Chapter 5 - Exit from Work

Summary

Of several ways to provide for old age, the best is to be rich. Pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) pensions are funded by taxation and do not need to lock in the future. British and American safety net pensions remain very low. American economists (Friedman, Feldstein) pushed to privatise pensions, disregarding risk and high costs. Deindustrialisation undermined solid corporate and public sector pensions. Pre-invested private pensions only work for the better off. Popular resistance has preserved PAYGO. Pre-funded pensions, touted as best, fail because pension consumption cannot be hoarded. Headline yields are halved by transaction costs. Stock markets are too small to support social transfers, and PAYGO is an order of magnitude cheaper. Its real return is often higher than stockmarkets. Financialisation of old age is an exploitative deceit. PAYGO is informal, flexible, and robust.