ORAC
Admittedly this is going a bit off-topic, but as we are all getting older, and our own country's government (along with others) has signally failed to cope simultaneously with an ageing population and long-term declining stock markets, we should all be aware that we are in an unprecedented pensions funding crisis. We are all likely to suffer, just so as to prove that the politicians ain't as clever as they think they are. Where is this 'hedging' and general waving of wands, then?
Of course, you are right. The brunt will be borne by private institutions.
Like Equitable Life, perhaps? Or Railtrack?
And Mr Bush, who is subject to rather worse economic pressures than ourselves right now, has just had half of his huge tax-cutting programme rejected by Congress, at the same time as he is asking for massively increased war funding...and at a time when everybody else is raising taxes (remember the extra 1% on your NI from next week, and the effective abolition of the upper earnings limit).
Just ask Mr 'Prudence' Brown at No 11, who (significantly) has just allocated walloping extra funding to the war effort...
...which will be paid for by?
Gadget 