HSBC asks what the world wants from retirement

HELLO again Mr Jeffs, thanks for your prompt response; thanks also for your undeserved apology because you haven't upset me nor angered me, maybe frustrated through flippancy perhaps, so no harm done. Indeed it is I that should offer an apology as I tend to be too blunt and direct for my own good and don't tolerate fools gladly as they say. I just do my best and make my contribution as I see it and hope it is found helpful, if forceful on occasion.

All forums are open and democratic. . . . . to those allowed to participate, this taken as read. Opinions might be better expressed if well thought out, backed by conviction or passion or experience of a given situation, and they should surely point towards or offer solutions if possible otherwise they represent an underweight contribution to the debate, don't you agree?

Welcome to the Retirement Pensions debate; let's strike a match together!
Let there be light!

Best wishes,
David C.G.BOWIE

David, I notice that you joined recently and this is your first post? I'll therefore assume your anger (if that's what it is) is based on the fact that you don't (yet) appreciate what this forum is for.

We are all here to voice opinions, and for the freedom to speak as we see it. I've been on this forum for a while and do just that. Sometimes I agree with folks and sometimes I don't. same goes for others who may, or may not, agree with my views. I fully accept that.

There is one fundemental thing about WPL though, everyone is allowed their say. As the old saying goes 'I may not agree with what you say, but I defend your right to say it'. I believe that's called democracy?

Sorry if I upset you. I'll watch out for you posting again and be careful to avoid replying to your posts....

WELL Mr Jeffs you have clearly read into my remarks (for others as I'm alright thanks Jack) what you want to because I was not alluding to communism at all. Indeed I detest any form of anti-individual totalitarianism; but civil society does have law and order and for good reason.

Furthermore, having been self-employed for 15 years in the cut and thrust of capitalism overlooked by communism, in Hong Kong's pre-handover, I came to respect those that escaped by swimming for their lives to our form of freedom, and I have a healthy regard for earning, using and saving free capital lest I too end up in a rented metal cage little bigger than those used for pig transport. Others did. Some retirement!

You obviously find some of my concepts difficult to grasp or perhaps too radical, or maybe they cut across interests you are vested in? They might well be profitably explored, and they cost you nothing except your time and intelligence to think problems through constructively.

The problems facing future retirees are seen seriously at national levels and responsible governments are at least paying lip service to trying to solve their perceived future crises. This, presumably, is why HSBC carried out its useful survey into the subject.

Your attempt in your final paragraph to make fun at my expense by suggesting my own actions would not be possible under communism is obtuse as I didn't advocate it in the first place. Read and study Mr Jeffs.

Regarding your last sentence about pensions as of right, again you have read what you want to. I have PAID for my so-called State Pension under its terms of set-up and think it only right that payments should be paid me as per agreed contract. Indeed I have just sent off another hefty top-up cheque to the UK Treasury to augment further my future paltry payments.

Get with it Mr Jeffs. Some constructive ideas or specific criticisms please and less of the generalised pot-shotting jipes and snypes. . . unless of course they are all you can contribute.

Best wishes,
David C.G. BOWIE

As I read this I kept thinking that many of the concepts had been tried before, just couldn't think where.

Now its come to me - communism in the USSR? The concept that all workers are equal, have equal pay, equal rights, and expect equal treatment. They were guaranteed a job, flat, and income for their working lives, and a retirement pension at the end of it. No drop in the stock market would affect them, and nothing would prevent them collecting their old age pension (well apart from dying early).

Amazing that such a solution has now fallen out of favour? Why, maybe because we want to retire early and move abroad, or maybe because we just want to be one of the 'fat cats' one day? Neither would have been possible under that old regime of course, but in these enlightend times we have so much more choice of what to do about our retirement, and the ability to earn a better pension if we want to strive hard for it instead of expecting it as a right?

RETIREMENT income can only be paid from individual work-income saved; no work income or the saving of it, no retirement income.
Simply viewed this way it is obvious high-income works could permit early retirements and/or greater pension payouts. . . . and vice versa.
Think about it; most EU people don't or can't afford to save. Pension prospects are grim even before future inflated prices bite.
There is no need for ever-higher incomes if costs of products and services are affordably low and the pot of money they chase for their share remains stable; competition does the business.
No sales because of no available money in a person's budget means makers and providers will meet real needs and what they can afford. . . they will have to hold prices down or go out of business through lack of sales. They do not want to go out of business!
Cheap imports to achieve low prices is not the answer as local jobs are threatened or lost, your ability to earn savings threatened, and your future pension savings threatened too.
We need to re-think our money-amassing "heroes" who suck in imports at our real living expense, many of whom hide away in tax-free havens when they retire. Imported low prices are in effect exporting our valuable money! And your pension with it!
We also need therefore to re-examine the whole business of "free trade" and government hidden subsidies for export achievements. . .also threatening our economy.
The USA does continue to subsidise its shipping, doesn't it? Japan still offers high-profit contracts at home for those achieving "strategic" exports, like steel, doesn't it?
As for inward investments creating jobs and prosperity. . . well, this hot money flows out just as fast as it comes in for tax incentives, market penetration and the like, and should be discouraged; in any case what does government know about industry anyway? Apart from taxing it to a standstill that is.
A radical approach is needed for our futures, most agree. Not waffle as usual. I believe the concept of "retirement" should be replaced in our minds with "lifetime living and learning" and that "work" should simply be regarded as a short-term notion or "phase" for gathering money to pay for it all. Ho ho!
Given we achieve low stable costs of living, which will come anyway as future low-budget pensioners can only use products and services they are able to afford, there is room for major changes in attitudes about retirement.
Governments that want to extend "pensionable retirement ages" have got it wrong. They need to shorten them!
Reducing retirement ages to say 50 years will allow fast-track replacement employment of lower costing, fitter and new-technology able younger generations.
Those "retired" with good experience and knowledge can continue as consultants if they wish and find a willing market. Or they can channel their knowledge and abilities into extracting the maximum out of other more personally rewarding activities which later-life living offers the newly freed person. A question of priorities.
This scenario is possible if concerted effort were applied. The problem though is still that "pensioners" must save for their pensions, whatever the costs of living.
In the UK and the EU generally no-one trusts governments, especially with pension funds. Pillaging comes to mind. Private-pension entities are equally untrusted following financial failures and general expense and incompetence.
There can be light if one strikes a match. My own solution has been to invest directly into well-diversified and managed HSBC shares, ploughing back dividends received, and cutting out commission middlemen and the like; I am happy with the 28% per annum return on my Blue-Chip investment this past 15 years. Thank you Sir John Bond and teams.
Incidentally, I "retired" at 40, now live modestly but not too much so (currently in France), and try to avoid waste of heavily taxed capital; I will soon receive a smaller than usual paid-for State Pension from the UK, where they have the gall to refer to my future just return as a "benefit"!
Somebody strike a match! If only for our children's benefit.
Best wishes
David C.G.BOWIE