From little things, big things grow

Milledge, I am 120% in agreement with you there mate. Which is significantly bigger than the return many will see on their money in superfunds.

I'm editing this post, might be a tiny issue with the website I found it on, will post original link to the ABC document mentioned.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/08/04/2973596.htm

It's an old story but a goody. Sorry if it's been posted before.

Australians' retirement savings have delivered a net return of just 3 per cent a year over more than a decade, an investigation by the ABC has found.

That is barely ahead of inflation which averaged 2.8 per cent over that period and 3.1 per cent over the past 10 years - implying that, system-wide, retirement savings have achieved virtually no growth in real terms.

The ABC has analysed official statistics from the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) on superannuation assets and contribution flows that go back as far as 1997.

In the 13 years to mid-2009, the superannuation system delivered an annual compound return of 3.04 per cent.

The system-wide returns are significantly less than the money could have earned had it been placed in effectively risk-free investment vehicles such as Australian bank term deposits or Australian government long-term bonds.

Cash in a bank term deposit would have delivered about 4.5 per cent a year on average over that time.

The returns have also been eroded by a sizeable slice of fees taken from superannuation all the way along the line.

"It's a $1.2 trillion industry and out of that there is about $17 billion in fees that are stripped out of it every year," said Jeff Bresnahan, managing director of SuperRatings.

"Quite simply, $47 million, $48 million a day coming out of our superannuation accounts to pay suppliers for managing that money."

Hard to believe $48 million/day, but that's what $4.80/day/worker would amount to on average if there were 10 million workers.