Pensions and how they are run!

[Calimachon]

I am subscribed to:

http://www.lovemoney.com/news/savings-investments-pensions/pensions/14428/make-your-baby-a-millionaire?source=1000564

which is quite an informative site and you learn as much from the contributions by posters at the end of the related article as much as anything, such as the following quote relating to purchasing a pension for a child, below from Westwind3 somewhere down the webpage

QUOTE:

I have never understood how apparently intelligent people can consider putting money into a child's pension. The money can't be taken out, but the rules can be changed at any time over 40 years to make the investment worthless. It is about as wise as leaving a £20 note on the pavement and expecting it to be there the next day.
Until recently I was a pension fund trustee. As long as I can remember, politicians have felt the need to legislate and relegislate pensions. I am no fan of Gordon Brown, but I can assure you that messing up pensions is a strictly bipartisan political activity. Ken Clark probably did as much harm.
Ask yourself how likely it is that the current rules will last for 4 years, let alone 40? How likely is it than any changes will be beneficial?

UNQUOTE

Just about sums up Insurance Companies and Pension Funds really doesn't it?  I do believe that the benefits are heavily weighted towards the Company running these schemes and I never understood why Governments intervened until recently.  The members of the Government are the Insurance companies, they probably own them or are on the Board of Directors.  No wonder they make the jargon hard to understand and difficult to fathom.

Cali

[danrok]

Pensions work much the same way as illegal Ponzi schemes.

Works well, so long as there are always new people joining in larger numbers.  Otherwise, they will have to magic money out of thin air.

[man in the street]

i dont have one and cannot afford one.
 also  due to people like bernie madof  can not trust them  as i  already have  had a taste of  "market value reduction"
 i like premium bonds , may take out something to pay to bury me .

[Calimachon]

Glad I don't have a private pension the way they are going.  Two very decent, hard-working friends had pensions with the latest pension scheme to go down (Equity & Life I think), they were devastated and after all those years of hard work.

I read that Maddof and his wife sent their son her jewellery by post as soon as they learned he was going to be arrested - so he would get some kind of inheritance once his father was fingered by the law!

Greatest scandals Maxwell, Maddof and Equity and Life.  The nastiest forms of fraud you can imagine.

Cali