(posted 7959 days ago)Guardian
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Get a grip on yourself
These days, thanks to the pensions crisis, everyone thinks they're a financial hypochondriac. Back off, says Lloyd Shepherd, and leave the fretting to the professionals.Guardian Unlimited
Thursday July 11, 2002
As a financial hypochondriac, one gets used to being ignored at parties. Normally, people don't want to talk about savings rates or tax-efficient investments or even how easy it is to move your bank account these days. No-one ever scored with this kind of schtick. The only thing going for us hypochondriacs is that we know more about this stuff than you do, so that, all other things being equal, we will have more money to worry about than you will at some point in the future.
I may check my bank statement against my bank account. I may even go to the effort of understanding the difference between a maxi and a mini Isa. But at least I'm different. At least I'm not a run-of-the-mill, couldn't-care-less-about-money-too-busy-living thirtysomething who won't be able to afford an evening at the bingo in 2040.
How wrong can you be? Because suddenly, everybody, I mean everybody, is a financial hypochondriac. Even the weather is taking second place to concerns about people's fiscal future. A basic understanding of global capital is not yet the key to picking up beautiful strangers at parties, but it's getting there. The world, in short, has gone stark raving mad. What has done this to people?
Pensions.
Pensions. The very word makes you shiver, doesn't it?
Where were you when you first heard the words "final salary pension"? Did you care? Did it make you cross and frustrated? Or did you yawn and turn back to something more interesting, like Big Brother? My guess is that one of my brothers and sisters in hypochondria was probably trying to impress on you the importance of the fact that your final salary scheme was about to be abolished. But you didn't listen, did you? It was probably 1999, share prices were on the up, and you were just considering which dotcom to join and what to spend your stock options on. How things change. Final salary pensions are now a bigger issue than the NHS, education, transport and Big Brother rolled into one. Everyone knows the British like a good moan, and boy, are we proving it at the moment.
Not only is the weather appalling, but we're going to be destitute as well. Every man and woman in the country has nothing to look forward to but financial despair and the minimum state pension. Instead of swanning round the Costa del Sol on our high-specification yacht, we're all going to be queuing outside the post office in Kennington in the rain.
Our grandchildren will not be spoiled with expensive toys and visits to theme parks, but will have to put up with cheap plastic stuff from Poundstretcher. Two visits to cultural Italy each year will be replaced by a week in a caravan in Anglesey. If this all sounds a bit snobbish - after all, a lot of people do live like this - you've missed the point. This isn't general financial hypochondria; this is middle class financial hypochondria.
This flurry of sado- masochism has been sparked by something quite simple: a fall in share prices. A big, bad, nasty fall in share prices. And because share prices are statistical beasts, this has led to a batch of learned comparisons with history, in much the same way as we compare current weather conditions with those of the past. This is the wettest summer since 1960, and this is the worst bear market for shares since Wallace P. Threadneedle lost 50 quid when the South Sea Bubble exploded in 17-whenever-it-was.
The favourite comparison is with the Wall Street Crash of 1929 (you can tell it was bad, because of the capital C in Crash). Journalists and analysts have gleefully stoked our hypochondria by pointing out that it took more than two decades for the stock market to recover; they only climbed back to their pre-Crash levels in 1953. Now, hold on a minute. I did history O-level. Wasn't there the small matter of a world war and a major European reconstruction to deal with in that period? I know the last two decades have been kind of interesting, but in terms of fiscal effort even Norman Lamont couldn't drain reserves quicker than the Wehrmacht.
Bad news sells papers, of course - and not since mad cow disease have commentators delivered dark facts with such glee. When the mad cow panic was at its peak, I remember a Sunday newspaper not entirely unconnected with this website running a piece about how the Channel tunnel would be sealed up by the French if the worst case scenario for mad cow disease proved to be true. The forecasts for pensions have been equally apocalyptic. These days, if you want to get into the papers, just call yourself an "analyst" and tell the reporter who will eventually call that everyone's going to be poor.
So back off, OK? Leave us hypochondriacs alone. Go back to your blissful state of ignorance. You're not nearly as interested in stock market performance as you think you are. Renew your subscription to Heat magazine, discuss David Beckham's nail polish, vote on Big Brother evictions. And leave the worrying to the professionals.
Oh, and one more thing. All you public sector workers, you teachers and nurses and firemen. All you people with real final salary pension schemes. You know how badly you were treated in the 1980s, while the rest of us were snorting cocaine and having sex in sports cars? I bet all this panic feels really sweet.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002