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darkknightkryta on 12 November 2012
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mrstickball said:
darkknightkryta said:

But then unemployment rate shoots way up.  Suppose for GM, they need 10 people to make a car, 5 people ritire, that's 5 more jobs that openned up.  If you have people working until they die those 5 jobs will never open up and that's 5 more people unemployed.  5 less people unemployed what do they do?  Welfare?  Starve and die?  Like you're right about private pensions (For instance Air Canada had to pay more pensions than the money they were making yearly and causing big losses), but that same problem also affects unemployment.  Which comes back to the government having to step in and pay pensions, but they don't have the money for it which is why they want retirement age raised, but all this does is delay the inevitable and causes more unemployment (Especially with companies downsizing left, right and centre because they screwed themselves over with their greed).  Which comes back to the money not existing for people who are born every day and that money needing to be printed so they can pay for retirement.  Governments don't want to print more money cause it causes the dollar to devalue and inflation to hit.  Which comes back to my statement of governments should be allowed to print a certain amount of money yearly without penalty to redistribute into pensions and jobs.  Or close all tax loopholes and make a far larger tax bracket on rich people who even if half their money was taxed yearly they'd still make a hell of a lot more than everybody, pay 50k a year in their country clubs, and still save.

You're using zero-sum beliefs to explain a situation that isn't zero-sum.

The unemployed people? They can find jobs elsewhere. Its not unheardof for people to re-tool to other jobs. If they have any skills at all, they should be able to be hired elsewhere.

What jobs?  Most jobs are retail that don't pay well.  Most manufacturing jobs have been shipped over seas.

You have no idea about printing money, and your statements show it. Unless money is backed by something - goods and services being produced - then it is simply paper. If you let the print any amount of money beyond what the M1 or M2 level is, then you're simply inflating what is already there - which does absolutely nothing, other than drive up the price of goods and services, rendering the pensioners' funds useless.

Like I said printing money causes inflation due to your said reasons, but this doesn't change the fact that the money needed to pay the people of tomorrow does not exist as it's all in circulation already.

Furthermore, even if you magically waved a wand and made all rich people (say 250k/yr) pay 50% of their incomes, no loopholes, it would barely be enough to pay for what we spend today - much less what it'd be in 5 years. That doesn't include increases in government costs in so many other areas.

You're telling me that 125k a year isn't enough for anybody?  The livable wage up here in Canada is around 45k per person... that leaves 80k a year for people to save, spend, pay mortgages, buy Corvettes, etc.  This also gives the government 125k more to play with vs 50k they would be getting (assuming a 20% tax rate).

This is why many of us argue against the welfare state - it's not sustainable. When the lifespan of people is increasing, while government pensioner retirement ages are static, it continues to drain what little is in the system. Because of that, we've gone from 10 people supporting every 1 retiree to about 4.5 supporting 1 retiree, with that number dropping yearly.

This is true, but you have to pay pensions because you have to have people retire to free up jobs, which comes back to the need for more money to pay people.  Birthrates are increasing quite drastically there aren't enough jobs nor enough money for these people.

Furthermore, companies aren't downsizing because of greed. Where do you get that idea from? Do you even own or run a business? If it were greed, why would any company hire at all?

No I'm not a business man, but unemployment rate wouldn't be so high if business were hiring now would it?  Oh wait that's right most business aren't hiring and are slashing jobs or shipping them over seas.  Why would they ship jobs over seas?  To make more money by paying less in labour.  If that's not greed then I don't know what is.