"Let us never forget this fundamental truth there is no such thing as public money; there is only taxpayers' money." So said Margaret Thatcher back in 1983. The point she was making at the time was that if the government wants or needs more money it has only one place to go for it. "It is no good thinking someone else will pay that someone else is you."*
Move forward 30 years and an awful lot of someone elses all of us at Moneyweek very much included are beginning to get very nervous indeed.
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Halifax: House prices were static in June, but first-time buyers returnThe average cost of a home grew by just £117 over the past month, Halifax says. Will the property market continue to be resilient?
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Top-performing investment trusts: Europe leads the pack in H1European small caps have been the best-performing investment trust sector so far this year, as investors move money out of the US. Can it continue?
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Our pension system, little-changed since Roman times, needs updatingOpinion The Romans introduced pensions, and we still have a similar system now. But there is one vital difference between Roman times and now that means the system needs updating, says Merryn Somerset Webb.
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We’re doing well on pensions – but we still need to do betterOpinion Pensions auto-enrolment has vastly increased the number of people in the UK with retirement savings. But we’re still not engaged enough, says Merryn Somerset Webb.
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Older people may own their own home, but the young have better pensionsOpinion UK house prices mean owning a home remains a pipe dream for many young people, but they should have a comfortable retirement, says Merryn Somerset Webb.
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How to avoid a miserable retirementOpinion The trouble with the UK’s private pension system, says Merryn Somerset Webb, is that it leaves most of us at the mercy of the markets. And the outlook for the markets is miserable.
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Young investors could bet on NFTs over traditional investmentsOpinion The first batch of child trust funds and Junior Isas are maturing. But young investors could be tempted to bet their proceeds on digital baubles such as NFTs rather than rolling their money over into traditional investments
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Pandemics, politicians and gold-plated pensionsAdvice As more and more people lose their jobs to the pandemic and the lockdowns imposed to deal with it, there’s one bunch of people who won’t have to worry about their future: politicians, with their generous defined-benefits pensions.
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How to have a low-tax retirement in the sunNews Greece is to offer a ten-year tax incentive to foreign pensioners. That’s a pretty good offer, says Merryn Somerset Webb. But it might not last.
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Prepare yourself for a rise in capital gains taxOpinion With the UK desperate to raise more money to cover the massive rise in public spending, squeezing more revenue out of capital gains tax looks like an obvious thing to do.
