For two decades, politicians have stared this beast in the face and kicked the can down the road. Now the crisis is upon them and there are no solutions in sight.
This isn't unique to Germany since it's a feature of countries that experienced the baby booner population bubble. The situation in France with its lower retirement age is arguably worse.
The widespread notion in Europe that it was necessary to import a new population to support the ageing original one was to have been a panacea which in practice has led to yet more lips pressed to the shrivelled national teat with all the attendant diversity joy.
Yes of course, France is somewhat ahead of us on the timeline, also their fiscal situation is worse. This may make our politicians feel better but in absolute terms it doesn't make the crisis any less bad.
I suspect it will take something rather more substantial than Macron for hapless Starmer and hopeless Merz to feel better about their own impending political doom. I certainly hope that's the case!
I don't think Merz or Starmer feel very bad when they have to go. The know they are just filling the seat (and their pockets) for a few years, but don't have any intetnion or vision to make any changes.
Their brief is: kick the can down the road.
Probably they hope that in the next few years we will have a very efficient surveilance state, unlimited money printing of the digital euro, and some form of UBI.
This will keep most citizen very silent.
This way the state may survive for many more decades, and maybe they can even keep their leading roles.
They all dream of somehow getting their hands on all those Russian natural resources which with a fragmented State they can plunder to support their dying economies. The reason for the never ending war and attempts at rearming.
Of course it's never going to happen so a sad decline into almost fuedal prison states is the only future.
How is that to happen? Seriously, just keep printing money and everything is going to be Ok. Fiat money (actually credit since there is always a counter-party risk) is sinking rapidly. Central banks are diversifying to gold (and some silver) and away from fiat currencies including the US$, EU, British Pound. EU will not survive the coming collapse no matter how many fresh fiat currencies their conger out of thin air. Wake up and smell the coffee.....the reign of fiat is rapidly approaching and it is going to be horrific.
> import a new population to support the ageing original one ...
To me a cover story only. The large majority of uncontrolled immigrants are fighting age young islamic males who will never integrate, let alone pay taxes; to draw Europe into disorder and chaos as soon as possible, suppressing Europe largely Christian historic roots, and yes France is certainly clearly ahead of Germany in this respect also with the north African former colonies background.
As always it's not plain black and white but definitely a clear pattern.
Implemented by Merkel, a WEF/NWO minion.
Former immigration waves into Germany (Italians, Turks,.) were different. Many families coming to Germany and virtually no knife-wielding religious lunatics making Germany an increasingly dangerous place to live
The Mexican illegal immigrants in California come here for free health care ,free food ,free education and free housing . A few work with phony social security cards so that helps a little but it is dwarfed by their consumption of public assistance.
The only test needed to assess potential immigrants is the state of the nation their people built. Mexico, Brazil and Guatemala speak for themselves. As does Switzerland or Sweden. We are being destroyed by this nonsense. It baffles me anyone accepts it.
Many people believe all humans share the same values. They will attribute these nations' backwards and chaotic state to lack of money, whereas the truth is that their lack of money is due to their current backwards, chaotic state.
Well JD Vance and Tucker Carlson don’t accept it . Of course , in the eyes of the progressives both are ..you guessed it ..Nazi’s .
Tucker is funny in that before he says anything he prefaces it with “ they’ll call me a racist Nazi …but ..” I think those words are losing their sting here now . We’ll see .
I often listen to French radio and it's deeply disturbing to hear so many French people who believe that there is a bottomless pit of money out there to pay for their never-ending demands. I loathe Macron but he was on the right track when he tried to get the French to work till at least 64 to pay for all their cradle to grave goodies. However, even that modest effort has been struck down. The spoilt, pampered people of the West have no idea what is coming their way.
It’s a problem in the USA as well . However , corporations were able to navigate the demographic shift and are mostly fully funded . The public pensions could give a schitt and kept boosting their pensions . Chicago pensions are only 20% funded yet just increased payout 6% . How can they do that ? They don’t care . We are the “ bailout Nation “ . Since 2008 we just print money to solve any problem ..38 Trillion in debt now
Yup, the recklessness states (all of them with very few exception) are expanding government spending is breathtaking, Biden/Harris was particularly bad but the US BBB isn't much different, DOGE only making tiny dent in the curve. So it's clearly intentional destruction of fiat currencies, no other interpretation possible. To provoke the big crash no doubt where assets can be picked up for pennies to the $ by the Rothschild & Co. string-pullers in best family tradition. Add in a little war here and there to heat things up, remove a few million humans from the planet and to facilitate rearranging the spoils.
Really, if the great floods come again, we've deserved it.
No one ever talks about the easiest and most likely solution to the western world's pension problem - don't pay. This is what people who owe money they can't pay back have been doing for thousands of years. And by not paying, I mean, give them 80 cents on the dollar, depending on how bad the problem is. Of course the pensioners won't like it, but something like a debt crises will sharpen the focus and the hard decision will be made. This is what the city of Detroit did in bankruptcy recently and they virtually wiped out their pension debt, while still paying, albeit reduced, pensions.
I think this is the west, not just Germany. And it is not solvable through any government practices on tap today or practiced in the past. Growing our way out of the spending is not working. Allocating taxes and pension funds to favored government projects is not working. Anywhere. The law of unintended consequences which governs our bureaucrats guarantees the lack of results. Government spending (called investment so we can't criticize) is effectively crowding out the private sector investment. There are diminishing returns on each tranche of government spending (investment) which in turn generates the requirements for additional spending (investment) to achieve anything closely resembling a trend, which looks ever less remotely capable of ever achieving the promises made to the public. We can't stop the spending without causing the public severe pain. As Lyn Alden, a very good source for why and how this is true, is fond of saying, this is why nothing stops this train. We are a ways off from that moment of rupture, but given our collective western governments one can expect that risk to accelerate. Not diminish. So have a seat, relax in the dining car with your arm around a loved one. Listen to the music and enjoy your favorite drink. Ignore that unrepaired track on the curve ahead. Smile and wait. Then embrace the pain as we fly off track and everything shatters around us. Nothing can stop this from happening.
I think Alden said we will inflate it away . Hence gold and Bitcoin
Jeffrey Grundlach thinks we will simply “ restructure “ all government debt . It is ilegal but so was buying corporate bonds during Covid and “ modifying “ mortgages in 2008 .
Alden defines inflation as a vehicle which will be employed but the standard of living will not be maintained. This will lead to the replacement of the existing Fiat form of money with something more anchored in value as in Bitcoin. She does not portray gold as a form of money that will compete with Bitcoin in my reading. My point was that the ability to stop spending is as she points out a structural problem that is not debt related, ie cannot be inflated away as it has not yet occurred in its entirety. More will be spent as it is easier to do. Everything for free is a rallying cry in much of the west today. An example of what a Fiat rupture might look like is Argentina today whereas an example of the shift to Bitcoin to avoid a rupture might be El Salvador. both are examples of immediate and significant change we are not seeing elsewhere in the western world. Default on debt is always an option, but would still require stopping spending…that is what will be impossible.
As long as Smeagle ('Merz' - what demon names - Merkel, Merz, Macron, Kallus -Oy Vey!) breathes and crawls, he will dream of the Golden Ring.
I want to know what can be done to free Reiner Fuellmich, Warrior against the Corporate Kakistocracy and Global Conspiracy INC. which has seized all power and treasure in The West.
He scored major victories against corporations which is why narco-state Mexico, under Sheinbaum, colluded with the new Stasi to kidnap him and throw him, Assange -style into its deepest crypto-Nazi dungeons.
We continue to welcome alternative-thinking Germans here in Austria, where things are a bit better on many levels.
Sunny Carinthia (in southern Austria) has the highest percentage of German citizens living there, over 5% in many areas. No death tax, no NATO, a healthier fiscal situation: Austria might benefit from this (as would Switzerland).
Also once enough people realize Bitcoin is the way out, there’s going to be a scramble to get loose from Germany and things might get really shaky in the next few years.
Don't feel alone. The US system will run out of money in 2033 they claim. The suggestion is that Congress will have to cut benefits by 26%. One can only imagine how many in congress have the guts to vote for that.
In the 90 years of the system, they have raised the retirement age once to 67 from 65.
Our system was set up to be like a savings account, the employee, employer paid into it and the money made interest. In my own case I got all that money back by age 77. Next year I will have been on the public dole for 10 years and since I maxed out the required contribution my last eleven working years, I am getting a nice piece of change each month.
The current US administration knows they cannot change much about the entitlements, but they try make the economy hum, so maybe the USA can grwo itself out of the problem.
The German administration also knows they cannot change much about the entitlements, but they try to de-industrialize and shrink the economy.
A nice little experiment we have here: which startegy will be more succesful.
I don't see Trump trying to "make the economy hum", Andreas. Sure, I believe he genuinely wants to bring back manufacturing, but as time goes on, he's more and more into the standard US solution to economic woes: attacking and destabilising nations and taking over their natural resources. All the nations Trump is railing at right now - Venezuela, Nigeria, Iran, Russia - all have large natural resources.
Congress has sometimes borrowed from the Social Security trust fund to finance other government expenditures, contributing to the idea that the fund has been "raided."
When Congress borrows from the trust fund, it does so by issuing Treasury bonds, which are considered IOUs. Critics argue that this practice undermines the integrity of the trust fund because it doesn't translate to actual cash being available for Social Security benefits.
While the trust fund was meant to be a safeguard for Social Security benefits, policies and practices have led to significant borrowing, raising concerns about its long-term viability.
Plus, with me as the example, there is a huge actuarial problem with their calculations. Granted I live in SW Florida but the Obits in my local paper are full of people over 80 passing away every day so it can be assumed that they have all used up their contributions and are on the public dole.
There is a huge problem with public pensions . As to social security , Medicare is a,ready “ means tested “ . They could do THAT . also boost the age to 70 . But you are probably right ..just add a few trillion to the 38 T ..does it matter ? 38v 42 trillion ? We have no intention of ever paying that money back .
I've always thought means-testing Social Security was a great idea, even a no-brainer. I've read about very wealthy people insisting on collecting their SS.
Agreed. If you read the history of the UK in the 1930s "means testing" was akin to clubbing baby seals. However, it is the only way to ensure that limited resources go to the right people.
Lucky you! In South Africa ours ran out at 70! Though I have to admit all the white civil servants had to take "packages" so we got very little to start with. So now it is welfare and our poor ever suffering children.
Boomers are already dying off in record numbers, so the crisis should begin to abate in 10 years or so. At one point I wondered if the p(l)andemic was part of an evil plan to accelerate the process. But who would be that callous? Oh, wait . . . China's government and the governments of just about every so-called 'democracy' on Earth. Maybe the Canadian solution (assisted suicide) is actually one of the more humane solutions to the aging population problem.
I am pretty sure as boomers my husband and I were supposed to die! Unfortunately all our children and grandchildren got sick and we not even a sniffle!
Seems to me that our immune systems are a lot more robust than the biowarfare researchers were hoping, and their designer viruses evolved faster than they anticipated, as well. I wonder if the mass vaccination with mRNA agents was intended as research, or even to 'solve' that problem.
The only actual solution is to either eliminate the state pension for new entrants (and existing people who want out) and let people make their own arrangements. Even a modest contributor is throwing money away compared to what they could achieve investing what the government takes from them. And this is what makes it politically unsustainable. Even risk-averse Germans will eventually not accept a system that pays out only half of what you pay in, in nominal terms.
That still doesn't solve the already-extant problem that unless the brakes are slammed on right now, there is a huge fiscal black hole on the horizon, and one that will eventually have to be filled by reneging on pension promises. Either that or confiscating everything everyone owns to keep it going a few more years.
But Germany has multiple such existential crises all at once, pensions, migration (which has far from solving the pensions problem only brought it into focus), the insane energy policies, and various not-quite-there boondoggles like building energy efficiency, whose repeal was promised but this lame duck regime can't even achieve that.
It is terrifying to me that the SPD won't even vote to withdraw the Verbrenner-Aus, that and the GEG are the biggest near-term disasters, worth joining forces with the AfD all on their own and despite all the rioting that would entail.
Go to zero based budgeting to get the fiscal back in order. Cut for starters all incoming non applied for immigration. Poland is thru with it, why isn't Germany? Oh, and dump the EU and negotiate the division of Ukraine or leave the albatross called NATO.
It's a classic tragedy of the commons. People relied on other people's children to support them in old age, and didn't have enough children to support themselves, now there aren't enough children to support everyone. Seems almost unavoidable with public pension systems, where there's no incentive to have more children to support you in your old age.
Everywhere in the west ,we have dropped below replacement ( 2 children ) . It a ticking time bomb . JD Vance and Tucker are shouting about it but ….people are shouting louder ..” You NAZI “ ..I’m a Nazi because I’m white and have a wife and 2 kids ? ..read the US papers sometimes to see what we are up against .
We've just lived through the most incredible period of economic growth and prosperity in human history. That kind of material comfort creates a certain mindset: why bother doing difficult things like having kids when you can buy a bigger house, get another car and above all, have a career? Our material wealth and Woke ideology has blinded us to the fact that surviving as a society and ultimately as an individual involves some unpleasant choices, including one that no self-respecting feminist today would agree with: women need to have kids.
"Democratic socialists". I was working with my students on literary techniques today. Oxymorons came up. If that isn't a perfect oxymoron, I don't know what is.
Sadly, this is a problem with a built-in solution: the poorer pensioners will die off all that quicker, and after about 15 years of that the system will have stabilised to a new equilibrium.
The exact same thing happened during the rapid switch-over from agrarian and dispersed populations to urbanised industrialised cities; without the safety-net of the large family, the men and women broken and ground down by the gristmills of capitalism quickly died once they were no longer productive enough to support themselves.
It is the same solution as infertility/below replacement levels of childbirths: it will reach a sustainable equilibrium.
If politicians stop tampering.
Which doesn't mean people should be left to suffer of course.
But also, if /you/ cannot pay for a servant to care for you in your own home when you reach that age, is it right to still live in your own private home supported by tax-funded servants?
Or is it simply a fact of economics that the best solution is institutions, where the cost/value-ratio for buildings, staff, logistics and so on can be optimised and thus taxes kept lower?
We know the Marxist solution and the capitalist solution: they are one and the same, only differing in semantics and optics.
Perhaps one dare suggest the nationalist solution instead?
To treat one's fellow members of The People - Das Volk! - as an extension of one's family.
We sure didn't realize what a brief little ephemeral paradise most of us in the West had beginning in the '50s. I've never wanted to actually *know* what the collapse of Rome felt like to the ordinary person but we just never get to escape history coming around again.
I bet I speak for HS grads everywhere wearying unto death of what all the smart people keep doing to us.
Horrible depressing piece you've written here truly because it covers all our countries in the big picture though our details may vary. I suppose it's a good thing that the vax killed my UK friend so she wouldn't be left to freeze to death every winter with what the budget geniuses over there are doing.
There are a few ways to solve the problem: 1) Gradually raise the retirement age until the books balance, even if that means raising it to 80 for workers now in their 20s. 2) Print enough money to cover the deficits (effectively undermining the value of the currency and taxing the bejesus out of everyone--can you say "Weimar Republic"?). 3) Deregulate everything and hope the economy grows fast enough to cover the deficits. 4) Raise taxes even more and hope everyone doesn't just pack up and leave. 5) Allow the problem to fester, then watch in horror as the elected officials are replaced with a military junta, ending the pension system entirely, enslaving the immigrants, and giving indigenous Germans jobs in factories meant to equip a newly rebuilt Wehrmacht.
Whatever changes are made will be subject to the inevitable reality of . . . reality.
Hey, it could be worse. Multiply your debt numbers by about a thousand and you have the US scenario. Our pension system, called Social Security, has always been an unsustainable pyramid scheme and any attempt at even the slightest reform was met with charges of "wanting to push grandma off a cliff." The bill is coming due, and the only way out is a national bankruptcy. But not before more comical spending, inflation, instability, finger pointing, and huge swings between Trump and then AOC (who is going to win in 2028 you heard it here first). The only suspense will be to see who is the one in office when the whole house of cards comes tumbling down, and takes the blame for something they played only a minuscule part in.
Oh you don't have to remind me! I moved out of California in part because it was on the hook for a trillion dollars in unfunded bonds and pension liabilities, The timing of their financial collapse will be interesting. If it happened tomorrow they would be in trouble. If it happens with a Democrat in the White House they will simply be bailed out.
This isn't unique to Germany since it's a feature of countries that experienced the baby booner population bubble. The situation in France with its lower retirement age is arguably worse.
The widespread notion in Europe that it was necessary to import a new population to support the ageing original one was to have been a panacea which in practice has led to yet more lips pressed to the shrivelled national teat with all the attendant diversity joy.
Yes of course, France is somewhat ahead of us on the timeline, also their fiscal situation is worse. This may make our politicians feel better but in absolute terms it doesn't make the crisis any less bad.
I suspect it will take something rather more substantial than Macron for hapless Starmer and hopeless Merz to feel better about their own impending political doom. I certainly hope that's the case!
I don't think Merz or Starmer feel very bad when they have to go. The know they are just filling the seat (and their pockets) for a few years, but don't have any intetnion or vision to make any changes.
Their brief is: kick the can down the road.
Probably they hope that in the next few years we will have a very efficient surveilance state, unlimited money printing of the digital euro, and some form of UBI.
This will keep most citizen very silent.
This way the state may survive for many more decades, and maybe they can even keep their leading roles.
They all dream of somehow getting their hands on all those Russian natural resources which with a fragmented State they can plunder to support their dying economies. The reason for the never ending war and attempts at rearming.
Of course it's never going to happen so a sad decline into almost fuedal prison states is the only future.
We Swiss just voted for digital IDs. Maybe we're all too stupid to survive. The future, if there is one, definitely seems to be Eastwards.
What? That's crazy.
I always thought the Swiss were more sensible
How is that to happen? Seriously, just keep printing money and everything is going to be Ok. Fiat money (actually credit since there is always a counter-party risk) is sinking rapidly. Central banks are diversifying to gold (and some silver) and away from fiat currencies including the US$, EU, British Pound. EU will not survive the coming collapse no matter how many fresh fiat currencies their conger out of thin air. Wake up and smell the coffee.....the reign of fiat is rapidly approaching and it is going to be horrific.
With respect, who cares how they feel.
> import a new population to support the ageing original one ...
To me a cover story only. The large majority of uncontrolled immigrants are fighting age young islamic males who will never integrate, let alone pay taxes; to draw Europe into disorder and chaos as soon as possible, suppressing Europe largely Christian historic roots, and yes France is certainly clearly ahead of Germany in this respect also with the north African former colonies background.
As always it's not plain black and white but definitely a clear pattern.
Implemented by Merkel, a WEF/NWO minion.
Former immigration waves into Germany (Italians, Turks,.) were different. Many families coming to Germany and virtually no knife-wielding religious lunatics making Germany an increasingly dangerous place to live
The Mexican illegal immigrants in California come here for free health care ,free food ,free education and free housing . A few work with phony social security cards so that helps a little but it is dwarfed by their consumption of public assistance.
The only test needed to assess potential immigrants is the state of the nation their people built. Mexico, Brazil and Guatemala speak for themselves. As does Switzerland or Sweden. We are being destroyed by this nonsense. It baffles me anyone accepts it.
Many people believe all humans share the same values. They will attribute these nations' backwards and chaotic state to lack of money, whereas the truth is that their lack of money is due to their current backwards, chaotic state.
The progressives believe everyone is the same .
They believe in “ equity “ . Equal outcomes.
You know just like all the wealth in USSR and now China is distributed equally among the people .
“ Some pigs are more equal than others “,..animal farm
Yes. Astonishing naivety. Dangerous too as Europe and America are now finding out. And some demographics are truly lethal. Soft times and all that.
It has a name: suicidal empathy
Well JD Vance and Tucker Carlson don’t accept it . Of course , in the eyes of the progressives both are ..you guessed it ..Nazi’s .
Tucker is funny in that before he says anything he prefaces it with “ they’ll call me a racist Nazi …but ..” I think those words are losing their sting here now . We’ll see .
I am not aware of either being particularly against immigration or in favour of their own people. Carlson is quite hostile to aspects of the pushback.
I often listen to French radio and it's deeply disturbing to hear so many French people who believe that there is a bottomless pit of money out there to pay for their never-ending demands. I loathe Macron but he was on the right track when he tried to get the French to work till at least 64 to pay for all their cradle to grave goodies. However, even that modest effort has been struck down. The spoilt, pampered people of the West have no idea what is coming their way.
The French are a special kind of spoiled brat. Meantime the Germans are expected to work in 67
It’s a problem in the USA as well . However , corporations were able to navigate the demographic shift and are mostly fully funded . The public pensions could give a schitt and kept boosting their pensions . Chicago pensions are only 20% funded yet just increased payout 6% . How can they do that ? They don’t care . We are the “ bailout Nation “ . Since 2008 we just print money to solve any problem ..38 Trillion in debt now
Yup, the recklessness states (all of them with very few exception) are expanding government spending is breathtaking, Biden/Harris was particularly bad but the US BBB isn't much different, DOGE only making tiny dent in the curve. So it's clearly intentional destruction of fiat currencies, no other interpretation possible. To provoke the big crash no doubt where assets can be picked up for pennies to the $ by the Rothschild & Co. string-pullers in best family tradition. Add in a little war here and there to heat things up, remove a few million humans from the planet and to facilitate rearranging the spoils.
Really, if the great floods come again, we've deserved it.
No one ever talks about the easiest and most likely solution to the western world's pension problem - don't pay. This is what people who owe money they can't pay back have been doing for thousands of years. And by not paying, I mean, give them 80 cents on the dollar, depending on how bad the problem is. Of course the pensioners won't like it, but something like a debt crises will sharpen the focus and the hard decision will be made. This is what the city of Detroit did in bankruptcy recently and they virtually wiped out their pension debt, while still paying, albeit reduced, pensions.
Yes good point . That’s what many corporate pensions did in the 80’s before they all switch to 401K . Hey 80% is still something
"The worst crises are the boring ones, which in their banality cede the stage to a rotating cast of insignificant passing hysterias."
Thank you for one of the finest, dryest, and most insightful lines of 2025.
I noted that too. A perfect encapsulation of modern societies and what they are facing.
I think this is the west, not just Germany. And it is not solvable through any government practices on tap today or practiced in the past. Growing our way out of the spending is not working. Allocating taxes and pension funds to favored government projects is not working. Anywhere. The law of unintended consequences which governs our bureaucrats guarantees the lack of results. Government spending (called investment so we can't criticize) is effectively crowding out the private sector investment. There are diminishing returns on each tranche of government spending (investment) which in turn generates the requirements for additional spending (investment) to achieve anything closely resembling a trend, which looks ever less remotely capable of ever achieving the promises made to the public. We can't stop the spending without causing the public severe pain. As Lyn Alden, a very good source for why and how this is true, is fond of saying, this is why nothing stops this train. We are a ways off from that moment of rupture, but given our collective western governments one can expect that risk to accelerate. Not diminish. So have a seat, relax in the dining car with your arm around a loved one. Listen to the music and enjoy your favorite drink. Ignore that unrepaired track on the curve ahead. Smile and wait. Then embrace the pain as we fly off track and everything shatters around us. Nothing can stop this from happening.
I think Alden said we will inflate it away . Hence gold and Bitcoin
Jeffrey Grundlach thinks we will simply “ restructure “ all government debt . It is ilegal but so was buying corporate bonds during Covid and “ modifying “ mortgages in 2008 .
Alden defines inflation as a vehicle which will be employed but the standard of living will not be maintained. This will lead to the replacement of the existing Fiat form of money with something more anchored in value as in Bitcoin. She does not portray gold as a form of money that will compete with Bitcoin in my reading. My point was that the ability to stop spending is as she points out a structural problem that is not debt related, ie cannot be inflated away as it has not yet occurred in its entirety. More will be spent as it is easier to do. Everything for free is a rallying cry in much of the west today. An example of what a Fiat rupture might look like is Argentina today whereas an example of the shift to Bitcoin to avoid a rupture might be El Salvador. both are examples of immediate and significant change we are not seeing elsewhere in the western world. Default on debt is always an option, but would still require stopping spending…that is what will be impossible.
As long as Smeagle ('Merz' - what demon names - Merkel, Merz, Macron, Kallus -Oy Vey!) breathes and crawls, he will dream of the Golden Ring.
I want to know what can be done to free Reiner Fuellmich, Warrior against the Corporate Kakistocracy and Global Conspiracy INC. which has seized all power and treasure in The West.
He scored major victories against corporations which is why narco-state Mexico, under Sheinbaum, colluded with the new Stasi to kidnap him and throw him, Assange -style into its deepest crypto-Nazi dungeons.
We continue to welcome alternative-thinking Germans here in Austria, where things are a bit better on many levels.
Sunny Carinthia (in southern Austria) has the highest percentage of German citizens living there, over 5% in many areas. No death tax, no NATO, a healthier fiscal situation: Austria might benefit from this (as would Switzerland).
Also once enough people realize Bitcoin is the way out, there’s going to be a scramble to get loose from Germany and things might get really shaky in the next few years.
Please tell me which area to search for at Immoscout.
Do you look at a small YT channel called, “Survival Lily?” She posts Austrian and German news.
No I’ll check it out though
Don't feel alone. The US system will run out of money in 2033 they claim. The suggestion is that Congress will have to cut benefits by 26%. One can only imagine how many in congress have the guts to vote for that.
In the 90 years of the system, they have raised the retirement age once to 67 from 65.
Our system was set up to be like a savings account, the employee, employer paid into it and the money made interest. In my own case I got all that money back by age 77. Next year I will have been on the public dole for 10 years and since I maxed out the required contribution my last eleven working years, I am getting a nice piece of change each month.
The current US administration knows they cannot change much about the entitlements, but they try make the economy hum, so maybe the USA can grwo itself out of the problem.
The German administration also knows they cannot change much about the entitlements, but they try to de-industrialize and shrink the economy.
A nice little experiment we have here: which startegy will be more succesful.
I am long US and short Germany (Euro)
I don't see Trump trying to "make the economy hum", Andreas. Sure, I believe he genuinely wants to bring back manufacturing, but as time goes on, he's more and more into the standard US solution to economic woes: attacking and destabilising nations and taking over their natural resources. All the nations Trump is railing at right now - Venezuela, Nigeria, Iran, Russia - all have large natural resources.
But hasn't the SS trust fund been raided by Congress more than once?
What is there to raid? Social Security Trust Fund holds only US debt
Correct, because Congress raided it and filled it with IOUs.
Trust fund? There's no such thing. It's Ponzi. Always was.
Congress has sometimes borrowed from the Social Security trust fund to finance other government expenditures, contributing to the idea that the fund has been "raided."
When Congress borrows from the trust fund, it does so by issuing Treasury bonds, which are considered IOUs. Critics argue that this practice undermines the integrity of the trust fund because it doesn't translate to actual cash being available for Social Security benefits.
While the trust fund was meant to be a safeguard for Social Security benefits, policies and practices have led to significant borrowing, raising concerns about its long-term viability.
Plus, with me as the example, there is a huge actuarial problem with their calculations. Granted I live in SW Florida but the Obits in my local paper are full of people over 80 passing away every day so it can be assumed that they have all used up their contributions and are on the public dole.
There is a huge problem with public pensions . As to social security , Medicare is a,ready “ means tested “ . They could do THAT . also boost the age to 70 . But you are probably right ..just add a few trillion to the 38 T ..does it matter ? 38v 42 trillion ? We have no intention of ever paying that money back .
I've always thought means-testing Social Security was a great idea, even a no-brainer. I've read about very wealthy people insisting on collecting their SS.
Agreed. If you read the history of the UK in the 1930s "means testing" was akin to clubbing baby seals. However, it is the only way to ensure that limited resources go to the right people.
Lucky you! In South Africa ours ran out at 70! Though I have to admit all the white civil servants had to take "packages" so we got very little to start with. So now it is welfare and our poor ever suffering children.
Boomergeddon intensifies
Boomers are already dying off in record numbers, so the crisis should begin to abate in 10 years or so. At one point I wondered if the p(l)andemic was part of an evil plan to accelerate the process. But who would be that callous? Oh, wait . . . China's government and the governments of just about every so-called 'democracy' on Earth. Maybe the Canadian solution (assisted suicide) is actually one of the more humane solutions to the aging population problem.
I’m not dead yet and cashing those monthly checks gives me reason to keep living.
I am pretty sure as boomers my husband and I were supposed to die! Unfortunately all our children and grandchildren got sick and we not even a sniffle!
Seems to me that our immune systems are a lot more robust than the biowarfare researchers were hoping, and their designer viruses evolved faster than they anticipated, as well. I wonder if the mass vaccination with mRNA agents was intended as research, or even to 'solve' that problem.
Our immune systems are a lot more robust if you refused to lockdown, wear a mask and take the clotshot.
Vastly fewer childhood immunizations may have played a part in robust immune systems.
Next time, Magrietha, please follow the script! :)
The only actual solution is to either eliminate the state pension for new entrants (and existing people who want out) and let people make their own arrangements. Even a modest contributor is throwing money away compared to what they could achieve investing what the government takes from them. And this is what makes it politically unsustainable. Even risk-averse Germans will eventually not accept a system that pays out only half of what you pay in, in nominal terms.
That still doesn't solve the already-extant problem that unless the brakes are slammed on right now, there is a huge fiscal black hole on the horizon, and one that will eventually have to be filled by reneging on pension promises. Either that or confiscating everything everyone owns to keep it going a few more years.
But Germany has multiple such existential crises all at once, pensions, migration (which has far from solving the pensions problem only brought it into focus), the insane energy policies, and various not-quite-there boondoggles like building energy efficiency, whose repeal was promised but this lame duck regime can't even achieve that.
It is terrifying to me that the SPD won't even vote to withdraw the Verbrenner-Aus, that and the GEG are the biggest near-term disasters, worth joining forces with the AfD all on their own and despite all the rioting that would entail.
Fake Antifa brown shirt, paid protests.
Brownshirt? KPD more like.
Agreed. Most people don’t know what that is however. 👋🏿
Also agreed. Most people are dum dums.
They don’t read history and schools don’t teach much of any. At least, not in USA. We can ponder as to why.
E, please repost one of your Antifa history articles to this Substack General News thread if you don’t mind. Readers have no idea.
💯
Go to zero based budgeting to get the fiscal back in order. Cut for starters all incoming non applied for immigration. Poland is thru with it, why isn't Germany? Oh, and dump the EU and negotiate the division of Ukraine or leave the albatross called NATO.
Excellent solution. Except that it's politically impossible.
It's a classic tragedy of the commons. People relied on other people's children to support them in old age, and didn't have enough children to support themselves, now there aren't enough children to support everyone. Seems almost unavoidable with public pension systems, where there's no incentive to have more children to support you in your old age.
Everywhere in the west ,we have dropped below replacement ( 2 children ) . It a ticking time bomb . JD Vance and Tucker are shouting about it but ….people are shouting louder ..” You NAZI “ ..I’m a Nazi because I’m white and have a wife and 2 kids ? ..read the US papers sometimes to see what we are up against .
85% of women 19-30 voted for Mandami .
We've just lived through the most incredible period of economic growth and prosperity in human history. That kind of material comfort creates a certain mindset: why bother doing difficult things like having kids when you can buy a bigger house, get another car and above all, have a career? Our material wealth and Woke ideology has blinded us to the fact that surviving as a society and ultimately as an individual involves some unpleasant choices, including one that no self-respecting feminist today would agree with: women need to have kids.
Make the pensions proportional to child earnings. Would probably make some parents care more about their kids
To American Democratic Socialists: Beware the Ides of March.
"Democratic socialists". I was working with my students on literary techniques today. Oxymorons came up. If that isn't a perfect oxymoron, I don't know what is.
Spot on. And isn't the coming German financial crisis the fizzing bomb the Communists will hand to the AfD when they finally get defeated?
Sadly, this is a problem with a built-in solution: the poorer pensioners will die off all that quicker, and after about 15 years of that the system will have stabilised to a new equilibrium.
The exact same thing happened during the rapid switch-over from agrarian and dispersed populations to urbanised industrialised cities; without the safety-net of the large family, the men and women broken and ground down by the gristmills of capitalism quickly died once they were no longer productive enough to support themselves.
It is the same solution as infertility/below replacement levels of childbirths: it will reach a sustainable equilibrium.
If politicians stop tampering.
Which doesn't mean people should be left to suffer of course.
But also, if /you/ cannot pay for a servant to care for you in your own home when you reach that age, is it right to still live in your own private home supported by tax-funded servants?
Or is it simply a fact of economics that the best solution is institutions, where the cost/value-ratio for buildings, staff, logistics and so on can be optimised and thus taxes kept lower?
We know the Marxist solution and the capitalist solution: they are one and the same, only differing in semantics and optics.
Perhaps one dare suggest the nationalist solution instead?
To treat one's fellow members of The People - Das Volk! - as an extension of one's family.
That one has yet to be tried.
We sure didn't realize what a brief little ephemeral paradise most of us in the West had beginning in the '50s. I've never wanted to actually *know* what the collapse of Rome felt like to the ordinary person but we just never get to escape history coming around again.
I bet I speak for HS grads everywhere wearying unto death of what all the smart people keep doing to us.
Horrible depressing piece you've written here truly because it covers all our countries in the big picture though our details may vary. I suppose it's a good thing that the vax killed my UK friend so she wouldn't be left to freeze to death every winter with what the budget geniuses over there are doing.
There are a few ways to solve the problem: 1) Gradually raise the retirement age until the books balance, even if that means raising it to 80 for workers now in their 20s. 2) Print enough money to cover the deficits (effectively undermining the value of the currency and taxing the bejesus out of everyone--can you say "Weimar Republic"?). 3) Deregulate everything and hope the economy grows fast enough to cover the deficits. 4) Raise taxes even more and hope everyone doesn't just pack up and leave. 5) Allow the problem to fester, then watch in horror as the elected officials are replaced with a military junta, ending the pension system entirely, enslaving the immigrants, and giving indigenous Germans jobs in factories meant to equip a newly rebuilt Wehrmacht.
Whatever changes are made will be subject to the inevitable reality of . . . reality.
In the last one I get the feeling they would just not pay the debts
In the USA we owe 38 trillion . We have no intention of ever paying that back .
We sort of do by refinancing . . . as bonds mature and new ones are issued.
Yes but notice how 90 of all new issuance is less than one year . We have a problem .
Hey, it could be worse. Multiply your debt numbers by about a thousand and you have the US scenario. Our pension system, called Social Security, has always been an unsustainable pyramid scheme and any attempt at even the slightest reform was met with charges of "wanting to push grandma off a cliff." The bill is coming due, and the only way out is a national bankruptcy. But not before more comical spending, inflation, instability, finger pointing, and huge swings between Trump and then AOC (who is going to win in 2028 you heard it here first). The only suspense will be to see who is the one in office when the whole house of cards comes tumbling down, and takes the blame for something they played only a minuscule part in.
Don’t forget the massive underfunding of state and local pensions .
As expected private corporate pensions are in fine shape since they are responsible not only to employees but to shareholders as well .
Oh you don't have to remind me! I moved out of California in part because it was on the hook for a trillion dollars in unfunded bonds and pension liabilities, The timing of their financial collapse will be interesting. If it happened tomorrow they would be in trouble. If it happens with a Democrat in the White House they will simply be bailed out.
This almost exactly parallels our Social Security system in the US, and, I'm sure, the retirement systems of many other countries.
It sure lends more plausibility to the idea that Covid, which almost exclusively killed old people, was intentionally designed to do so.
In a famous quote from one of the architects of “ Obamacare “ :
“ Who wants to live past 75 ? “
You are not wrong .
That phrase could only have been uttered by a young person. At 71, I'm looking forward to many years past 75.