Germany is weighing sweeping pension changes, including raising the retirement age to 70. Meanwhile, football fans are celebrating after the men's national side qualified for the World Cup knockout stage.
While I believe, that even a 4 day week and earlier retirement is possible, that was not the premise in our discussion. The premise was, that one could reduce work time. And if you can do a 4 day week, you could also do a 5-day week and retire earlier. After all, the output produced during your lifetime would be the same. So, if one is possible, the other is as well.
I think you are confusing work output with working time.
If we look only at what you produced during your working life then you are right, we can probably retire earlier having already produced our share of “something”.
The problem is that what we put aside is not proportional to the output (rightly) but to the time we work so if we retire earlier we miss some time during which we built our retirement fund (whatever it is) while expecting to live longer at the same time.
And while this can work in small numbers, it not work if you extend to the whole society.
The society has means to supply them at a basic level of sussistence, no more
Even more. Do you think Amazon would run out of flatscreens in our hypothetical scenario? I doubt it. Probably not everybody could receive a 70 ft Yacht, but the vast majority could not afford that nowadays or if they worked, idk, three years longer ¯(ツ)/¯. We could easily sustain the hypouhetical retirees life standard, ez.
No, but who pay for them ?
Tax the rich ? Right. Let’s make an example: if we consider to tax the rich for 10.000.000.000 euros/year this means that every retired in Italy (about 23.000.000) get about 435 euro/year.
Even if the number of retirees whose pensions need to be supplemented were halved we just get a little less of 1000 euro/year. Too less to have any significance.
I think you should find the money some other ways.
That was the main contributing factor, though. It is easier, when the country is in ruins and everybody is piss poor. But after the recent years we approach the latter once again. But with what the redistribution helps: money is spend fast. That is important for the economy to flourish and everybody profiting from it.
I don’t see how we are approaching a similar scenario, if nothing else because we are not a pile of rubble again (hopefully).
Then production is expanded, workers are paid more. As a government you have to make the money flow around.
Except production is no more here, so you cannot pay the worker more as there are no (well, less) workers.
Easiest way to achieve that? Be Robin Hood and give to the poor. They will spend the money.
For the first or second year, then the rich would have nothing more or, more probable, moved their money out of your reach and you will be left with nothing.
if we retire earlier we miss some time during which we built our retirement fund
What? If the worker gets a fair share of the productivity gains, they have higher salaries. They can put more in their retirement fund and could work less.
See that graph:
Productivity gains vs. salaries. That is what was stolen since the mid-seventies. Salaries, on average, should be double as high. You could basically set aside one month of living per month (and earn interest on it). Where did the monetary gains go instead? Into assets of the wealthy, they just did not vanish under mysterious circumstances.
People just underestimate how hard they got robbed, if they even consider that they were robbed, that is.
Tax the rich ? Right. Let’s make an example
Let’s make a better example. Why only 10 billion per year? Like, the private assets of German citizens are estimated around 5-6 trillion Euro. If we estimate like 6% interest (long-term gains on the financial market, evan higher the last few years, but granted, it’s hot), that is 320 billion capital gains alone, per year. Take a meager 10% and you have 32 billion already, or you could go harder, why not? After all people still earn money.
Take as an example the Quandt family: they “earn” 500 million cash(!) on BMW dividends alone, but pay less than 1% tax on those earnings. Why do I pay like 32% on average on my income from work, while they almost pay nothing for doing nothing?
Tax inheritance accordingly. People can inherit like 100 million and never have to think about anything in their life. Why should they inherit billions?
100 billion estimated losses through tax evasion estimated in Germany, each year.
If we do all that, and still cannot afford less work for everybody, OK, I am convinced then. But not before the rich get taxed properly.
how we are approaching a similar scenario
I don’t know, have you looked around? Public infrastructure crumbles, people cannot afford basic necessities anymore. Funnily enough prime “Wirtschaftswunder” was in the sixeties, the rubble already gone.
Except production is no more here
Investments by the state are usually very locally sourced, as the state pays workers here, or invests in infrastructure. You buy flatscreens in China, allright, but you build streets, railways, bridges and public pools right here.
For the first or second year, then the rich would have nothing more or, more probable, moved their money out of your reach
It’s not like there’s nothing you could do against that. Tax duties come with citizenship, like the U.S. does. Tax when people shift their assets away. A lot of assets cannot be shifted anyway. Look at the Schwartz or Abrecht families. Their assets are like thousands of supermarkets. Can they just pack them up and move them elsewhere? I doubt it.
I think you are confusing work output with working time. If we look only at what you produced during your working life then you are right, we can probably retire earlier having already produced our share of “something”.
The problem is that what we put aside is not proportional to the output (rightly) but to the time we work so if we retire earlier we miss some time during which we built our retirement fund (whatever it is) while expecting to live longer at the same time.
And while this can work in small numbers, it not work if you extend to the whole society.
No, but who pay for them ?
Tax the rich ? Right. Let’s make an example: if we consider to tax the rich for 10.000.000.000 euros/year this means that every retired in Italy (about 23.000.000) get about 435 euro/year.
Even if the number of retirees whose pensions need to be supplemented were halved we just get a little less of 1000 euro/year. Too less to have any significance.
I think you should find the money some other ways.
I don’t see how we are approaching a similar scenario, if nothing else because we are not a pile of rubble again (hopefully).
Except production is no more here, so you cannot pay the worker more as there are no (well, less) workers.
For the first or second year, then the rich would have nothing more or, more probable, moved their money out of your reach and you will be left with nothing.
What? If the worker gets a fair share of the productivity gains, they have higher salaries. They can put more in their retirement fund and could work less.
See that graph:
Productivity gains vs. salaries. That is what was stolen since the mid-seventies. Salaries, on average, should be double as high. You could basically set aside one month of living per month (and earn interest on it). Where did the monetary gains go instead? Into assets of the wealthy, they just did not vanish under mysterious circumstances.
People just underestimate how hard they got robbed, if they even consider that they were robbed, that is.
Let’s make a better example. Why only 10 billion per year? Like, the private assets of German citizens are estimated around 5-6 trillion Euro. If we estimate like 6% interest (long-term gains on the financial market, evan higher the last few years, but granted, it’s hot), that is 320 billion capital gains alone, per year. Take a meager 10% and you have 32 billion already, or you could go harder, why not? After all people still earn money.
Take as an example the Quandt family: they “earn” 500 million cash(!) on BMW dividends alone, but pay less than 1% tax on those earnings. Why do I pay like 32% on average on my income from work, while they almost pay nothing for doing nothing?
Tax inheritance accordingly. People can inherit like 100 million and never have to think about anything in their life. Why should they inherit billions?
100 billion estimated losses through tax evasion estimated in Germany, each year.
If we do all that, and still cannot afford less work for everybody, OK, I am convinced then. But not before the rich get taxed properly.
I don’t know, have you looked around? Public infrastructure crumbles, people cannot afford basic necessities anymore. Funnily enough prime “Wirtschaftswunder” was in the sixeties, the rubble already gone.
Investments by the state are usually very locally sourced, as the state pays workers here, or invests in infrastructure. You buy flatscreens in China, allright, but you build streets, railways, bridges and public pools right here.
It’s not like there’s nothing you could do against that. Tax duties come with citizenship, like the U.S. does. Tax when people shift their assets away. A lot of assets cannot be shifted anyway. Look at the Schwartz or Abrecht families. Their assets are like thousands of supermarkets. Can they just pack them up and move them elsewhere? I doubt it.