Or investing in life: the history and future of pensionsThere are parts of the book I really like
what the numbers say are that no one really wins in the investment world other than the firms selling investments. If you are in the business, you know this to be an accurate statement and furthermore there is no significant pension fund protection against declines in markets which pension funds are now enduring, leading to those funds to be under-funded for retirement purposes. The great game of investing is in selling investments, not in buying them!Pg 6
13 trillion US dollars in pensions compares to world GDP of 28 trillion dollars and world-wide value of stock markets of 23 trillion dollars, according to OECD figures of the previous year (1999).Three fifths of global pension assets, 7.8 trillion, were held for US policyholders, with their stakes having grown by 140 percent since 1994.At the end of 1999 there were seven million individuals world-wide with liquid assets of over 1 million. There were 2.5 million of these high net worth individuals in North America with a total wealth of 8.1 trillion, ahead of the value of US pension fund assets by $0.3 trillion.Pg 7
We will see that much of the gain reaped by funds, if not all of it, goes to these intermediaries, rather than to the holders of the pension plans who face a bemusing array of choices and whose legal rights to their share of the pot are very much less clear-cut than the right of wealthy individuals to their investments and assets.Also discussed is the telecom debt bubble and the unused capacity when the marketplace didnt boom according to the (perhaps unrealistic) industry expectations. A book like Pop! Bubbles are good for the economy would say that there are benefits to society
but there could be flaws regarding the premise between hard assets and intangible or soft assets.Pg 363
Milton and Rose Friedman argued that social security comprises a payroll tax and a system of benefits which, taken separately, would be regarded as highly illogical and undesirable. The payroll tax was regressive, and functions as a tax on employment, while the benefits gave a bad deal to workers and poor citizens who tended to die earlier than those who were better off.Pg 364
As an economist, he regarded social security as a chain letter.The Milton and Rose Friedman Free to chose book discusses attacking influence and urging governments to protect the currency. Yet the authors insist that a currency has no intrinsic value but serves as a means of exchange and store of value simply because society, through the government, legislates that this is the case.