Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by ivan_gammel 676 days ago
Well, we just got one million of Ukrainian refugees, half of which is not going to return home according to dome polls, but you are right, the demographics cannot be fixed by immigration alone. I myself currently work on a corporate healthcare project with the goal to reduce sick leaves and reduce health-related early retirements. The parental benefits in Germany are quite generous, but it all breaks into the growing cost of living wall. Everyone understands what’s going on and the urgency, but real solutions are yet to be found.
1 comments

> but real solutions are yet to be found

"Real solutions" exist, but voters won't want to hear them, so we kick the can down the road until the system collapses by itself naturally.

They are non-solutions if they cannot pass voter approval. But what are you talking about exactly?
>They are non-solutions if they cannot pass voter approval.

Then why don't voters just vote themselves higher salaries and better pension plans and higher retirement ages? D'uh! Who cares about economics when you have votes? Worked well for Greece.

>But what are you talking about exactly?

Reducing public welfare according to realistic economic capacity and sustainability of the national budget, and encourage citizens to rely more on private systems and personal responsibility. See Switzerland.

So, non-solutions, as I said. You refer to a state that is 10 times smaller, has the same demographic problems and over 40% of population with immigration background as a model for Germany, why? Do you seriously believe it can scale to German size? What has it to do with the budget?
I proposed the Swiss system as the solution and welfare reductions according to the budget and you're calling it non-solutions. Why are you being dismissive in Bad faith without any arguments?

The German welfare state will slowly collapse by itself on the long term anyway at this rate since the expenses are growing faster than the income and the only way to save it is to reduce it. Why isn't that a solution? Are you saying math is wrong and can be altered by votes?

> Why isn't that a solution? Are you saying aritmetic is wrong?

I’m saying that you just proposed random idea that has nothing to do with solving the workforce crisis. Reducing welfare state will not increase birth rate, if anything it will decrease it. Lower taxes will not lead to bigger families, with scarce housing the additional income will be simply redistributed to landlords thus increasing inequality. You propose to treat symptoms, but this treatment will only accelerate death.

You're aware that the Swiss railway is nationalized? Since 1901...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Federal_Railways

What does that have to do with the welfare state I was talking about?
You are spreading misinfo about what happened in Greece.