To the Editor,
Our pension schemes were planned back in the day when trade unions were on the rise and perhaps assumed to be expanding. Also then assumed was that one could count on a good job to take a person all the way to retirement.
It was an age of relative prosperity, growth, and market profits for most small firms.
But in ideological ignorance, neglect, or complicity our governments have fostered a culture of union bashing. Adopting the theological mantra of small government, they even attacked their own unions.
Governments further deregulated investments and banking to promote the age of financial bubbles.
Now the economic partner in collapse, Harper wants to rob the nest egg of savings set aside to meet the old age security demands expected, or is it a hint that the books have been cooked, the cash shoveled out to bankers’ bonuses?
The public debate should not first be how we can fix the empty account but who in government and the financial industries do we jail first, before they run to a Swiss bank?
Dee Shoolingin,
Duncan