[alexw]

scottbeard, on 15 March 2012 - 01:12 PM, said:

Exactly. People compare the new pensions world to the previous generation's unsustainable position, and cry foul.

For a better perspective, people should go back a little further and look at some more pensions history.

For example, when the state pension was first introduced, it was payable from age 70 and means-tested.

Rubbish.

Productivity is increasing exponentially.

We have 25%+ of our current potential workforce either unemployed, in make-work education, in low hour part-time work, long term fake-sick, or doing make-work non-jobs. And with all of that the population generally still have decent quality life-styles.

So what the heck do we need more people working longer for?

The problem is one of a disconnect between our monetary and economic systems, nothing else. Going on the basis true economic production and productivity we should be decreasing retirement ages.

This post has been edited by alexw: 15 March 2012 - 03:50 PM

[scottbeard]

alexw, on 15 March 2012 - 03:49 PM, said:

Rubbish.

Productivity is increasing exponentially.

We have 25%+ of our current potential workforce either unemployed, in make-work education, in low hour part-time work, long term fake-sick, or doing make-work non-jobs. And with all of that the population generally still have decent quality life-styles.

So what the heck do we need more people working longer for?

Productivity HAS INCREASED exponentially; it won't necessarily continue to.

And life expectancy is increasing.

Also, from a lot of the posts on this site, i'm not sure everyone agrees that "the population generally still have decent quality life-styles"

[SarahBell]

alexw, on 15 March 2012 - 03:49 PM, said:

So what the heck do we need more people working longer for?

We probably need less people.

[winkie]

SarahBell, on 15 March 2012 - 07:06 PM, said:

We probably need less people.

The choices are very clear and straightforward, less people over working and more people under working or not working, or more people working less and sharing more.

[alexw]

scottbeard, on 15 March 2012 - 04:48 PM, said:

Productivity HAS INCREASED exponentially; it won't necessarily continue to.

And life expectancy is increasing.

Also, from a lot of the posts on this site, i'm not sure everyone agrees that "the population generally still have decent quality life-styles"

Productivity has increased much much faster than life expectancy has increased. Ergo it is entirely feasible from an economic production perspective, to slowly lower the retirement age while still having an increasing quality of life arising from growing economic production.

Yes, our lives are harder but people are not starving on the streets. Now imagine if we had merely a third of our economically inactive/unproductive being economically productive. We'd have very comfortable lifestyles, while still having a significant proportion of our inactive/unproductive population in reserve. That could easily be used to keep our retirement ages constant and lower the average working week.

The BS about needing to increase the retirement age is the powers that be trying to get us to run ever faster on our hamster wheel so as to prevent the wheel falling off.

This post has been edited by alexw: 15 March 2012 - 07:32 PM

[alexw]

SarahBell, on 15 March 2012 - 07:06 PM, said:

We probably need less people.

But if you decrease the number of people you decrease the number who need to be economically provided for. Thus you end up back at square one.

[scottbeard]

alexw, on 15 March 2012 - 07:26 PM, said:

Productivity has increased much much faster than life expectancy has increased. Ergo it is entirely feasible from an economic production perspective, to slowly lower the retirement age while still having an increasing quality of life arising from growing economic production.

Yes, our lives are harder but people are not starving on the streets. Now imagine if we had merely a third of our economically inactive/unproductive being economically productive. We'd have very comfortable lifestyles, while still having a significant proportion of our inactive/unproductive population in reserve. That could easily be used to keep our retirement ages constant and lower the average working week.

Actually I guess you're probably right - in theory.

I think in practice, when productivity has increased people have consumed more now, rather than saving more for an earlier retirement.

E.g. if the price of a TV comes down from £400 to £200, instead of people going "great! £200 more for my pension fund" they've said "great! now i can have an ipod too".

[alexw]

scottbeard, on 15 March 2012 - 07:31 PM, said:

Actually I guess you're probably right - in theory.

I think in practice, when productivity has increased people have consumed more now, rather than saving more for an earlier retirement.

E.g. if the price of a TV comes down from £400 to £200, instead of people going "great! £200 more for my pension fund" they've said "great! now i can have an ipod too".

Your not understanding how it works. When people 'save' for retirement they don't take some of their prior production and bury it squirrel like. There is no giant warehouses holding the stuff they produced during their working lives to use up later. You simply alter who is consuming what is produced.

If the general public all tried to save to consume it later in retirement all it would do would be to shrink the economy. Your thinking from a monetary perspective and not a economic production one. When productivity increases either the total level of consumption has to increase or the average number of hours worked per person has to decrease. You can also have some mix of the two. These are the only choices. I'm advocating the last one. (Of course we can be Mr stupid and decrease the average number of hours worked per person way faster than productivity increases, and this is what we have spent the past 5 years doing to the detriment of us all).

[SarahBell]

alexw, on 15 March 2012 - 07:29 PM, said:

But if you decrease the number of people you decrease the number who need to be economically provided for. Thus you end up back at square one.

The ratio was of 40 workers per pensioner when pensions started out.

It's now about 4:1

As people have said you can't expect a pension to support you for years. It wasn't meant for that. It isn't going to make any sort of financial sense to try and achieve that.

[alexw]

SarahBell, on 15 March 2012 - 07:47 PM, said:

The ratio was of 40 workers per pensioner when pensions started out.

It's now about 4:1

As people have said you can't expect a pension to support you for years. It wasn't meant for that. It isn't going to make any sort of financial sense to try and achieve that.

Thats a 10 fold increase in pensioner numbers, productivity over that time has increased many many times faster than that.

Its easily possible for 4 workers to support 1 pensioner.

Like everyone else your thinking from a monetary perspective, not an economic production one.

Our psychotic monetary system requires continual increases in growth and thus in economic output, otherwise the system collapses. This is why we are trying to increase the pension age, not because its needed.

This post has been edited by alexw: 15 March 2012 - 08:38 PM

[bmf]

winkie, on 15 March 2012 - 07:18 PM, said:

The choices are very clear and straightforward, less people over working and more people under working or not working, or more people working less and sharing more.

As productivity increases the complexity associated with this also increases.

I work as a programmer. We have a hard time getting good ones. There are not enough because it's very complicated. Supply is inelastic.

[bmf]

alexw, on 15 March 2012 - 08:35 PM, said:

Thats a 10 fold increase in pensioner numbers, productivity over that time has increased many many times faster than that.

Its easily possible for 4 workers to support 1 pensioner.

Like everyone else your thinking from a monetary perspective, not an economic production one.

Our psychotic monetary system requires continual increases in growth and thus in economic output, otherwise the system collapses. This is why we are trying to increase the pension age, not because its needed.

House price lending as a multiple of wages totally insulates house prices from productivity. On the builder side it matters not a jot if they can put up a better house at a quarter of the cost in half the time. On the buyer side it matters not if you are twenty times more productive than your 1960 counterpart (I exaggerate for effect!). You will still have to save 4 (or even more now) man years of labour.

House prices should be lower as a multiple of wages, say two times, were productivity gains realised. As it is prices are based on ability to pay as demand exceeds supply creating an auction.


edit: it pisses me off that on this site people are so short-sighted. They simply want prices to return to whatever they can afford, say four times income, rather than discussing the much bigger picture they are happy to play along with a serfdom that leaves them with one over a fellow serf.

This post has been edited by bmf: 15 March 2012 - 09:11 PM

[winkie]

bmf, on 15 March 2012 - 08:57 PM, said:

As productivity increases the complexity associated with this also increases.

I work as a programmer. We have a hard time getting good ones. There are not enough because it's very complicated. Supply is inelastic.

There would be plenty supply if 1. our education system was teaching the skills in low supply, the skills of tomorrow not yesterday. 2. the right people that could do the job were encouraged to work in the up and coming new industries instead of wanting to become lawyers, bankers and politicians.....the money supply needs to be spread around more evenly.

This post has been edited by winkie: 15 March 2012 - 09:10 PM

[bmf]

winkie, on 15 March 2012 - 09:10 PM, said:

There would be plenty supply if 1. our education system was teaching the skills in low supply, the skills of tomorrow not yesterday. 2. the right people that could do the job were encouraged to work in the up and coming new industries instead of wanting to become lawyers, bankers and politicians.....the money supply needs to be spread around more evenly.

I'd agree with that in part, in that better education would alleviate the situation.

However I think there are a finite number of smart people and as complexity increases (which it is) more pressure is put on less and less people. This makes everyone unhappy as money is thrown at those who are qualified in a pact to earn a fortune but have no life, whilst those that can't do it are consigned to shit jobs we haven't automated yet.

[winkie]

bmf, on 15 March 2012 - 09:13 PM, said:

I'd agree with that in part, in that better education would alleviate the situation.

However I think there are a finite number of smart people and as complexity increases (which it is) more pressure is put on less and less people. This makes everyone unhappy as money is thrown at those who are qualified in a pact to earn a fortune but have no life, whilst those that can't do it are consigned to shit jobs we haven't automated yet.

No, you would be surprised how many really smart people there are out there....they have just not been allowed to reach their ultimate potential for various reasons...spot talent early and put the investment in and you will have something very worthwhile come out at the end......our teachers can spot talent, they just haven't the means or the ability to do anything about it, so it is left to fester and die in many instances so that potential is lost to all of us, worse still it can sometimes travel down the wrong negative destructive path.