Media round-up 27/10/09

A selection of personal finance stories from over the (long) weekend, with links to online versions:

• Playing the ageing game
  The financial crisis has highlighted the unfairness of lifting the age of eligibility for state pensions, a visiting academic has told the Retirement Commission (Sunday Star Times)
• Investors keep piling into KiwiSaver funds
  KiwiSaver's dominance of the "ma and pa" investment scene shows no signs of relenting, with the voluntary savings scheme driving a positive $698 million funds inflow during the September quarter (Dominion Post)
• DIY wealth
  Amanda Morrall talks to financial adviser and money writer Liz Koh about her new trilogy of free e-books and the road less travelled to building wealth (The Press)
• Martin Hawes: Exchange rate offers opportunity
  New Zealand's exchange rate threatens exporters and farmers but gives an opportunity for importers and smart investors (NZ Herald)
• Mary Holm: No havens from house wobbles
  Mary answers readers' letters about the housing market, adviser independence, and preference shares (NZ Herald)
• Crunch behind savings drop-off
  A tougher economic environment is being partly blamed for a slow-down in the number of people joining KiwiSaver and an increase in those who have stopped contributing money to it (NZ Herald)
• Brent Sheather: Heads the advisers win, tails you lose
  A defining feature of the modern financial world has been the huge growth of the investment advisory business, principally delivered to mum and dad via the advice of financial planners, banks and stockbrokers (NZ Herald)
• Mortgage outlook: variable
  Until recently, a two-year fixed-rate mortgage was always cheaper than a variable rate mortgage... (Show me the money blog - NZ Herald)