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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

#971

Post by throwanem »

nradov wrote: post #430
idiotsecant wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes ,what has to give is a tiny fraction of the corporate and individual wealth hoarded by the richest and most powerful members of society.

How tiny of a fraction? Can you quantify this for us? In principle I think some kind of wealth tax on fortunes above a certain level would be a good idea. But there are a lot of practical implementation problems in terms of identifying and valuing illiquid assets. Like for example I have friends who own forestry land (for softwood timber harvesting) in a foreign country. Those assets have some value but trade infrequ…

The foreign country must simply nationalize the asset. Problem solved.

Re: Denmark to raise retirement age to 70

#972

Post by hoppp »

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…

"which may never come"

But you pay for it all your life, so it's unfair.

It would be better to manage your own retirement funds, invest it and retire when you want, free from the government.

Re: Denmark to raise retirement age to 70

#973

Post by bufferoverflow »

cgio wrote: post #927
bufferoverflow wrote: post #634

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If AI takes most jobs, the system won't crumble. If anything, the system will probably work much better. It's the transition period that I am worried about, when large percentages of the population are jobless, but safety nets aren't yet in place.

So the system will not crumble after it crumbles in transition.

That's the big question. Depends on what policies are implemented and how quickly.

Re: Denmark to raise retirement age to 70

#974

Post by 0xBDB »

TFYS wrote: post #898
anonporridge wrote: post #892

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taxing 100% of the wealth of all the billionaires in the US would fund federal spend for about 8 months. And you only get to do that once.

Why would you limit to only billionaires, and why would you compare it to all spend? Try funding pensions and healthcare by taxing the wealth of the top 0.5% and it doesn't sound so impossible.

It still sounds impossible I'm afraid.

A realistic wealth tax probably caps out and around 2%, remembering that the net worth of very rich people is generally not liquid and can be difficult to mark to market. Any higher rate risks forcing the rich to have an asset fire sale, which liquidates productive assets and isn't really good for anybody. At six to seven percent you would force them to be entirely liquid and would begin to shrink their wealth, killing off the tax base in a few generations. Even this is absurdly optimistic since a globally standardized wealth tax is a pipe dream and without it you get capital flight as a result of any wealth tax at all, but let's ignore that.

To steelman this as much as possible let's say you can charge 6%. The top 0.5% are worth $30-$40 trillion in the U.S. (which is just an easy example because the statistics are available) which gives you a probably unrealistically high max annual tax revenue of $2.4 trillion. Social Security and Medicare in their current form cost $1.35 trillion a year; Medicare for All would double to triple that or more, depending on what estimate you believe.

Europeans pay for their social safety nets with very broad taxation while America instead charges negative income tax (after credits) to the bottom 60 percent of the population (even after inflation, excise taxes, state tax, payroll tax and tariffs the total tax burden is pretty slim at the bottom end by European standards). There doesn't seem to be a mathematically feasible way to give benefits to the working class that the working class doesn't pay for.

Re: Denmark to raise retirement age to 70

#975

Post by 0xBDB »

thrance wrote: post #945
ryzvonusef wrote: post #890

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Americans still don't know what socialism is, huh?

"Democratic Socialists" in America aren't socialists. Even Bernie Sanders doesn't advocate seizing the means of production. You can argue we use it wrong, but we can argue it's our language and we evolved it.

But I don't think even all the nominally socialist parties in Europe are really socialist either.

Re: Denmark to raise retirement age to 70

#976

Post by 0xBDB »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #678
zemvpferreira wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you wanted to live to a 1930s standard of education, healthcare, food, entertainment, interior decorarion, transportation, savings etc etc you could most definitely do it on very few hours of work. Lots of people associated with homesteading, tiny houses etc do so. That said I agree we should be further ahead in paving a way to paradise.

That's not what Keynes meant.

It's precisely what Keynes meant. He meant that 15 hours of labor now will buy you what 40 would then. How could he have meant anything else?

How would he anticipate houses 50% larger than his generation's, or cars with twice the horsepower at four times the gas mileage, or universal air conditioning (as few houses in the US lack air conditioning now as lacked running water in 1950) or a monthly bill for Internet or proles being able to afford intercontinental flights more than once in a lifetime?

Re: Denmark to raise retirement age to 70

#977

Post by 0xBDB »

bachmeier wrote: post #466
kypro wrote: post #202

Why do people owe me a nice retirement? I never really got the idea of state-funded retirement. Perhaps I should feel I'm owed something if I'm too fragile/disabled to work, but I don't know why age alone should grant me anything? Appreciate this is a controversial view so interested in hearing why I'm wrong so I can stop holding it. I think retirement should just be replaced by disability welfare to be honest.

Just to throw out one reason - it's valuable to working people because they don't have to take care of their parents in old age. Can't speak to Europe, but Social Security in the US is definitely not enough for a "nice retirement". It may help a frugal person in a low cost of living area cover their basic expenses.

> Social Security in the US is definitely not enough for a "nice retirement".

A two-retiree couple who contributed at the tax limit for long enough would get $122,592 in Social Security benefits in 2025. Not beachfront living in the Hamptons, perhaps, but not cat food eating money either.

Re: Denmark to raise retirement age to 70

#978

Post by ChiefNotAClue »

tossandthrow wrote: post #52
polipus wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Living in Copenhagen for the last 7 years. - housing for 80k USD is 525k DKK: no way you can find anything at that price anywhere close to cph. Not sure for other "major" cities, but in cph you can expect to pay 4mil DKK (600K USD) for a ~60 sqmt apartment, prices will fall outside the cities, but nowhere close to 80k USD. Where did you get that number? - you pay for your unemployment benefit, thought an a-kasse. Its…

That is why I explicitly said major cities and not Copenhagen. Look 20 minutes out of Odense, Aalborg, Randers, etc. Don't let yourself believe that a country is nothing but its capital - it is correct, that if you decide to live in a 4mil DKK apartment in the Copenhagen area, then you have also opted out of public help, and you are on your own.

Yeah, no. Most homes are in the range of 1.500.000 to 2.500.000 kroner. There are some homes closer to 1.000.000 kroner that need repairs or remodeling. You are not buying anything livable for 500.000 kroner, sorry. Those days are in the past. And mind you, these numbers are for medium-sized cities. Not any of the desirable cities, like Copenhagen, Odense, or Aarhus.

Re: Denmark to raise retirement age to 70

#979

Post by throwaway2037 »

wkat4242 wrote: post #967
throwaway2037 wrote: post #674

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In Holland they just abandoned this for a US-style "every man for himself" 401(k) thing. Do you mean the second or third pillar? Ref: https://www.pensioenfederatie.nl/website/the-dutch-pension-s... EDIT: (added below) > US-style "every man for himself" Also, the US system has (at least) two pillars: national pension (called "social security") and private, tax-sheltered savings as 401(k)/IRA.

The second. The first pillar I don't have full access to due to not living there all my life.

About the first pillar (national pension), Google tells me:

    > You are insured for the state pension if you live in the Netherlands and for each year you are a resident you accrue 2% of the state pension. If you have been in the Netherlands for the full 50 years prior to your state pension age, you will receive the full 100%.
Many highly developed countries used to have a second pillar (company-sponsored pensions, either defined benefit or defined contribution), but those are slowly fading away after adopting more neo-liberal economic policies.

Personally, I am OK to privitise/personalise some of your retirement pension risk, but not all of it. Large parts should still be guaranteed by the state. The real problem with privitisation/personalisation of retirement pension risk, most people are much worse than professional investors. Also, a huge portion of your retirement savings are earned in the last 10 years when your invested capital is almost peak. If there is an economic crisis during that decade, you are screwed. Can you imagine being 5-10 years away from retiring in 2007... then 2008 Global Financial Crisis happened? You will definitely need to delay your retirement by 5-10 (more) years. Awful.

Re: Denmark to raise retirement age to 70

#980

Post by majani »

TFYS wrote: post #765
Night_Thastus wrote: post #728

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…

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.

Any solution that starts with "if we can all..." is no solution at all
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