Ooops! Revealed: how City fees are eating into our pensions...
 

imagine that....

"The damning findings come at a time of growing anxiety that millions of Britons will not have enough money for their old age. They will also raise new questions about the prime minister's decision to veto a new EU treaty over his demands for greater protection for the City."

Re: Ooops! Revealed: how City fees are eating into our pensions...
 

The EU treaty veto is entirely irrelevant to this and the journalist pursuing his own agenda, however this is very true and very distasteful. The City is indeed wringing money out of the rest of us in many, many insidious ways.

Sadly London is a cesspit as far as finance goes due to years of light touch regulation. What it all comes down to in the end is the tax payer picking up the bill to either give or save companies money, though that's not uncommon, see banking bailout and tax credits for further examples of that.

Re: Ooops! Revealed: how City fees are eating into our pensions...
 

Given that the veto was exercised because he couldn't guarantee protections for this sector & its practices (including those insidious methods referenced in the story) I think it's a fair comment.

Re: Ooops! Revealed: how City fees are eating into our pensions...
 

I entirely disagree, there is no indication at all that Cameron wanted the City protected from being called to account for things like this, quite the opposite he asked for nothing more than the status quo if reports are to be believed.

Seems a convenient angle to push a pro-European agenda, I guess it stands to reason that from some commentators any trace of malpractice by banks will involve some Cameron bashing and EU worship.

The Treasury are obviously looking into this already given that the report was from consultants brought in there.

Just FYI:

You are aware that EU rules and regulations potentially prevent the implementation of Vickers, yes?

Re: Ooops! Revealed: how City fees are eating into our pensions...
 

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Re: Ooops! Revealed: how City fees are eating into our pensions...
 

Can I share? This should prove to be an interesting debate, as I don't like to get caught in crossfire I guess I shall be watching, in safety, from behind the sofa. :)

Re: Ooops! Revealed: how City fees are eating into our pensions...
 

You won't get hurt..you have the shield of kindness and humility to cowe...err hide behind.But as you say it should be an interesting debate provided some members can ensure it remains just that.;)

Re: Ooops! Revealed: how City fees are eating into our pensions...
 

We'll have to agree to disagree.

Whilst I personally have no love for the idea of Europe as a central government you appear to be suffering from an unhealthy dose of pro-European paranoia. To my mind there is nothing essentially pro-European in the article.

I'm surprised that you seem to think that the veto was exercised for any other reason other than to protect the financial sector and to maintain and protect the status quo / current practices in all their shapes and forms.

Cameron, in one of his first meetings with Merkel in his capacity as Prime minister back in May 2010, made it clear that he would veto any Treaty amendments which would include a fiscal government. The fact is that you cannot veto something that does not exist.

He, and certain elements of the media, are playing a blinder from a PR (his specialism) perspective. He has sold a non existent veto story as some form of him sticking it to Johnny foreigner and little Englanders and Euro sceptics alike are lapping it up whist all the while (as the article shows) they are being shafted in the supposed "national interest"

Personally speaking I applaud the exposure of such wanton disregard for the future of citizens - from any quarter.

That's all I have to say on the matter - feel free to rant away.

Re: Ooops! Revealed: how City fees are eating into our pensions...
 

We will indeed, I don't regard the two as being related in this instance.

The practice itself is unscrupulous however one would assume the Treasury are taking an interest in it given this report, and one would imagine to not act would be political suicide.

Cameron is a whore to the City, like most politicians, but he's also a politician so more than capable of showing a face to each side.

It seems to me to be a gross simplification of things to suggest that Cameron refusing to sign the fiscal compact was to preserve all the bad things the City does, and that European regulation would be some sort of panacea to a fairer world. As I noted above in some regards the UK's regulation of its financial services is actually potentially obstructed by European regulation.

The City is pretty ill, London is a financial cess pit in dire need of a complete redesign of regulatory structure so that it actually has one but one dictated from the place that can't even make farmers keep chickens humanely given 10 years notice doesn't seem appropriate.

Regardless it doesn't matter, I seriously doubt that the fees the City is ripping people off with for pension fund management were a specific sticking point, and if Cameron does fail to act all the money in London won't buy him the next election.

Re: Ooops! Revealed: how City fees are eating into our pensions...
 

The article represents little more than a totally false linkage between just one of the many parasitic methods the finance industry has used for decades to enrich its participants at the expense of the public, with the more complicated global financial issues currently engulfing the world.

Top slicing and handling\management fees are rife within various factions of the finance industry and often start, for private individuals, when a financial advisor, insurance broker or bank uses their supposed expertise to help said individual to select a suitable package with frequently the pocket of the advisor served first. Once in the financial food chain, bites are taken out of the cash up through every strata. It has been this way for decades and without doubt is a self serving gravy train that should have been dealt with decades ago.

I find it incomprehensible that the linkage has been associated with the City and the government's actions reference Europe as the two are linked only by association which often is little more the geographic location.

The area of finance under attack from Europe is specific and is via the proposed transaction tax and falls into international traded instruments and most specifically Forex.

Pension funds have a specific remit which constrains their activities into shares, bonds, properties etc which falls in the area of tangible assets which are supposedly safer. The fact that costs imposed by managers are detrimental to pension investors has gained more traction since the markets have failed to perform but they should have come under scrutiny long ago as should many other if not most of what I would describe as domestic financial markets.

This type of reporting is becoming more prevalent in the newspapers where sensationalist headlines followed by inaccurate and ill informed assumptions are written with the intention of adding to already high levels of public angst. I think that it is sad that the public are not knowledgeable enough to realise that they are being manipulated by a reporter with an agenda.

Re: Ooops! Revealed: how City fees are eating into our pensions...
 

The only problem here are the fees themselves. The best thing to do is find out what a financial adviser invests their own money in and copy that. Assuming of course that they know what they are doing