The cost of false security

Investors have been paying a premium for the safety of investing their money in defensive stocks. But that's not to say they'll get it, says Merryn Somerset Webb.

A few years ago, we suggested that a good way to cut the benefits bill would be to raise the minimum wage. Why? Because it creates "welfare to workers": no one can live on the minimum wage in Britain, so the state ends up topping up the incomes of all those being paid it.

The net result is that the taxpayer makes up the wages of Britain's big companies, and so hugely subsidises their profits. If wages were higher, profits might be lower, but at the same time, thousands of people would be taken out of the benefits system. That's better for them and, as taxpayers at least, it is better for the rest of us too.

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.