the financial crisis has forced Canadians to come to grips with the
idea that a pension may not be a promise, employee benefits are
similarly in peril.
"I find it almost incomprehensible that Nortel
LTD (long-term disability) claimants could lose their benefits, but
this is possible; let alone losing their health care and a portion of
their pensions," said Kevin Dougherty, president of Sun Life Financial
Canada, speaking at the Canadian Pension and Benefits Institute
conference.
"We saw how benefits and pensions can literally disappear in an instant."
Now people nearing retirement face a new twist.
"Millions
of people asked the questions, what if I have to leave the workforce
five or 10 years early, or what if I have to stay in the workforce five
or 10 years more."
The leading edge of baby boomers will hit age 65 next year, when each day a thousand people in Canada will retire.
"Today
with boomers age 50 to 65, with kids grown and many through school,
the question they're asking isn't 'what if I die,' it's 'what if I
live?' That saps my income and retirement savings. What if I have to
live through another financial crisis?"
Dougherty joins federal
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty and Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney
in worrying about the growing debt Canadians are piling up.
"How
can we be the only place in the developed world where real estate
prices continued to increase for the last two-and-a-half years? What
does that mean? - more and more debt for Canadians."
While
Canadians who can't resist a bargain stock up on moulding empty homes
in the United States, there is fear that the Home Equity Line Of Credit
or HELOC could do in Canada what subprime mortgages did in the U.S.
Of course, retirement won't affect all people the same.
"Women
who are widowed early in retirement actually live three years longer
(than those who aren't), and men widowed early in retirement live three
years less."
While more and more companies with underfunded
pension plans have been reducing benefits and commuted value payouts,
the malaise has spread to employment benefits. Many firms offer minimal
health-care coverage in retirement or have eliminated it, while more
and more current employees find themselves on the hook to find vision
and dental insurance.
Meanwhile, the average number of days lost annually to sickness per worker has risen from eight in 1989 to 13 in 2009.
Dougherty's
conclusion is that neither government nor lawyers will take care of an
aging workforce, "and the next generation of children is not going to
want to take care of us."
He said
there is more onus on people in the pension and benefits and human
resources areas to devise products and provide advice.
"Our
industry needs to be much more than just helping to attract and retain
employees. The financial security of millions of Canadians depends on
the work we do."
One such move is encouraging government to establish a new personal health- savings account.
"We've
been advocating something called the registered health savings plan,
where people can save money on a pre-tax basis to be used for their
health-care costs in retirement. There are other examples like critical
illness insurance. But we've got to step up to this. I think this is
going to be one of the big areas of the future."
Even
with defined contribution pension plans, where investment risk lies
with the individual, the employers can provide advice through plan
sponsors.
"Narrowing the field from 4,000 fund managers to 12 is
providing advice. Overseeing and switching out of managers is providing
advice. Setting a level of contribution and matching is providing
advice. Providing tools that ask questions and lead people to
recommendations is providing advice."
But there is need to help
educate people about financial literacy, abetting the federal
government's task force on the issue that has been touring Canadians for
submissions and will issue a report in December.
"The most
striking finding is the degree of the challenge that we have, the
surprising lack of financial literacy in the general population is
really, really striking," Dougherty said.
"There's a challenge in
literacy - reading and writing in English, because we have such large
immigration; a challenge in numeracy, lots of people don't like working
with numbers; and you layer on top of that the knowledge and skills of
financial consequences."
All this is set against a backdrop in
which the financial crisis produced severe stock market downturns that
scared individuals from investing personally, while corporations were
similarly spooked and didn't invest in technology to improve
productivity and grow their workforces.
"There
was a two-year period in which we didn't invest, and that's going to
hurt us for two to five years," said Glen Hodgson, chief economist of
the Conference Board of Canada. "Health care will soon emerge as a top
concern for Canadians. Aging is going to suck the life out of our
economy slowly."
But just as baby boomers were told 40 years ago
that the investment of the future would be "plastics," Hodgson has his
own tip: "India will be the next China, it will keep growing at eight
per cent for a number of years."
You can bet your hip replacement on it.
Finally, my favorite deflationist, Gary Shilling was interviewed on Yahoo's Teck Ticker on Monday warning us that the age of deleveraging is upon us:
The Asian Development Bank has roped in the European Investment Bank to invest in large-scale solar power plants in India. The ADB is committed to arrange finances for India’s ambitious National Solar Mission projects.
The Asian Development Bank has been working closely with many Asian countries to provide them financial, technical and policy-related support for expanding solar energy infrastructure. The ADB is playing an active role in India to make solar energy more popular. In addition to the European Investment Bank, the ADB has also attracted funding from the US Import-Export Bank and Germany’s KWF.
Under the National Solar Mission, India plans to install 20,000 MW solar-based power generation capacity by 2022. The current install capacity is a dismal 14 MW. The 20,000 MW capacity also includes the off-grid rural power plants. In order to rapidly increase the installed capacity the Indian government has announced two massive solar farm projects, one each in Rajasthan and Gujarat.
Both these states are blessed with substantially high solar radiation resource and also have large areas of unused lands due to lower agricultural land use. Rajasthan has the vast Thar desert while Gujarat has vast wastelands in the west. Gujarat has set aside 2,500 hectare for a 1,000 MW plant while Rajasthan has set aside 8,000 hectare for a 3,000 MW plant. Construction of these plants is expected to start after 2013, that is, during the second phase of the National Solar Mission.
The ADB is also supporting the project developers who intend to set up power plants during the first phase. The first phase aims at installing 1,1o0 MW by 2013; ADB will support 350 MW of these installations. The smaller power plants have been provided with 50 percent loan guarantees and project developers will also provided direct loans.
The Asian Development Bank has been working closely with several ministries of the Indian government to devise overall policies and logistical support mechanism in order to make the solar energy projects commercially viable. The bank would also provide capital grants to cover up the difference between the cost of solar power generation and the average cost of generation from conventional sources.
Such collaborations with international funding agencies help in bridging the financial gap that exists for any new renewable energy technologies. In the absence of a clear agreement on international funding as part of an international climate change treaty, such partnerships with European and American banks helps in the quick implementation of these clean technology projects in the developing countries.
Image: technicolorcavalry/Flickr/CC
The views presented in the above article are author’s personal views and do not represent those of TERI/TERI University where the author is currently pursuing a Master’s degree.
Follow Mridul Chadha on Twitter and Facebook
bench craft company scamGoogle <b>News</b> Blog: Credit where credit is due
News publishers and readers both benefit when journalists get proper credit for their work. That can be difficult, with news spreading so quickly and many websites syndicating articles to others. That's why we're experimenting with two ...
New Yorker's Music Critic Moves to <b>News</b> Corp.'s Daily - NYTimes.com
Sasha Frere-Jones, a music critic at The New Yorker, will become the culture editor of The Daily, News Corporation's so-called iPad newspaper which is currently in development.
First Solar <b>News</b>, Rumors: CIGS, Mercury, Tellurium : Greentech Media
First the news... Apollo Solar Energy (OTC: ASOE), a vertically integrated miner, refiner and producer of high purity tellurium (Te), announced a five-year purchase contract between Apollo Solar Energy and a major worldwide solar panel ...
bench craft company scam
While
the financial crisis has forced Canadians to come to grips with the
idea that a pension may not be a promise, employee benefits are
similarly in peril.
"I find it almost incomprehensible that Nortel
LTD (long-term disability) claimants could lose their benefits, but
this is possible; let alone losing their health care and a portion of
their pensions," said Kevin Dougherty, president of Sun Life Financial
Canada, speaking at the Canadian Pension and Benefits Institute
conference.
"We saw how benefits and pensions can literally disappear in an instant."
Now people nearing retirement face a new twist.
"Millions
of people asked the questions, what if I have to leave the workforce
five or 10 years early, or what if I have to stay in the workforce five
or 10 years more."
The leading edge of baby boomers will hit age 65 next year, when each day a thousand people in Canada will retire.
"Today
with boomers age 50 to 65, with kids grown and many through school,
the question they're asking isn't 'what if I die,' it's 'what if I
live?' That saps my income and retirement savings. What if I have to
live through another financial crisis?"
Dougherty joins federal
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty and Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney
in worrying about the growing debt Canadians are piling up.
"How
can we be the only place in the developed world where real estate
prices continued to increase for the last two-and-a-half years? What
does that mean? - more and more debt for Canadians."
While
Canadians who can't resist a bargain stock up on moulding empty homes
in the United States, there is fear that the Home Equity Line Of Credit
or HELOC could do in Canada what subprime mortgages did in the U.S.
Of course, retirement won't affect all people the same.
"Women
who are widowed early in retirement actually live three years longer
(than those who aren't), and men widowed early in retirement live three
years less."
While more and more companies with underfunded
pension plans have been reducing benefits and commuted value payouts,
the malaise has spread to employment benefits. Many firms offer minimal
health-care coverage in retirement or have eliminated it, while more
and more current employees find themselves on the hook to find vision
and dental insurance.
Meanwhile, the average number of days lost annually to sickness per worker has risen from eight in 1989 to 13 in 2009.
Dougherty's
conclusion is that neither government nor lawyers will take care of an
aging workforce, "and the next generation of children is not going to
want to take care of us."
He said
there is more onus on people in the pension and benefits and human
resources areas to devise products and provide advice.
"Our
industry needs to be much more than just helping to attract and retain
employees. The financial security of millions of Canadians depends on
the work we do."
One such move is encouraging government to establish a new personal health- savings account.
"We've
been advocating something called the registered health savings plan,
where people can save money on a pre-tax basis to be used for their
health-care costs in retirement. There are other examples like critical
illness insurance. But we've got to step up to this. I think this is
going to be one of the big areas of the future."
Even
with defined contribution pension plans, where investment risk lies
with the individual, the employers can provide advice through plan
sponsors.
"Narrowing the field from 4,000 fund managers to 12 is
providing advice. Overseeing and switching out of managers is providing
advice. Setting a level of contribution and matching is providing
advice. Providing tools that ask questions and lead people to
recommendations is providing advice."
But there is need to help
educate people about financial literacy, abetting the federal
government's task force on the issue that has been touring Canadians for
submissions and will issue a report in December.
"The most
striking finding is the degree of the challenge that we have, the
surprising lack of financial literacy in the general population is
really, really striking," Dougherty said.
"There's a challenge in
literacy - reading and writing in English, because we have such large
immigration; a challenge in numeracy, lots of people don't like working
with numbers; and you layer on top of that the knowledge and skills of
financial consequences."
All this is set against a backdrop in
which the financial crisis produced severe stock market downturns that
scared individuals from investing personally, while corporations were
similarly spooked and didn't invest in technology to improve
productivity and grow their workforces.
"There
was a two-year period in which we didn't invest, and that's going to
hurt us for two to five years," said Glen Hodgson, chief economist of
the Conference Board of Canada. "Health care will soon emerge as a top
concern for Canadians. Aging is going to suck the life out of our
economy slowly."
But just as baby boomers were told 40 years ago
that the investment of the future would be "plastics," Hodgson has his
own tip: "India will be the next China, it will keep growing at eight
per cent for a number of years."You can bet your hip replacement on it.
Finally, my favorite deflationist, Gary Shilling was interviewed on Yahoo's Teck Ticker on Monday warning us that the age of deleveraging is upon us:
The Asian Development Bank has roped in the European Investment Bank to invest in large-scale solar power plants in India. The ADB is committed to arrange finances for India’s ambitious National Solar Mission projects.
The Asian Development Bank has been working closely with many Asian countries to provide them financial, technical and policy-related support for expanding solar energy infrastructure. The ADB is playing an active role in India to make solar energy more popular. In addition to the European Investment Bank, the ADB has also attracted funding from the US Import-Export Bank and Germany’s KWF.
Under the National Solar Mission, India plans to install 20,000 MW solar-based power generation capacity by 2022. The current install capacity is a dismal 14 MW. The 20,000 MW capacity also includes the off-grid rural power plants. In order to rapidly increase the installed capacity the Indian government has announced two massive solar farm projects, one each in Rajasthan and Gujarat.
Both these states are blessed with substantially high solar radiation resource and also have large areas of unused lands due to lower agricultural land use. Rajasthan has the vast Thar desert while Gujarat has vast wastelands in the west. Gujarat has set aside 2,500 hectare for a 1,000 MW plant while Rajasthan has set aside 8,000 hectare for a 3,000 MW plant. Construction of these plants is expected to start after 2013, that is, during the second phase of the National Solar Mission.
The ADB is also supporting the project developers who intend to set up power plants during the first phase. The first phase aims at installing 1,1o0 MW by 2013; ADB will support 350 MW of these installations. The smaller power plants have been provided with 50 percent loan guarantees and project developers will also provided direct loans.
The Asian Development Bank has been working closely with several ministries of the Indian government to devise overall policies and logistical support mechanism in order to make the solar energy projects commercially viable. The bank would also provide capital grants to cover up the difference between the cost of solar power generation and the average cost of generation from conventional sources.
Such collaborations with international funding agencies help in bridging the financial gap that exists for any new renewable energy technologies. In the absence of a clear agreement on international funding as part of an international climate change treaty, such partnerships with European and American banks helps in the quick implementation of these clean technology projects in the developing countries.
Image: technicolorcavalry/Flickr/CC
The views presented in the above article are author’s personal views and do not represent those of TERI/TERI University where the author is currently pursuing a Master’s degree.
Follow Mridul Chadha on Twitter and Facebook
bench craft company scamGoogle <b>News</b> Blog: Credit where credit is due
News publishers and readers both benefit when journalists get proper credit for their work. That can be difficult, with news spreading so quickly and many websites syndicating articles to others. That's why we're experimenting with two ...
New Yorker's Music Critic Moves to <b>News</b> Corp.'s Daily - NYTimes.com
Sasha Frere-Jones, a music critic at The New Yorker, will become the culture editor of The Daily, News Corporation's so-called iPad newspaper which is currently in development.
First Solar <b>News</b>, Rumors: CIGS, Mercury, Tellurium : Greentech Media
First the news... Apollo Solar Energy (OTC: ASOE), a vertically integrated miner, refiner and producer of high purity tellurium (Te), announced a five-year purchase contract between Apollo Solar Energy and a major worldwide solar panel ...
benchcraft company scam
bench craft company scam
benchcraft company scamGoogle <b>News</b> Blog: Credit where credit is due
News publishers and readers both benefit when journalists get proper credit for their work. That can be difficult, with news spreading so quickly and many websites syndicating articles to others. That's why we're experimenting with two ...
New Yorker's Music Critic Moves to <b>News</b> Corp.'s Daily - NYTimes.com
Sasha Frere-Jones, a music critic at The New Yorker, will become the culture editor of The Daily, News Corporation's so-called iPad newspaper which is currently in development.
First Solar <b>News</b>, Rumors: CIGS, Mercury, Tellurium : Greentech Media
First the news... Apollo Solar Energy (OTC: ASOE), a vertically integrated miner, refiner and producer of high purity tellurium (Te), announced a five-year purchase contract between Apollo Solar Energy and a major worldwide solar panel ...
benchcraft company scam
While
the financial crisis has forced Canadians to come to grips with the
idea that a pension may not be a promise, employee benefits are
similarly in peril.
"I find it almost incomprehensible that Nortel
LTD (long-term disability) claimants could lose their benefits, but
this is possible; let alone losing their health care and a portion of
their pensions," said Kevin Dougherty, president of Sun Life Financial
Canada, speaking at the Canadian Pension and Benefits Institute
conference.
"We saw how benefits and pensions can literally disappear in an instant."
Now people nearing retirement face a new twist.
"Millions
of people asked the questions, what if I have to leave the workforce
five or 10 years early, or what if I have to stay in the workforce five
or 10 years more."
The leading edge of baby boomers will hit age 65 next year, when each day a thousand people in Canada will retire.
"Today
with boomers age 50 to 65, with kids grown and many through school,
the question they're asking isn't 'what if I die,' it's 'what if I
live?' That saps my income and retirement savings. What if I have to
live through another financial crisis?"
Dougherty joins federal
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty and Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney
in worrying about the growing debt Canadians are piling up.
"How
can we be the only place in the developed world where real estate
prices continued to increase for the last two-and-a-half years? What
does that mean? - more and more debt for Canadians."
While
Canadians who can't resist a bargain stock up on moulding empty homes
in the United States, there is fear that the Home Equity Line Of Credit
or HELOC could do in Canada what subprime mortgages did in the U.S.
Of course, retirement won't affect all people the same.
"Women
who are widowed early in retirement actually live three years longer
(than those who aren't), and men widowed early in retirement live three
years less."
While more and more companies with underfunded
pension plans have been reducing benefits and commuted value payouts,
the malaise has spread to employment benefits. Many firms offer minimal
health-care coverage in retirement or have eliminated it, while more
and more current employees find themselves on the hook to find vision
and dental insurance.
Meanwhile, the average number of days lost annually to sickness per worker has risen from eight in 1989 to 13 in 2009.
Dougherty's
conclusion is that neither government nor lawyers will take care of an
aging workforce, "and the next generation of children is not going to
want to take care of us."
He said
there is more onus on people in the pension and benefits and human
resources areas to devise products and provide advice.
"Our
industry needs to be much more than just helping to attract and retain
employees. The financial security of millions of Canadians depends on
the work we do."
One such move is encouraging government to establish a new personal health- savings account.
"We've
been advocating something called the registered health savings plan,
where people can save money on a pre-tax basis to be used for their
health-care costs in retirement. There are other examples like critical
illness insurance. But we've got to step up to this. I think this is
going to be one of the big areas of the future."
Even
with defined contribution pension plans, where investment risk lies
with the individual, the employers can provide advice through plan
sponsors.
"Narrowing the field from 4,000 fund managers to 12 is
providing advice. Overseeing and switching out of managers is providing
advice. Setting a level of contribution and matching is providing
advice. Providing tools that ask questions and lead people to
recommendations is providing advice."
But there is need to help
educate people about financial literacy, abetting the federal
government's task force on the issue that has been touring Canadians for
submissions and will issue a report in December.
"The most
striking finding is the degree of the challenge that we have, the
surprising lack of financial literacy in the general population is
really, really striking," Dougherty said.
"There's a challenge in
literacy - reading and writing in English, because we have such large
immigration; a challenge in numeracy, lots of people don't like working
with numbers; and you layer on top of that the knowledge and skills of
financial consequences."
All this is set against a backdrop in
which the financial crisis produced severe stock market downturns that
scared individuals from investing personally, while corporations were
similarly spooked and didn't invest in technology to improve
productivity and grow their workforces.
"There
was a two-year period in which we didn't invest, and that's going to
hurt us for two to five years," said Glen Hodgson, chief economist of
the Conference Board of Canada. "Health care will soon emerge as a top
concern for Canadians. Aging is going to suck the life out of our
economy slowly."
But just as baby boomers were told 40 years ago
that the investment of the future would be "plastics," Hodgson has his
own tip: "India will be the next China, it will keep growing at eight
per cent for a number of years."You can bet your hip replacement on it.
Finally, my favorite deflationist, Gary Shilling was interviewed on Yahoo's Teck Ticker on Monday warning us that the age of deleveraging is upon us:
The Asian Development Bank has roped in the European Investment Bank to invest in large-scale solar power plants in India. The ADB is committed to arrange finances for India’s ambitious National Solar Mission projects.
The Asian Development Bank has been working closely with many Asian countries to provide them financial, technical and policy-related support for expanding solar energy infrastructure. The ADB is playing an active role in India to make solar energy more popular. In addition to the European Investment Bank, the ADB has also attracted funding from the US Import-Export Bank and Germany’s KWF.
Under the National Solar Mission, India plans to install 20,000 MW solar-based power generation capacity by 2022. The current install capacity is a dismal 14 MW. The 20,000 MW capacity also includes the off-grid rural power plants. In order to rapidly increase the installed capacity the Indian government has announced two massive solar farm projects, one each in Rajasthan and Gujarat.
Both these states are blessed with substantially high solar radiation resource and also have large areas of unused lands due to lower agricultural land use. Rajasthan has the vast Thar desert while Gujarat has vast wastelands in the west. Gujarat has set aside 2,500 hectare for a 1,000 MW plant while Rajasthan has set aside 8,000 hectare for a 3,000 MW plant. Construction of these plants is expected to start after 2013, that is, during the second phase of the National Solar Mission.
The ADB is also supporting the project developers who intend to set up power plants during the first phase. The first phase aims at installing 1,1o0 MW by 2013; ADB will support 350 MW of these installations. The smaller power plants have been provided with 50 percent loan guarantees and project developers will also provided direct loans.
The Asian Development Bank has been working closely with several ministries of the Indian government to devise overall policies and logistical support mechanism in order to make the solar energy projects commercially viable. The bank would also provide capital grants to cover up the difference between the cost of solar power generation and the average cost of generation from conventional sources.
Such collaborations with international funding agencies help in bridging the financial gap that exists for any new renewable energy technologies. In the absence of a clear agreement on international funding as part of an international climate change treaty, such partnerships with European and American banks helps in the quick implementation of these clean technology projects in the developing countries.
Image: technicolorcavalry/Flickr/CC
The views presented in the above article are author’s personal views and do not represent those of TERI/TERI University where the author is currently pursuing a Master’s degree.
Follow Mridul Chadha on Twitter and Facebook
bench craft company scam
bench craft company scamGoogle <b>News</b> Blog: Credit where credit is due
News publishers and readers both benefit when journalists get proper credit for their work. That can be difficult, with news spreading so quickly and many websites syndicating articles to others. That's why we're experimenting with two ...
New Yorker's Music Critic Moves to <b>News</b> Corp.'s Daily - NYTimes.com
Sasha Frere-Jones, a music critic at The New Yorker, will become the culture editor of The Daily, News Corporation's so-called iPad newspaper which is currently in development.
First Solar <b>News</b>, Rumors: CIGS, Mercury, Tellurium : Greentech Media
First the news... Apollo Solar Energy (OTC: ASOE), a vertically integrated miner, refiner and producer of high purity tellurium (Te), announced a five-year purchase contract between Apollo Solar Energy and a major worldwide solar panel ...
bench craft company scam
benchcraft company scamGoogle <b>News</b> Blog: Credit where credit is due
News publishers and readers both benefit when journalists get proper credit for their work. That can be difficult, with news spreading so quickly and many websites syndicating articles to others. That's why we're experimenting with two ...
New Yorker's Music Critic Moves to <b>News</b> Corp.'s Daily - NYTimes.com
Sasha Frere-Jones, a music critic at The New Yorker, will become the culture editor of The Daily, News Corporation's so-called iPad newspaper which is currently in development.
First Solar <b>News</b>, Rumors: CIGS, Mercury, Tellurium : Greentech Media
First the news... Apollo Solar Energy (OTC: ASOE), a vertically integrated miner, refiner and producer of high purity tellurium (Te), announced a five-year purchase contract between Apollo Solar Energy and a major worldwide solar panel ...
bench craft company scamGoogle <b>News</b> Blog: Credit where credit is due
News publishers and readers both benefit when journalists get proper credit for their work. That can be difficult, with news spreading so quickly and many websites syndicating articles to others. That's why we're experimenting with two ...
New Yorker's Music Critic Moves to <b>News</b> Corp.'s Daily - NYTimes.com
Sasha Frere-Jones, a music critic at The New Yorker, will become the culture editor of The Daily, News Corporation's so-called iPad newspaper which is currently in development.
First Solar <b>News</b>, Rumors: CIGS, Mercury, Tellurium : Greentech Media
First the news... Apollo Solar Energy (OTC: ASOE), a vertically integrated miner, refiner and producer of high purity tellurium (Te), announced a five-year purchase contract between Apollo Solar Energy and a major worldwide solar panel ...
benchcraft company scamGoogle <b>News</b> Blog: Credit where credit is due
News publishers and readers both benefit when journalists get proper credit for their work. That can be difficult, with news spreading so quickly and many websites syndicating articles to others. That's why we're experimenting with two ...
New Yorker's Music Critic Moves to <b>News</b> Corp.'s Daily - NYTimes.com
Sasha Frere-Jones, a music critic at The New Yorker, will become the culture editor of The Daily, News Corporation's so-called iPad newspaper which is currently in development.
First Solar <b>News</b>, Rumors: CIGS, Mercury, Tellurium : Greentech Media
First the news... Apollo Solar Energy (OTC: ASOE), a vertically integrated miner, refiner and producer of high purity tellurium (Te), announced a five-year purchase contract between Apollo Solar Energy and a major worldwide solar panel ...
how to lose weight fast benchcraft company scam
benchcraft company scam
bench craft company scam
No comments:
Post a Comment