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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: October 23rd, 2023

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  • The high dependency ratio is going to continue to be a problem for quite a while. The time to solve the aging population problem was decades ago when their could have been policy to create budget surpluses, so that the boomer generation paid for its own care. But that didn’t happen and we can’t go back in time to fix it. All solutions now suck because that opportunity has been lost: you can screw the boomers by leaving them to die covered in bedsores and filth, or you can screw the younger generations by making them pay for care, or some combination.



  • I don’t think this will affect people’s desire to have children at all (Denmark’s strong social security system has a much stronger, and positive, effect on that).

    I am of child-having age and my decision is based around what my life would be like for the next 18 or so years, not would it would be like at retirement. If I were to think about that, possibly having someone around to help me out and let me retire earlier would probably be a very tiny nudge in favour of having children.


  • And you’re saying this about that bastion of right-wing economic policy… Denmark? Tax-to-GDP ratio in the mid 40s, second highest amongst OECD countries?

    No-one here has said that increasing the pension age is the only solution. Indeed, on its own, it probably doesn’t solve the problem. But it’s one part of a plan. Other parts include addressing the other side of the equation - young people, so encouraging immigration and increasing birth rates (but Danish net immigration is already about 1% of its population per year which isn’t low, high levels of immigration are unpopular, and increasing birth rates is difficult and makes the problem worse for at least 18 years). Tax policy is another aspect of it, but you have to realise that having an older population doesn’t mean that working population is willing or able to bear higher tax rates (even if you try to target them at the rich) That is to say, if you have a high average tax rate already, as you do in Denmark, increasing it further to pay for an aging population is likely to start having adverse effects, and it doesn’t matter why you’re increasing taxation.