Kind of obvious, yeah:
State meddling in our relationship with money is illogical bordering on ridiculous. We must be protected from mildly confusing bank adverts. Want to spend £100 a week on lottery tickets, though? Knock yourself out.
Likewise, the UK government says I cannot be trusted not to piss my pension up the wall until I’m 67 years old. Yet a decade before then I can withdraw a quarter of it tax free for a cruise to the Bahamas. I can also buy high-risk frontier market Isas or volatile penny stocks.
mildly absurd yeah. Can't buy "non-mass market investments" or forests or illiquid securities, deeef not crypto
I can also forget about the more complex structured products that my professional peers have at their disposal. Nor am I patient enough, according to regulators, to tie up my capital with long-term asset funds and a whole host of private opportunities.
the Milton Friedman in me (I was conceived in Chicago when the great man was lecturing my dad. Well, not exactly at the same time) says why not let markets regulate what we are allowed to buy? Dodgy firms would soon be exposed. The leaders of this paper’s Financial Literacy and Inclusion Campaign might demur, but I reckon financial literacy would skyrocket with safety blankets removed.
I also self-identify as a profesh investor
I fully intend to self-categorise myself as a professional investor as I begin the process of moving broker. While I should make the cut, it’s crazy that most readers would not.
Also, FYI, dude is sitting entirely in cash #SkinInTheGame