Bank of England Chief Economist: Nobody understands pensions, including me

uk1

Bank of England Chief Economist: Nobody understands pensions, including me

Bank of England chief economist: "Nobody understands pensions, including me. I consider myself moderately financially literate - yet I confess to not being able to make the remotest sense of pensions"Andy Haldane

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/05/18/bank-of-england-chief-economist-nobody-understands-pensions-incl/?WT.mc_id=e_DM120210&WT.tsrc=email&etype=Edi_Pol_New_EU&utm_source=email&utm_medium=Edi_Pol_New_EU_2016_05_19&utm_campaign=DM120210

d70cw6

sounds like a thicky to me.

coyrls

I certainly don't understand everything about all types of pensions but I like to think that I understand my own particular pensions, which are a very small subset of the pensions universe.

GunJack

even the table at the bottom of that article makes no sense, what's a "Monthly Annual Contribution"??

saver861

Well .... these days politicians are more likley to be elected on how good they look on TV .... eye candy v brains it seems.

Anyhooo, the point he is making is relevant and its one reason why forums such as this has made such prominence.

I do think the next generation will be much better prepared and advised on their financial future than the current or any previous generation.

It's a personal responsibility of course ...

xylophone

He doesn't need to worry about his own pension - the Bank does that for him......:rotfl:

maxie014

He is right it could be made a lot simpler than it is.

dunstonh

Nobody can claim they know everything about pensions because that covers an awful lot of different types going back many decades. Some using historic rules that they keep but havent existed for 30 or so years.

However, modern options are so much simpler than historic ones.

I think statements like the one made just undermine the situation and remove confidence. By all means say that the system is complicated and many old style plans or schemes created decades ago are difficult and confusing at times. However, at least qualify it by saying modern stuff is much better. His role is not to understand specifics on pensions. His role only requires general knowledge and understanding.

RichandJ

dunstonh wrote: »

Nobody can claim they know everything about pensions because that covers an awful lot of different types going back many decades. Some using historic rules that they keep but havent existed for 30 or so years.

However, modern options are so much simpler than historic ones.

I think statements like the one made just undermine the situation and remove confidence. By all means say that the system is complicated and many old style plans or schemes created decades ago are difficult and confusing at times. However, at least qualify it by saying modern stuff is much better. His role is not to understand specifics on pensions. His role only requires general knowledge and understanding.

Quite.

The Telegraph has had some sort of downer on 'pensions' for some years now. Almost any article mentioning them attacks the 'pensions industry'. No idea why, perhaps the editor transferred a DB into rain forest logging in Belize or something. The journos writing these pieces also show little understanding.

That a BoE official can publicly come out with such an admission of ignorance is slightly worrying though.

kidmugsy

xylophone wrote: »

He doesn't need to worry about his own pension - the Bank does that for him......:rotfl:

And happily the Bank pension scheme showed immaculate timing a few years ago in moving entirely into Index-Linked Gilts.

xylophone

And happily the Bank pension scheme showed immaculate timing a few years ago in moving entirely into Index-Linked Gilts.

Well, not entirely - substantially, shall we say....

http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/about/Documents/humanresources/pensionreport.pdf