Should the state buy up your pensions and invest them in roads and railways?
The idea is that a US sovereign wealth* fund would dip into public and private pension savings and invest the money in much-needed infrastructure. If it worked, the economy would benefit, infrastructure would benefit, pensions would receive a healthy return and savings would be made for the next generation.
If those infrastructure projects made a loss, however, it would be bad news for anyone with a pension and put further burdens onto the as-yet unborn. However unpopular traders might be, do we trust our retirement income more in the hands of governments?
*It is a bit of a stretch of the term ‘wealth’: SWFs usually catch existing cashflow rather than seeking it out.
