The Great Savings and Pensions Scam. An A-Z Guide. Today G-H

G � Greed. With the death of final-salary pensions and the government all but bankrupt, we increasingly have to take responsibility for our own financial futures. This means we rely more than ever before on financial services insiders to guide us where to put our savings. But as they flog us a bewildering array of ever more complex financial products, we should question whose interests they are serving � ours or their own? It�s worth remembering a famous quote, �within the City you find many who are greedy and talented, many who are greedy but untalented, but few who are talented but not greedy.� In fact you could add to the quote � �most people working for banks (HSBC, Barclays, Lloyds) or as financial advisers are extremely greedy and very seldom talented�.

H � Hedge funds. Most of us probably believe that hedge funds are complex investments for the super-rich. But many of the rich are pulling their money out of hedge funds as they realise that their hedge fund investments seldom outperform the overall market, even though hedge fund managers became multimillionaires and even billionaires. This has forced many hedge funds to close. So hedge fund managers need a new batch of people to fleece.� And they�ve found their next victims � the people who manage our pension funds. With stock markets likely to show little growth over the next 5 to 10 years, pension fund managers need to find some way to get better returns than stocks will give. Many hedge fund managers have been targeting those who run our pension funds suggesting mouthwatering growth prospects and, often unknown to us, our pension savings have started to pour into hedge funds. But every hundred million that goes into a hedge fund manager�s pockets each year means a hundred million less for us ordinary savers.