Funded individual pensions liberate citizens, especially the less well-off, from dependence on the state in retirement, and replace that dependence with financial self-determination.

ECONOMIST: Latin lessons on pensions

Reducing America's petrol consumption by 20% by 2017, a target he announced in the state-of-the-union address, would certainly diminish the country's dependence on Middle Eastern oil, but the way he plans to go about it may not be either efficient or clean.

ECONOMIST: Climate change

It would be good, too, for Yukos, which wants to build an eastward pipeline to get its own oil out of Siberia and reduce its dependence on Russia's state-run oil-transport company.

ECONOMIST: Russia's oil auction

Employers should be free to make the type of retirement provision which best suits their needs and those of their employees, and the regulatory and fiscal framework should encourage them to do this - after all, one consequence of such provision is likely to be a reduced dependence on the State in later years.

BBC: Peter Thompson's speech