I find it kind of funny how this two year increase is causing such a raucous while in the United States, the retirement age stands at 65 in most industries and politicians are pushing for increasing that age as well. I need to do more research on the bills that propose an increase in age, but until then, I'll just laugh about how little action the angry people of the United States are taking as their retirement age is increasing and their Social Security benefits are decreasing.
I'll post my questions on Social Security tax and FICA sometime soon.
Do you think that Americans are being too compliant with the retirement age that is set? Or do you think that because Labor Unions are almost extinct in the States, that it isn't worth the strikes and trouble?
Photo and information sourced by the Wall Street Journal
Tuesday, October 19, 2010- Vol. CCLVI NO. 93
as well as google images
- Kate
Having lived in France (albeit 30 years ago), I am familiar with that country's history of and with entitlements. While you don't see the same sort of intense reaction in the USA to the issue of retirement age, we, too, have our attachment to entitlements (e.g., social security, medicare, and medicaid) that are lightning rod issues whenever changes to them come up. Ultimately, it's a mathematical issue. Entitlements have to be lessened, limited, restricted or modified in some way or the borrowing and debt they cause the government to incur will result in what happened in Greece.
ReplyDeleteIts very true, the entitlement that any country feels towards Government aid or programs will guide their reaction towards the alteration of such. I am curious about where that entitlement is born though. Is is the Government offering aid to its people that sets the benchmark for what we expect? Or is it what the people innately expect that is a precursor for the Government aid or policy? I feel that we need to find the source of the issue before we can begin to limit its entitlements.
ReplyDeleteI believe that people come to expect what is given to them. If you look at regions of the country or the world where government aid has been historically high for a period of time, then not only do the expectations of those people expect and require the same aid to continue, but the actions of those beneficiaries show that their willingness and ability to work for what they earn themselves has gone down proportionately to the amount of aid they have become accustomed to. Compare the demands, response and personal initiatives of the victims of Katrina in New Orleans with flooded residents of the neighboring southern states, and also the Nashville residents recently flooded. Their attitudes and actions are vastly different.
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