Retirement planning, may your eyes glaze over

We release this report every year. And it scares me every year..I quote:

Our findings reveal that 39% of UK respondents who are retirees think that they failed to prepare adequately

In this report we can see how a new retirement landscape is slowly emerging. The desire to live a full life after work can be seen in the widely held aspirations for healthy and prosperous retirement. People also aspire to leave a positive financial legacy for their children and grandchildren, during retirement and through inheritances.

Yet such goals are being put at risk by a failure to prepare adequately. Indeed, many of those in retirement regret not having saved more when they were younger, or having retired too soon, and in this report they share the impact those decisions are having on achieving their retirement aspirations.

At present, large numbers of people in the UK are doing nothing about the potential shortfall in their retirement. But by taking the first steps, by planning for the future and getting financial advice, you can build towards the type of retirement you want.

You can click here to test how you did compared to your peers.

This worries me tremendously, so that’s why we have started a small pension pot for the kids now. Who knows what they will end up in 60 years but as the quote goes, I am planting an acorn now for my grandkids to play under the shade.

Old People need so little but they need that so little so much

When I was a small boy, I read this quote, “Old People need so little but they need that so little so much” and that has stayed with me since. Now I am a middle aged git, it again pops up now and then. I guess previously I was interested in this because I was hoping to get to know and help the older generation. Now that I am middle aged, I am considering how I will prepare for old age. Loneliness? But here’s an article which made me think

Elderly perceived themselves to be the transmitters of religious education both in the
family sphere and community sphere. There was concern among the Indian elderly of modi-
fying their practices, to suit the changing times as is captured in the following quotation.
If anybody dies, they call me first. My function is not only to practise custom but also
to give solace and consolation to people who are in grief. This is my main part. I also
train assistants. We should not stick to the past. Many boys and girls in my Jain com-
munity ask ‘Why is this done?’ If I cannot answer I will lose respect. I explain to them
from the knowledge I have Ieamed about religions and traditions. Certain traditions are
simply done for no reason. We should keep only the necessary traditions . . . (Indian
male in elderly group).
The successful transmission of religious education to younger generations is seen as an
art requiring sensitive modifications to adapt to the needs of the younger audience

I think I will go potter around in a university :)

The World’s Busiest Air Routes in 2012

This was the most amazing graph which I saw:

I am so accustomed to travelling between the capital cities which frequently leads me to believe that they are the busiest, but the routes are so totally different.

Wages, prices, and living standards in China, 1738–1925: in comparison with Europe, Japan, and India

This was the formative years of modern democracy. So the economic background to these years is important, as a matter of fact, the authors actually analyse the wages, prices and living standards in various countries over this period with reference to what the great old man, Adam Smith, thought. I quote the conclusion:

Our investigation of Asian and European wages and prices shows that the situation differed somewhat from Adam Smith's impressions. Money wages were in accord with his view: in China, they were certainly lower than wages in the advanced parts of western Europe in the eighteenth century and similar to those in the lagging parts of Europe. By the twentieth century, however, wages in all parts of Europe were higher than in China. Contrary to Smith, the cost of living was similar in China and in Europe in the eighteenth century.

The upshot of the wage and price comparisons is that living standards were low in China. In the eighteenth century, advanced cities like London and Amsterdam had a higher standard of living than Suzhou, Beijing, or Canton. The standard of living in the Chinese cities we have studied was on a par with the lagging parts of Europe, the Ottoman Empire, India, and Japan. By the twentieth century, enough progress had occurred in even the backward parts of Europe that their standards of living were beginning to creep above those in China. Wages seemed to have slipped in China in the eighteenth century. Still, most of the difference between Europe and China in 1913 was due to European advance rather than Chinese decline.

In spite of the above, a major surprise is our finding that unskilled labourers in major cities of China and Japan—poor as they were—had roughly the same standard of living as their counterparts in central and southern Europe for the greater part of the eighteenth century. This calls into question the fundamental tenet of the large ‘rise of the west’ literature that sees western Europe—as a whole—surpassing the rest of the world in the early modern era. Our article suggests that it was only England and the Low Countries that pulled ahead of the rest. The rest, in this context, includes not only Asia but also much of Europe.⁵²

In this regard, Adam Smith neglected regional variation and thereby over-generalized the comparison of Europe and China. But our findings also dispute the revisionists' claim that the advanced parts of China, such as the Yangzi Delta, were on a par with England on the eve of the industrial revolution, for we find real wages for unskilled labourers in the Yangzi Delta to have been no higher than those in Beijing or Canton. Clearly, our database on China could be greatly improved and we do not claim to have given the final answer to this question. Nevertheless, any newly discovered data would have to be very different from what is currently available in order to convince us that pre-industrial Chinese living standards were similar to those in the leading regions of Europe.⁵³ In this regard, Adam Smith's pessimism looks closer to the truth than the revisionists' optimism. Of course, establishing the existence of an income gap between north-western Europe and China in the early modern era only takes us halfway towards the resolution of the great divergence debate. The search for a causal explanation of the great divergence still looms large as a future research agenda.

Much to think about but let me link to one existing situation. People complain about stagnating wages/incomes in so many OECD countries. See here, here, here and here for some examples. And this too over one decade or so. But China saw wage stagnation for a very long period of time. Not only that, vast swathes of Europe was also stagnant for many many moons. So it is of interest when people claim that the West rose on the back of the industrial revolution, erm, no, only the low countries and UK rose.

crucially, the lesson to be learnt from here is to focus on productivity. USA does brilliantly on productivity, we in the UK and India are crap at it. We do not educate our folks well enough, we are not innovative enough, we do not use technology enough, and we do not encourage investment enough. Bah!

Wages, prices, and living standards in China, 1738–1925: in comparison with Europe, Japan, and India

This was the formative years of modern democracy. So the economic background to these years is important, as a matter of fact, the authors actually analyse the wages, prices and living standards in various countries over this period with reference to what the great old man, Adam Smith, thought. I quote the conclusion:

Our investigation of Asian and European wages and prices shows that the situation differed somewhat from Adam Smith's impressions. Money wages were in accord with his view: in China, they were certainly lower than wages in the advanced parts of western Europe in the eighteenth century and similar to those in the lagging parts of Europe. By the twentieth century, however, wages in all parts of Europe were higher than in China. Contrary to Smith, the cost of living was similar in China and in Europe in the eighteenth century.

The upshot of the wage and price comparisons is that living standards were low in China. In the eighteenth century, advanced cities like London and Amsterdam had a higher standard of living than Suzhou, Beijing, or Canton. The standard of living in the Chinese cities we have studied was on a par with the lagging parts of Europe, the Ottoman Empire, India, and Japan. By the twentieth century, enough progress had occurred in even the backward parts of Europe that their standards of living were beginning to creep above those in China. Wages seemed to have slipped in China in the eighteenth century. Still, most of the difference between Europe and China in 1913 was due to European advance rather than Chinese decline.

In spite of the above, a major surprise is our finding that unskilled labourers in major cities of China and Japan—poor as they were—had roughly the same standard of living as their counterparts in central and southern Europe for the greater part of the eighteenth century. This calls into question the fundamental tenet of the large ‘rise of the west’ literature that sees western Europe—as a whole—surpassing the rest of the world in the early modern era. Our article suggests that it was only England and the Low Countries that pulled ahead of the rest. The rest, in this context, includes not only Asia but also much of Europe.⁵²

In this regard, Adam Smith neglected regional variation and thereby over-generalized the comparison of Europe and China. But our findings also dispute the revisionists' claim that the advanced parts of China, such as the Yangzi Delta, were on a par with England on the eve of the industrial revolution, for we find real wages for unskilled labourers in the Yangzi Delta to have been no higher than those in Beijing or Canton. Clearly, our database on China could be greatly improved and we do not claim to have given the final answer to this question. Nevertheless, any newly discovered data would have to be very different from what is currently available in order to convince us that pre-industrial Chinese living standards were similar to those in the leading regions of Europe.⁵³ In this regard, Adam Smith's pessimism looks closer to the truth than the revisionists' optimism. Of course, establishing the existence of an income gap between north-western Europe and China in the early modern era only takes us halfway towards the resolution of the great divergence debate. The search for a causal explanation of the great divergence still looms large as a future research agenda.

Much to think about but let me link to one existing situation. People complain about stagnating wages/incomes in so many OECD countries. See here, here, here and here for some examples. And this too over one decade or so. But China saw wage stagnation for a very long period of time. Not only that, vast swathes of Europe was also stagnant for many many moons. So it is of interest when people claim that the West rose on the back of the industrial revolution, erm, no, only the low countries and UK rose.

crucially, the lesson to be learnt from here is to focus on productivity. USA does brilliantly on productivity, we in the UK and India are crap at it. We do not educate our folks well enough, we are not innovative enough, we do not use technology enough, and we do not encourage investment enough. Bah!