Endowment - really that bad?

Yeah pretty much true, my endowment 'adviser' from Allied Dunbar said I'd have enough left over after I'd paid my mortgage to buy a car. It must have either been a Dinky car or a Ford, I'd rather a Dinky car - Ford rubbish, no thanks

Part of the reason for that was endowments had never fallen short. The payouts for previous generations were massively over target. Whenever a risk potential event doesnt occur over a sustained period, the view of the risk dissipates and complacency takes over. "oh there is a risk but everyone gets big payouts at the end".

Like I said, if it had performed like we'd hope there wouldnt have been any complaints, but overall its not been too bad

Ironically, all it would have taken most people is an increase in the endowment by around £25pm-£50pm and the shortfalls would not occur. The mortgage payments fell by hundreds of pounds per month. So, asking for £25-£50 would have been easily affordable.

As a side issue and its all relative but I bought a house for £99k now worth £300k,

And had the old economy continued, that would not have happened (at least the real terms value of it). If the events had continued that caused endowments to hit surpluses carried on, we would all be worse off.

I blame Maggie Thatcher, milk snatcher.

Tony Blair takes the main responsibility as its all to do with supply and demand and increasing the population by encouraging birth rates and open season on immigration causing England to be the most densely populated macro nation in Europe has shoved house prices higher.

Dont forget the miners!

Easy to blame Thatcher on that one but Wilson's Labour party closed more mines in its two terms between 64-70 than Thatcher did in 3 terms between 79-90. In the 60s, under Labour, nearly half of all mining jobs at the time were lost. Thatcher just continued what was already started by Labour.