21 ms·

This is truly sad. As a Swede I fear my country may follow suite. The retirement age in Sweden used to be 65 and now it's 67. Looking at older people around me

by amag 1y ago

This is truly sad. As a Swede I fear my country may follow suite. The retirement age in Sweden used to be 65 and now it's 67. Looking at older people around me, most lead a much less active life after 75. So, if we were lucky we used to have some 10 good years of doing whatever we wanted before old age and age-related diseases start affecting us so much we become limited to a much smaller world. But now we have maybe eight years and if we follow Denmark, five years. I think if you've put in 40-45 years for the man, you should be allowed to have some good 10 years for yourself. Travel, play golf, cross a continent in a camper or climb a mountain.

wyager 1y ago
> I think if you've put in 40-45 years for the man, you should be allowed to have some good 10 years for yourself. Who do you think would "allow" this? God? This is a resource constraint imposed by reality itself catching up to an excessively idealistic set of policies; this policy decision is downstream of that, not arbitrary.
- StopDisinfo910 1y ago
  It is entirely arbitrary. Society heavily favours capital above labour. That’s why we have very rich inheritors never working and people toiling until they are 70. It’s entirely a choice. This issue has solutions we collectively decide not to put in place.
  - godelski 1y ago
    Funny that we have a ton of people asking what people would do in a post scarce society. Stating that man needs work. Yet, it also seems to be said most by the people who have been free from the need to labor for generations. They still do, they still desire more, yet their lives are certainly post scarce. Hell, the whole goal of retirement is to become post scarce, and have a few years where you can live without the need to labor. Seems like we already have some decent evidence to what such a world would look like.
    - CooCooCaCha 1y ago
      People will always yearn and wonder and imagine. Sure some people will spend their time fishing but a lot of people need things to strive for a and they will make things up or seek out others who feel the same way.
      - godelski 1y ago
        I agree. Lots of evidence to suggest that this would allow humans to be the most human they could be. Calling it a new Renaissance is not a stretch. Nor reminding those that much of the scientific advancements in the past were made by those who had the luxury of enough free time to sit around and think. But I think too many confuse this message with suggesting some form of Communism or Socialism. I'm not advocating for that (personally, I'm strong believer in Capitalism, even if not the Laissez-faire kind. You can't control a wild horse, but neither should you let it freely destroy your farm). Those notions are related, but not the same thing. You can clearly, as demonstrated by rich elite and people retiring, have post scarce lives without the need for such direct control.
  - wyager 1y ago
    If you stop "rich inheritors" from existing, this moves you away from the knee of the optimization frontier and you're certainly even worse off as an old person. If you can't conceptualize this as a constrained optimization problem, you're not even worth arguing with; you simply lack the tools to think about this in a useful way.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - StopDisinfo910 1y ago
      While I have little interest in humouring the idea that all of this boil down to an optimisation problem (it doesn’t - fiscal policies and social policies scarily live at the intersection of economy and politics - plus even from a pure economic point of view it is much more complicated than a simple optimisation problem and I do have an economic degree by the way), on top of you being frankly condescending while bringing little to the table which would somehow explain if not justify the attitude, you can certainly get away with far heavier inheritance taxes without actually hurting your economy in any meaningful way. You can also tax the rich a lot more heavily without hurting your economy in any meaningful way. And I don’t ask you to believe me from the goodness of your heart. I think Piketty must have had something like half a dozen best sellers on this topic alone at this point.
      - wyager 1y ago
        > I have little interest in humouring the idea that all of this boil down to an optimisation problem... I do have an economic degree by the way I hope your degree was "economic" in the sense that you didn't pay much for it > I think Piketty must have had something like half a dozen best sellers on this topic alone at this point. Thinking pop-slop authors like Piketty are worth paying attention to is a worse self-indictment than the most condescending thing I could possibly say here. You should downgrade your confidence that it's possible to meddle with natural resource allocation without causing problems.
        1y ago
  - SchemaLoad 1y ago
    Isn't that exactly how retirement works though? Old people who produce no labour but just get everything given to them because of the capitol they built up previously.
    - Ancalagon 1y ago
      No, the parent is talking about inheritors. Japan mostly solves this with very high inheritance taxes.
      - Aeolun 1y ago
        Those mean the government always gets its cut (and pisses off the inheritors), but functionally whether you inherit 10 or 5M doesn’t really make a difference.
      - throwaway2037 1y ago
        > Japan mostly solves this with very high inheritance taxes. This is a myth. It is lower than most wealthy European nations. Details: https://taxsummaries.pwc.com/japan/individual/other-taxes https://taxsummaries.pwc.com/japan/individual/other-taxes Also: https://retirewiki.jp/wiki/Inheritance_tax https://retirewiki.jp/wiki/Inheritance_tax
  - ahupp 1y ago
    Can you quantify what you think that choice looks like? Say you seized the entirety of Elon Musk’s assets: that could pay for a year and a half of the Dept of Transportation. Say you seized all the wealth (somehow) of the world’s 100 richest people. That’s 2 years of US non-discretionary spending (social security, Medicare and Medicaid). I often see comments that assume all problems could be solved by just taxing the rich more, but I just don’t think that’s true. The Nordic countries pay for their social safety nets by taxing the middle class more heavily than we do in the US. If you want to change that, it’s less about capital vs labor, and more about your dentist vs labor (dentists be the classic example of jobs that earn high incomes without being “capital owners”).
- amag 1y ago
  Of course there is no guarantee that your 65-75 years will be good, but it's a lot more likely that your 65-75 years will be good than your 75-85 years.
  - tossandthrow 1y ago
    The point is, that the society does not owe you 10 years to do whatever.
    - rightbyte 1y ago
      Which is why he argues it should?
    - amag 1y ago
      You mean I can't sue society if I die nine years into retirement?
    - Jochim 1y ago
      This is how you end up with extremists.
    - HappMacDonald 1y ago
      And why wouldn't a society owe its citizens anything after 40+ years of keeping their nose at the grindstone, and obeying all of its laws? Society is defined by what we owe one another in pursuit of civil interactions with one another. If the only contract society offers me is "work your hands to the bone and then be discarded once you can't work anymore" then I have no incentive to keep up my side of the contract and perform labor or observe property laws in the first place. And once everyone is trying to cheat and steal from one another then you no longer have a society anymore.
      - RestlessMind 1y ago
        Then you just fall back to a small trusted circle of family and friends. Or, what we used to call a tribe or a clan back then.
      - 1y ago
- godelski 1y ago
  > This is a resource constraint imposed by reality itself No, it is a resource allocation problem. I don't think we should have ceilings, but we certainly should have floors. Minimum standards. Despite that belief, I think there is something wrong when there's about 20 people who make more money while they take a shit, than most American families make in a year[0] and a buttload who make that same amount while they're asleep[1]. These levels of wealth are so large that they are extremely difficult, if not impossible, to spend within several generations, not just one lifetime. This is only a problem, because the floor is lowering while the number of people in these groups are growing, especially the shit group. If we have to make trades between ceiling and floor, I'd rather sacrifice ceiling for floor than floor for ceiling. Because the latter is simply greed. Importantly, we can have both. This isn't a zero sum game, we produce more wealth and resources as time goes on. It is only zero sum at a single point in time. We can simultaneously raise the ceiling and the floor. But currently, we are shifting what percent of these gains go to which groups. It would be insane to build extravagant and ornate Cathedral ceilings to only have a dirt floor. It would be dangerous to build those ceilings without ensuring there is a strong foundation and forgetting to build the pillars to support them. Without that, the ceilings fall and it all becomes dirt and rubble. It is an allocation problem, not an amount problem. [0] If you have $100bn, are able to make a conservative 0.05 yearly interest and take 5min to shit, you've made ~$50k during that time. [1] You only need $1bn given the same statistics, but closer to $45k. There's over 3k billionaires.
  - wyager 1y ago
    > No, it is a resource allocation problem. There are finite resources to allocate. If you can't conceptualize this, there's literally zero chance you can think about this in a productive way. > I think there is something wrong when there's about 20 people who make more money while they take a shit, than most American families make in a year That's usually indicative of a lack of understanding of highly connected networks, power law distributions, etc. - the types of things you need to grapple with if your question is "how do I maximize some economic objective for X million people?". > This isn't a zero sum game It's a constrained game (and there exists a zero-sum tradeoff between instantaneous allocation of resources to capital good production and consumable good production) > Cathedral ceilings to only have a dirt floor You're really leaning on this analogy that isn't very useful for actually thinking about the problem
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
gessha 1y ago
Back when it was first introduced, it was based on life expectancy and few were expected to live beyond retirement age. [1] [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/10/how-retirement-was-invented/381802/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/10/how-ret...
- toomuchtodo 1y ago
  Turns out retirement is just an illusion to convince you to give your best years for the system.
  - jstummbillig 1y ago
    No need to do any that, if you don't like the idea and have something else that works for you. But most people are somewhat mid and really don't.
  - tomp 1y ago
    You're just repeating anarchists' talking points. None of them considers that "the system" gives them food, water and energy, and that procurement of these in the absence of system means literally toiling from birth until death.
    - taneq 1y ago
      This is the my response too. There are plenty of valid criticisms of our modern society, but nothing’s stopping you wandering off into the forest to forage for berries. We don’t, because even with all its flaws, living in civilisation is infinitely easier.
  - dralley 1y ago
    Humans need a constant supply of resources and shelter to survive. There is no "system" which avoids this inconvenient fact. In the absence of any "system" at all, you would still need to constantly work for survival - and in fact you'd just die as soon as you were no longer able to do so due to illness or injury much less old age. In other words if there were no "system" there would be no such concept as "retirement" in the first place. We all wish that we could spend our best years doing whatever we want. That doesn't mathematically work out, though. European social safety nets are pretty damn generous all things considered. Plenty of vacation days, especially compared to the US. It's not like it's impossible to use those well during your "best years".
intothemild 1y ago
There's only one issue I can think of with your idea that someone who is 75 now leads a life as you're describing. The generation they belong to are predicted to live to what 80-85 years? Whilst we (assuming you're in your 40's now) are predicted to get to what 90-95 on average? Average lifespans are increasing, and on top of that the mobility of someone who's 75 now, won't be the same of someone who's 75 in another 35+ years.
- amag 1y ago
  > are predicted to get to what 90-95 on average? That may be true, but will we (who are in our 40's now) have the same quality of life at 90-95 as a now 75-year old will have at 80-85?
- duttish 1y ago
  Does anyone know if there's any kind of metrics for healthspans? Meaning the "good" part of life before it's just doctors, medicine and retirement homes. My impression so far is that we've done a lot of work at the lifespan, less at the healthspan. What's the point of living until 90 if the last 15 years isn't that fun at all.
  - YokoZar 1y ago
    Healthspan in Denmark, who just raised the retirement age, went up from 67.6 to 71.0 from 2000-2019. (+3.4 years) https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/healthy-life-expectancy-at-birth?tab=chart&country=OWID_WRL~DNK https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/healthy-life-expectancy-a... Contrast this with Denmark's lifespan growth over the same period, of 76.8 to 81.4 (+4.6 years) https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy?time=2000..2019&country=~DNK https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy?time=2000... So from the data, prior to covid-19 Danes had gained about 3 and a half years of healthy life, and an additional year of unhealthy life. It makes sense that Healthspan and lifespan are well-correlated, as most of the ways we have of extending lifespan do so in a way that makes you clearly healthier (such as preventing chronic diseases). That said, it is true there is a bit of an increasing gap. This isn't just in Denmark, it's global - lifespan rose by 6.4 years from 2000-2019 while healthspan only increased 5.3 years. https://www.who.int/data/gho/data/themes/mortality-and-global-health-estimates/ghe-life-expectancy-and-healthy-life-expectancy https://www.who.int/data/gho/data/themes/mortality-and-globa...
Jyaif 1y ago
The earlier they increase retirement age, the less painful it's going to be.
Retric 1y ago
I’d rather a robust pension starting at 70 than an anemic one starting at 55 or an underfunded one starting at 65. You can fill a gap before that pension starts with part time work etc. It’s much harder to make up a shortfall when you’re 85.
- maratc 1y ago
  But for an individual that would die at 71, which pension would they rather have, in your opinion?
  - freddie_mercury 1y ago
    The one where they get to stop working at age 40 and enjoy 31 years of retirement? Not sure why their opinion matters.
  - Retric 1y ago
    For me nothing changes. The benefits of a pension start before retirement. I can avoid setting aside a huge pile of money for the potential of an extremely long lifespan and then worry as minor changes to that pile become really critical near and in retirement. Suppose you’re 50 with 2 million USD in savings. How soon do you retire and what kind of lifestyle do you live in retirement? That’s heavily dependent on what kind of pension is waiting.
    - maratc 1y ago
      Where I am, we have personal pension plans. You can check "what kind of pension is waiting" by going to the pension fund website and checking. Gov't doesn't play any role in any of that -- except (a) prescribing mandatory monthly payments and (b) determining the retirement age. (You only get small gov't pension if you haven't collected enough in your personal plan.)
      - Retric 1y ago
        If it’s just a savings account, that’s not a pension. Assuming it’s a defined benefit pension it can include guarantees like inflation adjustments. That’s the fundamental advantage which largely offsets the disadvantage of lower average returns. I’m not saying putting all your money into a defined benefit plan is ideal, but due to the diminishing marginal utility of money a guaranteed minimum lifestyle is extraordinarily valuable.
tomp 1y ago
Pension is a Ponzi scheme. Explained in terms of economic theory, if everybody works and saves in time period 1, and retires and receives pension in time period 2, then... their pension is worthless, because there's infinite inflation, because no more goods and services get produced. Retirement depends on having young workers. People approaching 60, 70 simply didn't have enough kids to have good retirement. It's not a problem that has easy and/or fast solutions. Yet, actions have consequences...
- timschmidt 1y ago
  > Pension is a Ponzi scheme. Explained in terms of economic theory, if everybody works and saves in time period 1, and retires and receives pension in time period 2, then... their pension is worthless, because there's infinite inflation, because no more goods and services get produced. You've created an impossible situation which will never exist and then offered it as an example of why taking care of the elderly, something humans have done since before recorded history, is flawed. As Bill and Ted would say: Bogus!
  - pfannkuchen 1y ago
    I think what they missed is that people typically work for much longer than they are retired. If the periods were of equal length, I think the Ponzi scheme thing would be true. As is its sort of a modified fractionated ponzi.
    - broken-kebab 1y ago
      Ponzi, or no Ponzi, it's still an illusion: let's assume that we all generate enough money saved in those funds during our productive years to sustain ourselves in senior periods, even counting in the almighty inflation. The problem is it's not money you need when old, and frail, you want somebody doing work for that money. So the whole scheme still requires enough young workers entering the market, and them be willing to perpetuate it. Which is kinda not guaranteed if each gen is smaller then the previous one.
jmyeet 1y ago
Part of me wonders if capitalism is the solution to the Fermi Paradox because the endless chase of profits is driving us to extinction. In many Western countries, younger people are facing the prospect of never being able to own a house and never being able to retire. Beyond this basic lack of security, people are realizing the cost of having children is absolutely astronomical. In many parts of the US childcare may be costing $3000/month or more per child. For many people, pets are proxy children, and yet capitalism (private equity in particular) is ruining that too as all the vet clinics are being bought up so people can be gouged on that front too. I'm someone who views the Labor Theory of Value [1] to be trivially true. After decades of Red Scare propaganda, Americans in particular dismiss Marx but they don't realize that Marx's most famous work (Das Kapital [2]) is primarily a framework for economic analysis, regardless of your political beliefs. I guess the problem is that as soon as you accept the axiom "there is no value without labor", there is no other conclusion than to see capitalism as the exploitation of surplus labor value. The US corporate sector produces something like $4 trillion per year in corporate profits [3]. There are over ~210M working age people in the US [4] (about ~262M adults total). So that's ~$20k per worker in surplus labor value at a time when we spend ~2x per-capita on healthcare for worse outcomes and less coverage [5], housing is artifically expensive because we allow people to hoard it and education is unjustifiably expensive. None of this has to be this way. We've simply chosen to prioritize the interests of fewer than 10,000 people at the expense of everyone else. People need hope. They need their basic necessities taken care of. They need something to live for. We're rapidly heading towards a future where only the rich survive but there's no one left to work in their sprawling estates. It's also wild that we're seeing the rise of fascism in the West while there are still survivors of the Holocaust still alive. This is absolutely true in Europe too (eg AfD, Reform, National Front, whatever Hungary is). I also think we've passed the point of being able to resolve this with electroal politics. Now it only ends in tyranny or revolution. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Kapital https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Kapital [3]: https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2025/apr/whats-driving-surge-us-corporate-profits https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2025/apr/whats-dri... [4]: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LFWA64TTUSM647S https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LFWA64TTUSM647S [5]: https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/2023/11/health-at-a-glance-2023_e04f8239/full-report/health-expenditure-per-capita_735cda79.html https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/2023/11/health-at-a-gla...
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
YZF 1y ago
Isn't this more about letting people who want to keep working do that? What's stopping people in Sweden and Denmark from retiring earlier? I would imagine there are some pensions plan withdrawal requirements or criteria for government assistance but can't you just save money to bridge that gap? Maybe we need to start thinking about these things differently. I would love to have more time off but still have a job and not need to make this so binary.
- prawn 1y ago
  Can't speak for those countries in particular, but generally you can work past retirement age, or retire earlier if you have funded/planned for that. A retirement age is usually just the point at which you can receive government assistance as part of a safety net. I assume if it's not pegged to life expectancy, the cost to the public grows. Here in Australia, and I imagine elsewhere, there are strong systems (e.g., superannuation) to encourage personal savings towards retirement.
- SoftTalker 1y ago
  It’s not as easy to save individually when you’re also taxed heavily.
newswangerd 1y ago
It feels like the problem is that we've drastically improved people's lifespans, but not their healthspans. Back when these systems started getting implemented, you could reasonably work up to the retirement age without too many issues. Nowadays, people may be living to 80 instead of 60, but our ability to work and willingness to hire people past 60 hasn't gone up with the increase in lifespan.
- csomar 1y ago
  We did not improve people's lifespans. At least not that much. What happened is that young people die less due to less hazardous conditions which improved the average age. Also the average age is not the problem. The problem is that social security was setup as a ponzi scheme (younger pays for older) instead of a saving scheme (each one build a nest for himself). A ponzi scheme will eventually implode but if you manipulate the parameters you can make it go further.
  - oezi 1y ago
    > We did not improve people's lifespans Are you sure about that? The statistic I always heard is that we have seen a 1 year rise in life expectancy every 4 years for the past 80 years. I don't necessarily agree with the Ponzi scheme. If the ratio of old people to young people is constant then the system can be made to work with setting the retirement age without changing the burden on the young. The issue is that this ratio was reduced because the population isn't growing anymore. We need to find a new retirement age to balance this (or start a transition to a saving scheme, which might take at least 100 years).
    - csomar 1y ago
      I have a great grand parent that made it to 90+ with relatively little clinical care. So human's life expectancy didn't change much. What changed is that many humans died of what is now preventable causes (ie: diabetes).
      - umbra07 1y ago
deadbabe 1y ago
This is why it’s better to have a higher salary vs relying on government to provide a better standard of living at the trade off of a lower salary. With the high salary, even if the cost of living around you is high, you can still make choices to save and invest money to eventually become financially independent and retire when you want, where as if you have a low salary, you don’t have that flexibility, you are at the mercy of the systems around you.
- RestlessMind 1y ago
  "Investing money" is insufficient. You still need kids and the newer generations at the end of the day. Think where you are going to invest and how that investment is going to provide returns. Stocks? Those companies actually need to produce and hence need workers. There also needs to be a broad consumer class to purchase those products. Without younger generations, you have no workers and no consumers which means your stocks have no value. Same with bonds. Same with real estate.
smeeger 1y ago
consider what humans did before society. they followed herds of ruminant animals and hunted them. they were working 90% of their waking hours. their work was their lives. but at night they would spend a few hours looking at the stars. what we have now is pretty similar. except instead of stars we have screens. i would say life is ok if you can read something interesting every day and have a job that you enjoy. i would say you should prioritize having impact or having a job you love. everyone accumulates as much money as possible at the expense of everything else… there are people with millions saved up at the age of 60… who then die shortly after and did a bunch of work for nothing. keep enough saved to cover modest expenses for a year. beyond that, priotize other things
- AngryData 1y ago
  I take issue with the idea that pre-modern humans were working 90% of the time. We know medieval peasants didn't, we know bronze age societies didn't, and we have no real evidence to support hunting based societies doing it either, especially when we consider the lower nutritional health of past humans that made physical labor far more difficult to maintain consistently without just dieing from pushing the body beyond its limits. It is far more TV trope than reality going by historical sources. Medieval peasants spent most winters doing mostly random home tasks and small crafts while they sat around a fire. And farming based societies generally put in the vast majority over their work in a two months in spring and in the fall. You don't plant fields in July, you just complain about the weather not being ideal for plant growth and did basic living chores that you always do like washing and mending your single pair of clothes or patching up your roof or milking your cow. But there is only so much mending and washing and milking to do. Or look at ancient egyptions, they very clearly didn't need to work 90% of the time if they got time to build massive pyramids, and there is considerable evidence that pyramid workers were not forced to work, but simply offered extra booze and food for doing so. If you didn't work on those projects you weren't starved to death, you just didn't get to drink as much alcohol with your buddies or brag about how you helped build a wonder that will stand for hundreds or thousands of years.
  - smeeger 1y ago
    ah, sir please read my comment. “before society.” ie the environment we evolved in. not post agriculture. so your whole comment is moot
jltsiren 1y ago
There is nothing sad about this. Mandatory pensions are not a vacation sponsored by the government but a way to provide for those who can't provide for themselves. If you were born in the 70s, you should have known for most of your adult life that your normal retirement age is likely going to be around 70. The demographic situation is not new, the solutions have been discussed extensively since at least the 90s, and countries that take the situation seriously have implemented several pension reforms since then. You are not going to be as wealthy in retirement as you are now, at least not on the mandatory pension alone. Your health is probably not going to be as good. If you live in Sweden, you should have plenty of vacation. If you think you would enjoy travel, golf, or climbing a mountain, you should do it now. It will probably be easier and more affordable now than in retirement, which may never come.
- interstice 1y ago
  I guess this comes down to whether you view what you get back for devoting most of a life to work as a negotiated agreement with government or as a one way street.
  - KPGv2 1y ago
    Isn't democracy the negotiation part?
    - IG_Semmelweiss 1y ago
      Yes. Those that came before you negotiated on their own behalf, how badly to loot your future. Now you must do the same..
  - jltsiren 1y ago
    "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." That socialist principle has always been the essence of the Nordic model. While the Nordic countries chose regulated markets over actual socialism, they embraced that part of socialism. As a citizen, your moral duty is to contribute when you can. If too many people fail to do that, the system falls apart. In exchange, the government evens the burden between different stages of life and between people in different situations. You live your life now, the government takes what it needs, and it provides for you when your needs exceed your ability. Also, as small democratic countries with limited ambitions outside their borders, the Nordic system of governance is supposed to be more "by the people, for the people" than it has ever been in the US. You don't negotiate agreements with the government, but you take responsibility for making things work. If too many citizens fail to do that, the system falls apart.
slyall 1y ago
Well if you have enough money to do all that then you probably have enough to retire a little early. Why not stop working at 60 and fund the first few years of your retirement out of your savings?
- ggregoire 1y ago
  From what I understand if you retire early you must fund your retirement until the end. So you either work until the requested age and get something, or you don't and don't get anything. You can't just stop at 60, fund your retirement from 60 to 70, and then expect the gov to pay for your retirement from 70 to the end. Maybe I'm wrong tho.
  - bialpio 1y ago
    Not sure how it works in Denmark but in Poland you have to work certain amount of years (20-25) to qualify for retirement even though the retirement age is 60-65. The amount you get depends on how much you paid into the system, so you will get less for not working, but it'll not prevent you from receiving the pension. And in the US, you become eligible for pension after just 10 years of paying into the system.
    - anticensor 1y ago
      Whereas in Turkey you will actually get less if you continue working after you become eligible (65 years of age and 25 years of work, with some exceptions, early exit with partial pay available after 40 years of age) to retire (unless you get enough income to have your premiums paid at maximum, in which case you get a very slow increase in pension for the time after you become eligible).
  - slyall 1y ago
    I doubt this is true in most countries. It would introduce all sorts of problems if people stopped working because of illness or their employer went out of business when they were 60. Not to mention somebody who stopped working the day before their 65th birthday or other strangeness. You also have people who have not worked much throughout their lives. But there are a lot of countries and types of pensions out there and some (such as for government workers) may work the way you say. Checks first before you resign (don't be like some UK women).
KPGv2 1y ago
> we used to have some 10 good years of doing whatever we wanted Don't you get a whole month of vacation every year while you are in your working years?
throwaway2037 1y ago
Why do you think Sweden decided to raise the retirement age instead of raising taxes to keep the current retirement age? Another idea: Allow people to retire early, but they receive lower monthly payments from national pension. Most national pensions have the reverse: You can retire later and receive higher monthly payments. > I think if you've put in 40-45 years for the man, you should be allowed to have some good 10 years for yourself. The problem is that huge number of people live way longer than 75, like to 85 or 95 and such, which imposes a huge financial burden on the state (pension and healthcare costs).
alexey-salmin 1y ago
> I think if you've put in 40-45 years for the man, you should be allowed to have some good 10 years for yourself. Travel, play golf, cross a continent in a camper or climb a mountain. Not unless you've raised 2 more workers to pick up the shovel while you're playing golf. You could, of course, rely on your neighbor's kids through taxes and pensions but when your neighbor thinks the same it becomes problematic. On the plus side, if you did raise kids, you may negotiate your retirement with them even if the averaged government system stops working.
- FranzFerdiNaN 1y ago
  Just let two immigrants in to replace me. Much cheaper and easier than raising kids.
  - jdkee 1y ago
    Ethnic replacement.
  - xlii 1y ago
    I see this twofold: what happens if net outcome is negative. Who would pay for it? The same argument could be made for children, but a counterpoint could be made that given family history outcome is more stable than with unknown immigrant. On the other hand, there is VERY interesting idea: personal immigration responsibility. Just as „mail bride” look for immigrants you’d be willing to sponsor in exchange for retirement. Probably there are 5 million problems but would put personal stake for sponsor. Limit to 2 per person and people would do a lot of research as their retirement would depend on it. The country might also gain because I’d expect that people would look for high-value individuals that would maximize their chance for well being. Finally, this could be used to revive drying out regions: bind this to a country/state/administrative region and that could help shaping it in the future.
  - sheepscreek 1y ago
    It’s a profoundly sad trend. Our obsession with nuclear families and individualism has led us to a point where raising a family has become financially impossible and unimaginable. The immigration fix is analogous to quantitative easing. The problems are systemic, and turning a blind eye to them won’t make them disappear. Honestly, we need to rethink capitalism. By promoting shareholder returns over the wellbeing of employees, companies are destroying the social fabric necessary for a healthy civilization. Of course, the rise in costs and the widening wealth gap are equally to blame. This situation compels both parents to work, sometimes even holding multiple jobs, leaving them with insufficient time to raise children. This cycle continues until the next generation has no chance of affording their own home (or even a rental). How on earth are they supposed to raise a family?
jdkee 1y ago
They have to pay for the immigrant who leaches off the system.
SarahC_ 1y ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20250525195310/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/05/23/denmark-raise-retirement-age-70/ https://web.archive.org/web/20250525195310/https://www.teleg...
cgeier 1y ago
IMO retirement isn't a long holiday but it's for people who cannot contribute to society anymore. That point might be reached earlier for some people, e.g. those who have a hard physical job, than others and a general retirement age is an approximation for when that point is reached for the general population.
- xedrac 1y ago
  Retirement doesn't mean I won't contribute to society anymore. It'll mean that I can contribute in ways that I am most interested in, without having to make money doing it.
formerly_proven 1y ago
What's sad about it? Even with raising retirement age, the average duration people receive pensions has increased A LOT over the last few decades simply because life expectancies have increased so much. Someone who retired in the 1970s would receive a pension for less than 10 years on average - someone retiring now will receive a 20+ year pension.
joshstrange 1y ago
> Travel, play golf, cross a continent in a camper or climb a mountain. Do that today. Tomorrow isn’t promised, let alone 10, 30, 50, 70 years. Don’t be one of those “When I retire”-people, do it now. _If_ you make it to retirement you may not be physically able or willing to do things you’ve been dreaming of for so long. If you are waiting for retirement, then you are not living.
nobodyandproud 1y ago
I’m so sorry to see this American mindset infect Europe. As an American, I can’t realistically retire until 65. 65 is when Medicare is available. I’d prefer Medicare started from 21 paying out-of-pocket as an option; then the payment starts slowly phasing out at 65. Not this abrupt, all-or-nothing.
LtWorf 1y ago
This presumes that people over 60 are effective at working. Which they are not. Mostly they waste everyone's time.
hoppp 1y ago
I am in Denmark right now, I feel similar. But my solution is to be an entrepreneur and also avoid working whenever possible. So If I stay here and I need to work in my 70's, at least I will be happy I didn't work in my 30's like a slave.

by amag 1y ago

wyager 1y ago

> I think if you've put in 40-45 years for the man, you should be allowed to have some good 10 years for yourself. Who do you think would "allow" this? God? This is a resource constraint imposed by reality itself catching up to an excessively idealistic set of policies; this policy decision is downstream of that, not arbitrary.

StopDisinfo910 1y ago
It is entirely arbitrary. Society heavily favours capital above labour. That’s why we have very rich inheritors never working and people toiling until they are 70. It’s entirely a choice. This issue has solutions we collectively decide not to put in place.
- godelski 1y ago
  Funny that we have a ton of people asking what people would do in a post scarce society. Stating that man needs work. Yet, it also seems to be said most by the people who have been free from the need to labor for generations. They still do, they still desire more, yet their lives are certainly post scarce. Hell, the whole goal of retirement is to become post scarce, and have a few years where you can live without the need to labor. Seems like we already have some decent evidence to what such a world would look like.
  - CooCooCaCha 1y ago
    People will always yearn and wonder and imagine. Sure some people will spend their time fishing but a lot of people need things to strive for a and they will make things up or seek out others who feel the same way.
    - godelski 1y ago
      I agree. Lots of evidence to suggest that this would allow humans to be the most human they could be. Calling it a new Renaissance is not a stretch. Nor reminding those that much of the scientific advancements in the past were made by those who had the luxury of enough free time to sit around and think. But I think too many confuse this message with suggesting some form of Communism or Socialism. I'm not advocating for that (personally, I'm strong believer in Capitalism, even if not the Laissez-faire kind. You can't control a wild horse, but neither should you let it freely destroy your farm). Those notions are related, but not the same thing. You can clearly, as demonstrated by rich elite and people retiring, have post scarce lives without the need for such direct control.
- wyager 1y ago
  If you stop "rich inheritors" from existing, this moves you away from the knee of the optimization frontier and you're certainly even worse off as an old person. If you can't conceptualize this as a constrained optimization problem, you're not even worth arguing with; you simply lack the tools to think about this in a useful way.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - StopDisinfo910 1y ago
    While I have little interest in humouring the idea that all of this boil down to an optimisation problem (it doesn’t - fiscal policies and social policies scarily live at the intersection of economy and politics - plus even from a pure economic point of view it is much more complicated than a simple optimisation problem and I do have an economic degree by the way), on top of you being frankly condescending while bringing little to the table which would somehow explain if not justify the attitude, you can certainly get away with far heavier inheritance taxes without actually hurting your economy in any meaningful way. You can also tax the rich a lot more heavily without hurting your economy in any meaningful way. And I don’t ask you to believe me from the goodness of your heart. I think Piketty must have had something like half a dozen best sellers on this topic alone at this point.
    - wyager 1y ago
      > I have little interest in humouring the idea that all of this boil down to an optimisation problem... I do have an economic degree by the way I hope your degree was "economic" in the sense that you didn't pay much for it > I think Piketty must have had something like half a dozen best sellers on this topic alone at this point. Thinking pop-slop authors like Piketty are worth paying attention to is a worse self-indictment than the most condescending thing I could possibly say here. You should downgrade your confidence that it's possible to meddle with natural resource allocation without causing problems.
      - 1y ago
- SchemaLoad 1y ago
  Isn't that exactly how retirement works though? Old people who produce no labour but just get everything given to them because of the capitol they built up previously.
  - Ancalagon 1y ago
    No, the parent is talking about inheritors. Japan mostly solves this with very high inheritance taxes.
    - Aeolun 1y ago
      Those mean the government always gets its cut (and pisses off the inheritors), but functionally whether you inherit 10 or 5M doesn’t really make a difference.
    - throwaway2037 1y ago
      > Japan mostly solves this with very high inheritance taxes. This is a myth. It is lower than most wealthy European nations. Details: https://taxsummaries.pwc.com/japan/individual/other-taxes https://taxsummaries.pwc.com/japan/individual/other-taxes Also: https://retirewiki.jp/wiki/Inheritance_tax https://retirewiki.jp/wiki/Inheritance_tax
- ahupp 1y ago
  Can you quantify what you think that choice looks like? Say you seized the entirety of Elon Musk’s assets: that could pay for a year and a half of the Dept of Transportation. Say you seized all the wealth (somehow) of the world’s 100 richest people. That’s 2 years of US non-discretionary spending (social security, Medicare and Medicaid). I often see comments that assume all problems could be solved by just taxing the rich more, but I just don’t think that’s true. The Nordic countries pay for their social safety nets by taxing the middle class more heavily than we do in the US. If you want to change that, it’s less about capital vs labor, and more about your dentist vs labor (dentists be the classic example of jobs that earn high incomes without being “capital owners”).
amag 1y ago
Of course there is no guarantee that your 65-75 years will be good, but it's a lot more likely that your 65-75 years will be good than your 75-85 years.
- tossandthrow 1y ago
  The point is, that the society does not owe you 10 years to do whatever.
  - rightbyte 1y ago
    Which is why he argues it should?
  - amag 1y ago
    You mean I can't sue society if I die nine years into retirement?
  - Jochim 1y ago
    This is how you end up with extremists.
  - HappMacDonald 1y ago
    And why wouldn't a society owe its citizens anything after 40+ years of keeping their nose at the grindstone, and obeying all of its laws? Society is defined by what we owe one another in pursuit of civil interactions with one another. If the only contract society offers me is "work your hands to the bone and then be discarded once you can't work anymore" then I have no incentive to keep up my side of the contract and perform labor or observe property laws in the first place. And once everyone is trying to cheat and steal from one another then you no longer have a society anymore.
    - RestlessMind 1y ago
      Then you just fall back to a small trusted circle of family and friends. Or, what we used to call a tribe or a clan back then.
    - 1y ago
godelski 1y ago
> This is a resource constraint imposed by reality itself No, it is a resource allocation problem. I don't think we should have ceilings, but we certainly should have floors. Minimum standards. Despite that belief, I think there is something wrong when there's about 20 people who make more money while they take a shit, than most American families make in a year[0] and a buttload who make that same amount while they're asleep[1]. These levels of wealth are so large that they are extremely difficult, if not impossible, to spend within several generations, not just one lifetime. This is only a problem, because the floor is lowering while the number of people in these groups are growing, especially the shit group. If we have to make trades between ceiling and floor, I'd rather sacrifice ceiling for floor than floor for ceiling. Because the latter is simply greed. Importantly, we can have both. This isn't a zero sum game, we produce more wealth and resources as time goes on. It is only zero sum at a single point in time. We can simultaneously raise the ceiling and the floor. But currently, we are shifting what percent of these gains go to which groups. It would be insane to build extravagant and ornate Cathedral ceilings to only have a dirt floor. It would be dangerous to build those ceilings without ensuring there is a strong foundation and forgetting to build the pillars to support them. Without that, the ceilings fall and it all becomes dirt and rubble. It is an allocation problem, not an amount problem. [0] If you have $100bn, are able to make a conservative 0.05 yearly interest and take 5min to shit, you've made ~$50k during that time. [1] You only need $1bn given the same statistics, but closer to $45k. There's over 3k billionaires.
- wyager 1y ago
  > No, it is a resource allocation problem. There are finite resources to allocate. If you can't conceptualize this, there's literally zero chance you can think about this in a productive way. > I think there is something wrong when there's about 20 people who make more money while they take a shit, than most American families make in a year That's usually indicative of a lack of understanding of highly connected networks, power law distributions, etc. - the types of things you need to grapple with if your question is "how do I maximize some economic objective for X million people?". > This isn't a zero sum game It's a constrained game (and there exists a zero-sum tradeoff between instantaneous allocation of resources to capital good production and consumable good production) > Cathedral ceilings to only have a dirt floor You're really leaning on this analogy that isn't very useful for actually thinking about the problem
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

gessha 1y ago

Back when it was first introduced, it was based on life expectancy and few were expected to live beyond retirement age. [1] [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/10/how-retirement-was-invented/381802/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/10/how-ret...

toomuchtodo 1y ago
Turns out retirement is just an illusion to convince you to give your best years for the system.
- jstummbillig 1y ago
  No need to do any that, if you don't like the idea and have something else that works for you. But most people are somewhat mid and really don't.
- tomp 1y ago
  You're just repeating anarchists' talking points. None of them considers that "the system" gives them food, water and energy, and that procurement of these in the absence of system means literally toiling from birth until death.
  - taneq 1y ago
    This is the my response too. There are plenty of valid criticisms of our modern society, but nothing’s stopping you wandering off into the forest to forage for berries. We don’t, because even with all its flaws, living in civilisation is infinitely easier.
- dralley 1y ago
  Humans need a constant supply of resources and shelter to survive. There is no "system" which avoids this inconvenient fact. In the absence of any "system" at all, you would still need to constantly work for survival - and in fact you'd just die as soon as you were no longer able to do so due to illness or injury much less old age. In other words if there were no "system" there would be no such concept as "retirement" in the first place. We all wish that we could spend our best years doing whatever we want. That doesn't mathematically work out, though. European social safety nets are pretty damn generous all things considered. Plenty of vacation days, especially compared to the US. It's not like it's impossible to use those well during your "best years".

intothemild 1y ago

There's only one issue I can think of with your idea that someone who is 75 now leads a life as you're describing. The generation they belong to are predicted to live to what 80-85 years? Whilst we (assuming you're in your 40's now) are predicted to get to what 90-95 on average? Average lifespans are increasing, and on top of that the mobility of someone who's 75 now, won't be the same of someone who's 75 in another 35+ years.

amag 1y ago
> are predicted to get to what 90-95 on average? That may be true, but will we (who are in our 40's now) have the same quality of life at 90-95 as a now 75-year old will have at 80-85?
duttish 1y ago
Does anyone know if there's any kind of metrics for healthspans? Meaning the "good" part of life before it's just doctors, medicine and retirement homes. My impression so far is that we've done a lot of work at the lifespan, less at the healthspan. What's the point of living until 90 if the last 15 years isn't that fun at all.
- YokoZar 1y ago
  Healthspan in Denmark, who just raised the retirement age, went up from 67.6 to 71.0 from 2000-2019. (+3.4 years) https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/healthy-life-expectancy-at-birth?tab=chart&country=OWID_WRL~DNK https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/healthy-life-expectancy-a... Contrast this with Denmark's lifespan growth over the same period, of 76.8 to 81.4 (+4.6 years) https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy?time=2000..2019&country=~DNK https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy?time=2000... So from the data, prior to covid-19 Danes had gained about 3 and a half years of healthy life, and an additional year of unhealthy life. It makes sense that Healthspan and lifespan are well-correlated, as most of the ways we have of extending lifespan do so in a way that makes you clearly healthier (such as preventing chronic diseases). That said, it is true there is a bit of an increasing gap. This isn't just in Denmark, it's global - lifespan rose by 6.4 years from 2000-2019 while healthspan only increased 5.3 years. https://www.who.int/data/gho/data/themes/mortality-and-global-health-estimates/ghe-life-expectancy-and-healthy-life-expectancy https://www.who.int/data/gho/data/themes/mortality-and-globa...

Jyaif 1y ago

The earlier they increase retirement age, the less painful it's going to be.

Retric 1y ago

I’d rather a robust pension starting at 70 than an anemic one starting at 55 or an underfunded one starting at 65. You can fill a gap before that pension starts with part time work etc. It’s much harder to make up a shortfall when you’re 85.

maratc 1y ago
But for an individual that would die at 71, which pension would they rather have, in your opinion?
- freddie_mercury 1y ago
  The one where they get to stop working at age 40 and enjoy 31 years of retirement? Not sure why their opinion matters.
- Retric 1y ago
  For me nothing changes. The benefits of a pension start before retirement. I can avoid setting aside a huge pile of money for the potential of an extremely long lifespan and then worry as minor changes to that pile become really critical near and in retirement. Suppose you’re 50 with 2 million USD in savings. How soon do you retire and what kind of lifestyle do you live in retirement? That’s heavily dependent on what kind of pension is waiting.
  - maratc 1y ago
    Where I am, we have personal pension plans. You can check "what kind of pension is waiting" by going to the pension fund website and checking. Gov't doesn't play any role in any of that -- except (a) prescribing mandatory monthly payments and (b) determining the retirement age. (You only get small gov't pension if you haven't collected enough in your personal plan.)
    - Retric 1y ago
      If it’s just a savings account, that’s not a pension. Assuming it’s a defined benefit pension it can include guarantees like inflation adjustments. That’s the fundamental advantage which largely offsets the disadvantage of lower average returns. I’m not saying putting all your money into a defined benefit plan is ideal, but due to the diminishing marginal utility of money a guaranteed minimum lifestyle is extraordinarily valuable.

tomp 1y ago

Pension is a Ponzi scheme. Explained in terms of economic theory, if everybody works and saves in time period 1, and retires and receives pension in time period 2, then... their pension is worthless, because there's infinite inflation, because no more goods and services get produced. Retirement depends on having young workers. People approaching 60, 70 simply didn't have enough kids to have good retirement. It's not a problem that has easy and/or fast solutions. Yet, actions have consequences...

timschmidt 1y ago
> Pension is a Ponzi scheme. Explained in terms of economic theory, if everybody works and saves in time period 1, and retires and receives pension in time period 2, then... their pension is worthless, because there's infinite inflation, because no more goods and services get produced. You've created an impossible situation which will never exist and then offered it as an example of why taking care of the elderly, something humans have done since before recorded history, is flawed. As Bill and Ted would say: Bogus!
- pfannkuchen 1y ago
  I think what they missed is that people typically work for much longer than they are retired. If the periods were of equal length, I think the Ponzi scheme thing would be true. As is its sort of a modified fractionated ponzi.
  - broken-kebab 1y ago
    Ponzi, or no Ponzi, it's still an illusion: let's assume that we all generate enough money saved in those funds during our productive years to sustain ourselves in senior periods, even counting in the almighty inflation. The problem is it's not money you need when old, and frail, you want somebody doing work for that money. So the whole scheme still requires enough young workers entering the market, and them be willing to perpetuate it. Which is kinda not guaranteed if each gen is smaller then the previous one.

jmyeet 1y ago

Part of me wonders if capitalism is the solution to the Fermi Paradox because the endless chase of profits is driving us to extinction. In many Western countries, younger people are facing the prospect of never being able to own a house and never being able to retire. Beyond this basic lack of security, people are realizing the cost of having children is absolutely astronomical. In many parts of the US childcare may be costing $3000/month or more per child. For many people, pets are proxy children, and yet capitalism (private equity in particular) is ruining that too as all the vet clinics are being bought up so people can be gouged on that front too. I'm someone who views the Labor Theory of Value [1] to be trivially true. After decades of Red Scare propaganda, Americans in particular dismiss Marx but they don't realize that Marx's most famous work (Das Kapital [2]) is primarily a framework for economic analysis, regardless of your political beliefs. I guess the problem is that as soon as you accept the axiom "there is no value without labor", there is no other conclusion than to see capitalism as the exploitation of surplus labor value. The US corporate sector produces something like $4 trillion per year in corporate profits [3]. There are over ~210M working age people in the US [4] (about ~262M adults total). So that's ~$20k per worker in surplus labor value at a time when we spend ~2x per-capita on healthcare for worse outcomes and less coverage [5], housing is artifically expensive because we allow people to hoard it and education is unjustifiably expensive. None of this has to be this way. We've simply chosen to prioritize the interests of fewer than 10,000 people at the expense of everyone else. People need hope. They need their basic necessities taken care of. They need something to live for. We're rapidly heading towards a future where only the rich survive but there's no one left to work in their sprawling estates. It's also wild that we're seeing the rise of fascism in the West while there are still survivors of the Holocaust still alive. This is absolutely true in Europe too (eg AfD, Reform, National Front, whatever Hungary is). I also think we've passed the point of being able to resolve this with electroal politics. Now it only ends in tyranny or revolution. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Kapital https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Kapital [3]: https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2025/apr/whats-driving-surge-us-corporate-profits https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2025/apr/whats-dri... [4]: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LFWA64TTUSM647S https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LFWA64TTUSM647S [5]: https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/2023/11/health-at-a-glance-2023_e04f8239/full-report/health-expenditure-per-capita_735cda79.html https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/2023/11/health-at-a-gla...

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

YZF 1y ago

Isn't this more about letting people who want to keep working do that? What's stopping people in Sweden and Denmark from retiring earlier? I would imagine there are some pensions plan withdrawal requirements or criteria for government assistance but can't you just save money to bridge that gap? Maybe we need to start thinking about these things differently. I would love to have more time off but still have a job and not need to make this so binary.

prawn 1y ago
Can't speak for those countries in particular, but generally you can work past retirement age, or retire earlier if you have funded/planned for that. A retirement age is usually just the point at which you can receive government assistance as part of a safety net. I assume if it's not pegged to life expectancy, the cost to the public grows. Here in Australia, and I imagine elsewhere, there are strong systems (e.g., superannuation) to encourage personal savings towards retirement.
SoftTalker 1y ago
It’s not as easy to save individually when you’re also taxed heavily.

newswangerd 1y ago

It feels like the problem is that we've drastically improved people's lifespans, but not their healthspans. Back when these systems started getting implemented, you could reasonably work up to the retirement age without too many issues. Nowadays, people may be living to 80 instead of 60, but our ability to work and willingness to hire people past 60 hasn't gone up with the increase in lifespan.

csomar 1y ago
We did not improve people's lifespans. At least not that much. What happened is that young people die less due to less hazardous conditions which improved the average age. Also the average age is not the problem. The problem is that social security was setup as a ponzi scheme (younger pays for older) instead of a saving scheme (each one build a nest for himself). A ponzi scheme will eventually implode but if you manipulate the parameters you can make it go further.
- oezi 1y ago
  > We did not improve people's lifespans Are you sure about that? The statistic I always heard is that we have seen a 1 year rise in life expectancy every 4 years for the past 80 years. I don't necessarily agree with the Ponzi scheme. If the ratio of old people to young people is constant then the system can be made to work with setting the retirement age without changing the burden on the young. The issue is that this ratio was reduced because the population isn't growing anymore. We need to find a new retirement age to balance this (or start a transition to a saving scheme, which might take at least 100 years).
  - csomar 1y ago
    I have a great grand parent that made it to 90+ with relatively little clinical care. So human's life expectancy didn't change much. What changed is that many humans died of what is now preventable causes (ie: diabetes).
    - umbra07 1y ago

deadbabe 1y ago

This is why it’s better to have a higher salary vs relying on government to provide a better standard of living at the trade off of a lower salary. With the high salary, even if the cost of living around you is high, you can still make choices to save and invest money to eventually become financially independent and retire when you want, where as if you have a low salary, you don’t have that flexibility, you are at the mercy of the systems around you.

RestlessMind 1y ago
"Investing money" is insufficient. You still need kids and the newer generations at the end of the day. Think where you are going to invest and how that investment is going to provide returns. Stocks? Those companies actually need to produce and hence need workers. There also needs to be a broad consumer class to purchase those products. Without younger generations, you have no workers and no consumers which means your stocks have no value. Same with bonds. Same with real estate.

smeeger 1y ago

consider what humans did before society. they followed herds of ruminant animals and hunted them. they were working 90% of their waking hours. their work was their lives. but at night they would spend a few hours looking at the stars. what we have now is pretty similar. except instead of stars we have screens. i would say life is ok if you can read something interesting every day and have a job that you enjoy. i would say you should prioritize having impact or having a job you love. everyone accumulates as much money as possible at the expense of everything else… there are people with millions saved up at the age of 60… who then die shortly after and did a bunch of work for nothing. keep enough saved to cover modest expenses for a year. beyond that, priotize other things

AngryData 1y ago
I take issue with the idea that pre-modern humans were working 90% of the time. We know medieval peasants didn't, we know bronze age societies didn't, and we have no real evidence to support hunting based societies doing it either, especially when we consider the lower nutritional health of past humans that made physical labor far more difficult to maintain consistently without just dieing from pushing the body beyond its limits. It is far more TV trope than reality going by historical sources. Medieval peasants spent most winters doing mostly random home tasks and small crafts while they sat around a fire. And farming based societies generally put in the vast majority over their work in a two months in spring and in the fall. You don't plant fields in July, you just complain about the weather not being ideal for plant growth and did basic living chores that you always do like washing and mending your single pair of clothes or patching up your roof or milking your cow. But there is only so much mending and washing and milking to do. Or look at ancient egyptions, they very clearly didn't need to work 90% of the time if they got time to build massive pyramids, and there is considerable evidence that pyramid workers were not forced to work, but simply offered extra booze and food for doing so. If you didn't work on those projects you weren't starved to death, you just didn't get to drink as much alcohol with your buddies or brag about how you helped build a wonder that will stand for hundreds or thousands of years.
- smeeger 1y ago
  ah, sir please read my comment. “before society.” ie the environment we evolved in. not post agriculture. so your whole comment is moot

jltsiren 1y ago

There is nothing sad about this. Mandatory pensions are not a vacation sponsored by the government but a way to provide for those who can't provide for themselves. If you were born in the 70s, you should have known for most of your adult life that your normal retirement age is likely going to be around 70. The demographic situation is not new, the solutions have been discussed extensively since at least the 90s, and countries that take the situation seriously have implemented several pension reforms since then. You are not going to be as wealthy in retirement as you are now, at least not on the mandatory pension alone. Your health is probably not going to be as good. If you live in Sweden, you should have plenty of vacation. If you think you would enjoy travel, golf, or climbing a mountain, you should do it now. It will probably be easier and more affordable now than in retirement, which may never come.

interstice 1y ago
I guess this comes down to whether you view what you get back for devoting most of a life to work as a negotiated agreement with government or as a one way street.
- KPGv2 1y ago
  Isn't democracy the negotiation part?
  - IG_Semmelweiss 1y ago
    Yes. Those that came before you negotiated on their own behalf, how badly to loot your future. Now you must do the same..
- jltsiren 1y ago
  "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." That socialist principle has always been the essence of the Nordic model. While the Nordic countries chose regulated markets over actual socialism, they embraced that part of socialism. As a citizen, your moral duty is to contribute when you can. If too many people fail to do that, the system falls apart. In exchange, the government evens the burden between different stages of life and between people in different situations. You live your life now, the government takes what it needs, and it provides for you when your needs exceed your ability. Also, as small democratic countries with limited ambitions outside their borders, the Nordic system of governance is supposed to be more "by the people, for the people" than it has ever been in the US. You don't negotiate agreements with the government, but you take responsibility for making things work. If too many citizens fail to do that, the system falls apart.

slyall 1y ago

Well if you have enough money to do all that then you probably have enough to retire a little early. Why not stop working at 60 and fund the first few years of your retirement out of your savings?

ggregoire 1y ago
From what I understand if you retire early you must fund your retirement until the end. So you either work until the requested age and get something, or you don't and don't get anything. You can't just stop at 60, fund your retirement from 60 to 70, and then expect the gov to pay for your retirement from 70 to the end. Maybe I'm wrong tho.
- bialpio 1y ago
  Not sure how it works in Denmark but in Poland you have to work certain amount of years (20-25) to qualify for retirement even though the retirement age is 60-65. The amount you get depends on how much you paid into the system, so you will get less for not working, but it'll not prevent you from receiving the pension. And in the US, you become eligible for pension after just 10 years of paying into the system.
  - anticensor 1y ago
    Whereas in Turkey you will actually get less if you continue working after you become eligible (65 years of age and 25 years of work, with some exceptions, early exit with partial pay available after 40 years of age) to retire (unless you get enough income to have your premiums paid at maximum, in which case you get a very slow increase in pension for the time after you become eligible).
- slyall 1y ago
  I doubt this is true in most countries. It would introduce all sorts of problems if people stopped working because of illness or their employer went out of business when they were 60. Not to mention somebody who stopped working the day before their 65th birthday or other strangeness. You also have people who have not worked much throughout their lives. But there are a lot of countries and types of pensions out there and some (such as for government workers) may work the way you say. Checks first before you resign (don't be like some UK women).

KPGv2 1y ago

> we used to have some 10 good years of doing whatever we wanted Don't you get a whole month of vacation every year while you are in your working years?

throwaway2037 1y ago

Why do you think Sweden decided to raise the retirement age instead of raising taxes to keep the current retirement age? Another idea: Allow people to retire early, but they receive lower monthly payments from national pension. Most national pensions have the reverse: You can retire later and receive higher monthly payments. > I think if you've put in 40-45 years for the man, you should be allowed to have some good 10 years for yourself. The problem is that huge number of people live way longer than 75, like to 85 or 95 and such, which imposes a huge financial burden on the state (pension and healthcare costs).

alexey-salmin 1y ago

> I think if you've put in 40-45 years for the man, you should be allowed to have some good 10 years for yourself. Travel, play golf, cross a continent in a camper or climb a mountain. Not unless you've raised 2 more workers to pick up the shovel while you're playing golf. You could, of course, rely on your neighbor's kids through taxes and pensions but when your neighbor thinks the same it becomes problematic. On the plus side, if you did raise kids, you may negotiate your retirement with them even if the averaged government system stops working.

FranzFerdiNaN 1y ago
Just let two immigrants in to replace me. Much cheaper and easier than raising kids.
- jdkee 1y ago
  Ethnic replacement.
- xlii 1y ago
  I see this twofold: what happens if net outcome is negative. Who would pay for it? The same argument could be made for children, but a counterpoint could be made that given family history outcome is more stable than with unknown immigrant. On the other hand, there is VERY interesting idea: personal immigration responsibility. Just as „mail bride” look for immigrants you’d be willing to sponsor in exchange for retirement. Probably there are 5 million problems but would put personal stake for sponsor. Limit to 2 per person and people would do a lot of research as their retirement would depend on it. The country might also gain because I’d expect that people would look for high-value individuals that would maximize their chance for well being. Finally, this could be used to revive drying out regions: bind this to a country/state/administrative region and that could help shaping it in the future.
- sheepscreek 1y ago
  It’s a profoundly sad trend. Our obsession with nuclear families and individualism has led us to a point where raising a family has become financially impossible and unimaginable. The immigration fix is analogous to quantitative easing. The problems are systemic, and turning a blind eye to them won’t make them disappear. Honestly, we need to rethink capitalism. By promoting shareholder returns over the wellbeing of employees, companies are destroying the social fabric necessary for a healthy civilization. Of course, the rise in costs and the widening wealth gap are equally to blame. This situation compels both parents to work, sometimes even holding multiple jobs, leaving them with insufficient time to raise children. This cycle continues until the next generation has no chance of affording their own home (or even a rental). How on earth are they supposed to raise a family?

jdkee 1y ago

They have to pay for the immigrant who leaches off the system.

SarahC_ 1y ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20250525195310/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/05/23/denmark-raise-retirement-age-70/ https://web.archive.org/web/20250525195310/https://www.teleg...

cgeier 1y ago

IMO retirement isn't a long holiday but it's for people who cannot contribute to society anymore. That point might be reached earlier for some people, e.g. those who have a hard physical job, than others and a general retirement age is an approximation for when that point is reached for the general population.

xedrac 1y ago
Retirement doesn't mean I won't contribute to society anymore. It'll mean that I can contribute in ways that I am most interested in, without having to make money doing it.

formerly_proven 1y ago

What's sad about it? Even with raising retirement age, the average duration people receive pensions has increased A LOT over the last few decades simply because life expectancies have increased so much. Someone who retired in the 1970s would receive a pension for less than 10 years on average - someone retiring now will receive a 20+ year pension.

joshstrange 1y ago

> Travel, play golf, cross a continent in a camper or climb a mountain. Do that today. Tomorrow isn’t promised, let alone 10, 30, 50, 70 years. Don’t be one of those “When I retire”-people, do it now. _If_ you make it to retirement you may not be physically able or willing to do things you’ve been dreaming of for so long. If you are waiting for retirement, then you are not living.

nobodyandproud 1y ago

I’m so sorry to see this American mindset infect Europe. As an American, I can’t realistically retire until 65. 65 is when Medicare is available. I’d prefer Medicare started from 21 paying out-of-pocket as an option; then the payment starts slowly phasing out at 65. Not this abrupt, all-or-nothing.

LtWorf 1y ago

This presumes that people over 60 are effective at working. Which they are not. Mostly they waste everyone's time.

hoppp 1y ago

I am in Denmark right now, I feel similar. But my solution is to be an entrepreneur and also avoid working whenever possible. So If I stay here and I need to work in my 70's, at least I will be happy I didn't work in my 30's like a slave.