On Sunday the Observer and others reported:
Ministers are finalising a radical plan to boost investment in UK infrastructure and stimulate the economy, with proposals to pool the vast assets held in British pension funds and use them to back an ambitious programme of road and house building.
Pension and insurance funds are to be encouraged to invest up to £50bn in improving infrastructure, including private and social housing, power stations, super-fast broadband and motorway toll roads.
Now where could Vince Cable - a man who has raed much of my work (and we know this is a LibDem sourced idea) - have got such thinking from?
Could it be from my paper for Finance for the Future entitled 'Making Pensions Work' where I said:
Most importantly we suggest that if those pension funds are to attract tax relief in future they mus tuse a significant part of the £80 billion of contributions they receive each year to invest in new jobs, new technology and new infrastructure for the UK so that the wealth that is needed to grow our economy, to create jobs and to build the real capital base that must be passed to the next generation is built on the back of pension fund investment.
There is a remarkable similarity between what I wrote on pension investment there (and in the Green New Deal) and in what is being proposed.
Come on Vince, acknowledge your sources.
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A good idea, but I think investing my pension in the stock market is slightly less risky at the moment, given the state of the economy.
As I mentioned in your other thread, I think the best way is to release the pension funds to the pension owners. At the moment, when someone retires they can take 25% tax free and then the rest either buys and annuity, income draw down, etc.. If the retiree could take 25% tax free, then pay tax on more, perhaps the remainder, that would be a phenominal boost to the tax man, without having to repay (or devalue) bonds.
Can pension proposals be patented?
I would like to see it happen, but it seems it is Vince Cable who has proposed this and Vince Cable’s track record on actually getting beneficial policies implemented is not great.
Vince Cable may often talk a half decent game, but at the end of the day, it is the tories who are in charge of economic policy, so I probably wouldn’t hold your breath waiting for any of this to happen..
I’d love to be proved wrong though! 🙂