[alexey-salmin]

> Then perhaps it should be said openly, that this is an elderly tax, not a pension and it should be just kept to the minimum, allowing people to save more of their own income for their own private pension.

This doesn't fundamentally change the equation. Whether you save pension points or cash or ETFs it's just a coupon for your share of the economy of the future. It's a promise that the future generation will share some of their income with you.

[nasmorn]

Exactly. Saving is not a thing for an economy. The future economy needs to actually create all those goods and services for which you saved up. If the future economy doesn’t have enough labor because of demographics then some major price adjustments need to happen in favor of the future workers.

[anonporridge]

All money is imaginary until it becomes realized as food in your belly.

[mike_hearn]

It's fundamentally different in any society with strong private property rights. A private pension is a set of investments, i.e. something that ultimately is owned by you. How much those investments pay off, if at all, is unknown, but if they do pay off then it's yours.

A state pension would be illegal for anyone except the state to run, because it'd be classed as a Ponzi scheme. Those are recognized as being unstable, hence why you're not allowed to run one. There is no investment into owned assets that pay out, just the appearance of it.