[ExoticPearTree]

> This is not what happens. European public pension systems are mostly based on a solidarity system in which current wage earners pay for the pensions of current pensioners.

It is a big Ponzi scheme, and now that fewer people are joining the workforce, governments borrow money to pay pensions. And a duscretiinary power to decide how much a retired worker gets. Nothing scremas solidarity more than a bureaucrat deciding that from next month your grandma is only entitled to this much pension because there’s less money for it.

The American way is actually the mote fairer system. Could be even more fair if you did mot have to pay tax on your pension gains from stocks inventments and whatnot.

[yo_ean]

How would European pensioners in 1950 be paid their pension with the American system? Note all savings they had went to zero in the decades before.

[ExoticPearTree]

They should have gone back to work.

It would have sucked, but they wouldn’t have been a burden on the current generation back then who did not start the war or went through the great depression.

[tfourb]

Depends on your definition of "fair" and if you value that fairness more than social solidarity. I personally do not think it is "fair" that your basic human dignity in retirement statistically depends to a large extend on the wealth and social status of the parents that you were born to. I would actually argue (and many EU constitutions are based around this principle) that no matter your personal or your parents' contribution to the economy or society, you should be guaranteed a certain level of dignity, care and security.

The classical "Old World" social system is based around solidarity. Solidarity of the young with the old, of the healthy with the sick, of the fortunate with the unlucky. It has produced much better results for a far greater share of society and with much less inherent risk than the "everyone for their own" system of ultimate individual responsibility that the US has largely favored. Where it has failed it was largely due to the "neoliberal turn" of the 1990s and 2000s.

It's clearly due for an overhaul, but there are good options to do so. Europe's societies are waelthier, both in absolute term, as well as on average per capital, than they've ever been. What's missing is largely the political will to commit to the principle of solidarity over the resistance of monied interests that would benefit from a stronger turn to individualism. And I challenge you to look at the results of the mostly private health and pensions systems in the US on a factual and comparative basis and claim that they produce inherently better results.

"Nothing scremas solidarity more than a bureaucrat deciding that from next month your grandma is only entitled to this much pension because there’s less money for it."

Again, this is not how it works. I.e. in Germany there are actual laws governing the setting of pensions. And while these laws can be changed by parliament (though not by "bureaucrats"), they are rooted in constitutional principles that set guardrails for any reform.