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Undiagnosed Cognitive Decline Eats into Seniors' Retirement Savings

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Re: Undiagnosed Cognitive Decline Eats into Seniors' Retirement Savings

#61

Post by [deleted] »

YWall39 wrote: post #15
kome wrote: post #7

i strongly oppose the American approach to pensions, which is regrettably spreading worldwide. relying on private savings to finance retirement is highly risky, and this is the crux of the article in question. pension systems should be administered through public programs, not turned into moralistic contests in which individuals are penalized if their investments fail for any reason (and it's only their fault... whil…

European pensions are predominantly unfunded, and promises typically amount to 3.5 times GDP. The prevailing view among those who have looked at this is that nobody under the age of 40 will get anything close to what is promised. The only exception is Netherlands, and maybe Sweden. Leaving private pensions the only option.

[deleted]

Re: Undiagnosed Cognitive Decline Eats into Seniors' Retirement Savings

#62

Post by dsheets »

vkou wrote: post #19
YWall39 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

European pensions are predominantly unfunded, and promises typically amount to 3.5 times GDP. The prevailing view among those who have looked at this is that nobody under the age of 40 will get anything close to what is promised. The only exception is Netherlands, and maybe Sweden. Leaving private pensions the only option.

Basic demographic analysis will point out that in a world with a declining and aging population, private investments are probably not going to be doing so hot, either. Wealth creation requires work. Retirees don't work, but still require a portion of the wealth that workers create to live. It doesn't matter if it's a government pension or a 401K investment, a declining worker population will mean that you'll have the…

It depends on how the problem is defined.

Do private pensions solve the “I hope I have money in old-age” problem better in a fundamental way? No.

Do they solve the “I want to pay more now to have more later” problem better? Probably in most systems.

Do they solve the “what is the fair value of grandpa’s pension this month” problem? Definitely yes.

If you want guarantees, the state can pull tricks to make you believe that the world is static… for a while. Eventually, reality will force the state to price pensions in line with demographics or suffer increasingly severe budget crises.

In the past, your children were your pension. This is a private system. When responsibility for old-age is distributed without accounting for monetary or demographic contribution, politicians can promise the moon. Stop eating the young.

Re: Undiagnosed Cognitive Decline Eats into Seniors' Retirement Savings

#63

Post by Delk »

KK7NIL wrote: post #28
pjc50 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> financial burden on unborn generations. The money always has to come from the labour of the future somehow. So you get the same burden laundered through the private sector, such as young people having to pay extortionate rents to retired landlords.

This is simply not true, my investments make money from profitable business operating today, not "labor of the future". Maybe you should stop reading Marxist economists.

How will those businesses continue to turn a profit without people doing productive work for them?

Re: Undiagnosed Cognitive Decline Eats into Seniors' Retirement Savings

#64

Post by dsheets »

roenxi wrote: post #60
dsheets wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In your simplification, you have removed everything that isn’t labor (i.e. demand for commodities) as well as labor. It is unsurprising that working to bury gold is a bad investment in this scenario. Instead, you should have invested in a farm and some robots. Sorry, there’s no free lunch if you can’t steal it from younger generations. Edit: you’ve revised history and now added a bit about “similar arguments” and inf…

I thought your basic argument was sound, but having read through the conversation twice, you might not be putting it in the best light. Your point seems to be that value can be extracted from capital and that is a substitute for value from labour. Seems good to me. But you then went with a gold-based example. Gold is money which is not really a productive form of capital because there is almost literally no way to ex…

I agree with you. The island simplification came later. If the economy is broken, gold is not a good investment. This doesn’t change the fact that it is also non-extractive of future labor, though, which was the purpose of the thought experiment.

The problem with productive assets or non-inert commodities in this thought experiment is that they are much more dynamic — inert commodity prices are much easier to reason about.

You are fundamentally correct about capital accumulation, though. If you want future value, you should accumulate something (dynamic or static) that is valuable in the future — extracting rents or expropriating labor via force in the future are not pro-social behaviors.

Re: Undiagnosed Cognitive Decline Eats into Seniors' Retirement Savings

#65

Post by EE84M3i »

KK7NIL wrote: post #8
kome wrote: post #7

i strongly oppose the American approach to pensions, which is regrettably spreading worldwide. relying on private savings to finance retirement is highly risky, and this is the crux of the article in question. pension systems should be administered through public programs, not turned into moralistic contests in which individuals are penalized if their investments fail for any reason (and it's only their fault... whil…

Public pension schemes always end up being turned into Ponzi schemes for short term political gain, especially as birthrates keep dropping. US social security and Medicare are a great example of this but you'll find similar examples throughout the western world. In contrast private retirement plans put the individual in charge of their own retirement (why should the government be telling you when to retire?) and does…

> In contrast private retirement plans put the individual in charge of their own retirement (why should the government be telling you when to retire?)

What countries let you do this? I thought 401ks, for example, do not generally allow tax free early withdrawals.

Re: Undiagnosed Cognitive Decline Eats into Seniors' Retirement Savings

#66

Post by wakawaka28 »

equalsione wrote: post #59
09thn34v wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why is that? why couldn't the private approach (withholding x amount per paycheck, adding to a pension fund) work at scale?

People are living longer after retirement (over 10 years longer since the 1970s) and birth rates have fallen. Expenditure surpasses income eventually. There are other factors but that seems to be the main issue.

Making the pension a public problem won't fix it. The money has to come from somewhere.

Re: Undiagnosed Cognitive Decline Eats into Seniors' Retirement Savings

#67

Post by wakawaka28 »

EE84M3i wrote: post #65
KK7NIL wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public pension schemes always end up being turned into Ponzi schemes for short term political gain, especially as birthrates keep dropping. US social security and Medicare are a great example of this but you'll find similar examples throughout the western world. In contrast private retirement plans put the individual in charge of their own retirement (why should the government be telling you when to retire?) and does…

> In contrast private retirement plans put the individual in charge of their own retirement (why should the government be telling you when to retire?) What countries let you do this? I thought 401ks, for example, do not generally allow tax free early withdrawals.

A 401k allows no tax-free withdrawals. On top of the taxes there are additional penalties if you take the money early, with few exceptions.

Re: Undiagnosed Cognitive Decline Eats into Seniors' Retirement Savings

#68

Post by wakawaka28 »

pjc50 wrote: post #12
KK7NIL wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public pension schemes always end up being turned into Ponzi schemes for short term political gain, especially as birthrates keep dropping. US social security and Medicare are a great example of this but you'll find similar examples throughout the western world. In contrast private retirement plans put the individual in charge of their own retirement (why should the government be telling you when to retire?) and does…

> financial burden on unborn generations. The money always has to come from the labour of the future somehow. So you get the same burden laundered through the private sector, such as young people having to pay extortionate rents to retired landlords.

It's not the same. If I save money it is no burden to anyone else. If I invest it, then the people receiving my investment do so voluntarily and we all make money or lose it. I have no power to exact a burden on anyone else through these simple mechanisms. The state on the other hand has virtually unlimited power to tax us into oblivion.

>such as young people having to pay extortionate rents to retired landlords.

There is a pathological case here when it comes to rent, but we are far from that. Rent is only extortion when there is widespread collusion to fix the prices. Otherwise it is supply and demand. If inflation and high demand have made prices unaffordable, it's not your landlord's fault. Landlords also provide a service (strange as that may sound), and aren't stealing from anyone.

If you had a profitable business, you could compete with the property sector for investment. Unfortunately we have outsourced many profitable things in the West, because we're competing with slave labor.

Re: Undiagnosed Cognitive Decline Eats into Seniors' Retirement Savings

#69

Post by dutchbookmaker »

kome wrote: post #7

i strongly oppose the American approach to pensions, which is regrettably spreading worldwide. relying on private savings to finance retirement is highly risky, and this is the crux of the article in question. pension systems should be administered through public programs, not turned into moralistic contests in which individuals are penalized if their investments fail for any reason (and it's only their fault... whil…

Funny that I know quite a few baby boomers and every single one has a pension, a 401k, maybe a roth AND gets social security and medicare.

Not a single one has a college degree. All life long factory workers. Some alcoholics. All they did was show up to the factory job. I know my father hasn't read a book in at least 50 years and he might not have read any in school either.

They have no real expenses either besides going out to eat, vacations and sports gambling.

Legal structures in place so that the nursing home will be on the tax payer if needed.

Anyone of retirement age right now that is not doing well in America REALLY fucked up in life.

Of course, this is all being paid for on the tab of younger people. It is a brilliant system if your old.

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