When it comes to sneaky and deceptive ways to separate citizens from their money, there is no better system than superannuation. Money is forcibly taken from workers on the promise of a comfortable retirement someday in the never-never.  But it’s not tax.  It’s super, as in superannuation.

But before citizens get their promised comfortable retirement, a conga line of ticket clippers, a coalition, in fact, get their go.  From the fund managers to the financial planners to the fund administrators to the lawyers to the insurance companies to the accounting firms to the asset consultants to the custodians to the banks to the brokers.  Oh, and the tax office and the other various hangers-on, like politicians also get their go.

If there’s anything left after the ticket clipping bonanza, that goes back to citizens.  Maybe.  If they’re lucky.  Unless sometime in the future the government decides to nationalise superannuation to pay down some of Australia’s soon to be more than $1 trillion dollars of Commonwealth debt.  You know, like Argentina did in 2008.

In truth, the people who get the best retirements from superannuation aren’t the superannuants; it’s the people who work for the superannuation industrial complex.

According to modelling commissioned by the Australian Labor Party, Australians who are currently under 35 will collectively be $44 billion worse off by 2052.  Yeah.  But how much will the ALP and ticket clipping coalition be worse off?

This same modelling suggests that a 25-year-old who withdraws $20,000 will be between $80,000 and $100 0000 worse off in retirement.  Ok.  Let’s do the maths then.

For $20,000 to return $100,000 in 40 years (assuming a retirement age of 65) requires an average investment return of 4.1% per annum every single year.  That’s after fees.  That’s after insurance premiums.  That’s after tax.  And that’s before accounting for inflation.

So let’s add some things in: 2% inflation – that’s the RBA’s target — 1% for fees.  Forget about insurance and tax.  That’s a more than 7% return every single year over 40 years. What are the odds of that? Perhaps less than the 7% required annual rate of return.  Much less.

Yet it is the Australian Labor Party that claims to represent the workers and not the ticket clipping coalition.  According to Labor’s shadow assistant treasurer Stephen Jones “We (ALP) introduced super because we had an ageing population and had a problem with pension (sic)”.

That’s right.  The pensions of the ticket clipping coalition members were not growing fast enough.

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