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I’m not sure how I feel about this. I’m based in the Nordics and my estimated retirement age at the moment (where I can get my state pension) is 67y 4m. Whilst

by deanc 1y ago

I’m not sure how I feel about this. I’m based in the Nordics and my estimated retirement age at the moment (where I can get my state pension) is 67y 4m. Whilst I understand the burden the aging population is having on society (lifespan) it doesn’t seem like there’s much proactive government input into people’s healthspan. Maybe instead we should try investing in this area (reducing the burden on services) instead of simply trying to reduce the quantity of folks claiming from the state pension pot.

HDThoreaun 1y ago
It’s not just about expanding lifespans. The cratering birth rates are a huge reason why societies are going to need people to work until they’re older.
ryan93 1y ago
Are you really claiming there is some big health issue in the nordic countries suppressing life span?
- deanc 1y ago
  No. I am suggesting that governments invest more into ensuring their aging population is healthy instead of draining every bit of life from them by making them work later and later.
  - ryan93 1y ago
    no one is being drained doing nordic office work in their 70s.
WA 1y ago
It’s the other way around: a few decades ago people retired only a few years earlier, had 5-10 years of retirement and then died. Now people live way longer, but the retirement age never got adjusted properly to the new reality. So 15-20 years of retirement is the new normal. In addition, way fewer young payers for the now old.
- deanc 1y ago
  Sure. But is that the society we want to live in. Do we not have ambitions to have people work less, enjoy what little life they have more? I'm not saying this is an economically easy problem to solve, but we focus so much on economics and so little on policies that make people happy.
  - tossandthrow 1y ago
    I would love to see a model That supports this. I think it is possible, but we need to raise (corporate) taxes a lot, and this needs to happen globally, as companies move. As a star I would love to see global minimum corporate taxes, and then take it from there.
  - zemvpferreira 1y ago
    No one is preventing you from saving more now and retiring earlier. Why must it be the government’s job?
    - layer8 1y ago
      Most people prefer it to be the government’s job, and that’s how they vote.
  - bossyTeacher 1y ago
    > Do we not have ambitions to have people work less, enjoy what little life they have more Spend less, save more. Vote for governments that do likewise.
  - markvdb 1y ago
    > Do we not have ambitions to have people work less, enjoy what little life they have more? Isn't that something for the individual to decide, not the collective? Many derive from work a lot of meaning in life. If working is what makes some people happy, it would be nice to not punish people for working until they die. > I'm not saying this is an economically easy problem to solve, but we focus so much on economics and so little on policies that make people happy. Absolutely!
zeroCalories 1y ago
Economically, old people are a burden on society. If you want to have a long and easy retirement for your elderly, you need a growing population, forever. Like a ponzi scheme. The alternative is that you break young people's back by burdening them with providing for the elderly. No amount of redistribution will help a country with poor productivity. 60 was a reasonable retirement age years ago, because most people would be dead soon after retirement, but with people regularly reaching 80+, 70 for retirement seems very reasonable. It wouldn't surprise me if the average gen Z reaches 90+, so maybe they should be working until they're in their 80s.
- vintermann 1y ago
  > Economically, old people are a burden on society Only if they are poor. If they're rich, they can continue "producing wealth" from interest and investments even after they're dead. It's a silly thing to say, of course, but it's built into most people's assumptions who are discussing it.
  - zeroCalories 1y ago
    A rich person doing nothing is not productive. They produce by giving their money to someone that is productive and getting rent on it. If billionaires and aristocrats were actually a sizable amount of a country's wealth it might make sense to redistribute their wealth to the actually productive people. But they're not.
    - davejohnclark 1y ago
      > If billionaires and aristocrats were actually a sizable amount of a country's wealth I might be misunderstanding your point, but I think they might be? E.g. in the UK: > By 2023, the richest 50 families in the UK held more wealth than half of the UK population, comprising 34.1 million people https://equalitytrust.org.uk/scale-economic-inequality-uk/ https://equalitytrust.org.uk/scale-economic-inequality-uk/
- foobazgt 1y ago
  If you had to pick an age for societal burden, it'd be the average "young" person who isn't making a net-positive contribution until around the age of 25. Most people don't receive a corresponding 25 years of retirement, and the retirement they do receive is a product of contributing to it for 40 years. But it turns out young people become middle-age people, become old people, and we're all in this together. The real problem is not about how the pie is split across generations, but about the realities of lifespans, economic production, and expenses. If you're responsible for funding the entirety of your retirement, all of this is abundantly clear. When you nationalize retirement, all sorts of budgeting tricks start happening, like "borrowing" to fund other programs, papering shortfalls via population growth, etc. Then you start getting age warfare when the govt has to eventually cut back. You could dissolve the national retirement plan, but that seems like a bad idea for similar reasons as entirely dissolving national welfare and insurance programs. It will always be the case that some people, need some help, some of the time. I guess in my ideal world, it's reduced to a much smaller safety net, because the government is managing the economy well enough that the populace has the wherewithal to save appropriately, and they are educated enough to do so.
mrcwinn 1y ago
As an American, I’m often that countries like Denmark are in fact constantly investing in health and entitlements, and so everyone is healthier and happier. Is that not the case?
- deanc 1y ago
  In my part of the Nordics (Finland) they are cutting investment and sending people to private institutions. In rural areas private providers have entirely replaced public sector healthcare centers. This is seen as quite controversial across the board.
  - tossandthrow 1y ago
    Self paid?
    - deanc 1y ago
      No, the taxes we pay are going to private institutions driven by profit instead of into funding public institutions that don't have this self-interest. This is not a model I support.
      - tossandthrow 1y ago
        I see. I think it is a balance. Auctioning this work to private companies should theoretically make it more cost efficient - and I think it is. At least I hear that workers a much more stressed than they were historically, so I don't hope this comes with no benefit...
        deanc 1y ago
        I can only speak for the two countries I've lived in (Finland & UK) and society is not amenable to privatisation in either. In the UK pretty much everything that has been privatised has been ruined (water, energy, transport) with high prices and poor service.
kryptoncalm 1y ago
Building on that, instead of viewing retirement (age) from a cost perspective (i.e. we have x budget and y lifespan, hence retirement age is z), it would be refreshing to see a high-quality and long retirement as starting point, and then figure out how to organize for that. One way would be to reduce burden on services indeed. A low retirement age (for those who want it) is a sign of a wealthy nation and something to strive for.
neuroelectron 1y ago
Previous older generations were leas independent. They lived with their extended families, contributed to the household and spent nearly nothing.
wyager 1y ago
> Maybe instead we should try investing in this area (reducing the burden on services) This doesn't require any investment or technological development; it just requires making rational-but-politically-nuclear policy changes reducing the infinite tap of publicly-funded extremely-low-ROI medical expenditures on old people. An absurd fraction of medical spending goes to protracting the suffering of old people just a bit longer. We can simply stop doing that, given the political will to do so. Extending people's lifespans won't do much to alleviate these expenditures, except perhaps to slightly dilute the amortization schedule.

by deanc 1y ago

HDThoreaun 1y ago

It’s not just about expanding lifespans. The cratering birth rates are a huge reason why societies are going to need people to work until they’re older.

ryan93 1y ago

Are you really claiming there is some big health issue in the nordic countries suppressing life span?

deanc 1y ago
No. I am suggesting that governments invest more into ensuring their aging population is healthy instead of draining every bit of life from them by making them work later and later.
- ryan93 1y ago
  no one is being drained doing nordic office work in their 70s.

WA 1y ago

It’s the other way around: a few decades ago people retired only a few years earlier, had 5-10 years of retirement and then died. Now people live way longer, but the retirement age never got adjusted properly to the new reality. So 15-20 years of retirement is the new normal. In addition, way fewer young payers for the now old.

deanc 1y ago
Sure. But is that the society we want to live in. Do we not have ambitions to have people work less, enjoy what little life they have more? I'm not saying this is an economically easy problem to solve, but we focus so much on economics and so little on policies that make people happy.
- tossandthrow 1y ago
  I would love to see a model That supports this. I think it is possible, but we need to raise (corporate) taxes a lot, and this needs to happen globally, as companies move. As a star I would love to see global minimum corporate taxes, and then take it from there.
- zemvpferreira 1y ago
  No one is preventing you from saving more now and retiring earlier. Why must it be the government’s job?
  - layer8 1y ago
    Most people prefer it to be the government’s job, and that’s how they vote.
- bossyTeacher 1y ago
  > Do we not have ambitions to have people work less, enjoy what little life they have more Spend less, save more. Vote for governments that do likewise.
- markvdb 1y ago
  > Do we not have ambitions to have people work less, enjoy what little life they have more? Isn't that something for the individual to decide, not the collective? Many derive from work a lot of meaning in life. If working is what makes some people happy, it would be nice to not punish people for working until they die. > I'm not saying this is an economically easy problem to solve, but we focus so much on economics and so little on policies that make people happy. Absolutely!

zeroCalories 1y ago

Economically, old people are a burden on society. If you want to have a long and easy retirement for your elderly, you need a growing population, forever. Like a ponzi scheme. The alternative is that you break young people's back by burdening them with providing for the elderly. No amount of redistribution will help a country with poor productivity. 60 was a reasonable retirement age years ago, because most people would be dead soon after retirement, but with people regularly reaching 80+, 70 for retirement seems very reasonable. It wouldn't surprise me if the average gen Z reaches 90+, so maybe they should be working until they're in their 80s.

vintermann 1y ago
> Economically, old people are a burden on society Only if they are poor. If they're rich, they can continue "producing wealth" from interest and investments even after they're dead. It's a silly thing to say, of course, but it's built into most people's assumptions who are discussing it.
- zeroCalories 1y ago
  A rich person doing nothing is not productive. They produce by giving their money to someone that is productive and getting rent on it. If billionaires and aristocrats were actually a sizable amount of a country's wealth it might make sense to redistribute their wealth to the actually productive people. But they're not.
  - davejohnclark 1y ago
    > If billionaires and aristocrats were actually a sizable amount of a country's wealth I might be misunderstanding your point, but I think they might be? E.g. in the UK: > By 2023, the richest 50 families in the UK held more wealth than half of the UK population, comprising 34.1 million people https://equalitytrust.org.uk/scale-economic-inequality-uk/ https://equalitytrust.org.uk/scale-economic-inequality-uk/
foobazgt 1y ago
If you had to pick an age for societal burden, it'd be the average "young" person who isn't making a net-positive contribution until around the age of 25. Most people don't receive a corresponding 25 years of retirement, and the retirement they do receive is a product of contributing to it for 40 years. But it turns out young people become middle-age people, become old people, and we're all in this together. The real problem is not about how the pie is split across generations, but about the realities of lifespans, economic production, and expenses. If you're responsible for funding the entirety of your retirement, all of this is abundantly clear. When you nationalize retirement, all sorts of budgeting tricks start happening, like "borrowing" to fund other programs, papering shortfalls via population growth, etc. Then you start getting age warfare when the govt has to eventually cut back. You could dissolve the national retirement plan, but that seems like a bad idea for similar reasons as entirely dissolving national welfare and insurance programs. It will always be the case that some people, need some help, some of the time. I guess in my ideal world, it's reduced to a much smaller safety net, because the government is managing the economy well enough that the populace has the wherewithal to save appropriately, and they are educated enough to do so.

mrcwinn 1y ago

As an American, I’m often that countries like Denmark are in fact constantly investing in health and entitlements, and so everyone is healthier and happier. Is that not the case?

deanc 1y ago
In my part of the Nordics (Finland) they are cutting investment and sending people to private institutions. In rural areas private providers have entirely replaced public sector healthcare centers. This is seen as quite controversial across the board.
- tossandthrow 1y ago
  Self paid?
  - deanc 1y ago
    No, the taxes we pay are going to private institutions driven by profit instead of into funding public institutions that don't have this self-interest. This is not a model I support.
    - tossandthrow 1y ago
      I see. I think it is a balance. Auctioning this work to private companies should theoretically make it more cost efficient - and I think it is. At least I hear that workers a much more stressed than they were historically, so I don't hope this comes with no benefit...
      - deanc 1y ago
        I can only speak for the two countries I've lived in (Finland & UK) and society is not amenable to privatisation in either. In the UK pretty much everything that has been privatised has been ruined (water, energy, transport) with high prices and poor service.

kryptoncalm 1y ago

Building on that, instead of viewing retirement (age) from a cost perspective (i.e. we have x budget and y lifespan, hence retirement age is z), it would be refreshing to see a high-quality and long retirement as starting point, and then figure out how to organize for that. One way would be to reduce burden on services indeed. A low retirement age (for those who want it) is a sign of a wealthy nation and something to strive for.

neuroelectron 1y ago

Previous older generations were leas independent. They lived with their extended families, contributed to the household and spent nearly nothing.

wyager 1y ago

> Maybe instead we should try investing in this area (reducing the burden on services) This doesn't require any investment or technological development; it just requires making rational-but-politically-nuclear policy changes reducing the infinite tap of publicly-funded extremely-low-ROI medical expenditures on old people. An absurd fraction of medical spending goes to protracting the suffering of old people just a bit longer. We can simply stop doing that, given the political will to do so. Extending people's lifespans won't do much to alleviate these expenditures, except perhaps to slightly dilute the amortization schedule.