DIY Investor Magazine
/
2015 Issue
55
A traffic warden knows how to put a parking ticket
on a car but he is not obliged to understand how
that car works. Indeed the mechanics and motive
force of investments are, very sadly, beyond our
regulator’s understanding for now’ The FCA’s new
CEO has a massive job to do to change the culture and
understanding of North Colonnade.
The size of the task was laid bare by the admirable
Simon Davis who produces a forensic but highly
readable report into the regulator’s breathtakingly
inept handling of price sensitive information concerning
quoted insurance companies in March 2014.
Not only will he/she have to retrain the staff but also
politicians, and indeed journalists, will need to be
persuaded to take a more mature and far-sighted
attitude to our citizens experiencing the natural ups
and downs of personal investment.
The omens are reasonable, as exemplified by the
courageous decision of the previous Government in
setting the public free to choose what they want to
do with their pension pots, but there is a long road to
travel yet.
For just as the Spanish Inquisition attempted to hold
back the development of religious progress, Wheatley’s
FCA set out to prevent all of us from making our own
investment decisions, with disastrous consequences
for the next generation of companies to attract that
investment.
For all our futures we must pray that his passing ends
this current destructively nihilistic regulatory era.
Reproduced with the kind permission of real business.
To read more musings of City Grump visit:
A traffic warden knows how to put a parking ticket
on a car but he is not obliged to understand how
that car works. Indeed the mechanics and motive
force of investments are, very sadly, beyond our
regulator’s understanding for now’
