It is no exaggeration to say that the whole European project has been rocked to its core. The sovereign debt crisis that had been brewing, some would argue for a decade, has come to a head.   The previously unthinkable step of elected leaders being replaced by so-called ‘technocrats’ had to be taken not just once, but twice with both Greece and Italy being judged incapable of managing their own affairs.

There has been talk about the breakup of the single currency, with many doubting whether it would be able to survive the pressures on it. This is clearly being seen very much as a last resort by the key European powers, and a great deal of effort and expense is being put towards keeping the currency afloat. Of course, not every EU member was on board with this…

The great David Cameron summit flounce has opinion divided. To the Eurosceptic wing of his party the use of Britain’s veto was seen as his greatest achievement. To others it was seen as a disaster, as none of the other member states that are outside of the euro joined, and an agreement was made that did not require Britain’s participation. It was seen by some as the EU leaving Britain.

Supposedly Cameron geared up for the tough task of negotiating by making sure that he was desperate for the lavatory. A full bladder is thought to concentrate the mind leading to better decision making processes. Whether this had any part in Cameron effectively running out of discussions will be something that historians may chuckle over in years to come when examining the international relations of this period.

The year end on a high for the eurozone however. The liquidity injected by the European Central Bank has proved to be just the tonic that the bond markets were looking for with investors and hedge funds alike returning. As far as financial planning is concerned it is too early to say what will happen with the euro, but it does look like it is odds on for a bumpy ride in 2012.



Austerity is pretty much the only game in town at the moment politically. In Greece and Italy it has been judged to be necessary to install technocrats from the European Central Bank in government in order to bring spending down. There is no danger of that in Britain, but that is not to say that we will not be feeling the pinch of austerity measures.

Rightly or wrongly, reducing the budget deficit has been set as a major priority. Polls indicate that there is a general consensus that this is necessary, and the problem of overspending is one that it is easy to visualise. In life if you are spending more than you are bringing home in earnings, then you are acting irresponsibly and getting yourself into trouble.

The length of time it will take to reduce the budget deficit to the levels deemed acceptable is likely to be longer than was first thought. It could be as long as a decade. Having that as the economic mood for the next ten years will certainly not be easy, and that is why it makes sense to start preparing for it sooner rather than later.

If you are currently in work then it makes sense right now to save absolutely every penny you can manage. This is not the message of ‘consumer confidence’ that the economy needs, but there are a lot of compelling reasons why it could be in your own self-interest.

There have had to be widespread pay cuts, pay freezes and lay-offs in the public sector. Obviously this affects those households where a public sector employee is a bread winner, those certainly need to be putting away all that they can because it certainly isn’t going to get any easier. It also however has implications for those working in the private sector.

Declining levels of real-terms remunerations combined with redundancies means that there will be lots of former public sector employees entering the jobs market. This is yet another way in which downward pressure will be being put on wages. Very few households are likely to see their levels of disposable income rise over the next few years.

Money being tighter is one reason why it makes sense to save now, but there are also others. Reducing public spending means that everybody is going to have to be much more self-reliant than they have grown used to being in the era of untrammelled spending. What this will mean is yet to be seen, but it is a sure bet that having some funds put aside is going to help. Returns on savings accounts are not the highest that they have ever been, but the value of having cash in reserve (in and of itself) is set to increase.

For the time being at least it seems as though ‘getting worse’ is the new normal. Everyone hopes that there will be a brighter future at some point, but in the meantime preparing for tough times ahead seems likely to be prudent.

This video from the OECD looks at the growth prospects for next year. Frankly it does not look good. Depression across Europe looks to be a done deal, and that is without taking into account any worse case scenarios involving the euro.

The OECD has stated that it believes that even a single country leaving the euro would have very serious consequences. These could include any number of bankruptcies. This would be “apocalyptic” according to the Polish foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski.

Apocalyptic is clearly an exaggeration. For the man and woman in the street how much extra hardship they could be in for if there was a round of debt defaults is debatable. One thing is for certain though, that even the prospect of this happening is not helpful to the recovery of the economy.

Given that there is much riding on the success of the eurozone, the international commitment to the bailout funds has not been outstanding. One of the ongoing debates is whether European debt should be consolidated into one. This could then be sold as a product, a so-called ‘eurobond’.

The bond market looks set to see changes over the next few weeks. For the amateur investor it is a nightmare scenario. There are just to many variables, and on top of that a lot of the latest best assessments of what is happening are not available to ‘civilian’. The best bet is likely to be some form of ‘damage control’. Those with assets sufficient to consider private wealth management may find that expert advice can keep them from getting burnt, but 2012 is going to see a lot more winners than losers, and now is no time to go rushing into any kind of investment without knowing the full facts and having at least the bare bones of a backup plan.

Lyons began investigating information technology after WWII. The first systems were commercially deployed in 1951. This amazing film shows the system in operation:

Retirement is supposed to be a time when you relax and enjoy the fruits of your labour, after having worked for many years. However, in recent years any pensioners who are trying to live on limited incomes are becoming uncertain about their future. When the financial crisis hit, anyone on a fixed income such as a pension has suffered from rising food and fuel prices.

However, with clever money management and planning ahead you can take control of your retirement finances and make sure that you will always have what you need. Here are some tips to help pensioners make sure that they manage their money well in their golden years:

• If you have some extra space in your home, consider renting out the room. You can earn thousands of pounds per year, and the first £4,250 you earn is tax free.
• Are you getting the best return on your savings? Check with your bank to find out if they offer better accounts designed for people over 50, which will offer you higher interest rates.
• Investigate whether it might be worth your while to switch bank account.
• If you are spending a lot of your money on energy bills, use a comparison website to see if you are getting the best deal. Use a site which is accredited by Energywatch to compare prices, and you could save hundreds of pounds per year.
• Some energy suppliers offer grants to their low-income customers for insulation and heating improvements which will increase the energy efficiency of your home.
• Downsize and move to a smaller home. Now that the kids have all grown up and have families of their own, you don’t need to be living in a large family home. By downsizing and moving to a smaller house or apartment, you will be able to free up a large sum of money for your retirement. You will also have a lot less property to clean and maintain!
• Be frugal! Look for sales at the supermarket, buy things in bulk to save, and buy used items instead of new. If you can reduce the amount of money you spend, you will be able to live comfortably on a lot less.
• Are you receiving all of the benefits that you are entitled to? Up to five billion pounds in benefits goes unclaimed every year by elderly people, and one in every three people eligible for pension credits fails to claim them. Find out what you are eligible for so that you can claim what you need.
• Take advantage of any senior citizen discounts, such as free prescription medicines, free bus passes, and discounted National Rail fares.

There are many ways that you can put yourself in a better financial position on a pension, so take control of your finances and enjoy your retirement!

In the United States there has long been a strand of political opinion that holds that all regulation as applied to business is harmful. Bills which introduce regulation of any kind, whether it be environmental, fiscal or to do with employee rights are branded as ‘job killers’.

There are states in the US where employees have significantly fewer rights than others. These states are branded as being ‘Right to Work’ states. The implication being that the absence of burdensome regulation means that it is that much easier for enterprise to expand, generating jobs that otherwise would have not appeared.

It has been claimed by certain commentators that in terms of hard evidence the case for saying that regulations should be stripped back for the benefit of the economy and therefore society is on the thin side. If, the opponents of the ‘regulations cost jobs’ viewpoint hold, if enterprises are in a position where  they would like to hire but are unwilling to because of regulations, there would be a great demand for increased hours among existing staff, however, so this strand of argument goes, this is not being seen.

Another empirical sign that regulation was stifling job growth would be that the kinds of industries where employment tends to be long term would be more reluctant to hire because of regulations that have yet to take effect. This has not been seen, and neither have other key indicators, according to the analysis of  Al Jazeera’s Dean Baker.

Over on this side of the pond the opinion that what is keeping levels of unemployment at their current unacceptably high levels is the existence of employment law, both home-grown  and of the imported European variety. The BBC recently revealed that a government report had been leaked which was calling for the abolition of the right of workers to sue for unfair dismissal.

At present if somebody is dismissed from their employment then they have up to twelve months in which to launch a claim for compensation over such employment disputes. The problem with this is that it is seen by some as promoting a culture where it is difficult to remove unproductive employees.

The other side of the coin is that there are benefits from job security, both to the economy and society. If a worker feels that they can be sacked arbitrarily at any point without compensation then it is hard for them to have the confidence to, for instance, commit to a mortgage, or to spend their some of their disposable income on the high street rather than save it.

Ultimately, turkeys will never vote for Christmas. There will always be calls from certain business leaders to do away with employee rights or other because it would be good for the bottom line. Whether these calls should be heeded however must be something that is given proper thought and considered in the round.

The oproduct being advertised is Google analytics. The goal of analytics is to understand what your customers are going through when they come to you, wanting to press their hard earned cash into your hands. Learning what is stopping them needs to be a priority whether your business is online or IRL.

Choosing the right savings account for you takes time and energy. An lot of what is, for most people, pretty dull research has to be done. Small print must be trawled though, arcane terminology unpicked and risks and benefits put into the balance. Once that is done though, and the direct debits are set up, that very much seems like that.

It is of course comforting to know that without you having to do anything further the nest egg that you are building for a rainy day will continue to grow month on month. The problem is that not all savings products are ‘fire and forget’ with many of you requiring that you keep a beady eye on them.

Often the rates offered by savings accounts are only set for a fixed period. After this time the account holders can find themselves earning dramatically less interest on the money that they have put away. It is all too easy to let a once attractive savings account morph itself into a real donkey.

While there have undoubtedly been some scandals involving mismanagement and fraud in regards to pension funds, the biggest threat to most is more subtle and insidious. Hidden charges and over-inflated fees are chipping away at peoples retirement nest eggs.

Consumers in Britain are hit with very high fees for setting up and administrating pensions. Those in the USA and in fact most other European countries are typically charged much less for this. In addition to the level of fees being high, they are often structured in an overly complicated fashion. The National Association of Pension funds has gone as far as to slam these as being “eye wateringly complex”.

Incredibly some investors have found that anything up to three quarters of there retirement income has been syphoned off through fees and charges. It is those who joined schemes in the nineties that are most likely to be paying over the odds. The charges that are typically levied have fallen dramatically from their hight.

If you find that you are in a pension scheme with unacceptably high charges it may be possible to switch. There are a number of circumstances however where it is more advisable to stick with what you already have rather than changing things up. Some pensions that were sold in the past have the kind of guaranteed returns that are no longer common.

Knowing whether to ‘stick or twist’ with a pension is not an easy call. There are no one-size-fits all answers as there are many, many factors to take into consideration. Paying the premium for high quality financial planning could well be worth it. Not all the information that the best advisors are privilege to is widely available.