...

I dont think the people asking naive question on this forum are representative of the population as whole. At least they have got to the level of understanding where they know they need some advice and have some idea of where to get it.

hugheskevi

I dont think the people asking naive question on this forum are representative of the population as whole. At least they have got to the level of understanding where they know they need some advice and have some idea of where to get it.

Agree entirely. The most naive will not visit a personal finance website. Of those who do, many would not progress to forums. Of those who get to the forums, many would go to the most popular sections. Few would make it to the section about pensions.

I'm sure we could all agree that Martin Lewis is responsible and not naive. Yet I recall blogs, such as this one, where Martin has used period expectation of life in calculations rather than cohort projections. At least he has avoided the trap of using life expectancy at birth, which is a very common error made when people complain about annuities.

In the example in the blog, the man aged 65 is in "pretty decent health" with spare money to set aside for children. That all indicates that he is likely to live longer than average of the 65 year old cohort given he is healthy and based on the evidence presented likely to be wealthier than average. Yet that is ignored too. That, combined with the cohort/period issue, will lead to (on average) a significant underestimate of life expectancy for this sort of individual.

Using an inappropriate measure of life expectancy is quite a basic error, yet one which I expect many folk would fall into when trying to work out how long they should be aiming to make their pension pot last for. Advisers wouldn't make such errors, but we have seen how many people expect advice to be free or minimal cost. Maybe the new advice people will be given will be sufficient to head-off the most basic errors.

le_loup

Mmm. Lost of sensible points on both sides. My point about PPI was not meant as an example of a scam, so much as an example of people not understanding that they didn't need it. So if, what?, 5 million people bought it without understanding it, how many others will understand the implications of a date of death totally unknown to them?
And even if they do, most will put it in the building society, earn less than inflation. And even we, will do something more sensible, and know how electricity works, will have a pot of investments to manage - until a touch of god old dementia creeps in. What then?
I'm afraid that pejorative DM expressions like nanny state turn me off as much as silly references to health and safety. Sometimes we need to be told to wear crash helmets.

dunstonh

If you spend 5 minutes in the PPI reclaim forum you will get a very different view of people than in this section. This one tends to have more mature and responsible posters. The PPi reclaims section is full of people who fail to take responsibility and keep making the same mistakes over again. e.g. mis-sold PPI but then complaining their claims company is taking x% from them and can they get out of it. Clearly not learning from mistakes. Or saying they have paid a monthly direct debit for insurance for the last 20 years and didn't realise it (often not PPI but nowadays all insurance seems to be PPI if you think you can claim it back). How can you not realise you have been paying money for 20 years?

Don't spend too long in that PPI section though as it will demoralise you and give you the complete opposite views if you spend too long in this section. Also, most PPI redress has been blown on holidays and consumer spending (I am sure the sensible people dont mind as that has helped the economy). It didn't go on reducing their debts or planning.

hyubh

deejaybee wrote: »

Uncle Joe would be proud..

Yes, when the Opposition of the day decides to agree with a major policy change announced by the Government, things like the Siberian hard labour camps, secretive mass executions, the ethnic cleansing of Crimea and the starvation of the Ukrainian peasantry are just what come to mind.

hyubh

dunstonh wrote: »

Don't spend too long in that PPI section though as it will demoralise you and give you the complete opposite views if you spend too long in this section.

Sounds even more 'fun' than the loans board...!

OldBeanz

My favourite board is the repay your mortgage early. There was one bod on there repaying a 1.5% mortgage when he could have been earning more in a Santander Current Account.

le_loup

dunstonh wrote: »

If you spend 5 minutes in the PPI reclaim forum you will get a very different view of people than in this section.

Oh! You wicked man.


I just did what you suggested and my cognitive bias has disappeared in a flash. I had believed that everyone on the planet was intelligent and sensible with money.


Oh the horror!


Got a real impression though that every second poster was a secret claims recovery company representative. Not like this board and the investments and savings where it's only every tenth poster is a scam artist.

kidmugsy

le_loup wrote: »

The problem is that language like yours is the currently predominate one..

Yes the remark was a bit unfair. Mibiland is from a Trotskyist-Maoist family, not a Stalinist one.

Perelandra

hugheskevi wrote: »

Agree entirely. The most naive will not visit a personal finance website. Of those who do, many would not progress to forums. Of those who get to the forums, many would go to the most popular sections. Few would make it to the section about pensions.

Agreed.


I considered (past tense) myself to be pretty clued up about personal finance, until I discovered the Pensions / Savings and Investments forums here on MSE. After now reading these for a couple of years, I realise how naïve I still am.