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Comment by srssays | Hacker News Reader

State pension systems tie your financial security directly to government finances, and also to election results decades in the future. They are essentially a form of gambling.

No rational person relies upon them, and rational people are precisely the kinds of people to have savings!

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Private pensions also tie you directly to private finances, and market results decades in the future. You're also gambling that the money won't be stolen by the institutions or suffer a collapse in value - banking on a TBTF bailout in the future.

(Overstated slightly, but there is a role for both private and state pensions in a sensible system!)

With a state pension, a government can exclude people from reaping what they have put in, retroactively. I don't expect to be able to claim a UK state pension -- they can just keep putting up the minimum age from 65, to 66 to 70 to 75 to 80... until the scheme is removed entirely.

Whereas with private pensions the values go up and down but are unlikely to hit 0 and stay there -- unless it's really mismanaged!

> I don't expect to be able to claim a UK state pension -- they can just keep putting up the minimum age from 65, to 66 to 70 to 75 to 80

What would be the point of doing this? Whose interest does it serve? It does not serve the banks' interest. It does not serve the politicians' interest. It does not serve your interest.

It brings the deficit down, and as long as it's only done to a narrow group of people at a time and has the support of the newspapers it looks good for the government's economic competence.

Private pension collapses: "stakeholder" ones seem a bit safer, but company ones keep getting into trouble e.g. http://uk.businessinsider.com/sir-philip-green-bhs-pension-f...

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