[akgerber]

Social insurance in Germany has been around since the 1880s. Social Security has been around since 1935, or nearly 80 years.

Social insurance may change in the future, but so long as the elderly still have a vote, they will vote very heavily in favor of maintaining a social insurance program.

And if the elderly don't have a vote, the socioeconomic system will have changed so much that merely having "saved" won't fix anything. Likewise, if the dollar has experienced hyperinflation and benefits are worthless, any private savings will be as well.

[giftedbygod]

Social insurance in Germany was Bismarck's invention. Everybody paid. One in ten lived long enough to collect any benefits. Now you will have 30% of the society to cover living cost of the other 70%. They can vote for financial pyramids in their beloved democracy as much as they want. Guess what, the ponzie schemes will still not work.

[philwelch]

Unless you're going to send elderly people back to work, if 70% of the population is elderly then the other 30% is still going to have to work to support them--that or let them starve. It doesn't really matter how you do the accounting.