Pensions and skills

Pensions don't grab everyone.  When I was a youngish researcher, about 35 years ago, I did a study of employee trustees of pension schemes, and how much influence they had on the way the schemes were managed.  I got quite into this, since it seemed (and seems) to me really interesting that there were employees formally involved in the management of huge sums of capital (even then, in the early 1980s, the funds were worth many billions).  "Pension fund socialism' was a prospect raised by the management guru of the time, Peter Drucker.  In fact I got so into the topic that my friends used to make 'switch-it-off' gestures; years…
Read More

Demography, price-earnings ratios – and the PP

The  Money section of the weekend's FT - yes, a regular read for me, though usually as a bit of financial anthropology more than anything else -  carried a piece by Norma Cohen which suggests that the investment growth of the late C20 will not be recovered for a long time, if at all.  The reason for this is the change shape of Western populations:  the passage of baby-boomers from middle age into retirement, and the shrinkage of the youth population.  The proportion of people aged 65+ in the UK has risen to 17%, and is projected to go up to nearly 25% in the next two decades. Conversely the 35-54 group is declining.  This…
Read More

Pensions and skills

Pensions don't grab everyone.  When I was a youngish researcher, about 35 years ago, I did a study of employee trustees of pension schemes, and how much influence they had on the way the schemes were managed.  I got quite into this, since it seemed (and seems) to me really interesting that there were employees formally involved in the management of huge sums of capital (even then, in the early 1980s, the funds were worth many billions).  "Pension fund socialism' was a prospect raised by the management guru of the time, Peter Drucker.  In fact I got so into the topic that my friends used to make 'switch-it-off' gestures; years…
Read More

Demography, price-earnings ratios – and the PP

The  Money section of the weekend's FT - yes, a regular read for me, though usually as a bit of financial anthropology more than anything else -  carried a piece by Norma Cohen which suggests that the investment growth of the late C20 will not be recovered for a long time, if at all.  The reason for this is the change shape of Western populations:  the passage of baby-boomers from middle age into retirement, and the shrinkage of the youth population.  The proportion of people aged 65+ in the UK has risen to 17%, and is projected to go up to nearly 25% in the next two decades. Conversely the 35-54 group is declining.  This…
Read More