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Regarding pensions, I never understood why an employer or a government would have an obligation to pay for retirement. It would seem that The onus of saving for

• lotsofpulp 7y ago
  It is on the employee. The employee chooses to accept an employer's promise to pay for retirement, in lieu of cash now (via choosing to work for that employer). Government on the other hand taxes income in order to pay for retirement and people don't have the ability to opt out, so of course they have an obligation to pay it.
• wmf 7y ago
  Financially it should have been a wash: either the company saves $X on your behalf in its pension plan or the company pays you $X extra salary for you to save. The benefit of the pension is the built-in discipline. Then we discovered that the financial aspect doesn't work.
• throwaway2048 7y ago
  pensions are a form of agreed upon compensation, what you agreed to doesn't change just because it becomes inconvenient for you. You are deriding how these people should have been "personally responsible", what about the responsibility of the corporate side of the equation?