Wednesday, August 03, 2011

Get into the poverty business - it is going to be huge



A report has just been published by yet another group of worthies (The Workplace Retirement Income Commission) about the sad state of pension provision in the UK.

These reports are all well and good and do provide a good source of research but of course they do no good since nobody in power has the slightest intention of doing anything about the findings. I guess it keeps the worthies off the streets.

We all know what the findings are going to be. Lots and lots and lots of people will retire, expecting to live a long time, but have ziltch to fund their retirement. It doesn't matter how you cut and dice the numbers you are always going to come to same conclusion.

I think the two tables are self-explanatory. Just in case you want it drummed home. Nearly 40% of people aged 65-74 have no private pension wealth. Now, it has suddenly struck me that this might include public sector workers who get their pensions funded by the state (us poor numbsculls in the private sector)  - I don't think that it does.

Just look at the way that live expectancy has and is increasing.

These destitute older people are still going to need basic services. Companies that understand that there will be a large but poor group of older consumers can still make money.

We have often used terms like old-old and young-old. Start to get used to terms like old-rich and old-poor. Dick Stroud

No comments: