As regular readers have known for quite some time, there’s far more to be concerned about than your super “nest egg” merely going backwards.
So, in the spirit of the silly season, let’s all look on the bright side.
It’s sort of nice to know, in a bittersweet kind of way, that the government is going to get less money when they finally do steal your super:
SUPERANNUATION funds have posted their worst performance since the height of the global financial crisis in 2008 as Europe’s debt problems cut returns from capital markets.
The fall in super valuations this year will be the second time in four years that pension funds have lost money, although the downturn is not as drastic as it was in 2008.
Research firm Chant West estimates that the average fund will have shrunk in value by around 2 per cent by the end of calendar 2011.
By contrast in 2008, funds lost an average of 21.5 per cent, according to Chant West data.
Chant West investment research manager Mano Mohankumar said that even after a 15.1 per cent rise in 2009 and 4.7 per cent return in 2010, many funds “still have some ground to make up”.
The latest data is based on 60 funds with balanced portfolios – typically around 30 per cent in Australian equities and 26 per cent overseas equities.
Mr Mohankumar said market volatility had eaten into workers’ investments and that this was likely to continue in 2012 as European leaders grappled with the fallout of the eurozone debt crisis.
“We expect the heightened uncertainty to continue over the next 12 months,” he said.
“We think the European situation will take longer to resolve than the markets hope it will.”
By the way, are you a reader of the generally excellent MacroBusiness superblog?
Then you might like to give the excellent contributor The Prince a good-humoured raspberry for stealing my witty “No Super For You!!” headline for his post yesterday … without attribution. A direct pinch … right down to the accompanying Seinfeld “Soup Nazi” image.
Coincidence?
I think not.
Indeed, I think he knows exactly where he got it from … given that I personally alerted him to my numerous governments-are-confiscating-super articles and news source references – including the May 2011 original “No Super For You!” – a loooong time ago 😉
It seems that Barnaby (and admirers) are still too unfashionable for the experts to give credit where credit is due.
Even though the tides of time continue to prove that …
Barnaby is right.
Barnaby Is Right 
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