Not so much an urban legend. Bellingham WA has had a couple bank robberies by an older guy who had no reason otherwise to rob banks
1 Like
The limits of the âschemeâ become apparent rather more quickly when you have a strong distaste for immigration and arenât the worldâs chummiest locale for mothers in the workplace.
Doesnât mean that they are the only place potentially ending up eating soylent grey; but they are doing so much more quickly and dramatically than much of the developed world.
3 Likes
And if what you paid isnât enough to cover a pension because there were
only menial jobs available during your working life? You just starve?
BTW, if youâre going to troll, learn how the quote tags work in Discourse.
Wrong question.
Why should you accept less from the state socialist pension than you get
from capitalist pension?
ie. Itâs a comparison. Which ever gives the most money (wealth) or income,
they are connected, is the system you should choose.
So how to tell?
For the state based PAYG system, you total up the value of the pension,
plus a fair share of the stateâs pension debts.
The difficult part is the debt part because its hidden.
For a capitalist system, its a little more difficult, because you have to
do a what if calculation. Namely, what could
you have got from your contributions if they had been invested. You need to
do that for Mr Min Wage, for the reasons you
have outlined, Mr Median Wage, Mr Average wage, and people who earn more.
So you need historical wages - there are wage indices. You need the
percentage paid for social security for the wage. You need a historical
stock index. S and P in the US, FTSE all share in the UK. You need the
dividend returns on the indices. 3.25% for the UK. Then you do the maths.
Contribute. Make or lose on the index, receive some dividends. Next year,
change the contribution in line with the wage index. Repeat. At retirement
you have a fund.
Then you compare the fund with the value of the state pension plus debt.
For the UK, for Mr Median, thatâs over 800K, compared to minus 360K for the
state offering. Minus because the stateâs pension debts are so large.
Underlying this is the assumption that the state can pay its pension debts.
It canât and its already defaulting [partially] repeatedly. So the value of
the pension is lower.
Do that for Mr Min wage, and he would have had 400K. He would still have
been far better off. He would get a pension of just under Min Wage. Mr
Median would get a pension of just under Median Wage.
So let me turn it round because its relevant for the starvation aspect.
How much does your government owe for past pension contributions? Present
value
Whatâs the rate of increase?
If you canât find the numbers, can you explain why?
Add to that the total collapse of âlifetime employmentâ which 2 generations Post-War Japanese took for granted. Until the mid 90âs it was a given that the âkeiratsusâ (megaconglomerations) would pay enough that single incomes could support a family, that companies would provide adequate pensions for retired workers, and that once employed they were expected never to change workplaces unless they did something anti-social.
3 Likes
Economic Migration can help, but there are conditions to migration.
- Has to be a win for the migrant.
- Has to be a win for the country to which they are migrating.
[Moral issue, does it have to be a win for the migrantâs original country? e.g Taking a doctor out of the third world]
The decision for 1 is the migrants choice. For economic [as opposed to refugees] migrants, its their choice.
For 2 there are some conditions.
-
No crime. If the migrant commits crime its not a win for the destination country. Thatâs also why Trump is wrong. He tars the group with the sins of the few in a completely racist way.
-
Pay more tax than they receive in state services. If they donât then they get a subsidy from others, and other people are made poorer.
-
Integration. Now in the US I would posit that almost all migrants want to become American and they buy into the American dream. In Europe that isnât the case for lots. For lots it is the case.
In addition to those tests, I would add some conditions.
- Gender is irrelevant
- Religion is irrelevant
- Sexual orientation is irrelevant
- Colour (or color) is irrelevant. Black white or Green.
- Original country - irrelevant.
Apply those tests and migration is good and goes some way to help the pension mess, if the state doesnât redistribute the migrants contributions. They after all will want their pension .
The key to working out if the state is good when it comes to pensions is to get that number. How much does any state owe and whatâs it rate of increase.
But you will have a huge problem finding out that answer. For the UK there is an estimate.
Bottom of page 3 and page 4.
Itâs now more than total UK wealth. Even between 2005 and 2010 the annual rate of increase exceeded current annual taxation.
The same will be true in the USA.
The point of a ponzi scheme is that one guy convinces a whole bunch of other people to invest in his/her magic product/service/bank, and when the coffers for this are filled, the person running the scheme closes the company and runs off with the invested capital.
For the state, they just force people to pay in, and hide the amount owed.
Whatâs more alarming when you read this thread is the number of victims who still think the fraudster is there to help them.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b074vtc2 was on the BBC today. All about the psychology of fraud
Iâm sorry but learn to use the quote and /quote tags (wrapped in square brackets). Iâm not going to spend 10 minutes parsing what are your words versus someone elseâs if you donât bother.
You know if you highlight some text in someoneâs message and click âreply,â it will do it for you? If you have a reply already open and highlight some text in a message, you get a quote button as well⌠it isnât hard.
6 Likes
Mod note: stay on topic
1 Like
I am not sure the situation is as stated. The Japanese economy is highly automated ,there are fewer and fewer working class jobs along with the growing competition from other nations and the natural disasters that it suffered I doubt if opening its doors to thousands of immigrants along with having to support and teach new immigrants a very difficult language would help create more funds for pensioners
Folks, you canât trust @doctorow to even report the weather in Japan without distortions & exaggerations.
As for ârampant xenophobiaâ thatâs a bald faced lie. Even in my wifeâs backwater home town I hear almost as many languages spoken as in NYC. My team at work (Japanese company) has people from 12 countries.
Whether one thinks of Abe as a populist depends on how much you want to distort the facts.
As for the headline thatâs just more exaggerating
3 Likes
I think I disagree with you but I canât really be sure, the formatting of your posts is completely unintelligibleâŚ
3 Likes
There are poor elderly in Japan with little in the way of a safety net, this is true. There was and is still an ongoing assumption that oneâs offspring will take care of them in old-age and itâs the people that donât have that social support structure (i.e. no kids or estranged from them) that fall victim. However, there is a whole lot of wealth concentrated in elderly hands. These are the people that benefited from lifetime employment and the bubble economy. They also get lots of pork because they are the base of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.
As for employment and immigration, Japan is currently stuck in an interesting paradox. There arenât enough people looking to fill the jobs that are available. At the same time, thereâs a lot of labor thatâs stuck in unproductive jobs. If you look at the statistics, you can see the inefficiency at work: (Japan has the third largest economy by GDP and fourth by GDP (PPP), but it is 21st by GDP (PPP) per hour worked. Industry continues to profit, and so is disinterested in making any sort of real reforms, instead just pushing for liberalization of the labor market in ways that benefit them solely, like increasing the number of contract and temporary workers and moving jobs overseas using stuff like low productivity and high labor costs as their reasoning. Opening up immigration is politically untenable, largely due to xenophobic attitudes and a sense that Japan is already too crowded, but even if it could happen it would be a very bumpy road just for how difficult it would be to integrate new workers into an already creaky labor system. As an accidental immigrant to Japan myself, I do support more open immigration, but radical labor reform needs to take place as well.
(Left out: how maddeningly difficult it is for women to both have children and remain in the workforce, absurd management culture, deeper dive into the increasing gap between âregularâ and âirregularâ employees)
5 Likes
Pension systems and retirement funds fail with such astonishing regularity that Iâm starting to wonder if mattresses arenât a better option.
How much have you paid into your 401K? Do some real homework. Itâs not enough. At least Japan has an actual out that theyâre refusing to take.
I recommend using the greater than for manual quotes, e.g.
Do you think Iâm sexy?
> Do you think I'm sexy?
Assuming one was quoting Rod Stewart. If one was wont to do such things. As always I strongly recommend checking out Markdown Reference itâs a great quick reference. Share the link as needed anywhere on the Internet!
5 Likes
And yet here we are on Boing BoingâŚ
1 Like
To answer my own question: Yes, they are. The photo appears to be from the Abashiri Prison Museum, a Meiji-era prison/labor camp that is now a museum of prison life in that era.
2 Likes
Look, somebodyâs got to keep the List Of People Who Are Disappointed With Boing Boing fat and happy.
1 Like
Can a list be happy?
Legit question.
So, under the capitalist system older, at-risk retirees are guaranteed more than they invested? Is that how capital works? In your world?
2 Likes
Doesnât work on (Firefox) mobile (except for manual greater-thans).
