Thanks for your thoughts Jens.
I feel that in the US there have been a lot fo retirement funds ripped off, both by the larger corporations administering their employees retirement savings and the changing of hands (corporate takeovers) of the large firms. There has also been a large number of insurance company failures in what I tend to think as contrived. I have worked with a couple of people who have taken out endowment policies and when they came to collect they ahve not even received the value of their contributions. One couple had insured their children and their contributions had been going out automatically for a good number of years. When the oldest child should have collected they wanted to follow up on getting the child's entitlement and the company they had started out with had been swallowed then changed name again and they had the devil of a job getting less than the contributions made over the years. It really worries me that we are feeding the younger generations into the hands of the new generation ticket clipper and rip off merchants and wide boys.

Ted E - I don't know the ratio between failed and successful pension schemes, but I am still in favor of them in principle, because saving for a pension (i.e. retirement wealth) is still the only way for better retirement prospects for those not entrepreneurially motivated or confident enough to manage their own investment efforts.

And yes, I also had a 40 year life insurance endowment policy which, because of inflation, delivered with all the profits 40 years later less, than what the policy was worth when initiated - but I don't complain, because it had served me well as my 1st home mortgage security, and its annual premiums sank in value from 3 weeks wages when started, to less than a day's earnings when closer to maturity.

For all those suspicious of dishonesty etc. susceptible private pension funds, our NZSF administered by govt. appointed non-political professionals, should become the strongly preferred and supported vehicle for participation in the needed build-up of retirement wealth, or partial pre-funding of increasing NZ Super costs.

If allocated to Personal Accounts, govt. tampering with the NZSF will become impossible without overwhelming public suport for it.

Constantly under public scrutiny, its widely diversified investments are the best security possible against occasional losses through investment or incompetence or dishonesty at administrational level.

Well, the predominating socio-economic issue for 2012 and possibly for the 3 years to the 2014 election here (and in several Western World countries) seems to become the increasing inequalty of income and wealth ownership.
At least for us in New Zealand, what more effective way to face that problem can there be, than to introduce a Singapore style universal (retirement wealth) savings rate into our taxation system, through amending our NZ Super Fund into a permanent institution of Personal Accounts, with a contributions rate into the latter channelled through the taxes we pay?

This will initiate movement towards Ownership Democracy, defined through at least a minimally meaningful level of personal (retirement) wealth ownershiop by all citizens eventually, and what more effective way can there be to reduce poverty eventually to the point of practical elimination?

Just reading this now - am I reading you right and sorry if I'm not:
It sounds reasonable except that in the present economic climate there is an increasing number of NZers not contributing taxes because they are beneficiaries so would they be getting anything credited to their Personal Account?

Would another problem be that even when you do try to save for retirement, as already with Kiwisaver, the Government has already shown that it is free to break its side of the contract and make a mess of your savings anyhow by not giving what it said it would anyhow? By the way, there is only one side that can break that contract and it is not the Saver.

Who would handle these funds? Every 15 years the world economies go through a recession and financial institutions and businesses go belly up along with investors. Governments easily mismanage funds knowing in a few short years it will be another Minister's problem, hopefully that of the opposition.

Seems to me that a stuffed mattress might be the real answer. No interest but no losses either.

Does anyone really have a workable solution?

Congratulations, C-shell, as a new "grownup" with an open, unbiased mind.
Even at present 100% of New Zealanders, including welfare benficiaries and those with no taxable income at all - pay GST.
If National had raised GST only, and not reduced income tax in a freely consumable way - the extra GST at about $2billion a year could have resumed NZSF accumulation at its original rate, enabling a small standard NZSF Personal Account contribution to all those without taxable income.
With this, there is no promise for the Govt. to break, because NZSF Personal Account savings are not govt. subsidised, and govt. (and the country) benefit from them very quickly, in a sustainable way:
1. through their reduction of govt. expenditure when financing their owners' NZ Super, and
2. through these savings made available (up to a point) for low interest needed infrastructure (and desired NZ assets ownership) bonds, as a priority at least until excessive unemployment has been overcome.

The NZSF would carry on being handled as it is now, and the fortune of it would rise and fall with the value of assets owned.
So - thare are no promises nor expectations to break or fail, as the reality remains - that the NZSF only helps to keep good, govt. guaranteed NZ Super sustainable in a constructive way, with a relatively lessening burden for workers alone to finance the increasing costs of welfare for an increasing proportion of longer living superannuitants.
The professional NZSF managers as at present do not have to go for speculative profits, they don't have to borrow anything, and a financial collapse benefits rther than harms anyone without debts - like when your home's market price collapses, it does not harm you if you have no debts on it.

And haha - too much money "under your mattress" does not earn you anything and becomes worthless in the case of serious inflation, and ilustrates Keynes's "paradox of thrift" - that saving can be economically repressive, if not within the banking system, or not invested in wealth creation.
This means, it should not be "invested" in welfare consumption, or govt. debt financing it, because that would still be just the same as hand-to-mouth consumption, and not wealth creation.

"For all those suspicious of dishonesty etc. susceptible private pension funds, our NZSF administered by govt. appointed non-political professionals, should become the strongly preferred and supported vehicle for participation in the needed build-up of retirement wealth, or partial pre-funding of increasing NZ Super costs."
Is there such as scheme at present Jens?

I am from a background where we bought a section for cash, lived in a garage while we built the home (still live in it) and managed to save a pound and buy a sheet of Gib. We managed to avoid mortgage. In the early 70's I was astounded at the inflation which seemed to make the mortgage such a good idea however over our life I still think it was better to have avoided the mortgage. We are now in a better position than I had thought we would be when I was 60.
I still feel that for the vast majority of people that there should be a living pension for all provided by taxes as we have at the moment as not all of us have the opportunity or ability to make provision for our old age.

Ted E - I am glad to say that we are very close to such a scheme through the "Cullen" NZ Super Fund at present - but not quite there yet, because:

1. The Cullen Fund is designed to keep current rates of NZ Super through PAYGO sustainable only to get us over the "Baby Boomer Bulge", with no thought for the currently young workers paying both PAYGO and NZSF contributions for BBB NZ Super sustainability, and accumulating nothing for their own NZ Super sustainability.

2. It was designed to be financed impersonally through budget surpluses, which our current govt. found easy to discontinue because it would be economically unsound to borrow money for it.

Therefore our current NZSF needs to be amended into a permanent institution, to be a permanent pillar of NZ economic strength, which should greatly boost confidence in the future by our young - just as the 1/6 in the pound we paid in extra taxation 60 years ago boosted our confidence. (It was at least partly our own ignorance - and political party irresponsibility(?) - that we allowed these contributions be "borrowed" by govt. to finance welfare consumption - something that is not being done by our current NZSF).

3. So - the amendment into a permanent institution of Personal Accounts (PAs) would be very easy in times of budget surpluses - the PAs could be seen as simple tax rebates converted into personal shares of NZSF assets ownership.
But as shown above, the contributions rate could have been introduced even at present through the extra GST all of us pay, if that money had not been earmarked to compensate for income tax reductions.

4. So - our NZ Super would still remain taxation funded as it is at present, with a component of pre-funding in it, arguably making the system not only stronger, but also more fair, and converting our NZSuper from a taxation burden into a universal tool of wealth creation through the participation of 100% of us.

Why do you favour the GST type of payment rather than one based on income Jens ?

First and foremost - because GST is a very straightforward and natural charge or tax on consumption, paid even by those without taxable income.
This is fair and important especially in the case of welfare income, representing a symbolic appreciation in the form of a real donation in support of the economy that feeds you.
It is easy to determine a statistical average of GST paid by all those without taxable income, and for those with taxable income, PA contributions would be in proportion to income tax paid, without any reference to their GST at all.

In other words - the primary benefit of GST is to enable those without taxable income to participate in the economy and their own wealth creation constructively, while all others participate according to income tax paid.

Simple, straightforward, and fair?