Ah yes, the mental anguish of knowing you'll never retire because you'll either die before retirement age or they'll just keep pushing it up, so that you do.
Oh, this is so incredibly coordinated to what I was doing just a minute ago, which is checking one of my Pension funds and realizing it recovered from a massive hit back in March. I was thinking about how futile the whole thing is... I just know this money will never be mine, and I will work until I die (if I'm lucky enough). Oh well, I guess better get some sleep, back to the office tomorrow...
- People working longer to make the ultra-wealthy slightly wealthier; and
- Younger people getting padi less, again making the ultra-wealthy slightly more wealthy.
The entire policy and government appratus of the US in particular is designed as a massive wealth transfer from the poor and young to the old and wealthy.
There is no reason why the wealthiest countries on earth can't afford to let people who are 60 years old retire. Other than of course the wealthy would have to pay slightly more in taxes.
I can't find it now but I saw an article talking about all the social and policy ideas that unwittingly got tested in the Covid pandemic. The effects of giving money to poor people (it's not the moral hazard it's made out to be), how schools increase the spread of disease and a whole host of others.
At this point I just want the debt incurred by the electoral decisions of the last fifty years paid off. If that means retirement gets pushed back, well, shrugs.
Because due to the current brain dead policies of the GOP in the US, life expectancies in the US are falling.
So instead of storing up Social Security by making the ultra rich pay their fair share, people who do real work to enrich these people will have to work longer. That means they will have a shorter and less healthy retirement.
Now, I am guessing about 40% of people in the US will never be able to retire. I know a couple in that situation right now.
The GOP has been trying to kill of Social Security for almost 50 years, I fully expect they will succeed in 10 years or so.
Interesting claim - let's see if it passes the sniff test.
It's very unlikely that we are actually currently at an ideal retirement age on the margin where a move in either direction hurts. If raising the retirement age hurts young people, then lowering the retirement age probably helps young people.
Does that sound correct to you? Would lowering the retirement age now help young people?
While Israel didn't build the next "Intel", it built the next Cisco (Palo Alto Networks), Symantec (Wiz), Akamai, and it's own "Intel" (Tower Semiconductors), and Israeli VC has absolutely cornered the Enterprise SaaS and cybersecurity industry.
Yet, concentrating on business creation seems to ignore the fact that high value industries like much of tech just don't generate that much employment.
The high-tech sector only represents a little over 11% of overall employment in Israel [0]
Median gross salary is around $2800/mo [1] yet tech salaries are around $10,000/mo [2]
While the tech industry is extremely prominent in Israel, it isn't a major employment generator. Most Israelis don't work in tech and are impacted by extremely high CoL - Israel has some of the highest cost of living among OECD countries [3]
This article posits that additional industrial policy can help rebuild large employment industries. While I am strongly in favor of industrial policy, most high value industries are high value EXPLICITLY because they are heavily automated or have low headcount requirements.
Industrial policy for the sake of generating employment simply doesn't work when high value jobs have significant barriers to entry (no, not everyone can code and not everyone can synthesize biopharmaceuticals).
I'm very skeptical of this. It smacks of burning half your crops so the price of the remainder gets bid up.
We can also examine it by pushing it further. What if the mandatory retirement age was 30? The wages for those under 30 will be higher because of supply and demand, but they'd also have to support all those people over 30 who are not contributing anything to the economy.
In the net, early retirement will lower the standard of living of those still in the workplace.
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[ 208 ms ] story [ 1222 ms ] threadTurns out trying to get people to retire later is a bad idea
- Lower taxes for the ultra-wealthy
- People working longer to make the ultra-wealthy slightly wealthier; and
- Younger people getting padi less, again making the ultra-wealthy slightly more wealthy.
The entire policy and government appratus of the US in particular is designed as a massive wealth transfer from the poor and young to the old and wealthy.
There is no reason why the wealthiest countries on earth can't afford to let people who are 60 years old retire. Other than of course the wealthy would have to pay slightly more in taxes.
I can't find it now but I saw an article talking about all the social and policy ideas that unwittingly got tested in the Covid pandemic. The effects of giving money to poor people (it's not the moral hazard it's made out to be), how schools increase the spread of disease and a whole host of others.
Because due to the current brain dead policies of the GOP in the US, life expectancies in the US are falling.
So instead of storing up Social Security by making the ultra rich pay their fair share, people who do real work to enrich these people will have to work longer. That means they will have a shorter and less healthy retirement.
Now, I am guessing about 40% of people in the US will never be able to retire. I know a couple in that situation right now.
The GOP has been trying to kill of Social Security for almost 50 years, I fully expect they will succeed in 10 years or so.
It's very unlikely that we are actually currently at an ideal retirement age on the margin where a move in either direction hurts. If raising the retirement age hurts young people, then lowering the retirement age probably helps young people.
Does that sound correct to you? Would lowering the retirement age now help young people?
While Israel didn't build the next "Intel", it built the next Cisco (Palo Alto Networks), Symantec (Wiz), Akamai, and it's own "Intel" (Tower Semiconductors), and Israeli VC has absolutely cornered the Enterprise SaaS and cybersecurity industry.
Yet, concentrating on business creation seems to ignore the fact that high value industries like much of tech just don't generate that much employment.
The high-tech sector only represents a little over 11% of overall employment in Israel [0]
Median gross salary is around $2800/mo [1] yet tech salaries are around $10,000/mo [2]
While the tech industry is extremely prominent in Israel, it isn't a major employment generator. Most Israelis don't work in tech and are impacted by extremely high CoL - Israel has some of the highest cost of living among OECD countries [3]
This article posits that additional industrial policy can help rebuild large employment industries. While I am strongly in favor of industrial policy, most high value industries are high value EXPLICITLY because they are heavily automated or have low headcount requirements.
Industrial policy for the sake of generating employment simply doesn't work when high value jobs have significant barriers to entry (no, not everyone can code and not everyone can synthesize biopharmaceuticals).
[0] - https://innovationisrael.org.il/en/press_release/2025-high-t...
[1] - https://www.xn----1hcmgxnk8ede.co.il/%D7%9B%D7%9E%D7%94-%D7%...
[2] - https://www.bizportal.co.il/general/news/article/20017760
[3] - https://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/icp/data
We can also examine it by pushing it further. What if the mandatory retirement age was 30? The wages for those under 30 will be higher because of supply and demand, but they'd also have to support all those people over 30 who are not contributing anything to the economy.
In the net, early retirement will lower the standard of living of those still in the workplace.