The Hindu Business Line : `Chase your passion, not pension'

Last week, a big bank remained closed, because its employees struck work to press for pension hike. The showdown happened on Sunday, with the Government yielding to the demands. And the protest was called off.

Ironically, though, some of the worst affected during the strike in the `surprisingly' bank were senior citizens who could not draw their pension. Unsurprising, you may say, coming to terms with the ransom that the public has always to pay to recalcitrant monolithic financial institutions, in the form of meek suffering.

Since problems that can't be resolved have to be endured and lived with, we may look closer at the word in question: Pension. Concise Oxford English Dictionary defines the word as "a regular payment made by the state to people of or above the official retirement age and to some widows and disabled persons." Pension is normally paid "from the date of reaching the specified age or the retirement date until death," elaborates Oxford Dictionary of Business, in an entry that comes after `penny shares'.

EVEN A BRIBE?

A benefit paid regularly to a person for military service or a military service related disability, says www.genealogy.com, from a military perspective. "Men often receive pensions for eminent services on retiring from office. But in particular, officers, soldiers and seamen receive pensions when they are disabled for further services," differentiates Webster's 1828 Dictionary. The word also meant, "An allowance or annual payment, considered in the light of a bribe."

All pension need not be for the old, so you have old OAP in the UK, to refer to old age pension. To `pension somebody off' is "to make someone leave their job and give them a pension, usually because of their age," as Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary educates. You can also `pension something off', when you stop using something, "usually a machine, because it is old and has been used too much." For example: "After flying for 38 years, their Wessex helicopter is about to be pensioned off."

GRAIN RATION

Pension never ceases to be news: `Sex attacks officer set to lose police pension,' reports Scotsman. `BA pilot encounters pension turbulence,' notes Telegraph.co.uk. `Giant in pension field short $31.9 billion,' alerts Canadian HR Reporter. However, pension is not a new concept. For instance, in ancient Egypt, "The older men of the village, explicitly noted as `old', received a monthly grain-ration, though theirs was lower than that of the ordinary workmen," as www.touregypt.net informs.

"In the Roman Empire there was a well-established pension system to care for soldiers who were disabled or had grown old," informs The Columbia Encyclopedia on www.bartleby.com. "Pensions, originally thought of as charity, are now viewed as an essential part of the social responsibility of employers or of the state."

Navy pensions were first instituted by William III in 1693 and regularly established by an order in council of Queen Anne in 1700, notes 1911 Online Encyclopedia. The entry speaks of `land bounties' distributed as pension in the US. "To give title to bounty land, service must have been for at least fourteen days or in a battle prior to March 3, 1855." Bounty land warrants are issued for 160 acres, and over 70,000,000 acres have been granted under the different Bounty Land Acts, one learns.

"I will not give my part of this sport for a pension of thousands to be paid from the Sophy," says Fabian in Twelfth Night. "I have the wars for my colour, and my pension shall seem the more reasonable," declares Falstaff in King Henry IV. "Pension beg to keep base life afoot," is what you can hear of King Lear.

`Pensionable' means `entitled to receive a pension, or relating to such entitlement.' `Pensioner' is one who receives pension.

"The cowslips tall her pensioners be: in their gold coats spots you see," is Fairy's line from A Midsummer Night's Dream. Don't miss Mistress Quickly's long dialogue in Merry Wives of Windsor, in which she tells Falstaff about earls and pensioners.

ROOM AND BOARD

Pension has another meaning too. As Encarta defines, it is "a boarding house or small inexpensive hotel in continental Europe, especially in France." Same as `room and board.' Pension is traced thus by Online Etymology Dictionary: "1362, `payment for services,' especially `reward, payment out of a benefice', from Old French pension `payment, rent,' from Latin pensionem, from pensus, past participle of pendere `pay, weigh'." See pendant, it advises.

Pendant `circa1400' means `loose, hanging part of anything,' from Latin pendere `to hang'. See span (verb), it suggests. There, www.etymonline.com educates you about Latin pondus `weight' (because the weight of a thing was measured by how much it stretched a cord), pensare `to weigh, consider;' Greek ponein `to toil'... What a toil for pension!

Wikipedia has a detailed page on pension. "Occupational pensions are a form of deferred compensation, usually advantageous to employee and employer for tax reasons," it states. Read also about different types of pension plans such as defined benefit, and defined contribution; and also various ways of funding pension.

Pension worries

"I have considered the pension list of the republic a roll of honour," said Grover Cleveland, "the only President married in the White House," as www.whitehouse.gov informs about the late 19th century US President. "He also vetoed many private pension bills to Civil War veterans whose claims were fraudulent."

Currently, pension worries are of sustainability. For example, Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, which administers the pensions of "the province's 163,000 elementary and secondary school teachers and 101,000 retired teachers," faces a shortfall of $31.9 billion, despite a $14.1-billion return on investments, as an April 11 report on Canadian HR Reporter notes. "In 1990, there were four working teachers per pensioner, but now that ratio is 1.6 to one." Unsustainable, as in the case of many pension funds across the world.

"Chase your passion, not your pension," exhorts Denis Waitley. One can't possibly say that to belligerent employees. But the future seems bleak enough that deficits may well chase off pension.

ComingToTerms@TheHindu.co.in

D. MURALI

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