4 ms·

I am increasingly of the opinion that you can either be eligible to vote, or collect pension, but not both at the same time. By the time you start collecting p

by pibaker 5mo ago

I am increasingly of the opinion that you can either be eligible to vote, or collect pension, but not both at the same time. By the time you start collecting pension, you have effectively ousted yourself from economic production. And unlike a 20yo still in college and not contributing to the economy yet, you don't have 50 more years of your life to worry about. This effectively means it is safe for you to support any short term extractive policies without ever worrying about the longer term consequences. And demonstrably, this is how pensioners vote — I get to keep my pension, you get to pay more tax. And no we won't let you build any more housing for your beautiful children, we want this town to stay the way it was in 1970. Please come wipe my ass for $15 an hour. And no, don't let people who are actually willing to work that job for that pay immigrate into the country. It's a bunch of feel good policies with insolvable contradictions. Buy because they will not live long enough to feel the backlash, they vote on.

Ekaros 5mo ago
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qurren 5mo ago
> By the time you start collecting pension, you have effectively ousted yourself I disagree. The vast majority of jobs are difficult to work at old age and with medical conditions that typically come with old age. As long as we value keeping people alive for their natural lifespan (I hope we do), then our base assumption needs to be that we every time we pay someone we need to pay them $1 for now and $1 for their retirement. Approximately 1:1 because the actually-productive working age is ~25-65 and the retirement age is ~65-105. Investment returns are never guaranteed, and shouldn't be factored into that. We're hiring people here, not robots.
- soco 5mo ago
  And before that difficulty to perform the work, it's also that willing elderly won't even be considered for a job. I mean even if the job is pure intellectual job, you hear reasons like "oh 10 years only until retirement they won't invest in our culture" - while at the same time the company attrition is 20%. Pure prejudice. Also not allowing for part time jobs, another prejudice "oh they aren't fully focused on us" and mandatory office presence "oh they will do nothing if I don't watch them". We have a doomed system if we can't work on those solutions which would definitely solve, or at least push back a serious while, the current demographic imbalance. But prejudices are probably more difficult to address than passing a law... try to force any of the above and you'll immediately have the right-wing all over you for "removing muh freedoms" and such.
joquarky 5mo ago
In the US at least, it is also facilitated by a legislature that is older than color TV.
Markoff 5mo ago
I am basically fan of two approaches: 1. let vote only people who contribute (pay some minimum income tax) at the time of elections - no unemployed, no students, no retired people - regardless the age, so if you pay your taxes at 14 you are eligible to vote at 14, if you pay your taxes at 88 you have right to decide what will be done with your money at 88, actually I would go even so far that EVERYONE regardless of citizenship should be allowed to vote if they are paying taxes, either they are good paying taxes, so they should be good also for voting 2. other approach would not be tied to income tax, let vote absolutely everyone regardless of age, so even children get vote, so family of 4 with 2 kids will get 4 votes, so they can vote for future of their children and not that retired people are deciding (usually selfishly) future of the kids I am aware of reality that 1st option would cause huge uproar and second option is more realistic with some countries moving that way lowering voting age to 16 for now. At the same time I would be glad if we would get rid off Pay-as-you-go pension plan and replace it with own savings account (IRA), but it seems no country in the world had balls to switch, even Chile had to backpedal a bit, but they got the furthest. It's the only solution for demographic changes.
BobaFloutist 5mo ago
I don't think it's a good idea to eliminate any class of people for the electorate. But at the end of the day, the point is moot: if non-pensioners can get their shit together enough to enact such a policy, they can surely organize themselves to oppose any poor voting by the pensioners. The real problem you're facing is that young people: 1. Don't universally agree with you, and so support the policies you're blaming pensioners for, and, 2. Don't vote in large enough numbers to actually make their voices heard. If you can fix that, you don't need to worry about disenfranchising a vulnerable portion of the population, since you can easily outvote them anyway.

by pibaker 5mo ago

Ekaros 5mo ago

[dead]

qurren 5mo ago

> By the time you start collecting pension, you have effectively ousted yourself I disagree. The vast majority of jobs are difficult to work at old age and with medical conditions that typically come with old age. As long as we value keeping people alive for their natural lifespan (I hope we do), then our base assumption needs to be that we every time we pay someone we need to pay them $1 for now and $1 for their retirement. Approximately 1:1 because the actually-productive working age is ~25-65 and the retirement age is ~65-105. Investment returns are never guaranteed, and shouldn't be factored into that. We're hiring people here, not robots.

soco 5mo ago
And before that difficulty to perform the work, it's also that willing elderly won't even be considered for a job. I mean even if the job is pure intellectual job, you hear reasons like "oh 10 years only until retirement they won't invest in our culture" - while at the same time the company attrition is 20%. Pure prejudice. Also not allowing for part time jobs, another prejudice "oh they aren't fully focused on us" and mandatory office presence "oh they will do nothing if I don't watch them". We have a doomed system if we can't work on those solutions which would definitely solve, or at least push back a serious while, the current demographic imbalance. But prejudices are probably more difficult to address than passing a law... try to force any of the above and you'll immediately have the right-wing all over you for "removing muh freedoms" and such.

joquarky 5mo ago

In the US at least, it is also facilitated by a legislature that is older than color TV.

Markoff 5mo ago

I am basically fan of two approaches: 1. let vote only people who contribute (pay some minimum income tax) at the time of elections - no unemployed, no students, no retired people - regardless the age, so if you pay your taxes at 14 you are eligible to vote at 14, if you pay your taxes at 88 you have right to decide what will be done with your money at 88, actually I would go even so far that EVERYONE regardless of citizenship should be allowed to vote if they are paying taxes, either they are good paying taxes, so they should be good also for voting 2. other approach would not be tied to income tax, let vote absolutely everyone regardless of age, so even children get vote, so family of 4 with 2 kids will get 4 votes, so they can vote for future of their children and not that retired people are deciding (usually selfishly) future of the kids I am aware of reality that 1st option would cause huge uproar and second option is more realistic with some countries moving that way lowering voting age to 16 for now. At the same time I would be glad if we would get rid off Pay-as-you-go pension plan and replace it with own savings account (IRA), but it seems no country in the world had balls to switch, even Chile had to backpedal a bit, but they got the furthest. It's the only solution for demographic changes.

BobaFloutist 5mo ago

I don't think it's a good idea to eliminate any class of people for the electorate. But at the end of the day, the point is moot: if non-pensioners can get their shit together enough to enact such a policy, they can surely organize themselves to oppose any poor voting by the pensioners. The real problem you're facing is that young people: 1. Don't universally agree with you, and so support the policies you're blaming pensioners for, and, 2. Don't vote in large enough numbers to actually make their voices heard. If you can fix that, you don't need to worry about disenfranchising a vulnerable portion of the population, since you can easily outvote them anyway.