Thursday, Dec 10, 2009
BBC polishes up a good story and leaves the punchline to second half of the article
BBC News: Household wealth hit £9 trillion in 2008, the ONS says
Apparently by the end of June 2008 the average UK household wealth was worth £204500 with this little sum being composed of 39% property, 39% pension, 11% financial assets and 11% physical goods. The survey has some hidden gems including while 59% of people surveyed expected to receive a personal or company pension when they retired, only 40% of men and 32% of women were actively contributing to such a scheme. Well worth a look at especially the last paragraphs.
Posted by enuii @ 07:34 PM (1247 views) Add Comment
12 Comments
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1. hpwatcher said...
being composed of 39% property, 39% pension, 11% financial assets and 11% physical goods
9 trillion, but only if the bubble in house prices remains.....
2. jack c said...
Even if the overall bubble stays inflated theres not much liquidity in it - like we can all dash out and cash our housing and pension chips in tonight
3. quiet guy said...
I calculate 39%(pension) of £204,500 at £79,755 yet according to the Guardian, a year ago "the average pot a UK employee builds up in the most common kind of private-sector pension scheme is £25,000."
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2008/dec/19/pensions-bill-2006)
That seems like quite a big discrepancy unless there is a huge skew caused by rich people or publicly employed people. I also agree with jack c that the property valuation is very prone to a bubble bursting.
4. mr g said...
Absolute garbage!
How can the value of a pension pot be considered as part of someone's wealth?
The £79755 (39% of £204500) while buy an annuity in the region of £5500 per year, not quite the same is it?
5. jack c said...
as mr g say's absolute garbage once you start to crunch a few numbers and think the thing through. This article must be an attempt to allay any fears over the country's debt problems - yes we have X Billion debt but ooh look we have Trillions on the other side of the balance sheet - no need to worry folks.
I've heard Brown & Darling are pumping money into a new film partnership which features Barbra Windsor in a low budget release called "Carry on Spending" it comes out just in time for Christmas.
6. crunchy said...
1. hpwatcher said..."being composed of 39% property, 39% pension, 11% financial assets and 11% physical goods"
We now have a clinical economy based purely on the posology of hallucinogenic bullol%gy.
This junkie will overdose and die choking on it's own emesis, because life support cannot turn back the hands of time.
Schadenfreude will continue it's overwhelming grip and influence in the destruction as it did in creation.
Some advised to send it to rehab, but Brown said no,no,no.
7. enuii said...
At the bottom of the article we have:-
the wealthiest 50% of homes owned 91% of household wealth
by qualifications, households headed by someone with a degree had the highest average wealth of £400,200, compared to the average wealth of £105,100 held by families headed by someone with no qualifications
by employment, households headed by the self-employed were the wealthiest at an average of £283,200
62% of UK households had a savings account, but a quarter of these had £500 or less in them.
25% of households had negligible, zero or negative financial wealth.
Preceded by; An analysis of the government's national accounts, by the Halifax bank for the BBC, was published in September 2009 which calculated that the UK's household wealth stood at £6.736tn at the end of 2007 and had dropped by £815bn, or 12%, to £5.921tn.
The Halifax also suggested that this meant that average household wealth fell by £31,000 last year and that the ONS figures do not capture the full effect of the recession and housing slump that took place in 2008.
8. mander said...
"62% of UK households had a savings account, but a quarter of these had £500 or less in them"
So be affraid of cash rich buyers....
9. sovietuk said...
What a load of tosh. What about the 2 trillion pound unfunded pensions liability that the nation has? The equivalent of £80,000 per household. Was this included in the noddy calculations?
10. hpwatcher said...
being composed of 39% property, 39% pension, 11% financial assets and 11% physical goods
soon to be downgraded to junk!
11. mken said...
According to http://www.creditaction.org.uk/debt-statistics.html
"Average household debt in the UK is ~ £9,120 (excluding mortgages). This figure increases to £21,210 if the average is based on the number of households who actually have some form of unsecured loan.
Average household debt in the UK is ~ £58,316 (including mortgages).
If you add to this the 2009 budget figure for public sector net debt (PSND) expected in 2013-14 then this figure rises to £116,156 per household.
Average owed by every UK adult is ~ £30,208 (including mortgages)."
12. yorkshireman said...
Do we see people selling their houses and living in the streets off the proceeds ? No
Are we able to access and spend our pension pot ? No
Are the statisticians and politicians trying to pull the wool over our eyes by giving us this warm cosy pseudo-wealthy feeling ? Yes
Enough said.