Mike's Minute: KiwiSaver reality vs ideology

Given the issues around KiwiSaver, it’s a miracle any of us save anything to become remotely independent in retirement. 

Last week we told you about the Morningstar rankings and how the biggest operator in the market was performing so poorly, and now we have yet another crack at where the money is actually invested. 

Mindful Money is upset over the increase in funds going to fossil fuel producers. We have a 20% increase in the last six months. 

That's despite the amount of new money flowing into KiwiSaver only being 7%. 

Mindful Money is clearly of the view that the whole transition away from fossil fuels is still an urgent and present thing, when clearly, it's not. 

What we have here is a clash of reality vs ideology. 

The reality is KiwiSaver funds look for returns. The ideology is that no matter how unrealistic it is to run the world on sun and wind, we still need to sacrifice more to get there. 

If there has been one crushing realisation this past year or so around that, it is the simple truth that the transition to renewables has been found out, and badly. 

Genesis has half a million tonnes of coal standing by for this winter to keep the lights on. They have another half million tonnes on order, with a backup order for another 200,000 tonnes. 

Someone mines that coal. That's good business and good business pays dividends. 

If you hate coal don't even look at India and China. Coal is booming. It doesn’t make it nice or palatable, but it's real and investment is about reality. 

We are in a time where the cold, hard truth of what we thought was going to be easy, isn't. It might not even turn out to be real. 

The last thing we need is KiwiSaver funds playing dumb games like the banks and looking to deny legitimate activity, the financial life blood, it needs to produce goods and services people actually want. 

What we want in KiwiSaver is a pool of money that grows. That happens by investing in relevant activities that turn a dollar and pay a dividend. 

Morale indignation doesn’t fund retirement. 

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