Who is to blame for pension malaise

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The wise pension guru, and Romford lad, Steve Bee once commented that if you aggregated the funds backing the pensions in France, Germany, Italy and Spain they would not total 50% of the assets invested in UK funded pension schemes.
Well, the concept of an equal Europe has put paid to this quaint theory. I would be surprised if the UK approaches 10% of their European counterparts now and thanks to this government and previous administrations the situation is getting worse.
Various pensions acts (which were ill thought out), the Lawson act (which should be the subject of litigation), Brown's first Budget (awful) and Darling's most recent (stupid) have all contrived to do what gossip magazines, tabloid papers and Big Brother have tried to do over the years, namely dumbing us down. Albeit financially in this case.

And they've done it at a time when there are more 'investigative journalists' about than flies round jam.
Is it really more important that ETF funds cost, in retail terms, 10 basis points less compared to the high TERs levied by fund of funds than say the addition of yet another unfunded pension liability on the hard working, hard taxed UK worker? You would certainly be forgiven for believing so.

The Royal Mail (RM) pension scheme is just an example of the malaise affecting the public and journalists. In a sneaky byline to Lord Mandelson`s rescue plan for the RM, the government will take the assets of the funded RM pension scheme (£24 billion, yes that`s £24,000,000,000)) and replace it with an unfunded pay-as-you-go public sector scheme.
Of course, using the 'them and us' accounting protocol employed by the government, they have successfully 'transitioned' the assets onto the government's balance sheet without declaring the total estimated cost of meeting nearly half a million postal workers now unfunded pension liabilities.

Yet all this happens with barely cursory attention from the fourth estate who concentrate on micro finance, pronouncing on funds that charge 20bps over others, and the tragedy of Mrs Miggin`s lost OEIC certificate which caused a loss of £2,000 when she couldn't`t trade.
Whilst journos have slept on the job (save a few) this country`s pension assets have been systematically savaged by ministers who think that a reduction in their accrual rate on their gold plated, unfunded pension, is a bad thing. Our regulator, the FSA. believes form filling is the answer, pursuing those who fail to money launder annuities as if a criminal offence has been committed (as indeed it has) whilst larceny on a grand scale is committed by their masters in Westminster.

Personalising stories sells copy I know, but it`s not uncovering anything apart from incompetence or lack of competitiveness. The consequence of dwelling on the minutae of the finance world without considering the pillage going on in the macro world will be, in a few years, obvious to all. Given the likely level of tax to pay for all this and the level of knowledge our 'leaders' exhibit, the only investors left will be MPs. And that will leave you with a circulation problem as there are too many of them already.

By Mike Robinson, managing director of national IFA Clarkson Hill Group.