This is a mega gripe so please don't bother to read if you are looking for some devastating insights into marketing to the older consumer.
Whenever a UK appointed Czar publishes a report you know that it is a softening up exercise for some government policy change. So I fear it will be with the State of the nation: social mobility and child poverty report that has just been published by Alan Milburn.
This is the Labour minister that presided over some of the worst decisions in the re-structuring the NHS. However, the guy must have something about him since he jumped from a government position (wanting to spend more time with his family etc) straight into working for private finance companies targeting the NHS and of all things advising PepsiCo.
Anyway, his report has been published and a central theme to it is oldie bashing. You know, how unfair it is that oldies are getting all of this cash and their poor grandchildren are having such a tough time of it.
Not surprising that one of the advisors to Mr Milburn was Paul Gregg from the Intergenerational
Foundation - a group of lefties who didn't get on with their parents and have declared war on anybody over the age of 50.
What amazes me, no it astonishes me, is that in a report that is supposed to have some substance and credibility (it is dripping with academic references) is how selective it is with the data it considers.
The things that is causing havoc with the financing of older people's lives are ignored. In all of the 318 pages there is no reference to :
The impact of low interest rates on income generation
The impact of QE on the value of annuities
The effect of age-related inflation on older people
Not a word.
A few other things might have been considered like the chaos that will be caused by interest only mortgages and the massive difference in the retirement prospects between state and private citizens.
Doesn't that make you wonder if these guys don't have an agenda? What should have been an excellent study of the facts (I bet it cost a fortune to create) is no more than a canvassing document for those that want target the savings and pensions of the older demographic.
If somebody has a different explanation then I would like to know. Dick Stroud
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