Word: pension
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Deference is dead, replaced by sniping, cynicism and an outpouring of open protest. Thanks to the Internet, every individual's gripe can now be amplified and diffused to a mass audience, whether the gripers are retired Americans whose pension benefits have been slashed or Chinese peasants who have lost their farmland to the nation's torrid industrialization. A recent World Economic Forum poll of more than 20,000 people in 20 countries revealed that public trust in national governments, the U.N. and multinational companies has dropped significantly over the past two years and is close to the lows recorded after...
...about being locked out of the party. "The top of the house shouldn't continue to award itself when the folks on the lower end of the ladder suffer," says C. William Jones, a retired telephone-company worker in Easton, Md., who was so incensed that Verizon cut his pension and health-care benefits that he helped start a protest group called the Association of BellTel Retirees. It now has more than 100,000 members and communicates mainly online...
...many Chileans have seen little benefit from the booming economy. Some 10% of Chileans earn up to 60% of the national income, and that dramatic inequality of income has been cited as a key obstacle to Chile's long-term economic development. Bachelet campaigned on promises of pension reform, income growth, environmentally aware expansion of energy resources, and improved relations with neighboring nations...
Schwarzenegger 3.0 was on full display during his State of the State address last week. Gone was the man who in last year's speech talked of fighting special interests, deplored the "broken" budget process, called the education system a "disaster" and declared that the state-employees pension system was "out of control." In his place, legislators heard a chastened Governor offering a plan to please any populist?or teacher, bond salesman, union member, hourly worker, college student or construction-company owner. "The people, who always have the last word, sent a clear message?cut the warfare, cool the rhetoric...
...hard. Gold is seen by many as a safe haven in an uncertain world. "So many banks fail and close their doors, and ordinary people get hurt when that happens," says Jhansi Rani, a schoolteacher in Madras, pointing out the case of a close relative who had deposited his pension money in a private bank, only to see it close down suddenly and find that the funds had, apparently, disappeared...