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Germans invest in private pensions
Germans are investing in private funds to secure their pensions more than ever, the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported Wednesday.Private retirement packages in 2005 rose significantly higher compared to a year ago, Germany's Social Affairs Minister Ulla Schmidt said Tuesday in Berlin. "Everyone in Germany knows: State pensions won't suffice anymore. One needs private arrangements," she said. Roughly 4.5 million Germans have so far invested in the Riester-pension, a state-endorsed independent retirement fund named after a former federal minister. "2005 is the year of the Rieste-pension," Schmidt said. Germany's federal pension system has come under great pressure in recent years, as less money entered the federal pension fund because of dwindling employment numbers. Employers and employees both pay contributions to the fund. The Riester-pension was designed to support lower-wage earners and families with their private retirement arrangements. Since 2002, insurance companies have brokered seven million new pension funds, the newspaper said. Ironically, these private pensions were created for the same original reason that social security was created in the US, to garnish the wages of lower-wage earners to support lower-wage earners' retirements. Had congress left it as such, it would have been a fine retirement plan for just these people. But they couldn't resist trying to make it universal--which killed it. Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-08-18 |
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