Posted on 01/24/2007 8:05:08 AM PST by billbears
"Kinder haben die Leute immer — People will always have children," assured Konrad Adenauer, the German Chancellor, in 1957. He was convinced that the future of the brave new pay-as-you-go social security system would not be undermined by demographic changes.
Adenauer was as wrong as ever. Social security schemes around the developed world are facing a major crisis due to greater longevity, declining retirement ages and — lo and behold — below-replacement fertility rates.
What the good statesman did not realize is how the new system would affect the incentives of individuals to work, to save, and to have children. Labor force participation rates among older workers have declined dramatically since the 1960s throughout the Western world. The rules of social security benefits in most countries mean that working just does not pay off. In this way, pay-as-you-go social security schemes contribute to their own bankruptcy.
(Excerpt) Read more at mises.org ...
Nope, it's not in the story. It's correct there. Surely things are not so bad in this country that one would be expected to be an English teacher to tell a simple plural from a possessive - but you're telling me they have. :-[
Yet another reason I'm glad we're saving so much for our own retirement, and not counting on the next generation for much!
I seriously didn't put it in there on purpose. Unless it was a keystroke error or someone 'fixed' it after the fact. My mother was an English teacher and I would get smacked upside the head for making such a simple mistake ;)
I was looking at the "Security's". I totally read over the "Kid's"
Assuming I start at age 62 (which makes sense to get every $$ you can as soon as you can) that will be my 7th year of collecting SS.
My guess is that Hillary will pass a plan that kills off a dollar of SS for every dollar of pension or 401k you collect each year.
That way it will help "the poor"
Try telling that to over 50% of the voters, though ...
should be renamed so-so security....
Problem is when kids used to take care of aging parents, the parents didn't live until they were 80 or 90 years old. How can "children" who are 60 to 70 years old be expected to take care of 80-90 year old parents? Some elderly need round the clock care for both physical and or mental needs.
And if the 60-70 year old "children" aren't able to physically take care of the needs of their even older parents, they have to be placed in a nursing home which costs tens of thousands a month.
We have an elderly relative (not a parent) who had a stroke and is in a life care facility. She does not have any children. There's no way my husband and/or I could handle her daily needs. We're just not strong enough.
What's the solution? I really don't know. It's wonderful that nutrition and medical science have expanded longevity, but there area whole new problems which have presented themselves.
I do believe in the sacredness of life, no matter what it's quality.
Well said. I've been trying to say this for years.
Social Security and Medicare were allegedly intended to help the elderly be materially better off.
But these programs have actually caused many folks a different kind of impoverishment...estrangement from their families.
Fewer adult children are willing to care for their elderly parents, at home, than were generations past.
Thus we are seeing increasing numbers of horribly lonely and neglected elderly people, warehoused in nursing homes.
Exactly. My grandmother lived to be 99, and lived for the last several years of her life with my parents. My mother credited the return of her long-beaten cancer with the stress of that caretaking. As she said to me one evening, "Your grandmother thinks the kids should be able to take care of everything, but the kids are 75 years old!"
My mother only outlived my grandmother by a few years.
The state melts normal family connections.
I fear for our children's future.
I don't believe this. Governments all over the world discouraged large families years ago and encouraged parents to have a mere two children. It was not the people, the people were only doing what their propaganda wanted them to do--like all good sheeple.
Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. The Preisdnet's plan to allow a portion of your SS tax was a small step in the right direction, so of course the Administration backed off it as quickly as they could.
You cna file a documet called a Title 5 Administrative Rescission. Apparently, it is supposed to take you out of the Social Security system.
BTW, the card you get says emphatically that the number is not to be used for identification. How many times a day is that broken?
However, I intuitively dispute the notion: "Why have children when the state will take care of you in your old age?". I did not take my geriatric care into consideration while siring my children and I don't believe that many people do.
I do believe that many people take current finances into account when considering children i.e. the cost of children vs saving for retirement, buying a bigger house, the cost quitting a second job etc. I think that because of human nature, prosperity and entertainment is becoming more and more inversely proportional to fecundity.
It's sick but people actually prefer Letterman on a 48" Plasma to great, nonhormonally, nonprophylactically encumbered sex and the precious and delightful babies that sometimes result.
Why not? From a monetary standpoint that's the logical thing to do. I don't have children yet but probably will someday. However the number of children I have will be based in a large part on the possible return investment of what they can do for me in my old age as well as taking into account the breakup of my property after I'm dead. Having too many can be a financial detriment found in the cost of raising them as well as too much infighting over what I leave behind.
I don't care how much they cost me or how much I can give them or especially how much they can give me. They are a gift from God and I trust Him to provide.
"Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention to arrive safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming: Wow!! What a ride!" -Unknown
That being said I see no tie between children and love of country. I would have children for love of my wife (if her desire or not to have them would play the biggest role in the decision). And I do recognize God's recognition of the joy of having children. But not for misplaced dedication to the State
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