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| It was all about Mammon |
I saw a good example of this greedy world touching my very own world just a few days ago. I got a call from a person of a company that said they wanted to explain my retirement options. I said yes, please tell me; I got to know that I could start withdrawing my pension already at 61 rather than at 65. Seemed an interesting proposal to me. I asked what their reward was doing this for me and he said that they were a private company doing this for banks and insurance companies but without any cost for me. He explained briefly that the whole deal was starting withdrawing the pension before the age of 65 and invest it in a fund so that the day I was eligible to start enjoying my pension, I would have 4 years of accumulated tax free pension to spend on whatever. He explained that there was another important detail too and that was if I died before 65 no one of my beneficiaries would get anything as my state pension would go back into the general pensions funds. One thing that came to my mind during this brief conversation was that what if it was possible just to start withdrawing my pension for myself without investing it like this man proposed. So I asked the man but put him the question in a for me "fatal" way: "So it is not possible for me to just start using my pension instead of investing it". He just replied: "that is correct, sir". Well I agreed to come to the information meeting as I felt I needed to understand my own situation as a retired person. Something I had ducked for, for so long.
A few days ahead I was sitting in a conference room together with 3 other guys of my age. The office of this company was situated in one of those nice old houses in the Stockholm Old Town, 17th century facade and top modern inside, coming to a pretty high rent. A single grey haired man presented us with the history of the Swedish pension system, then going about the whole deal with a little more detail than what came out during the previous telephone call. At the end of the meeting the man tells us that we will get a call to set up an individual meeting with an adviser than will do an all things considered walk through with each one of us. Leaving the meeting I am pretty pleased and at the same time a little scared over the prospective to learn about my meager days as retired. I have a feeling that there is still something in the story missing, determined to figure it out.
I got the call the following day and just a few days later I was back in their nice offices sitting with my adviser going through all the different pension plans I had. That done she presented me with the different investment plans of 5-6 banks and insurance companies explaining me pros and cons with each one of them, like the number of years my money had to sit in a fund before I could withdraw without to much penalties, calculated interest rates etc. When we were done with most paperwork there was one single detail missing from my part, a bank account with auto-transaction capabilities were the government would deposit my monthly pension quota that would further automatically be transferred to the investment institute I had selected. At this point I understood that I actually could ask for early withdrawal of my state pension and use it in whatever manner I decided without having to place my money locked up in a fund with a bank or insurance company. To be sure, I asked the adviser if what I had understood was correct and she confirmed but said that I would not get 4% interest on my money if I went my own way. The only detail this company did not have to proceed in getting their hands on my money was my bank account. I had not decided myself on what to do at this point but I told the adviser that I would get the bank account number for her the very same day. On my way out I passed a number of offices with people in them, only men. They had nice clothes, suspenders, greased combed back hair, a tanned face and looked exactly like the guys in a number of previous movies about the Wall street.
I got home checked my bank accounts but had already come to the conclusion that I was better off taking care of my pension money myself than handing it over to people that had figured out how to get their hands on peoples pension money from a construction that made it possible to drain the state pension funds on money before a time originally agreed upon by unions, parliament and governments. This possibility supposedly made to benefit individuals that needed to withdraw their pension earlier for a number of reasons was never communicated to the real benefactors but to banks and investment institutes so to let money be released into the market enriching the already rich. We have seen quite a lot of scam schemes like the one Bernard Madoff pulled off and other large scale finance market big time scandals and it just continues. That situation in the society is out of control for reasons of greed is obvious hearing in press and media that Cocaine is abundant on the streets and plazas here in Stockholm. If money wasn't abundant, Cocaine would be neither.
I made the call to my adviser/handler and told her that I had changed my mind, that I wanted to manage my pension myself. I asked if she still could make the application for early withdrawal for me but she declined. This day I felt proud of myself for listening, observing and analyzing, finally taking a very personal decisive action for my own future.
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