Cllr Juby: Where is our money safe?

Cllr Geoff Juby's recent column in the Medway Messenger:

The recent crisis in Cyprus, where the more you save the more you lose seems to be called

for by the EU, is putting another nail in the coffin for ordinary people who struggle all their working lives to save for retirement, only to find that their savings are practically worthless.  At the moment it seems that if you are elderly you either have to have a very large savings pot, or none at all. Too many people find that their savings are not giving additional income because of low interest rates, yet they are deprived of benefits because they have a few pounds put by for a rainy day. We are trying to encourage young people to make independent pension arrangements, but what incentives are there for them?

We used to trust our banks, but events over the last few years mean that anyone with decent savings has to juggle money so that if a bank goes bust they don’t lose too much, and now we have the added worry that governments might just decide to help themselves to our cash to pay off debts which were partly incurred by bailing out the banks in the first place.

  Whatever budget steps are taken it always seem that the very rich seem to be protected (like the reduction to 45% tax on high earners). Small local businesses fold because business rates are at an unsustainable level for all except the massive high street chains. They force down the prices they pay for goods to a level which enables them to crowd out independent retailers and still return massive profits.

We can no longer trust in money investment in property, small business enterprise or gold – we will all end  up keeping our rapidly devaluing twenty quid notes under mattresses!