Economy Retirement age increased by a few years - for or against ?

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The Spanish and German government are planning to increase the legal retirement age from 65 to 67 years old. Other European countries are considering the idea too.

With the declining birth rate and the ageing of the population prognostics for the future are grim. If people do not keep working for a few more years there just won't be enough tax money to pay for the retirement allowances in a few decades. Measures have to be taken now.

I am all in favour of postponing retirement. Not only is it necessary, the number of healthy years in life increases constantly and it has been proven that staying active also helps staying fit and mentally alert. The new measures shouldn't apply to particularly demanding and stressful jobs though.
 
I think more and more young people have difficulties to find a job when they finish their studies because people are retiring much later. I think this is a big problem. I would go for more young people , instead of more old people.
 
I am in favor too. I think that since live expectancy becomes higher, retirement age should increase too. Two years should be enough for now. I also think that women should retire 2-4 years earlier than men, but this is a different topic and from what I read EU politicians are not huge fans of it :D
 
Im not sure, I know of people forced to retire at 65 who were not ready to go and had plenty still to offer but as some one else said what about the younger generation trying to get a foot on the ladder.

The other consideration should be the different types of occupation, do we want 68, 70 or maybe 75 year old police men on the beat, firemen, teachers, brick layers etc just a thought.
 
Yes, something like 68 is probably fair. People today are living longer and, on average, much healthier than even just a few decades ago.
 
Do away with a fixed pension and instead make all support means tested.

While people can provide for themselves, even if only in part, they should. That includes sale of any property to fund their lives when they can't work.
 
I think everythig is life is being delayed a few years.

People are studying longer, leaving it later to get married, later to have kids, and children are living at home longer. I think its a natural extension of our longer life spans. I am all for increasing the retirement age, the 60 year olds of today are in much better shape than those 40 years ago.

Although when I get there perhaps I wont be so sure:mad:.
 
As long as they are doling out one welfare check, then no. Cut out all entitlements to the young an healthy before denying those who worked their whole lives.
 
It makes no sense to keep the same retirement rules now as in the 1950's. The pyramid of age is completely different and so is the economy !
 
France's retirement age is 60 years old, everybody else from other countries all can work longer and retire longer, and I don't see why the French can't work longer. Anyway either you increase the pay for retirement or you decrease the pay for retirement, which both have made different people very upset, increase retirement looks like the best option.

France has one of the world's highest standards of social benefits; this attracts foreigners coming over here trying to get a piece of the share of the benefits. The problem is we know for sure one day the government will no longer be able to feed all these people, of course here we are not just talking about retired people.

Sarkozy has tried to reform many of these problems and his approval rating has taken a dive. The French are never happy; I think he will not win for the next election.

It also depends on how many years a person has contributed working for the French economy, right now you need to have worked up to 41.5 years in France to receive the full retirement here.
 
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I have no intention of retiring until my health forces it. Hopefully I will die at my desk!
 
I am in favor too. I think that since live expectancy becomes higher, retirement age should increase too. Two years should be enough for now. I also think that women should retire 2-4 years earlier than men, but this is a different topic and from what I read EU politicians are not huge fans of it :D

I think since women live longer than men they should retire 2-4 years after men! (y) :grin:

Seriously here in the US there is a sliding scale depending on what year you were born in. For me I have to wait until 66 years old. People younger than me have their retirement ages adjusted up to 67. Anyone born in 1955 has to wait until 66 years 2 months, 1956 66 and 4 months, and so on, until any one born in 1960 or later has to work until 67. This has been in place since the Clinton presidency.
This is for the Government provided retirement stipend. The place I have worked at for 38 years has a fully funded retirement system that allows full retirement at 62. It used to be you could get fully funded retirement at 58, but we were sold to a new company and they adjusted our retirement up to 62.
 
It's inevitable, when you look at the state of the global economy and the changing demographics of society.
 
I voted yes, we can't afford having people retire at such an early age as they are some places. We need all the workers we can get to create wealth.
 
I vote NO, because global economy is a disaster nowadays. Money that was saved by my generation for a pension, wasted by companies that used it to speculate on shares instead of using it to build houses, where it was originally meant for.
Now that the capitalists have destroyed a lot of assets, the older people must not be the victim of that fraud!

In many European countries taxes are the reason why people can't save enough money themselves to take care for a life after work. Fir instance in The Netherlands you can only have a 20.000 euro savings per person, without having to pay some wealth tax.
If you sell a house, and earn let's say 100.000 euro per person, you have to do something with it, or you lose it in a few years.
If you hire a house, the rents are even higher than when you buy a house.

And let us not forget, it's ridiculous that older people should work so hard like they still do.
The younger are poorly educated. Whose fault is that?
Indeed, the stupid right wing governments.
I work with young people, and it takes at least a year or two to get them some experience in the technology industry.
The management is bad and ignorant. Older workers still work hard, and are badly paid.
Companies kick out skilled workers, and then simply ask them back for a poorer wage.

Who wants to work anymore for those leeches?
Not me.
 
I vote NO, because global economy is a disaster nowadays. Money that was saved by my generation for a pension, wasted by companies that used it to speculate on shares instead of using it to build houses, where it was originally meant for.
Now that the capitalists have destroyed a lot of assets, the older people must not be the victim of that fraud!

In many European countries taxes are the reason why people can't save enough money themselves to take care for a life after work. Fir instance in The Netherlands you can only have a 20.000 euro savings per person, without having to pay some wealth tax.
If you sell a house, and earn let's say 100.000 euro per person, you have to do something with it, or you lose it in a few years.
If you hire a house, the rents are even higher than when you buy a house.

And let us not forget, it's ridiculous that older people should work so hard like they still do.
The younger are poorly educated. Whose fault is that?
Indeed, the stupid right wing governments.
I work with young people, and it takes at least a year or two to get them some experience in the technology industry.
The management is bad and ignorant. Older workers still work hard, and are badly paid.
Companies kick out skilled workers, and then simply ask them back for a poorer wage.

Who wants to work anymore for those leeches?
Not me.

I have to agree with some of these points.
Those in control of pension funds should know that they must invest properly, avoiding speculative markets, or face severe puishment.
I do not agree with those who claim that we should raise the retirement age simply because people are living longer. The fact that we are living longer does not make one more able to work or more vigorous at 65 years old than a person of similiar age twenty years ago.

Of course the age minimum of 65 applies to the US, but the principle is the same for all countries when it comes to changing whatever minimum there is and by extension forcing older people to work longer.
 
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A video about the world aging population from everyones favourtie institution the IMF!

"The world's population is getting older. Countries need to think about how fewer young people can continue to support the elderly."

Watch video

 
I've heard this many times in many forms. Usually the theme goes that in past, when pension, retirement started (about 100 years ago) there was 30 people working for one retiree. Now we have 8 working for one retired, and it will get to 4 in a generation.

It made me thinking, how is it really possible, to achieve in 8 now what 30 had to do in a past. On top of it our retired people have much better retirement than people one hundred years ago could afford.
The explanation that I found is in production, economy, the growth of GDP per capita.
I found this:
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_gdp_per_cap_in_190-economy-gdp-per-capita-1900
It shows GDP per capita in 1900 for many countries, in today’s dollars.

It means that GDP per person has risen roughly 10 fold, in last 110 years. It makes sense when we compare what life was like in our countries 100 years ago and now. We have bigger and nicer houses, fast shiny cars, phones, tv, more food, bigger bellies, clothes, travel, health care, fly around the world, you name it.
How is it possible?
Do we work harder? - No
Do we work longer? - No
So how can we produce 10 times as much as hard working people of the past? How today's worker can produce as much as 10 workers century ago? Did we become a super humans, supermen? What do we have they didn't?
A magic wand maybe? :shocked:

Well, we have machines, machines everywhere. Many more, faster and efficient machines than ancestors did one hindered years ago. Machines harvest, produce, dig, carry goods, lift loads, build cars, calculate, solve problems, wash, pump, cut. Generally they do work for 10 men. Today’s people are as efficient at work as our grandpas were long time ago, but the production progress, the GDP growth was achieved by our beautiful machines. Often undervalued, and working tirelessly behind the scenes, are taken for granted, and are forgotten how valuable they are. Surely people have to operate and maintain them, but the combination of workers and our powerful machines is awesome.

Yes, it's true that only 8 today’s workers pay dues for one retiree, but if one compares it to efficiency from hundred years ago, it's like 80 workers from old times paying for one man over 65 now.
Now, it doesn't sound that scary anymore, does it?

Let's go 100 years in the future. Let's assume nothing really bad happened, meteorite didn't wipe us out, and the WW3 was avoided. Even Greece is doing well again. :grin:
Thanks to science we created even better machines, and finally robots. GDP grew another 10 fold. It would mean that one worker from future can produce 100 times of what worker 200 years back could. It also means that one single worker will be able to support one retiree.......Scrap this.
All people will be retired, robots work for all people, robots operate machines,....scrap this. Machines operate and fix themselves; they even design new machines to produce even more for us. We all retire; nobody works, and still has a sweet life.

What I was trying to explain is that we look at numbers of how many works for retired people the wrong way. We are not comparing apples to apples.

Besides, in western world, 65+ seams to be the richest age group from them all.
 
A video about the world aging population from everyones favourtie institution the IMF!

"The world's population is getting older. Countries need to think about how fewer young people can continue to support the elderly."

Watch video


Well.. You say it... Fewer young people...
Why? Because in the capitalist mayhem of the last thirty years it isn't very wise to have a bunch of children.
Parents plan 2 or 3 children, simply because they can't afford more.
Education has skyrocketed in costs.
And then there are the companies moving their activities to China.
That has less jobs as a result.
I had a nice career in electronics and IT in the 80's and 90's, but my children saw the jobs disappear to the far east, so they weren't interested in a technical study anymore.
The governments also were good friends with the banking boys, and together they created the hot air bubble that collapsed a few years ago.
Now the citizens should pay, while the business jackals get away with extremely high bonuses? NO WAY!
 

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