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Denmark to raise retirement age to 70

telegraph.co.uk

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Re: Denmark to raise retirement age to 70

#621

Post by jltsiren »

interstice wrote: post #601
jltsiren wrote: post #583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing sad about this. Mandatory pensions are not a vacation sponsored by the government but a way to provide for those who can't provide for themselves. If you were born in the 70s, you should have known for most of your adult life that your normal retirement age is likely going to be around 70. The demographic situation is not new, the solutions have been discussed extensively since at least the 90s, and…

I guess this comes down to whether you view what you get back for devoting most of a life to work as a negotiated agreement with government or as a one way street.

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." That socialist principle has always been the essence of the Nordic model. While the Nordic countries chose regulated markets over actual socialism, they embraced that part of socialism.

As a citizen, your moral duty is to contribute when you can. If too many people fail to do that, the system falls apart. In exchange, the government evens the burden between different stages of life and between people in different situations. You live your life now, the government takes what it needs, and it provides for you when your needs exceed your ability.

Also, as small democratic countries with limited ambitions outside their borders, the Nordic system of governance is supposed to be more "by the people, for the people" than it has ever been in the US. You don't negotiate agreements with the government, but you take responsibility for making things work. If too many citizens fail to do that, the system falls apart.

Re: Denmark to raise retirement age to 70

#622

Post by IG_Semmelweiss »

KPGv2 wrote: post #606
interstice wrote: post #601

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess this comes down to whether you view what you get back for devoting most of a life to work as a negotiated agreement with government or as a one way street.

Isn't democracy the negotiation part?

Yes.

Those that came before you negotiated on their own behalf, how badly to loot your future.

Now you must do the same..

Re: Denmark to raise retirement age to 70

#623

Post by lmm »

stackedinserter wrote: post #599
cyberax wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'll keep getting worse, as more and more people concentrate into large cities. And large cities are family-hostile. The birth rate in cities is strongly anti-correlated with the city size. People just don't feel content and happy to have children in dense cities. Japan is very illustrative in this regard. Young people are forced into unaffordable cities, where they often live in cramped shoebox-sized apartments. Wh…

Wait, but NotJustBikes keeps telling us that density is good.

Dense is good. You'll notice that the drop in fertility matches up with the generation that grew up in the suburbs.

Re: Denmark to raise retirement age to 70

#624

Post by crims0n »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #505

Turns out not having kids has consequences.

As someone who is having kids, I am both curious and anxious about the world they will become adults into. I am not sure if it will be a world of economic opportunities due to the inevitable labor shortage, or a world of suffering due to widespread economic collapse.

Re: Denmark to raise retirement age to 70

#625

Post by timewizard »

jltsiren wrote: post #583
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…

There is nothing sad about this. Mandatory pensions are not a vacation sponsored by the government but a way to provide for those who can't provide for themselves. If you were born in the 70s, you should have known for most of your adult life that your normal retirement age is likely going to be around 70. The demographic situation is not new, the solutions have been discussed extensively since at least the 90s, and…

> Mandatory pensions are not a vacation sponsored by the government but a way to provide for those who can't provide for themselves.

Then why is it based on earnings? And why can't I opt out of this death pledge?

> Your health is probably not going to be as good

Ah, the old, "your life will suck anyways" play.

> you should have known for most of your adult life

That you are a slave to the state, until you cannot work anymore, and then you will be discarded brutally.

Hard to figure out why the younger generation doesn't want to buy into this.

Re: Denmark to raise retirement age to 70

#626

Post by lmm »

cyberax wrote: post #366
neom wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It'll keep getting worse, as more and more people concentrate into large cities. And large cities are family-hostile. The birth rate in cities is strongly anti-correlated with the city size. People just don't feel content and happy to have children in dense cities. Japan is very illustrative in this regard. Young people are forced into unaffordable cities, where they often live in cramped shoebox-sized apartments. Wh…

> People just don't feel content and happy to have children in dense cities.

Correlation is not causation. People happily raised children in dense cities for centuries. It was only when the postwar regime of making new housing illegal took hold, and housing prices inevitably spiralled out of control, that they stopped.

> Young people are forced into unaffordable cities, where they often live in cramped shoebox-sized apartments. While beautiful spacious traditional homes are decaying just 2 hours away by car.

Those old houses look great in instagram photos but they're not very fun to actually live in. Young people are rightly prioritising places that are good to live instead of the boomer square feet fetish.

> Put a stop to densification of larger cities, and tax (or cap-and-trade) the office space in dense areas.

Killing the most economically productive parts of the country is not going to magically make other parts more productive, it's just going to destroy the whole country's economy.

The causes of the population decline are a) women marrying later, or not marrying at all, because they have the option of a career and prefer that b) families that want to give their children a good future having few children, mainly because of the cost of education. Those are the things you need to address if you want to change it.

Re: Denmark to raise retirement age to 70

#627

Post by timewizard »

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.

It's most appropriately a shared investment scheme. Your pension money should not sit idle while you are building it. That money can earn a percentage in many ways and dividend reinvestment makes the fund grow massively.

> Retirement depends on having young workers.

Profits do. Retirement is going to happen regardless of how many young workers there are.

Re: Denmark to raise retirement age to 70

#629

Post by bluGill »

arexxbifs wrote: post #509
bluGill wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those old narritives were consiedered out dated for ever generation - but those who do it anyway tend to do well.

Sure, but one of the reasons that people have fewer children is a bigger risk of downward mobility. The cost of raising a child to an expected middle class living standard has increased substantially.

many of those costs are optional. You don't have to put your kids in dance, karate, soccor, ... However many do, and all those things add up in costs.

Speaking as a parent, there are plenty of options, some are really expesnive, and some cheap. You can choose which to pay for.

note that the things I listed above are fun, but won't get yoru children into a great college and thus won't ensure a better life for them and yoru grandkids. Choose wisely where to spend your money.

Re: Denmark to raise retirement age to 70

#630

Post by timewizard »

wkat4242 wrote: post #562
tomp wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It depends on the system. In Holland they just abandoned this for a US-style "every man for himself" 401(k) thing. Luckily there are still parties fighting the implementation. I don't think ponzi scheme is justified, it is too negative, it just makes no sense to actually accumulate all that wealth for so long.

> "every man for himself" 401(k) thing

It allows you to do that. In most cases there are various life index funds that operate the way a traditional pension scheme would and is likely the default option in any employer plan.

You can additionally add your own money outside of your paycheck and you can use the money inside of the fund to make your own investments. You are also allowed to take personal loans against your own 401k. Which is a generally overlooked benefit of the system. You pay interest on the loan but it just goes back into your 401k itself. You pay interest to yourself.

The great thing with a 401k is it's not industry dependent. If your employer or industry goes out of business you still have a lot of options to move your retirement to a new employer or use some of the funds to bridge yourself to a new line of work.

I used to hate it but now that I've used it I quite like it.

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