What about only retiring at the age of 80?!

[race aficionado]

Retirement?
That's a lofty and wishful thinking goal in most cases.

Social Security does not give that much in this country and the 401-K's have been hard hit in these last crazy market years.

Most people don't have savings or a realistic retirement plan and the economy is in deep doodoo right now.

Companies don't protect their long serving employees as it used to be in the "olden days" and medical coverage is so expensive to the majority of the citizens that many end up broke after selling their homes and end up using up all their savings to deal with medical costs that the insurance doesn't cover or because they can't afford the medical insurance itself.

How is the situation on your neck of the woods?

mokin:

[Malbec]

Women have been working for decades and yet they had more kids than they have now.
My parents have 4 children, by the time they were my age, yet they both had well paying jobs and worked 40 years each. I've got no kids and not planning to have any for the next 6 years.
See I am talking from experience, I wonder how you came to your conclusions that economy isn't the sole factor. Maybe it's something in the water?!

Yes you're making the schoolboy error of extrapolating personal anecdotal evidence over an entire continent.

You claim that economics is the sole factor, that wealthier societies have fewer children than poorer ones because of the expense of having children.

Perhaps you can explain to me why and how Protestant North Europe with its higher economic activity and growth rate has a persistently growing birth rate in excess of replacement while Catholic (no contraception just to ram it home) South Europe which is economically lagging behind has seen a near collapse in birth rate over the last decade?

Oh the demographic excuse again, when in reality we are talking about gross mismanagement. Of public and private pension funds.
It looks more like you are insulting me while I never insulted you, unless you are one of those I cited in which case I stand by my opinion.

Brilliant stuff ioan, classic.

You refer repeatedly to the mismanagement of public pension funds. There is no such thing.

A fund is where money YOU pay in is ringfenced, at the end of the term the money YOU paid in +/- profits is paid back to YOU.

No government in the world even pretends that they run their pension systems that way.

Instead current workers paying into their pensions largely pay for current retirees (we'll ignore profits subsidising other parts of state spending etc).

Now you claim that demographics is irrelevant.

Here's a simple equation for you. Current workers pay in = Current retirees get paid.

Now increase the number of retirees in relation to the number of current workers (that demographic myth again) and tell me how you are going to balance the books without trying to increase the amount paid in by the workers or reducing the number of retirees.

Dearie me.

[Malbec]

The point is that it actually is partially about bankers stealing money (they'd like to) and not just purely demographics.

I certainly agree that private pensions do suffer from bankers creaming off excessive fees, I also agree with you that demographics is the biggest factor.

[race aficionado]

This is why a change is needed, and today's politicians should be scraped as they do not serve the interests of those who elected them.
With the money I pay for pension funds in 40 years of work I could buy 4 apartments that I could rent for a monthly rent way above what my pension will eventually be!
The question is who is profiting from all that money that we pay and never get back?
I don't think any politician will even try to answer this question, ever.

Ioan, that seriously sucks!

Things on this end are dire, no matter what glass colored glasses you use to see it.


I don't give up on humanity, but that's a separate thread.

[gadjo_dilo]

Then you should start buying gold bars and depositing them in a Swiss bank. Otherwise no chance for that to happen.

Nah.....My family invested in gold and then due to some horrible historical events we all suffered ( my father and uncle were emprisoned and tortured, our home was confiscated and we had to pay rent fot the house we owned, etc. ). It took me about 15 years to fight for justice and get some ( very poor ) compensation.
So no gold for me.

My parents have 4 children, by the time they were my age, yet they both had well paying jobs and worked 40 years each. I've got no kids and not planning to have any for the next 6 years.
See I am talking from experience, I wonder how you came to your conclusions that economy isn't the sole factor. Maybe it's something in the water?! ..

.........

And why do you think that people make less kids nowadays?
Is it not because they can not afford to raise more?..

Now you know I have a morbid curiosity.....
I suppose your parents were of your age before 1989 so I wonder what jobs they could have to be well paid.

Since I also have a bit of experience of the times when your parents were young, well paid and happy to raise 4 children I’ll be ( maybe ) a bit cynical and add the most important factor that influenced natality of that period. In our country, of course. Abortions were illegal and the contraceptives were non-existent. Don’t know your family and their particular reasons but most of the families with many children ( esp. in the urban medium ) had them not because they were finacially satisfied but because they had no choice.

[Mark in Oshawa]

Governments in most western nations have some form of pension plan. They take that money to pay the current pensioners and hope like hell they never run out of workers. The problem is, with most places like Canada or the US, the babyboomers will mean there are more seniors than the government can afford with the shrinking birth rate. The whole ponzi scheme will fall apart. Just another example of government making a complete mess of something they say we are too dumb to look after on our own...

[BDunnell]

Governments in most western nations have some form of pension plan. They take that money to pay the current pensioners and hope like hell they never run out of workers. The problem is, with most places like Canada or the US, the babyboomers will mean there are more seniors than the government can afford with the shrinking birth rate. The whole ponzi scheme will fall apart. Just another example of government making a complete mess of something they say we are too dumb to look after on our own...

Hardly their own fault, though, is it? After all, it is a situation perpetuated by governments of all colours, on the grounds that to do away with it would be massively, fatally unpopular.

[race aficionado]

I say we all win the lottery.
Problem solved.

[ioan]

Hardly their own fault, though, is it? After all, it is a situation perpetuated by governments of all colours, on the grounds that to do away with it would be massively, fatally unpopular.

I would be more than happy to stop paying them 1000 Euro/month for something I will never get back, this looks 100% sure right now.
The problem is that the government is a very bad manager, and they will never get better, who have been forever covering their incompetence with our pension money and on top of with with staggering deficits. I wonder where does all this lost money go?!

[ioan]

I say we all win the lottery.
Problem solved.

So we all get about 1 buck/each right?