Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by myrmidon 16 days ago
No, it would only imply that the worker/retiree income ratio (and tax/pension burden) are somewhat constant which is arguably the case; german pensions specifically rise with wages and get adjusted for inflation.

Productivity gains on the other hand get easily eaten up by increased consumption/expectations, or are overstated to begin with: producing 5 times more TVs/ipads does not make the plumber cheaper (nor a house), and unaffected professions actually suffer (=> baumol effect).
1 comments
triceratops 16 days ago
> german pensions specifically rise with wages

Is that because higher earners make higher contributions to the pension plan?

link
myrmidon 15 days ago
No, it is because pensions are scaled (yearly) proportionally to wages (simplified, the actual process is more complicated)
link
triceratops 15 days ago
People automatically get a higher pension because they make more money? Without actually paying more into the system? That's an obviously flawed and unfair system, bound to fall over no matter what.
link
myrmidon 15 days ago
Working people collect points each year based on their income relative to the average (this is proportional to how much they pay).

Retirees then get paid based on how many points they have.

Both the worth and the "cost" of those points scales with average income every year.

This basically autocompensates for inflation and rising wage levels, but decreases in population size are problematic.

link