4 ms·

No, people won't save enough for retirement or major health issues. It's an existential problem. Serbia is 7M people for gosh stakes it's the size of Greater T

by jariel 5y ago

No, people won't save enough for retirement or major health issues. It's an existential problem. Serbia is 7M people for gosh stakes it's the size of Greater Toronto or Chicago, there doesn't need to be a 'giant bureaucracy'.

djbebs 5y ago
Then they will die. You can't save people from themselves.
- hkt 5y ago
  This attitude is precisely why people pursue socialist policies. I'm from the UK and have benefited hugely from socialist healthcare policies that even our conservatives pay lip service to supporting. There's an awful lot of libertarian, social darwinist claptrap in threads on this post. It gets away from the fact that what has happened is a relatively newly capitalist country has made a very substantial error to its citizens' cost, and there exists a possibility of injustice alongside the possibility that the rule of law may appear to be being ignored, depending on when the law changed. It isn't an opportunity to be performatively callous.
- jariel 5y ago
  This is the thinking of poor countries, like Croatia, Zambia, Tajikistan. All rich countries have some kind of basic retirement benefits and some measure public medical care (the US spends more per capita on socialized medicine than does Canada) - this is partly why they are rich. It's not even controversial anymore, it hasn't been for 70 years.
  - neartheplain 5y ago
    >This is the thinking of poor countries, like Croatia Croatia’s had pretty decent universal healthcare for many years.
  - Annatar 5y ago
    Croatia is anything but poor; can you imagine how rich a country must be to support Western Europe with labor, natural resources, defense and financial wealth for 600 years without interruptions? I know of no other country which has managed such a feat hitherto, do you? Croats just save differently to others due to corruption and adversity in their country: an average Croat's wealth is in real estate. As there is no real estate tax on primary abode, real estate ownership is high, while the mortgage debt is almost nonexistent. Where do you think 7.5 billion euros which pour in every Summer from tourism go? That money mostly ends up in the newly built villas on the coast.
    - jariel 5y ago
      "mortgage debt is almost nonexistent. " This doesn't make a lot of sense, if there is low interest rates and no estate or real estate tax, then people should naturally have considerable leverage.
      - Annatar 5y ago
        That's because in Croatia, banks have often been the focal points of financial crime deeply intertwined with political crime; as the justice system isn't functional, the banks constantly and literally swindled citizens, so the average Croat does not take out a mortgage and does not trust any institutions. For example, several years ago, lots of people were intentionally misled by the banks providing loans in kunas which were tied to the swiss franc. When the Swiss National Bank lifted the peg in 2012, the franc, being the safe harbor currency, skyrocketed in value. The banks immediately demanded higher interest, which the loan consumers were of course unable to financially bear. The whole debacle ended up going all the way to the supreme court where it was finally overturned. Up until that point, the banks did not care and kept bankrupting people without so much as batting an eyelash. This is just one example. In the '90's, bank of Ljubljana simply froze, then siphoned off all of their Croatian customers' assets in Croatia to their central office in Slovenia. Nobody ever saw any of their money up to this present day, and are unlikely to ever see it. Nobody went to jail, and it is unlikely anyone ever will. There are a sea of such examples in that country. This is why in Croatia, one borrows cash from family, relatives and friends at no interest, rather than get screwed over by the state and all kinds of private institutions, none of which can be trusted. Croats have zero confidence in their government or anyone else for that matter, sometimes they do not, or cannot even trust their own family or would-be friends.
- inglor_cz 5y ago
  In Serbia, a country that suffered government-caused hyperinflation, the idea is ask people to save money for retirement will meet some justified distrust. Not to mention that it is a low-income country where people have smaller margins from which to save. You can't just forgo a holiday in Bahamas to save some money if you cannot afford said holiday in the first place.
inglor_cz 5y ago
Bureaucracy growth has often little to do with need. Important governmental services tend to be understaffed, either because the work is arduous, unpleasant or does not pay enough to attract competent individuals. What tends to grow are services that are politically expedient.
- jariel 5y ago
  This is not an argument though. Of course government services can have too many or too few workers, that's a matter of efficiency. All rich nations have mostly socialized infrastructure: water, electricity, roads and partially socialized retirement and healthcare. That's partly why they are rich.

by jariel 5y ago

djbebs 5y ago

Then they will die. You can't save people from themselves.

hkt 5y ago
This attitude is precisely why people pursue socialist policies. I'm from the UK and have benefited hugely from socialist healthcare policies that even our conservatives pay lip service to supporting. There's an awful lot of libertarian, social darwinist claptrap in threads on this post. It gets away from the fact that what has happened is a relatively newly capitalist country has made a very substantial error to its citizens' cost, and there exists a possibility of injustice alongside the possibility that the rule of law may appear to be being ignored, depending on when the law changed. It isn't an opportunity to be performatively callous.
jariel 5y ago
This is the thinking of poor countries, like Croatia, Zambia, Tajikistan. All rich countries have some kind of basic retirement benefits and some measure public medical care (the US spends more per capita on socialized medicine than does Canada) - this is partly why they are rich. It's not even controversial anymore, it hasn't been for 70 years.
- neartheplain 5y ago
  >This is the thinking of poor countries, like Croatia Croatia’s had pretty decent universal healthcare for many years.
- Annatar 5y ago
  Croatia is anything but poor; can you imagine how rich a country must be to support Western Europe with labor, natural resources, defense and financial wealth for 600 years without interruptions? I know of no other country which has managed such a feat hitherto, do you? Croats just save differently to others due to corruption and adversity in their country: an average Croat's wealth is in real estate. As there is no real estate tax on primary abode, real estate ownership is high, while the mortgage debt is almost nonexistent. Where do you think 7.5 billion euros which pour in every Summer from tourism go? That money mostly ends up in the newly built villas on the coast.
  - jariel 5y ago
    "mortgage debt is almost nonexistent. " This doesn't make a lot of sense, if there is low interest rates and no estate or real estate tax, then people should naturally have considerable leverage.
    - Annatar 5y ago
      That's because in Croatia, banks have often been the focal points of financial crime deeply intertwined with political crime; as the justice system isn't functional, the banks constantly and literally swindled citizens, so the average Croat does not take out a mortgage and does not trust any institutions. For example, several years ago, lots of people were intentionally misled by the banks providing loans in kunas which were tied to the swiss franc. When the Swiss National Bank lifted the peg in 2012, the franc, being the safe harbor currency, skyrocketed in value. The banks immediately demanded higher interest, which the loan consumers were of course unable to financially bear. The whole debacle ended up going all the way to the supreme court where it was finally overturned. Up until that point, the banks did not care and kept bankrupting people without so much as batting an eyelash. This is just one example. In the '90's, bank of Ljubljana simply froze, then siphoned off all of their Croatian customers' assets in Croatia to their central office in Slovenia. Nobody ever saw any of their money up to this present day, and are unlikely to ever see it. Nobody went to jail, and it is unlikely anyone ever will. There are a sea of such examples in that country. This is why in Croatia, one borrows cash from family, relatives and friends at no interest, rather than get screwed over by the state and all kinds of private institutions, none of which can be trusted. Croats have zero confidence in their government or anyone else for that matter, sometimes they do not, or cannot even trust their own family or would-be friends.
inglor_cz 5y ago
In Serbia, a country that suffered government-caused hyperinflation, the idea is ask people to save money for retirement will meet some justified distrust. Not to mention that it is a low-income country where people have smaller margins from which to save. You can't just forgo a holiday in Bahamas to save some money if you cannot afford said holiday in the first place.

inglor_cz 5y ago

Bureaucracy growth has often little to do with need. Important governmental services tend to be understaffed, either because the work is arduous, unpleasant or does not pay enough to attract competent individuals. What tends to grow are services that are politically expedient.

jariel 5y ago
This is not an argument though. Of course government services can have too many or too few workers, that's a matter of efficiency. All rich nations have mostly socialized infrastructure: water, electricity, roads and partially socialized retirement and healthcare. That's partly why they are rich.