nomad4ever

Are those governments gone crazy? Instead of cutting their overhead and lowering government and state influences on economy, tax systems and benefit/welfare systems; they pass the buck – to the normal/everyday people who have to get the ‘cart out of the dirt’.

I wonder how long people are still letting things happen like that. Probably forever. It’s like the lamb on its way to the butcher. Get out there, fast! We are a global world these days. Everyone is talking about globalization, it’s time you discover the benefits of globalization for you!

Coming from a former communist country (East Germany), I can’t understand why Germany is drifting back more and more into Communist Concepts these days. The community has to take care for everybody??? Hey guys, wake up! This was tried and tested over at least 40 years in the DDR, in Russia, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia (at that time), Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania. Only Cuba and China are missing. It didn’t work out that way!

Even China got the message. Only Cuba is still working on it.

So what is wrong with the intellectuals and ‘think tanks’ in Germany and Great Britain? You can’t force a people into Socialism/Communism. All are the same? All earn the same, all get the same when retiring?

Cut this ‘all-the-same’ BS! Do more for competition! Lower taxes, allow competition in private pension systems and retirement funds, stop subsidizing dying industries and governmental health and social insurances. Cut the red tape, teach self sustainability and stand your ground in globalization.

But what am I ranting here! Nobody is listening anyway.

Just for the record, that’s whats going on here (my comments in ITALIC); AFP is reporting the following:

Faced with a ticking demographic timebomb, the German government approved raising the retirement age to 67, when it also unveiled a drive to get more over-50s back to work.

BERLIN – Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet agreed at an evening meeting to push the retirement age up by two years, with it rising progressively between 2012 and 2029. The proposal will now have to pass through parliament, where the coalition government holds a comfortable majority.
The measure is a major part of the government’s program in a country with the biggest economy in Europe but one of the continent’s lowest birthrates.

Why does Germany has the lowest birthrate in Europe? Because it costs a fortune to raise a child. Estimates go from Euro 250.000 to Euro 400.000 to raise just one child up to the age of 18. Most children these days are so dependent, they leave ‘mama’s house’ only after finishing their studies, in their late 20s, some even early 30s. Isn’t that schizophren?

Labour Minister Franz Muentefering said Germany also needed to encourage more older workers back into the workplace. “By 2009, we want to raise the raise the percentage of working people aged over 50 from 45 percent to 50 percent,” he said. “We must give these people a real chance in the labour market.”

Arglglglglglll! You have to be kidding me! I just get pimples, when reading this. Giving 50 year olds real chances in the labour market? Against a 20-year-old, money- and status-hungry Chinese or Indian? Give us a break here!

About half of companies in Germany have no employees over the age of 50.

Under the newly launched “50 plus” initiative, employers will be offered incentives to take on older workers, while people who accept a job which is lower paid than their previous position can receive subsidies to top up their salary.

The birthrate in Germany is just 1.36 babies per woman and the population is ageing rapidly. Within 30 years, Germany will have just two workers to every pensioner, which would cause the pensions system in its current form to collapse.

Germany is not alone among European nations in struggling to grasp the thorny issue of how to pay for the rising cost of populations which are living longer and not being replaced by younger generations.

The British government on Wednesday published legislation which proposes raising the retirement age to 68. However the move to make people work longer in Germany has been attacked by unions as an indirect way of reducing pension payouts.

The powerful service industry trade union ver.di claims that for the long-term unemployed, raising the retirement age will just prolong the misery.

While over at DW/Deutsche Welle the discussion is a bit different. They talk about ‘systems out of balance’ and ‘Ignoring realities’.

Throwing the system out of balance

The method, however, has come under the criticism of Müntefering. Shedding older workers well before retirement age is one reason why Germany’s statutory pensions system has been thrown out of balance, the minister says.

The other one is that people become much older thus enjoying their pensions for much longer than in the past. According to Müntefering, the German pay-as-you-go pension system is bound to collapse if the current situation goes on like this. “Primary school arithmetic is enough to understand why we have to act,” he said. “Those who deny this ignore the realities of the present day.”

Ignoring realities?

But Müntefering himself stands accused of ignoring realities. Critics, even from within his own Social Democrats, say it’s impossible to keep hard-working roof layers, miners or factory workers toiling until 67. Kurt Beck, SPD premier in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate and up for re-election this year, demands the government allows exceptions to the rule.

“The realities of life must be taken account of by allowing people who have worked 45 years to be able to continue to retire in the future at 65 years of age,” he said. “In addition we should find ways of subsidizing pensions for people in physically demanding jobs who are unable to work until 67.” So far, however, the government is resisting calls for exceptions for specific professions.

Am I reading right – new subsidies as the solution? It’s almost sad to see, that politicians aren’t still down enough the road of subsidies. They are planning to fix the problems of today with their mistakes of yesterday. What will be tomorrow? Nobody seems to care. Sometimes it’s hard to judge from getting just 2nd hand information, when living abroad. You read newspapers, watch some global TV and even start to believe, that everything might be on the right track again.

They were even talking about a ‘Recovery of the German Economy’. Don’t believe it! It’s all lies, lies lies!

Everyone is talking about a revival of european stocks. My conclusion to this dangerous development is, that I will sell all my remaining stocks at the next highs, which we obviously will see soon, due to this discusssions. If politicians and even employers celebrate the methods of yesterday to solve the rising problems of today and tomorrow instead of pressing for real economic and pension system reforms, tax reductions or improvement of business conditions – there is something seriously wrong.

Obviously the time isn’t right for change yet, the painful limits of a downfall aren’t reached yet. It surely can’t be far!

Technorati : britain, capitalism, communism, economy, europe, funny, germany, globalization, reality, retirement, retirement age

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written by Chris