Denmark to raise retirement age to 70 • Hacker News Board

Re: Denmark to raise retirement age to 70

#481

Post by bibabaloo » Sun, May 25, 2025, 10:37 PM UTC

neom wrote: post #311

nine_k wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The system has effectively failed most everywhere on the West. The post-WWII generations are numerous and have a long life expectancy, apparently longer than the pension systems planned for. Generations that came after them are less numerous, and, in a way, somehow less prosperous. They cannot pay enough to keep the pension systems afloat. The Japanese faced this earlier and harder than Europe, with about 30% of thei…

Do you have a sense of how you see it playing out?

I feel, generally, with an aging population + rising unemployment due to AI, we'll reach a crunch point that puts governments under immense pressure to increase taxes (probably on megacorps & the wealthy) more in order to fund welfare. The most optimistic, utopian, solution would be UBI and an artisan economy, but I think we all know that capitalism isn't kind enough for that to play out so we'll probably end up with something much more dystopian.

Re: Denmark to raise retirement age to 70

#482

Post by gopher_space » Sun, May 25, 2025, 10:37 PM UTC

manmal wrote: post #288

Where I live, people have issues getting hired past age 50, and it’s near impossible past age 60. It’s a stroke of luck if you score a job then. So yes they can raise retirement age, but that will just create misery for all those who can’t cling to a job long enough. There‘s got to be a better way.

When people talk about raising the retirement age the assumption is that the people affected will all be unemployed, not that they'd still work in some capacity.

Re: Denmark to raise retirement age to 70

#483

Post by tomp » Sun, May 25, 2025, 10:37 PM UTC

amag wrote: post #409

This is truly sad. As a Swede I fear my country may follow suite. The retirement age in Sweden used to be 65 and now it's 67. Looking at older people around me, most lead a much less active life after 75. So, if we were lucky we used to have some 10 good years of doing whatever we wanted before old age and age-related diseases start affecting us so much we become limited to a much smaller world. But now we have maybe…

Pension is a Ponzi scheme. Explained in terms of economic theory, if everybody works and saves in time period 1, and retires and receives pension in time period 2, then... their pension is worthless, because there's infinite inflation, because no more goods and services get produced.

Retirement depends on having young workers. People approaching 60, 70 simply didn't have enough kids to have good retirement. It's not a problem that has easy and/or fast solutions. Yet, actions have consequences...

Re: Denmark to raise retirement age to 70

#484

Post by mardifoufs » Sun, May 25, 2025, 10:38 PM UTC

2thumbsup wrote: post #309

anal_reactor wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sensible immigration policies

Denmark’s immigration policies are not nearly as tough as their reputation nor to credit them as the source of economic prosperity. Denmark’s economic prosperity comes from investment in free higher education for all, generally healthy lifestyles and the flexicurity-model, which provides a flexible labour market and promotes risk-taking.

Which western countries have "stricter" immigration policies? Even the US now doesn't treat refugees like Denmark did a few years ago (mass, wholesale expulsion to a country that was still at war, with very little exceptions). I get the reasoning behind it but the Danes are not the most welcoming of peoples, with regards to immigration.

Re: Denmark to raise retirement age to 70

#485

Post by geodel » Sun, May 25, 2025, 10:39 PM UTC

vbezhenar wrote: post #299

Ray20 wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one knows how to increase the birth rate. And all the studies show that immigration increases the budget deficit, not reduces it (at least in that way in which it is being implemented now).

Everyone knows. Stop contraception, stop woman education, stop abortions, reduce woman rights to 1800. Remove children rights, make environment where children are productive and bring profits to their parents, so they have financial incentive to create children. No one wants to implement it.

You are right. Since that is not happening the next best thing is to juice the oldies. At least more countries have started doing that.

Re: Denmark to raise retirement age to 70

#486

Post by wyager » Sun, May 25, 2025, 10:39 PM UTC

StopDisinfo910 wrote: post #424

wyager wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think if you've put in 40-45 years for the man, you should be allowed to have some good 10 years for yourself. Who do you think would "allow" this? God? This is a resource constraint imposed by reality itself catching up to an excessively idealistic set of policies; this policy decision is downstream of that, not arbitrary.

It is entirely arbitrary. Society heavily favours capital above labour. That’s why we have very rich inheritors never working and people toiling until they are 70. It’s entirely a choice. This issue has solutions we collectively decide not to put in place.

If you stop "rich inheritors" from existing, this moves you away from the knee of the optimization frontier and you're certainly even worse off as an old person.

If you can't conceptualize this as a constrained optimization problem, you're not even worth arguing with; you simply lack the tools to think about this in a useful way.

Re: Denmark to raise retirement age to 70

#487

Post by Jochim » Sun, May 25, 2025, 10:39 PM UTC

tossandthrow wrote: post #440

amag wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course there is no guarantee that your 65-75 years will be good, but it's a lot more likely that your 65-75 years will be good than your 75-85 years.

The point is, that the society does not owe you 10 years to do whatever.

This is how you end up with extremists.

Re: Denmark to raise retirement age to 70

#488

Post by triceratops » Sun, May 25, 2025, 10:39 PM UTC

zeroCalories wrote: post #18

deanc wrote: post #4

I’m not sure how I feel about this. I’m based in the Nordics and my estimated retirement age at the moment (where I can get my state pension) is 67y 4m. Whilst I understand the burden the aging population is having on society (lifespan) it doesn’t seem like there’s much proactive government input into people’s healthspan. Maybe instead we should try investing in this area (reducing the burden on services) instead of…

Economically, old people are a burden on society. If you want to have a long and easy retirement for your elderly, you need a growing population, forever. Like a ponzi scheme. The alternative is that you break young people's back by burdening them with providing for the elderly. No amount of redistribution will help a country with poor productivity. 60 was a reasonable retirement age years ago, because most people wo…

> If you want to have a long and easy retirement for your elderly, you need a growing population

Or a population that can produce the same amount of stuff and services with fewer and fewer workers. Fortunately that's what capitalism excels at.

Re: Denmark to raise retirement age to 70

#489

Post by timschmidt » Sun, May 25, 2025, 10:40 PM UTC

tomp wrote: post #483

amag wrote: post #409

This is truly sad. As a Swede I fear my country may follow suite. The retirement age in Sweden used to be 65 and now it's 67. Looking at older people around me, most lead a much less active life after 75. So, if we were lucky we used to have some 10 good years of doing whatever we wanted before old age and age-related diseases start affecting us so much we become limited to a much smaller world. But now we have maybe…

Pension is a Ponzi scheme. Explained in terms of economic theory, if everybody works and saves in time period 1, and retires and receives pension in time period 2, then... their pension is worthless, because there's infinite inflation, because no more goods and services get produced. Retirement depends on having young workers. People approaching 60, 70 simply didn't have enough kids to have good retirement. It's not…

> Pension is a Ponzi scheme. Explained in terms of economic theory, if everybody works and saves in time period 1, and retires and receives pension in time period 2, then... their pension is worthless, because there's infinite inflation, because no more goods and services get produced.

You've created an impossible situation which will never exist and then offered it as an example of why taking care of the elderly, something humans have done since before recorded history, is flawed.

As Bill and Ted would say: Bogus!

Re: Denmark to raise retirement age to 70

#490

Post by jmpetroske » Sun, May 25, 2025, 10:41 PM UTC

satvikpendem wrote: post #369

jmpetroske wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My take is that saying the problem is birth rates is misguided. Surely we have enough labor to provide for the elderly, why can’t our economy be structured to get this labor to the people who need it?

Do we have enough labor? At least in the US there has been a shortage of elderly care workers. And even if we didn't, what does it mean, concretely, to structure the economy to get the labor to those who mean it?

Correction to myself, I believe we have more than enough people to provide the labor.

I really don't mean to get into the nitty gritty details - I'm not an economist and I'm not providing solutions, just stating what I see as the problem. I believe that we have enough resources, and there are issues getting those resources to where they need to go.

Example: Assume we do have a shortage of elderly care workers. Why is this the case? Could this be fixed by increasing their wages? Then that implores the question of who is paying for these increased wages, which is the question I'm not answering and I don't know enough to answer.

I just don't really believe that keeping the birth rates high is the answer to this economic problem. It might be a solution, but it's more of a band-aid than truly facing the issue. If you have a inefficient engine you can either figure out how to produce more gasoline (babies), or you can figure out how to produce a more efficient engine.