“Invest in Britain or I’ll force you to, minister tells pension funds”, the Guardian reports:
The business secretary, Peter Kyle, has told UK pension funds to “get off their high horses” and invest in Britain or be forced to do so by law.
Expressing frustration at the level of investment in British companies after years of government initiatives, Kyle said the UK’s biggest asset managers “should feel a patriotic duty in making Britain a success”.
“I don’t think mandation is ideal in any circumstances. But I’ll use it if I have to, because I’m in a rush,” he said.
Speaking to the Guardian on the sidelines of an event at Lloyds Banking Group’s headquarters in London, he said he was “fed up” with being asked by the City to tweak regulations to boost investment in the UK economy, only to see a lack of investment follow government reforms.
“Don’t make us come back, because we’ve got lots of other things we want to do … It feels like they are still sitting on the fence, so will more powers be needed? I hope not,” he said.
“They are representing British savers. And so they should feel a patriotic duty in making Britain a success. And not just sitting aside from the economy, in a walled-off garden. They are out there with the rest of us. They need to get off their high horses.”
Yes, the pension funds are representing British savers. Which means the only duty those pension fund managers should “feel” is the duty they have by law; their fiduciary duty to those savers to invest those savers’ money in the way that is best for those savers. Not best for Britain-as-a-whole, and certainly not some politician’s pet project that nobody in their right minds would risk tuppence on if they were not forced to do it. Best for those savers. Because it is their money. Sorry to labour that point, but it is a point Labour seem to have difficulty absorbing.
And you won’t make Britain a success by forcing people to “invest” (what a lie that word is) in the way the Government tells them to. Britain’s historical success was built on being one of the few countries where people could invest their money as seemed best to them.
Did you notice the mafia-like threat in Peter Kyle’s words “Don’t make us come back, because we’ve got lots of other things we want to do … It feels like they are still sitting on the fence, so will more powers be needed? I hope not”?
Kyle has form on that. This time last year, when he was Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, he said that to question the Online Safety Act is to side with child abusers. His specific target was Nigel Farage, but he applied the same sentiment to everyone. In his own words,
“I cannot understand how anyone can be against these measures. How could anyone question our duty to keep children safe online – particularly when it comes to child sexual abuse content and from online grooming?”
Maybe zero-rate returns from investing in British investments? Offset the crap returns from British investments by not having to pay tax on it.
“High-horse” in this case meaning, the long-accepted ethical constraints placed on people working as fiduciary agents o/b/o private investors.
Yes, life would be easier for communists if we didn’t have this unsophisticated and rube-ish hang-up about honesty and justice and property rights and . . .
They’re not even trying to be subtle about it anymore. “Just steal it, quick! I have things I want to buy!”
The brutal truth is that to invest in this country would be insane.
Taxes are sky high, government spending is even higher, energy costs are crippling, the demographic situation points to civil conflict, if not actual Civil War. We already import food, raw materials, energy (yes energy – even though we have energy resources that could be put into operation) AND manufactured goods.
Advisers to future Prime Minister Andrew “Andy” Burnham are already planning government feeding centers (which existed during World War II – Winston Churchill had them called “British Restaurants”).
They have seen the future and they know it does NOT work – it will be a future of rationing and grinding poverty.
” How could anyone question our duty to keep children safe online – particularly when it comes to child sexual abuse content and from online grooming?”
As-opposed to that entirely-different in-person CSA and grooming, which we were perfectly-happy to overlook and sweep under the rug for decades.
llater,
llamas
Looks like the kulaks and saboteurs will have to be taught a lesson in peoples’ justice by Commissar Kyle. A bullet to the back of the head usually suffices.
The kind of scenario I’m sure Samuel Johnson had in mind when he said patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels.
If he believes this there is a very easy way to do it that doesn’t involve the courts or police.
Set up a pension fund called “Betting on Britain”, advertise the crap out of it with Union Jacks, pictures of the King, afternoon tea and Buckingham palace.
Let Britons decide if this is a great idea, and put their money where their mouth is.
But of course he is a politician, so he is putting someone else’s money where his mouth is.
If he wants to make British companies attractive to invest in he can do it quite simply: drastically cut taxes and regulation and make Britain a freeport where companies come because the business climate is so attractive and the proximity to Europe and deep trade relations with the United States and the former Empire give an unsurpassed market place. Be the Singapore or the Dubai of Europe and Britain would flourish. This is what Brexit should have been.
But they are politicians, the stick is always preferable to the carrot, and, unfortunately the British economy has been beaten so long and so hard with that stick it is more likely to keel over and die than it is to bring growth and prosperity.
“It’s sick. Quick, give it more poison!”
(Pols fixing econ issues.)
Just in passing, if you are a non-british capitalist with money to invest; why would you invest it in britain where the government can direct your investments? It would make more sense to pull any assets you already have in britain out as soon as possible.
Subotai Bahadur
Good comments – which reinforce the comments that I, and others, already made.
It would be folly to invest here – indeed people with the financial means to do so, would be wise to leave – as some already have, and others are preparing to do.
The question is – “where should such people go?” – as much of the Western world is heading for terrible decline and conflict.
As for the rest of us, those of us too old and too poor to leave, “bullet in the brain pan, squish” may, perhaps, be the least bad option.
It appears as if the Business Secretary has been paying far too much attention to Tim Worstall’s bête noire Richard Murphy.
“Invest in Britain or I’ll force you to, minister tells pension funds”
Yeah, sure, that’ll work. How could it possibly fail?
(Don’t answer that.)
This reminds me of when we sued a local brokerage firm for placing money (quietly, with no real disclosure) into DEI funds.
Those investments were not made with OUR benefit in mind, but partially to serve the managers’ environmental and racial-equity concerns.
But our deal with that brokerage didn’t include “wasting my money in order to serve YOUR social goals.” It was a fund supposedly run for OUR benefit.
Oops.
They quickly ran a disclosure for new entrants to the fund, but also paid US a fair chunk of change in settlement. They were stealing our money to pay for their values. Cannot do that as fiduciary agents. That goes out of “make them whole” territory and enters into “lose your license” land.
Good kulaks shoot back, or even first. They are working hard to turn men into sheep. It is our DUTY to oppose them, strongly.
@bobby b
Cannot do that as fiduciary agents.
I wonder what would happen if we made politicians and civil servants fiduciaries for the electorate?
I am a pension fund trustee. Happily my co-trustees all understand the principle and we ruthlessly invest where we think it will do the bestfor our beneficiaries and for nobody else. This quite often pisses off our financial advisors!
@Clovis Sangrail
we ruthlessly invest where we think it will do the bestfor our beneficiaries and for nobody else.
FWIW, it is perfectly OK for a fund to invest with goals that are not entirely aimed toward financial growth. Perhaps someone wants to invest in a fund that only looks at “carbon neutral” companies or companies that have a heavy focus on DEI. Personally I would not want to invest in a fund that dealt in slavery, for example, something you could certainly do in the past. That is a perfectly legitimate choice as long as the fund is set up that way and the investors do so fully understanding this. The goal of a fund is to advance the interests they promised to advance to their investors, and that isn’t necessarily pecuniary entirely. It is when they say they are going to do one thing and then selfishly use the investors money for another that they are, as BobbyB pointed out, violating their fiduciary duties.
FWIW, this is particularly present in government run pension funds. CALPERS, for example, is a gigantic fund of public employees in California and they are notorious for their shenanigans. Even worse, if you work for California you not only don’t really get full disclosure, you don’t even have the option of investing elsewhere. I’d say the same about our social security fund and Medicare fund, but that doesn’t exist. In that case the government simply steals the money legally and uses it to advance their own agenda. No investing of any kind whatsoever.
Fraser Orr – you are correct about the Californian government pension fund, it is utterly corrupted. And that means that it will end up insolvent and screaming for a Federal government bailout.
Now Washington State (which is turning into a vast Seattle) is also looting its pension fund – in order to fund current government spending.
In Britain this is called “doing a Maxwell” after the late Robert Maxwell – if a private employer did it, they would be sent to prison.
Fraser Orr, “No investing of any kind whatsoever.”
Fraser, apparently you have not been paying attention to the Left in America. Government spending IS investing!
One more bastardization of a word by the Left.