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What Red Squirrels Reveal About Britain’s Broken Investing Culture · Merryn Talks Money

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News. Welcome to Merrin Dog's
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Speaker 1: Your Money, the personal finance edition of Meren Dogs Money
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Speaker 1: and these bonus podcasts. We talk about the best strategies
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Speaker 1: we're making the most of your money. I'm Marenzum's at
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Speaker 1: Weapon with me Senior Award and Money distilled off for
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Speaker 1: John Steppeck.
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Speaker 2: Hi, John, Hi Man.
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Speaker 1: We read a conference over the weekend, you and I
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Speaker 1: a market investor conference, and people kept referring to you
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Speaker 1: as the award winning John Steppeck. So I think maybe
0:44
Speaker 1: we might have to drop that joke has gone too.
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Speaker 3: Far getting it into the public domain.
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Speaker 1: It's like your first name is now award winning and
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Speaker 1: your surname is a double barreled John Steppeck.
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Speaker 3: See this is what I like. Eventually I'll get speech
0:59
Speaker 3: jeal in the common parlance as well, but that's all one.
1:03
Speaker 1: You will talk to me about space chair. Actually I
1:06
Speaker 1: just use it for the dog.
1:07
Speaker 3: On the space shials you get said if you break
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Speaker 3: international law.
1:10
Speaker 1: Oh, I use it for the dog. I put when
1:12
Speaker 1: he's being really awful, I pick him up and hold
1:14
Speaker 1: him in the air, and we call it space.
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Speaker 3: I feel the dog would object to kind of over
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Speaker 3: the cheek us ailens, so yes, send it to space chair.
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Speaker 1: I mean he's a very small dog, so you know
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Speaker 1: you can do that. Sticking with the animal theme, actually
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Speaker 1: I want to talk about squirrels.
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Speaker 3: Is there going to be another rhino gifted?
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Speaker 2: So interesting?
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Speaker 1: But it is true that red squirrels have long shown
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Speaker 1: up pretty much everything that is wrong with the charitable sector,
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Speaker 1: and now webquirrels are going to be emblemic of everything
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Speaker 1: that is wrong with our political system.
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Speaker 2: Gosh, that's such great interesting.
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Speaker 1: Right, So let me let me tell you something about
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Speaker 1: red squirrels before we start right. The first thing says
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Speaker 1: there aren't very many of them left. There used to
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Speaker 1: be about three and a half million red squirrels in
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Speaker 1: the UK. Now we're don't to well under three hundred thousand,
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Speaker 1: and most of those are in Scotland, so they're slowly going.
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Speaker 1: Not that slowly actually, I mean pushed right up north
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Speaker 1: by gray squirrels and various other predators.
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Speaker 3: That in Dorset as well. You can see them on
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Speaker 3: Brownsea Island if you ever go to pool guirrels.
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Speaker 1: It's not very many I said, almost think in England world,
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Speaker 1: not completely think. So there are people who believe there
2:23
Speaker 1: is hope yet for the red girl. Now, there are
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Speaker 1: a lot of people who either believe there is hope
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Speaker 1: for the reds girl, or would like to think there
2:29
Speaker 1: is hope for the red squirrel. There are I mean,
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Speaker 1: I don't know how you look at it. I was
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Speaker 1: cow is counting online the other day and I came
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Speaker 1: up with thirteen different charities trying to promote the well
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Speaker 1: being of the red squirrel. But a friend of mine
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Speaker 1: who also watches these things, tells me they're actually forty seven.
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Speaker 1: So that's forty seven failing institutions, absolutely failing, because there
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Speaker 1: are fewer and fewer reds girls every day. Something else
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Speaker 1: I want to tell you about red girls, which is
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Speaker 1: that they're really useless. You know how you look at
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Speaker 1: pandas sometimes I'm thinking, well, no, wonder they nearly extendent.
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Speaker 1: They are absol useless the red squirrel. And again, I
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Speaker 1: am not an expert on red squirrels, but a quick
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Speaker 1: bit of research has suggested to me that the red squirrel,
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Speaker 1: on average loses half of the stuff they hide away
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Speaker 1: to get them through the winter and the spring. Spring
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Speaker 1: is a very tough time for red squirrels because a
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Speaker 1: lot of what they hidden they've already eaten, and then
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Speaker 1: new nuts and seeds are not a go yet. The
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Speaker 1: spring is really tel for red girl anyway, Red squirrels,
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Speaker 1: they will bury a lot of their acorns, nuts, et cetera,
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Speaker 1: and something called middens, which are like communal food things
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Speaker 1: in the woods et cetera, et cetera, where all the
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Speaker 1: red squirrels can go. But then they also have their
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Speaker 1: own private private places where they hide their their nuts,
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Speaker 1: et cetera. And they lose a lot of those. So
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Speaker 1: a lot of this stuff, about twenty five p cent
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Speaker 1: of what they hide ghost to predators, so you know,
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Speaker 1: great squirrels et cetera, et cetera. And there are another
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Speaker 1: ten or twenty percent they simply lose because apparently they
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Speaker 1: didn't have very good memories. If you know more about
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Speaker 1: red squirrels in the Internet, then you would like to
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Speaker 1: call us and let us know that, in fact, reds
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Speaker 1: girls have very good memories. I'm totally out for that.
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Speaker 3: This is just basically I've actually got a collective stash apparently,
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Speaker 3: So basically they pay the Meden tax, but then they
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Speaker 3: hate their own stuff in private bank accounts and forget
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Speaker 3: where they put fascinating.
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Speaker 1: So to see why the red squirrel is kind of
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Speaker 1: a good metaphor for an awful thing. Okay, So here
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Speaker 1: we have here, we have an animal that is dedicated
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Speaker 1: to saving, that does it incredibly badly, that loses between
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Speaker 1: twenty five and fifty percent of what they save, that
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Speaker 1: never ever manages to grow the net value of what
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Speaker 1: they say, and also is nearly extinct. Okay, so and
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Speaker 1: and just to carry on, this is nearly extinct but
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Speaker 1: has forty seven different government supported groups trying to prevent
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Speaker 1: it from going extinct. So hold all those thoughts about
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Speaker 1: the red squirrel in mind and then think to yourself.
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Speaker 1: Imagine that you're part of the government. You're part of
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Speaker 1: a focus group or group, some kind of sid government
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Speaker 1: who wants to wants to change the way that people
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Speaker 1: save and invest in the UK. And you're setting around
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Speaker 1: a little you know, back and forth and how can
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Speaker 1: we do this? And you think, well, let's let's come
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Speaker 1: up with an animal, because there's nothing better than infantalizing populations.
5:13
Speaker 1: We do that all the time. Everything infantalizes. Now let's
5:15
Speaker 1: let's patronize everyone and treat them like total idiots. Gotcha,
5:18
Speaker 1: let's do that. Take number one, what animals should we use?
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Speaker 1: And we'll definitely make it a cartoon to really infantilize
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Speaker 1: the whole thing. Which animals shall we use to talk
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Speaker 1: about investing? I mean, maybe we could, we could make
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Speaker 1: it like a lion or something like that, or you know,
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Speaker 1: something exacting. You know, we don't want to do that
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Speaker 1: because that would suggest somehow that capitalism is predatory. So
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Speaker 1: let's do it as well as something cuta something cut,
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Speaker 1: something that is known for squirreling stuff away. Oh I know,
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Speaker 1: let's choose a cartoon red squirrel without stopping to think
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Speaker 1: through that. These are not investors, unbelievably bad savers gradually
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Speaker 1: going extinct and wasting vast amounts of government money already.
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Speaker 1: If I have the gifted system to try and preserve
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Speaker 1: them when they appear to be unpreservable, this is what
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Speaker 1: the government has done. It has been some time trying
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Speaker 1: to come up with a way to try and get
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Speaker 1: people to invest, and we'll come on to that in
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Speaker 1: the moment, because of course that's a wonderful idea trying
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Speaker 1: to get people to invest, and they have chosen absolutely
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Speaker 1: the worst, the worst possible. I mean, they could have
6:17
Speaker 1: gone for a black hole or something like that that
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Speaker 1: would have been worse, but not significantly worse than the red.
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Speaker 2: Squirrel famously by find managers.
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Speaker 1: Yes, they could have have chosen a famously bad fund
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Speaker 1: manager in John and I will list those later off podcast.
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Speaker 1: But other than famously bad fund managers and black holes,
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Speaker 1: I really can't think of much worse to represent investing,
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Speaker 1: which is an adult activity that we expect to increase
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Speaker 1: our wealth over time, than a cartoon red squirrel.
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Speaker 3: Yes, it's not the best educational campaign, and I have
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Speaker 3: to see. I mean, my win in view is that
6:55
Speaker 3: if you actually want to get people invested in, you
6:56
Speaker 3: have to get them mixed the tons, which is mostly
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Speaker 3: the one thing that regulators in the government have conspired
7:05
Speaker 3: to make almost impossible to talk about even the law.
7:08
Speaker 3: In an interview with your good self this year, the
7:11
Speaker 3: FCA apparently claimed that there isn't actually any rule that
7:16
Speaker 3: you have to see you can lose money in this investment.
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Speaker 3: Really surprised me, and I also felt was kind of
7:23
Speaker 3: evidence of some backpedal and of some sort.
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Speaker 1: But anyway, well, I think you know, there's a lot
7:27
Speaker 1: of complainants and regulation in this football come to that
7:30
Speaker 1: in a minute. But I mean, I suppose what we
7:32
Speaker 1: should say is that it is really important that people
7:35
Speaker 1: do in that this is important. You know, the UK
7:38
Speaker 1: is a very has a very strong saving culture, massive
7:41
Speaker 1: saving culture, and saving rates in the UK have gone
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Speaker 1: up a lot since the financial crisis. So pre twenty
7:46
Speaker 1: twenty we had a savings rate of about six to
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Speaker 1: seven percent of incomes and now it's more like ninety
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Speaker 1: ten percent. There were a couple of quarters where I
7:52
Speaker 1: hit twelve percent in the last couple of years and
7:54
Speaker 1: that's quite unusual globally. So the UK population is saving
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Speaker 1: a lot of money. They deleverage lot since the financial crisis,
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Speaker 1: so it's good news. People have on average, well the
8:04
Speaker 1: figures say about sixteen thousand pounds on average. Of course,
8:06
Speaker 1: that is a meaningless number because some people will have
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Speaker 1: nothing and some people have a lot of savings. In total,
8:12
Speaker 1: in cash savings in the UK, Bank of England numbers
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Speaker 1: we have nearly two trillion pounds. So, of course is
8:18
Speaker 1: that too much toff sitting around it cas what? Of
8:20
Speaker 1: course it is, And particularly in an economy such as
8:22
Speaker 1: ours that is biased towards inflation and is likely to
8:26
Speaker 1: see considerably more inflation over the next However, many years
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Speaker 1: we're in inflationary economy and that is not improving. So
8:33
Speaker 1: does it make sense they have your savings in cash.
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Speaker 1: Of course it doesn't. And you can look at endless
8:37
Speaker 1: research showing the difference in the amount of money you
8:39
Speaker 1: would have if you put your money in equities ten
8:41
Speaker 1: years ago if you put your money in cash ten
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Speaker 1: years ago. So we know it's a good thing, and
8:46
Speaker 1: we also I don't think we disagree. Tell me if
8:48
Speaker 1: you disagree with me, but I don't think we disagree
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Speaker 1: that this is something that the government should be focused on.
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Speaker 3: I think the government should be focused on it.
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Speaker 1: Yes, okay, good, and that makes sense. But it makes
8:59
Speaker 1: sense because we want people to be better off, obviously,
9:02
Speaker 1: and also it makes sense because we want people in
9:04
Speaker 1: particular to be better off as they age, because we
9:07
Speaker 1: don't want to eventually have the entire welfare system focused
9:11
Speaker 1: on trying to support people in their retirements because they
9:14
Speaker 1: haven't saved enough along the way. By the way, it's
9:15
Speaker 1: not the problem it used to because of order enrollment.
9:17
Speaker 1: But nonetheless, if you're the chancellor and you're looking at
9:20
Speaker 1: the welfare bill and you're going oh God, con coke
9:23
Speaker 1: with this. You really want people to be investing so
9:26
Speaker 1: that they grow their wealtha over time. So this all
9:27
Speaker 1: makes sense. This all makes sense. So let's go back
9:31
Speaker 1: a little to why don't people in the UKA invest
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Speaker 1: Why don't we have the investing culture that they have,
9:36
Speaker 1: for example, in the US. And I suppose the answers
9:39
Speaker 1: to that are historical reliance on defined benefit pension schemes.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, in part, well, yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean the
9:48
Speaker 3: only thing about this a couple of one is the
9:50
Speaker 3: US is an outlayer at the old say, to this scale,
9:54
Speaker 3: and that they've very much got an investment culture that
9:56
Speaker 3: we don't have. And I think there's a lot of
9:58
Speaker 3: reasons for that. But yeah, I think the other issue
10:02
Speaker 3: that we have isn't just the end of defined benefit
10:05
Speaker 3: pension schemes. It's certainly whenever I was just becoming a
10:09
Speaker 3: financial journalist and probably a few years before that, all
10:14
Speaker 3: that we were hearing about was pension scandal after pension scandal.
10:17
Speaker 3: So there was there was the endowment mortgages, which actually
10:22
Speaker 3: turned out to be fine. Mostly, there was the zero
10:26
Speaker 3: Splits Investment TRUSTMSS selling scandal in the early two thousands,
10:30
Speaker 3: late nineties, there was obviously Maxwell and pensions and basically
10:35
Speaker 3: and also the you know, financial advice certainly right up
10:40
Speaker 3: until the LDR was expensive, and also you know, and
10:45
Speaker 3: in many cases a complete ripoff. Actually yeah, biased exactly.
10:49
Speaker 3: So I mean you can see why there's a lot
10:54
Speaker 3: of suspicion of investment culture. And then of course we
10:57
Speaker 3: also had the property boom, and so you know, and
11:00
Speaker 3: again this kind of go back to what I was
11:01
Speaker 3: saying about returns. It's like you saw, you know, the
11:04
Speaker 3: tech bubble blowing up and all this, all these scandals
11:07
Speaker 3: associated with equity investment, and meanwhile you had like people
11:12
Speaker 3: just getting rich off buying terrible houses, doing them up
11:15
Speaker 3: in the most shady way possible, and then flipping them
11:18
Speaker 3: for two or three times the price. And when you
11:20
Speaker 3: think about it, buying a house and flipping it is
11:23
Speaker 3: so much more hassle and so much more complicated than
11:26
Speaker 3: just buying an equity investment fund. So it's all about
11:30
Speaker 3: the returns. It's like, oh, look I can double my money.
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Speaker 3: You know, people who jump through any kind of hope
11:34
Speaker 3: to kind of get some of that.
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Speaker 1: I think you're right, I think that is all that.
11:38
Speaker 1: I think there are other things as well. I think
11:40
Speaker 1: that there are taxes incentives in the UK. I mean,
11:42
Speaker 1: it's all very well. We have these. We have our
11:43
Speaker 1: ISIS system, which I think even I agree used to
11:46
Speaker 1: be marvelous and is now too complicated and should be
11:48
Speaker 1: simplified again. And we have a SIP system, which again
11:51
Speaker 1: is pretty straightforward. You know, these are great ways to
11:53
Speaker 1: invest tax efficiently. All good, But then there are the
12:00
Speaker 1: things that I think are are friction. There's stamp duty.
12:02
Speaker 1: And I know that maybe a lot of people don't
12:04
Speaker 1: think about stamp duty, but I think a campaign saying
12:06
Speaker 1: look we are getting rid of stamp duty. This tax
12:08
Speaker 1: is going would be very handy.
12:11
Speaker 3: And to be very clear, very big people, this is
12:13
Speaker 3: stamp duty or in shields we're talking about. I mean,
12:15
Speaker 3: we ditched that duty and property as we help. But it
12:17
Speaker 3: just and all that everyone instinctively thinks, oh stamp duty
12:19
Speaker 3: and no's but not stamp duty or in shields.
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Speaker 1: And this is a wealth tax obviously because it's you know,
12:26
Speaker 1: you invest money and and you get charged stamp duty
12:29
Speaker 1: as you invest in that, by the way, happens inside
12:31
Speaker 1: your sip and inside your EYESO. So when we talk
12:33
Speaker 1: about these being tax efficient vehicles, you still pay that
12:36
Speaker 1: transaction tax every time you buy yourself something, so that
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Speaker 1: I think it's a friction that I think an awful
12:43
Speaker 1: lot of people in government think nobody notices and nobody
12:46
Speaker 1: cares about. I think they do, and I think it matches.
12:48
Speaker 1: And I also think even if people weren't aware of it,
12:51
Speaker 1: if you were to make them aware of it and
12:53
Speaker 1: then tell them that you're getting rid of it.
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Speaker 3: That would be the cost of I think that the
12:57
Speaker 3: British company also London lested companies absolutely.
13:02
Speaker 1: And I'd also say that the constant rises in capital
13:04
Speaker 1: gains tax are a problem. And you might say, well,
13:06
Speaker 1: maybe this isn't a problem because most people will be
13:08
Speaker 1: investing inside their ice around. Very few people use up
13:11
Speaker 1: their ice for alliance. But again it's optics, optics, optics.
13:14
Speaker 1: We're encouraging you to invest, but if you do, if
13:17
Speaker 1: you do, we'll be taxing you like crazy. And the
13:20
Speaker 1: third thing that I would say is that you know,
13:22
Speaker 1: we have spent so long and you referenced this earlier, John,
13:26
Speaker 1: We've spent so long trying to make people aware of
13:29
Speaker 1: the risks of investing. Everything is so risky. We know,
13:33
Speaker 1: as you know, we're a health and safety economy. We
13:35
Speaker 1: live in a health and safety world, and we have
13:38
Speaker 1: taken it too far when it comes to investing. We
13:41
Speaker 1: spend all our time attempting to remove personal responsibility from
13:45
Speaker 1: absolutely everything. And so it is with investing where we
13:50
Speaker 1: constantly tell people, well, you could lose all your money.
13:52
Speaker 1: You could lose all your money. You could lose all
13:54
Speaker 1: your money, you could lose what do you know. You
13:55
Speaker 1: could lose all your money on a house. You could
13:58
Speaker 1: lose all your money on a car. You could lose
14:00
Speaker 1: all your money on crypto, you could lose all your
14:02
Speaker 1: money on literally anything. Are you likely to use all
14:06
Speaker 1: your money on a well chosen group of dividend paying
14:10
Speaker 1: UK listed stocks? Probably not. Probably.
14:13
Speaker 3: It was a very unrealistic kind of approach to it.
14:16
Speaker 3: And obviously it's all about backside covering because you don't
14:19
Speaker 3: hear these ones and crypto because they're unregulated. You don't
14:22
Speaker 3: hear it on you know, whine and all the rest
14:24
Speaker 3: because it's unregulated, and so they're able to claim what
14:28
Speaker 3: they want by and large. So I think this is
14:31
Speaker 3: this is part of the problem where yeah, you know,
14:33
Speaker 3: having a kind of regulator that is focused on the
14:37
Speaker 3: downside rather than the upside. And I mean, to be fair,
14:41
Speaker 3: that's partly what Rachel Reeves was getting that when she
14:43
Speaker 3: was kind of, you know, talking to the FC but
14:45
Speaker 3: we want more focused on growth or you know.
14:48
Speaker 2: That sort of thing.
14:49
Speaker 3: But then, of course, obviously that manifests itself in the
14:52
Speaker 3: most mistaken of ways.
14:54
Speaker 1: Absolutely, And there's a lot of talk about this, and
14:56
Speaker 1: they're talking that, you know, there is this shifts inside
14:59
Speaker 1: the advice and industry that you can now give targeted advice,
15:02
Speaker 1: et cetera. So there's a little bit more of a
15:03
Speaker 1: shift towards thinking about advice in terms of everyone requiring
15:07
Speaker 1: the same kind of advice as opposed to everyone being unique.
15:09
Speaker 1: Is it? There are shifts all over the place. But nonetheless,
15:13
Speaker 1: the advertising for investing is very anodyne because people feel
15:18
Speaker 1: like it has to be. And it maybe that the FCA,
15:20
Speaker 1: as you say, did suggest to me at a conference
15:22
Speaker 1: we were speaking it the other day, that perhaps some
15:23
Speaker 1: management companies could let up a little they're taking it
15:26
Speaker 1: all a little bit too seriously. But I would love
15:28
Speaker 1: to see a world where you could actually walk into
15:31
Speaker 1: the tube and see ads for shares, actual ads. Look,
15:35
Speaker 1: I'm a great mining company. There's a great mining company.
15:37
Speaker 1: You buy shows in this, you.
15:39
Speaker 3: Know, yes, absolutely, you should buy shows in this.
15:43
Speaker 1: You might make some money. Not you could buy shares
15:45
Speaker 1: in this. You'll probably lose all your money. But you
15:47
Speaker 1: should buy shows in this. You might make some money.
15:49
Speaker 1: There would be great money in very well, it's be great,
15:51
Speaker 1: you know. Let's not worry about the past. Let's think
15:52
Speaker 1: about the future. I would love to see a vibe shift,
15:56
Speaker 1: a full vibe shift in the marketing of investing. And
15:59
Speaker 1: I I don't think. I don't think that that vibe
16:03
Speaker 1: chefs comes via a squirrel and the background is pink.
16:06
Speaker 1: What is that? Subliminal advertising for the ft? That's not fair.
16:09
Speaker 1: We want subliminal advertising too. Subliminal I can't say that word.
16:12
Speaker 1: We want that too. I mean, I think we should
16:14
Speaker 1: write a complaint, a complaint to the government saying you're
16:17
Speaker 1: effectively advertising the ft. This stuff should be orange, not pink.
16:21
Speaker 1: That's our color, right anyway, you will now you will
16:24
Speaker 1: see it on taxis and Manchester. You will see it
16:26
Speaker 1: on billboards all over the place, and as the year
16:28
Speaker 1: goes on you will see it in more places. You
16:30
Speaker 1: will see it on the Telly, etc. And one thing
16:33
Speaker 1: not to get upset about, and I'm pleased about this
16:35
Speaker 1: is that the fifty million pound cost is being covered
16:37
Speaker 1: by the sponsors, who are I think Aviva, Bartley, Schroders,
16:40
Speaker 1: JP Morgan and Robinhood UK, although various other organizations dropped
16:44
Speaker 1: out because it was too expensive. And I'll tell you something,
16:46
Speaker 1: it is too expensive, right, John, there was something else
17:00
Speaker 1: you wanted to talk about. I've got everything I wanted
17:02
Speaker 1: to get out of my system out of my system.
17:05
Speaker 3: This is this is relatively minor by contrast. But the
17:08
Speaker 3: other thing I would want to say about the reason
17:11
Speaker 3: that we don't invest much in the UK is also
17:13
Speaker 3: because they keep fiddling with the rules. So it's not surprising,
17:17
Speaker 3: I mean, and.
17:18
Speaker 1: They make it complicated. It's supposed to be simple. Make
17:21
Speaker 1: it simple. They even either make money or lose money,
17:24
Speaker 1: make it easier.
17:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, Why would you trust the pension system when the
17:28
Speaker 3: government fiddles were all the time. And then it's also
17:31
Speaker 3: currently trying to tell you where or trying to push
17:34
Speaker 3: through rules that allow it to mandate where your money goes.
17:38
Speaker 3: I mean, I do think there's a there's a wider
17:40
Speaker 3: confidence issue that is actually quite that's entirely related to
17:44
Speaker 3: political risk and reasonably so. But I think that's yeah,
17:47
Speaker 3: that's a sort of discussion for another time.
17:49
Speaker 1: But John, let me ask you a question. Let me
17:51
Speaker 1: ask you question before we get onto the thing. Who
17:52
Speaker 1: do you trust? Is there an institution left in the
17:57
Speaker 1: UK that you that you trust? You think to you
17:59
Speaker 1: so that's okay. This institution said this, and I believe
18:03
Speaker 1: them because don't know anything on that list.
18:09
Speaker 3: I think this is that's a really good question, and
18:13
Speaker 3: you could probably you probably have to list. You probably
18:15
Speaker 3: have to list all the institutions because I'm sure there's
18:18
Speaker 3: something I've forgotten about that might trust.
18:20
Speaker 2: But I mean not really.
18:22
Speaker 3: I think I sort of blame nudging culture in some ways.
18:28
Speaker 3: I feel that every organization now has a narrative that
18:33
Speaker 3: it feels it needs to push and stay in control of.
18:35
Speaker 3: And I think that's massively over exaggerated. As somebody who
18:39
Speaker 3: works in the media, I don't think that power or
18:41
Speaker 3: the power of narrative is anyone near as strong as
18:45
Speaker 3: everyone kids.
18:46
Speaker 1: Because we're really bad at protecting our.
18:47
Speaker 2: Own This is what I mean.
18:48
Speaker 3: See, if we had the power, you know, a lot
18:51
Speaker 3: of things would be different around here.
18:52
Speaker 2: And I can't tell you that.
18:53
Speaker 1: For nothing too right, listen, Let's let's put that out.
18:57
Speaker 1: There is a question for listeners. Email to us and
19:00
Speaker 1: tell us is there an institution left in the UK
19:04
Speaker 1: that you trust that you trust not absolutely can't trust
19:07
Speaker 1: anything else lutely, but you when you hear from them,
19:09
Speaker 1: you think, yeah, that's that's right.
19:11
Speaker 2: This is an interesting.
19:14
Speaker 1: Let's think about a bit more jump there was something
19:16
Speaker 1: you wanted to keep it?
19:17
Speaker 3: No, no, it's just this sort of leads on from
19:19
Speaker 3: a chat about Nest the other week Steve Webb over
19:24
Speaker 3: Pensions Consultancy LCP. So Steve Webb used to be the
19:27
Speaker 3: pensions monster in the UK and actually had that rare
19:29
Speaker 3: example a politician who had both the experience to do
19:32
Speaker 3: the job and actually did a good job of doing
19:34
Speaker 3: the job. I think that's fair to say.
19:37
Speaker 2: Sortly.
19:37
Speaker 3: So they put a report about define contribution pensions so
19:41
Speaker 3: basically auto enrollment, and the sort of the headline takeaway
19:45
Speaker 3: is basically because of the drive towards master trust, so
19:49
Speaker 3: basically having one kind of overseer for all of the
19:55
Speaker 3: pensions that go to your employers, so your employer will
19:58
Speaker 3: approach basically like NEST. So they get this game from
20:02
Speaker 3: Nest and then nest overseas multiple companies pension funds. Effectively,
20:08
Speaker 3: more than half a kind of DC assets under management
20:11
Speaker 3: are overseen by about the net some of fifty trustees,
20:15
Speaker 3: fifty people who are sort of like you know, setting
20:19
Speaker 3: and keeping an eye on policy. And the raison the
20:24
Speaker 3: LCP are raising. This is not because they're particularly criticizing
20:27
Speaker 3: the individuals are in like that. They're just making the
20:30
Speaker 3: point that the bigger that these trusts get, and that's
20:35
Speaker 3: the direction of travel, the further away the end, well
20:40
Speaker 3: the employer themselves, but also the employee gets from any
20:43
Speaker 3: kind of accountability, and I think is we kind of
20:47
Speaker 3: discuss that that is actually a problem, and it also
20:50
Speaker 3: kind of solidified for me that the weight of responsibility
20:56
Speaker 3: for making sure that there is an accountability channel should
20:59
Speaker 3: be on the providers because they are the ones who
21:02
Speaker 3: currently have all the power, and so they are the
21:04
Speaker 3: ones that should have the responsibility for actually addressing the
21:09
Speaker 3: the imbalance that's kind of created by that. I mean,
21:13
Speaker 3: it does come back to at the end of the day,
21:15
Speaker 3: what you need to do as an individual is to
21:17
Speaker 3: make sure that you know what's in your pension fund
21:20
Speaker 3: that your employers put you in and then examine your
21:25
Speaker 3: opportunities you have for putting it in different things, because
21:27
Speaker 3: you know, obviously most providers will give you various options.
21:31
Speaker 3: But beyond that, we probably do need to have a
21:33
Speaker 3: conversation about how do we kind of make this accountability
21:36
Speaker 3: line very strong and perhaps kind of voting on us
21:41
Speaker 3: allocation issues. That sort of thing is kind of you
21:44
Speaker 3: mentioned as.
21:44
Speaker 1: We discussed the other day. I mean, I wonder John
21:47
Speaker 1: if obviously with I thoroughly disapprove of the savvy Squirrel campaign,
21:53
Speaker 1: and I wonder if we aren't doing this wrong in
21:56
Speaker 1: that we're encouraging people to invest without making them aware
22:01
Speaker 1: of the fact that they already invest. And so an
22:05
Speaker 1: information campaign around what your auto enrollment pension actually is
22:10
Speaker 1: and what it means and what your rights are around
22:15
Speaker 1: it and how you can challenge or not challenge the investments,
22:18
Speaker 1: but just a pure information campaign. Hey, look, you're on work, correct,
22:21
Speaker 1: well done, You're kind of unusual these days, but you've
22:23
Speaker 1: got a job. Now, you have that job, and you
22:26
Speaker 1: have this pension. This is what it is, This is
22:30
Speaker 1: what you are doing already, this is how you are participating.
22:32
Speaker 1: This doesn't require a squirrel, but it does require an
22:35
Speaker 1: information campaign and I would really approve of that, would
22:40
Speaker 1: really approve of that. So let's I don't know who
22:45
Speaker 1: we email about that, but someone.
22:46
Speaker 3: Learned maybe we should just keep talking about let's.
22:49
Speaker 1: Do that what we do and just talk about it. Yeah.
22:53
Speaker 1: The other thing, actually, the old that I'm just thinking about,
22:55
Speaker 1: what we're thinking about this is if you really want
22:57
Speaker 1: to encourage people to invest, one of the things you
22:59
Speaker 1: really should not be doing is removing the power of
23:01
Speaker 1: the shareholder. And I don't know if you've seen this
23:03
Speaker 1: muttering about removing individual shareholder rights to vote on remuneration
23:07
Speaker 1: and to have a physical agm. I don't know. Under conversation,
23:11
Speaker 1: I mean, this is an outrage.
23:12
Speaker 3: I didn't I didn't realize this the newspapers.
23:15
Speaker 2: I must reat some of those one day.
23:17
Speaker 1: Yes, So if you want people to invest, you don't
23:20
Speaker 1: want to take away some of their rights along the
23:21
Speaker 1: way anyway, So anything else should we leave it there?
23:25
Speaker 1: Different information campaigns jolly good, but make it any nothing we.
23:28
Speaker 3: Put the world to rates they are And remember, really,
23:31
Speaker 3: squirrels are evil.
23:33
Speaker 2: That's that's the isn't it that?
23:35
Speaker 1: The no, no, no, no. The takeaway is that the
23:38
Speaker 1: red squirrel is emblematic of pretty much everything that is
23:41
Speaker 1: wrong with the UK state.
23:43
Speaker 2: Do you know what it is like the panda?
23:45
Speaker 3: Then we should give them to countries that we don't like.
23:53
Speaker 3: Said that onsador in the US. Hey, Donald Trump, he's
23:57
Speaker 3: a red squirrel. These heels are we bit like.
23:59
Speaker 1: You to send China a pair of squirrels and charge
24:03
Speaker 1: them a million dollars a year to.
24:04
Speaker 2: Keep other differ say? Is delightly meet?
24:10
Speaker 1: It's absolutely brilliant. You should have been a diplomat. Absolutely
24:18
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to this week's Marrion Dogs your money.
24:21
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24:23
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24:27
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24:30
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24:33
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24:35
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