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Part - VIII
There is this practice too of showing the contribution as having been made but in actuality holding it back, in order to manage cash flow. This was done over periods long and short, without the auditors or the regulators noticing it, or simply ignoring it. There is also this incredible practice of showing pension contributions as part of income to dress up profit and to manipulate stock price upwards.
The most treacherous of all is making the scheme complex and unintelligible to the employee/subscriber. Often the stringent and exclusion clauses are put in small print in the prospectus making it hard to read let alone understanding it. These aberrations are not altogether divorced from the corrupting influence of the stock market euphoria. The upswing in the stock market made people forget the downswing earlier when they lost huge chunk of their wealth. It is akin to a gambler's logic: 'The next will certainly be a winning cycle'. It is more correct to call it greed rather than mere irrationality. Enron was just one example (to be followed by Tyco, WorldCom and many others), albeit a very glaring and comprehensive one when everyone lost: the customers, the employees, the executives, shareholders. In fact the system itself lost and got exposed: its humbug of superior auditing, regulatory law, competence of the governing board, so called concept of shareholders' democracy, the entire framework.
Thus unfolds the saga of greed n lust for money, stakes held high by government and private enterprises alike all resulting in subscribers being grossly deprived and deceived. There is much more to be said and exposed even as the roulette wheel spins on. With the roulette wheel - a game of chance - there could be occasional gains. But the revolving pension roulette wheel being manipulated by the greed of the managers, indifference of the regulators, uncertainties of the stock markets and the credulity of the subscribers, cannot produce even this occasional success. Call it mania or madness, this must be stopped and the pension fund must be effectively managed.
Concluded.
* Contributed by -
Swetha Narayanaswamy,
First Year M.B.A.,
ICFAI Business School, Mumbai.
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