191–200 of 216 posts
This is very cruel towards people who want to have children but can't.
Not to mention, cruel towards people who are not financially ready for children and make a conscious choice to not have children without the resources for it, but get financially penalized for it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But I'm paying taxes for my pension, and my kids will pay taxes for theirs. I know that the economics don't actually work like this, but this is the social contract.
You need to pay taxes and have kids for the numbers to work out. If your pension benefits are calculated based on a 4 workers/retiree ratio, but then your whole generation has like 1 kid per family then the system will obviously break down...
But the social contract does not care about that.
I am increasingly of the opinion that you can either be eligible to vote, or collect pension, but not both at the same time. By the time you start collecting pension, you have effectively ousted yourself from economic production. And unlike a 20yo still in college and not contributing to the economy yet, you don't have 50 more years of your life to worry about. This effectively means it is safe for you to support any…
1. let vote only people who contribute (pay some minimum income tax) at the time of elections - no unemployed, no students, no retired people - regardless the age, so if you pay your taxes at 14 you are eligible to vote at 14, if you pay your taxes at 88 you have right to decide what will be done with your money at 88, actually I would go even so far that EVERYONE regardless of citizenship should be allowed to vote if they are paying taxes, either they are good paying taxes, so they should be good also for voting
2. other approach would not be tied to income tax, let vote absolutely everyone regardless of age, so even children get vote, so family of 4 with 2 kids will get 4 votes, so they can vote for future of their children and not that retired people are deciding (usually selfishly) future of the kids
I am aware of reality that 1st option would cause huge uproar and second option is more realistic with some countries moving that way lowering voting age to 16 for now.
At the same time I would be glad if we would get rid off Pay-as-you-go pension plan and replace it with own savings account (IRA), but it seems no country in the world had balls to switch, even Chile had to backpedal a bit, but they got the furthest. It's the only solution for demographic changes.
There's a bunch of criticism, but this is in my view the only general approach that makes sense (globally) and should have been done 50 years ago already. IMO a big factor for the whole sub-replacement fertility in developed nations (and resulting demographic problems) is that the state has invalidated/replaced all the economical gain that families got from children (cheap "workers" and elder care), but the chld-rela…
I think that someone gets an overall tax rebate when they have children is a reasonable decision for a society to make. But the real problem here is that there are a ton of adults who would love to have kids but are medically not able to for a bunch of reasons, from autoimmune disease to genetic differences to the simple fact that young people get cancer too and infertility because of treatment or the illness is a th…
But more importantly, people die before enjoying their pension and they don't get a refund.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And why wouldn't the elderly need to keep working longer? They did benefit from all the new medical stuff extending their active lives, so how about giving back by working a few years more? It's also their own decision to have less children, thus less workers, and also they generally don't want more immigrants, so there - it's either more work, or magic. And we don't know how to do magic.
Elderly means old enough for certain classes of issues to pop up that makes continuing to work less feasible. There's only so much more years that can be added before their contributions become absolutely net negative. Unless we also find general medical solutions to freeze/reverse the issues.
I will point out that the tax increase being proposed here is, of course, ALSO extra money for the state that people are expected to pay in trade for elderly care that the state, of course, ALSO doesn't have the money to deliver when it's needed. In other words, it's demanding the general population pays for a service now, a service math dictates they will never receive.
Oh AND the state is further defunding child care, schools, universities, ... which of course is also being put forward as "families need to take more responsibility".
There's a bunch of criticism, but this is in my view the only general approach that makes sense (globally) and should have been done 50 years ago already. IMO a big factor for the whole sub-replacement fertility in developed nations (and resulting demographic problems) is that the state has invalidated/replaced all the economical gain that families got from children (cheap "workers" and elder care), but the chld-rela…
What about taxing the rich instead of putting yet another burden on the young.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And why wouldn't the elderly need to keep working longer? They did benefit from all the new medical stuff extending their active lives, so how about giving back by working a few years more? It's also their own decision to have less children, thus less workers, and also they generally don't want more immigrants, so there - it's either more work, or magic. And we don't know how to do magic.
They voted and paid taxes based on a deal that was presented to them, in writing. Now the deal is being changed.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, it would only imply that the worker/retiree income ratio (and tax/pension burden) are somewhat constant which is arguably the case; german pensions specifically rise with wages and get adjusted for inflation. Productivity gains on the other hand get easily eaten up by increased consumption/expectations, or are overstated to begin with: producing 5 times more TVs/ipads does not make the plumber cheaper (nor a hous…
> german pensions specifically rise with wages Is that because higher earners make higher contributions to the pension plan?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not to mention, cruel towards people who are not financially ready for children and make a conscious choice to not have children without the resources for it, but get financially penalized for it.
waiting to be “financially ready for children” before having them is objectively a poor decision
I never do anything without being financially ready. I'm a big believer in only commiting to something when I have the cash to allocate for all of it. I wouldn't buy a car, house, anything without actually having the cash for it.