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At least you need to come with some good arguments, and no, it's no obvious at all. Many countries who do NOT have state run pension systems, like for example Iceland, do not wallow in misery for old people, so it rather seems quite obvious that it is not the so called "modern" (I'd prefer the term "ancient") state run pension systems that delivered us from misery.

As for what happen after uncollectivisation, see Chile or even the US.

High growth and low absolute poverty. You do make a compelling argument against collective state-run pensions, I must say.

An insurance company can't make a contract for an individual that runs the risk of making a loss.

In fact, this is exactly what insurance companies do every single day. It is in fact what the business of insurance is all about.

Pensions are only viable over a large pool of subscribers.

Which is what insurance is about. But of course, it can be argued that pensions aren't insurance at all, and most of the time it's handles by banks. ;-)

It is not easily controllable. See the recent failure of AAA-rated CDOs . And systemic crashes can wipe out any and all assets.

Including much of the states assets, so that's not an argument. Having your money in the bank is not more risky than giving them to the state, and the reason for that is that states have bank guarantees, which are a necessity to have a well functioning financial system.

The claim that it is risky is complete and utter bogus.

Much better than the markets where a dozen large market players control your retirement assets' valuation.

A dozen vs one. Yeah. MUCH better.

Said market players, and others, are very good at swindling the majority of people out of their retirement, have they have done in the recent and more ancient past.

And so have states. In fact, you are argung that Sarkozy is trying to do just that right now.

QED.

by freedomfighter on Wed Oct 24th, 2007 at 01:18:50 PM EST
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