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> You're willing to bet your life that the government is always going to do right by you? Hear, hear, especially given the historical priors : (hint: across a

> You're willing to bet your life that the government is always going to do right by you? Hear, hear, especially given the historical priors : (hint: across a generation-sized time spans, governments never keep their promises. Why should they, they usually are in power for decades at most). And yes, relying on governments to handle your retirement money is completely insane, but the vast majority of folks in e.g. the EU have drunk that kool-aid even though it was guaranteed to fail since day one. Retirement plans the way they work in Western Europe were always an absolute con, very much like a ponzi scheme (new players pay for the earlier players). When the young, working population was vastly larger than the old retiree population (because the retirement age was designed so that most people died before reaching it), the government milked their working young for all they were worth. Now that the age pyramid has inverted (large retiree population, few working youngs), there simply isn't enough income generated by the young to pay for the old and retirement income is paid using debt. What a freak show.

croes 4y ago
>Retirement plans the way they work in Western Europe were always an absolute con, very much like a ponzi scheme (new players pay for the earlier players) That's pretty much how families worked before retirement plans, the kids payed for the parents. This just got transferred to the whole society. And it worked as long the rise of productivity led to a rise of wages.
- dahfizz 4y ago
  > And it worked as long the rise of productivity led to a rise of wages. It worked as long as people had more than 2 kids. There was always a larger young population supporting the smaller old population.
  - croes 4y ago
    It's about money, not population. And the GDPs are growing faster than the population, at least in the first world. So it's bo a matter of quantity but of distribution.
    - kwere 4y ago
      GDPs are mostly artificially pumped in all the world except maybe switzerland and few others. For example China is financially collapsing now bcs its infrastructure ponzi scheme to weather 08' slowdowns is over. A lot of other countries are playing financial alchemy and poisoning themselves
creato 4y ago
It’s the same scheme that has existed for all of humanity: the tribe’s young people work to provide for the children and elders. No one was retiring by hoarding a pile of gold. The tribe is just bigger now.

croes 4y ago

>Retirement plans the way they work in Western Europe were always an absolute con, very much like a ponzi scheme (new players pay for the earlier players) That's pretty much how families worked before retirement plans, the kids payed for the parents. This just got transferred to the whole society. And it worked as long the rise of productivity led to a rise of wages.

dahfizz 4y ago
> And it worked as long the rise of productivity led to a rise of wages. It worked as long as people had more than 2 kids. There was always a larger young population supporting the smaller old population.
- croes 4y ago
  It's about money, not population. And the GDPs are growing faster than the population, at least in the first world. So it's bo a matter of quantity but of distribution.
  - kwere 4y ago
    GDPs are mostly artificially pumped in all the world except maybe switzerland and few others. For example China is financially collapsing now bcs its infrastructure ponzi scheme to weather 08' slowdowns is over. A lot of other countries are playing financial alchemy and poisoning themselves

creato 4y ago

It’s the same scheme that has existed for all of humanity: the tribe’s young people work to provide for the children and elders. No one was retiring by hoarding a pile of gold. The tribe is just bigger now.