We’ve reached a point where my retirement plan involves suicide. It’s cheaper and I don’t want to go through all the health issues my parents are. Go to any nursing home and look at all the people so drugged up they have no idea where they are. People are just miserable and don’t even comprehend what is happening. That’s not living. That’s being kept alive by your family cause they are selfish.
this post was submitted on 24 Jun 2025
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I am a teacher and I could not imagine staying in a classroom for another 7 years. I barely made it to 63. My retirement begins next week. I just hope 50k a year is enough. That was my goal and when I it it I said I am done.
Congrats on retirement! What are you planning on doing with your newfound freedom?
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And then come the robots and AI, and there are no jobs anymore. Then they have a problem with too much unemployment.
This is my main issue with it too. I can retire at 72 or later.. in more than 40 years. I'd expect to be replaced long before this, so what's the point?
Not to mention the consumer base that makes this all function collapses.
Whoever owns the most effective killbots at year 0 inherits the earth. Everyone else gets murdered or starves to death.
Part of it makes sense. We live longer and longer, retirement age is something that needs to be adjusted with the human lifespan.
The problem is that our idea of what "work" should be is so awful that people look forward to retiring, and logically complain if they are denied the opportunity.
You’ve seen a lot of oldies that are in working order after 60+? 70+? They are exceptions, not the norm. Longer isn’t healthier. Not on a functional level. Especially for those not in an office which is I think the majority.
If our Quality of life is increasing shouldn't we be working less and for shorter periods of our lives?
We live longer and longer, retirement age is something that needs to be adjusted with the human lifespan.
Should it? We live longer and longer, but we're also more and more productive. 50 years ago, for example, the national labor force produced enough for them and (almost) everyone else to retire after about 40 years of labor. Certainly lifespans have increased, but have they increased more than the productivity of the national labor force? I doubt it. Productivity has definitely increased enough to make up the difference in lifespans, especially since most women now work, meaning essentially double the number of workers. In that case, should we not spend the extra time (which we have earned with our own labor) with our families and friends rather than sacrifice it to some rich prick whose only contribution to society is a portfolio? There's something distinctly dystopian about the idea that living longer means we should dedicate our time to enriching the already filthy rich rather than enjoy life.
... in Denmark? I mean, they're the happiest population on Earth in general.
I'm just across the channel in southern Sweden and there's no way I'm going to retire already in 17 years (67, which I think is the current retirement age for us)
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"Raising and enforcing taxes on the rich" or "destroying the middle class, work them to death and make them cheer about it.". That's definitely a choice many countries are making right now.
and make them cheer about it
even in this very thread...
All of them, it seems like. Not all at the same speed, but still.
Simple. They want more people to die before being able to claim retirement. Dead pensioners are free.
why are so many people ok with raising the retirement age? it's literally of zero benefit to anyone who isn't insanely wealthy enough to just quit working whenever they want. if they ever worked in the first place
Because it's what the insanely wealthy want and that's the only thing that counts
It's of benefit to society to reduce the dependency ratio (the ratio of non-working to working people)
If the number of people the government needs to support with state pensions rises, but the working age population doesn't rise nearly as much, government finances become more and more pinched
reduce the dependency ratio
i can't help but think this "problem" could be solved in ways other than forcing people to work until they're 70. like for instance TAX THE FUCKING RICH
i know propaganda is a powerful weapon, but you should be extremely skeptical of the people saying "the problem can't be solved any other way..." and what their motivation might be (spoiler: keep themselves rich at the expense of everyone else. including, apparently, the elderly who have already spent their life working)
Far from perfect, and with rising inequality, but Denmark has generally been relatively decent when it comes to taxing the rich and high-income individuals.
As born in the 90s I'm expected to retire at the earliest by 72. I don't understand this at all though - I'm expecting a reduced need for labourers as many things become increasingly automatised anyway, so it's an entirely wrong focus in the first place.
And you're saying this about that bastion of right-wing economic policy... Denmark? Tax-to-GDP ratio in the mid 40s, second highest amongst OECD countries?
No-one here has said that increasing the pension age is the only solution. Indeed, on its own, it probably doesn't solve the problem. But it's one part of a plan. Other parts include addressing the other side of the equation - young people, so encouraging immigration and increasing birth rates (but Danish net immigration is already about 1% of its population per year which isn't low, high levels of immigration are unpopular, and increasing birth rates is difficult and makes the problem worse for at least 18 years). Tax policy is another aspect of it, but you have to realise that having an older population doesn't mean that working population is willing or able to bear higher tax rates (even if you try to target them at the rich) That is to say, if you have a high average tax rate already, as you do in Denmark, increasing it further to pay for an aging population is likely to start having adverse effects, and it doesn't matter why you're increasing taxation.
i don't know what to tell you then, other than people might not be more excited to have kids knowing that they'll be working until they're 70. unless their plan is to move the entire family out of the country. which also makes the problem worse
I don't think this will affect people's desire to have children at all (Denmark's strong social security system has a much stronger, and positive, effect on that).
I am of child-having age and my decision is based around what my life would be like for the next 18 or so years, not would it would be like at retirement. If I were to think about that, possibly having someone around to help me out and let me retire earlier would probably be a very tiny nudge in favour of having children.
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Most people can't work at that age, and no one will hire you like after 55 anyways. So stupid and evil.
How are you gonna stop "the rich" from simply taking all of their digitally stored wealth and leaving the country that taxes them?
Not disagreeing with you necessarily, i'm just curious. With borders being more for show than anything and the ability to purchase a passport from countries with low or no income tax, how do you propose to stop them?
This is where the nationalists win against the globalists in all types of debate. They atleast have a strategy, even if it leads to other humanitarian problems. You have to start giving more of a shit about your own community, either by becoming rich and giving it back to the community or let the rich leave and deal with the aftermath of it.
How are you gonna stop "the rich" from simply taking all of their digitally stored wealth and leaving the country that taxes them?
Their wealth is digitally stored, but their business isn't. A car dealership or a Walmart are physical things that they can't take with them unless they close up shop entirely and miss out on the revenue, and those are taxed too.
Why haven't they already?
I hate this argument.
If they're not paying their fair share of taxes then leaving is beneficial. It's like saying "yeah but if you ask the thieves to pay for their stolen goods they might leave the store"
What if they're paying their share/most of their share of taxes now, but a change pushes them into not doing so? These things ar enot all-or-nothing.
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They never leave, that's propaganda from the rich class (Massachusetts passed a millionaires tax and I saw in person this to be a bunch of bologna). They obviously live there for reasons other than taxes.
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it's not an easy thing to solve, and a large part of it comes down to not having a country where greedy selfish assholes make all the rules and hoodwink the populace into supporting policy that completely the opposite of in their own best interest
i don't know about other countries, but investing more in the "common good" has basically become a pejorative where i live, where people who benefit the most from publicly funded resources whine the loudest about "socialism"
it may be too late. there may be no solution, other than the late 1700s french sort
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It means more tax take and less superannuation spending. Depends on the country's superannuation system, of course.
That means more money available for all the things taxes are used for, many of which are very very necessary.
How can you justify cuts to the healthcare system because you claim to not have enough money, but then pay pensioners some thousand dollars a fortnight, regardless of what assets or other income they have?
Seems like they oughta tax the rich higher, not make the poorer work till they collapse
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Because poor pensioners dying would look bad politically.
Stems from low birth rate and an insanely large boomer group.
The regulation is such an insane patchwork, sometimes people can retire earlier than the normal retirement age, if they've been working for many years. And if you health is bad there are special programs for that. (Yes as in multiple!)
But clearly as you state, the system is made to benefit the rich more an more. The social democrats who are part of the government are no longer looking after the average Joe, but making things worse, and then they make special programs for propaganda purposes.
A lot of people have been convinced this is necessary, as life expectancy increases, disregarding increased automation and wealth in our society.
if you health is bad there are special programs for that.
Hate that, work until you're 70 and too old to enjoy retirement. Or work until you're so sick you can't and then you don't get to enjoy retirement.
A system designed to ensure you work until your labor has no value. Squeezing for everything you're worth
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