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Pensions - Regulation and Policy
We favour that the State provides all citizens with a pension that
supports them with the basic necessities of life. Everyone would get
the same pension and therefore the system would be simple to operate
and cheap to run.
Most distortions in
pension provision are caused by the arbitrary introduction of
piecemeal legislation and tax rules that were intended to favour one
or the other political constituency close to the party in power at
the time.
We also think that work-related pension provision should be on an
equal basis for all employees. 'Executive' Pension schemes allows
senior management not to have the interest of all employees at heart
when designing company or industry-wide pension schemes.
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MORE ON PENSION REGULATION AND POLICY
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About Pro Governance
Our Mission is to
campaign for the protection of investors and savers by promoting
good corporate governance.
We also believe that the wider spread of share ownership is in
itself a public good and may sometimes even be preferable to higher
economic efficiency.
Shareholders in publicly listed companies are widely dispersed and cannot
micro-manage the affairs of the companies they are invested in. The
international nature of today's shareholder registers make this also
impossible for large institutional investors.
On the other hand, abuses that have developed over the past few years make
it imperative that company managements are supervised in a more efficient
way.
Tax incentives and institutional constraints have favoured the growth of
large institutional investors at the expense of small individual
shareholders. This makes it more important than ever that these investors
behave like fiduciaries and have the interests of their clients at heart.
This means that the business of
money management cannot be treated like any other profit-maximising business.
Like the medical, legal or academic professions the interest of the clients
has to have priority when critical decisions have to be made with regard to
companies the money managers are invested in.
We at Pro-Gov think that the establishment of an effective international forum
combining representatives from the national organisations of individual
shareholders and investors will be an effective step in the direction of
improving corporate governance.
At the moment the corporate
Governance discussion is limited to academics, journalists in the quality
business press, institutional shareholders and companies and their business
associations as well as politicians. The one party missing on the table are
the real investors who - with some exceptions - voiceless in the debate.
"The scandal
isn't what's illegal; it's what's legal"
(Michael Kinsley)
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