
The Ratio of Workers to Retirees Is Plunging Across Developed Economies - Four_Star
http://thesoundingline.com/there-are-now-barely-two-workers-per-senior-in-most-developed-economies/
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ardit33
The talk was that this was part of the reason that Merkel was so open in
taking in so many refugees back in 2015, and have a 'open door' policy. It was
both a 'calculated economic decision', and a humanitarian one.

Unfortunately it backfired as it encouraged too many economic immigrants to
come with boats and undertake dangerous trips risking their lives, only to
eventually get turned down in their lengthy asylum process. And she is risking
her position/government as her people got fed up on the influx. It also is
risking the EU stability itself, with Austria and Italy taking a hard right
and turning into immigrant hostile countries, and helping putting eurosceptic
parties in power.

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sbinthree
The problem is that you can't have a liesure class of healthcare consuming old
people without an underclass of young working age people toiling for high
taxes. Eventually you have an even worse social issue. Further, people
probably don't realize they are voting to close the border to their sole
source of future dependency. A vicious cycle. The other problem is there is a
huge gap in the quality of immigrants, some stay dependent where others drive
the economy like no native can. Complicated issue all around.

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marcoperaza
There is always the option of reversing the decline of fertility in Western
countries.

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albertgoeswoof
Fertility is declining globally it’s not a western thing. The only way to
realistically improve fertility rates is to recess women’s rights back to the
1950s.

Instead we should focus on improving quality of life for all through more
efficient and automated production methods. The end goal is to increase
productivity per hour such that we don’t need as many young people to support
the older population.

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imbokodo
And the ratio of workers to worker productivity increases every year, so it
all balances out.

In the US I pay inordinate taxes and do not get the health, education etc.
that I would in Europe. Instead I am paying for hundreds of US military bases
all over the world, the $1.5 trillion F35 piece of junk etc. The one thing I
will get, money in retirement, they are trying to take away from me.

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sremani
The productivity numbers the past few years are not that great!

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wongarsu
As the birth control pill became available around the 1960-1970 around the
developed world, birth rates plumeted. A lot of countries took inspiration
from 19th century Germany's social security system and have the current
workers pay pensions for the current retirees, which predictably leads a big
problem 60-70 years after any big decrease in birth rate.

It's a disaster we have seen coming for decades, with limited success at
mitigating it. Germany for example is (pretty late into the problem) trying to
switch over to a system where everyone saves for his own pension (which is
robost against any population changes), without looking like they mistreat the
generation unfairly that has to pay both the current retiree's pension and
their own. Getting more migrants to smooth things over is also a valid
strategy, as long as integration works out.

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grosjona
This is the result of western economic policy which is designed to promote
corporate growth and monopolies (along with the income and wealth inequality
which is associated with it) - It causes people to concentrate in major urban
centers where all the corporate HQs are located; this causes rents to go up,
which means that people have less disposable income and can't afford to have
children... Fewer children translates to fewer workers to support an ageing
population - This creates an incentive for the older generation take in
immigrants to fill gaps in the workforce.

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stretchwithme
Having one generation depend on the taxes collected from another is a bad
idea.

I think the forced savings system Singapore has makes a lot more sense.

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ben_w
Money isn’t intrinsically valuable. Forcing people to save for retirement
doesn’t bother me one way or the other, but, how can I put this…

Imagine a family living alone on an island. They use gold coins for trade
amongst themselves. Parents get old, kids look after them. Those kids decide
not to reproduce (reasons are different between analogy and reality, effect is
similar). When the kids get old themselves, no amount of coin changes the fact
nobody’s doing any work, catching fish or whatever.

If we can automate all the work, great, we can all retire. If not, we need
some balance between working and reproduction that varies depending on the
rate of reproduction.

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tonyedgecombe
I wonder if longevity will start falling soon, Gen-X don't seem to have very
healthy lifestyles.

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droidist2
But it's not like Boomers in the 1970s and early 80s exactly treated their
bodies like temples.

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paulpauper
The surge in entitlement spending could be considered a form of basic income.
Proponents of basic income need to take into account that spending is already
very high.

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ben_w
That’s already given as one of the arguments in favour of it being affordable.

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paulpauper
can you elaborate how that would work

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ben_w
Instead of _n_ different benefits schemes, of which pensions are just the most
socially accepted, take all that money plus all they money used to decide who
should have that money and just give it to everybody equally no questions
asked.

That’s basically what people tell me when trying to justify it. I don’t know
if it adds up or not or if it does but only in one country. My opinions on it
at this point are still just a complicated tree that branches on facts I don’t
know.

