How will we stay rich?

Not many of us feel rich, but that's partly to do with who we have around us. Compared to most of the world, we are hugely well-off.

Let's make the comparison a little fairer. What matters is not only how much money we have, but what we can buy with it locally: this is known as "purchasing power parity" (PPP). So, here is a graph of the GDP per person (in PPP terms) of the most populous nations on Earth; I also include bars for the European Union and the world average (click to enlarge):

The vertical axis is in multiples of world average GDP: 11,800 US dollars. You see that the USA is four times as wealthy, Germany and the UK three times, and even Italy and Spain are doing terribly well, for now. Until recently, Greece (not shown) wasn't far behind Italy.

My question is, what's keeping us there?

If these countries were a series of locks on a canal, and all the gates were opened at the same time, you'd expect a lot of turbulence and then a settling-down to a uniform level throughout. We have world trade, so why shouldn't national wealth average out across the globe?

It is perfectly possible for neighbouring countries to have extreme disparities in per capita income - here's the two Koreas, separated only by a demilitarized zone around the 38th parallel:

Clearly the economic divide here is largely owing to very different economic and political systems. North Korea may not really be a threat to the world, but it's certainly a threat to its own unfortunate citizens, 150,000 of whom are kept in labour camps in scarcely believable misery. So yes, that inequality can be maintained given sufficient vigour and brutality on behalf of its rulers, who must continue to oppress because they have a tiger by the tail and a moment's weakness will finish them.

At $1,800 per capita, North Korea is far from the poorest country, according to the CIA World Factbook: Bangladesh, Kenya, Zambia and 30 other nations (mostly African) have less, bottoming out with the Congo at $300 (i.e. spending power about 82 cents a day).

But what, other than military dictatorships and civil and international war, accounts for some countries' failure to rise, and what prevents our own standard of living from falling?

Do we work harder?
Are we cleverer?
Are we - will we remain - better educated?
Do we have better and wiser rulers? Do they rule in the nation's interest?
Do we have special knowledge that nobody else can duplicate?
Is our basis of industrial skills thriving?
Are we using our human resources - our talented people - to best effect, in the best sectors of the economy?
Is it easy for our enterprising people to start up and run businesses?
Can we trust our money, and our banks?
Can we live forever off our patents - will they always be ours, and their validity accepted everywhere?
Are we blessed with inexhaustible natural resources?
Are we militarily strong enough to dictate terms of trade and hold everyone else down?

Not enough "yes" answers to the above, I fear.

INVESTMENT DISCLOSURE: None. Still in cash (and index-linked National Savings Certificates), and missing all those day-trading opportunities.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content.

Spanish credit now 10th worst globally; UK and USA recovering?

According to CMA Datavision's Q1 report on the sovereign credit insurance market, out today, Spain has just entered the top 10 most risky countries, with a 32% chance of default within five years. Far worse is Portugal, with a 60% 5-year default risk (beaten only by Cyprus, which is a new inclusion in CMA's tables).

More surprising is the market's favourable assessment of the USA, which has recovered its insurance-implied AAA rating, and the UK, now listed as the 6th least risky country. It would seem that the credit insurance traders have bought the good news stories, in the face of continuing pessimism from a number of other economic commentators.

Norway, last quarter the only nation to have an implied AAA rating, retains pride of place, followed by the USA, Switzerland and Sweden with their newly reinstated triple-A grades.

Is the market's optimism at the top end justified, or mistakenly short-sighted?

INVESTMENT DISCLOSURE: None. Still in cash (and index-linked National Savings Certificates), and missing all those day-trading opportunities.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content.

Urgent need for UK consumers to review pensions and investments

Changes on their way mean that it's high time to review your insurance - and pensions.

Gender-neutrality law to increase costs for both men and women

By 21st December this year, the UK insurance industry will have to comply with the EU Gender Directive, which insists that men and women must be treated the same when setting rates. Up to now, by and large:

• women tend to pay less for car insurance (typically, safer driver behaviour than men's) and life insurance (on average, women live longer than men)
• men tend to get better annuity rates when taking benefits from their pensions, and pay less for income insurance

You might think that the fair thing to do, where gender-related pricing is concerned, is "meet in the middle", but that means the insurance company takes the risk that it may attract more business from the gender that will ultimately cost them more in payouts. So it could well be that the policy adopted will be to "level-up" premiums.

Time to get a product with guaranteed (i.e. fixed) premiums?

Taxation of life companies likely to increase premiums

But there's another change that will affect premiums, and it's to do with tax. Until now, life companies have been able to offset some of their insurance costs against gains on their investment business; this will stop from 1st January next year, so insurance premiums will no longer be subsidised by investment profits in this way. Actuaries have told HM Treasury (PDF) that this could raise premiums on some term insurances by around 10%.

Time to get a product with guaranteed (i.e. fixed) premiums?

Spouse cover and contracted-out pensions: better options now available

From April 6, 2012 the law on pensions has changed. Up to now, if you were married and some of your personal pension was built up using money from contracting-out of State top-up pensions (SERPS/S2P), that part of your pension fund had to provide a continuing income for your spouse if you died before him/her. This restriction has now been removed.

This means:

• you can have a bigger pension income for yourself, if you opt not to include spouse protection (it may be that your spouse already has good pension benefits of his/her own), but alternatively...
• if you prefer, you can IMPROVE spouse protection - before April 6, the spouse pension based on contracted-out monies HAD to drop to 50% of the income you were getting; now, it can be anything from 0% - 100% of yours.

For men who want a single-life annuity, this may also be a window of opportunity to get a better rate, before the gender-neutrality law comes into effect in December.

That said, there is also the question of what may happen on the stockmarkets (quite possibly affecting the value of your pension fund, unless you're in cash), and the bond markets (which influence annuity rates).

Time to review when you want to take your pension, what it's invested in at the moment, and how you ultimately intend to take the benefits?

I suggest you contact your adviser soon!

INVESTMENT DISCLOSURE: None. Still in cash (and index-linked National Savings Certificates), and missing all those day-trading opportunities.

DISCLAIMER: Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content.