The design was based on their private scheme for a 2400 tonne submarine for export sales.

This convergence of private schemes and sorrows borders on the soap-opera-ish.

In most private schemes, you can expect to receive an extra 9 per cent for every year that you delay retirement.

Even so, the episode has hurt the prestige of private deposit-insurance schemes.

Healthcare prior to the war had been a patchwork quilt of private, municipal and charity schemes.

As with many equivalent private schemes in Western countries, booking in advance was required.

This meant that state pensions would be reduced, but the private scheme must then guarantee to at least make up the difference.

The problem is that private self-binding schemes are easily subverted when someone can make a buck off your weakness of will.

There would also be arguments concerning which ailments should be covered by the terms of private schemes.

The general level of inflation-proofing that both public and private schemes offer, looks set to get weaker.