Savings and Pensions have 0% returns after inflation

Millions of people in long term investments have little or nothing to show for decades of saving, with one in five with endowments and pensions delivering poor returns.

Investors still have approximately £290 billion in with profit endowments, pensions and bonds, which were sold during the 1980s and 1990s as a way of getting steady, equity-like returns. The schemes, which invest in a mix of assets in good years to pay out in the bad. Read more

Shorter working lives

Social commentators hark back to a supposed golden age when everyone had a job for life. That is wishful thinking. There was never such a time. Companies have always gone bust. People have always lost their jobs.

Others were forced out of work through accident, illness or social pressure. It is less than forty years ago that many employers – including the Civil Service – forced women to resign from their jobs when they married. Read more