globaldiver

2-2?

£donations 2013: £100,331,808 2015: £99,418,831 2017: £82,154,943 2019: £63,548,6681 2021: £52,025,4851 2022: £42,790,1471 2023: £31,952,1411 Cost of living crisis? Donor fatigue? Something else?

Looks the most likely scenario. I reckon we’ll win both.

Murrell now gone

You know best

🤣😂🤣😂

The government doesn’t have any income! Or money! It’s from tax or borrowing 😇

Although, I like his summary of what went wrong. Easy to blame “bankers bonuses”

Quite There are plenty of risks in everything.

This is what Nick Leeson said a couple of days ago; “Not since my own reckless risk-taking back at Barings in the nineties have we seen a bank sold for £1. That is until this week, when the princely sum was paid by HSBC to rescue the UK arm of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB). Whilst the news comes as a huge sigh of relief for UK tech start-ups that bank with SVB, it also raises the question of how and why? SVB is the largest bank failure since the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. It’s the second-largest banking failure in the history of the United States. As to how? The bank’s overriding business strategy was that interest rates would remain low and we’ll lend to companies that benefit from a low-interest rate environment – growth and tech stocks. Putting all your eggs in one basket sounds a little crude but it’s not far from the truth. Nobody told the FED, who have been raising rates aggressively now for some time. Deposits started leaving the bank and they had to raise capital to offset fleeing deposits as well as suffering a $1.8 billion loss on treasury bonds whose values were demolished by the FED rate hikes. My own sorry story that ended in bank collapse, one step up from bank failure, was slightly over 28 years ago. In the intervening period, there has been a series of changes to the banking and financial environment to make matters more transparent, banking safer, and regulation better. As to the why? Exactly the same reasons as 28 years ago – bad decisions, poor controls, inefficient regulation, poor governance, and a host of other control mechanisms that have failed. FTX collapsed in November 2022. It’s only March 2023. Whilst different, surely one suggests banks take a closer look at themselves”

They don’t know your personal pension and financial position!

I don’t know, but it sounds as though they are trying to be more like yanks. The remuneration of US executives can be eye watering, and how they get there really worries me, with leveraged buyouts etc. I’m trying to keep away from investing into the US at the moment.

This budget didn’t freeze thresholds, that was done last year! Yes, retire.

Well put. If possible, and especially for basic rate taxpayers, saving into an ISA complements a pension well, as any income (or any withdrawal) is tax free, which effectively increases the personal allowance.

They just got bored with being Swiss

Just ask if you need anything else.

Some pigs are more equal.

If the SNP had managed the country at all competently, the 45/55 could have moved in their favour. This would have been better policy than hatred of England. Clearly, Sturgeon’s transgender nonsense has made the critical difference.

I think it’s more that the introduction of the cap could affect 25% in the future. Looking at your question, it means that if you put in enough and/or have decent investment returns to bust the Lifetime Allowance, then you wouldn’t be subject to an additional charge on busting (and/or age 75) This could save a lot of money. One of the key benefits, in my view, is the ability to continue to invest “correctly” to achieve your desired income throughout life, rather than keeping an eye on the Lifetime Allowance and tax you might pay. Hope that makes sense!

From ONS Data: Top 1% earn £688,228+ Top 25% are on £76,098+ - which the pensions caps WILL affect. That includes Doctors, Consultants, and many other professional trades. * am rechecking figures

Quite

What’s gone wrong; “It is becoming increasingly clear we nearly had another Lehman moment. ‘Regulators and central banks starred at the abyss and decided they did not want to go there,’ one source close to the events told me. Credit Suisse really was on the verge of failing as potential losses on its bond portfolio would have sent its capital way below 8%, triggering contingent capital instruments ‘CoCos’, and left it scrabbling to raise new capital in an impossible market. This would have triggered a massive confidence collapse and systemic crisis across European finance, necessitating all-out bailouts and liquidity injections, raising social risk. French banks had massive derivative exposures on the name. After pleas from Credit Suisse execs, the Swiss National Bank stepped in with a £45bn liquidity backstop which should relieve immediate pressure, but this fixes little in the long run. Once confidence in a bank is broken, it tends to stay that way. It’s difficult to imagine how unlike anything in banking history, the long slow lingering demise of Credit Suisse has been. If it was a dog, we’d have cuddled it one final time, kissed it goodbye and shot it. Instead, we’ve got to watch the once towering titan of the global financial stage totter through senility, raging incoherently at the dying of the light. The immediate crisis was brought about when its largest shareholder, a Saudi Bank, stated it would not be increasing its stake. That was seen as a notification of a collapse in confidence in the bank and its management. Earlier it had reported material weaknesses in its financial reporting for the past two years. When Switzerland’s second largest bank lacks the basic competency to count its money that’s a problem. Back when I was a young banker in the 1980s, Credit Suisse was a legend. Ossie Grubel was the banker’s banker, the trader’s trader who rose to ultimately became CEO. Credit Suisse First Boston made Goldman look second tier in investment banking. What went wrong? A series of poor management choices, a failure to understand the unique risks it faces, a dereliction of clients, a failure to nurture its private banking, a loss of confidence in its investment banking division. The once successful Swiss Bank became an international bank with a Swiss name run by international banking technocrats with little understanding of its unique strength or culture. For years it has being trying to reinvent itself. Multiple plans replaced by new plans, vaguely worded around ‘cultural transformation’, ‘risk management’ and ‘control processes’ to strengthen its Wealth Management, Private Banking and Swiss Banking division. Frankly when you’ve read a recovery plan in October, and a new one is announced in March, it’s difficult to find the enthusiasm to open it. Over the past few years, if there has been a banking scandal or screw up, you can bet Credit Suisse’s name will be all over it. The bank lost the plot regarding managing and understanding its risk, encouraging bankers to chase anything on the basis it might work. It imposed a culture of profit first, and prudence last. From funding fraudulent tuna fishing boats in Mozambique, multiple drug money laundering failures, spying on its staff, backing financial scam artists like Greensill, or losing billions on hedge fund scam Archegos, you name it, Credit Suisse was there. However, Credit Suisse had the wherewithal to withstand depositors demanding their cash back. There is no black hole at the core of its credit book set to consume the bank from within that we know of, yet. But my gut tells me Credit Suisse is history. Confidence has gone. It will likely to be ‘supported’ – rather than outright rescued – by the Swiss Government. It’s too big as a systemically important financial institution in Europe and globally, and too critical to the Swiss economy. The most likely outcome now is a distressed sale. Realistically, UBS is the only likely buyer. The Swiss will not want one of its ‘national champion’ banks going overseas. UBS is a better managed institution and big enough. It will be a brutal takeout and Geneva will be the loser. UBS (or any other bank) will see a purchase of Credit Suisse as a rescue and will look at HSBC’s £1 purchase of Silicon Valley Bank UK earlier this week as their pricing point. A takeover feels inevitable. If it happens, then there is a chance, a slim one, even the Germans might take notice, and Europe’s overbanked market of lacklustre national champions might be resolved into a unified banking environment. Who am I kidding? That will never happen!”

Really nice

Labour do have form when it comes to protecting the pensions of certain groups. Lord Falconer persuaded Tony Blair to make the Judges Pension Scheme an unauthorised scheme. The effect of this was that the Lifetime Allowance didn’t apply and that they could build up another fund, then up to £1.8m, in a tax advantaged manner. Kerching. Judges pension was a 40ths scheme at the time, maximum benefits accrued after 20 years. (Cash was on top). No contribution was expected from the Judge (changed from 2012) From memory Falconer and Blair were best mates (?)

They most certainly are leaving because of the pension situation https://www.bma.org.uk/news-and-opinion/government-raises-annual-allowance-for-pensions