9 ms·

America's CEOs Want You to Work Until You're 70

21 points by ttar 14y ago

rayiner 14y ago
The solution to medicare isn't to remove younger, cheaper people from eligibility, it's to remove older, more expensive people from eligibility. The math is shockingly obvious on this point.
- rtkwe 14y ago
  Except that runs counter to (a large portion of) the point of Medicare, which is to provide assistance to the old. (Yes it's also for low income households, but it's also a lot aimed at the elderly as well.)
  - Snoptic 14y ago
    65 is younger than 90
    - rtkwe 14y ago
      Yes? I don't see your point though. I'll take a stab at guessing what you were trying to say though.. For a large number of the US jobs 65 is getting a bit on in years, think manufacturing, service, etc. also known as a large number of the , at 65 a large number of jobs aren't much of an option anymore.
      - Evbn 14y ago
        Right. Cutting off the level of support for "old" people doesn't mean cutting off support for a 65. For example, why isn't social security structured as a 20 year term (the distance from 65 to average expectancy) , to be claimed whenever someone decides to retire?
  - absconditus 14y ago
    Actually, Medicare is for the elderly and people with disabilities. Medicaid is for families with low incomes.
    - rtkwe 14y ago
      Ah, I stand corrected. Never used or really been exposed to either service.
- io 14y ago
  So just make ineligible the people the social service is meant to serve? I don't think the solution is quite that shockingly obvious.
  - rayiner 14y ago
    Medicare and social security were intended to ensure that people who were too old to work (at a time when the majority of work was manual labor) had a certain minimum standard of living. It was not intended to give healthy people a 30 year end of life vacation nor be a source of funds to futilely try and prolong the last few years of life. I'm not against social services for the elderly. I don't think my gardener should have to work until he dies. But I also don't want the government to spend millions of dollars so my grandmother can live to 94 instead of 92. It's not even a matter of not wanting to pay the taxes to make that happen, it's a matter of priorities. I'd much rather see that money go to health care for children, for younger people who are still in the work force, and to education. I don't think medical care near the end of life is a particularly useful way to spend public resources.
    - rdl 14y ago
      Are you against private resources being spent by a rich person to live to 94 instead of 92, or just public resources? I really like the UK NHS "QALYs" system for public spending, but I think it's reasonable for individuals to spend their money as they please (and, as a benefit, if it were paid by 100% private insurance or out of pocket, late stage medical care would be more in touch with needs. An extra 6 months of high-quality life might be worth more than 2y of coma, etc.)
      - rayiner 14y ago
        > Are you against private resources being spent by a rich person to live to 94 instead of 92, or just public resources? I'm against using public resources to do it. I think it's irrational to use private resources to do it too, the equivalent of burning your house down before you die, but hey people are welcome to do that.
- dasil003 14y ago
  Too bad the morals aren't that clear. Promises were made, and those people literally paid their dues which you and I haven't.
  - Evbn 14y ago
    Who made the promise? I promise you a million dollars, to be paid by some dude who hasn't been born yet.
    - dasil003 14y ago
      What do you mean who made the promise? http://lmgtfy.com/?q=who+created+social+security http://lmgtfy.com/?q=who+created+social+security Also, you conveniently fail to mention that most everyone receiving social security benefits has been paying in their whole life.
jseliger 14y ago
The title is deceptive—"The Business Roundtable" is just doing simple math, because the fundamental issue is demographic: people are living longer and having fewer children. In the next 30 years, it simply won't be economically feasible to support a huge number of old people if all of them retire or attempt to retire at 65.
- gruseom 14y ago
  If Dean Baker's analyses are correct, then concerns around demographics, retirement, and Social Security are all relatively easy to solve, and the only really big problem is health care costs.
- gnosis 14y ago
  Of course it's economically feasable. It's just a matter of priorities. Congress managed to come up with 8 trillion dollars for the Wall St bailout at the drop of a hat, and 3 trillion (and counting) for the Iraq/Afghanistan wars. On top of that, the US manages to spend more on its military than the rest of the world combined. To say that it couldn't come up with the money to support its own citizens in their old age would be laughable if it wasn't so sad.
  - Snoptic 14y ago
    You skipped the dollar number for entitlement spending. It may surprise you how much it costs to give $15k/yr to 50million people.
    - glesica 14y ago
      About $750 billion per year? What portion of that did they save previously by paying into the system? Why is it that productivity has skyrocketed since the social security system was introduced, which should account for the longer lifespans, yet we still find ourselves having these conversations? It is a matter of priorities, plain and simple. Just because it isn't a high priority for you doesn't mean it isn't a question of priorities.
mc32 14y ago
I'm not a CEO by any stretch of imagination and I want people to work till 70. I want to be able to work till 70 (from a physical standpoint). I mean, unless, everything becomes robotized, automated and we all get reverse taxes.
- Evbn 14y ago
  Now you are talking like a communist. The robots will earn money for the owners of the capital that invested in their construction. You can work in the shale fields scrubbing motor oil out of rocks until you die of lung cancer.
  - mc32 14y ago
    Not sure where it is my thoughts coincide with theirs --all I meant was that if ordinary job tasks (outside of research and a few other highly intellectual areas) are 'done for us' by robots or become automated, and (most) people would not want to do that same job for that same capital then reverse taxes would be necessary, since few people would be 'earning' a living. However, people would have to find some way to fulfill their lives. Watching TV or going on global treks is not going to fulfill lives. Maybe I'm just pessimistic, but I think great amounts of people with too much time on their hands become counterproductive and I don't have an idea of how that would be solved. (Just heard about another Muni bus getting torched after the 49ers won their _playoff_ game.)
    - chii 14y ago
      > people would not want to do that same job for that same capital then reverse taxes would be necessary, since few people would be 'earning' a living. why would reverse tax (which i assume means the gov't pays you money) be necessary when many jobs become robotisized? Those people who are made obsolete by robots will have to find another way to create value - if they don't they either will have to survive on the dwindling social welfare (which seems to have to be lower as the number of people claiming them grows), or have to rely on family members. The unspeakable option which you allude to is to tax the owners of these robots (who invested their capital) to pay the reverse tax to those who the robots have replaced - i cannot agree with that option because its very unfair.
k_kelly 14y ago
It still has to be remembered that many people don't live to 70. Even today people working in hard manual labor and black men in general are pretty lucky to get to 70. People who are healthy and able to work should not be living on retirement simply because they have reached 65, but neither should someone die at work because their life was harder to begin with.
transfire 14y ago
I have a better idea: remove the payroll tax cap, you cheap sons of bitches!
glesica 14y ago
It's really sad to see how selfish people are (or have become). I wonder if it is a subtle result of the seemingly permanently-lousy economy. This is a problem for all of us and we should solve it as a group, in a way that hurts as few people as possible. What happened to solving hard problems with innovation and intelligence? Why are so many people so ready to throw in the towel and abandon ship, taking whatever isn't nailed down on the way?
beedogs 14y ago
Average life expectancy for men in the United States is 75. Enjoy those last five miserable years, guys.
- nieksand 14y ago
  It's a bit more complicated that that. The at-birth life expectancy for males is currently 75.5 years. But that includes everything that kills younger people: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=life+expectancy+for+usa+male http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=life+expectancy+for+usa... The life expectancy for a male who has reached age sixty becomes 81.2 years: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=life+expectancy+for+60+year+old+usa+male http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=life+expectancy+for+60+... In comparison, the at-birth male life expectancy when Social Security started in 1939 was 63 years: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=life+expectancy+for+usa+in+1939 http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=life+expectancy+for+usa...
shawnee_ 14y ago
The interesting edge case is that people like my dad -- who did sheetrock for a living -- would never ever have been able to make it to age 70 to retire. He knew the odds were slim that he'd make it to 67. He passed away in 2004 at age 54; my tribute to his memory: http://bit.ly/11K2Dsb http://bit.ly/11K2Dsb It's kinda disgusting that "America's CEOs" just don't think about and don't care about people like him. . . they and their minions that theoretically can make it to age 70 from behind a desk forget that the buildings they work in and the houses they live in were physically built by people who need and deserve to retire, too. But "America's CEOs" and others who are hellbent on accelerating their path to early retirement see only the numbers.
- briandear 14y ago
  Perhaps someone shouldn't be trying to hang Sheetrock until they're 70. You'd think, after 20+ years of hanging Sheetrock, a person could start his own Sheetrock hanging company and hire others to do the labor. I have little sympathy for those who took their entire lives without any sort of ambition to advance. It's not my job to pay for the retirement of other people. It's the individual's job to take care of their own life and responsibilities. However, we obviously need a safety net to protect those who might become disabled but the safety net ought not be the primary means for the able bodied to take care of themselves at retirement.
  - ttar 14y ago
    Blaming the victim, favorite American pastime. Wait till it's your turn, oh you who think you are immortal.
  - tzs 14y ago
    Have you thought about this quantitatively? I don't think the "start a company and hire others to do the physical labor" approach is viable in societies where younger people have a low death rate.
- mc32 14y ago
  I'm not sure CEOs are any more sure to make it past 70 nor do I know whether they tend to retire early. We might make projections based on our own thoughts, but I'd be interested in seeing data showing actual data about longevity and retirement.
jacques_chester 14y ago
My Dad is almost 70. I guess this gives me standing to drop some unhelpful anecdata. At this point he's holding on to unlock accumulated Long Service Leave, which will occur in June. I suspect he will get a job after he has Retired. Why? Boredom. Working hard is ingrained in the man. He is terrible at idleness. He can do it for a day or two (and no man alive is better at a good afternoon kip), but then he wanders the house like a restless poltergeist. I expect he'll take his decades of hands-on electronics wisdom and work part-time at a local TV repair place. Just to keep himself busy. As for the meat of the article -- which really is about trying to forestall the Greece-times-a-zillion excitement that the future of US fiscal policy promises -- I don't know what to say. You guys are going to find that tough. In Australia we've had compulsory retirement saving (superannuation or colloquially "super") since the 1980s. Australians have now accumulated well north of a trillion dollars of assets against their retirement. Is it perfect? No, it's riddled with problems. But in terms of forestalling a fiscal nightmare it's one of the most far-sighted reforms ever introduced.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- _dps 14y ago
  > Australians have now accumulated well north of a trillion dollars of assets against their retirement. Out of curiosity, could you elaborate on how this is implemented practically? Social Security, on the face, presents itself a lot like this but is really just a combination of a payroll tax and an entitlement program (i.e., there's no saved money anywhere that's yours; there's just the expectation that the government will pay out some benefits at the right time). Depending on your political worldview you could say the same about Americans, or you could also say that they've accumulated nothing in SS because SS (per the supreme court) does not legally guarantee any sort of payout and doesn't hold any securities tradeable on an open market. If I had to design such a system myself, I'd personally go with forced savings of roughly the size of the current payroll tax in the form of actually-owned marketable government securities in individually named accounts, with a separate entitlement program to partially support those for whom retirement is still out of reach. If the Australian system looks anything like this, as opposed to how the US has designed Social Security, I tip my hat to them for practicality :-)
arcosdev 14y ago
America's CEOs can go fuck themselves
briandear 14y ago
Real simple. Don't want to work for the 'man' and retire at 70 -- start your own damned company. Learn how to invest. Buy real estate. Do something. If you don't want to work until your 70, don't let yourself be dependent on the government (or your employer) for your retirement. Nobody is forced to be dependent unless they allow themselves to be. Many people own a car and a nice TV yet very few would be willing to put $30,000 down on buying their first rental property or invest in starting a company. It's easy to just let the government or an employer be your 'daddy.' It's much harder to take responsibility for your yourself and your own future.
- Evbn 14y ago
  Inspiring. I am going to sell my $25000 car (not the one I drive to work, the other one) and my $5000 TV, and buy some rental property.
- pekk 14y ago
  Real simple - unless you don't have significant capital to invest in stocks, real estate or starting your own company, all of which pose varying degrees of risk that you will fritter away your nest egg and end up with nothing to retire on. $30,000 is not a small quantity of money for most families living paycheck to paycheck (US median income $44k) with 30-year home loans. Nor is it a large quantity of money to invest with. If you happen to reach your late 50s without having already invested a fair bit and you still aren't making a lot of money, griping about the government isn't going to help you as much as dumb old social security. If that's what it takes for some people to survive, I'm not criticizing them for it just because I've had a much easier time.
SilasX 14y ago
Oh, look honey, more equivocation between "working" and "not receiving a government entitlement check"! "That's nice, dear." But, but it obscures clear thinking on this issue! "What else is new?"
saosebastiao 14y ago
Well, they can't say they didn't see it coming. They have known since the 1970's that Social Security and Medicare were on unsustainable paths, and they repeatedly chose to pass the buck. What I want to know is if Millenials are going to get so fed up with it that they just cut them off completely. I mean, why would they ever want to pay 20+% of their salary for ever and ever, just to support the pathetic lives of those who repeatedly chose to fuck them over, and get nothing in return (or rather, negative returns)?
rsheridan6 14y ago
They might be overestimating the capabilities of the 65+ crowd. A lot of them aren't capable of working. I used to work in a call center where I talked to AARP members, and a lot of them aren't even capable of leaving the house. I know this because they told me. You may not have been aware of this because they don't talk to anybody but call center workers. I don't have the numbers but I'll bet there are more people whose working days are behind them at that age than most people think, because those people don't get out much, or at all. Of those who can still work, they are probably a lot who are good for a few shifts a week but couldn't work a full time job with benefits and a living wage.
joelberman 14y ago
I'm 66. I first retired at age 59 from a tech job with great benefits and healthcare for life. Got bored out of my mind, and went back to work at another tech company. Retired last July. By October I was again ready to work and am now working in yet another tech company. I have no idea how long I will live, and I do intend to retire when my wife reaches 65. Some of you make it sound terrible that someone is working at age 66. I am really happy working. (I could get by without working, but it is very nice to have an income stream)
pasbesoin 14y ago
So... we have more automation than ever before, and the solution is to make "everyone else" work longer so that all the benefits can be showered on these few privileged. I expect that a lot of people who actually, really invented and developed this largess, would be disgusted with their attitude. And with what has happened to American society. P.S. Yes, my statement is a bit simplistic and ignores the global context. But, confined to American society, I think my rebuttal has validity. And even on a global scale, I don't think I'm being disingenuous. U.S. senior management seems just as inclined to be exploitative abroad as domestically. My comment also ignores increasing lifespan, but I don't think current discussion around increasing retirement age is being honest on that front. Rather, it seems to be another component of advocacy for a regressive distribution of society's expenses. (Also, lifespan increases seem to be slowing -- even regressing, in some cases -- and becoming more divergent (again?) based on affluence and economic opportunity.) P.P.S. It's all the more hypocritical, when I think about it, in that many of these CEO's companies actively (if circumspectly) discriminate against hiring anyone over 50 -- or even in the upper 40's. In today's world where "no job is secure", and where corporations seek to control ever-more of the marketplace, how would they propose to reconcile this?

21 points by ttar 14y ago

The solution to medicare isn't to remove younger, cheaper people from eligibility, it's to remove older, more expensive people from eligibility. The math is shockingly obvious on this point.

rtkwe 14y ago
Except that runs counter to (a large portion of) the point of Medicare, which is to provide assistance to the old. (Yes it's also for low income households, but it's also a lot aimed at the elderly as well.)
- Snoptic 14y ago
  65 is younger than 90
  - rtkwe 14y ago
    Yes? I don't see your point though. I'll take a stab at guessing what you were trying to say though.. For a large number of the US jobs 65 is getting a bit on in years, think manufacturing, service, etc. also known as a large number of the , at 65 a large number of jobs aren't much of an option anymore.
    - Evbn 14y ago
      Right. Cutting off the level of support for "old" people doesn't mean cutting off support for a 65. For example, why isn't social security structured as a 20 year term (the distance from 65 to average expectancy) , to be claimed whenever someone decides to retire?
- absconditus 14y ago
  Actually, Medicare is for the elderly and people with disabilities. Medicaid is for families with low incomes.
  - rtkwe 14y ago
    Ah, I stand corrected. Never used or really been exposed to either service.
io 14y ago
So just make ineligible the people the social service is meant to serve? I don't think the solution is quite that shockingly obvious.
- rayiner 14y ago
  Medicare and social security were intended to ensure that people who were too old to work (at a time when the majority of work was manual labor) had a certain minimum standard of living. It was not intended to give healthy people a 30 year end of life vacation nor be a source of funds to futilely try and prolong the last few years of life. I'm not against social services for the elderly. I don't think my gardener should have to work until he dies. But I also don't want the government to spend millions of dollars so my grandmother can live to 94 instead of 92. It's not even a matter of not wanting to pay the taxes to make that happen, it's a matter of priorities. I'd much rather see that money go to health care for children, for younger people who are still in the work force, and to education. I don't think medical care near the end of life is a particularly useful way to spend public resources.
  - rdl 14y ago
    Are you against private resources being spent by a rich person to live to 94 instead of 92, or just public resources? I really like the UK NHS "QALYs" system for public spending, but I think it's reasonable for individuals to spend their money as they please (and, as a benefit, if it were paid by 100% private insurance or out of pocket, late stage medical care would be more in touch with needs. An extra 6 months of high-quality life might be worth more than 2y of coma, etc.)
    - rayiner 14y ago
      > Are you against private resources being spent by a rich person to live to 94 instead of 92, or just public resources? I'm against using public resources to do it. I think it's irrational to use private resources to do it too, the equivalent of burning your house down before you die, but hey people are welcome to do that.
dasil003 14y ago
Too bad the morals aren't that clear. Promises were made, and those people literally paid their dues which you and I haven't.
- Evbn 14y ago
  Who made the promise? I promise you a million dollars, to be paid by some dude who hasn't been born yet.
  - dasil003 14y ago
    What do you mean who made the promise? http://lmgtfy.com/?q=who+created+social+security http://lmgtfy.com/?q=who+created+social+security Also, you conveniently fail to mention that most everyone receiving social security benefits has been paying in their whole life.

jseliger 14y ago

The title is deceptive—"The Business Roundtable" is just doing simple math, because the fundamental issue is demographic: people are living longer and having fewer children. In the next 30 years, it simply won't be economically feasible to support a huge number of old people if all of them retire or attempt to retire at 65.

gruseom 14y ago
If Dean Baker's analyses are correct, then concerns around demographics, retirement, and Social Security are all relatively easy to solve, and the only really big problem is health care costs.
gnosis 14y ago
Of course it's economically feasable. It's just a matter of priorities. Congress managed to come up with 8 trillion dollars for the Wall St bailout at the drop of a hat, and 3 trillion (and counting) for the Iraq/Afghanistan wars. On top of that, the US manages to spend more on its military than the rest of the world combined. To say that it couldn't come up with the money to support its own citizens in their old age would be laughable if it wasn't so sad.
- Snoptic 14y ago
  You skipped the dollar number for entitlement spending. It may surprise you how much it costs to give $15k/yr to 50million people.
  - glesica 14y ago
    About $750 billion per year? What portion of that did they save previously by paying into the system? Why is it that productivity has skyrocketed since the social security system was introduced, which should account for the longer lifespans, yet we still find ourselves having these conversations? It is a matter of priorities, plain and simple. Just because it isn't a high priority for you doesn't mean it isn't a question of priorities.

mc32 14y ago

I'm not a CEO by any stretch of imagination and I want people to work till 70. I want to be able to work till 70 (from a physical standpoint). I mean, unless, everything becomes robotized, automated and we all get reverse taxes.

Evbn 14y ago
Now you are talking like a communist. The robots will earn money for the owners of the capital that invested in their construction. You can work in the shale fields scrubbing motor oil out of rocks until you die of lung cancer.
- mc32 14y ago
  Not sure where it is my thoughts coincide with theirs --all I meant was that if ordinary job tasks (outside of research and a few other highly intellectual areas) are 'done for us' by robots or become automated, and (most) people would not want to do that same job for that same capital then reverse taxes would be necessary, since few people would be 'earning' a living. However, people would have to find some way to fulfill their lives. Watching TV or going on global treks is not going to fulfill lives. Maybe I'm just pessimistic, but I think great amounts of people with too much time on their hands become counterproductive and I don't have an idea of how that would be solved. (Just heard about another Muni bus getting torched after the 49ers won their _playoff_ game.)
  - chii 14y ago
    > people would not want to do that same job for that same capital then reverse taxes would be necessary, since few people would be 'earning' a living. why would reverse tax (which i assume means the gov't pays you money) be necessary when many jobs become robotisized? Those people who are made obsolete by robots will have to find another way to create value - if they don't they either will have to survive on the dwindling social welfare (which seems to have to be lower as the number of people claiming them grows), or have to rely on family members. The unspeakable option which you allude to is to tax the owners of these robots (who invested their capital) to pay the reverse tax to those who the robots have replaced - i cannot agree with that option because its very unfair.

k_kelly 14y ago

It still has to be remembered that many people don't live to 70. Even today people working in hard manual labor and black men in general are pretty lucky to get to 70. People who are healthy and able to work should not be living on retirement simply because they have reached 65, but neither should someone die at work because their life was harder to begin with.

transfire 14y ago

I have a better idea: remove the payroll tax cap, you cheap sons of bitches!

glesica 14y ago

It's really sad to see how selfish people are (or have become). I wonder if it is a subtle result of the seemingly permanently-lousy economy. This is a problem for all of us and we should solve it as a group, in a way that hurts as few people as possible. What happened to solving hard problems with innovation and intelligence? Why are so many people so ready to throw in the towel and abandon ship, taking whatever isn't nailed down on the way?

beedogs 14y ago

Average life expectancy for men in the United States is 75. Enjoy those last five miserable years, guys.

nieksand 14y ago
It's a bit more complicated that that. The at-birth life expectancy for males is currently 75.5 years. But that includes everything that kills younger people: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=life+expectancy+for+usa+male http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=life+expectancy+for+usa... The life expectancy for a male who has reached age sixty becomes 81.2 years: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=life+expectancy+for+60+year+old+usa+male http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=life+expectancy+for+60+... In comparison, the at-birth male life expectancy when Social Security started in 1939 was 63 years: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=life+expectancy+for+usa+in+1939 http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=life+expectancy+for+usa...

shawnee_ 14y ago

The interesting edge case is that people like my dad -- who did sheetrock for a living -- would never ever have been able to make it to age 70 to retire. He knew the odds were slim that he'd make it to 67. He passed away in 2004 at age 54; my tribute to his memory: http://bit.ly/11K2Dsb http://bit.ly/11K2Dsb It's kinda disgusting that "America's CEOs" just don't think about and don't care about people like him. . . they and their minions that theoretically can make it to age 70 from behind a desk forget that the buildings they work in and the houses they live in were physically built by people who need and deserve to retire, too. But "America's CEOs" and others who are hellbent on accelerating their path to early retirement see only the numbers.

briandear 14y ago
Perhaps someone shouldn't be trying to hang Sheetrock until they're 70. You'd think, after 20+ years of hanging Sheetrock, a person could start his own Sheetrock hanging company and hire others to do the labor. I have little sympathy for those who took their entire lives without any sort of ambition to advance. It's not my job to pay for the retirement of other people. It's the individual's job to take care of their own life and responsibilities. However, we obviously need a safety net to protect those who might become disabled but the safety net ought not be the primary means for the able bodied to take care of themselves at retirement.
- ttar 14y ago
  Blaming the victim, favorite American pastime. Wait till it's your turn, oh you who think you are immortal.
- tzs 14y ago
  Have you thought about this quantitatively? I don't think the "start a company and hire others to do the physical labor" approach is viable in societies where younger people have a low death rate.
mc32 14y ago
I'm not sure CEOs are any more sure to make it past 70 nor do I know whether they tend to retire early. We might make projections based on our own thoughts, but I'd be interested in seeing data showing actual data about longevity and retirement.

jacques_chester 14y ago

My Dad is almost 70. I guess this gives me standing to drop some unhelpful anecdata. At this point he's holding on to unlock accumulated Long Service Leave, which will occur in June. I suspect he will get a job after he has Retired. Why? Boredom. Working hard is ingrained in the man. He is terrible at idleness. He can do it for a day or two (and no man alive is better at a good afternoon kip), but then he wanders the house like a restless poltergeist. I expect he'll take his decades of hands-on electronics wisdom and work part-time at a local TV repair place. Just to keep himself busy. As for the meat of the article -- which really is about trying to forestall the Greece-times-a-zillion excitement that the future of US fiscal policy promises -- I don't know what to say. You guys are going to find that tough. In Australia we've had compulsory retirement saving (superannuation or colloquially "super") since the 1980s. Australians have now accumulated well north of a trillion dollars of assets against their retirement. Is it perfect? No, it's riddled with problems. But in terms of forestalling a fiscal nightmare it's one of the most far-sighted reforms ever introduced.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
_dps 14y ago
> Australians have now accumulated well north of a trillion dollars of assets against their retirement. Out of curiosity, could you elaborate on how this is implemented practically? Social Security, on the face, presents itself a lot like this but is really just a combination of a payroll tax and an entitlement program (i.e., there's no saved money anywhere that's yours; there's just the expectation that the government will pay out some benefits at the right time). Depending on your political worldview you could say the same about Americans, or you could also say that they've accumulated nothing in SS because SS (per the supreme court) does not legally guarantee any sort of payout and doesn't hold any securities tradeable on an open market. If I had to design such a system myself, I'd personally go with forced savings of roughly the size of the current payroll tax in the form of actually-owned marketable government securities in individually named accounts, with a separate entitlement program to partially support those for whom retirement is still out of reach. If the Australian system looks anything like this, as opposed to how the US has designed Social Security, I tip my hat to them for practicality :-)

arcosdev 14y ago

America's CEOs can go fuck themselves

briandear 14y ago

Real simple. Don't want to work for the 'man' and retire at 70 -- start your own damned company. Learn how to invest. Buy real estate. Do something. If you don't want to work until your 70, don't let yourself be dependent on the government (or your employer) for your retirement. Nobody is forced to be dependent unless they allow themselves to be. Many people own a car and a nice TV yet very few would be willing to put $30,000 down on buying their first rental property or invest in starting a company. It's easy to just let the government or an employer be your 'daddy.' It's much harder to take responsibility for your yourself and your own future.

Evbn 14y ago
Inspiring. I am going to sell my $25000 car (not the one I drive to work, the other one) and my $5000 TV, and buy some rental property.
pekk 14y ago
Real simple - unless you don't have significant capital to invest in stocks, real estate or starting your own company, all of which pose varying degrees of risk that you will fritter away your nest egg and end up with nothing to retire on. $30,000 is not a small quantity of money for most families living paycheck to paycheck (US median income $44k) with 30-year home loans. Nor is it a large quantity of money to invest with. If you happen to reach your late 50s without having already invested a fair bit and you still aren't making a lot of money, griping about the government isn't going to help you as much as dumb old social security. If that's what it takes for some people to survive, I'm not criticizing them for it just because I've had a much easier time.

SilasX 14y ago

Oh, look honey, more equivocation between "working" and "not receiving a government entitlement check"! "That's nice, dear." But, but it obscures clear thinking on this issue! "What else is new?"

saosebastiao 14y ago

Well, they can't say they didn't see it coming. They have known since the 1970's that Social Security and Medicare were on unsustainable paths, and they repeatedly chose to pass the buck. What I want to know is if Millenials are going to get so fed up with it that they just cut them off completely. I mean, why would they ever want to pay 20+% of their salary for ever and ever, just to support the pathetic lives of those who repeatedly chose to fuck them over, and get nothing in return (or rather, negative returns)?

rsheridan6 14y ago

They might be overestimating the capabilities of the 65+ crowd. A lot of them aren't capable of working. I used to work in a call center where I talked to AARP members, and a lot of them aren't even capable of leaving the house. I know this because they told me. You may not have been aware of this because they don't talk to anybody but call center workers. I don't have the numbers but I'll bet there are more people whose working days are behind them at that age than most people think, because those people don't get out much, or at all. Of those who can still work, they are probably a lot who are good for a few shifts a week but couldn't work a full time job with benefits and a living wage.

joelberman 14y ago

I'm 66. I first retired at age 59 from a tech job with great benefits and healthcare for life. Got bored out of my mind, and went back to work at another tech company. Retired last July. By October I was again ready to work and am now working in yet another tech company. I have no idea how long I will live, and I do intend to retire when my wife reaches 65. Some of you make it sound terrible that someone is working at age 66. I am really happy working. (I could get by without working, but it is very nice to have an income stream)

pasbesoin 14y ago

So... we have more automation than ever before, and the solution is to make "everyone else" work longer so that all the benefits can be showered on these few privileged. I expect that a lot of people who actually, really invented and developed this largess, would be disgusted with their attitude. And with what has happened to American society. P.S. Yes, my statement is a bit simplistic and ignores the global context. But, confined to American society, I think my rebuttal has validity. And even on a global scale, I don't think I'm being disingenuous. U.S. senior management seems just as inclined to be exploitative abroad as domestically. My comment also ignores increasing lifespan, but I don't think current discussion around increasing retirement age is being honest on that front. Rather, it seems to be another component of advocacy for a regressive distribution of society's expenses. (Also, lifespan increases seem to be slowing -- even regressing, in some cases -- and becoming more divergent (again?) based on affluence and economic opportunity.) P.P.S. It's all the more hypocritical, when I think about it, in that many of these CEO's companies actively (if circumspectly) discriminate against hiring anyone over 50 -- or even in the upper 40's. In today's world where "no job is secure", and where corporations seek to control ever-more of the marketplace, how would they propose to reconcile this?