OK, an idea occured to me just this morning as I was waiting for the tram. There were too many old people around. Yes, that might sound a little too harsh, but it really got me thinking about how our society works and what can we really expect from the future. More than one half of all the people at that tram stop were seniors, quite obviously not productive and working anymore. Now, we spend on average 45 years working and 35 years leeching on the society in one way or another during the course of our lives. The first twenty are quite fair, in my opinion – your parents feed you, clothe you and take care of you directly, thus being able to see what happens with their money and all in all being quite content with it. Most importantly, though, those years have a reason – you're being trained how to function properly in the society you're going to live in. Not much anyone can do about that, to be honest. Perhaps make school a bit more intense or something, but that's about it. The last 15 years of your life, however, say 65-80 years of age, you don't really have an excuse for yourself, do you? While your skills might remain the same, the amount of work you'd be able to accomplish diminishes rapidly and its quality deteriorates at a saddening speed and there's no real future for you either – not exactly a promising outlook. So, if you have no expecancy – unlike the 0-20y.o.'s – you should be either doing something in the present or live from what you did during your life. Here I seem to be reaching a conclusion of some sort. We should either abolish taxes that fund pensions and leave people work/save up for themselves. Or we should make pensions scale directly with the salaries the person had during his/her life, as to accomodate some mechanic of fairness – who did more and better work during his life should be better rewarded in his old age. This, of course, would require salaries to be just indicators of the real VALUE of the particular job, which, frankly, is far from the case. Then again this would require someone to judge the importance of individual jobs and that is dangerously close to playing God. Seems like my reasoning reached a dead-end here J
Guess my point is, that I dislike the idea of paying high taxes just so that a bunch of old chaps and chappettes can goof around on a shitty pension (seriously, 6,5k CZK or how much it is, that's a spit in the face) for a couple years. I think we should probably abolish the taxes and let people save up money for themselves. Yes, Honziq and other lefties will spout sulphur about how everyone should have the same pension, but that's nonsence. If you sucked during your productive age, you're likely to suck in your fall of life and there's no reason why the society should give you the same amount of money as to someone who did better.
This argument is very flawed, but I have a lecture right now and need to end it. Might finish later.
See you guys around.
Adam
> Yes, Honziq and other lefties will spout sulphur about how everyone should have the same pension
ReplyDeleteLo and behold; it's actually a conservative who swoops in to poke holes in your argument.
> OK, an idea occured to me just this morning as I was waiting for the tram. There were too many old people around.
Not surprising, seeing as everyone else was already at work. Also I think pension was being given out today.
> The first twenty are quite fair, in my opinion – your parents feed you, clothe you and take care of you directly, thus being able to see what happens with their money and all in all being quite content with it.
Bam, assymetry. What you see as a one-sided deal sort of thing is actually a contract. They clothe you, feed you and raise you, and in exchange you will support them when they retire. See: 'vejminek'.
> I think we should probably abolish the taxes and let people save up money for themselves.
The funny part is, we're already doing that. OK, so not directly, but if you're not paying retirement insurance, you won't be eligible for any sort of higher rates. You'll get some bare minimum, the equivalent of social allowances, but that's it.
> If you sucked during your productive age, you're likely to suck in your fall of life and there's no reason why the society should give you the same amount of money as to someone who did better.
See above. If you spent your whole life sitting on your hands and leeching off other people (and, presumably, not paying retirement insurance, or anything else for that matter), you'll get fuckall when you grow old.
Unless you had some disability that prevented you from being productive, but that's hardly your fault.
> Not surprising, seeing as everyone else was already at work. Also I think pension was being given out today.
ReplyDeleteWhile I can't comment on the dates of pension outgiving, here I was thinking old people are early birds due to insomnia and would be rather seen during the earlier hours. And even if the ratio would be swayed in favour of pensioners by the fact that adults were already at work, their sheer numbers were too high.
> Bam, assymetry. What you see as a one-sided deal sort of thing is actually a contract. They clothe you, feed you and raise you, and in exchange you will support them when they retire. See: 'vejminek'.
I'm cool with this idea! You have nothing to complain about if your vejminek sucks other than having raised your kids as selfish ungrateful bastards.
Thing is, this is not how it works in modern day. Were we not required to pay taxes funding nation-wide pensions, this old model would work. We are required to do so, however, hence we have little money and incentive left to pay our own parents.
Also, this idea of vejminek and children-funded pensions would lead towards the African style baby-boom with people ensuring rich retirement by spawning numbers of children.
Then again, it would not hurt our aging population.
> See above. If you spent your whole life sitting on your hands and leeching off other people (and, presumably, not paying retirement insurance, or anything else for that matter), you'll get fuckall when you grow old.
You do all right, but you get it. You get the minimum, whereas you should get nothing for being a git and a leech. Problem is that paying retirement insurance is entirely voluntary and most young people don't do it. Abolishing the government funded minimum would force the society to grow aware of their old age AND would give it more money to fool around with. Also, I dare say, having that extra 5000,- a month during your productive life would enable you to invest and in turn would give you even more than 5000,- a month during your retirement. Eh, was what I just said understandable?
Adam
> You do all right, but you get it. You get the minimum, whereas you should get nothing for being a git and a leech.
ReplyDeleteSo we should just cut them off entirely, is that what you're saying? I guess that's fair, seeing as we're already doing that with the chronically unemployed.
Oh. Wait.
> Problem is that paying retirement insurance is entirely voluntary and most young people don't do it. Abolishing the government funded minimum would force the society to grow aware of their old age AND would give it more money to fool around with.
I guess it is voluntary, if you're willing to accept that you'll barely make the ends meet once you retire.
> Also, I dare say, having that extra 5000,- a month during your productive life would enable you to invest and in turn would give you even more than 5000,- a month during your retirement.
What? The rates aren't this high.
> We are required to do so, however, hence we have little money and incentive left to pay our own parents.
Except, you know, common decency.
You might be interested in the proposed pension reform. If it passes, what you pay in retirement insurance will go into your personal 'retirement fund' of sorts and you'll get it all back and then some (since the state invested it in the meantime). There's also the idea that a portion of your own social insurance will go into the retirement fund of your parents (as a reward for their having given more able bodies to the society) which is being considered as well.
What you're saying about the pension reform sounds very nice to me. I like it.
ReplyDelete> Except, you know, common decency.
Perhaps a misformulation on my part, for which I apologize. What I had in mind was that once you pay the pension funding taxes you'll have significantly less money and you will have paid the society what it should give to your parents. Now, giving them some money extra is, perhaps, common decency, but it's extra. Look, I'm not saying one should just pay the taxes and care not about how his parents live. Far from that. I'm just saying that leaving the matter wholely at the children's hands might be a better idea than this indirect way. Of course, there would be some cases of utter inconsideracy, but provided the children were properly brought up, they should happily give their parents their pension AND feel better about it than when they just pay taxes to a generic old people.
> What? The rates aren't this high.
I wouldn't know, I just though: the pension is around 6,5k iirc, some of it goes from the income tax, so let's say you have to pay 5k. Might be less, even 3k, whatever. But my point is that if I had it now, I could do things like save up and buy a flat or something, hence greatly increasing my total revenue.
> So we should just cut them off entirely, is that what you're saying? I guess that's fair, seeing as we're already doing that with the chronically unemployed.
Oh. Wait.
Why wait? Yes, if the person CAN work and doesn't, why should we pay him anything??
If someone did fuckall during his life, why should he start getting some money once he hits 65? As a reward for surviving this long?
> ...they should happily give their parents their pension AND feel better about it than when they just pay taxes to a generic old people.
ReplyDeleteThe whooshing sound you might've heard just now was my point soaring way over your head.
You don't pay the insurance for a generic people, you pay it for yourself. You buy a license that'll earn you higher pension when you grow too old to work anymore.
> I wouldn't know, I just though: the pension is around 6,5k iirc, some of it goes from the income tax, so let's say you have to pay 5k. Might be less, even 3k, whatever. But my point is that if I had it now, I could do things like save up and buy a flat or something, hence greatly increasing my total revenue.
But you're not paying the full pension rate, you're just paying... I don't have the exact rate at hand, but I think it's something like 1.5% of your income at the very least, and higher payments will earn you higher pension.
And from what I've been able to gather, the pension is actually calculated from your average income, but I haven't been able to found a definite reliable source on that. (Which, I should add, is something you ought to be doing, not me.)
> Why wait? Yes, if the person CAN work and doesn't, why should we pay him anything??
Read some Ayn Rand, man. I think it'll be right up your alley.
> Lo and behold; it's actually a conservative who swoops in to poke holes in your argument.
ReplyDeleteI hate you guys. Whenever liberal returns from celebrating his civil rights he always found some conservative already ruining all the fun. Shame on you!
> I wouldn't know, I just though: the pension is around 6,5k iirc, some of it goes from the income tax, so let's say you have to pay 5k. Might be less, even 3k, whatever. But my point is that if I had it now, I could do things like save up and buy a flat or something, hence greatly increasing my total revenue.
But you are not paying the full rate. I hate being jerk but you should better look onto the taxation, or I will get Soulek on your ass!
> There were too many old people around.
Gerontophobia anyone? Also, consider how many pensioners have car.
> You do all right, but you get it. You get the minimum, whereas you should get nothing for being a git and a leech.
Kill all the people in a coma! They are only parasites!!! Arrgh! Internets!
> Why wait? Yes, if the person CAN work and doesn't, why should we pay him anything??
If someone did fuckall during his life, why should he start getting some money once he hits 65? As a reward for surviving this long?
Hello, unemployment benefits!
> Read some Ayn Rand, man. I think it'll be right up your alley.
Ow, man, that was mean. But than again I can see a disturbing pattern here.
Oh, one more thing.
ReplyDelete> Or we should make pensions scale directly with the salaries the person had during his/her life
They already do.
> They already do.
ReplyDeleteShh. Don't tell him. I want at least some fun for me.