As regards money income, there is some trend towards shifting to private sources.
While public pension can be expected to grow slower than before, increasing wealth
enables people to increase private provisions for old age and for other risks of life. The
burgeoning share market in the late 90s has kindled people’s capitalism much beyond
what Ludwig Erhard ever envisaged. Buying shares is becoming a way of investing
money and providing for old age for ordinary people. New laws, for example the Third
Finance Promotion Act of 1998, regulate this new function of share markets and
related investment and insurance markets. With the liberalisation of European and
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global insurance and money markets, private insurance industries gain importance in
Germany where they had little relevance before. The 1999/2000 reform plans of the
government include a formal link between public and private pensions, by making
private insurance compulsory to compensate for the slower growth of the still
dominant public pensions.