Workers' Capital Grows in 2009 to $23.3 trillion, as pension fund assets reach 70% of World GDP‏

New research produced by Towers Watson shows the extent of the bounce back in value of assets held by the world’s largest pension funds. Towers Watson estimate the value of our assets to have reached $23.2 trillion in 2009, up 15% on 2008 the year in which the world’s economy was bought to the brink of collapse by the world’s largest banks.

Of course asset values do not bring income into pension funds, it is the returns from the assets that help pay our pensions and these have been in decline. But higher asset values will help the coming LGPS valuations they will hopefully reduce the funding gap.

Of the "P13" countries covered in the http://www.towerswatson.com/research/972 survey – Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Japan, Netherlands, South Africa, Switzerland, UK, US - America, Japan and the UK remain the largest worker’s savings in the world accounting for 57%, 14% and 8% respectively of total global pension assets.

All of this ‘money’ is the savings of millions of workers in the countries highlighted above it demonstrates the extent to which some worker’s now own significant parts of the ‘means of production’. What we still lack is a coherent economic programme that can sustain and advance the economy for the benefit of workers, pensioners and all citizens, without that we are pray for the bankers, fund managers and the managers of our companies.