BeIR/webis-touche2020 huggingface dataset:
Private Accounts Would Primarily Benefit Wall Street

The opposition is telling us here that this policy apart from the benefits to pensioners and the state that we have shown will also bring billions of dollars in profits to private companies. This means growth, more jobs, banking sector development and better profusion of risks. Sounds good to us. While our case is focused on benefits to pensioners and the state we'll gladly take yet another set of benefits if the opposition is kind enough to offer. -Markets are too risky to benefit consumers This is unsubstantiated. If the UK, with its "market-based economy" can maintain a larger private pension sector than most of the rest Europe then the prospects for these systems do not look too grim. If the government does not have to incur the crippling burden of having to provide pensions for everyone then it could focus on the poor and the few occasions of bankrupsy. If one in 20 firms goes bankrupt over ten years the government could step in and provide benefits (highter than existing state pension, lower than what they would get if the fund hadn't gone bankrupt to disincentivize consumers from taking policies with risky firms). Even if this is needed, it would be much cheaper than constantly providing pensions for the entire population. The opposition condemns the riskiness of our proposal by using two examples of crises over a century which has otherwise seen extraordinary growth while under the current system, 1 in 4 pensioners live in poverty. [[http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/06/24/2606874.htm]]. Under the status quo, extensive poverty isn't a risk its guaranteed, and here the government is too indepted to help those in need. -Citizens not able to decide. As we've said, in liberal democracies, we are trusted with finding our own jobs, taking out our own mortgages, insuring our cars and planning for our children's education. The opposition is patronising in claiming that allowing consumers to choose for themselves is too risky and is a recipe for disaster.
Private Enterprise is more suited to long-term planning and sustainability

Redundancy ... The government via the central bank or federal reserve; usually buffers the risk entrepreneurs need to take in market-based economies. This is done either by bailing out banks that give out loans to risky investors or by protecting them from the get-go. If the Government does not provide any pension the risk is not neutralized/buffered; as the government will have no part in it. We cannot afford to lose the fall-back option; especially for senior citizens who need financial security more than the rest of us. When entrepreneurs feel that there is a fall-back option they are more likely to start businesses. Most people are risk averse and neutralizing risk gives these people incentive to start businesses thus increasing the number of entrepreneurs. Adding risk is a disincentive to starting a business/project just as corporate taxes and set up costs are. Generating greater risk for business equates to greater business failures and thus fewer businesses in the long run. Potential entrepreneurs will weasel/chicken out(as privatization explodes risk); innovation will suffer tremendously and the problem we are trying to face and solve will worsen. Unions and governments are expected to protest any moves in the U.S and U.K towards complete privatization of pension funds simply because of economics; because the numbers do not add up. Privatization of pension funds may work in France, Italy and Germany where pension plans had little or no importance/relevance to begin with but not in the U.S or the U.K where pension plans/schemes/funds are prioritized above all else. [[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-07-13/taxpayers-don-t-need-2-9-trillion-pension-repair-commentary-by-joe-mysak.html]]
Government pension schemes are not a viable or sustainable option.

The proposition will have us believe that longevity is undesirable. That rising life-expectancy is a result of lowering pension quality/quantity. However the fact that people are living longer can only, in contradiction to all that being voiced on the right; prove that the quality of life for old people has improved considerably. Perhaps as in previous opp points, the assurance of being paid a definite retirement fee(an amount covering needs but not frivolous expenditure) from the government as opposed to risking the possibility of a canceled insurance or being forced out of a private pension plan has a great part to play in this. As we the opposition have prodded earlier; quoting from Mishkin and Eakins: Privatizing pension at this time will only get people a 2.2% return on their installments much lower than the return they are receiving through public pension funds. The proposition says the government is corrupt in terms of providing pensions; there is no proof of this. However, multitudinous claims against insurance companies(providing a type of private pension fund) are notorious.[[http://www.heart-intl.net/HEART/070106/ClaimsAgainst.htm]] Proposition note that Russia is a bank-based economy we have pointed out in the debate definition and in our points that we are considering the detriment of such a policy 'only' to market-based economies such as the U.S/U.K.
senior citizens should not and cannot be exposed to such naked risk on moral grounds

Senior citizens take the fall: 'A retirement fund that relies on the stock market is simply not a secure benefit...is a sacred compact between the Federal Government and senior citizens.'-[[http://books.google.com/books?id=eaCIX6d3Y5YC&pg=PA4870&lpg=PA4870&dq=pension+funds+privatisation+senior+citizens+take+the+fall&source=bl&ots=7w1L71RHkY&sig=mPDLR2fnKPvY4rsgrAiKw2SytwM&hl=en&ei=p0JrTLqENYiEvAPS8tH1Dw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CDMQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q&f=false]] 'twas argued in this particular congressional hearing that most senile Americans only have the option of risky privatized securities and therefore privatization is the answer. However we feel that makes no sense; If a child starves that does not entail that all children should starve. We should rather offer safer, more reliable funds to old largely incapacitated people rather than privatize all pensions. The vote at the end of this was fairly close; mainly because the President was not very clear on his exact objective. Obama Personal accounts does not solve the issue...I have not laid out a plan yet, intentionally It is understood however that Privatizing securities puts older citizens at the risk of being left with no pension by being 'forced out'http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/401(k)#force-out when it comes to 401 K plans; by not reading the small print in do it yourself retirement schemes and on the whole the public is not rife qualified to handle our own finances and old people need the extra-help. When you are senile the last thing you need is to find out that you don't have retirement pension because you were forced into fishing through financial jargon at a younger age and missed the bottom-line.Insurance policies can also get canceled.The only reliable retirement fund then becomes public/government pension. The removal of that will leave people out on a limb at old-age.An age when we should be sitting comfortably living on definite retirement/old-age funds/benefit.
Historical evidence has shown that privatisation has been unsuccessful

In Chile and the United Kingdom, the governments persuaded people to make personal investment accounts to reduce the long-term obligations of their Social Security systems, and supporters of privatisation say that these are examples for United States to follow however the experiences in those countries were unsatisfactory and they provide strong arguments against privatisation.World Bank's report expressed dissatisfaction with privatisation in Chile. The report said "More than half of all workers are excluded from even a semblance of a safety net during their old age.[[Indermit S. Gil, Truman Packard, and Juan Yermo, Keeping the Promise of Old Age Income Security in Latin America (Washington, D.C.: The World Bank,2004), p. 10, http://wbln1018.worldbank.org/LAC/LAC.nsf/ECADocbyUnid/146EBBA3371508E785256CBB005C29B4?Opendocument%5D%5D Other evidences have also supported the claim that privatisation was unsuccessful in Chile.For example,investment accounts of retirees were much smaller than originally predicted and 41 percent of those who should have collected pensions continued to work.[[Stephen J. Kay and Milko Matijascic, Social Security at the Crossroads:Toward Effective Pension Reform in Latin America,unpublished paper prepared for the Latin America Studies Association XXVI International Conference, Las Vegas,October 6–8, 2004]].In the United Kingdom, the results of privatisation were no better.The workers were made to divert payroll taxes to personal investment accounts in 1978, however people made poor investment choices. As a result the national government suffered new administrative expenses, lost tax revenues,and had to bail out some failed private pension plans. A British government commission headed by Adair Turner reported in 2004 that Britain had been living in “a fool’s paradise” by thinking it had solved its pension problems.[[Financial Times, November 18, 2004]].Evidence shows that privatising pensions is not a good option.
Government is fundamentally unsuited to running pension schemes.

Nicolas Moreau If a...company were to have eight chief executives in 10 years, shareholders would lose confidence in the board and the market would consider it an accident-prone business. Yet the equivalent has happened in the...pension system with barely a ripple of dissent. [[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/7442644/Pensions-problem-cant-be-solved-by-ministers-endless-musical-chairs.html]] The way democratic governments function, with frequent elections to replace officials and constant reshuffles to preserve public support allows, on the one hand, for representation and accountability but, on the other renders government fundamentally unsuitable for the task of running enterprises that require long-term planning and flexibility. Having 8 executives in change of pensions in 10 years is a recipe for bad management. As Nicolas Moreau explains: "Without stability, there can be no concerted effort for change and, consequently, rather than making serious inroads into addressing the pensions problem, we...continue to spin plates."[[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/7442644/Pensions-problem-cant-be-solved-by-ministers-endless-musical-chairs.html]]. This structural inadequacy can be explained with reference to political shortsightedness. Pension funds as an enterprise require long-term planning to prevent crises. Politicians, however, are structurally inclined to favour short-term benefits. Pensions display a strong inflation-bias. When a politician is faced with a choice of reducing pensions to prevent a crisis in 10 years or increasing pensions to win an election that year they will choose the latter. While reducing pensions can be necessary to preserve the pension system in the long-term, acting thus incurs severe electoral penalties which politicians, who won't be around in the long-run, do not want to take on. Pensions are a thankless business which requires objective, long-term evaluations which governments cannot offer.
Imprisonment: A special consideration.\Rehabilitation is not only important when the court is deci...

Imprisonment: A special consideration The goal of “rehabilitation” is at its most dangerous when it is applied in the context of actually carrying out the punishment of imprisonment; that is, when it is used as a criteria for release decisions. For how can any prison staff, parole officer or even psychologist ever tell that a person “has reformed” or “probably will not offend again”? Evidence has shown that such vast discretion given to treatment staff, guided only by the grand ideal of “rehabilitation”, has systematically produced unfair, incorrect and even racially discriminatory results. Indeed, on what basis can they make any fair, sensible decision? The sad answer is that, since one can never tell if an offender is “cured”, having “rehabilitation” as the goal forces the decision to be made be based on statistical ‘risk factors’ like whether the person belongs to a racial group that is statistically likely to reoffend, or whether the person belongs to an economic underclass that makes him statistically likely to reoffend. Of course all this does is to double-penalise the offender for something he cannot help, such as his race or his poverty. It also leads to what is sometimes called “back-end sentencing”: the offender is sentenced once in court, but in reality he is sentenced again out-of-court – because the final date of his release depends entirely on parole officers or prison staff.
Which is a better general justifying aim for punishment?\Rehabilitation is the most valuable ideol...

Which is a better general justifying aim for punishment? Rehabilitation is the most valuable ideological justification for punishment, for it alone promotes the humanising belief in the notion that offenders can be saved and not simply punished. The rehabilitative ideal alone conveys the message that the state has an obligation to help those who fall short of the standards of behaviour it has set. These people are often those with the greatest social disadvantages that have constrained them to a life in crime in the first place. Desert (retributive) theory, on the other hand, sees punishment as an end in itself, in other words, punishment for punishment’s sake. This has no place in any enlightened society. The rehabilitative ideal does not ignore society and the victim. In fact it is because it places such great value on their rights that it tries so hard to change the offender and prevent his reoffending. By seeking to reducing reoffending and to reduce crime, it seeks constructively to promote society’s right to safety, and to protect individuals from the victimisation of crime.
Which approach has greater regard for the offender?\Rehabilitation has another important value – i...

Which approach has greater regard for the offender? Rehabilitation has another important value – it recognises the reality of social inequity. To say that some offenders need help to be rehabilitated is to accept the idea that circumstances can constrain, if not compel, and lead to criminality; it admits that we can help unfortunate persons who have been overcome by their circumstance. It rejects the idea that individuals, regardless of their position in the social order, exercise equal freedom in deciding whether to commit a crime, and should be punished equally according to their offence, irrespective of their social backgrounds. Policies that ignore these realities foster hardships that will fall primarily and disproportionately on the already disadvantaged, and deepen the resentment that many inmates find difficult to suppress upon their release back into such a society.
Which is a better basis for determining sentencing?\As a guide to the sentencing decisions of judg...

Which is a better basis for determining sentencing? As a guide to the sentencing decisions of judges, having rehabilitation as a goal provides the most flexible and sensible direction. With rehabilitation as a guide sentencers can give a penitent offender, or an offender who has learnt from his mistakes (i.e. a self-rehabilitated offender), the chance to receive a lighter sentence. On the other hand it can give offenders a different or tougher sentence to help them reform, if they are less likely to reform. Retribution, by contrast, merely advocates “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”. This simplistic notion of vengeance is primitive if not barbaric, and should not be encouraged in society.
Does rehabilitation actually work?\If we could find a medicine that would ‘cure’ some offenders so...

Does rehabilitation actually work? If we could find a medicine that would ‘cure’ some offenders so they would never offend again, would we really not want it? Even if it only worked for some people, is that not still worthwhile? It is no different with rehabilitative programs – we should certainly support them if they can be shown to work. And indeed, the most recent studies show that they do. Such programs include cognitive-behavioural programs (say, trying to get a violent offender to think and react differently to potential ‘trigger’ situations), pro-social modelling programmes, and some sex-offender treatment programs. The most credible research (done by a technique called meta-analysis) demonstrates that the net effect of treatment is, on average, a positive reduction of overall recidivism (reoffending) rates of between 10% and 12%, which would promote a reduction in crime that is, by penological standards, massive [see resources above]
Imprisonment: A special consideration.\Rehabilitation is not only important when the court is deci...

Imprisonment: A special consideration. Rehabilitation is not only important when the court is deciding on the sentence. It is also important when it comes to actually carrying out the punishment. This is perhaps the clearest with sentences of imprisonment. The role of the criminal justice system does not end with the pronouncement of a sentence – for what is to happen to the offender while he is serving his time in prison? Surely we should be trying to help him change: we should provide him with meaningful skills training, with behavioural-treatment programs, with counselling and so on. In other words, we should be trying to rehabilitate him while he is in imprison (since he is going to be there anyway), instead of just thinking that the job is done. This rehabilitation also plays a role in determining the content of punishment and the shape that it takes.
Which is a better general justifying aim for punishment?\Rehabilitation is the most valuable ideol...

Which is a better general justifying aim for punishment? A sanction should not merely be helpful – it should treat the offending conduct as wrong. The purpose of punishment is to show disapproval for the offender’s wrongdoing, and to clearly condemn his criminal actions. This is why we punish; we punish to censure (retribution), we do not punish merely to help a person change for the better (rehabilitation). We still have to punish a robber or a murderer, even if he is truly sorry and even if he would really, really never offend again and even if we could somehow tell that for certain. This is because justice, and not rehabilitation, makes sense as the justification for punishment. Why is justice and censure (‘retribution’) so important? Because unless the criminal justice system responds to persons who have violated society’s rules by communicating, through punishment, the censure of that offending conduct, the system will fail to show society that it takes its own rules (and the breach of them) seriously. There are other important reasons as well: such as to convey to victims the acknowledgement that they have been wronged. Punishment, in other words, may be justified by the aim of achieving ‘justice’ and ‘desert’, and not by the aim of rehabilitation.
Which approach has greater regard for the offender?\Rehabilitation has another important value – i...

Which approach has greater regard for the offender? Crime is not pathology, it is not the product of circumstance, and it is certainly not the product of coincidence. It is the result of choices made by the individual, and therefore the justice system must condemn those choices when they violate society’s rules. To say otherwise (i.e. to say that criminals are merely the product of their unfortunate circumstances) would be an insult to ideas of free will, human autonomy and individual choice – it would be to deny the possibility of human actors making good decisions in the face of hardship. Retributivism alone best recognises the offender’s status as a moral agent, by asking that he take responsibility for what he has done, rather than to make excuses for it. It appeals to an inherent sense of right and wrong, and in this way is the most respectful to humanity because it recognises that persons are indeed fundamentally capable of moral deliberation, no matter what their personal circumstances are.
Which is a better basis for determining sentencing?\As a guide to the sentencing decisions of judg...

Which is a better basis for determining sentencing? Retributivism advocates that more serious crimes should be punished more seriously, because the more severe the violation of our rules, the greater the censure that is needed. It means that if X, a pickpocket, would get punishment A, then Y, a robber who uses force and then rapes his victim should get a proportionately more severe punishment, punishment B. The idea is ‘proportionality’, not ‘equivalence’ – nobody is suggesting we should rob Y and then rape him to “pay him back”. It is thus very different from the idea of an “an eye for an eye”. What matters is merely that more serious crimes are treated proportionately more seriously. Punishment A may one month’s probation while B may be 10 years imprisonment. By contrast, under a rehabilitative model where the goal was the reformation of the offender, the pickpocket may well get 10 years imprisonment if he looks like he is not going to reform, while the robber-rapist may get one month’s probation if he is repentant – a result that is surely ridiculous. When it comes to deciding the quantum of punishment, proportionality (retributivism) is the only consistent and fair approach.
Does rehabilitation actually work?\If we could find a medicine that would ‘cure’ some offenders so...

Does rehabilitation actually work? While some rehabilitative programmes work with some offenders (those who would probably change by themselves anyway), most do not. Many programs cannot overcome, or even appreciably reduce, the powerful tendency for offenders to continue in criminal behaviour. They simply do not work. ‘Rehabilitation’ is therefore a false promise – and the danger with such an illusory and impossible goal is that it is used as a front to justify keeping offenders locked up for longer than they deserve and sometimes even indefinitely (‘if we keep him here longer maybe he might change’). We cannot justify passing any heavier or more onerous a sentence on a person in the name of “rehabilitation” if “rehabilitation” does not work. The question “does it work?” must be joined by a second question: “even if it does work, how can you tell, with each individual offender, when it has worked?” This provides further problems with subscribing to the rehabilitative ideal, argued below.