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> Let's not pretend like this was ever seriously going to be sustainable. Why not? Each year machines become more efficient, and productivity has gone up. The
by kartan 8y ago
> Let's not pretend like this was ever seriously going to be sustainable.
Why not? Each year machines become more efficient, and productivity has gone up. The main problem has not been to create wealth, it has been on how to share it.
Politicians also say that health care for everyone is impossible, but there is a lot of countries that do just that.
This is about setting expectations. If you convince your citizens that paying pensions is wasteful and not sustainable, you can diverge that money to other places.
Look at tax breaks and you will find where your pension is.
- hn_throwaway_99 8y ago> Each year machines become more efficient, and productivity has gone up. That actually highlights a lot of problems with defined-benefit plans: sometimes economic circumstances change so drastically based on social or technological change that the promises of the past are no longer viable. How could places like Detroit or Puerto Rico continue to pay their promised pensions when their economic base has evaporated?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- kartan 8y ago> How could places like Detroit or Puerto Rico continue to pay their promised pensions when their economic base has evaporated? As a manager of a small team, I had this problem. My team was composed of very senior people and I had a big bag of money to share for salary increases. Another manager had a very junior but very brilliant team and his bag was quite small. We joined efforts, and we joined the bags. Now we had the flexibility to give the correct salary increase to everybody. The way to solve this problem is to share the burden. That is the base for insurances. Governments should offer an insurance against local changes. As the economy goes global, it should be a global effort. This is easier said than done. But it is the real solution.