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Denmark to raise retirement age to 70

telegraph.co.uk

911–920 of 1001 posts

Re: Denmark to raise retirement age to 70

#911
post #853

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if you don't have kids, it's easier to save money to fund your own retirement. Kids are expensive.

The point just flew over your head. Yes, you could do this, but it's parasitic behavior that depends on your ability to extract value from the labor of other people's kids. If everyone does this, then there are no kids to take over the work to keep things running and money doesn't do anything anymore because the economy stops working.

> The point just flew over your head.

It did not. I'm just pointing out reality. Kids are expensive, and it's probably easier to save for retirement if you don't have any. Don't get me wrong: I love my kids and wouldn't trade them for anything, and I have no problem working more and harder for them, but we don't live in the age where retirement depends on having kids anymore.

Maybe you meant to propose to change that, so only people with kids have a right to a government pension, which is certainly an interesting idea, but also doubly painful for people who wanted kids but were unable to have any.

Re: Denmark to raise retirement age to 70

#912

Realistically, what are countries supposed to do? Almost every single industrialized country has a birth rate below replacement, so there's fewer younger people to help carry the burdens. Medical care means the elderly live on and on and on, draining enormous costs as they age. I'm not trying to be cruel, but from a pure numbers sense it makes perfect sense. Would you prefer taxes go up instead? Lessen spending on in…

[flagged]

Ahh, it's the fault of the brown folk with a funny accent. I see.

Re: Denmark to raise retirement age to 70

#913
post #774

Realistically, what are countries supposed to do? Almost every single industrialized country has a birth rate below replacement, so there's fewer younger people to help carry the burdens. Medical care means the elderly live on and on and on, draining enormous costs as they age. I'm not trying to be cruel, but from a pure numbers sense it makes perfect sense. Would you prefer taxes go up instead? Lessen spending on in…

short term, there are only bad options. Long term: incentivize to have more kids. this will solve the problem in ~25 - 30 years. but that's too late for most voters and politicians today... there should be a term for that? how about democracies demographics dilemma?

Hopeless measures. Nothing can persuade a couple to f... for kids, except if you force a medieval-like state based on religion and women oppression. Only such states historically guarantee >2 kids per couple, unfortunately.

Re: Denmark to raise retirement age to 70

#914

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this isn't at the behest of a union, but a lack of funding by the government for residency training

Nope. It’s all due to AMA — why would doctors want more doctors?

Because they are overworked? Most of the physicians I talk to want more physicians. My understanding is that the limit on residencies is a huge bottleneck, which receive most of their funding through CMS.

Re: Denmark to raise retirement age to 70

#915
post #765

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tax wealth. I know that's a very hard thing to do due to the mobility and political power of capital, but we need international co-operation and just do it. That's where all the money is and where it's going at an accelerating rate.

> Tax wealth Are you saying that Denmark, a nordic socialist country, has not taxed wealth enough?

And in Sweden, another "nordic socialist country", there's no tax on property nor inheritance, as well as very low taxes on invested capital. There are about 1.5x more USD-billionaires per capita in Sweden than in the US. I think there's room for some more taxes.

Re: Denmark to raise retirement age to 70

#916

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the reason employees are reticent to hire someone past 50 is before they worry they’ll retire soon, even if they’re mentally and physically in good shape. So increasing the retirement age might actually improve the ability of folks in their 50s to find work. Not saying this is a great trend, but it’s unavoidable due to the low fertility rate (already a problem everywhere in the developed world and soon to be…

That’s not a plausible theory to me. IME older people are just less likely to work hard. They bring a “rest n vest” mindset. If an older person rounds a 40hr week down to 35 hrs, and a younger person rounds up to 45 hours because they are passionate and ambitious, all else equal the younger get person is better ROI for the team. Obviously this is stereotyping and may not be accurate but that sentiment can explain man…

depends on the type of work you’re doing. “Work smart not hard” can apply to many jobs. Other jobs not so much…

In addition - when i was a younger engineer i appreciated have a few older engineers around the office because they were always a wealth of knowledge.

Re: Denmark to raise retirement age to 70

#917

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a solution for young people they should look at this demographic disaster and realise they need to have children for the sake of their own future. Meanwhile the next generation or two to retire is going to have a very grim time surviving because we had two kids or none, compared to the five our parents had.

And those children will have to have even more children, and so on. The system is designed to work as long as it can grow forever, which it obviously cannot. Some generation is going to have to reckon with the demographic problem.

Yeah, China.

Re: Denmark to raise retirement age to 70

#918

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Part of the deal with progress should be that we all start working less. If not is the progress all that attractive? But we don't want to work less, we want more stuff.

My friends and I would love to have 4/5 or 3/5 of working days with 4/5 or 3/5 of salary, but sadly I don't know any companies that offer that. I understand that it may be hard with meeting culture, but we can make 1 or 2 days with no meetings. I don't want to go back to the stress and uncertainty of freelancing; I want a predictable, safe income with simply scaled-back hours/pay. My salary (and my friends') in IT is…

You shouldn't have 4/5 of the salary when working 4/5 days because you would be doing the same amount of work.

Re: Denmark to raise retirement age to 70

#919

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just let two immigrants in to replace me. Much cheaper and easier than raising kids.

It would be hard to distill the fallacy of human fungibility into a purer form than this. If you’re say Danish, the kids you raise will be Danish. The immigrants won’t be Danish, they’ll be like the people from their country of origin: https://www.sup.org/books/economics-and-finance/culture-tran... . And as a result, they won’t be nearly as economically productive as Danes, ironically undermining the whole point of i…

You’ve mentioned before that you were from a third world country. (Bangladesh, was it? A 90% Muslim nation?) Yet I assume you believe yourself to be a net positive contributor to your country of immigration? That your children will help the native culture instead of hindering it?

Seems pretty hypocritical to me.

Re: Denmark to raise retirement age to 70

#920
post #672

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taxes pay these pensions. Taxes that citizens have paid for their whole working lives, with the understanding that they would benefit from that pension fund in their later years. It's actually far closer to a "vacation", but not "sponsored by the government" -- closer to "that you've been saving for already for years."

In almost no country those taxes work like a normal pension. They are an as is fund where people pay now for those pensions now. You do not save for your own retirement, you pay for the retirement of the current generation.

That is a thing that should be changed. We should sacrifice one generation to do that but nobody is willing to accept it.
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