The Guardian has reported:

Britain's biggest company pension funds are facing their largest ever collective shortfall of £100bn as a result of the financial crisis, in a stark reminder of the difficulties of funding retirement for an ageing population.

The deficit is more than double the £41bn estimated for the FTSE 100 companies a year ago, according to a new report by actuaries Lane Clark & Peacock.

This is just more evidence that firstly we can’t fund our pensions the way we do now, secondly that investing pension funds in the FTSE won’t solve the pensions problem, however much it is artificially reflated, and thirdly that the idea that the stock market has any bearing to any economic reality we want to depend upon is absurd (bar the sure fact that the City will gamble in it for their own benefit but that of no one else).

We need to look at pensions afresh.

I’ve done that here and suggest this just adds further evidence to support the arguments I’ve made.