You will excuse me for banging on abo0ut the word “growth“, especially as an ode to “growth” has just been published. But Martin Wolf in the FT has called on Government to abandon six-monthly fiscal tweaking and focus on getting sectors (especially the public sector) working.

The OBR also assumes that the economic benefits would build over time, as people move to more productive areas. Nevertheless, a much bigger housebuilding programme than this would be needed to transform the availability of housing and lower prices sharply.

This suggests that the government must be far more radical if it is to improve growth prospects substantially. Dramatic reductions are needed, for example, in the cost of constructing infrastructure. Sharp improvements are also needed in public-sector productivity.

Particular attention must be paid to promoting innovation. The need to expand spending on defence could help in this regard. Pension reform, wisely done, might greatly improve the availability of risk capital. Reform and simplification of the tax system is also essential. Last but not least, the government should avoid any serious unforced errors.

Its decisions to raise the cost of labour through higher taxation, higher minimum wages and much tighter regulation could prove huge mistakes. The government must not allow itself to be buried in endless tweaking of the fiscal position.

It must focus instead on radical pro-growth structural reforms. They may not work quickly. But they are the only thing that will work at all in the long run. Big reforms are vital.

Wolfdoes mention pensions, as a provider of capital for this growth project but his article is more about the tampering of those who drive the minutiae of legislation , of which pensions is not immune.

But reading the solutions that have been offered by the pensions industry , they are centered around adequacy and what will be thought by most employers and employees as mandatory contributions ( a form of pensions tax). If implemented, they would be a “success” at least because they would not lead to opt-outs. But this is not curing the pension problem.

When talking of “adequacy“, the Pensions Minister in Edinburgh said it paid second fiddle to getting our pension savings spent – “decumulation” as it’s called. If we are considering the payment of a large group (take DC master trust savers over 55) then a structured payment system can be put in place that does not require de-risking but can allow pensioners to enjoy the benefits of “growth”.

I do not think Torsten Bell callous, he just sees the benefits of long-term growth in pension funds as a solution to a short term problem. DB pension funds have discovered that demanding more money from employers (and hence employees) is the price of de-risking. It will not be the solution to DC pensions which will need to be paid from long-term growth funds,

This is about creating a pool from which pension payments are paid at a default rate and augmented over time as growth is achieved. Fresh pensioners arrive to replace those who die and there is no fundamental reason why they should be exposed to “risky” investment strategies. Not only are they part of a scheme covering those like them – drawing their pension – but they are in a scheme supported by younger people who in their term will benefit from the fund’s growth strategy.

Martin Wolf is right to get to the core of the problem and not get hung up by being exactly right in hitting future targets on projections.

So long as growth remains so slow, no amount of prudence will solve the UK’s difficulties, including its fiscal ones. A stagnant economy is also a “zero-sum” economy, in which more for some groups inevitably means less for others. The politics of such an economy are bound to be fraught. Ultimately, either fiscal discipline or democracy itself is likely to collapse.

I think we have seen the culture of pensions breaking down as we exchange the collective approach to pension payment with individual responsibility , driven by pension freedom.

Why I have hope for pensions is that we have a Pension Minister who, however short his stay as such, can deliver something that is collective and cross generational in paying pensions. That is the long term structural solution we need to solving the inefficiencies of our “decumulation” system.

We need not worry about pensions being hi-jacked by wealth managers looking to get pots paying inheritances. Nor need we worry about the poorest in retirement (who continue with a triple locked state pension and a means tested pension credit). What we need worry about are those in charity, hospitality, retail and transport (plus many more) who have no pension offered them from workplace defined contribution saving plans.

It is critical that we address both the inefficiency of the personal pension, (which is no more than a flight from pensions by those who should know better) and the failure of “investing” money in later life in gilts and money market funds.

What we do for the second half of people’s adult life (retirement) is shameful right now and….

Fiscal tweaks won’t solve Britain’s growth problem (Martin Wolf).