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An unholy combination of government short-sightedness and the all-consuming greed of our great financial services sector means Britain now has the lowest state pension in Europe, while the kind of private company pension scheme into which the vast majority of us are now saving will eventually give us a retirement income typically worth, according to the Pensions Policy Institute, precisely 7% of our salary.
The first state pension was paid out in this country 100 years ago next month. Ever since, the responsibility - and the risk - for the provision of our retirement income has been steadily shifting: from government to employers, and more recently, with the decline of those gold-plated final salary pension systems that our parents' generation enjoyed (and today's public sector workers continue to enjoy), from employers to individuals.
For most of us, the effective privatisation of our pensions means we are obliged to gamble our retirement funds on the stock market, largely for the profit of the legions of bankers, insurers and financial advisers who supposedly manage them. And the sad truth is that the vast majority of us will simply never be able to save enough to provide us with what most people would consider a fair retirement income.
This is a thoroughgoing national scandal. And something very radical will have to be done about it, very soon: from 2012, as the baby boom generation hits retirement age, the number of over-65s in this country is going to go through the roof. Imagine what will happen when they actually try to live on their pitiful pension pots.
So what is the answer? Why do we accept such a shameful excuse for a pension system - and what could, and should, be done about it?
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