You guys will nevah evah stop working!

[Rum]

Also just to say, I spend anything between ten and twenty hours a week doing stuff with and for my elderly parents. The twat.

[Coito ergo sum]

So there is a huge transfer of wealth from young to old?
I have the solution.
Death tax 100 percent.
Use the money to remove tax taken from the poorest, and reducing as you go up the ladder.

So the wealth that's getting concentrated can get unconcentrated again.

100% death tax will just mean that people transfer their assets to trusts, business entities and/or relatives before they die.

Easy way to avoid a death tax on one's bank account -- put one's kid on as an owner of the account. When you die, they own the account free and clear.

Create a trust or an business entity to own one's home and/or other real estate. Deed the property over to the company, which doesn't die.

[Coito ergo sum]

Also just to say, I spend anything between ten and twenty hours a week doing stuff with and for my elderly parents. The twat.

Says you. Maybe you can do more? Maybe you're wasting your time, which would be better spent doing something different. The State will tell you what's best.

...file this under "be careful what you wish for."

Rum goes libertarian!!

[Jason]

I like it better than the Canadian solution. We pay for the pensions of the current retirees and hope there'll be someone around to pay for ours when we get our dentures. It was intentioned, when instituted, that the money you pay into CPP which is involuntary and taken off of every paycheck should collect interest and be invested safely and that same money would be your retirement pension but noooo our fucking politicians emptied the coffers without so much as a by your leave and left the working generation holding the bag. Which is why I'm a bit of a libertarian in that I support the option to provide for my own retirement and not have things like CPP and EI automatically deducted from my pay and don't even get me started on mandatory insurance!

[Gawdzilla Sama]

If you intend to vegetate when you retire you might as well climb into the coffin on the day you quit working.

[Rum]

Also just to say, I spend anything between ten and twenty hours a week doing stuff with and for my elderly parents. The twat.

Says you. Maybe you can do more? Maybe you're wasting your time, which would be better spent doing something different. The State will tell you what's best.

...file this under "be careful what you wish for."

Rum goes libertarian!!

I'm not quite sure how you reach that conclusion, but don't bother explaining - please.

[Coito ergo sum]

LOL - I'm just busting your chops, Rum.

.... if you're not into 'from each according to his ability...' anymore, that's cool.... I thought you were, but now it seems you're making an exception... :-)

[PsychoSerenity]

When I was a kid, I proceeded under the assumption that I could not rely on State employed teachers to teach me, and as an adult I proceed under the assumption that I can't rely on governments to feed, clothe and house me. I know that if I operate under those assumptions and expectations, I will never be disappointed.

Would you not be disappointed that, despite tremendous advances in technology, society is still so corrupt that those advances are not going to help provide care for those that cannot care for themselves? It's all very well for you, if you are able to feed, clothe and house yourself, but what about those less fortunate?

[Coito ergo sum]

When I was a kid, I proceeded under the assumption that I could not rely on State employed teachers to teach me, and as an adult I proceed under the assumption that I can't rely on governments to feed, clothe and house me. I know that if I operate under those assumptions and expectations, I will never be disappointed.

Would you not be disappointed that, despite tremendous advances in technology, society is still so corrupt that those advances are not going to help provide care for those that cannot care for themselves? It's all very well for you, if you are able to feed, clothe and house yourself, but what about those less fortunate?

Red herring, because the government does "help provide care for those that cannot care for themselves." 47 million on food stamp assistance should attest to that. Or, should it be 75 million?

[Audley Strange]

When I was a kid and I'm sure others will attest to this, there was a shame attached to being out of work and accepting handouts from the state. My old Grandfather, who if you remember me talking about, was a communist, was out of work for about 6 weeks in the mid 70's and it ate away at him until he could get back out to work. His generation fought and died for a safety net, but it was never meant to be a fucking bed.

I recall by the time I left school ten years later the career guidance officers were basically teaching the useless people in my school what benefits they were "entitled" to. That always suck in my fucking craw. Especially now, nearly thirty years later when some of those cunts have had free ride for most of their lives and their children's lives. Not only have they fucking ruined a perfectly workable and in my opinion, admirable system.

Still we have parasites from ground floor to the Chairman's office it would not be fair not to point out that the unemployed's cash still circulates in the economy, whereas some corporations are actively removing currency from our economy and given a free pass to do so by a bunch of fucking cowards enamoured by their own part in the fucking spectacle that is politics.

[MrJonno]

I believe the Conservatives in the UK were suggesting a flat inheritance tax to be taken of your assets when you die to pay for your old age which isnt such a bad idea.

The problem we have in the UK is quite specific to here where you have old people who bought their houses for £2000 (while being on a salary of a £1000 and are now worth £300-£500k and are expecting pensions of younger people who will never had a hope in hell of buying their own property.

I don't think even the US has had house price increases in that sort, we have the government basically paying the rent of full time working people, there is something extremely fucked up where bottom level rents (which are generally higher than mortgage payments) are not affordable by people in full time employment

[Audley Strange]

Fuck sake Jonno, change the record. The problem is not housing and has never been housing. The problem is that from the lowest to the highest the cunts in this country ask only what the country can give them. Most old folk who bought their homes worked every day of their lives to pay for those houses, for the schooling and health and railways and telephones and buses and councils and police. They've paid all their lives, not just for themselves, but so their children and their grandchildren could benefit from those things and you want to penalise them because of inflation?

Here's a better idea, how about rather than flogging off the remaining commonly owned parts of the country to businesses and instead offer the dilapidated emptied council slums to young folks for a free 10 year lease encourage them to do the place up and then after it give them the option of a cut-price mortgage on the place, low rent or a healthy donation towards purchasing a new place? This would encourage trade and business and people to actually get up and stop blaming the fucking idiots they keep voting in. The fool that follows is the bigger fool.

Or is that too much like making young people actually do something rather than just expect that they should get what they've never fucking paid for at the expense of those who spent their lives giving them a half decent society, free health and education?

[Blind groper]

I am 15 months from turning 65, and receiving superannuation. In spite of that, my view is that retirement age should be raised by a couple of years immediately, and then by another year for each five years that pass, till super is not paid out till 70 years of age.

Here in NZ, pensions were first paid 100 years ago, to 65 year olds. But average life span then was 70, so the government paid each person 5 years on average. Today average life span is 80, making the pay out for 15 years on average - three times as long. In addition, we are healthier longer, and can work longer. So why not.

Mind you, I will gladly accept the super pay out as long as everyone else is also getting it. Why should I suffer alone?

[Tyrannical]

I like it better than the Canadian solution. We pay for the pensions of the current retirees and hope there'll be someone around to pay for ours when we get our dentures. It was intentioned, when instituted, that the money you pay into CPP which is involuntary and taken off of every paycheck should collect interest and be invested safely and that same money would be your retirement pension but noooo our fucking politicians emptied the coffers without so much as a by your leave and left the working generation holding the bag. Which is why I'm a bit of a libertarian in that I support the option to provide for my own retirement and not have things like CPP and EI automatically deducted from my pay and don't even get me started on mandatory insurance!

Do you know how the US social security surplus is invested? Why in US treasury bonds exclusively and by law of course!
The government "borrows" money from the trust, and then pays interest back to it's self. Which means the poor tax payers kick in all the interest money these safe investments "generates". So without deficit spending, the SS trust fund earns no interest

[Tero]

There is enough to do at the nursing home in 3 shifts. You work 8 hours emptying bedpans and "moving things along". Then you lie in bed watch TV 8 hrs. Then sleep 8 hrs. Every third week you do night shift.

No staff needed!