Seniors issues and pensions

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George W. Bush has made the privatization of the U.S. public pension system the legacy issue of his second term. He has warned that Social Security (the equivalent of our Canada Pension Plan) is headed toward bankruptcy, and pledged to begin dismantling it by creating individual retirement accounts for younger workers, instead of guaranteed public pensions.
Will privatizing public pension plans spell disaster for the elderly, or is it a bold idea for coping with rising costs? Major changes to the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) were made in 1998. Most likely on future agendas will be the abolition of the CPP and its replacement with a system of mandatory RRSPs. Monica Townson looks at the forces behind this push to privatize public pensions and examines countries where privatization has already taken place. 
The billions of dollars in Canadian pension funds belong to the workers for whom these funds were established. The money, in effect, is their "deferred wages," but, even though these vast sums now constitute the largest source of capital in the country, it has only been in the past few decades that workers, through their unions, have started to play a role in how, when, and where their pension money is invested.