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How many are unable and/or wanting to take a paycut to retire? 10%? 15%? How many unemployed can do their exact job? One often reads about how many elderly are putting off retirement because they can't afford it, yet here you are claiming enough would jump at the chance to magically cure our unemployment woes.
Here's a novel idea that you might like to think about. Instead of throwing unemployed kids right into the job of the guy who has been there for 40 years, you promote everyone up a step, and then hire the inexperienced worker at a level suitable for his skills.
I doubt if you have any idea at all of how many people in their 60's would choose to retire at full SS. Nor do you have any idea how many people are putting off their retirement because they can't afford it, even though you seem to keep reading about it.
It might astonish you to learn how often "magical" things happen if one thinks logically and constructively about how to make them happen, instead of constantly carping along with the same old nay-sayers locked into their political orthodoxy..
Here's a novel idea that you might like to think about. Instead of throwing unemployed kids right into the job of the guy who has been there for 40 years, you promote everyone up a step, and then hire the inexperienced worker at a level suitable for his skills.
So you're still relying on some near perfect storm of lined up jobs.
"Hey boys we have 13,400 elderly welders who no longer want to work, so this is just easy we'll just bring in the 13,400 unemployed welders or people who always wished they were welders and domino everyone. This will work great and add up to ten million, unemployment problem solved."
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I doubt if you have any idea at all of how many people in their 60's would choose to retire at full SS. Nor do you have any idea how many people are putting off their retirement because they can't afford it, even though you seem to keep reading about it.
You're correct I don't, do you? Why don't you tell me, since you're the one who's grand plan relies on the hard numbers working with great assumptions about everyone's motivations and desires at different age groups.
So you're still relying on some near perfect storm of lined up jobs.
"Hey boys we have 13,400 elderly welders who no longer want to work, so this is just easy we'll just bring in the 13,400 unemployed welders or people who always wished they were welders and domino everyone. This will work great and add up to ten million, unemployment problem solved."
You're correct I don't, do you? Why don't you tell me, since you're the one who's grand plan relies on the hard numbers working with great assumptions about everyone's motivations and desires at different age groups.
Why not? How long does it take to get an apprentice welder trained well enough to start working?
My grand plan is "Let's gather the data and check this out and see if it might work". Your grand plan is to jump up and proclaim "It'll never work".
If ten million people retire, it creates a vacuum that can be filled by ten million idle workers. Or 5 million or one million. Even if it's only a half a million, isn't that better than nothing?
Last edited by Green Irish Eyes; 06-25-2010 at 05:53 PM..
Reason: Please discuss the topic, not each other.
I think its a bad idea, no... a HORRIBLE idea... sure we are living twice as long as we were suppose to right now... Our social security taxes have gone up a LOT since when it started as well... so why the shortage on SS funds? It seems "pay" didn't keep up... so whose at fault? The government wants to increase the retirement age so you'll die faster before you can collect and I think that is wrong... just because we are living longer does not mean our bodies and mind are getting better... when you are 62, you are the same 62 back then as well.. you can't expect someone to work longer when their body and mind doesn't get better with age... I think its wrong, I think SS should of been privatized so government can't keep raising the taxes, raising the retirement age, and at the same time use SS funds for their own corrupt purposes... what say you? Do you agree with the government to raise the retirement age and punish you for THEIR mistakes and greed...
They only raised it by 2 lousy years, but people who live to retirement age are living much longer now than they did in 1935. You think it's unfair because you haven't done the math. It's as simple as that.
It doesn't help that the Social Security money was never set aside in a separate account. All of the problems with SS could have been avoided if Social Security had been set up as a sort of mandatory savings/investment account that was owned by individuals.
But it just goes to show you, politicians aren't really interested in helping the people. They're interested in accruing power for themselves.
Social security was intended as a safety net for the elderly, not a permanent vacation for a perfectly healthy adult. Therefore adjusting the age as demographics/health/science dictates makes perfect sense.
Just to piggyback on this idea...this is totally true. Social Security was only designed to provied 1/3 of a person's income in retirement. The other 2/3 was supposed to be evenly split by personal savings and pensions. However, it's the sole source of retirement income for a majority or near majority of people
It's not peoples' fault that pensions went away. However, it is their fault that they're saving very little or nothing. There's just no excuse for the lack of saving we have in America today.
Great post markg91359. Many don't realize that some relatively minor adjustments impact largely on social security projections as far more viable in funding. I saw some article somewhere that attempted to quantify the various methods including raising min age, reducing bennies, raising payroll taxes, eliminating the salary cap, etc. and many had a surprising impact from small change.
I see these people in France protesting today (yeah I know what else is new) about the proposals to raise their retirement age past 60 to be closer to inline with other European countries, but those leading the protests can offer no solution. They are pretty much saying don't take away our retirement, even if that means it's an even more impossible endgame coming for the funding, that is someone else's problem 40 years from now.
Agreed. I think the whole Western World is in for a rude awakening like we've never seen. The math for these retirement programs just isn't going to work. The sense of entitlement in most Western countries is sad.
The OP speaks of the government's "mistakes and greed" in connection to Social Security but he doesn't spell out what those are. It seems like the greed is all his. The OP also advocates privatization. I would like him to explain how that would make things better. Sure, better for Wall Street because of the increased money that would be flowing to them. But anyone who thinks it would be better for the average wage-earner just needs to consider our economic meltdown of 2008-2009.
The metldown of 2009-2009 was SHORT TERM!!!
Privatization could easily be done with those target dated retirement funds. It could be put in an index like the Wilshire 5000 and investment grade bonds. When you start out in your 20s, it's 90% stocks and 10% bonds and it gradually changes as a person ages to 80% bonds/cash and 20% stocks when you're in your 80s. This would all be automatic.
Indexing is cheap, so no need for huge Wall Street profits.
If you look at the performance of a fund that's 60% in a stock index and 40% bond, you'll see you'd get much better returns over time than in government bonds.
In fact, there is such a fund (although it doesn't change the allocation...It just maintains a 60% stock/40% bond ratio). Vanguard Balanced Index. The super cheap institutional shares cost .07% (yes, that's right POINT ZERO SEVEN PERCENT). Even the most expensive "retail" share class is still cheap at .20%.
The 15 year return for the cheapest share class is 6.93%. It lost 22.10% in 2008 but gained most of that back in 2009, with a gain of 20.18%.
The only reason it would be difficult to do is because today's retirees live off current taxpayers. That setup was WRONG, WRONG, WRONG from the outset.
By way of contrast, the return for government bonds via the Vanguard Intermediate Term Treasury Index fund was only 6.54% for the past 15 years (although it did beat the balanced index over the past 10 years). That seemingly small difference adds up to a lot of money over a lifetime.
Someone making $30,000 a year over 40 years (12.4% contribution, 1/2 from employer 1/2 from employee) would have $719,691 at 6.25% (100% bonds). They'd have $802,480 at 6.93% (60% stock/40% bond mix). That's a difference of over 83K using performance statistics from a time when stock performance has been terrible.
It's unfortunate, but the evidence is overwhelming that most people don't know what's in their financial best interest and are therefore easily manipulated by the media and government officials. The financial illiteracy of today is equivalent to print illiteracy of centuries past.
Last edited by mysticaltyger; 06-25-2010 at 08:40 PM..
My viewpoint is that first tier, first world nations find a way to help their citizens have affordable health care benefits and elder pensions.
A question...does anyone know at what age old age pensions kick in in Great Britain and/or other first tier nations? How do they compare with our SS collection ages of 62 for reduced benefits and 66 for full benefits?
My view is that so-called "first tier, first world nations" won't stay that way if they have more people living off the taxpayers than than there are taxpayers. Argentina is a prime example of a First World country (It used to have the 5th highest per capita income circa 1930) that feel back into 3rd World status because of profligate spending, and the resultant hyperinflation and/or government debt defaults.
To answer your question:
Germany recently raised its retirement age from 65 to 67.
Denmark raised its age from 65 to 67 and indexed it to life expectactancy for those who retire after 2025...which means it will go up automatically---a very good idea, in my opinion.
So when highly socialist countries start raising their respective retirement ages, the writing is on the wall for the US. The only question is whether it will happen before or after we default on our debts.
Last edited by mysticaltyger; 06-25-2010 at 08:57 PM..
Thanks for this info. A recent article in the Los Angeles Times talked about the pressure most European countries are under to increase these ages and/or decrease benefits for newer retirees. So it seems the problems we face in the U.S. are common to most first world countries.
Yes, in varying degrees, it's the same story.
Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, & Finland are in ok to excellent financial shape (generally smaller, low corruption countries).
The US, Germany, Japan, France, Italy, Greece, Spain, & Portugal are in bad to horrible financial shape and are at moderate to high risk of defaulting if business as usual is continued (generally larger countries with moderate to high corruption).
Last edited by mysticaltyger; 06-25-2010 at 08:58 PM..
Why not? How long does it take to get an apprentice welder trained well enough to start working?
My grand plan is "Let's gather the data and check this out and see if it might work". Your grand plan is to jump up and proclaim "It'll never work".
If ten million people retire, it creates a vacuum that can be filled by ten million idle workers. Or 5 million or one million. Even if it's only a half a million, isn't that better than nothing?
Getting them trained isn't the point, people might not want to be welders. Your entire theory is based on the assumption that the younger people will want to do what the older people did, and that is where it falls flat.
I think it's reasonable to be lacking a solution and still call "waste of time" on another that certainly appears to be one, and the retire 10 million and replace them with the 10 million unemployed sounds about as far-fetched as has been offered.
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