Management: poor return on cash in hand? It's all a ploy to get you to spend it

Charles Bean is one of the men with his head on upside down: he has more hair on his chin than on the top of his head. He has a comb-over. And he thinks you are wrong to have any rainy-day money.

Bean is The Bank of England's Deputy Governor. Speaking to Channel Four, a national UK TV channel last night, he said "

"Very often older households have actually benefited from the fact that they've seen capital gains on their houses." In isolation, that's not terribly threatening. But in a moment reminiscent of Ben Bernanke's attack of lunacy before a US committee in November 2008, Bean appeared to be suggesting that the elderly - who are seeing pensions eroded by the day - should use some of the equity in their homes as collateral for spending money. He had preceded that statement with "Savers shouldn't necessarily expect to be able to live just off their income in times when interest rates are low. It may make sense for them to eat into their capital a bit."

That was bad enough - but then he admitted that the Bank of England had a deliberate strategy to make saving pointless. The Bank had, he said, cut interest rates in part to encourage spending rather than saving - the result is that rates of 0.5% for the past 18 months have translated into zero interest for many account holders.

And so Bean's logic is that savings should be spent with the result that, when interest rates return, there is lower capital upon which to earn interest.

With the extraordinary hostility to offshore accounts shown by Gordon Brown and the continuation of his policies by the Coalition, plus the disastrous state of the pound, putting money offshore where returns may be better is both complicated and expensive.

Britain is staring down the end of a generation of very poor pensioners.

And the Bean counter at the Bank of England isn't helping.