End of the world?

Geoff23

masonic wrote: »

Well, unless you are suggesting a policy of euthanasia at 68, who is going to provide for these people who won't pay in to the system and won't provide for themselves?

If people cannot afford to provide for their own retirement then I think that they are entitled to expect the welfare state (i.e. their children) to provide for their retirement. Otherwise, where is the money going to come from? If they themselves refuse to contribute, why should their children. Ultimately, we will have a generation of elderly who are even poorer if the welfare system is stopped in retirement.

Why inevitable? Retirement provisions should be put before home ownership and student loans are income contingent. Some people may never pay back their student loans and some people will never own a property.

Because not cooperating will make their plight much worse. Hence "petty". These people will be cutting off their nose to spite their face. Unfortunately, the rest of us will also be a lot worse off because of them.

Masonic,

I don't know what is going to happen. All I know is that the numbers don't add up. There's just too many people who are going to need too much support and there's not enough money in the kitty and not enough resources left to create the extra-ordinary amount of economic growth that would be required to dig us out of the hole anyway.

There's no non-painful solution to these problems. I think a lot of people are going to have to completely rethink their plans for the future after the "chaos" refered to in the last post has finally passed (and I think it will take a few years rather than a few months).

Our whole western, industrialised, greedy, consumerist economic/financial/social system has to be redesigned for a new global reality, and nearly everybody will find that this means a significantly lower standard of living, at least measured by today's standards. The questions you are asking me are really about how we might fix the existing system, and the answer is "we can't - it is fundamentally broken."

masonic

Geoff23 wrote: »

I don't know what is going to happen. All I know is that the numbers don't add up. There's just too many people who are going to need too much support and there's not enough money in the kitty and not enough resources left to create the extra-ordinary amount of economic growth that would be required to dig us out of the whole anyway.

There's no non-painful solution to these problems. I think a lot of people are going to have to completely rethink their plans for the future after the "chaos" refered to in the last post has finally passed (and I think it will take a few years rather than a few months).

Our whole western, industrialised, greedy, consumerist economic/financial/social system has to be redesigned for a new global reality, and nearly everybody will find that this means a significantly lower standard of living, at least measured by today's standards. The questions you are asking me are really about how we might fix the existing system, and the answer is "we can't - it is fundamentally broken."

I'm not disagreeing that the situation is a very bad one. However, it is not fair to demonise the baby-boomers. Personally, I think they have been very lucky, but to some extent they have worked hard to create that wealth. It isn't their fault that the Governments that presided during their working lives did not plan ahead for their retirement. I'm sure many of them wouldn't have objected to contributing more to their own retirement, but it is too late now to ask them to do that. They simply don't have enough time.

My generation has grown up with the expectation, pretty much from day 1, not to expect the state to provide for our retirement. I can live with that, and I have plenty of time to do something about it. If those that can provide for themselves do so, then what is left may be sufficient to provide for those who cannot provide for themselves in retirement. That is the only way the system can be fixed... but it starts with a generation providing for themselves, not with a generation having the retirement they were promised taken away from them.

pqrdef

All pensions are pay-as-you-go really. Funded pensions are an illusion, created by the City for its own advantage - lots of lovely money under management, attracting charges whenever they shunt it around.

But money in a pension pot doesn't mean your retirement is paid for. What your pot is worth is only what the next generation will allow it to be worth. Your payouts will come from the taxes they pay, and from the profits of the companies they work for. If the burden is too heavy, inflation will take care if it, so in real terms you'll only get what the economy can afford at the time.

Geoff23

omits wrote: »

Hm? What do you think?

I don't think most of those who were rioting in England last week are protesting against the actions of the banks. They didn't smash up banks and McDonalds, but jewelers and electronics shops.

They are disenfranchised, and they took the opportunity to help themselves to whatever they fancied when they believed they could get away with it. This is no different to all those MPs who fiddled their expenses for precisely the same reasons.

I'm not defending them, but I don't think our political classes are in much of a position to condemn them.

omits

Geoff23 wrote: »

I'm not defending them, but I don't think our political classes are in much of a position to condemn them.

Only difference is they make the rules for helping themselves (i.e they don't need to smash windows)!

ChiefGrasscutter

Historically overpopulation (particularly of idle males) has been solved by wars.
The current economic system relies on growth to function.

omits

ChiefGrasscutter wrote: »

Historically overpopulation (particularly of idle males) has been solved by wars.

An example?

Geoff23

omits wrote: »

An example?

The clearest example is the Rwanda/Burundi area of Africa. This is the most productive area in the whole of that continent, and it has historically also been the most prone to overpopulation. This overpopulation has been the primary driving factor in a whole series of "genocides" between Hutu and Tutsi tribal factions. If you were to go and interview the people in that area today, many of them would tell you that what is needed right now is another war to get the numbers down.

http://www.ditext.com/diamond/10.html

Thus, as Andre and Platteau note, "The 1994 events provided a unique opportunity to settle scores, or to reshuffle land properties, even among [326] Hutu villagers. . . . It is not rare, even today, to hear Rwandans argue that a war is necessary to wipe out an excess of population and to bring numbers into line with the available land resources."

In the West we got a version of events that was about ancient tribal disputes being resolved, but what actually happened was a lot more complex. It wasn't just Hutus killing Tutsis and Tutsis killing Hutus. In places where there were only Hutus there were Hutus killing other Hutus (usually the wealthier (land-rich) individuals and vulnerable single old women), Tutsis killing Tutsis, everybody killing Pygmies....

JohnRo

Good discussion, it's certainly a dark place most people don't want to even contemplate. Western lifestyle is a sugar coated crust struggling to support the weigh, a fantasy in many ways, paid for by unseen others suffering and just about managing to maintain itself. Globalisation is just a euphemism for world wide exploitation.