Bankers Bonus Money

[catdog1121]

Ok so I just got my pension statement in for the year and somehow the bankers have managed to lose over 15% of my pension pot in a year.

I literally cant put money into it fast enough to keep up with what they are losing from it, when they are producing results like this how on earth can they even think about bonuses? Dont even get me started on public sector pensions, think ill be lucky if the damn bankers leave me anything left, but as long as they get their bonuses thats all that matters I suppose.

I would really question any public sector workers going on strike, I started my work pension at 20, I put in 6%, company puts in 6% at the moment im projected to get about £3000 a year on retirement, of course thats going down pretty quick with the fund being creamed off. Oh and before you say it went up loads in the boom, actually no as im only 28 my pot was tiny then so made no difference. And they expect hard working people like me to pay more taxes to pay for their nice pensions? They will get not sympathy here.

Ok rant over....

[Timm]

If you have less money and the people looking after your money have more money, what makes you think it has been "lost"?

[wonderpup]

Ok so I just got my pension statement in for the year and somehow the bankers have managed to lose over 15% of my pension pot in a year.

I literally cant put money into it fast enough to keep up with what they are losing from it, when they are producing results like this how on earth can they even think about bonuses? Dont even get me started on public sector pensions, think ill be lucky if the damn bankers leave me anything left, but as long as they get their bonuses thats all that matters I suppose.

I would really question any public sector workers going on strike, I started my work pension at 20, I put in 6%, company puts in 6% at the moment im projected to get about £3000 a year on retirement, of course thats going down pretty quick with the fund being creamed off. Oh and before you say it went up loads in the boom, actually no as im only 28 my pot was tiny then so made no difference. And they expect hard working people like me to pay more taxes to pay for their nice pensions? They will get not sympathy here.

Ok rant over....

So your basic position is that because you got shafted you think other people should also get shafted? You correctly identify the bankers as the people who caused the problem but then look around, see other people who have not yet been dropped in the same shite and want get angry at them?

I take the point that public sector pensions may in fact not be affordable but that's down to the people running the system, not the poor sods who, like you, expected to have some kind of decent retirement. Get mad at the right people at least.

[200p]

What's the pension invested in? Some funds have gone up, some funds have gone down.

[Oh Well :(]

I have a "with profits" pension with Avviva. I stopped paying into it 20 years ago on the advice of my accountant. Looking at it, the value has not gone up in the last `10 years.

Pensions are a complete con, I would not advise anyone paying into to them. If you do not control your investments yourself some other banker will steal them.

[easy2012]

So your basic position is that because you got shafted you think other people should also get shafted? You correctly identify the bankers as the people who caused the problem but then look around, see other people who have not yet been dropped in the same shite and want get angry at them?

I take the point that public sector pensions may in fact not be affordable but that's down to the people running the system, not the poor sods who, like you, expected to have some kind of decent retirement. Get mad at the right people at least.

The "right people" are those who told everyone that the economy will grow at 7% pa and hence stock market will go up 7% pa compound ad infinitum...

From that assumption, the pension manager can then price their fees - if the assumption had been 2% grow pa, then a 1% fee would be totally outrageous.

[bmf]

Ok so I just got my pension statement in for the year and somehow the bankers have managed to lose over 15% of my pension pot in a year.

I literally cant put money into it fast enough to keep up with what they are losing from it, when they are producing results like this how on earth can they even think about bonuses? Dont even get me started on public sector pensions, think ill be lucky if the damn bankers leave me anything left, but as long as they get their bonuses thats all that matters I suppose.

I would really question any public sector workers going on strike, I started my work pension at 20, I put in 6%, company puts in 6% at the moment im projected to get about £3000 a year on retirement, of course thats going down pretty quick with the fund being creamed off. Oh and before you say it went up loads in the boom, actually no as im only 28 my pot was tiny then so made no difference. And they expect hard working people like me to pay more taxes to pay for their nice pensions? They will get not sympathy here.

Ok rant over....

How many successful iterations of pensions have we had? Not many. It's not sustainable. Final salary exists because defined contribution didn't provide what our elders and "betters" thought they deserved. Final salary is funded by existing contributions. PAYE. Pay (them) as YOU earn.

Even if you manage your own pension you can't predict currency debasement. It's not a lottery though. Boomers are drawing massive pensions over decades that nobody else after them will come close to. So if you apply this rule of thumb you'll find you are on the side of the fence paying to buy votes for the largest voting group. When it ends you will be angry but hey - so what.

tl;dr - ****** you very much - boomers xxx

ps the funny thing is it's gonna blow up well before then hitting them hardest.

Edited November 13, 2011 by bmf

[Giordano Bruno]

Ok so I just got my pension statement in for the year and somehow the bankers have managed to lose over 15% of my pension pot in a year.

I literally cant put money into it fast enough to keep up with what they are losing from it, when they are producing results like this how on earth can they even think about bonuses? Dont even get me started on public sector pensions, think ill be lucky if the damn bankers leave me anything left, but as long as they get their bonuses thats all that matters I suppose.

I would really question any public sector workers going on strike, I started my work pension at 20, I put in 6%, company puts in 6% at the moment im projected to get about £3000 a year on retirement, of course thats going down pretty quick with the fund being creamed off. Oh and before you say it went up loads in the boom, actually no as im only 28 my pot was tiny then so made no difference. And they expect hard working people like me to pay more taxes to pay for their nice pensions? They will get not sympathy here.

Ok rant over....

I started a Shared ISA about 6 months ago. I'm sure I put in 36k and then 5k in. I got my statement about a week ago. It was about 33k left in it! It was a medium risk fund. There would have been 4% initial fund management fee and maybe 1.5% annual fee. So I'm going to have to go through my papers and get statements and then confront them. I know shares have been bad but it was supposed to be a managed fund on a 24/7 basis. A good fund manager should be able to take advantage of volatility. It seems I've lost 8k which is about 20% or so.

[Realistbear]

[quote name=Oh Well ' timestamp='1321193677' post='3176641]

I have a "with profits" pension with Avviva. I stopped paying into it 20 years ago on the advice of my accountant. Looking at it, the value has not gone up in the last `10 years.

Pensions are a complete con, I would not advise anyone paying into to them. If you do not control your investments yourself some other banker will steal them.

I have an old Norwich Union (Aviva) with profits and have £11k in it--hasn't moved in years. Fing is, it pays something like £91 a month if it was drawn today. IIRC I only paid about £4k into it a couple of decades ago.

[Georgia O'Keeffe]

I started a Shared ISA about 6 months ago. I'm sure I put in 36k and then 5k in. I got my statement about a week ago. It was about 33k left in it! It was a medium risk fund. There would have been 4% initial fund management fee and maybe 1.5% annual fee. So I'm going to have to go through my papers and get statements and then confront them. I know shares have been bad but it was supposed to be a managed fund on a 24/7 basis. A good fund manager should be able to take advantage of volatility. It seems I've lost 8k which is about 20% or so.

A good fund manager is as rare as rocking horse sh!t, with a 5% fee and the indexes down nearly 20% the performance sounds pretty much in line, not exactly sure what you are going to hit them with, as you say the fund isnt even low risk, it seems the bad performance is based simply on bad market timing/entry, buying at a top and all that, this years decline has had huge breadth with participation across all sectors thats not exactly their fault if punters have been buying shares at the perfectly wrong time to protect against some supposed hyperinflation scenario that isnt actually there. Fock knows why anyone would invest in fund with 5% and 1% fees though when the actual stockmarket return over history let alone a bear market is less than 3%, youd always be better off with a tracker which is relatively cheap as chips and has natural filtering out of crud

Edited November 13, 2011 by Tamara De Lempicka

[Giordano Bruno]

A good fund manager is as rare as rocking horse sh!t, with a 5% fee and the indexes down nearly 20% the performance sounds pretty much in line, not exactly sure what you are going to hit them with, as you say the fund isnt even low risk, it seems the bad performance is based simply on bad market timing/entry, buying at a top and all that, this years decline has had huge breadth with participation across all sectors thats not exactly their fault if punters have been buying shares to protect against some supposed hyperinflation scenario that isnt actually there. Fock knows why anyone would invest in fund with 5% and 1% fees though when the actual stockmarket return over history let alone a bear market is less than 3%, youd always be better off with a tracker which has natural filtering out of crud

I'm not going to 'hit' them with anything. I'm just going to ask what happened to my money. Before I bought into it I was told that 10% p.a. was the average return. Well it might just be fluctuation but it seems a bit high a loss for bad timing. I intend to ride it out. I just want to know what has happened. I'm not going to rush to them as I've got other things to be doing at the moment.

[Georgia O'Keeffe]

I'm not going to 'hit' them with anything. I'm just going to ask what happened to my money. Before I bought into it I was told that 10% p.a. was the average return. Well it might just be fluctuation but it seems a bit high a loss for bad timing. I intend to ride it out. I just want to know what has happened. I'm not going to rush to them as I've got other things to be doing at the moment.

well like i say whats happened is the markets have fallen nearly 20% since you bought with the fee added, was the salesman wearing a stetson and spurs when he mentioned 10%pa (thats near madoff territory)? If the market recovers so will your fund probably and if the market keeps going down so will your fund, which is why i highlighted trackers, because they outperform 95% of fund managers and probably 99.9% of them once costs are added

Edited November 13, 2011 by Tamara De Lempicka

[Butthead]

[quote name=Oh Well ' timestamp='1321193677' post='3176641]

I have a "with profits" pension with Avviva. I stopped paying into it 20 years ago on the advice of my accountant. Looking at it, the value has not gone up in the last `10 years.

Pensions are a complete con, I would not advise anyone paying into to them. If you do not control your investments yourself some other banker will steal them.

Would you judge mobile phones on the strength of one you bought 20 years ago? Would you judge mortgages on the mortgage terms you were able to secure 20 years ago? Would you expect to do no maintenance to a house you bought 20 years ago and for it still to be just as habitable?

No, of course not.

So why then is it OK to base your views on pensions on something that you haven't reviewed in 20 years. Perhaps it is your inaction and ignorance that is the cause of the problem?

[Guest tbatst2000]

Ok so I just got my pension statement in for the year and somehow the bankers have managed to lose over 15% of my pension pot in a year.

I literally cant put money into it fast enough to keep up with what they are losing from it, when they are producing results like this how on earth can they even think about bonuses? Dont even get me started on public sector pensions, think ill be lucky if the damn bankers leave me anything left, but as long as they get their bonuses thats all that matters I suppose.

I would really question any public sector workers going on strike, I started my work pension at 20, I put in 6%, company puts in 6% at the moment im projected to get about £3000 a year on retirement, of course thats going down pretty quick with the fund being creamed off. Oh and before you say it went up loads in the boom, actually no as im only 28 my pot was tiny then so made no difference. And they expect hard working people like me to pay more taxes to pay for their nice pensions? They will get not sympathy here.

Ok rant over....

What type of pension is this and with which pension company?

[SHERWICK]

I'm not going to 'hit' them with anything. I'm just going to ask what happened to my money.

What happened to your money?

Here's a clue:

[Scunnered]

This has been on here before, but bears recycling.

http://www.thersa.org/about-us/media/press-releases/going-dutch-how-to-double-the-value-of-british-pensions

The value of our pensions could be dramatically improved and pensioner poverty significantly reduced - without incurring any additional costs - according to new research published by the RSA.

In its report "Building the consensus for a People's Pension in Britain", the RSA discovered that:

* A huge proportion of our pensions disappear in fees – with charges swallowing up to 40 percent of the value of the pension.

* If a typical Dutch and a typical British person save the same amount for their pension, the Dutch person can expect a 50 percent higher income in retirement.

* That minor changes to our regulatory framework could boost pension returns by 39 percent.

It basically appears that much of the money in private pension schemes disappears in fees for the money men, and that large public schemes pay out more because of economies of scale and less need for profits for the operators. But hey, let's force everyone into the first model so that everyone can get shafted equally.

Edit. More here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/pensions/8676340/We-could-boost-pensions-by-half-without-an-extra-penny-in-contributions.html

Edited November 13, 2011 by Scunnered

[Georgia O'Keeffe]

What happened to your money?

Here's a clue:

id wager the answer will be his medium risk fund is overexposed to miners, coz gold and by association miners only go up

Edited November 13, 2011 by Tamara De Lempicka

[Butthead]

Also my pension has done rather well over the last year or so. That's because, largely on the strength of information received or linked here on HPC, I moved to cash in May and back to various investments in August.

I started a Shared ISA about 6 months ago. I'm sure I put in 36k and then 5k in. I got my statement about a week ago. It was about 33k left in it! It was a medium risk fund. There would have been 4% initial fund management fee and maybe 1.5% annual fee. So I'm going to have to go through my papers and get statements and then confront them. I know shares have been bad but it was supposed to be a managed fund on a 24/7 basis. A good fund manager should be able to take advantage of volatility. It seems I've lost 8k which is about 20% or so.

You've been a member here since 2008. Why were you investing into shares 6 months ago, and why is it now someone elses fault that you've lost money?

[Giordano Bruno]

Thanks for the advice, Tamara.

I have another wodge coming soon from a cash ISA to mature in 2012. I think I will put it into a cash ISA again. I will research trackers. I hadn't heard of them, aih. I had heard of tracker mortgages, of course.

The fact is, a few years ago I wouldn't have touched shares ISAs cos I don't like shares. But with the feeble interest rates on cash at the moment I thought 'give it a try'. I blame BoE for these silly interest rates and I also blame gov't and bankers.

[guitarman001]

If public sector are so nice then why aren't they up for the same conditions as us private lot? Let's put EVERYBODY's pensions into either defined contribution OR defined benefit, but NOT one for one group and one for another. I suspect then we'd hear some squealing. OP, I've lost a similar percentage, think it was 14%. Luckily I have only £3k in now (only been paying in for a year) - seriously thinking about whether or not it's worth it.

[guitarman001]

[quote name=Oh Well ' timestamp='1321193677' post='3176641]

I have a "with profits" pension with Avviva. I stopped paying into it 20 years ago on the advice of my accountant. Looking at it, the value has not gone up in the last `10 years.

Pensions are a complete con, I would not advise anyone paying into to them. If you do not control your investments yourself some other banker will steal them.

Unfortunately all my personal investing has lost me >70% of all monies invested. Some people just ain't great at it!

[guitarman001]

There really are few options for those who aren't goo at personal investing. Not sure about my own personal investing for future - feel safer with it in the bank (chuckle chuckle). Bottom line is - what are y'all going to do about it?

[Georgia O'Keeffe]

Thanks for the advice, Tamara.

I have another wodge coming soon from a cash ISA to mature in 2012. I think I will put it into a cash ISA again. I will research trackers. I hadn't heard of them, aih. I had heard of tracker mortgages, of course.

The fact is, a few years ago I wouldn't have touched shares ISAs cos I don't like shares. But with the feeble interest rates on cash at the moment I thought 'give it a try'. I blame BoE for these silly interest rates and I also blame gov't and bankers.

To be clear im not advising buying or selling anything, just highlighting that for anyone wanting to invest in a managed fund that index trackers are largely better than giving some nomark 5% of your cash for nothing before you start and 1% thereafter and if they highlight 10%pa returns as to be expected then clearly you should walk out laughing

Edited November 13, 2011 by Tamara De Lempicka

[guitarman001]

Index trackers are definitely the way to go, from what it says in most books I've read. I should start .....

[Giordano Bruno]

To be clear im not advising buying or selling anything, just highlighting that for anyone wanting to invest in a managed fund that index trackers are largely better than giving some nomark 5% of your cash for nothing before you start and 1% thereafter and if they highlight 10%pa returns as to be expected then clearly you should walk out laughing

I appreciate what you write, Tamara. By 'advice' I meant information in a very general sense. e.g. the info about the rarity of good fund managers. No, you did not advise me to do anything in particular or at all. Of course, one has to be careful not to advise any type of investing for both ethical and legal reasons.

I always think of the old 'Upstairs Downstairs' when the young Bellamy advised the kitchen maid to invest her savings into the south sea bubble. After it all went pear shaped he committed suicide.

Edited November 13, 2011 by Giordano Bruno