this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2024
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A Boring Dystopia

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These 100-year-olds say working beyond retirement age is what keeps them going: 'I'll work for as long as I can' (www.cnbc.com)
submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (5 children)

The concept of retirement for working class people is new (aristocrats retired all throughout time)

  • invented in Germany by a priest in 1600s but died out
  • independently invented in America when a soldier in the military (late 1700s) had both his arms blown off and a law was passed for him to collect an amount for his (and family's) maintenance from the neighbors.

Before invention of retirement, the working class had the mentality that you work until you are dead with 99% of the working class in brown collar work. During the industrial revolution where most people transitioned from brown collar to blue collar work, retirement became much more common with social mobility.

During the great depression, USA legislators picked a number "65" to be the "age of retirement" with the reasoning that it would get more young people back to work. The average age of mortality at that time was ~67 years old. They did not index that age with the average age of mortality, so as life expectancy increased, there is now a period in people's life to be "retired".

Problems with how this developed:

  • social security in the USA is not able to keep paying out at this rate, the age of retirement should be more closely aligned with an "indexed" age whether that is the current average age of mental incompetence or an actuarially determined "you did your time, so you can now get out and your contributions should fund the government support of you". The political cycle will probably destroy any hard to understand actuarial index, so that leaves us with the first option.
  • retired people are a political force (high voter turnout). It is easy to vote to get a raise and ignore issues that would bring actual long term growth when you have a short term mentality. I think that accepting 100% of the cost of your maintenance from the government may be the price of your vote (you cannot vote if you are retired). I am sure that this is another unpopular opinion.

With that perspective, I don't know if corporations are entitled here, or the people are just doing what their ancestors did for 1,000s of years and are owning it in a positive way.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

This is neoliberal lies.

  1. Live expectancy for people nearing retirement age has not increased much since the 1930s. The main reason life expectancy has gone up is due to childhood mortality going down.
  2. Life expectancy for blue collar workers has gone up even less, in recent years it is declining. To the extent that people live longer in retirement it's almost all white collar and wealthier people. Most people I know who work with their bodies are completely exhausted by the time they get to 62.
  3. Social security is completely financially sound. It is the most sound retirement plan there is because it is not tied to the wall street casino.
  4. Any projected shortfalls can be eliminated by raising the FICA contribution limit and taxing the wealthy a little more.
[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Well, I didn't post my sources and you didn't post sources. I think I am right but I don't want to spend the time looking it up when I am straight up told that I'm lying. I'll address your four points off the top of my head though.

  1. life expectancy has changed drastically for different populations and subcultures in the usa. Tweakers have a much lower life expectancy. White collar work has a much higher life expectancy. Blue collar... I bet you are right that it is about the same. I read that the current average is 74 (so 10 years longer than when retirement became codified into law) However shortly after the industrial revolution was the information revolution, so most of the gdp of the usa and other western countries is produced by these long lived white collar workers.
  2. yup I agree. Blue collar life expectancy is about the same as when retirement was first codified into law
  3. money turns to worthless over time unless it is invested and earning interest. A government is in the business of "Accountability to taxpayers on a election Cycle period". Therefore, the government is highly incentivised to kill the golden goose and spend the money and claim that they invested it wisely into roads and stuff. If I recall correctly, that is exactly what happened to the social security program, and we are now paying out as fast as it comes in. Regarding "not tied to the Wallstreet casino" as what makes an investment more financially sound, I don't follow the logic. There is some well established ways to make money on wall street:

buy and hold a low cost index of funds that diversified risk away from a single company. Have a mix of equity vs fixed income based on how soon you intend to start needing to rely on fixed income. Put your money in this exact index fund and don't worry about market ups and downs.

If you follow that investing instruction, you beat the social security administration every time in the last 30 years if you paid in the whole time you worked for 45 years.

  1. Taxing the wealthy is hard. There is a general rule of thumb in politics which is "those who have power don't let it go easily", and if those with power caused a politician to be favored, it is generally due to the bet that the politician will pay it back with a favor later. As far as I know, when you tax the wealthy, the wealthy are able to organize some governmental upsets/coops. The American revolution was headed by the "wealthy" of the American colonies. As far as I know, wealth also exits easily if a governmental administration is a hostile/unstable environment. All these things come together to make taxing wealthy people hard. In practice, the wealthy generally have a "high marginal tax rate" (tax rate on paper) but after all the loopholes from politician friends there is a "low effective tax rate" (tax rate actually paid).

Talking about raising the contribution limit is a moot point as government will be "accountable in this election cycle" by spending immediately based on my argument above.

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Did I say anything factually False? I hope to see any nuances that I missed.

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