헌법 전문 다시 쓰기 - 퍼온 글

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김진호 헌법 전문 다시쓰기

The National Pension Act of Korea is unconstitutional!

The next generation does not know about the potential robbery that the contemporaries make to them through the National Pension System. The Act violates the promise declared in the preamble of the constitution. 

Let's see first the preamble of the Constitution of the Republic of Korea. It states that we, the people of Korea, will "secure security, liberty, and happiness for ourselves and our posterity forever."

* 헌법 전문:  "우리들과 우리들의 자손의 안전과 자유와 행복을 영원히 확보할 것을 다짐한다." (English) "To elevate the quality of life for all citizens and contribute to lasting world peace and the common prosperity of mankind and thereby to ensure security, liberty, and happiness for ourselves and our posterity forever."

In order to ensure security and happiness of both the contemporaries and their posterity, the pension system needs to be actuarially fair - that is, the present value of lifetime contributions should be equal to the present value of lifetime benefits (Queisser and Whitehouse 2006). However, the National Pension System (NPS) by design undermines the economic safety of the next generations. 

"The inter-generational inequity comes mainly from the actuarially insensible structure (design) of the system (Phang and Shin 2002)."

The National Pension Act has incorporated the principle of income redistribution into the system at the cost of the actuarial fairness. The Act is silent about the interests of descendants. It states the purpose is to stabilize living conditions and improve the welfare of people by paying pension benefits in the event of old age, disability and death.* The people in the act involves only today's workers, eligible persons to vote, and not tomorrow's workers. The scheme transfers income not only from the contemporary rich to the contemporary poor but also from tomorrow's workers to today's workers. Consequently, the pension scheme is unsustainable.  

* 국민연금법 제 1조: "이 법은 국민의 노령, 장애 또는 사망에 대하여 연금 급여를 실시함으로써 국민의 생활 안정과 복지 증진에 이바지하는 것을 목적으로 한다."

To serve as an ongoing program, the parameters of the plan needs to be adjusted so that the system can become actuarially fair. 

Korea can learn from Germany. In Germany, the contribution rate, fixed as a percentage of wage and salary income, is adjusted regularly to avoid imbalances in order to keep the balance (Vitols 2003).

The NPS is compulsory and pre-funded. Yet, it is actuarially unbalanced, thus unsustainable by design. The expected lifetime pension benefits that a contemporary contributor with average life expectancy is greater than his or her lifetime contributions. The present value of expected deficits is increasing over time by design. 

Notably, "all pension systems transfer output of today's workers to today's retirees (cf. Willmore 2004)." Yet, the NPS is unconstitutional because of the following reasons. 

First, the income redistribution by NPS is financed without explicit consent by the next generations. On the one hand, it enhances equity by pursuing incomes redistribution in favor of the low-wage earners. On the other hand, it hurts equity because no contemporaries contribute to the income redistribution. Instead, tomorrow's workers finance the income transferred to the contemporary rich as well as the contemporary poor.

Second, the NPS is unsustainable. 

Not all pay-as-you-go pension systems are unsustainable. For example, for a actuarially balanced system, the present value of expected deficits is zero.

However, the present value of expected deficits will ever be increasing in the future for the NPF. The third fiscal forecasts of the NPS in 2013 shows that its expenditure will start to be larger than the income of NPS from 2044 and onwards. The pension fund will increase to 2,561 trillion won  (49.4% of GDP) in 2043 and then decrease to negative 214 trillion won in 2060 (Ministry of Health and Welfare 2013). According to this forecast, it is predicted that capital markets in Korea will melt down long before the National Pension Funds are depleted, i.e., the year 2060. Speculators will short sell Korean papers and stocks as soon as they notice the reach of its maximum reserve level which will occur in around 2043. According to the updated results of the 5th National Pension Fund financial estimate published at 2023.3.31, the National Pension Fund is projected to increase until 2040, reaching 1,755 trillion won. However, it is expected to turn into a deficit in 2041, leading to depletion by 2055 . 

In a fifteen year period, we are likely to see the financial melt-down happening. It will be like an explosion of an atomic bomb. The current generation needs to agree to make the National Pension System sustainable.

There are two ways to ensure the sustainability of a compulsory pension scheme. One is to adjust parameters such that PV of lifetime contributions is equal to PV of lifetime benefits. 

The other is to privatize the compulsory scheme. Chile did so in 1980 when the pay-as-you-go plan was about to default. The government persuaded pension contributors to switch from the PAYG plan to a new individual account system. It is mandatory for firms to deposit 10% of wage and salary income to individual accounts. The government established a  specialized institution regulating and supervising the pension-fund asset management companies. The government also provides a means-tested guarantee of minimum pensions for all pensioners. It is criticized because of the meager benefits it provides. The rate of return was on average 8 % for the 35 years since its inception. Reform of the pension system is debated because, after commission, the rate of return falls to 3 % (Financial Times September 12, 2016; Bravo report 2015).

What should Koreans do if indeed neither is available?