Glasgow Gets Money For Infrastructure
After the announcement yesterday about investment in the rail route to Penzance, a story broke later yesterday about a large amount of money for infrastructure and City Deal status for Glasgow. Read about it here on the BBC. One major piece of infrastructure included is the Glasgow Airport Rail Link.
So what is a City Deal?
Under the section on Wikipedia for Local Enterprise Partnership, there is a small section on City Deals and several large cities like Liverpool, Leeds, Manchester and Sheffield have got them. Only Manchester seems to have a meaningful entry in Wikipedia.
Type “City Deal UK” into Google and you get all sorts of irrelevant rubbish like transfer deals involving football clubs with City in the name and Groupon.
It stikes me that whoever thought of the name City Deal dropped an enormous clanger.
I did eventually find a government web site, well down the page in Google.
the obvious URL; citydeal.co.uk, is owned by Groupon.
Never trust a politician to get the details and small print right.
The Magic Pudding
One of C’s favourite books was the Magic Pudding. This is a description from Wikipedia.
The Magic Pudding: Being The Adventures of Bunyip Bluegum and his friends Bill Barnacle and Sam Sawnoff is an Australian children’s book written and illustrated by Norman Lindsay. It is a comic fantasy, and a classic of Australian children’s literature.
The story is set in Australia with humans mixing with anthropomorphic animals. It tells of a magic pudding which, no matter how often it is eaten, always reforms in order to be eaten again. It is owned by three companions who must defend it against Pudding Thieves who want it for themselves.
It had been published in 1918, but she had come across the book, when she was a mother’s help to a family in Norfolk. She read it to our three boys.
When I sold out from Metier, I put some money for safe keeping into a fund managed by TA Associates in Boston. The aim was that in a few years time, it would all be liquidated and the money returned for C’s pension fund.
But other things didn’t work out too well, due to a recommended investment in an office block in Bsasingstoke, which lost us about nine million and nearly everything else as well.
However, we kept going on our earnings, with a bit of help from the fund in Boston, until an investment I’d made, which everybody else said was worthless, paid most of the money I’d lost back.
The fund in Boston had been a good investment and I made a decent return, when everything was liquidated. But then the fun started, as some of their investments in the category of living dead started showing signs of life and for perhaps we had income from a fund that supposedly had been fully distributed.
C and myself nicknamed the fund the Magic Pudding, especially after we got a cheque for several tens of thousands of dollars.
Eventually, it all came to an end and C and myself were back on an even keel financially. So we sent the fund managers a copy of the book in thanks.
It was appreciated and we all parted company on the best of relations.
I have been looking since then for another Magic Pudding investment.
In an ideal world, you could put a sum of money into a bank account and you can get out a sum every so often, that you need for emergencies, like a new boiler or a holiday for your partner on a big birthday.
You would also want the capital sum to stay intact.
But to do this with a bank, you need a decent interest rate. So you can’t!
I have a sum invested in Zopa, which is around a hundred thousand. This has been built up over the last six years, by putting any spare money into the account. I started it with the money I got from selling C’s Porsche and now I top it up each month with what I have left over from my pension after I’ve paid all my bills. Typically, this sum is a thousand or so each month.
Zopa is very much a rolling fund and in addition to the interest each month, you get a proportion of capital of your micro loans repaid.
So if I look at the lsast couple of years, I usually get something like five percent of my total investment available each month.
If I don’t need any money in a particular month, the money goes back into the pot for reinvestment.
Obviously, the account doesn’t turn into a Magic Pudding Investment, until it has been running for a few years, when a proportion of your micro loans start to mature.
I would never recommend anybody to jump into peer-to-peer lending. But if you are unhappy with what your bank pays, then you should perhaps research some of long established peer-to-peer lending companies of which Zopa is one.
Think of the process of choosing a peer-to-peer lender as as you would choose a new car or house. You pick one that suits your lifestyle.
A Peer-to-Peer Lender Goes Bust
I have read this report in the Telegraph about a peer-to-peer lender called YES-secure which has gone bust.
But the good news, is that all investors in their peer-to-peer lending business will be repaid in full.
A Worry For Scottish Fund Managers
I had lunch with an intelligent lady yesterday and the subject of Scottish devolution came up.
She said that she had money invested with Scottish Funds and would be moving the money to London before the devolution referendum.
So how much sensible money will be removed from North of the Border?
I certainly wouldn’t allow any of my money to be managed outside of the country in which I live. I moved my pension away from a company controlled by the Bank of Santander for just that reason.
Several of my friends have lost savings and their pension over the last few years. I wouldn’t put all or any part of my money in an overseas basket!
My Pension Could Get A Boost in 2029
I have a good pension, although if I have a problem with it, it’s that I can’t find enough ways to spend it.
But the announcement yesterday that Crossrail 2 might open in 2029 can only be good for me.
I live in a quiet plesant tree-lined road about five minutes walk from Dalston Junction station, which could be one of the stops on the line. Even if it is not and Hackney Central and Angel are the two nearest stops, it all must be beneficial for the value of my house.
I would suspect that if Dalston Junction is not on Crossrail 2, then the Eastern Curve at the station might be reopened, so that East London Line trains can terminate somewhere in North East London.
After being ignored by transport planners for years it now seems that the North Eastern areas of London are finally getting the public transport, they desperately need.
Judging by the welcome the Overground has received in this area, I suspect that the good burghers of Hackney will welcome Crossrail 2 with open arms.
Crossrail 2 is having a consultation locally in July. I shall be going.
Where Did It All Go Wronga
This is the title of an article in the Sunday Times about Wonga, which describes how the company is not doing as well as it was and isn’t heading for world domination any more.
The article blames the usual reasons for the decline; bad publicity, hostile politicians and regulators, which is probably partly true.
But I’ll throw in another reason.
Wonga undoubtedly has world class technology as Robert Peston said here.
But as in my time, I’ve been a programmer at the top of my profession, I know that it is difficult to stop competitors imitating what you have done.
So I do wonder if other lenders with a higher moral stance, have got their technical act together, so that they have reduced the size of Wonga’s territory.
It may be now, that if you ask a reputable financial institution, by using similar and possibly better technology than Wonga, the result of your loan application is given earlier. And of course in some of those decisions, lenders will get their loans.
All the fuss about Wonga, may have persuaded people that there are better ways to organise your finances.
So it looks like Wonga’s bubble has been pricked!
Visa And Amex In Germany
When I arrived in Berlin, I needed to buy a ticket and as I’m a Nationwide customer, I have one of their Visa cards that converts local currencies immediately without charges to my statement.
But in many places in Germany the only card you can use in Mastercard. As I travel usually with just Amex and Visa, I would have been scuppered, if I didn’t have quite a few Euros.
Surely, if we are a united Europe economically, then all machines and web sites that accept credit and charge cards, should be m,mandated in EU law to accept all types.
A consequence of the German policy was at Berlin, the machine on the platform to buy tickets for the S-Bahn was blocked with Americans and Australians trying to buy tickets without a Visa card and no euros.
Obviously, because of the way things are going when in perhaps five years, many cities will allow contactless cards as tickets, as London buses now do, this is going to be an area, where the Germans will have to allow cards other than Mastercard.
Rats And Sinking Ships Come To Mind
This story on the BBC today, that the Labour party is cutting its links with the Co-op Bank made me think of the headline of this post.
On the other hand, perhaps the owners of the other 70% of the bank, that the Co-operative Group doesn’t own, aren’t those who wear red underwear?
On the other hsand moving to a bank controlled by the Trade Unions, might not bode well for those who want the Labour party to think pragmatically and outside the box.
Is The Banking Industry Stirring Or Dying?
A few days ago, I reported about a new approach to retail banking from TSB. Yesterday, The Times carried a big advert detailing everything.
If I was with a dinosaur bank, I’d certainly think about moving, as I meet their conditions for interest and because I could try before I moved everything.
Yesterday too, I heard a report at 05:30 in the morning from PwC, that a quarter of all bank branches will be closed. I actually think that is a low figure, if the amount of traffic you see in branches round here is anything to go by!
My friend, David, saw the writing on the wall decades ago.
Victoria Asks The Question
Victoria Derbyshire asked this morning how George Osborne’s pension changes will affect you.
They won’t effect me, but they will effect those companies that provide the dreaded annuities, as I won’t be buying one!
I will be putting money into a peer-to-peer lender like Zopa, to provide me with a flexible income.
Suppose you had £50,000 invested in Zopa and it was generally lent out at 5% for five years. This money would be safeguarded by Zopa.
Once it was fully lent out, you would get an interest payment of £2,500 each year and capital repayments of £10,000 a year.
So in other words, you could withdraw £12,500 a year with no trouble. But if you didn’t and left it to accumulate in Zopa you would be earning more money.
Obviously, you would have to pay tax on your earnings, but the idea of using Zopa or one of their ilk, as an annuity could turn out to be a good one.
There is a rumour doing the rounds, that peer-to-peer lenders will be starting to productise their offerings, by creating specialist ISAs and flexible on-demand deposit accounts.
The Anonymous Widower 