"Their house is on fire":
the pension crisis sweeping the world
Financial Times,
by
Josephine Cumbo
&
Robin Wigglesworth
Original Article
Posted By: MDConservative,
11/17/2019 9:48:05 AM
Jan-Pieter Jansan, a 77-year-old retiree from the Netherlands, had high hopes for a worry-free retirement after having saved diligently into a pension during his working life. “This is causing me a lot of stress,” says Mr Jansan, who retired 17 years ago and hoped to use his pension pot to treat his grandchildren and afford good hotels on holidays. Mr Jansan is not alone in experiencing pension pain. Tens of millions more pensioners and savers around the world face the same pension security as Jansan when he lowered interest rates since the financial crisis created havoc for the financing of systems.
Reply 1 - Posted by:
ROLFNader 11/17/2019 10:31:02 AM (No. 237411)
But Jan Jansan can sit around starving- remembering the days before his government decided that taking in massive numbers of Muslim vermin was a valorous thing to do.
34 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
HotRod 11/17/2019 11:01:03 AM (No. 237429)
What the government controls, it can do with as it pleases. Take the lump sum and invest in the markets, or put it in your mattress.
16 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
voxpopuli 11/17/2019 11:02:47 AM (No. 237436)
Communist Governments..
what CANT they destroy...
20 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
bad-hair 11/17/2019 11:16:42 AM (No. 237446)
If they can apply a wealth tax, they can apply a "your pension pays what we say" tax.
If they can dictate how much doctors get paid they can sure as hell dictate what pensioners get paid.
Sanders is still holding on to laying off everybody who works for a health insurance company and deleting everybody's company health plan.
Tin Lizzie is having second thoughts. Now she's going for Buttgigs idea in a hundred days and Bernie's idea in 3 years after mid-terms when it stands no a snowball's chance in hell of getting through Congress (an excuse!!! phew that was close).
Elect a Democrat and kiss your take-home pay, your savings, your property, and your PENSION goodbye.
26 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
Strike3 11/17/2019 11:18:11 AM (No. 237449)
Soon to follow will be all the guvmint workers in California, Illinois and other rat-run states that will soon be faced with NO pension income because the states have spent all of their money. The crying will be heard nationwide. Once I saw that safe interest type accounts were yielding almost zero on the principal I left my retirement accounts in the stock market and income has been soaring. I know that all of the financial experts advise against this but hey, I'll ride the big wave until it starts to break.
21 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
DVC 11/17/2019 11:29:56 AM (No. 237456)
The money that could have supported higher private company bond yields was siphoned off to the government in taxes.
Putting your investments in to bonds has had a very poor return since at least 2008, and actually, longer than that. Governments around the world find that "somehow" their economies aren't doing as well as they did in decades past. The root cause is excessive government regulation (often various forms of 'ecowhacko and social justice' regulation imposing inefficiencies and costs on companies. Add to this the excessive taxation to support welfare state socialism, and you have a double dose of too much government, a huge drag on the economies.
Trying to boost their economies back to "the good old days", the central banks lower the interest rates to levels lower than were historically used in times before excessive regulation and taxation were strangling the economies.
These artificially low interest rates are a "price to be paid" for the government meddling way, way too much in the economies.
18 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
greggojo 11/17/2019 11:46:31 AM (No. 237473)
I wonder how America's federal employees' pension funds are structured? I wonder if they have managed to structure their own pensions so that any future lowering of benefits is impossible (and/or illegal).On a related matter, didn't Congress exempt itself from Obamacare?
11 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
LC Chihuahua 11/17/2019 11:48:05 AM (No. 237476)
Many European countries don't just tax income anymore. They tax savings. The government cannot take care of you. You must take care you. Good luck with that. Any promises along this line made by the government are lies. Just remember, lefty governments want EVERYTHING. They will strip you of your wealth. They will strip you of your rights. They will strip you of your dignity. And when they no longer have any use for you, they will let you die. The big government types think you are there to serve them.
23 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
ussjimmycarter 11/17/2019 11:50:59 AM (No. 237481)
Does anyone really believe that government workers in places like Chicago have $1.00 in their entire plan? Ha! They are probably way way way in the hole! Other Democrat cities are the same, I'm certain. Too much money for a democRAT to resist taking for personal use and for public spending!
11 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
varkdriver 11/17/2019 12:43:44 PM (No. 237524)
"Paging Mr. Ponzi. Mr. Ponzi, please pick up a white courtesy telephone..."
A much better investment for pension funds was the $62.5 million dollar check to the Tangiers in the movie "Casino"!
6 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
bad-hair 11/17/2019 12:53:46 PM (No. 237530)
LOL # 11
Sir Robert Stanford is sitting in a cell in Huntsville Texas thinking "Maybe I shoulda run for congress".
6 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
Ladyhawke 11/17/2019 1:22:59 PM (No. 237546)
There are many folks in the private sector that no longer get company pensions. I do not feel sorry one moment that government workers might get screwed. Why should my retirement income from wise investments be taxed only to be given to them?
13 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
Dodge Boy 11/17/2019 2:36:08 PM (No. 237579)
This is just the tip of the iceberg. Pension funds in the USA are also severely underwater. This is why the pension fund managers triggered last December's stock market selloff to transfer more risk from their pension funds to us un-suspecting retail investors. The central banks are busy at work making sure they are not left holding the bag and they are pushing monetary risk to the retail banks (we the retail investors). Sovereign governments are buying gold as a hedge against collapse of their currencies. The long predicted Aftershock looms. Sorry for the tinfoil hat treatment, but, this is the current state of play.
4 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
DVC 11/17/2019 2:39:15 PM (No. 237580)
Bingo,#13.
My wife worked for a big international engineering company which never had a pension plan, and my pension is modest, and the plan was cancelled for new employees two decades ago. Pensions were not a part of our retirement plans.
We recognized this reality 30+ years ago, and started saving and investing. This ant is not inclined to pay for the grasshoppers' poor judgement and bad planning.
7 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
RuckusTom 11/17/2019 3:08:44 PM (No. 237597)
How many Americans still believe there's a socialist security account with their name on it being added to each month with 7.5% with each one of their paychecks?
3 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
molson309 11/17/2019 3:08:55 PM (No. 237598)
#15 you may not be inclined, but if they have their way you will be forced.
1 person likes this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
DVC 11/17/2019 5:14:27 PM (No. 237715)
Agreed, #17, so I work to keep them from having their way.
1 person likes this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
Rumblehog 11/17/2019 5:49:19 PM (No. 237743)
Enforced immigration of low-life, uneducated, third-world morons is all about keeping the Ponzi scheme of socialist Utopias alive. The Europeans started this off many decades ago with Germany bringing in Turks, France bringing in Algerians, and here in the USA we import useless Dominicans, Jamaicans, and "Indians" from Mexico to keep paying taxes from low paying jobs in an effort to keep the Social Security gravy train going. This will ALL come crashing down soon enough, and Gen X'ers and Millennials know there'll be no SS for their retirements. Yet another Demonrat program that was born evil and grew up to be an evil adult.
0 people like this.
Reply 19 - Posted by:
zephyrgirl 11/17/2019 6:21:43 PM (No. 237759)
Early in my career, I worked in the pension world. It was obvious even then that relying on someone else (private industry or the government) to pay you a retirement income was foolish. I left pensions, but never forgot what I'd learned and spent my career socking away money and staying out of debt. Like #15, I'm not keen about bailing our people who failed to plan.
3 people like this.
Reply 20 - Posted by:
Trigger2 11/18/2019 4:25:50 AM (No. 237984)
This is what happens when socialist money runs out. They voted for it; now they reap the benefits.
0 people like this.
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Comments:
The world is awash in cash looking for a profitable investment home, much in the hands of pension funds. As central banks try to manage their economy by playing with the fiat money interest rates, promised (and necessary) investment growth isn't happening near expectations based on historical returns. Pension funds and annuities, which have contracted outcomes, have a serious problem here, especially when compounded over time. Mr. Jansan may yet need to buy a tent...and not just for holiday making.