Crisis? What Crisis?

With stock markets tumbling around the globe this morning you might be forgiven that the bloke on Oxford Street warning us that "the end is nigh" might have some insider knowledge. If you follow the financial press, events like this can be an adrenalin roller coaster.

But what of real business. The day to day trading around the world continues, stuff is bought and sold, insurance premiums are paid, people pay back their loans etc. Buildings will continue to be built and Tesco's will look for another field to site a supermarket. In other words, although there are certainly consequences to global stock market drops, they tend to be felt at the "Macro" level for the most part.

When do we get to feel it? When we go to the bank and ask for a loan and the manager looks long and hard and asks how many children we have. He will need at least one of them as security for the loan along with the home, the business, savings and any other thing you have had the good fortune to accumulate.

Oh, and then although interest rates appear to be on the way down, our loan will need to be repaid with an eye-watering 5 1/2% over base rate.

And of course we feel it when we look at our Pension statements. After years of being hammered by a persistent bear market, they have nicely recovered over the last three years. We will have to wait to see if yet again those large Pension provider envelopes remain unopened. When your pension is going backwards it is sometimes easier not to know.

Maybe then this is a good buying opportunity if you have some spare cash hanging around? I don't know about that. I am not sure that the fund managers (highly paid) wake up every morning and concern themselves with your welfare.

I think that this is a time for cash, investing in your own business and maybe it is now the time to take control of your pension once and for all and not leave your retirement income to the whim of the market.