21.   As the United States has already discovered, pressures mount on health care systems, health insurance plans and social security as well as private pensions.

22.   At a breakfast meeting of the Association of French Corporate Treasurers, he reaffirmed plans to introduce private pension plans, a politically sensitive issue.

23.   At the moment France has no private pension funds, a system that leaves French companies short of long-term investors.

24.   Aznar wants to shift some of that out of the public sector, encouraging private pensions and placing health services in the private hands.

25.   A growing deficit could put a credit squeeze on companies and keep a potential source of investment -- private pension funds -- from materializing, analysts said.

26.   A more mundane but very real concern is the cost of managing the private pensions.

27.   A similar reluctance to adopt private pensions has long been evident in much of Western Europe.

28.   A tireless defender of Social Security, she has argued for taxing private pension plans on grounds that their current exemption is a subsidy for the well-to-do.

29.   Allianz executives say that the acquisition of a retail banking network will allow them to take full advantage of what they expect to be rapid growth in private pensions.

30.   But like other simple calculators, it omits factors like Social Security, private pensions, and spousal earnings, so its usefulness is limited.