Workplace pensions,would you be in?

[Kudoscycles]

I have a pathological hate of pension companies,in my 30's I put the maximum allowed into a pension with Schroder Life,they managed to lift my pot in the best years of the stock exchange by 8 per cent,I pulled it from them and trading it myself managed to double it in 5 years.
AJ Bell (Sippdeal) are good guys,their costs are modest and they are very transparent,if you have common sense and a little effort you can do so much more yourself than these robbing bastards in the city.
I set up a BES property company (thank you Nigel Lawson) and together with some partners made a success of a small property management company,when all the BES companies run by the insurance companies were going bust,weighed down by massive and unsustainable charges.
I stayed overnight one more day in a hotel,my next day bridged by one of the largest pension companies in the UK,a conference of their sales consultants....you have never seen so many Porsche,BMW and Mercs in a car park.
That is what worries me about these workplace pensions,a big pot of money that may be eroded by big pension company charges,despite all the protections this seems to happen.
I have customers in Germany they have a model which works and actually would work well in the UK. The big pension companies build property ,usually apartments. Young people rent these flats,at a reasonable rent,for long term rental,the income provides subsidised rental and pensions for retired people. We had the property basis for similar model here but Maggie Thatcher sold off all the housing stock....low interest rates via housing associations could get it going again but our governments seem unwilling to organise....it would also cure our lack of housing. Property prices in Germany have risen by modest gains because rental property is a viable alternative for everyone,
KudosDave

 

[D8ve]

Come the revolution you can be in charge of the pensions KudosDave

 

[Kudoscycles]

As a 30 something on a wage I am happy with in a small company with a family to feed, I find myself increasingly jealous of my wife who gets her earnings "stolen" for later and put into her teacher's pension. I can't wait to be told I can't bring home all my cash as it will stop me spending too much on treats for everyone else and my wife from earmarking it for house renovation or holidays. My pension pot stands at what I managed to put in over 9 months before the financial crisis and the sum hasn't really moved since then. Roll on forcing my employer to offer a pension as setting on up personally is soo expensive!

James,don't forget you have to put in 3 per cent as well as employer.....look at the returns of stakeholder pensions....most members have found that their pot is only worth what they have put in,the tax relief money seems to have been lost in maintenance charges.
If you put in £1000 per annum and your employer puts in same,with tax relief you should contribute £2200 per annum,over 30 years that should give you a pot of £66k,which should give you a pension of about £3k But and its a big but,nobody will crystal ball that figure,you could end up with say £1.5k,live only 5 years beyond retirement it looks a very bad deal.

 

[shemozzle999]

If you are dissatisfied with the corrupt global system, their psychological based promises and want to change it, simply stop feeding it.

 

[Kudoscycles]

i know a year ago or so budapest was touted as an ideal place to buy to let on the www with promised 10% returns. this neck of the woods i really do know and know the inside story which was a bunch of irish investors that got burnt during the 2008 crisis and then buy corrupt estate agents and unscrupulous customers trying desperately to offload stock. i suspect itys a serious case of buyer beware. one could do what my neighbour does live in thailand, where 500/month apparently go a very long way

My son lives in Budapest,it is a very cheap place to buy property but also the rent roll is very low. Very cheap place to live and almost crime free,great place for young people provided they can get a job....a lovely city
KudosDave

 

[Kudoscycles]

Whilst I am on my soap box...the Google/Starbucks tax avoidance problem is so easy to overcome....all you have to do is put on a turnover tax on large corporations,say 2 per cent on companies with a revenue of say more than £50 million....they pay either proper corporation tax or the turnover tax whichever is the greater. All big companies have to declare their revenue(turnover) so the numbers are already on record. They cannot avoid declaring their revenue,it would be such an easy tax to collect,just click a button on the computer.
They would winge that they are not making the profits,too bad,pay up or go elsewhere....other countries would soon follow...no point hiding the profits in Luxembourg or the Cayman Islands....
KudosDave

 

[selrahc1992]

I have a pathological hate of pension companies,in my 30's I put the maximum allowed into a pension with Schroder Life,they managed to lift my pot in the best years of the stock exchange by 8 per cent,I pulled it from them and trading it myself managed to double it in 5 years.
AJ Bell (Sippdeal) are good guys,their costs are modest and they are very transparent,if you have common sense and a little effort you can do so much more yourself than these robbing bastards in the city.
I set up a BES property company (thank you Nigel Lawson) and together with some partners made a success of a small property management company,when all the BES companies run by the insurance companies were going bust,weighed down by massive and unsustainable charges.
I stayed overnight one more day in a hotel,my next day bridged by one of the largest pension companies in the UK,a conference of their sales consultants....you have never seen so many Porsche,BMW and Mercs in a car park.
That is what worries me about these workplace pensions,a big pot of money that may be eroded by big pension company charges,despite all the protections this seems to happen.
I have customers in Germany they have a model which works and actually would work well in the UK. The big pension companies build property ,usually apartments. Young people rent these flats,at a reasonable rent,for long term rental,the income provides subsidised rental and pensions for retired people. We had the property basis for similar model here but Maggie Thatcher sold off all the housing stock....low interest rates via housing associations could get it going again but our governments seem unwilling to organise....it would also cure our lack of housing. Property prices in Germany have risen by modest gains because rental property is a viable alternative for everyone,
KudosDave

Too true,but I suspect these vested interests have bought enough MP's to maintain the status quo

 

[flecc]

Whilst I am on my soap box...the Google/Starbucks tax avoidance problem is so easy to overcome....all you have to do is put on a turnover tax on large corporations,say 2 per cent on companies with a revenue of say more than £50 million....they pay either proper corporation tax or the turnover tax whichever is the greater. All big companies have to declare their revenue(turnover) so the numbers are already on record. They cannot avoid declaring their revenue,it would be such an easy tax to collect,just click a button on the computer.
They would winge that they are not making the profits,too bad,pay up or go elsewhere....other countries would soon follow...no point hiding the profits in Luxembourg or the Cayman Islands....
KudosDave

Definitely Dave, there have always been these blindingly obvious solutions. Ideally though, tax the business done in each country, not where the figures are declared, since that could never be complained of as unfair.

How to assess that with companies such as Starbucks? Again blindingly simple, they have VAT running though their books on all transactions, and that directly reflects the business done.
.

 

[AndyBolton]

I've had my money in an index tracker in an ISA, for the past 11 years.

No entry fee, no exit fee, no management fee. Doubles your investment every seven years. I wouldn't trust anything else.

 

[Deleted member 4366]

You can get online ISA share account shells. I have one with Idealing.co.uk. You can now put in £15000 per year and use the money to buy and sell whatever shares you want at minimal cost. Even if you don't know anything about shares, you can just buy any in the FTSE100 and you'll beat any managed fund. I find that my money doubles about every 7 years. You can take any of your money out whenever you want. It's quite good fun watching the shares go up and down, but don't panic when they go down, they nearly always go up again. If you have strong nerves, my tip is to buy the shares that already crashed because of some temporary crisis, like Tesco and BP. The system is really easy to use - probably a bit easier to do than buying your weekly shopping from the supermarket online.

 

[john h]

You could use it to buy shares in the new oil find , if you wanted to feel safe you could always buy blue circle cement shares or tate and lyle sugar shares , iv watched the fst 100 since i was a teen and as d8veh it is fun to watch them rise and fall