Freaky in The Guardian

[rockfreak]

After a long layoff he's back again in the Grauniad (4 March). This time I'm protesting about City attempts to try and wean Cash Isa holders (of which I'm one) off their chosen investment instruments and onto British-based equity plans. I make the point that we've been here before when Thatcher and Lawson encouraged people to become part of the "share-owning democracy" and it duly blew up in 1990 after overheating. Most people then decided that they couldn't be Warren Buffett after all. For the ordinary punter their main concern is probably to have some reliable, building society investments which will at least be some kind of a hedge against inflation.

This may well resound with our Banker Brown who will have spent most of his working life in the rather more stable, pre-Lawsonite eras before huge bankers bonuses and when there was a separation between the two functions of the banks and the building societies.

[rockfreak]

So no response to my points about investing. There must be someone out there who's made a killing by some means or other. The only reason that I mention the subject is because my move a couple of years ago from a house in Gravesend to a modest retirement flat near Brighton (complete with sea view) left me, rather surprisingly, with a serious sum of money like I've never had before and so I was obliged to find a safe haven for it.

The Nationwide's investment advice women immediately poo-poohed my ideas of becoming Warren Buffett when she discovered my age and told me that any investment share plan she gave was for at least six years. She clearly thought that I might pop my clogs before then. It didn't help that I hadn't at that time got round to getting a hearing aid and was asking her to repeat everything over the phone. So I opted for premium bonds and cash Isas with two building societies. I've had a few wins with the premium bonds and it clearly benefits you the more you can hold. I was unlucky with the Isas because I took them out just a week before La Truss got up to her tricks and within another week they'd put on a whole point of interest (based around the yield on gilts which a nervous market sent upwards), Sometimes things can happen within the lifetime of a lettuce.

John Maynard Keynes once said that trouble starts when governments tell people they can get rich without working. This seems to have been proved by the events of the late 80s and early 90s when Thatcher and Lawson let finance rip and tried to promote the share-owning democracy and the property-owning democracy. It built up into an unsustainable bubble of private speculative cash and duly went pop.

[Avon]

So no response to my points about investing.

Probably because you never reply.

I’m surprised a house in Gravesend has much value at all.

[sejintenej]

This may well resound with our Banker Brown who will have spent most of his working life in the rather more stable, pre-Lawsonite eras before huge bankers bonuses and when there was a separation between the two functions of the banks and the building societies.

Fortunately I was otherwise engaged; you would be amazed at the scope for work in banks then and now. Any good as a 3 star chef? how about an electrician not connect with Heathrow? I spent 25 years deep in the throes of UK, New York(just a bit there) and Brazilian banking law; looking back perhaps the only financial side I did not do was buy and sell bonds - yes, I did buy and sell renmibi! At the time I retire I was responsible for 13 searate jobs in the bank from fire fighting training to translation to risk analysis to working in clients' offices (and got one mention on the FT front page (for that $25 billion item) and one on the back when I joint won the Xmas writing competition (both carries out in bnbk premises)..

So no response to my points about investing. There must be someone out there who's made a killing by some means or other.

Yes, I have got an ISA the shares have multiplied their value, but the funds have not done so well. I prefer to do my own research helped by the freebies posted on the internet and detailed analysis of companies. Doing it this way I can buy today and sell tomorrow.
Examples - I had looked at a north west England motor sales etc and rated it just about OK but no big forward. Read 7am of a takeover bid so bought the moment the market opened and before the price jumped; it did get taken over two months later. This one is old but I loved it. Going into bad recession but the rich do not stop spending. What do they buy? Ferrari cars and who was th UK cocessionaire at that time? They and I did very well as the other shares slumped.