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Pensions are Ponzi schemes, plain and simple, with government playing the role of Ponzi. Buried deep inside the idea of a government pension is the idea that i
by apo 8y ago
Pensions are Ponzi schemes, plain and simple, with government playing the role of Ponzi.
Buried deep inside the idea of a government pension is the idea that individuals are incapable of saving for their own retirement. That government needs to care for its people in old age because they won't take the necessary steps themselves.
Questionable assumptions aside, this article and many, many more like it demonstrate that government is incapable of caring for people in their old age, making many of the same mistakes with "investing" that individuals will. From the federal government down, officials have shown no reluctance to raid pensions to fund pet project, resulting in chronic underfunding.
Inflation supplies the energy to keep this toxic cauldron bubbling along. It's not enough to simply "put money aside for retirement." Instead, you need "investments" that will at least keep up with inflation. Savings accounts are out.
Enter investment "advisors," all too willing to tell an individual (or government) what to do - for a fee.
Edit: the downvotes are amusing, but a comment explaining why would be more interesting.
- cr1895 8y agoMaybe you should read up on, for example, the Dutch pension system.
- siberianbear 8y agoWell, you're not wrong. You're just pointing some inconvenient truths. 1. Most people are incapable of saving for their own retirement, because they either lack the discipline or the skill set to do so. 2. Because of (1), people want the government to take care of it. But government does a mediocre job of most things. 3. Elected politicians have an incentive to get in bed with unions of government employees and screw taxpayers by cleverly mis-evaluating the present cost of future retirement payout streams. 4. Bad actors in the world pray on everyone involved: the employees, the pension funds, the government, individuals, etc, to get management fees from the corpus of retirement programs.