Armageddon and beyond......

Two newspaper articles caught my eye today,well actually one caught my eye ,the other was blazed across both the front page headlines and the financial page headlines . These headlines were of course what is happening to the Stock Markets and in particular to the Irish Stock Exchange . The article that 'caught my eye ' was headed " 'Armageddon ' warning sent to astronomers ".
The stock market news was to do with financial institutions or in some cases 'maverick'groups who engage in hedge fund dealings.These people , in what seems to me to be complicated manouvers with shares , can cash in on falling share prices on the various exchanges and in fact excentuate and excellerate the fall . Apparently these ' boyoes 'targetted the whole Irish Stock Exchange (ISEQ) and are largely responsible for a drop ,which at present is, approx. 30% down on the peak in Feb. of this year.
This state of affairs should not affect very many of us directly , and the very-rich can just wait it out until prices rise again , as they inevidibly will or even absorbe losses if necessary.But those who will be immediatly hurt and in some cases may it appear like an Armageddon , are those men and women who are reaching pensionable age and whose pensions are , what is now described as 'Defined Contribution' as apposed to 'Defined Benefit'....( who in the name of God dreams up these definations )...all that means is that some pensions guarantee the pensioner-to-be what the pensioner will be paid on retirement in relation to his or her salary when finishing ( Defined Benefit)....Defined Contribution basically means...you are on your own mate.....These definations seem only to have emerged recently (since 9 ,11 ?) when pension funds were badly hit.Defined Contribution means nothing.....all prospective pensioners should be guarenteed some payment that they can relate to their present income.....let the pension fund managers do the job they are generously paid to do and let would-be pensioners have some well-deserved financial security.