Survey Shows UK and US Pensions Crisis Is Imminent

The comments above & below is an edited and abridged synopsis of an article by Mark O’Byrne

The economics of retirement funding is at breaking point. Thanks to low interest rates, looming inflation rates and slow growth, the future of the retired population is at serious risk.

Currently there are six hundred million individuals putting pressure on established retirement systems. This will worsen as the last decade of financial experimentation and aging populations take over.

Most pension schemes were formed at a time when manufacturing and traditional businesses were the pinnacle of Western economies. Globalization has seen countries switch to service economies, and financial planning has failed to keep up.

The retirement crisis is playing out against the backdrop of a much greater global economic crisis. There is slow economic growth, rising inflation and a major debt crisis. No one knows how it will end.

In the US, politicians have promised to deal with the upcoming crisis through a combination of expanded Social Security benefits and new state-sponsored retirement. However, this doesn’t work for political gains.

Savers and investors must take responsibility for their own pensions and ask questions. Most importantly, they must ask if they can hold gold as part of a pension. Gold has an important role to play over the long term in preserving and growing pension wealth.

Gold is a long-term risk management asset, not a speculative one. It should be treated in the context of its role as a part of a properly structured, risk-balanced and diversified portfolio spanning the full life cycle of the investment and pension horizon for individual investors and those with pensions.

The pension crisis is a multi-trillion dollar/pound crisis that is not going away. Adding gold to your pension is a key way to protect your retirement from the pensions time bomb.