Mitzyboy

It just seems a little odd, considering KG's previous posts. I watched a piece on it the other day and OK, if you'd bought some time ago at lower prices then thats good, but now ..... well, it's a little strange

Domino

like total cashing in of QROPS

kerrygreen

Well don't start squealing when you come to find your hard-earned pension pot has either disappeared thanks to the global financial meltdown or by some sticky fingered politico.

What's happening now isn't one of the usual market corrections or a recession - it's a full-on depression, the consequences of which nobody realises yet.

Mitzyboy

KG, you just told us that you are putting your dosh into SA kruggerands. As far as I am concerned that says it all, because (a) you seem to have more information on the decline of the EU and all the financial markets than all of the "experts" do and (b) who in their right mind is going to invest in KG at their high point when the only ways they can go is level or down.

You do what you think is best.
We'll do what we think is best

Domino

in case you haven't noticed, France has already started to sort it out by banning short-selling.
it is only a small number of stupid people paid stupid sums going around saying "buy krugger-rands !!" "buy wallflowers !!" or "buy toxic mortgages !!" and even more stupid people actually listening and doing it.
it causes peaks and troughs in markets that cannot ever respond on a same day basis. A world wide shortage of wallflowers will take up to a year to resolve.

it was one man, George Soros, who caused the Pound Mayhem by selling and buying. He made a couple of $billions - we were still paying for it many years later.

must remember to buy some belly-pork !!

kerrygreen

I'll admit a few of my posts have been a bit tongue-in-cheek, but I can honestly see the day when pension companies just do not have the money to pay out annuities.

Also there will be a time when money in the bank is worthless - so the reason I have bought a few krugers (£10,000) is that they will always be worth something. I haven't bought them for any sort of investment value but purely because they are 'tangible' and not just a set of figures or piece of paper.

Now you can regard me as some kind of nut or doom and gloom merchant, but the way things used to work are starting not to work and will soon not work at all.

You must see that things are different now - like nothing we have seen before and I honestly can't see it ever returning to how it was.

What will be in its place remains to be seen - but it aint gonna be pretty

Mitzyboy

No, I dont see you as a nut. I'm not sure about your choice of investment, but then you arent about mine.

What I'm not sure about is how blinkered you are. I say that because, believe it or not, I can see both sides of the story even though I've come down on one side ... wheres I think you have decided it's all going to sh!t, and thats it. What I still havent seen is the basis for you making this claim.

I agree, since the banking crash things have been somewhat fluid to say the least. However the world isn't going to collapse in on itself. It may go through some very tough times financially, but as Dom says .. they are already tackling it. The riots were nothing to do with world crisis. It was about greedy kids taking advantage. I see little difference between the "crisis" now and others that have happened in the past. It was just bought on by a very different thing and if we lose a bank along the way then so be it. Wow, even the FTSE was on the way back up earlier

Spain, Italy .... we'll see, but if it does come to that then I cannot see any way that they wont get help. Thats what the EU is all about, eh?

Me, I spread myself over bonds, property in two countries, stocks and what was known as ISA's. I have Government Pension and two private which are doing surprisingly well. I can do no more than spread myself about, but cash aint much use in producing any income at all

kerrygreen

When the EU, or Common Market as it was first known, was just a twinkle in the German/Franco eye in the mid-50s, the aim was always to have a single european currency and with it one euro-wide economic policy.

They knew way back then that the less robust countries in a single currency would eventually struggle and have to obtain finance from the euro giants in return for handing over their sovereign economic policy. The also knew, obviously, that individual countries residents would never vote to hand over their economic destiny to France or Germany so the single currency was a underhand route to achieve this.

It was actually set up specifically to force smaller countries to ask for hand-outs. But the problem they have now is they never envisaged the scale of the problem they have created and have no idea how to stop what is in effect a domino effect.

I applaud your obviously well thought out investments and pray they continue to keep you in clover for the rest of your natural!

I shall go off to put on my hair shirt and indulge a spot of flagellation,

Im_and_Er

Recent developments:

http://www.blevinsfranks.com/print_news.aspx?p=545

Note in particular the paragraph which says:

HMRC have made it clear that any company facilitating trust busting by the release of more than the maximum permitted cash will mean that all of the applications received by that QROPS will be revoked retrospectively so that all transfers from the outset will be subject to an unauthorised payment of charge regardless of how long the client has been non UK resident. These charges are collectible personally from each client across country borders. The penalties will even be collectible against clients who have not trust busted, as well as those who have, so the innocent get swept up with this too. Ignorance of the dangers by the client is not a defence, however reasonable it was for him/her to rely on the adviser.

Would you risk it, damned if I would ?

Domino

its like that nice man Mr Madoff telling people that if they invest with him he will give them 20% over base rate. Forget what you hear about the market, I will look after you.
for well over 5 years some people were saying it was a scam, whilst others in high positions in financial institutions were supporting the scam.

caveat emptor

I remember carrying on buying mono records because I wasnt so certain that stereo would take off - so what do I know

Mitzyboy

Hmmmmmmm ..... task force formed by HMRC, eh???

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showt...90#post9767890

Joe-Soap

I worked for 14 years in the UK. I have been living in Ireland for the last 2 years.
I do not have a pension fund.
I realised at 18 years of age when I started working that having a pension fund in an EU country might not be worth much at 65 years of age (then retirement age).
So what I did was put my money into bricks and mortar. Instead of paying into a pension fund. I bought a house during the Troubles in Northern Ireland in a border area very cheap. I speculated that after the Belfast Agreement (Good Friday Agreement) was signed, that the value of my house would increase. And so it did. It kept on going up until I sold it at the peak of the Celtic Tiger boom in 2005.
I have been unemployed now for the last 2 years. I don't claim any social welfare from the state. I live off my savings. I own 2 properties; one in Northern Ireland, and one in the Republic of Ireland. I live in one and rent out the other. That is my pension fund for the future.
I realised that you cannot trade out of debt, purchasing Dollars, Sterling, Krugerands with Euro.
My advice to anyone with a pension in an EU country, is to withdraw your money now and buy property at a low price. Now is a good time to do this.
You can rent the property out, and that covers the mortgage, irrespective of the Euro values.
Then you can either sell your property, or keep renting it as an income.
I am 34 years of age and have been doing this since I was 18.
I have seen recessions come and go, and the value of the Euro go up and down during that time.
Investing your money in property is safer long term than investing your money in a pension fund.

Cuthbert Rizla

So, exactly how many recessions have you seen " come and go " in the last 16 years ?
Or are you talking gibberish again ?

Im_and_Er

Whilst I applaud your entrepreneureal spirit withdrawing money wholesale from long established pension schemes as you suggest is simply not possible.

Joe-Soap

Two.
The recession of the 1980's.
And the recession of the 1990's.