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A world without retirement?

theguardian.com

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Re: A world without retirement?

#51

Post by [deleted] »

tyingq wrote: post #4
tradersam wrote: post #2

> Bismarck did, however, have a further vision that was genuinely too radical for his era: he proposed a pension that could be drawn at any age, if the contributor was judged unfit for work. Those drawing it earlier would receive a lower amount. I wonder how well this would work in today's society. Pretending disability doesn't exist, and just making it a simple rate decrease for the earlier you withdraw.

That sort of exists in the US system for Social Security. You can retire as early as age 62, but at a reduced (80%) benefit. If you wait until you're 67, you get the full 100%. Of course, the payment is a pittance compared to most actual pensions.

[deleted]

Re: A world without retirement?

#52

Post by loup-vaillant »

VLM wrote: post #25
loup-vaillant wrote: post #18

Step 1: Oh my god we can't pay for retirement! Step 2: Raise the age of retirement. (Phew!) Step 3: Oh my god unemployment is raising! (Those no-longer- retirees must find a job, right?) Step 4: Get rid of unemployment insurance (in part or in whole). Step 5: things get real ugly real quick. --- Seriously, raising the age of retirement in the face of raising technological unemployment is nuts . Those who push for thi…

Step 4 was implemented in the USA with SSDI. There's heavy emotional baggage to tag people as permanently totally disabled merely because the economy is too small to let them participate. Also its kinda a mess mixing essentially fake claims (from a medical disease perspective) vs real claims. So the same program takes care of a guy with 100% disability back pain who sells his pain pills (a whole nother problem) and p…

> Step 4 was implemented in the USA with SSDI.

That's not what I was talking about. I was talking about "no job, no pay" policies. Like, "work or starve". England kinda went down that route, doing their very best to throw people out of their meagre unemployment benefits.

SSDI as you describe it is actually a form of (covert) unemployment insurance: a way to have money even if you can't get a job. While the stigmatization sucks, the money is better than nothing.

Re: A world without retirement?

#54

Post by cbanek »

aianus wrote: post #48
paulddraper wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd give UBI to those least able to work and generate an income.

They don't need an income; they have paid-off houses worth $1.2m that they picked up in 1972 for $100k.

But now who can buy that house for $1.2m, and in 30 years will it have increased in value by 10x again? I feel like this is why an increasing number of people are locked out of the housing market. But as we learned, prices don't increase forever...

Re: A world without retirement?

#56

Post by ahelwer »

spangry wrote: post #47
dragonwriter wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do people who think a feasible UBI future is possible square with this? You have to address the revenue to pay for it, which in most places means ending preferential tax treatment of capital income. Right now, pretty much the whole world has, at any income level, heavier taxation of labor than capital (in the US, higher direct taxes coupled with employer mandates that act as additional taxes; as well as address…

The problem is that capital is mobile, and that mobility is arguably increasing due to digitisation. In other words, if a country raises tax rates on returns to capital, capital simply relocates somewhere else. I've suggested a solution above (or it might be below by now), but it's complex...

USA already has worldwide tax jurisdiction. The more difficult problem with capital taxation is how to accurately value an asset.

Re: A world without retirement?

#57

Post by orangecat »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #14
tradersam wrote: post #2

> Bismarck did, however, have a further vision that was genuinely too radical for his era: he proposed a pension that could be drawn at any age, if the contributor was judged unfit for work. Those drawing it earlier would receive a lower amount. I wonder how well this would work in today's society. Pretending disability doesn't exist, and just making it a simple rate decrease for the earlier you withdraw.

This is similar to how my pension will work here in Norway. I will be 62 at the end of the year and I will be able to start taking my pension (regardless of whether I work) but I could also delay taking it indefinitely. The total amount is fixed and predicated on the average age at death. So if I take it early I spread it more thinly. If I take it later I get more per year while taking it but risk missing out altoget…

if I want to give some away it's best to start early

Right, if it's the same net present value why would anyone ever start later? If you're still working just take the money and save or invest it.

Re: A world without retirement?

#58

Post by mschuster91 »

paulddraper wrote: post #29
TillE wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UBI is very simple if you allow the state to acquire capital and cultivate it in a sovereign wealth fund. Imagine, for example, public ownership of 50% of the most valuable real estate in the country, which is then rented as usual. You don't need sky-high taxes when there's income from capital to distribute.

Using taxes to crowd out investment markets...can't go wrong there.

At least a state investment fund is in for the long term. This is better for the company than a bunch of short-term hedge funds which only seek to bleed the company dry.

Re: A world without retirement?

#60

Post by gkya »

omginternets wrote: post #34
paulddraper wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a good illistration of specialization of labor, but I'm not sure how that related to the OP.

I think his point is that civilization is based on the principle of not letting people fend for themselves (e.g.: through public works like sewage systems), and that this naturally extends to retirement pensions.

The point is that civilisation is nothing else than working together as a society. The retirement system is not philantrophy, it's retributions for those who spent a good part of their life as a cog in the machine. And it's not like the retired receive their pensions ex nihilo, they pay in advance through the social security cuts (1). We teach our children to become a part of the civilisation and take care of them until they actually do so. And we should equally take care of the elderly because they've already took their part in the civilised society, and now they have the right to enjoy their last hours in peace. But we always like receiving, and giving always torments us. That's no civilisation, though, but just a bad likeness thereof.

(1) That's, at least, how it functions here in Turkey: every month, a certain amount of your wage goes to your retirement fund, and when you retire, you receive your pension, an amount that depends on your past contributions to your fund and on the height of your position.

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