Wall Street eyeing control of retirement savings under Clinton

The president of American multinational hedge fund Blackstone is campaigning to "fix retirement" in the US by giving Wall Street control of people's retirement savings.

He's also a contender to become treasury secretary in a Clinton White House.

The executive is Tony James, president and chief operating officer of the Blackstone Group, a hedge fund that manages roughly $31.5bn (£25.6bn) in assets worldwide.

Clinton attended a fundraiser at James' home in New York in September. The 30 people there raised between $50,000-$100,000 per head.

According to a new story on IBTimes UK's sister site in the US, James has said Clinton's aides are considering the reforms to the retirement savings system he is proposing.

"Our plan is a simple, sustainable, low-cost and politically viable proposal to enable workers to save and invest more effectively to secure their retirement," James said in a written statement.

The plan, created in partnership with economist Teresa Ghilarducci, director of the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis (SCEPA) at The New School, is to mandate that every year workers and their employers put a combined 3% of the worker's earnings into a universal retirement savings plan.

"That money will be invested and invested well" from a combined pool of funds by Wall Street professionals, said James. He estimates workers could see returns of 7%-8% a year. The idea is that the government would guarantee a minimum of 2% return as well.

"For about 40 years we've had a 'do it yourself' retirement system said Ghilarducci in a video promoting the plan, "and like any other do it yourself project it ends in disaster."

The financial security of American workers in retirement is balanced on the "wobbly three-legged stool" of social security, employer-sponsored retirement benefits, and personal savings, found a recent report by the Transamerica Center fore Retirement Studies.

It discovered 65% of US workers believe they could work until 65 and still not have enough for retirement. It also found Generation X and Millennial workers are struggling with retirement saving.

James said that he is advocating the plan because the youngest generations today aren't "going to have that kind of retirement security that our parent's generation had".

The idea is built on a plan that Ghilarducci has been advocating since at least 2008, when in the heart of the financial crisis her idea was called one of the "defining ideas of 2008" by the New York Times.

Nevertheless, Clinton has been criticised throughout the US election campaign for her ties to Wall Street. Embracing the plan and appointing a Wall Street billionaire as Treasury Secretary would fit into that narrative.

Just days ago Wikileaks released three of Clinton's speeches given at Goldman Sachs events in 2013. The complete transcripts of the speeches do not include any particularly damning revelations and address the importance of free trade and her opinions on financial regulations.