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Sunday, June 15th

High public spending: Brown's 'scorched-earth policy'? For grown-up consumers


In a scary but thoughtful article Spectator political editor Fraser Nelson suggests Gordon Brown, having lost his legacy as a prudent chancellor will spend, spend, spend and leave David Cameron with the bill. 'Unencumbered by the need to win an election, Mr Brown can spend the next two long years focusing on his legacy - health spending, education spending and international aid at the highest levels in British history and, best of all, much of it slapped on a credit-card bill that will be posted to a Conservative government'.

Ultimately the bond market is the only check on a profligate government between elections. It works as a check by jacking up the rates at which it is prepared to lend new money, even if it imposes losses on current debt. Nelson believes Brown knows this and will try to get round it be relying on private finance initiatives, where the bill takes the form of excessive equity-type contract payments rather than debt interest. Who will discipline this sort of 'stealth profligacy'?
Stuart Fowler on 06.15.08 @ 07:51 PM GMT [">link]


Monday, June 9th

Making pension planning safer For grown-up consumers


In a FTfm article in the 'Talking Head' series of May 19 three authors of a paper presented to a recent World Bank conference in Washington DC likened the current state of defined contribution pension planning to the early stages of airplane design, when poorly understood technology led to crashes. They contrasted it with the present state of planning plane journeys, when safe outcomes are largely assured by the underlying engineering and the focus is on choices the travellers themselves make that best suit their preferences.

Ten years ago, similar observations led us to build a model that integrated the planning, accumulation and decumulation phases of personal pensions - the three phases that Messrs Blake, Curtis and Dowd liken to take-off, cruising and landing. We had our own aborted take-offs commercialising the model but for several years it has been used to plan and manage the capital of private clients assigned to a goal with "defined outcomes", the commonest goal being retirement spending.

Follow this link to our 'Feedback' article in FTfm today to see our observations on how technology changes the customer experience of both journey planning and journey management and what technology aspects are mission critical. (If you are not registered with ft.com you will need to do so. It's free for a trial.)

Stuart Fowler on 06.09.08 @ 05:47 PM GMT [">link]




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